Cross-posted from Dave's blog.
Preface: I recently received an email from a more conservative relative, concerning the "Fort Hood shooter," Nidal Malik Hasan. The email expresses skepticism at the notion of "PTSD" being involved, insinuating instead that religion--presumably "radical Islam"--must be to blame. I found myself writing the following response. I should note, I am not a religious person. I am agnostic, always seeking Truth but never bold enough to assume I've found it. I have my own ideas about the nature of God, but they remain theoretical, and I see no need to push them on others. So, I have instead written my response from a fairly Judeo-Christian frame, as that is the religion in which I was raised.
Nidal Malik Hasan, the "Fort Hood shooter." I do not deny that it is entirely possible that he had ties to extremist groups. However, preoccupation with his religion--or, perhaps, his "faith"--rather than his actions and whatever corrupted him--hate, mental infirmity, or whatever else--leaves me puzzled and uncomfortable.
I must ask, who can say what was in the man's heart? Certainly, mortal wisdom cannot answer. Whatever his "reason" for committing this atrocity, it's obvious he's a troubled man. Religion--ideology--is an easy scapegoat, but to lay blame at the feet of faith is a dangerous thing. So many have used words from the Bible to excuse evil--wrongly, of course. I would argue that a reading of the Bible guided by Christ's teachings--simply, to treat others with love and forgiveness--is the only way to find its true messages. Christ preached "judge not," something that far too many seem to forget far, far too easily.
The Qur'an carries the same danger of misuse as any religious text, and many--a shuddering, grievous number too many--have also misused it. (Yet, can we say for a moment that as many evils have not been carried out falsely under the name of Yahweh or Yeshua? Humans who harbor malice in their hearts can turn even the best ideas awry.) These misuses are not what religion--faith--is for. Wisdom of faith is meant to guide the soul to peace and good living, not to bring misery. Even the hedonists who call themselves "Satanists" seek only to please themselves, not specifically to harm others. (I distinguish them from those who actually, intentionally worship the Devil as a corporeal being--those would-be Satanists I have met often believe in no reality at all beyond the physical, empirical world.)
But, I digress.
I believe that God--however we choose to perceive Him--does good works through all people of all faiths, so long as their hearts are open to it. I do not believe we can fully know God's nature, cannot be certain that God cannot be reached through many faiths. To assume a clear knowledge of the workings of the spirit, of the soul, of God, is (I suspect) too much. Can we truly see but a muted reflection of what we suppose to be true about God?
No, I cannot bring myself to blame the failings of man on faith. Instead, I blame them on man, on his capacity for malice, selfishness, evil. By whatever name one calls God, if one is following a path to do good in the world--true, selfless good--then one will not act with malice or to cause harm. This is true of any person, any faith--or, at the least, so I believe.
This man's heart was not filled with God--with Allah--even if he believed it to be. His heart was filled with something wretched, broken, corrupted. Whatever his damage, his frailty, it gave evil a place to grow strong enough within him to lead him astray. The answer may not be so simple, so acceptable as "PTSD," but at the same time, could it not be related? He was a psychiatrist who had seen the damage done to those who had fought in war. Then, he faced walking into that fire, himself. Whatever malice--or despair, or something worse--exists in Hasan, we cannot know whence it came, but one might certainly wonder if there is a quantifiable cause. To blame his religion is naïve. Human motivations are never so simplistic. When humans are whole, we are able to resist the pull of evil--when we break, it may seep more easily into us, as infection into a wound.
So, perhaps Hasan was affected by "PTSD" or some similar condition, or perhaps not. There are certainly a number of questions surrounding his life in the months leading up to this tragedy--none that I accept as excuses, but perhaps they may help to explain things. Nor can I say what religion had to do with it. Either way, to blame his religion is not only an injustice to faith, but it fails to hold Hasan fully accountable for his crime.
Some might be inclined to toss around terms they don't really understand--such as Jihad, perhaps--but I hope they will hesitate, learn more about the actual meanings behind these words, these beliefs. Faith can be interpreted with love or with hate--and to assume that Islam is different from Christianity or Judaism or any other faith in that respect is not only foolish, not only untrue. It is a disservice to all forms of faith, everywhere.
Were I Christian, I would not wish to be judged for crimes committed by those who claim to be doing God's work. I hope the world can see beyond Hasan's own faith and judge him on his own actions, his own beliefs--not draw conclusions based on his religion. If Hasan's faith led him to this course, then whatever he believed was not Islam as practiced by countless people across the world who believe as much in peace and love as sincere Christians do.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Dave Rambles about Gender Construction and Ideology
Dave, here. I decided to adapt a post from my own blog, since it deals with a recent news item. Enjoy!
For some time, I've been meaning to write a blog entry on the failings of popular gender construction in contemporary American society. It began when I read "Women at Risk" by Bob Herbert (New York Times, 08.07.2009). Herbert writes, "We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected."
Herbert's column focuses primarily on the level misogyny tacitly accepted in our culture. He concludes, "We would become much more sane, much healthier, as a society if we could bring ourselves to acknowledge that misogyny is a serious and pervasive problem, and that the twisted way so many men feel about women, combined with the absurdly easy availability of guns, is a toxic mix of the most tragic proportions."
I believe he has a point. I also believe he's missing the deeper source of the issue. He probes closest to it, though, when he says, "One of the striking things about mass killings in the U.S. is how consistently we find that the killers were riddled with shame and sexual humiliation, which they inevitably blamed on women and girls. The answer to their feelings of inadequacy was to get their hands on a gun (or guns) and begin blowing people away."
This concept of "sexual humiliation," of shame, is linked directly to conceptions about what it is that makes one who is male a "man." It is no great leap of logic for one to ask, these days, what is a man, and how does that relate to maleness? How, apart from biology, is he any different from a woman? Is there any difference at all?
Science tells us many things about these differences. We know about differing brain chemistry, about different patterns in behavior and psychology, about how the physiological aspects of sexual dimorphism affect who we are, how we think and feel, what we can and will do. Rather, I should say we believe we know things about this. How much is nature, how much nurture? I certainly cannot answer this question, but I can suggest a few other relevant questions.
I am far from the first to ask, but why must we assume so much about what it means to be male, to be female? This extends far beyond whether one is encouraged to play with GI Joe or Barbie. Note, I am not discussing literal gender identity; that is another discussion for those who know more about it to conduct. No, I'm interrogating what it means to be a certain gender. Why must boys be "strong," and why must girls be "gentle"? Naturally, we can prove that this is not absolute. We know it is not always the case. These are not at all new ideas.
Yet, children are still encouraged to follow models of gender behavior that enforce cultural tradition. These have nothing to do with biological imperatives. It may be that boys are, on average, "naturally" more aggressive than girls -- though, I'm skeptical of such assumptions. Even so, there are expectations placed on males from birth as to what role they will fill in society -- they grow up told to "be a man." This can mean many different things, but in almost all cases it carries a strong imperative.
I do not, by the way, suggest for even a moment that there are not equally problematic gender constructions in place for women and girls. I just happen to have considerably less knowledge from that perspective.
Inevitably, part of being "a man" seems to -- almost always -- include proving one's heterosexual virility. Some might protest this claim; others might say, "Of course it does." Either way, the elephant is in the room. The emphasis on this "masculine" role is complicated by commingling with sexual partnering. It requires a partner who is not only female, but is willing to be "feminine" by the same schema that makes the male "manly."
Do we believe for a moment that sexual conquest is not a pressure impressed on men? Women, by the way, are not very likely to endorse the "man conquers woman" model these days -- if one believes that they, as a population, even really accepted it. Individual cases vary, as they always do, but if I may be so bold as to characterize the "woman" of contemporary Western culture, she's about a hell of a lot more than fulfilling a role in the archaic fetish of masculine dominance.
So, we have a culture where men are encouraged to strive for a position in relation to women that women are increasingly unlikely to tolerate. Now, consider Herbert's article, and you can see how absurd the entire model is. The entire thing boils down to the problematic nature of our cultural understanding of the gender binary.
Now, I'll come right out and say it: I find the whole thing stupid. Enforcing (or encouraging, or whatever term you find comfortable) "masculine" and "feminine" behavior accomplishes nothing but forcing people into roles and identities that may or may not be natural for them. I posit that if males were not pressured into "manly" roles and behaviors, they would be better able to cope with their difficulties.
After all, what could could teaching emotional openness, same-sex intimacy (platonic or otherwise), and willingness to seek help when they need it possibly do for men?
No, I suppose I'm not really very willing to give fair consideration to traditionalist arguments about gender roles, especially in the masculine case. I'm equally appalled at the tendency to attempt to enforce heteroexuality on males, contributing to the difficulties of growing up as a homosexual in our society. It seems absurd to enforce a masculine stereotype, as much as it does to assume that homosexual males will be foppish or effeminate.
In the end, I can't resolve the issue -- only rant about it. Sadly, it will take a great deal more than meandering blogs -- one, two, or even few thousand -- to make a difference. The difference can only be made in how we live our lives, the difference we're willing to make, such as putting aside traditions or expectations we have been given so that we can instead embrace progress. Scary thought, I realize.
Perhaps, just perhaps, we might choose having a healthy impact on our perception of what it means to be a man, rather than focusing on outmoded assumptions or selfish expectations -- or, at least, we can always blog about it, hoping for an interesting conversation.
For some time, I've been meaning to write a blog entry on the failings of popular gender construction in contemporary American society. It began when I read "Women at Risk" by Bob Herbert (New York Times, 08.07.2009). Herbert writes, "We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected."
Herbert's column focuses primarily on the level misogyny tacitly accepted in our culture. He concludes, "We would become much more sane, much healthier, as a society if we could bring ourselves to acknowledge that misogyny is a serious and pervasive problem, and that the twisted way so many men feel about women, combined with the absurdly easy availability of guns, is a toxic mix of the most tragic proportions."
I believe he has a point. I also believe he's missing the deeper source of the issue. He probes closest to it, though, when he says, "One of the striking things about mass killings in the U.S. is how consistently we find that the killers were riddled with shame and sexual humiliation, which they inevitably blamed on women and girls. The answer to their feelings of inadequacy was to get their hands on a gun (or guns) and begin blowing people away."
This concept of "sexual humiliation," of shame, is linked directly to conceptions about what it is that makes one who is male a "man." It is no great leap of logic for one to ask, these days, what is a man, and how does that relate to maleness? How, apart from biology, is he any different from a woman? Is there any difference at all?
Science tells us many things about these differences. We know about differing brain chemistry, about different patterns in behavior and psychology, about how the physiological aspects of sexual dimorphism affect who we are, how we think and feel, what we can and will do. Rather, I should say we believe we know things about this. How much is nature, how much nurture? I certainly cannot answer this question, but I can suggest a few other relevant questions.
I am far from the first to ask, but why must we assume so much about what it means to be male, to be female? This extends far beyond whether one is encouraged to play with GI Joe or Barbie. Note, I am not discussing literal gender identity; that is another discussion for those who know more about it to conduct. No, I'm interrogating what it means to be a certain gender. Why must boys be "strong," and why must girls be "gentle"? Naturally, we can prove that this is not absolute. We know it is not always the case. These are not at all new ideas.
Yet, children are still encouraged to follow models of gender behavior that enforce cultural tradition. These have nothing to do with biological imperatives. It may be that boys are, on average, "naturally" more aggressive than girls -- though, I'm skeptical of such assumptions. Even so, there are expectations placed on males from birth as to what role they will fill in society -- they grow up told to "be a man." This can mean many different things, but in almost all cases it carries a strong imperative.
I do not, by the way, suggest for even a moment that there are not equally problematic gender constructions in place for women and girls. I just happen to have considerably less knowledge from that perspective.
Inevitably, part of being "a man" seems to -- almost always -- include proving one's heterosexual virility. Some might protest this claim; others might say, "Of course it does." Either way, the elephant is in the room. The emphasis on this "masculine" role is complicated by commingling with sexual partnering. It requires a partner who is not only female, but is willing to be "feminine" by the same schema that makes the male "manly."
Do we believe for a moment that sexual conquest is not a pressure impressed on men? Women, by the way, are not very likely to endorse the "man conquers woman" model these days -- if one believes that they, as a population, even really accepted it. Individual cases vary, as they always do, but if I may be so bold as to characterize the "woman" of contemporary Western culture, she's about a hell of a lot more than fulfilling a role in the archaic fetish of masculine dominance.
So, we have a culture where men are encouraged to strive for a position in relation to women that women are increasingly unlikely to tolerate. Now, consider Herbert's article, and you can see how absurd the entire model is. The entire thing boils down to the problematic nature of our cultural understanding of the gender binary.
Now, I'll come right out and say it: I find the whole thing stupid. Enforcing (or encouraging, or whatever term you find comfortable) "masculine" and "feminine" behavior accomplishes nothing but forcing people into roles and identities that may or may not be natural for them. I posit that if males were not pressured into "manly" roles and behaviors, they would be better able to cope with their difficulties.
After all, what could could teaching emotional openness, same-sex intimacy (platonic or otherwise), and willingness to seek help when they need it possibly do for men?
No, I suppose I'm not really very willing to give fair consideration to traditionalist arguments about gender roles, especially in the masculine case. I'm equally appalled at the tendency to attempt to enforce heteroexuality on males, contributing to the difficulties of growing up as a homosexual in our society. It seems absurd to enforce a masculine stereotype, as much as it does to assume that homosexual males will be foppish or effeminate.
In the end, I can't resolve the issue -- only rant about it. Sadly, it will take a great deal more than meandering blogs -- one, two, or even few thousand -- to make a difference. The difference can only be made in how we live our lives, the difference we're willing to make, such as putting aside traditions or expectations we have been given so that we can instead embrace progress. Scary thought, I realize.
Perhaps, just perhaps, we might choose having a healthy impact on our perception of what it means to be a man, rather than focusing on outmoded assumptions or selfish expectations -- or, at least, we can always blog about it, hoping for an interesting conversation.
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