July 8, 2019--Make American Men Great Again

For more than two years, my sister-in-law, Guest Blogger Sharon, and I have been attempting to understand why so many women, white women, 53 percent of them, voted for Trump. It seems so against their best interests. 

Recently she wrote-- 

I still haven’t totally figured it out, including what role religion may have played. I think there are people whose world view or “values” may trump (sorry) self-interest. Just look at the number of women who voted for a misogynist. Or are so pro-life that they are willing to give up control of their own bodies.

Then I wrote--  

About the women who voted for Trump: like you I've been obsessed with trying to understand this since he was elected. Some of it is a version of Evangelical belief about the appropriate place for women in the social and family hierarchy. "In their place" below men. But I have come to conclude it's less about religion than about gender. 

Likely for most of Trump's white men the women's movement tripped off all sorts of scary bells and whistles. Having in many cases to deal with female bosses; having to deal with dramatic changes in sexual behavior where women have come to assume an almost equal role; needing wives to enter the work force not for career reasons but because the men couldn't earn enough to pay the bills and sustain them as stay-at-home wives and mothers, often with the women earning more than their husbands, as a result feeling dispossessed, these men are angry about their shrinking hegemony within the family and the larger society, and voted for Trump in the belief that he would restore things to their natural, their rightful gender dispensation.  

And then for the these women--they want their husbands back. The ones who could support them, dominate them, and make them feel protected and secure. They too feel that something profound has been abrogated, overturned. Thus, that is what making America great again means to them. It really means how to make men a regressive version of great again. 

To progressive women this represents a retreat from all that has been fought for and accomplished during the past 50-60 years; to conservative women this would represent a restoration of the natural order.

The Dems need to figure out how to relate to this in a non-condescending manner for at least two reasons--they'll lose again if they don't and because it's the right way to engage Trump supporters--with understanding and sensitivity. Doing so, though, doesn't mean we need to roll over and come to agree about everything. Or very much. But we do need to show respect for how they are experiencing life in a changed America, and try to find some empathetic common ground.

Toward the end of Hillary Clinton's campaign, when it finally dawned on her and some of her advisors that they were losing white working-class voters--women as well as men--some of her people who had kept Bill Clinton at arms length from participating in campaign strategizing, realizing he was in fact their best strategist, finally asked him what he thought was going on with these voters, mainly the men. He said, "They're dying of a broken heart."

He was right. And since it was too late to reach out to them in appropriate ways, Hillary Clinton lost their votes and ultimately the election.

Fair warning. 

October 19, 2017--"Big Gods"

I've been reading a fascinating book from 2013 with this title by Ara Norenzayan. In less than 200 pages he surveys the evidence that human's propensity to create religions is both genetic and cultural. Also, that it is globally pervasive and dynamic. More religions are literally being created every day. 

In spite of the title, this is not pop social biology nor about the so-called "God Gene." It is chock full of findings from the latest and most sophisticated research. But readable. So, I recommend it highly since our planet is roiled in large part by religious strife. In spite of the Enlightenment that in the 18th century emphasized scientific evidence as opposed assertions based on belief, in only a few countries in Western Europe, religions continue to play a powerful and, in many cases, dominant role in shaping behavior.

Here is a brief sample about the number of believers--

There are today nearly 2 billion self-proclaimed Christians. Islam, with 1.3 billion people is thriving too, and fundamentalist strains are making fresh inroads into all three Abrahamic faiths. Christian fundamentalism in particular is spreading like wildfire in places like China and Southeast Asia and most of all, in sub-Saharan Africa. 

The United States--the world's most economically powerful society and a scientifically advanced one--is also, anomalously, one of the most religious. Over 90 percent of Americans believe in God, 93 and 85 percent believe in heaven and hell, respectively, and close to one in two Americans believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis.  

These facts and figures . . . about human evolution [that] despite many predictions of religion's demise in the last 200 years, most people in most societies in the world are, and always have been, deeply religious. . . . 

Religions have always been multiplying, growing  and mutating at a brisk pace. In one estimate [World Christian Encyclopedia], new religions sprout at an average rate of two to three per day. [My italics]  

"Many are called, but few are chosen," says the Gospel according to Matthew (22:14). This "Matthew Effect" might as well refer to the iron law of religious evolution, which dictates that while legions of new religious elements are created, most of them die out, save a potent few that endure and flourish. 

By one estimate (ibid), there are 10,000 religions in the world today. Yet the vast majority of humanity adheres to a disproportionate few of them.

Eye of Horus--Egypt--Late 6th to 4th Centuries BCE

December 10, 2015--Islamic Eschatology: "The Blessed Invasion"

About 15 years ago, at a Ford Foundation meeting where I was serving as a senior director, because our new president wanted to shift some of the foundation's emphasis to cultural grantmaking that would include funding organizations devoted to religious tolerance and interfaith projects, senior staff gathered to discuss what that meant and how we should proceed.

For me it turned out to be a life-altering experience.

One staff member who attended was a Pakistani-born and raised colleague who, after hearing the rest of us flounder for half a day, struggling with how to think about our new president's challenge, out of exasperation with us, she said--

"The problem is that all of you are liberals and liberals look back to the Enlightenment for guidance on how to think about the world and its problems. You all believe that there are rational solutions to every problem. In fact, you abjure anything that isn't rational or evidence-based. Thus you are uncomfortable with much that has to do with the power of culture, especially belief systems, religions, that are not strictly speaking rational.

"In fact, they are decidedly not rational nor fact-based. None of them are. They are about belief. Derived from that. And thus you do not know how to respond to our new CEO's mandate--that we pay more attention to the power of culture as it shapes peoples' lives, again, especially how religious beliefs affect behavior. Even, perhaps especially behavior that doesn't make sense if viewed through only an Enlightenment lens."

The room grew hushed. None of us, very much including me, knew what to think, how to respond, most important what to do.

And over the next few years of funding cultural institutions and organizations devoted to religious diversity, very little that we supported had much impact.

Retrospectively, we funded groups that were pushing against the mainstream, against orthodoxies mainly in the Middle East, orthodoxies that limited diversity of thought and practice. We supported, for example, groups that were fighting for more gender equality within powerful religious institutions. But to them, not unlike how our government's interventions in the Muslim world are meeting with such fierce resistance, the organizations we funded may have done more unintended harm than good.

From an Enlightenment perspective, which still guided the foundation's work, we thought that all we needed to do was raise social justice issues and religious leaders would quickly see the light (pun intended) and embark upon campaigns of reform.

In fact, history is showing that various forms of Western intervention--from the cultural to governmental to military--most often contribute to the problem.

Out of arrogance, ignoring history, we may have caused harm with the best of intentions.

Thus, from that, for me, fateful meeting and our largely failed grantmaking, I have become convinced that national and ethnic and tribal culture derived from religious beliefs (from the arts to language to gender relations to governance structures) are more powerful than any other social force. Economics very much included.

In fact, people in the Islamic world (and for that matter, the rest of us) are not just longing to have access to Western consumer goods, Hollywood movies, rock and roll or, as too many of us back in the day metaphorically and literally thought, MTV.

Many, perhaps most reject the blandishments of the West--things that objectively-speaking would "improve" their lives--because belief systems and cultural practices teach them otherwise.

Thus, the power of culture and religion. Something my colleagues and I never fully came to understand.

Since that time I have attempted to learn more about belief systems, especially those that are so powerful and influential that they cause people frequently to act in ways that seemingly contribute to their own disadvantage.

Looking at the world and peoples' behavior that way, What's the Matter with Kansas can be extrapolated to most of the rest of the world.

I have been particularly interested in religious orthodoxies, especially those that are guided by an apocalyptic view of the world. That believe the End is near and that it is not too soon to be prepared to welcome it.

We find strong themes of this kind in all three Religions of the Book and those of you who have been following Behind know that this has for years been an ongoing topic for me, even to the point of obsession that runs the likely risk of boring you.

But during these dangerous times, I cannot resist applauding the New York Times, which two days ago, on the front page, ran a story about prophetic Islam and how an awareness of its wide-reaching power is guiding some of out best strategic behavior as we struggle to figure out culturally careful ways to limit and hopefully defeat ISIS.

Specifically, ISIS wants the United Staes to be drawn into a ground war in northern Syria.

ISIS leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi called our 2003 intervention in Iraq "the Blessed Invasion." A view based on Muslim prophetic texts that state that Islam will be victorious against the West after an apocalyptic battle that will be ignited once Western armies enter the region.

Jean-Pierre Filin, author of Apocalypse in Islam, says, "This is a very powerful and emotional narrative. It gives . . . [Islamic] fighters the feeling that they are not only part of the elite, they are part of the final battle."

These texts prophesize an apocalyptic battle in the small Syrian towns of Dabiq and al-Amaq. Last year Islamic State militants beheaded American hostage Peter Kassig in Dabiq. The executioner said, "Here we are burying the first American crusader in Dabiq, eagerly awaiting the remainder of your armies to arrive."

August 4, 2014--The War Against Culture

This is not a culture war as we in the United States know it. It's not about matters such as same-sex marriage or if evolution should be taught in public schools. Our culture "wars" seem trivial in comparison to what is being fought over in the center of Iraq.

There, in Mosul, in the country's second-largest city, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has seized control and is imposing strict Islamic law--sharia. ISIS is also waging war on culture itself, on history, and on people's identity.

The headlines have been about ISIS extracting vengeance against the Shiites who are their historic enemies. How they have been rounding up and summarily executing anyone with the taint of having served in or supported the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

All of this is sadly familiar. What is different is that ISIS is deliberately and systematically obliterating everything that makes Mosul Mosul and everything that connects the people there to their 8,000-year history and culture.

Mosul is one of the most ancient of cities and was once the capital of the Assyrian Empire. For centuries, at the crossroads between East and West, it was fought over and conquered in turn by the Persians, Arabs, Turks, and others, all of whom left evidence of their occupation.

Now ISIS has seized control and rather than adding their imprint to this cultural mix they are doing all in their power to obliterate all evidence of the past, especially destroying any Assyrian, Jewish, Christian, and even every Islamic shrine, the presence of which, according to their beliefs, are heretical.

Thus far they have leveled statues of Abu Tammam, a revered Arab poet, and Mullah Othman, a famous and popular 19th century musician and poet. And they have driven all Christians from the city, obliterating their holy places or forcing their conversion to ISIS's form of Islam. A form so severe that even Al-Qaeda has denounced them.

They also destroyed the grave site and shrine to the prophet Jonah whose life story plays a prominent part in the traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Residents fear that ISIS is planning to tear down and reduce to rubble the city's ancient leaning minaret. It is older than the Leaning Tower of Pisa and its image is represented on Iraq's 10,000 dinar bank note.

    Wrecked grave site of the biblical prophet Jonah

When ISIS militants entered Mosul in June, government troops stripped off their uniforms, threw away their arms, and attempted to blend into the civilian population for at least two reasons--to save their lives and because they felt that ISIS rule would be less oppressive than that imposed by the Maliki regime.

But with their history and culture imperiled, according to the New York Times, resistance to ISIS has emerged and Mosul residents, taking up arms, are coming forward to resist further desecration of their historical and religious shrines.

This is a reminder that culture trumps politics and economics every time.

There is a lesson here for those of us who, above all else, believe in reason and are reluctant to see the geopolitical force of emotion and belief. And thus we frequently fail to understand the power of culture.

Belief systems, history, national narratives, language, customs, arts, collective memory are more powerful than flatscreen TVs, Nikes, or iPhones.

OK, maybe not iPhones.

October 15, 2103--Getting a Get

A friend keeps a close eye on fanatics. Particularly of the Islamic sort, especially in regard to their barbaric treatment of girls and women. Like burying them in the ground and stoning them to death.

Though depressing, this is worth doing. We all have to speak out in outrage about practices of this kind. Those sanctioned by religious leaders and governments more than any others.

She and I were talking about this recently and I said that, though I share her outrage, I have chosen to concentrate on keeping my eye on and decrying fanatics among my own coreligionists. That's where I can claim credibility--not seeming in a one-sided way to castigate the sins of others while ignoring what those culturally closer to me may be doing that is also outrageous.

"But your people aren't killing people, not doing these kinds of hideous things to girls, so why are you focused on their relatively benign behavior?"

"In some cases they are not that benign--though admittedly, stoning women to death is in a category of its own. But in the past there are too many cases of Jews killing innocents. If we want to go back to the Old Testament, recall the Israelites treatment of the people of Canaan. The God of the Jews, it is written, instructed the Israelites to commit genocide on the Canaanites--to kill every one of them, including all woemn and children."

"But that was thousands of years ago," my friend protested.

"True, but this suggests to me that we still have to keep a wary eye on all people under the sway of fundamentalist religious dogma, especially if their faith's history might predispose them to violence. I particularly try to maintain a critical perspective on zealots in Israel and on the ultra-orthodox in America."

"I hear you, but I still see things a little differently."

Of course, in many ways she is right, yet I keep alert to the unacceptable things "my" people do and attempt to bring them to public attention.

The other day, for example, the New York Times reported about something occurring in Brooklyn that on the surface felt bizarre and Medieval.

Something about ultra-orthodox Jewish women seeking rabbinical permission to divorce abusive husbands. According to Jewish practice, in order to divorce a husband it is not enough to hire an attorney and file a petition in a civil court. Women must go before a committee of orthodox rabbis and attempt to convince them that there is appropriate cause for the rabbis to endorse their desire to seek a divorce. If they are convinced, they issue a get, a liturgical document that then allows women to proceed.

Since as in the other biblical religions women are considered less than second-class citizens, getting a get is complicated, difficult, frequently humiliating, and often costly.

To be clear--orthodox women seeking divorces usually need to pay the rabbinical court many thousands of dollars for them even to consider their cases. Especially in those circumstances where the husbands refuse to give permission for their wives to proceed since according to orthodox doctrine husbands have this power.

But according to the recent report in the Times, not only is the process very expensive, but what some rabbis have been arranging is bizarre, and likely illegal.

For fees that can total $60,000, the rabbis hire people to kidnap the reluctant husbands and have them physically tortured in order to force them to sign the required papers.

At least two rabbis who allegedly arranged for the kidnappings and torture were scooped up in a sting operation that included law-enforcement officials taping telephone conversations in which the rabbis casually talked about how they go about their violent business. Ironically, with a feminist twist since the beneficiaries of their "services" are women.

According to a rabbi caught on tape by federal prosecutor, after the husbands were abducted, "They beat them up and tied them up, shocked them with Tasers and stun gun until they got what they wanted."

One of the perpetrators, Rabbi Mendel Epstein talked openly and casually about how his hit men went about the techniques they used to fool the police if the victims stepped forward to report the kidnappings and torture:

If they beat them up carefully, leaving no visible bruises, "basically the reaction of the police is, if the guy does not have a mark on him then, uh, [they think there] is there some Jewish crazy affair here, they don't want to get involved."

And not only that--the rabbis guaranteed that after their "tough guys" finished with the husbands, the women will get their gets. And for the most part they did.