21st Century Progressivism

Category: Foundations

Unspoken questions wind their way through the national conversation. Where are we going? What can we expect in the future? Will we survive? How can we prepare? Anxiety is increased by omens in the sky and the weather. In myth and religion we hope to find promises and instructions. We hope to rediscover our foundations. But we also find lamentations. We are not children who deny the possibility of destruction and death. Not now. The worst is already upon us. We’ve seen families swept away in the flood and burned in the fire. Let’s face the future like wise men and women. Let’s sit down together like elders of the tribe. Let’s mourn what is lost and love what remains.

  • Debating the Enlightenment and its Alternatives

    Reading Time: 22 minutes

    This is a summary and critique of a debate hosted by the Institute of Art and Ideas. In the videos linked below, Steven Pinker and John Mearsheimer are debating The Enlightenment and its alternatives. The subtitle is, Which ideals are the best guide to human betterment? In my opinion, this debate is an important addition to questions I have raised about the Enlightenment, and so I’m providing a summary of it here. I apologize for the length, but I think it was necesssary for analysis. My comments are in parentheses, bold type, and italics. Please watch the debate at the IAI website or view it on YouTube in 2 parts. The debate was published December, 2023.

    Gresham College Director, Sophie Scott-Brown, was the artist, and she provided the following resolution.

    “The Enlightenment advocated reason, science, democracy and universal human rights as a grounding for human morality and social organization. In the quarter millennium since, to what extent have these ideals been realized? Has the Enlightenment in fact been successful in bringing about moral progress, or are there viable alternatives to the Enlightenment vision?”

    (Mearsheimer and Pinker address the question of whether society has improved since the Enlightenment. Pinker argues that it has, according to his material criteria. The opposing argument is Mearsheimer’s focus on the effectiveness of Enlightenment values in promoting political and moral progress. He said he chose this focus because Pinker had previously argued in the affirmative on this point.

    An additional ‘provocation’ as stated by Sophie Scott-Brown, seems to suggest a slightly different focus. It questions whether the values of universal liberty and justice are harmful or helpful in themselves. I think it can be argued that both Pinker and Mearsheimer would defend universal liberty and justice, but this question was not taken up.)

    We associate values such as universal liberty and justice with the Enlightenment. Do they harm or hinder the world or do they help the world?

    Sophie Scott-Brown

    Steven Pinker’s Constructive Speech for Enlightenment Values

    Steven Pinker constructs his affirmative position for Enlightenment ideals by arguing that we should use reason to improve human flourishing. He explains that the fruits of reason can be seen in certain institutions, such as liberal democracy, regulated markets and international institutions. By reason, he means we should use open deliberation, science, and history in the evaluation of ideas.

    Pinker’s definition of human flourishing is: access to the things that each of us wants for ourselves, and by extension, can’t deny to others. These include life, health, sustenance, prosperity, freedom, safety, knowledge, leisure, and happiness. But they are not to be confused with the notion that we should venerate great men of the 18th century. It’s the ideas that count. Nor should we venerate the West. According to Pinker, the West has always been ‘ambivalent’ to Enlightenment ideals, and many counter-enlightenment themes have had great influence in the West.

    (The caution against venerating the West seems to be a deliberate narrowing of the terms of the debate. For one thing, it heads off any inclination to analyze the real effects of the Enlightenment on the American system, which was directly influenced by it. In addition, the caution against venerating ‘great men of the 18th century’ eliminates the possibility of analyzing the motives and biases of the philosophes, not to mention their historical context. Pinker wants to limit the debate to data points for material progress.)

    Has the Enlightenment Worked? The Affirmative Position

    For Pinker, material progress is evidence that the Enlightenment has worked. According to the statistics provided in the video, there has been impressive improvement. The following data provide a snapshot of what has happened in the last 250 years as it applies to the various dimensions of human flourishing.

    Decrease in Poverty, Famine and War; Increase in Life Expectancy, Literacy and Democracy
    • First, Pinker cites a drastic increase for life expectancy and large decreases in child mortality. In addition, extreme poverty has gone from about 90 percent globally to less than 9 percent. Famine, which used to occur regularly, is only known in war zones and some autocracies. There has also been a large increase in the literacy rate and the percentage of the global population receiving a basic education.
    • War has decreased since the Enlightenment. Pinker limits this criterion to what he calls ‘great power war’, or war between ‘800-pound gorillas’. His argument is that this type of war was constant several hundred years ago, but it no longer happens since the Korean War.
    • Thanks to the Enlightenment there has been an increase in democratic countries. Pinker believes this has led to fewer incidences of ‘judicial torture’, slavery, and homicide. By judicial torture he means crucifixion, breaking on the wheel, and disembowelment. During the Enlightenment period there has been ‘a wave’ of abolishment of this type of judicial torture.
    • Finally, Pinker argues that countries with Enlightenment ideals, by which he means liberal democracies, are the healthiest, cleanest, safest, happiest, and the most popular destination of immigrants.

    As to the question of alternatives to the Enlightenment Pinker lists religion, romantic nationalism and authoritarianism, zero-sum struggle (in which a country or group tries to end the control of an oppressor), and reactionary ideologies.

    John Mearsheimer’s Constructs his Argument Against the Effectiveness of Enlightenment Values in Fostering Political and Moral Progress

    Mearsheimer begins by explaining that he is not arguing there has been no progress since 1680. Nor is he denying that the Enlightenment contributed to some of it. His question is whether the Enlightenment has led to moral and political progress. As mentioned above, he bases this focus on the argument made by Steven Pinker in the affirmative. In Mearsheimer’s view, moral and political progress have to do with first principles or the ability to reach consensus on the good life. Has the Enlightenment created a situation where wide scale consensus can be reached on first principles, or the good life? If so, this would be evidence of moral progress. His argument has three parts:

    The Probems: Unfettered Reason, Radical Individualism, and Security Competition
    • The core argument is based on the question of whether unfettered reason will lead individuals to come to an agreement on first principles or truth. Again, this is in contrast to Steven Pinker, who has argued in his book that it will lead to agreement. On the contrary, Mearsheimer believes agreement can’t be achieved by using unfettered reason. When unfettered reason involves many individuals, there will be significant disagreement, and it can actually lead to homicide. This is due to the fact that people cannot agree on first principles, political goods, or justice. For this reason, politics are important. By contrast, Pinker argues that politics are not important. He believes agreement will come in the end.
    • People who focus on the Enlightenment focus on radical individualism. However, Mearsheimer argues that people are social animals first, and they carve out room for their individualism. Because they are social animals, they belong to tribes. Today, we call tribes ‘nations’. Because human beings are tribal, their identity is bound up with the tribe or nation. This affects their interests, ways of looking at the world, views of justice, etc. Since individuals are parts of nations, and nations disagree on first principles, it is harder to reach agreement.
    • In international relations, people who focus on the Enlightenment believe, like Kant, that by using reason people can create perpetual peace. However, Mearsheimer doesn’t think Enlightenment ideals lead to consensus, or some sort of truth about political factors. He thinks reason leads to competition. This is a problem because the international system is anarchic. In other words, it has no higher authority. Therefore, each state uses reason to think about how to survive. And survival has to be its principle goal. This means that all states will engage in security competition. So, in an anarchical system you have a situation where reason leads not to peace but competition, and sometimes to deadly conflict.

    Theme One: Can We Agree on What Progress Looks Like or will we never be able to agree on first principles?

    Sophie Scott-Brown asks Steven Pinker if politics is missing from his account. It seemed rather rosy at first, but maybe some political context is missing. She gives the example of how some countries might seem attractive because they are colonial powers. The countries that are not so attractive are not colonial powers and have been put into very difficult economic situations by successful and quite aggressive states which are now liberal democracies. Is there any scope for agreed frameworks and shared decision making that could lead to the kind of collective progress that Enlightenment seems to feel is necessary?

    Steven Pinker’s Response to Sophie Scott-Brown and Rebuttal of John Mearsheimer

    Absolutely. It’s called democracy. The Enlightenment thinkers were obsessed with how you can have a political organization that is not vested in an absolute monarch with divinely granted powers. And the ideals of free speech and democracy were absolutely predicated on the fact that people do disagree. There is absolutely no presumption that everyone has the same values and the same beliefs. That’s why you need democracy. Given that people are not going to agree, how are we going to govern ourselves? On the other hand, Pinker thinks it’s important not to exaggerate how much disagreement there is compared to say, 250 or 500 years ago, specifically compared to the wars of religion.

    The Declaration of Human Rights

    The world’s nations did sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You have many countries signing on to it, sometimes in the breach and sometimes hypocritically. But these ideals command wide assent. Not universal assent. There are still religious fanatics and authoritarian despots. And there are still glory-mad expansionist leaders. The ideals of the Enlightenment are not a guarantee that everyone will come around, but they are arguments about which way we ought to be heading.

    (The underlying assumption is that the world should be heading to more liberalism. The alternatives are described as religious fanatics, authoritarians, and glory-mad expansionist leaders–in other words, as inferior.)

    Individuals are Free to Belong to a Group, and to Leave the Group

    Next, Pinker addresses individualism, another point that Mearsheimer mentioned. Among the individual needs are belonging to a group, belonging to family, having friends, belonging to institutions, belonging to organizations. There’s nothing about recognizing the right of individuals that contradicts the idea the we like to belong to groups, as long as they don’t coerce us or as long as we can leave those groups. And that includes nations.

    Not everyone agrees with everyone else in a nation. That’s why we have parties and contested elections and people who come and go and disagree with their leaders, unless they are threatened with jail for doing so. It is exactly a precept of the Enlightenment in its commitment to democracy that people within a nation actually disagree with each other. And the fact that a nation has an ideology doesn’t mean that is it right for every last individual to be forced into conforming to it. We know historically and from current events, people don’t.

    (Pinker seems to deny that there is any difference between Mearsheimer’s claim that humans are social animals and his own claim that humans are first and foremost individuals. But this is a fundamental difference between the two participants.)

    The Rate of War Has Decreased

    On Mearsheimer’s claim that competition for security means that we will perpetually be at war, Pinker argues that if that were true, the rate of war should be at a constant level throughout history. And it’s not. It’s gone way down, especially since the end of the second world war. Competition for security does not mean we will be perpetually at war. The rate of war goes up and down depending on nations’ commitment to Enlightenment ideals, or whether its goal is glory or grandeur or preeminence. Countries who have been at each other’s throats for centuries have decided that it’s better to get along. The nature of the international system does not pin us to a constant level of war in every period in history.

    (Pinker says the rate of war has decreased since World War II. But is this due to the Enlightenment? To answer that, we will have to examine the structural changes in governance and finance that took place during and after that war, and as a direct result of that war. His claim is that the rate of war goes up and down depending on nations’ commitment to Enlightenment ideals. He seems to imply that a lack of Enlightenment ideals results in a country having a goal of glory, grandeur, or preeminence. Are wars initiated by countries with those goals? Or are wars initiated against countries with those goals?)

    John Mearsheimer’s Rebuttal to Steven Pinker

    Mearsheimer says that with a careful reading of Pinker’s book, it is clear that he talks about truth, and about allowing truth to prevail. (Pinker adds that he means approaching truth, that we don’t know what truth is.) But Mearsheimer is interested in how you get moral and political progress if you don’t get truth? For example, in the United States we have the red versus blue divide. How do you make progress in that situation? ‘It just seems to me that progress is bound up with the concept of truth’.

    He is also aware that Pinker considers progress to be the coming of liberalism. When he says we’re getting smarter, he means we’re becoming more liberal. Mearsheimer concludes that, for Pinker, the truth is synonymous with becoming liberal.

    Mearsheimer is not criticizing liberalism per se, but he says there are a lot of people on the planet who don’t like it. Furthermore, liberal democracies have been decreasing since 2006. He asks whether we really want to identify progress as liberalism, and anyone who opposes it as wrong.

    Steven Pinker’s Rebuttal to John Mearsheimer

    Pinker argues that he wants to identify progress with human flourishing. He says some values of human flourishing, like freedom, do overlap with liberalism, but he could argue that other values like health, longevity, sustenance, and equality of women (he redefines this as a liberal value in the next sentence), infants not dying, women not dying in childbirth, people not getting stabbed to death in muggings, or getting thrown in jail because they disagree with the king, are universal. Values like equality of women are liberal values, but many of the values listed above are universally agreed upon. There are ‘holdouts’, but there is a significant trend in values such as equality of women.

    The Historical Trend is Liberalism

    The countries that deny women the vote have been dwindling. According to Pinker, the only one left is the Vatican But the direction is that laws discriminating against women are falling off the books. Also, countries that have laws criminalizing homosexuality are liberalizing that. Overall, he thinks there is a historical trend toward liberal values. And liberal values are the most defensible. Therefore, when people come together, they tend to agree on these values more easily. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an example.

    Liberalism as a Universal Value–as Opposed to the Vatican for Example

    However, he argues that if the first universal value is that we accept Jesus Christ as our savior, a lot of people will fall by the wayside. Education and freedom of speech are harder to argue against.

    (The mention of ‘holdouts’ is interesting. He specifically mentions the Vatican as a holdout. He points out that a religious belief, like the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our savior, can’t lead to consensus or agreement. He’s probably right, and Mearsheimer doesn’t disagree with him on this. Pinker may be more extreme, because he sees liberalism and Enlightenment as superior to Christianity, and not only as a first principle. In his view, Christianity is destined to diminish over time.)

    John Mearsheimer’s Rebuttal

    Mearsheimer’s concern about consensus remains, and he wants to go a step further. He says Pinker believes that in the academy there are huge numbers of people who do not agree with his world view. He says these are people who are not using reason for good ends. It’s not only that Pinker thinks a large number of great thinkers, people who enjoy great esteem in the academy, people like Foucault and Nietzsche, are hindering progress or getting in the way. He argues that anybody who believes in these isms, these ideologies, are asking for trouble. So the question is, how can Pinker argue we are moving in a positive direction?

    Mearsheimer does not disagree that these ‘great thinkers’ hinder progress. He believes ideologies are a hindrance to progress on the moral and political front. That is the point he’s been trying to make. Given this panoply of forces that are acting in ways that are contrary to Pinker’s preferences, how can he argue that we’re making progress?

    Steven Pinker’s Rebuttal

    There are a number of pathologies in our institutions. The belief that there is progress is not a belief that everything gets better for everyone all the time. Progress is incremental and has setbacks. It has to, because it’s not a force of the universe.

    Mearsheimer is right that there was a perception of progress as some mystical force that carries us ever upward. That’s not what Pinker is advocating. Quite the contrary. Pinker says most of the forces of the universe will try to grind us down, but we fight back with reason, with deliberation, with argument, and there’s no guarantee of success. Sometimes brute force wins. Sometimes people are under a spell of delusions or believe in ideologies. But the standard argument of what we ought to do and the descriptive argument of where we are, are separate. Things can go wrong, and things have gone wrong. On average, we’re better off than 100 or 200 years ago, to say nothing of 2,000 years ago.

    (Apparently, progress is not something that can be defined in the moment. You can only see it in retrospect. Until then, we struggle against the forces of the universe. It is only on the basis of observable historical change that Pinker can say the world is better off than 100, 200, or 2,000 years ago. His evidence is in the statistics that measure human flourishing. However, in the present, the ‘normative (or standard) argument’ of what we ought to do is all we can depend on. Fortunately, Pinker believes he knows what we ought to do.

    Cross Examination

    On cross examination, Sophie Scott-Brown asks John Mearsheimer if maybe it’s not always about getting it right and building up a history of that rightness. Maybe it’s understanding more about how you go about getting it right. She asks John, if that is a convincing argument for him.

    John Mearsheimer’s Response to Sophie Scott-Brown

    He clarifies his point by saying that deliberation and reason in different individuals leads to different conclusions about political or moral goods. In universities, for example, there are huge numbers of smart people who can’t agree on much of anything.

    Steven Pinker’s Rebuttal of John Mearsheimer

    Pinker thinks it’s a bit of an exaggeration that they can’t agree on much of anything. [But] there is plenty of disagreement. He says we want to distinguish between the institution of academia and the republic of letters, which includes think tanks, newspapers, bloggers and so on. [But] even within Academia there are not a lot of people who agree with traditional gender roles or think that homosexuality should be criminalized, or that war is heroic and humanity will become decrepit if we ever have peace. Many arguments are obsolete–like the idea that we should have racial segregation, or that we should look to the Bible as a source of history. There is intellectual progress; there are also crazy superstitions and monstrous beliefs.

    Cross Examination

    John Mearsheimer, are you confident we won’t slip back again or do you see new myths rising to replace the old ones?

    Sophie Scott-Brown

    John Mearsheimer’s response to Sophie Scott-Brown

    It’s not so much myths. Reason can lead individuals to come up with smart views that the world works in one way, and lead other individuals to think it works in other ways. In international relations, the world I operate in, I have a theory of realism. I argue that realism best explains how the world works. Steve is a very smart guy and he has a different view of international politics, a liberal view. That is my basic point. Smart individuals can use their critical faculties to come up with different world views. When you have different views, how do you have progress? The fact that Steve and I have different views of international relations makes me doubt we can have progress in understanding how the world works.

    Steven Pinker’s Rebuttal

    If we take the history of science as our guide, we find that at any given time there are controversies. But sometimes enough time passes, enough empirical tests are done, and we find out one of them was right and one of them was wrong. Turn back the clock 80 years and scientists were arguing whether inheritance was carried in protein or DNA. The DNA guys won and the protein guys lost. It may be that in the realm of international relations, let’s say we have a competition and we try to make predictions about what will happen in the next year, 5 years or 10 years. Time passes and we may discover that one of us was wrong and one was right. We use the history of science as our guide…

    John Mearsheimer’s Rebuttal

    When talking in the moral and political realm, and not the medical realm, it is almost impossible to reach consensus on a widespread scale. There’s always going to be disagreement. Mearsheimer says this is his basic point.

    Steven Pinker Introduces a Hypothetical Question

    How about the desirability of a Marxist-Leninist command control economy and political system? I think reasonable people would say, yeah we tried that experiment and it didn’t work.

    John Mearsheimer’s Rebuttal of Pinker’s Premise

    I think there’s no question that ideas come and go. I think the example of what’s happened with Marxism is basically correct. It had its heyday and it’s no longer a very influential ideology. But the point is, it’s not the new ideologies that have appeared and the old ideologies that have hung on, and we have fought with each other and had some sort of dialectical process that has led to a consensus. My argument is that you need a consensus to get progress. What we’re talking about, the dependent variable, is moral and political progress. (In other words, you need consensus at the beginning of the process in order to go in the right direction. The alternative is to wait for 50 years or a century to see who was right.)

    Theme Two: How Do We Define Individualism, and Has it Made the World a Better Place?

    Let’s pick back up with the idea of the individual. John, Steve says the individual is not this isolated entity, they are multi-social beings. They don’t abandon their social belonging, they are members of different social groups. It’s that no one predominates. There are also distinctions within nations. Nations are not unified concepts. What do you think about that?

    Sophie Scott-Brown

    John Mearsheimer’s Rebuttal

    When you think about human nature you have to ask yourself certain questions. Do you think we are first and foremost individuals who form social contracts? This is what liberalism is all about. Or do you think that we are first and foremost social individuals who carve out room for our individualism? Almost all Enlightenment thinkers start with the individual. He thinks this is true of Steven Pinker. For Pinker, the focus is on the individual and it is individual reason that really matters. Mearsheimer’s view is that we are first and foremost social animals. We are born and socialized into social tribes, which we now call nations. He says, ‘for folks like Steve, tribes get in the way of rational thinking…Political tribalism is the most insidious form of irrationality today.’ And political tribalism is equated with the nation.

    Mearsheimer Does Not Disagree With Pinker on the Problems of Tribalism and Nationalism

    However, it’s important to be clear what their differences actually are. Mearsheimer is not disagreeing with Pinker on this point. He acknowledges there are problems with tribalism. Nationalism, identity with a nation, the fact that we live in a world with nation states, makes it difficult to reach progress. But if you do believe that we are social animals, that causes all sorts of problems for Pinker’s argument.

    Steve Pinker’s Rebuttal

    One of the challenges of the Enlightenment is, how do you have large-scale groupings without the coercion of forcing people to sacrifice their interests for a majority or even for the most powerful? That’s why we have liberal democracy and freedom of speech. It explains why nations have decreasingly identified themselves with some single religion or ethnic group. They have become defined, retrospectively, through something like a social contract.

    The Problem with Defining a Nation in Terms of Race or Religion

    It’s not historically true that people sat down together and hatched out the details for a country. But in terms of rationalizing what are the defensible arrangements for a country, Pinker thinks it’s really good that the United States is not a Christian nation. It doesn’t define itself as a white nation, or even an Anglo nation. In addition, the other nations that people want to live in are nations that are multicultural, accept difference, and recognize rights of individuals.

    Among the rights of individuals are the right to affiliate voluntarily with groups like religions or clubs or whatever they want. But to have the violence that is carried out by a state identified with a particular ethnic group is a terrible idea. Because you’re never going to have the members of one kindred, of one ethnic group, of one religion sharing a territory. Every territory has people from many backgrounds. It’s a bad idea if the wielder of force serves one blood line. He believes in human nature, but he thinks there are some features of human nature that we ought to develop means to control.

    (Pinker’s argument depends on individualism. However, he does not admit that this is a fundamental difference with Mearsheimer’s contention that humans are social animals first. Also, in the United States, the wielder of force often favors one bloodline. Is that the result of liberalism, or is it an example of the West’s ambivalence to Enlightenment liberalism?)

    The Problem of Tribalism in the United States

    Pinker explains why he thinks tribalism leads to irrationality. He gives the example of a healthcare proposal that was first developed by the Republicans. When the Democrats tried to pass it, the Republican opposed it. That’s irrational. Another example is a math problem. If the answer favors a liberal policy proposal, the liberals will overlook mathematical errors and vice versa. Say you give people a logical deduction from certain premises, and it’s consistent with a leftist agenda. The leftists will think it’s highly proper and the right will reject it. Tribalism is an incoherent system for a modern nation state because nation states are heterogenous.

    (It seems Pinker has made Mearsheimer’s point. Reason does not lead to consensus. This is important because Pinker previously defended political parties as a liberal remedy for the inability to come to consensus.)

    John Mearsheimer’s Rebuttal

    Mearsheimer says he is happy he lives in a country that is not a Christian country, or of one ethnicity. But there are a lot of his fellow Americans who disagree with him. And if you go outside the boundaries of the United States there are lots of countries who don’t want a multiethnic state. He says this is what underpins his argument that we have not made a lot of progress over time.

    Steven Pinker’s Rebuttal

    Pinker says part of the argument he is making is normative. It is true that there are a lot of societies that try to limit the population to one race or ethnicity. Many argue that is not viable, that they will be torn by strife. These societies will have significant minorities, and it’s bad to suppress them, ignore them or deny them rights. That’s the standard argument. And then there’s the argument of those who ask, are we winning? It’s not true that we have convinced the entire world.

    Then there’s the separate question of what has been the trend? Do you have more societies that recognize minority rights? That give the franchise to minorities? Or do you have more societies that criminalize a religion? It’s not unanimous. It hasn’t swept all over the globe. But that has been the trend. He cites his book Better Angels. The empirical study of how many people are convinced that this is how a society ought to be run is different than how ought a society to be run.

    Cross Examination

    Can we talk about liberalism as the system that’s best at handling the differences we are talking about? And actually that’s why it’s so successful? John?

    Sophie Scott-Brown

    John Mearsheimer’s Affirmative Speech for Liberalism

    I agree one hundred percent. Liberalism is predicated on the assumption that individuals can’t agree about first principles. They cannot agree on questions about the good life. And sometimes those disagreements are so intense that people kill each other. So, liberalism deals with that fundamental set of problems by creating civil society, and by giving people room to live life the way they see fit.

    Liberalism also privileges individual rights. It says we each have the right to live the way we see fit. Furthermore, liberalism preaches tolerance because, again, individuals can’t agree on first principles. And finally, liberalism enables the creation of a state to make sure no single person is in a position to kill another person. That’s what liberalism is all about. It’s all about dealing with the fact that there is no consensus on political and moral questions of the first order.

    So is progress, Steve, just acknowledging that no consensus is possible and we just have to learn to live and manage these differences as best we can? Is that actually an alternative account of progress?

    Sophie Scott-Brown

    (John Mearsheimer interjects that that is not Steve’s definition of progress.)

    Steven Pinker’s Rebuttal

    It’s a component, but it’s not the definition of progress. Pinker would define progress as improvements in human flourishing. But yes, the fact of disagreement stemming from the fact that humans are different individually and culturally, and have to come to some working agreement despite that disagreement. But it’s an exaggeration to say we can’t agree on first principles.

    The fact is that despite disagreement, some factual opinions are better than others, we don’t know them a priori because the truth has not been given to us by some deity. Instead, we’ve got to blunder along and discover what the truth is. Likewise, we’ve got to experiment and blunder to find the best arrangements for living together. Some of them work better than others in terms of the criteria of enhancing human flourishing.

    Pinker’s Redefinition of First Principles

    If you look at the UN’s sustainable development goals, every country agreed on which way the world ought to go. Poverty should be reduced, safety should be increased, access to clean water should be increased, etc. There’s an awful lot of agreement. And then we can reframe other arguments in terms of what will get us to the state that many of us can agree on? Again not everyone will agree.

    There’s some people who have messianic visions that the world is not going to be a great place until everyone obey’s all of God’s commandments. And if kids die it doesn’t matter. But to the extent that people do agree that kids dying is bad, that changes the argument from disagreements over first principles to disagreements over means to the end.

    (Pinker can’t explain why people with different visions still exist, so he discounts them as irrational. In his view, the focus on the importance of keeping kids alive is a remedy for human disagreement because it is something most people can agree on. This agreement then changes the focus of the argument from first principles to means-to-an-end.)

    John Mearsheimer’s Refutation

    I just don’t think, Steve, there’s any disagreement on issues of safety, health and sustenance. That’s not the issue. We’re talking about moral and political principles here. We’re talking about first principles, what comprises the good life. That’s where the real disagreements are.

    Steven Pinker’s Response

    He asks if fewer children dying isn’t a moral principle? (This is somewhat dishonest. As I understand him, child and infant mortality was part of his measure of human flourishing, which is part of the means-to-an-end argument rather than a first principles argument.)

    John Mearsheimer’s Rebuttal

    That is so obvious it’s not interesting. You didn’t need the Enlightenment for that. From time immemorial people have understood that children dying is a bad thing and we should try to keep them alive as long as possible.

    Steven Pinker’s Rebuttal

    But Pinker says those are first principles everyone agrees on. He then counters that the end of slavery, human sacrifice and genocide are also moral. Likewise, agricultural improvements are a better a way to avert famine than prayer. Agricultural improvements were a moral development in his view.

    Finally, he argues that the idea of universal human flourishing is not so obvious. If you go back to ancient codes the idea that every last homo sapien ought to flourish isn’t there. This supports his contention that the concern for human flourishing is due to the Enlightenment.

    (I think we need statistics on Pinker’s claim–the belief that every last homo sapien ought to flourish, didn’t exist in ancient codes. As for the morality of agricultural improvements instead of prayer, the ancients knew about crop rotation.)

    Theme Three: Are there any really viable alternatives or are we stuck trying to make Enlightenment values work?

    John Mearsheimer’s Points of Agreement with Pinker: The First Enlightenment Principle is Unfettered Reason

    The first Enlightenment value is unfettered reason. Reason is put up on a pedestal, however, this is another premise Mearsheimer agrees with. And he assumes all three of the participants, as academics, would agree with it too. He argues that the dispute has to do with what unfettered reason leads to in moral and political questions.

    The Second Enlightenment Principle is Individualism

    The second principle value of the Enlightenment is the focus on the individual. Nor is Mearsheimer against individualism. For academics, individualism really matters. But his basic point is we are all social animals and we have to carve out space for our individuality.

    Where we live makes a difference in how we see the world and that makes it more difficult to reach a consensus or truth on social and political values. Therefore, Mearsheimer has a mixed mind about individualism. He does like individualism, but also believes we are social animals first. With regard to international relations. He reiterates that we live in a fundamentally competitive world. States compete with each other often in nasty ways and this has not changed since the beginning of time. And this is not going to change in the future. We haven’t made any progress there.

    Steven Pinker’s Rebuttal: What are the Alternatives to Enlightenment Principles?

    Well, the more you try to formulate alternatives to Enlightenment ideals, the better they look. Because what are the alternatives? If you decide to argue against reason, why should we take that seriously? Either it’s reasonable, in which case you signed on to it, or it’s not reasonable, in which case there’s no reason to go along with it.

    If you’re against individualism, are you okay with your parents arranging a marriage for you? Are you okay with your parents forcing you to go to church every Sunday? Are you okay being forced to do anything? For the coherence of the group, not expressing your opinion is the rule, because that would introduce dissent, and that would be uncomfortable.

    It’s very hard to argue for an alternative for individualism as long as it includes people’s preference to belong to social collectives. Again Pinker would distinguish the normative position of what ought we to persuade others or to argue for from the triumphalist argument that we’ve won and everyone agrees with us. Everyone doesn’t agree with us. We might think they ought to, but he wouldn’t want the dictatorial force to make them agree. Those are two separate arguments. But he thinks the trend has been in the direction of consensus. He would argue that Enlightenment ideals are what we ought to strive for and that that’s the direction we are moving.

    John Mearsheimer’s Rebuttal

    Mearsheimer thinks there is a large element of triumphalism in Pinker’s book. He said it made him think of ‘Frank’ Fukuyama’s article, The End of History, which was published in 1989. ‘Frank’s’ argument is that we’re making progress. We defeated fascism in the first half of the twentieth century, and Communism in the second half. The future is liberalism. We will have more and more democracy over time. And once you have more democracy, you won’t have fundamental disagreement over political and moral issues. Therefore, since most of the countries of the world will be democracies, there won’t be much political disagreement out there.

    ‘Frank’s’ argument at the end of his article was that the biggest problem we will face is boredom because there will be no more politics and no more fights. Mearsheimer’s argument is that because of the limits of unfettered reason, what you get are really big fights where people are willing to kill each other. And that’s what makes politics a contact sport. Once politics, which is a contact sport, is at play, you’re not going to make a lot of progress. In fact, you’re going to need a state to keep everybody under control.

    Steven Pinker’s Rebuttal

    Pinker argues that the end of history was deliberately ambiguous in the two ways he has mentioned in this debate. You could read it either as a goal that political systems are aiming at or ought to aim at, or you could read it as the factual claim that we’ve got there. He says that he read Fukuyama as arguing more for the former than the later. Fukuyama’s book was written before the end of the Cold War and at that time, he was right. Liberal democracies were steadily growing. In the last ten years, there has been a recession of democracy, but Pinker predicts democracy will increase in the future.

  • Christmas 2023

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I want to quickly share a few videos and sermons that have come to my attention since I wrote the last article. It is my opinion that theologians would best address questions that were raised in that article about the nature of God. Some of the following links address this question. I’ve also included related videos. There is one criticizing Zionism and the latest pro-Palestinian protest. Also included is a Christian service from St. Peter’s Basilica and a video of Royal Hours for the Nativity of Our Lord from the Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in North Dakota. Happy Christmas 2023.

    Bishop Robert Barron – He will rule forever.

    Double Down News – “Jesus Would Be Killed in Gaza”

    Seyyed Hossein Nasr – Does God Make Sense?

    Lauren Booth – Rabbis Expose Zionist Genocide

    Reuters – Palestinian Christians replace Christmas festivities with a sombre vigil in Bethlehem

    Not the Andrew Marr Show – Christmas protests for Gaza!

    Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church – Royal Hours for the Nativity of Our Lord

    I would also like to share a Bible verse from Bishop Barron that is an important addition to the article Political Zionism is an Anachronism. That article related that Hebrew nationalism was made extinct after a Babylonian monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed the Jewish state. As a result, the Hebrew religion changed. It came to worship a God who was no longer tribal and confined to a specific territory. Now God was universal and concerned for all mankind. The experience of exile and the new understanding of God that accompanied the exiles cut the bond between religion and nationality.

    The verse from Bishop Barron is Hebrews 13:14. I’ll share verses 9 through 14.

    Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats; which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

    We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

    For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.

    Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.

    Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.

    For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

    Hebrews 13: 9-14

  • No Christmas for Bethlehem

    Reading Time: 4 minutes
    No Christmas for Bethlehem
    Learning How to Keep Christmas

    Now that Gaza as been destroyed and her people are starving and dying of infection and disease, our conversation can’t help but change. We no longer feel we are talking to fellow beings when we address our elected officials. And anyway, there is nothing left of the world we hoped to save. Both physical infrastructure and human life have been destroyed. For survivors in Gaza and their sympathizers, the mental and spiritual wounds will never go away. And now we are hearing that there will be no Christmas for Bethlehem. After everything that has happened, Christmas has been shrouded by the misery of Gaza. My prayer is that this realization will shake our world view. Maybe it will even teach us what it really means to keep Christmas.

    I wrote previously that the time has come to prepare for the next life. I said Gaza reminds us that Death comes for everyone. Today, Americans see this possibility more clearly when our own government ignores our cries for mercy. We feel we are kin to the Palestinians more than to the political establishment. But I’ve discovered that we need to clear a theological path so that they can walk beside us.

    I became aware of this need by watching this video by Dr. Ali Ataie on religious Zionism. I explained in a previous article that Morris Jastrow was sympathetic to a certain kind of religious Zionism. But there is another version that Jastrow would have considered heretical. In his video, Dr. Ataie explains this second type of religious Zionism. However, the part of the video I want to talk about is near the end. It has to do with his concern about the nature of the Judeo-Christian God. This concern is especially relevant today because of Netanyahu’s use of Old Testament passages to justify the destruction of Gaza.

    If I understand him correctly I think he is presenting questions that he can’t avoid asking. He is trying to understand a concept that is necessary to his own faith.

    How do Muslims understand the Jewish and Christian God?

    The Christians say they believe in the God of Abraham, but then they say that the genocidal God of Deuteronomy 20 is not Christian. He is the Jewish God. This is not satisfactory.

    Dr. Ataie mentions the word Perichoresis. According to Cambridge Core,

    ‘Perichoresis (perichoresis, circumincessio) is a theological term which describes the ‘necessary being-in-one-another or circumincession of the three divine Persons of the Trinity because of the single divine essence, the eternal procession of the Son from the Father and of the Spirit from the Father and (through) the Son, and the fact that the three Persons are distinguished solely by the relations of opposition between them.’ 

    Cambridge Core

    I think the Cambridge article attempts to explain away any confusion, but I’m not sure it was successful. According to Dr. Ataie Muslims have a difference of opinion with the anti-Zionist Jews who describe the problem as a mistaken definition. The anti-Zionist Jews claim that the Zionist Jews got the meaning wrong. I think it is understandable if this doesn’t provide much comfort when bombs are falling.

    Genesis 1:28 has similar genocidal language. Some try to explain this away by saying that it only applies to the generation of Moses. Others claim it never actually happened. But Ataie argues that current beliefs matter. And they really do matter in Palestine today. All things considered, it’s hard to argue with him.

    Concerning the Christian concept of God, Ataie is also aware that the Logos became Jesus of Nazareth. Or is is it more correct to say the Logos is Jesus of Nazareth? I haven’t studied this concept, and I’m not sure it would help if I had.

    Logos theology is a theology of presence without division. It is a way of unification, of which the incarnation is the greatest visible example.

    1517.org

    What does Morris Jastrow say?

    If someone had asked me these questions a week ago, I would have cited Jastrow. He said the Prophets ushered in a new conception of religion that cut the bond between religion and nationality. As a result, religion became the concern of the individual and not the group. As for the nature of God, the Prophets announced that pleasing Yahweh would now depend on each individual’s obedience to certain principles, as opposed to the group’s obedience. In this way, the national Yahweh was transformed into a universal Jehovah.

    Jastrow calls this new religious concept the religion of the Prophets and explains that this process happened in phases. Judaism emerged out of Hebrew nationalism only after the destruction of the Jewish state.

    Does this answer Dr. Ataie’s questions? Because now I have some questions of my own.

    Where was God in all of this? Or who was God? Unless I’ve missed something, it’s not clear if God himself changed or the Hebrews merely changed their view of God.

    These questions don’t shake my sense of the God I pray to, but I’m not being bombed by a crazed tribal deity. And I’m not Arab or Muslim. Does this description of God make more sense to a Western reader than it would to an Arab reader?

    Hopefully, theologians can help us deal with these questions. It’s important because unless we can establish a common base of understanding and trust, nothing we say will be helpful.

  • Political Zionism is an Anachronism

    Reading Time: 7 minutes
    Political Zionism is an Anachronism
    Political Zionism

    Morris Jastrow1 wrote in 1919 that Israel is a ‘glorified ghetto’. When you think about it, the conditions of Jewish life before the Enlightenment have been perfectly reproduced in Palestine. It’s no wonder the Israelis and their allies are cracking up. Political Zionism is an anachronism.

    Many Israeli leaders have claimed religious sanction for their treatment of the Palestinians. At the center of the current bombardment of Gaza is Benjamin Netanyahu, who claims to be following the admonition of Moses (Deut. 25:12–19) that “The Eternal will be at war against Amalek throughout the ages.” 

    This implies that Israel is commanded to wage a holy war of extermination against Amalek (Deut. 25:12–19), for in the early days “the wars of Israel” and the “wars of the Lord” were synonymous expressions (cf., e.g., Judg. 5:23).

    But, unfortunately for Netanyahu, even his supporters did not buy his analogy. His supporters don’t necessarily object to the carnage, just the rhetoric. They worry that announcing a holy war is not a good look for him. But his use of a story from ancient Israel to justify his war reveals the central mistake of the Zionists.

    Zionism does not understand the Hebrew Prophets or Jesus

    The use of the Old Testament in this way reveals that Zionism is a movement out of place and time. According to Morris Jastrow, this movement ignores what was accomplished by the Hebrew Prophets and Jesus. Jastrow calls Jesus the successor of the Prophets.

    Political Zionism is an anachronism

    Jastrow had sympathy for religious and economic Zionism. But as a political measure, Zionism was an anachronism. However, the political aspect has dominated since 1897. (p. 31) The only way the Zionists could have pulled this off is by ignoring or denying the religious aspect.

    The Prophets: From Ancient Israel to Judaism

    If Christians and Jews understood how the Old and New Testament fit together they would reject Zionism immediately. But instead, they are led by dramatic verses taken out of context, such as the story of Amalek. In fact, the Zionist movement itself is out of context.

    The Zionists seem unaware that the Prophets made major changes in the religion of ancient Israel. These changes are recorded in the Old Testament. The central concept that resulted from their teachings had to do with nationality and citizenship.

    Antiquity interpreted religion in terms of nationality. The basis of nationality and citizenship was a nation’s language and gods. This influenced the organization of religion, including the ancient Hebrew religion.

    The Hebrews had a national deity, whom they called Yahweh. He was their protector within the boundaries of their own territory. Within those borders, they were the chosen people of Yahweh. The groups around them were no different. They had been chosen by some other god.

    What was the message of the Prophets?

    However, for the Hebrews the ancient concept of religion changed with the rise of the Prophets. The Prophets taught that Yahweh is unlike other gods. His concern is conditioned on the obedience of his followers to certain principles. These principles involved ethical distinctions between right and wrong.

    But, this was not a theoretical lesson on ethics. The Prophets announced that Yahweh had rejected his people because of the oppression of the poor by the rich, the injustice in the courts of justice, and rampant crime. They said Yahweh would punish the people for their sins unless they would mend their ways.

    The Prophet Amos was the first to preach this message. He was followed by Hosea, who made the same prophecy. Then came Isaiah. Isaiah emphasized that sacrifices and tribute are an abomination to Yahweh, and that he does not want his worshippers to defile his holy place by coming there with unclean hands.

    These teachings represented a new (religious) language. Their significance lay in the emphasis on the conduct of the individual as the test of religion. From this point onward, the group was considered to represent an entity composed of individuals.

    In this process, the national Yahweh was transformed into a universal Jehovah. In other words, Judaism made its first appearance at that time. Judaism is a religion based on a monotheistic conception of divine government, which makes the conduct of the individual the test of religious life. But this transformation would soon be tested.

    The effect of the Babylonian exile

    Hebrew nationalism was made extinct after a Babylonian monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed the Jewish state. As a result, the Hebrew religion changed. It came to worship a God who was no longer tribal and confined to a specific territory. It worshipped a God who was universal, a God who was concerned for all mankind. The experience of exile and the new understanding of God that accompanied the exiles cut the bond between religion and nationality. The transformation into Judaism was complete.

    It is a fact of the utmost significance that the great contribution of the Jews to the world’s spiritual treasure was made not while the national life was flourishing, but as it was ebbing away. The Prophets with their revolutionary doctrines made their appearance when the northern Kingdom was beginning to show symptoms of decline, and the movement reached its height after this kingdom had disappeared and the national existence of the southern Kingdom was threatened. The religion of the Prophets is the swan song of ancient Hebraism, and the example of a people flourishing without a national background had to be furnished to the world in order to bring the new conception of religion to fruition, which divorced religion from nationality and made it solely the expression of the individual’s aspiration for the higher life and for communion with the source of all being. The ancient Hebrews disappeared. It was the Jews, as we should call the people after the Babylonian Exile, who survived, and they survived despite the fact that they never recovered their national independence in the full sense of the word.

    Jastrow, p. 38

    The theocratic state

    Judaism changed the people from a political to a religious unit. However, this process proved to be too much for the masses and they yearned to go back to their nationalistic ways. Jastrow defines what they were going through as the ‘wrenching of the political from the religious life’. He thought the strange phenomenon of a Prophet who is also a Priest was a response to this difficulty. But it was a step backward.

    The Prophet-Priest Ezra created a new code. Ezra’s code was combined with the two earlier codes in Exodus and the Book of Deuteronomy. This framework of early traditions and tribal experiences became the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch served as the basis of religious life. It also recognized the solidarity of the Jews as a political unit. The result was that Israel was so dominated by the priestly ideal that a theocratic state came to be.

    The ministry of Jesus

    Second Isaiah and the other ‘writing’ Prophets after the Babylonian exile opposed this development because the theocratic state led the Jews to focus on national aspirations.

    Beginning with Amos, the Prophets before the exile had envisioned a time when the Jewish people would set an example for the world to worship the ‘supreme Author of all being‘. But the theocratic state reattached the religion to what remained of the national life. This was the situation Jesus confronted in his lifetime.

    The universal Jehovah had not entirely put aside the rule of the tribal Yahweh. Yahweh was still viewed as the special protector of His chosen people by the side of His traits as the God of universal scope. The crisis came in the days of Jesus, who, as the successor of the Hebrew Prophets, drew the logical conclusion from their premises and substituted for the national ideal that of the ‘Kingdom of God…Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s’. By such a single saying Jesus broke definitely with all nationalistic aims, which even during the period of Roman control, strict and complete as it was, the Jews did not entirely abandon.

    Jastrow, pp. 41-42

    According to Jastrow, it is an error to suppose that the Jews rejected the religious teachings of Jesus. They could not have rejected his teachings. Jesus taught in the same spirit as their own Prophets. What they rejected was Jesus’s uncompromising insistence that religion was a matter between the individual and his conscience. They were prevented from accepting this idea both by their own traditions and attitudes and by the religious concepts that surrounded them.

    When St. Paul came to give the doctrinal setting to the teachings of Jesus, and to interpret the meaning of his life with its tragic end, he laid the chief emphasis on the salvation of the individual through the acceptance of the belief in Jesus. The sins of the world were washed away through the blood of Jesus as a vicarious offering for mankind. Every individual was offered the opportunity of securing salvation for his soul by accepting Jesus as his saviour…

    Jastrow p. 45
    Did something similar happen to Christianity?

    However, Jastrow also identifies a continuing tendency to connect religion and nationality among Christians. He blames this on the Church’s ‘Zionistic temptation’ to become allied with Rome. I hesitate to bring this up because of the fear that some denominations will feel justified in their criticism of Catholicism. But it’s important to remember that many Protestant denominations built forts around their own theology. If I’m not misunderstanding Jastrow, I think this Zionistic tendency can be interpreted differently.

    It could be argued that it was the Roman emperors who first legalized Christianity and then made it the official religion of the Roman Empire. If the Church fathers agreed to this, perhaps they mistook it as a universalistic alliance. Jastrow does say (p. 45) that this alliance appeared in a form that at first appeared international.

    Conclusion

    This article demonstrates that political Zionism is anachronistic. Christian and Jewish Zionists are trying to carry out a scenario that no longer exists, and can’t be defended in the scriptures. In fact, they are going in the opposite direction to what their own Prophets intended. If we look again at Netanyahu’s use of the story of Amalek as justification for bombing Gaza, it becomes clear that a tribal Israel ruled by a nationalistic God is a thing of the past. The wars of Israel and the wars of the Lord are no longer synonymous. Israel’s God became a universal God when the Israelite nation was destroyed and the people were carried away to Babylon. Then Jesus, as the successor to the Prophets, reinforced the Prophetic teachings.

    Christianity, as we have seen, broke at its foundation with Jewish nationalism. It definitely cut the thread that bound religion to the limitations inherent in associating religion with the group.

    Jastrow p. 44

    Next it will be necessary to understand the difference between the religious practice of Christian Zionists, orthodox Christians and Jews.

    1. Morris Jastrow Jr. Ph.D, LL.D, Zionism and the future of Palestine: the Fallacies and Dangers of Political Zionism, The Macmillan Company, NY, 1999 ↩︎

  • Defeating Zionism

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    I recently wrote about Morris Jastrow‘s 1919 book about Zionism. In the last century, events have transpired with no relation to the understanding he tried to convey. The result is that in spite of his efforts, Zionism has prospered. But, as I read his words, I am certain that his voice still matters. Jastrow’s book is an important source for defeating Zionism.

    Relgious belief or geopolitical maneuvering?

    Readers may think Jastrow’s approach is too simple, that it merely deals with mistaken notions which led Jews to accept Zionism. Some prefer to focus on manipulation by Western imperialists. In my opinion, geopolitical maneuvering is important, but it should not be the first priority. I suspect changes in Jewish religious beliefs are central to the success of Zionism.

    I’m not implying that we should be led by Jastrow alone. But his experience and education provide important information about the changes that took place in European and American Judaism in the late nineteenth and early 20th century. This is important because we may be seeing the effects of these changes today.

    However, an important misunderstanding about his religious views might distract from his usefulness. Therefore, before I talk about Jastrow’s book I will share my understanding of where he stood in relation to changes taking place in Judaism in his lifetime. I’m not an expert on this period of Jewish history, so I’m using an article that explains this relationship. I encourage the reader to check the article for accuracy.

    Did Jastrow repudiate traditional Judaism?

    A key aspect of Jastrow’s development, his relationship to Judaism, was misunderstood in his lifetime. According to Wikipedia, Jastrow repudiated traditional Judaism in 1886. But the The New York Times article cited by Wikipedia might be misleading, especially for gentile readers.

    The two most important factors in Morris’s experience were rising anti-Semitism in Russia, the U.S., and Germany, and the situation of liberal Judaism in America. Jastrow took issue with the influences on his religion during this period. Both Morris Jastrow, Jr. and his father, Marcus Jastrow, held similar opinions on this. Marcus, who had a PhD from Halle and was the rabbi of Philadelphia’s Rodef Shalom congregation, defended Judaism from both uncritical adherence to tradition, and extreme radicalism. Therefore, the NYT article is misleading when it says Morris Jastrow Jr. repudiated traditional Judaism.

    Morris Jastrow’s education and professional background

    In 1881, Jastrow earned a baccalaureate from the University of Pennsylvania. Then he sailed for Breslau to attend its Jewish theological seminary. His plan was to return to the United States after completing his education. Then he would prepare to take the place of his father.

    When Morris returned to Philadelphia, he began a rabbinical apprenticeship, but it only lasted for a year. One Sabbath, he gave the final sermon to his congregation. This is the speech mentioned by the NYT. According to this account, it was a long and pessimistic speech.

    He did not say in the speech what he would do next. But it turned out he had already accepted a professorship in Semitics at the University of Pennsylvania.

    This would not have been a surprise to his father. His reasons had to do with the forces he had encountered in Europe and America, and the role of Jews and Jewish learning in the late 19th century university.

    Jastrow’s response to secularization

    The process of secularization influenced several Jewish scholars in Jastrow’s generation. Some moved away from liberal Judaism, but for Jastrow, religious considerations were central in his choices. Leaving the rabbinate did not mean he would disengage with religion.

    Careful parental nurturing, a combination of an American and a European education, an apprenticeship under their father’s supervision, all helped cultivate a generation which would complete the evolution of an alternative to Orthodoxy and indifference.

    Wechsler, Harold S. “Pulpit or Professoriate: The Case of Morris Jastrow.” American Jewish History, vol. 74, no. 4, 1985, pp. 338–55. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23882681. Accessed 3 Dec. 2023.
    Jewish life in the late 19th century

    During the late 19th century, Western institutions of education did not admit Jews. Applicants were required to be members of a denomination. In addition, religious instruction was limited to dogma. But in Jastrow’s lifetime, these institutions were undergoing a process of liberalization. Many Jews were being offered academic positions in this period.

    This was a critical time in world Jewry. But there were differences between American and European liberalization. In America, Jewish life was congregational. In Europe it was communal. This meant that America was more open to liberal Judaism than Europe.

    The political situation

    The political situation also influenced Judaism. Increasing nationalism was one of Jastrow’s concerns. On the one hand, he couldn’t understand how people could give up their right to popular government or recognize anyone as superior due to birth position. He could not identify at all with the German brand of nationalism. At the same time, he thought nationalism was a healthy corrective for German materialism.

    Jastrow also had a conflicting interpretation of Treitschke’s claim that the ‘Jews are our misfortune’. Jastrow himself blamed the German Jews for a type of materialism that he observed during his stay in Europe. Therefore, he attributed Treitschke’s criticism to a lack of patriotism and idealism among German Jews. However, he also disagreed with the German idealists who identified German Jewry with Judaism. In his opinion, there was a drastic contrast between the Jewish Religion and the Jews in Germany.

    Jastrow also disapproved of the Jewish pursuit of the professions for the purpose of material gains, honor, influence and power. His own conception of idealism was that the only legitimate rewards for the professional are the benefits to mankind.

    Due to his experiences and observations in Europe, Jastrow concluded ‘that Germany will not be the land whence Jewish thought and Jewish enthusiasm for and attachment to the Jewish religion will spring‘. For a while, he was more optimistic about America. It all depended on the quality of Jewish leadership.

    But during his years in Europe this outlook changed. He was especially concerned about the rise in America of Isaac Mayer Wise. When Wise finally ‘cast his lot’ with the organized Reform movement and assumed its leadership, Reform’s universalism became the outlook of one faction, and American Jewry was permanently divided. Unity became impossible.

    The competing influence of Isaac Mayer Wise

    Before Jastrow left for Europe, Isaac Mayer Wise organized a domestic seminary for the education of American rabbis. Jastrow’s father had criticized Wise’s extreme liberalism and considered his personality inappropriate for leading America’s only seminary. It was partly due to Wise’s influence in America that Jastrow’s father sent him abroad for his education.

    When Jastrow Jr. returned home, he volunteered his services as a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. This gave him a year to think about his future. By the end of the year, he had decided to leave the rabbinate. In the speech reported by the NYT, he shared with his congregation his observations about the rising generation of American Jews.

  • Christian Zionism Explains Everything

    Reading Time: 4 minutes
    Christian Zionism Explains Everything
    The Dictatorship of Christian Zionism

    If you’ve wondered during the last twenty years at the overheated rhetoric of both Israel and the Western powers, Dr. Stephan Sizer will connect the dots in a video entitled The Historical Roots of Christian Zionism, It’s Theological Basis and Political Agenda. According to Sizer, Christian Zionism is the culprit behind the militant turn. Christian Zionism explains everything.

    What do I mean by everything? From the policies of the George W. Bush administration to the current crisis in Israel and Palestine, the relationship between Israel and the United States has remained important. Also in this period, the Middle East and the rest of the world have criticized U.S. policies. Muslims are painted as the enemy, and there is a reckless drive for war with Iran.

    Definition and influence of Christian Zionism

    Christian Zionism is a movement within Protestant Christianity that views the modern State of Israel as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. It follows that we owe it unconditional economic, moral, political and theological support.

    The Christian version of Zionism began 50 years before the Jewish version. It is a political effort for the most part. But the theological agenda is also important, and far more troubling. Two of the most frightening talking points are the idea of using nuclear weapons on Palestine and going to war with Iran. These can both be explained by the theological influence of Christian Zionism.

    The theological and political agenda

    The theology of Christian Zionism is tied to a literal interpretation of the Bible. But it is as if the birth of Jesus is irrelevant. Key beliefs include the belief that Jerusalem will be the capital of Zion, that the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem, and an antipathy to Arabs and Muslims. There is also the belief that the final battle is immanent. This accounts for the similarities in warlike rhetoric and racist hate speech in American administrations.

    Politically, the Jewish Zionists are aware that they depend on Christian Zionists to influence politicians and pay the bills.

    History of Christian Zionism

    Zionism began with the Puritan movement and the consequences of the Protestant Reformation. The Puritan worldview included the belief that the Jewish people had a place in God’s purposes. Specifically, Puritans believed the Jews would come to faith in Jesus and be returned to Palestine to become a Christian nation. The main proponents were George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards.

    In 1808, the London Jew Society was formed as part of the Restoration Movement. Its purpose was to relieve the suffering of Jews, especially in East London, and to identify Jewish communities around the world. They believed Jews and Gentiles would be one people of God.

    This view was dominant in Evangelicalism, but this changed with the rise of the French empire. Napoleon was the first ruler in 2,000 years to promise the Jews a homeland. Napoleon called himself King of Kings. However, his detractors called him ‘the anti-Christ’. The return of the Jews to Palestine was part of his strategy for world domination.

    Napoleon was not successful with his campaign in Palestine, but his proclamation led to millenarian hopes among certain nonconformist circles in England. From a political point of view, it marked the beginning of a renewed interest of the Western Powers in Palestine as occupying an important international position. 

    The Albury Circle

    According to Sizer, the Albury Circle developed the idea that God had a separate purpose for the Jewish people, apart from the Church. For them, Britain’s Manifest Destiny included controlling the Middle East and assisting the Jews’ return to Palestine. They believed the Jews would then assist Britain in colonial endeavors.

    John Darby and The Brethren fashioned these ideas into Dispensationalism. This sect taught that the Church and Israel were separate people. The Church represents God’s heavenly people, and the Jews represent God’s earthly people. This is now the dominant theology of U.S. Evangelicals, Fundamentalists and Pentecostals. These groups are now underwriting financial and political support for the Zionist Lobby, and are a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

    Britain had ulterior motives

    Britain did not deliver on its promises to the Zionists because of its secret agreement with the French to divide the Middle East between them. They actually left a written record of this intention, including their admission that they didn’t think it was necessary to consult the Palestinians. However, this agreement did not come to pass either, and eventually the British tried to solve the ‘problem’ by partitioning Palestine equally between Palestinians and Zionists. Because the Palestinians’ proposed share would be half of what they already had, they rejected the plan. The Zionists accepted it.

    Zionist presidents

    The Rev. Jerry Falwell had come from a tradition that was intolerant of Jews, but he changed his view toward Israel after meeting Menachem Begin in Jerusalem. This was the beginning of a coalition between the Christian and Zionist right, overseen by Falwell.

    Sizer calls Jimmy Carter ‘the first born again president. However, when Falwell co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979, one of his chief aims was to defeat Carter. Falwell argued that Carter was on the wrong side of abortion, homosexuality and prayer in public schools. Carter was also the only U.S. president to identify Israeli apartheid.

    However, most U.S. administrations since 1948 have been supportive of the Zionist agenda. They include those of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Nixon, Reagan, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump, and Biden. The last president to challenge the Israel lobby was Bush Sr.

    Christian Zionism explains everything.

  • Peace is the Only Choice

    Reading Time: 5 minutes

    Five parties are involved in the carnage in the Middle East. They are Israel, the United States and her allies, the Zionists, AIPAC and Hamas. It’s no surprise that it’s complicated. All of the parties have real reasons for being there, however in some cases the real reasons are not stated outright. I believe this is largely due to the long history of the Jewish people and the way they were shaped by their experiences. Many factors have gone into the present turmoil, but there are two sides to every story. Peace is the only choice for Palestine and Israel.

    Reason not the need

    Israel’s stated claim to ownership of Palestine is based on the Old Testament story of Abraham. It is supported in this claim by Christian Zionists. This biblical gift of Palestine to Israel has been debunked by both Jewish rabbis and Christian theologians. (See also: Stephen Sizer on Christian Zionism) However, it is true that there was a desperate struggle by Zionists to relocate Jews to Palestine, and this desperation was as real as it gets. As King Lear said to his daughters,

    “O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous. Allow not nature more than nature needs...” (King Lear Act II. Scene IV. Line 264.)

    The British mandate restricts immigration

    One cause of desperation in Palestine was British immigration restrictions and the Mandate’s perceived indifference to the immigrants’ safety. The Israeli’s got their way in the end. From at least one point of view, this was unfortunate. Increased immigration resulted in regrettable changes to the Jewish population in Palestine. However, the events leading to this wave of immigration were unfortunate as well.

    Jews were living in Palestine before the Zionists arrived, but they were religious communities who spent their time studying. They did not participate in farming or trade. They were supported by Jews in the diaspora. Today, both Israelis and supportive politicians play on biblical promises to the Jews as Israel’s reason for being, but Zionism has always been a secular project. I believe this fiction has begun to work against them, mostly because it hides their real reasons for immigrating to Palestine. And mistrust of the outside world prevents them from saying what needs to be said.

    From a religious to a secular society

    The secular movement has been blamed for Israel’s more recent history. According to Wikipedia, Zionism didn’t exist in Palestine before 1882. The term Yishuv refers to the Jews living in Palestine before that time. The Old Yishuv residents were religious Jews, living mainly in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron. There were smaller communities in Jaffa, Haifa, Peki’in, Acre, Nablus, Shfaram, and until 1779, in Gaza. In the final centuries before modern Zionism, a large part of the Old Yishuv spent their time studying the Torah. But Israel changed from a religious to a secular society.

    The term ‘New Yishuv’ refers to those who adopted a new approach, based on economic independence and various national ideologies, rather than strictly religious reasons for settling in the ‘Holy Land’.

    Wikipedia – Yishuv

    These were the Zionists. The first New Yishuv immigrants began building homes outside the Old City walls of Jerusalem in the 1860s, followed soon after by the founders of the moshava of Petah Tikva. Growth was in full swing during the First Aliyah of 1882. Neighborhoods and villages were founded from that year until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The Zionist aliyah and the New Yishuv, were more socialist-leaning and secular, emphasizing labor and self-sufficiency.

    The Haganah

    In the British Mandate for Palestine, the Haganah was a paramilitary force founded in 1920 to protect the Yishuv. Although it was an underground organization until 1947, it was the main Zionist military organization. It remained so until the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence and then integrated into the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

    The Haganah took many forms over the years, but its activities were moderate until after World War II. The Zionists were prepared to fight anyone and everyone to establish their new homeland. After the War, when the British refused to remove their restrictions on immigration, the Haganah led an insurgency against the British Mandate in Palestine.

    Poland supports Zionism as a way to get rid of the Jews

    Sadly, much of the help they did receive, for example from the Polish government, was motivated by the wish to get rid of them. The Second Polish Republic supported a Jewish state in Palestine to aid in ridding itself of its Jewish population during the interwar period. The Poles provided military training and weapons to Zionist military groups, including Haganah. Eventually, the British pressured the Polish government to stop the deliveries.

    The United States recognized Israel immediately after the Israeli Declaration of Independence. However, for two decades, it was not Israel’s strongest ally and did not offer the diplomatic cover it does today. When Israel invaded Egypt with the British and French during the 1956 Suez crisis, Washington joined Moscow at the United Nations to force Israel and its allies to withdraw. For many years, US aid to Israel was limited to loans to buy food through the economic hardship in the years after independence.

    But Israel did have at least one strong ally. Prior to 1967, Israel’s primary foreign ally was France, which supplied almost all of its major weapons including planes, tanks and ships as well as building the nuclear plant from which it developed atomic weapons.

    The U.S. alliance

    It wasn’t until Israel’s victory and occupation of Gaza that Washington decided Arab nations had moved into the Soviet camp. The U.S. increased weapons sales to the Jewish state, including Phantom jet fighters. President Johnson committed the US to maintaining Israel’s “qualitative military edge” and opened the door to decades of weapons sales. This helped build the Israeli military into the strongest force in the Middle East.

    Can we tell the truth? Can we listen to the truth?

    In the process, the Zionists continued to cite a religious history that was no longer important to them. In fact, it seems they told as many stories as they needed to gain sympathy from a world that had already shown itself to be unsympathetic. Many have recognized that the enforced isolation and abuse of the Jewish people for 2,000 years caused them to share certain physical and personality characteristics, including shrewdness and a sense of mistrust. It shouldn’t be surprising that they took these traits with them when it was time for them to make their way in an unfriendly world.

    However, as sympathetic as we may be to Israel, Palestine is about to disappear in 25 miles of smoke and fire. This focus on Israel is important not only for Israel’s well-being, but for the well-being of her neighbors.

    Israel can’t be expected to disappear. But it can’t continue to live in an unfriendly world either. Our world has structure. Some, if not all, of that structure rests on shared history, shared beliefs, mutual love and sympathy. To corrupt those things is to destroy the society you claim to love. There, I said ‘the society you claim to love’. This is the language of mistrust. Are we prepared to tell the truth? Can we listen to the truth?

    Israel’s challenge

    Israel’s biggest challenge at this time is to learn how to live peacefully in Palestine. At this time, the Israelis have succeeded in earning the world’s hatred, so they will have to take the first step. But if I’m right, their history and experience will forbid it. They will need the help of their allies. There is no way around this requirement. If the United States is pressuring Israeli policies, the U.S. must back off. And Israel must be encouraged and helped to earn the trust of the Palestinians. But this won’t happen until there is a just distribution of land and resources. And a just distribution won’t be possible until the settlers and the present Israeli government get out of the way.

    In addition to a responsible government, we need people with the proper training to help in this process. I’m not only talking about diplomats. I’m talking about people who understand the human soul.

  • A Challenge to Politics As Usual

    Reading Time: 4 minutesOur choices are limited if we can only talk about what we can realistically do. But if we’re talking theory, anything is possible. Since I’m in charge of my own theoretical world, I’ll offer some solutions. This is a challenge to politics as usual.

    Start With the Environment and its Social Effects

    I’ll start with solutions to environmental problems. The particular environmental goal will guide any changes in politics and economics. After the environment, social effects will be the next criterion in decision-making.

    We have 50 years to do something about the oceans. Every continent contributes to the problem of pollution, much of it from industrial farming, so ideally every country would have to participate. I propose dividing industrial farms, which also contribute to global warming, into smaller, sustainable operations. Start with the farms that drain into major river systems. This would decrease the amount of chemical fertilizers flowing into the ocean and begin to address the problem of dead zones.

    A Double Benefit: Improve the Environment and Strengthen Communities

    It would also create the potential for using these sustainable farms as the nucleus of a different kind of community. Such communities would have to develop over time as the underlying political theory is discovered. They should be conceived as centers of a vibrant life—not oppressive sloughs of despair that the youth can’t wait to escape. They would have to offer opportunity; they would have to inspire and challenge all members.

    Make the Government More Accessible

    In the United States, we could consider creating another governing center in the middle of the country, specifically to serve this new type of grassroots community organization. This is not as a replacement for Washington—it could interact with Washington D.C. For example, it could facilitate the development of candidates for national office, as well as local delegates.

    Competition: Art, Industry, the Birth Rate, Agriculture, Ect.

    The critics might say that if one country breaks up commercial farms it would cease to be competitive with other countries. Or if everyone does, we couldn’t feed the world. First, we don’t feed the world now. Second, this isn’t necessarily true. First, consider the subject of competition. Pre-war France experienced a time of political and military turmoil. In this period, the French suddenly discovered that their birth rate was much lower than Germany and Great Britain. Then a series of European furniture exhibitions made them realize they were falling behind their neighbors in the decorative arts by limiting themselves to traditional French designs and methods. The French government created policies were to remedy this situation.[mfn] [/mfn][mfn]David Cottington, Cubism in the Shadow of War: The Avant-Garde and Politics in Paris 1905-1914, Yale University Press, 1998.[/mfn] The goal was to make France more competitive. But was competition with Germany and Great Britain good for the French people?

    Healthy Versus Unhealthy Competition

    We have to develop criteria for healthy versus unhealthy competition. For example, maybe challenging French furniture makers was healthy, while French leaders could have decided against the manipulation of the birth rate for ideological, political, economic, or military reasons. Agricultural policy also affects family life. Is it a good idea to base agricultural policy on competition with other countries? If small family farms are inefficient, what should replace them? Should agricultural policy serve the national economy or should it help to foster healthy communities?

    Limit Unhealthy Competition

    What if we put limits on unhealthy competition? I’m not talking isolationism. I’m talking about the kind of limits that make it possible to solve domestic problems like dead zones in the ocean. Because of its social and environmental implications, we could start by eliminating the pro-natalist nonsense, followed by trade agreements—at least the worst aspects of them. The medieval guilds limited competition among their own members and it was effective until some hotshot broke the rules and ruined it for everyone else. This is the same idea only on a global scale.

    If you are screaming ‘Nooo!’ then maybe you don’t understand how serious the world’s problems are. Or maybe these ideas threaten your own privilege. On the contrary, what we’re doing now is stupid and it threatens all of us. We are on a precipice. But ideologues who tell other people what to do and who have no intention of doing it themselves look down their noses and ask where all these needy people came from. In this way they prove they are unfit to wield authority of any kind, and yet there they remain.

    Global Awareness

    Iran has drained its lakes through climate change, dams, drought, and inefficient irrigation. In parts of India, half the population is homeless. Half of India’s population defecates on the ground. Worse, even the feces that ends up in the sewage system is untreated. India is awash in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Babies are born with these germs and they often can’t be cured. Further, the crowded conditions make it more likely they’ll pass on their infections. It should be no surprise that some of those germs are coming here. And of course, there is evidence of America’s contribution to the problem, both from oil spills and farming, in the Gulf of Mexico.

    Women should be able to control their own fertility. In fact, the relationship between mother and child should be understood as the essential human relationship, and therefore as the basis of all other relationships. This would guard against artificiality and indifference in a community’s social relations.

    I’m aware that my solutions are radical but in my opinion, they don’t have much competition at this time. First, we have the Democrats who can’t seem to come to terms with the demise of Marxism. It’s not clear what they’re doing in this election cycle—maybe pretending to be different from the Republicans for the sake of appearances. As for the Republicans, they are becoming famous for serving shady interest rather than the interests of their own people. Incredibly, they don’t even try to hide it any more. But it’s probably remarkable that either party can still come up with a coherent platform at all. Both are operating on old ideas that were never established on firm ground in the first place, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they function more like political religions than rational approaches to the world’s problems.