We in the modern West have a tendency to divide phenomena into "natural" and "supernatural" categories, and to treat the two classes of phenomena quite differently. The study of history, for example, is often assumed to be the study of "natural" phenomena only, and to have nothing to say about "supernatural" ones.
The problem with such an approach is that the distinction between "natural" and "supernatural" is a socially-constructed rather than a self-evident one. The roots of the distinction lay in the matter-spirit dualism that was so popular among Protestant theologians and philosophers after the Middle Ages. Under this framework, all "material" phenomena could be classed as "natural", whereas all "spiritual" phenomena could be considered "supernatural". This distinction was somewhat complicated even in Protestant theology by the fact that natural and supernatural sometimes overlapped. For example, God was believed to be providentially, supernaturally guiding the course of history. But for most Protestant intellectuals, the distinction seemed obvious and ontologically real.
But not everyone-- not even every Protestant-- believes in matter-spirit dualism. For example, magicians and alchemists throughout history have often viewed magic as a "natural" phenomenon, and the study of magic as a natural "science". And even in religious worldviews that do accept a dualism of matter and spirit, the two realms are often thought to be deeply interactive and interwoven. Some religions believe, for example, that there are spirits within every rock and tree, or deities within statues of rock and wood. Others believe that spiritual power can literally be transferred from person to person by the laying on of hands, or through the consumption of bread and wine. Many Christians feel that demons can become affixed to physical locations, or that miraculous healings and angelic interventions occur on a regular basis. In these traditions, seemingly "supernatural" events are thought take place observably in the "natural" world. What's more, they occur in the ordinary course of events; they follow regular patterns and may not even be considered unusual.
This is part of the reason that I have argued elsewhere against a historical approach that suspends or brackets all "supernatural" claims. The very classification of a phenomenon as "supernatural" implies a prejudgment by the historian, and an imposition of his Western-Enlightenment categories onto the subjects of his study. There is a kind of inherent arrogance in this approach, as if the phenomena that are most important to religious believers are not worthy of serious study by historians.
One way to get around this problem is to do what Robert Orsi has done, with his "abundant history" approach. Orsi calls for historians to "think with the assumption of the realness of [our subjects' spirits and deities], as real entities in history and experience not simply or sufficiently identifiable with social structures, origins, or functions, and certainly not as 'symbols,' but as having a presence that becomes autonomous within particular life-worlds." In other words, Orsi basically calls for historians to suspend their disbelief and write from a position of functional acceptance of their subjects' religious claims.
Another way around the problem is to evaluate "supernatural" phenomena as one would any other historical phenomena or events. For example, a purported "divine healing" event could be examined and evaluated to determine, insofar as the evidence allows, whether it actually occurred and what possible causes (divine or otherwise) might explain it. The danger of this approach is that a negative conclusion runs the risk of offending or alienating religious readers. The upside is that there is rarely enough evidence to come to a definite negative conclusion, and in treating the healing as even potentially historical we are regarding our subjects with a seriousness that secular academics often do not accord them.
Perhaps these two approaches can even be held in tension. We could do both: try to get inside our subjects' skin to see and experience phenomena as they saw and experienced them, while also offering commentary on the nature and historicity of the phenomena insofar as the evidence allows. This is what Richard Bushman did in his biography of Joseph Smith: balancing sensitivity with critical sensibility. I hope to make his approach a model for future work of my own.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
What Motivates Suicide Bombers?
Although we have a tendency to assume that Islamic suicide bombers are merely "crazy people", there is a growing body of literature exploring suicide bombing as a rationally-motivated phenomenon. This week I read an article by Arie Kruglanski arguing that suicide bombing can be explained as a "quest for personal significance". Although I agree that suicide bombers are "rational" actors and that personal significance is one important motivation, I don't think that Kruglanski's proposal quite captures the entire picture. So, here is my attempt to explain the logic of suicide bombing.
We all have a set of preferences, which can be "ranked" according to their "salience". If I prefer ice cream to pecan pie, for example, then ice cream can be said to have a higher salience for me than pecan pie. Given the choice between the two, I will choose ice cream. (It may be, however, that my slim figure has a higher salience for me than either treat, in which case I will choose to forego both!) Although we can complicate these assumptions in various ways, they should suffice for the moment.
For most people, physical survival has very high salience. However, there may be things that have higher salience. A mother, for example, may be willing to give her life to save her children. The impulse for maternal protection is stronger-- has higher salience-- than the impulse for survival. Similarly, then, a person will become a suicide bomber when the following conditions are met:
1. The expected outcome of self-sacrifice has high salience,†
2. The salience of physical survival is lower than the salience of the above expected outcome, and
3. One is presented with the necessary means and opportunity to carry out the act.
It's no accident that most people who carry out such acts do so in the name of radical ideologies and organizations. Such ideologies and organizations help meet each of the above conditions.
For example, in Hamas-run schools in Palestine, "martyrs" are accorded great prestige, and children are taught that martyrdom will be rewarded in heaven and will alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people. Jews, meanwhile are dehumanized as "dogs," "pigs," and "enemies." These teachings exalt the benefits of martyrdom while downplaying its ethical and political downsides. This helps to satisfy the first condition.
The second condition may be satisfied either by convincing people that physical death is merely a gateway to a higher and better existence, or by devaluing the continuation of physical life. Radical Islamist groups do both. They teach that martyrs go to heaven where they enjoy great pleasures such as the 70 celestial virgins, and they also socially sanction failure and cowardice so that failed bombers will experience great shame and loss of self-worth. Such measures greatly reduce the salience of physical survival.
The role that radical groups play in meeting the third condition, of course, should be obvious. Organized groups tend to have access to funding and expertise that individuals do not. Most individuals would never be presented with the opportunity for martyrdom without the support of a radical group.
So while the quest for personal significance may be one factor motivating terrorists to engage in suicide-bombing, it is neither the only such motive nor the only condition that must be met. Suicide bombers may be moved, for example, by compassion for Palestinians, or by fear of shame, or by desire for a peaceful and pleasurable existence in heaven. A better predictor for martyr-behavior than loss of personal significance would seem to be the presence of a radicalized group or ideology that socializes people, manipulates their preferences, and provides them means and opportunity.
† The perceived probability of the outcome is a factor as well, but is here assumed to be 100%. A formal model would express conditions 1 and 2 this way:
We all have a set of preferences, which can be "ranked" according to their "salience". If I prefer ice cream to pecan pie, for example, then ice cream can be said to have a higher salience for me than pecan pie. Given the choice between the two, I will choose ice cream. (It may be, however, that my slim figure has a higher salience for me than either treat, in which case I will choose to forego both!) Although we can complicate these assumptions in various ways, they should suffice for the moment.
For most people, physical survival has very high salience. However, there may be things that have higher salience. A mother, for example, may be willing to give her life to save her children. The impulse for maternal protection is stronger-- has higher salience-- than the impulse for survival. Similarly, then, a person will become a suicide bomber when the following conditions are met:
1. The expected outcome of self-sacrifice has high salience,†
2. The salience of physical survival is lower than the salience of the above expected outcome, and
3. One is presented with the necessary means and opportunity to carry out the act.
It's no accident that most people who carry out such acts do so in the name of radical ideologies and organizations. Such ideologies and organizations help meet each of the above conditions.
For example, in Hamas-run schools in Palestine, "martyrs" are accorded great prestige, and children are taught that martyrdom will be rewarded in heaven and will alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people. Jews, meanwhile are dehumanized as "dogs," "pigs," and "enemies." These teachings exalt the benefits of martyrdom while downplaying its ethical and political downsides. This helps to satisfy the first condition.
The second condition may be satisfied either by convincing people that physical death is merely a gateway to a higher and better existence, or by devaluing the continuation of physical life. Radical Islamist groups do both. They teach that martyrs go to heaven where they enjoy great pleasures such as the 70 celestial virgins, and they also socially sanction failure and cowardice so that failed bombers will experience great shame and loss of self-worth. Such measures greatly reduce the salience of physical survival.
The role that radical groups play in meeting the third condition, of course, should be obvious. Organized groups tend to have access to funding and expertise that individuals do not. Most individuals would never be presented with the opportunity for martyrdom without the support of a radical group.
So while the quest for personal significance may be one factor motivating terrorists to engage in suicide-bombing, it is neither the only such motive nor the only condition that must be met. Suicide bombers may be moved, for example, by compassion for Palestinians, or by fear of shame, or by desire for a peaceful and pleasurable existence in heaven. A better predictor for martyr-behavior than loss of personal significance would seem to be the presence of a radicalized group or ideology that socializes people, manipulates their preferences, and provides them means and opportunity.
† The perceived probability of the outcome is a factor as well, but is here assumed to be 100%. A formal model would express conditions 1 and 2 this way:
Salience of Survival * Perceived Probability of Death (100%) > Salience of Expected Outcome * Perceived Probability of This Outcome
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Reason, Feeling, and Decisionmaking
AdamF over at Mormon Matters posted an argument the other day defending the legitimacy of allowing "feelings" to play a major role in decisionmaking. He argues,
Without emotions, we are literally not capable of making decisions. No amount of logical thinking, reasoning, or studying can lead to actual decisions without the influence of emotion: “Cut off from our feelings, the most banal decisions become impossible. A brain that can’t feel can’t make up its mind.”I don't disagree with Adam's assessment, but I think he may be missing some important distinctions about the kinds of decisions in which feelings play a legitimate role, and the kinds of roles that feelings legitimately play.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Republicanism in the Book of Mormon
Those who object to finding “republicanism” in the Book of Mormon generally seem to assume that early American republicanism was a monolithic phenomenon—characterized by the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian ideals that dominate the popular modern mythology of America’s founding. This Jeffersonian-Jacksonian tradition was strongly in favor of states’ rights, decentralized government, yeoman farmers, and separation of church and state. The Book of Mormon, it is commonly argued, has its judges act more like kings and theocrats than American (i.e. Jeffersonian) presidents.
While it is true that Jacksonian ideals were in the ascendancy in the late 1820’s and early 30’s, there was another line of American political thought that retained real strength in some parts of the country—especially in New York, where it united with the anti-Masonic furor sparked by the Morgan affair. (Most early converts seem to have been anti-Masons or to have had anti-Masonic sympathies, including most notably Martin Harris and W. W. Phelps.) These old-school conservatives and “Adams-men”, left-over from the recently disintegrated Federalist Party, united into the short-lived “National Republican Party” from 1825-1833. Their platform was strong central government, mingling of church and state, and fear of mob rule. Although they tended to be urban and wealthier than the Jacksonians, they used the same populist rhetoric and—as already mentioned—were strong in Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania where they could unite with populist anti-Masons who saw Jackson as the front man for a Masonic conspiracy to subvert and infiltrate the government for diabolical purposes.[1]
The National Republican/Anti-Masonic platform is closer to what we find in the Book of Mormon than Jacksonianism. It explains the populist and republican rhetoric as well as Jacksonianism would have, but it also accounts for the urban, theocratic, despotic, and anti-Masonic overtones. Thus when Richard Bushman objects that the chief judge “was more king than president”, we may hear echoes of Federalism.[2] And if in the Book of Mormon “church and state are liberally intermixed”, this is hardly out of keeping with the National Republican platform.[3]
Granted, Book of Mormon politics are not merely republican or even primarily republican. The republican elements are lodged in a biblical narrative framework. Like Israel in the Bible, the Nephite leaders are called kings and judges rather than presidents and legislators. The interpretation of the reign of the judges as a government founded on republican principles was commonplace in the 19th century.[4] On the other hand, it was also widely recognized that the reign of the judges also had aristocratic and theocratic features. As one commentator put it, “The Hebrew government, putting out of view its theocratical feature, was of a mixed form, in some respects approaching to a democracy, in others assuming more of an aristocratical character.”[5] Those features of Book of Mormon government that Bushman finds to be non-republican—hereditary succession, the absence of checks and balances, legislation by judges, leadership by inspiration, etc.—are all features of the biblical reign of judges that appear to have been imported into the Book of Mormon narrative.
This however does not negate the fact that the Book of Mormon infuses the biblical system with American, republican overtones, as other 19th century interpreters of the Bible also were wont to do. This has the double effect of both supporting American democracy by giving it a biblical precedent and challenging it by highlighting its unbiblical secularity. It is hardly surprising that the man who wrote the Book of Mormon went on to become both a prophet and a presidential candidate.
So... is there American republicanism in the Book of Mormon? Yes—specifically the Federalist variety espoused by the National Republican Party. But the Book of Mormon is not a republican book, but a biblical book with a republican accent.
NOTES:
[1] Cf. Dan Vogel, "Mormonism's 'Anti-Masonick Bible'," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 9 (1989): 17-30.
[2] Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 132.
[3] Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 103.
[4] It was also common to refer to the Law of Moses as a “constitution”. See "Sacred Politics," The Republican 2, no. 4 (1825): 134.
[5] Richard Watson, "Government of the Hebrews," in A Biblical and Theological Dictionary: Explanatory of the History, Manners, and Customs of the Jews, and Neighboring Nations (New York: B. Waugh and T. Mason, 1832), 421-22.
While it is true that Jacksonian ideals were in the ascendancy in the late 1820’s and early 30’s, there was another line of American political thought that retained real strength in some parts of the country—especially in New York, where it united with the anti-Masonic furor sparked by the Morgan affair. (Most early converts seem to have been anti-Masons or to have had anti-Masonic sympathies, including most notably Martin Harris and W. W. Phelps.) These old-school conservatives and “Adams-men”, left-over from the recently disintegrated Federalist Party, united into the short-lived “National Republican Party” from 1825-1833. Their platform was strong central government, mingling of church and state, and fear of mob rule. Although they tended to be urban and wealthier than the Jacksonians, they used the same populist rhetoric and—as already mentioned—were strong in Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania where they could unite with populist anti-Masons who saw Jackson as the front man for a Masonic conspiracy to subvert and infiltrate the government for diabolical purposes.[1]
The National Republican/Anti-Masonic platform is closer to what we find in the Book of Mormon than Jacksonianism. It explains the populist and republican rhetoric as well as Jacksonianism would have, but it also accounts for the urban, theocratic, despotic, and anti-Masonic overtones. Thus when Richard Bushman objects that the chief judge “was more king than president”, we may hear echoes of Federalism.[2] And if in the Book of Mormon “church and state are liberally intermixed”, this is hardly out of keeping with the National Republican platform.[3]
Granted, Book of Mormon politics are not merely republican or even primarily republican. The republican elements are lodged in a biblical narrative framework. Like Israel in the Bible, the Nephite leaders are called kings and judges rather than presidents and legislators. The interpretation of the reign of the judges as a government founded on republican principles was commonplace in the 19th century.[4] On the other hand, it was also widely recognized that the reign of the judges also had aristocratic and theocratic features. As one commentator put it, “The Hebrew government, putting out of view its theocratical feature, was of a mixed form, in some respects approaching to a democracy, in others assuming more of an aristocratical character.”[5] Those features of Book of Mormon government that Bushman finds to be non-republican—hereditary succession, the absence of checks and balances, legislation by judges, leadership by inspiration, etc.—are all features of the biblical reign of judges that appear to have been imported into the Book of Mormon narrative.
This however does not negate the fact that the Book of Mormon infuses the biblical system with American, republican overtones, as other 19th century interpreters of the Bible also were wont to do. This has the double effect of both supporting American democracy by giving it a biblical precedent and challenging it by highlighting its unbiblical secularity. It is hardly surprising that the man who wrote the Book of Mormon went on to become both a prophet and a presidential candidate.
So... is there American republicanism in the Book of Mormon? Yes—specifically the Federalist variety espoused by the National Republican Party. But the Book of Mormon is not a republican book, but a biblical book with a republican accent.
NOTES:
[1] Cf. Dan Vogel, "Mormonism's 'Anti-Masonick Bible'," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 9 (1989): 17-30.
[2] Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 132.
[3] Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 103.
[4] It was also common to refer to the Law of Moses as a “constitution”. See "Sacred Politics," The Republican 2, no. 4 (1825): 134.
[5] Richard Watson, "Government of the Hebrews," in A Biblical and Theological Dictionary: Explanatory of the History, Manners, and Customs of the Jews, and Neighboring Nations (New York: B. Waugh and T. Mason, 1832), 421-22.
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However, choosing a course of action is a little different than the case of deciding what is true. Assuming that we all emotionally prefer truth to fiction, we will want to employ the most powerful and reliable truth-evaluation techniques available. Hard experience suggests that what we call “logic” and “the scientific method” are more reliable than emotional preference when it comes to assessing the truth or falsity of a proposition. For example, no matter how much I want to believe that there will be no consequences if I do nothing but sit around watching TV and eating popcorn every day, it just isn’t true.
Of course, the assumption that we all emotionally prefer truth to fiction probably isn’t true, either. There are some things many of us would just rather not know. In that case, it is perfectly rational to decide based on emotional preference and to avoid evidence or rational analysis that might potentially disconfirm the alternative one has chosen.