G, M, J and I had an interesting conversation the other day a propos a recent interview interview with Robert Fisk, journalist & author. Fisk said something to the effect of: "In the west, we've lost faith." In the muslim world, he argued, people have kept their faith, in this part of the world, people have allowed a place for religion in their lives. "As we used to, as, perhaps, up until the renaissance." "As a civilization in the west, we have lost our faith."
Upon hearing this, G, who was on the alert as usual, was critical. Not only did he point out what a huge generalization this idea amounts to, but he also talked about what a strange picture of "faith" is put forward here. Faith as something one can detect overtly. What does it, he asked, mean that we have lost faith "in the west". He refered to Vattimo, who denies that secularization necessarily implies that people have lost faith. Secularization, G pointed out, is simply the disappearance of certain forms of organized religion. And organized religion is not the same as faith. Leaving aside the question of how Fisk's comment is to be understood, I think there is a point in what G said. It is, of course, a common picture of religion that it is something that permeats societies to a lesser or greater extent. Newspapers report about religious parties loosing their foothold in a particular country, or a particular region. There is statistics about churchgoers, churchmembers - etc. (And there are these strange polls in which people are asked how much they trust specific societal institutions) But does societal development, figures and statistics pies, reveal anything about faith? Is faith expressed in people's lives in predictable ways? No. If I understood G's point correctly, he wanted to say that there is no necessary connection between "organized religion" and faith. He mentioned the lutheran frenzy and strivings for dogmatic purity in the Nordic country during the 17th century (known in Swedish as "ortodoxins tid") . Organized religion has had its heyday(s), for sure. But is it possible to say anything about people's relation to God based on historical or sociological facts? Hardly.
(One of G's reasons not to equate organized religion and faith is that an equation will make it look like there is a neutral, a-religious, way of describing "the holy", "the sacred", "sin". As if the majority could decide - as if God was a marginal concept.)
If we look at faith in this way, haven't we turned faith into a privately held opinion, something impossible to criticize (i.e. fideism)? But G said something smart here as well (in connection with a slightly different question): people within the church defend their refusal to accept female priests by referring to it being a religious, rather than political (democratic) question. But of course we are not satisfied with this withdrawal of the question from the sphere of politics. That was not the point from the start. The point is, I take it, that it is hard to take their views seriously as religious views. And that it is obvious that they want to defend the indefensible by emphasizing the religious character of the issue.
Faith is not something arcane or hidden. Not in the way a coin is hidden in my pocket. But faith is also not a specific form of actions or thoughts. Descriptions of secularization typically transform faith into an opion (the popularity of which can be measured) or habits (to be measured in terms of how widespread they are). In most representations of "secularization", religion is a political or societal force among others - think, for instance, about how we talk about the history of Iran; the sixties, the revolution, Iran after the revolution... This way of speaking is not a problem in itself, given that one is aware of the level at which one's argument is operating.
"In the west, we've lost faith" is uttered as a comment to something, in the context of a particular conversation. This might be important to keep in mind. Fisk's comment is related to his wanting to say something about our relation to the part of the world that is called "the muslim world" (a label that is quite interesting in itself). The idea that religious faith can be reduced to overt, social institutions is, I think, partly to be explained by a temptation to explain (away) differences. If something is explained by "religion" we seem to have reached a level of explanation that is indubitable, straightforward, clear. "They do it because it's their religion" - this is said in response to e.g. the desire to explain gender roles, war or politics. It's far easier to talk about faith as a "world view" that gains and looses popularity depending on historical setting, than it is to go deeper into the ways it may be relevant or irrelevant to talk about oneself or others as believers or non-believers. If Fisk wants to point at a problem of understanding - exactly what kind of problem is it?
In his interview, Fisk confessed that he wants to stay clear about framing the world as "civilizations". But he was still talking about the west and the muslim world as two "civilizations", one of which is deeply rooted in religion, the other not. What is it that made it so easy for Fisk to, for an instance, forget everything he said before?
3 comments:
While I do think G has an important point, I still feel Fisk has a point too... Something definitely changed at some point in European history that has to do with faith. You can pick en indicator of it, for instance Macchiavelli's separation of power from theology. Now that didn't maybe affect people "faith", but it changed the way people think about power so that it was no longer necessary to think it in a context where one would have to start with God, which as far as I can see was the case up to that point in Europe, and to many people today still is the case in the "muslim world" (which obviously is much less homogenous than renaissance Europe).
The point is, that at some point "faith" became a contested area in Europe, so that anyone who would want to talk in terms of faith, belief in God and so on would have to first claim some ground on which to place that statement. Fisk's point is that this is not the case among Muslims. A Muslim could say "This is God's will, there is nothing I can do about it" and there is no need to defend this kind of language. If a Christian would say the same thing, he most likely would have to implicitly or explicitly say something like "The way I interpret this situation is that things are beyond my control, but I have a unconditional trust that this is not a threat to me, since I believe that the world is in the hands of a benevolent power I call God." And most people would loose interest long before that sentence would be pronounced. I think that although Fisk i generalizing, there is some point in pointing out this difference.
"The point is, that at some point "faith" became a contested area in Europe, so that anyone who would want to talk in terms of faith, belief in God and so on would have to first claim some ground on which to place that statement."
No doubt you have a point there. For most Finns, traditional religious language has no role. But the interesting question is what KIND of point we make when we say that religious language requires plenty of defense in one context, while it is considered to be something normal, something familiar, "natural" in another.
That something is "intelligible" or "familiar" does tell us much in itself. The language of neuroscience, or evolutionary biology, is widely embraced today as frameworks for discussions of a great deal of issues. But that leaves us with the question: do these frameworks make a difference for how we live, or are they mere ideological tools, popular ways of shying away from certain difficulties - etc? I'm just saying: we have to go into very precise descriptions of the ways in which something is "intelligible".
But I guess one could ask: isn't it so, that a Christian WAY OF LIFE has disappeared, whereas faith still makes a difference in other parts of the world? But that's where the problems become apparent. I don't see how it is, at a general, neutral level, is possible to say anything about "societies and faith". Religion, for sure, seems to be open for these kinds of statements.
I hope it doesn't appear as if we're quibbling over words here. I want to point out the difference between faith as a religious possibility (there might be different descriptions of what this amounts to) and religion as a more or less intelligible, more or less common, way of life (that can be described neutrally).
Sorry - "That something is "intelligible" or "familiar" does *NOT* tell us much in itself.
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