Wrestling with the Rottweiler: On Reading Mr. Dawkins

So I finally read the controversial bestseller The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, two years after I read--and almost unquestioningly accepted--one of its formal rebuttals, Karen Armstrong’s The Case For God. Critics of Armstrong who also happen to be fans of Dawkins may be disappointed that my respect and admiration for Armstrong has not diminished, after reading Dawkins’s work. This is in part because I don’t believe that they’re direct, natural opponents. But I will disagree with Armstrong in her portrayal of Dawkins as overly aggressive or militant. What I have found in Dawkins is a mind as scrupulous as he is unflinching in his search for truth. The God Delusion is full of wit, robust logic, and great passion. There were moments where his contempt for religion nearly overrode the content of his arguments, but the content itself was virtually airtight, especially where it concerned religion’s track record. But again, his love for the natural world is greater than his hatred for the supernatural. I especially felt his love for the reality of the universe that science has unveiled, in the very last segment of the book, titled “The Mother of All Burkas”. But I’ll say no more about whether he takes it too far or not. You should go and read it and decide for yourself.

Theist? Atheist? Agnostic?

I decided to read this book because I felt it would be irresponsible of me not to. I read Armstrong’s response to New Atheism, so it’s only fair to examine New Atheism itself, right? Prompted by The Case for God I’ve spent the past two years reading books on religion, written by believers and nonbelievers alike. I’ve been reading book after book in an attempt to clarify not just what stance is best to take on religion, but exactly what it is I believe to be the truth about existence. I read this book most recently because I have been trying to sort out a very complicated relationship I have with religion and the idea of God.

To say I had lost my faith in God would be inaccurate, because I’m not quite sure I had any to begin with. My history with faith could be characterized by a series of attempts to get it, as though it were something I was lacking. This seems like a good enough indicator to stop trying,yet I’ve been compelled by and attracted to many aspects of religion all the same. Every time I thought I was done with it, something pulled me back. I felt very confused, and didn’t know where to stand. Whether it was faith (whatever that could possibly mean) or merely a sentimental loyalty, this feeling clearly demanded my attention. I felt condemned to agnosticism, and I didn’t particularly like being there, hoping that if I dug just a little deeper, I could discover what notion is enthroned in my psyche. So I wanted to see if ‘Darwin’s Rottweiler’ Richard Dawkins could tip me--poor, indecisive wretch--in the direction of atheism. I wanted to see if he could change my mind. I hoped to test my own views on religion and see if they stood up to the author’s rhetoric. Any God that could be argued away by just a book, I reasoned, was obviously a god I didn’t truly believe in, and not something worth believing in in the first place. Not just considering his arguments, but observing my reaction to his arguments would reveal myself to myself. So reading a book like The God Delusion was a method of honing, sharpening, and clarifying.

Biting Back

I was surprised by it, in a few ways. First, I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. I’m not a huge fan of polemic, but I must admit it was great fun to read, thanks to the wit and clarity of Dawkins’ prose. The kind of atheism Dawkins espouses is a much more politicized one. He encourages atheists to stand up to the discrimination they face. Atheists and skeptics are not given the same respect afforded to believers in many parts of the world, the uber-religious United States being one of them. Yes, he does outright attack religion in many places (mainly the parts where it sucks), but he wasn’t nearly as aggressive as I thought he would be. He seemed less pugnacious as Sam Harris in The Moral Landscape (and even less so than Hitchens in God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything). But if his words do seem barbed, you can hardly blame him, seeing as his own profession and everything he’s worked for is itself under threat from religious lobbyists trying to force schools to teach creationism and Intelligent Design alongside evolution. And let’s not forget when he was writing this book, the Bush administration had been halting funding in the U.S. for stem-cell research, a potentially life-saving pursuit. He feels his world--which is also everybody’s, by the way--is under attack. They bite, and he bites back (with pen, sans sword). So, fair enough.

Zeitgeist

But above all, I was also surprised at how much I agreed with him. A lot of his arguments I had at least heard the gist of before (such as were phrased by Comte-Sponville in The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, and John Shelby Spong in The Sins of Scripture), while other conclusions he made were ones I had arrived at on my own, only to find them articulated better here. For example, I was always troubled by the way people tend to be selective of which parts of the Bible they obey, depending on their own cultural standards. This suggested that people don’t actually derive their morals from the Bible, but rather from standards outside and independent of it. Dawkins covers this in the chapter titled ‘The “Good Book” and the Changing Moral Zeitgeist’:

Remember, all I am trying to establish for the moment is that we do not, as a matter of fact, derive our morals from scripture. Or, if we do, we pick and choose among the scriptures for the nice bits and reject the nasty. But then we must have some independent criterion for deciding which are the moral bits: a criterion which, wherever it comes from, cannot come from scripture itself and is presumable available to all of us whether we are religious or not.

Of course, many religious people today don’t take the Bible literally, and don’t feel as though they have to, in light of the Bible scholarship that has emerged in the past two hundred years. But a non-literal view makes it much trickier to hold on to religion as we know it. Some can manage it, others can’t. I have been trying to find out which camp I belong to, and if God has any meaning left to me. If anything of my spiritual ties to Christianity remains, it has a closer resemblance to Spong’s non-theistic version. And for that reason, I actually found it easy to side with Dawkins on many points.

Religion = Child Abuse

Another point Dawkins raises that’s bothered me so often in the past is the contingency of religious belief. The biggest reason why I might prefer to be a Christian rather than a Muslim or a Rastafarian is because I was raised, more or less, as a Christian, and have lived in a predominantly Christian culture. How unfortunate for those living outside of Christendom! Are they to be damned forever because they weren’t lucky enough to be raised with a bias toward Lord Jesus Christ? More often than not faith is not a choice, so how could a loving God force an impossible choice on us? The habits we’re taught in childhood are incredibly powerful. And what Dawkins wants us to consider is calling a child a “Muslim girl” or a “Christian boy” is as ridiculous as calling one a “Marxist child”. He does not ask people to raise their children as atheists per se, but to raise them to think for themselves and decide what they believe after they’ve learned enough about the world and are mature enough to make that decision on their own. Makes sense to me. At first, I was a little shocked that he went so far as to call indoctrination a form of child abuse, but the more I consider it, the more I realize he’s definitely on to something.

“Gateway Drug” Religion

Religious moderates and religious liberals may resent the way Dawkins lumps them in the same camp as fundamentalists, but he does make a compelling case for doing so, however much it rankles people. One thing he mentions which I hadn’t considered before, and which I find very difficult to shake off, is that even though a religious practice and the doctrine behind it may be perfectly innocuous in most cases, it may lead to more sinister strains, as so many are based on something not based on conclusive evidence, and driven by faith, which doesn’t require evidence. The fact that so many of the 14th Dalai Lama’s followers regard him as a reincarnation of the semi-divine spirit Avalokitesvara makes them vulnerable to all sorts of abuses of power. Thankfully Tenzin Gyatso is an open-minded and compassionate person, and has given up his role as head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, and remains only a head of state and their spiritual leader. This is great, but this lineage is still a gamble, like all monarchies that claim power by divine right. Again, he has done much to bolster the hopes and morale of his people and promote peace throughout the world; I think this can’t be overstated. But while the Tibetans of Dharamsala are more democratically organized now, keep in mind that it took thirteen (Buddhist) predecessors to get to this point. And those ones didn’t seem to mind having all that power.

Credo: A Rough Sketch

If nothing else, I realised from reading this book that I have much more in common with atheists than I do theists: I believe in evolution. I believe the universe came into being 13.7 billion years ago. I believe that human beings are just another form of complex life, one more species among the billions on this planet, and we have an intelligence to which other animals are not entirely restricted, therefore we are not as special in the animal kingdom as we thought. I believe we are capable of uplifting acts of goodness, as well as chilling acts of evil, and neither are necessarily proof of a good or evil will pervading the entire, non-living universe. We are extraordinary, but we are not the be-all and end-all of evolution, because it’s an ongoing story and something better than us will emerge, (if we don’t destroy the planet, that is). I believe in all of these things which we have learned through the scientific method. And if new evidence came along to discredit it all, I would simply have to change my beliefs to suit the facts.

There are theists who believe all these things as well, but where I differ with them is that whatever transcendent experience we can acquire in this lifetime--satori, Grace, Brahman, creative flow--it is not likely to be the result of a Super-intelligence coming in from outside of our universe and deliberately injecting us with Himself. Whatever divinity is, it probably comes from within us, not from Elsewhere. Also, I don’t believe in the literal Virgin Birth, Resurrection, or any other such miracles, any more than I believe in the literal virgin birth of the Buddha or the literal resurrection of Osiris.

I can’t express how tempted I am to think in theistic terms, but if I were to be ruthlessly honest I would have to admit that there is no proof that our access to enlightenment is caused by Someone Else. I believe our focus on the hereafter is a threat to the good that comes from the here and now: this is the only good we’ve known, because now is all we have. There’s a reason our visions of heaven resemble Earth but shinier; it’s the only point of reference we have. C.S. Lewis’ assertion that because nothing on earth could satisfy his deepest longing implied there must be something beyond this world that does is unconvincing, though extremely attractive. It feels redundant to state these empirically verified beliefs, because I’ve held them for a long time now. But this book confronts me with them, and reminds me that to accept these things as truth and then adopt a worldview not based on them is irresponsible and lazy.

“To you be your religion; to me, mine.”

What I also appreciated about this book is that Dawkins cuts admirably through all the moral relativism that floats around in secular society. In a culture where it’s more P.C. to say ‘I don’t agree with you’ than to say ‘your argument is wrong’, I’m kind of impressed by his brass. If a Christian believes that only through accepting Jesus can we be saved, then this belief implies the corollary that souls of non-believers are in mortal danger.

He may not admit it in polite conversation, but it’s there. And yet I can’t even count how many conversations I’ve had that have shied away from it, out of politeness, or politics. Of course, a Christian can also believe in another person’s right to disagree. But that same person believes in a God who presides over believers and non-believers alike. It’s the same with an atheist. Even if an atheist says “You can believe what you like, I don’t agree with you,” he is implying that he thinks the other person’s worldview is false. We associate argument with discord and aggression, but it can have positive benefits as well. Being goaded into a kind of intellectual sparring match can helps us to clarify what it is we're defending. In arguing "your views are incorrect and here is why..." he forces readers to be really honest with themselves.

Let’s Talk

Attacking, demonizing and belittling the other side is obviously no solution. As the religion debate is enflamed more and more every day, I think we’ve got to be as compassionate and respectful as possible as we attempt to carry on a dialogue. Of course, it is difficult to hold a conversation when the other side is wholly devoted to your annihilation. But even in more peaceful company there is a danger in simply saying ‘you have your beliefs and I have mine’, agreeing to disagree and then going off and living in one's own hermetically sealed worlds. Living so subjectively makes it nearly impossible to speak meaningfully about anything, and we start to teeter over into nihilism. I think by taking a bolder stance on the matter Dawkins is trying to call our attention to that danger. Just because, as the truism goes, truth is subjective, it doesn't mean we aren't allowed to have our own convictions about the world. We’ve simply got to keep talking, and be open to our minds being changed. People accuse Dawkins of the same narrow thinking he diagnoses in his fundamentalist opponents, but he claims that if there was any sufficient evidence to discount evolution by natural selection or the Big Bang for that matter, he would be obliged to abandon these concepts, because that's what scientists must do. A fundamentalist, on the other hand, would dig their heels in deeper. Skeptics may have the upper-hand in this ongoing dialogue, because they are more ready to say “I was wrong” than their religious counterparts.

Homo Religiosus

Alright, so once finishing, the question remains: has Dawkins changed my mind about God? How about religion?

Dawkins covers almost every possible angle on religion, and you feel compelled to take a side. Let’s face it: religion’s track record is abysmal. And it is not just because it has been hijacked by human greed, hatred, fear and lust for power. People also do terrible things because they believe in them.

Perhaps religion should just die off, but in all honesty I think it won’t, not any time soon. However, I also think there’s still a great deal we can learn from religion, even if many of us can no longer return to its insane orthodoxies. I’ve talked about this before, but I’ll try to go into more detail about where I stand in a later post. For now I'll finish by saying I can’t agree with Dawkins, one hundred per cent, though I'm pretty close. Does this mean I am an atheist? Well, from everything I've just written it may sound like de facto atheism. This may be so, but even now the matter feels unresolved in my mind, and needs a post of its own, so I'll hold off here as well. I am far from finished with God. As far as religion is concerned, there may be ways of rethinking and reinventing it. It may take an imaginative leap not seen since the Axial Age to do it, but I still believe, however naïvely, that it is possible. If our name truly is Homo Religiosus and we are wired for religion as many anthropologists claim, this leap will have to be possible, or we may be seriously screwed as a species.

Montaigne, Renaissance Blogger

'I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.' -Michel de Montaigne

It's a little ironic, being a blogger, and one of the few people I know who actually enjoys writing essays, and has spent the past 4 years whipping up several of them (though not at many as maybe an English or History Major), that I should not have once come across the work of Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne was a French nobleman of the 16th century, and was best known as the father of what we now call the personal essay. His most memorable work is a collection of prose writings called Essais (French for "trial" or "attempt"), covering diverse topics ranging from sleep, to books, to the limits of human knowledge and our own mortality. Granted, I was not officially a student of literature or philosophy, so there was really no pressing need that could have led me to him, besides errant curiosity or procrastination. But my studies of Renaissance theatre brought me tantalizingly close to him; it's very likely that Shakespeare himself read Montaigne. You'd think the name would have come up at least a couple of times, and sooner. Nope. Rather, I am finally exposed to his writing long after school has ended. But I should be grateful that I've come across him at all.

I got a little three-dollar Dover Thrift edition of a selection of Montaigne's Essays from Russel Books a while back, and read it this past month. I found it invigorating. He (and his translator English poet Charles Cotton) have a knack for making you want to study and meditate on your own life, to flesh out your thoughts and to attain perspective through the act of writing. He made it his goal to paint an honest portrait of human life, using himself as a reference point. His style is skeptical, anecdotal, often going into tangets and never making any claim of possessing some absolute truth. In fact, one of his Essays is titled "That It Is Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity", discussing just that; we can never get the entire picture.

Reading these essays I found the syntax to be long and meandering. The sentences were in appearance so tangled, so clogged with dependent clauses and sub-clauses--of course not uncommon to writers of his age--it could hardly be decoded by a 21st century reader like myself without breaking into a bit of a sweat, and maybe a slight headache. But I kinda liked it for that. It was a robust workout. I remember what our Prof. Jen Wise said in Theories of Acting, that when you diligently read something beyond your skill level, your mind strengthens and widens to accomodate the new territory. You become a better reader. I think that's something I've found rewarding from generally all archaic writings, including Shakespeare: for a cretin like myself, half the fun is in figuring out just what the hell they're saying. And once you've breached that wall, you can freely roam the country they've laid out for you. You can understand and relate to Montaigne's observations. You can relate to almost everything he's saying, and you feel a kinship with him, and those that have gone before him (he borrows heavily from older, classical writers like Seneca, Plutarch, Horace, Cicero, Aristotle, etc.) This is in no small part because of his very personal style of writing. You then become aware of a long unbroken chain of human experience from the days of ancient Rome, to the French Renaissance, to today. It is a reminder of all the richness that Western philosophy has to offer, something I've neglected of late. Time and distance are no barriers; Montaigne's words are still valuable to me, a young Canadian man in the 21st century. There is still wisdom to be found with him, because like myself, he was a very human being.

So I feel that in a way the blogging world owes a great debt to this French nobleman. My part of it certainly does. I and many others try to understand our lives through writing. And any one who attempts this owes Montaigne for making room for such an attempt. He was an innovator, bringing his own personal experience into his work, because the great subject of his work was himself. So that's why I'm dedicating this post to Michel de Montaigne, the Renaissance Blogger.

P.S.

In my previous post I was describing Karen Armstrong's new book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, and I may have misrepresented some information about it:

"As you read it, Armstrong advises us to work one step at a time, and not to move on to the next one until you have a firm grasp on the one you're on."

I should've been clearer on the "firm grasp" part. I realised afterward that if anybody was on the first step, learning about the history of compassion, or on the third step of having compassion for yourself, they could potentially stay there all their lives if they told themselves they did not have a "firm grasp" on the step. Then they would be absolved of any responsibility to move on to the next step and actually make progress. Just to be more specific, here's what Armstrong writes:

"Each step will build on the disciplines practiced and the habits acquired in those that have gone before. The effect will be cumulative. Do not skip any of the steps, because each one is an indispensable part of the process. And do not leave a step until the recommended practices have become part of your daily routine."

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Thanks, Karen! Once a step is firmly a part of your routine--which is something a little more concrete and measurable than the vague feeling of a "firm grasp"--then and only then do you move on. I know anybody who sincerely wants to practice loving kindness, equanimity and love on a daily basis wouldn't get confused, but we do have a great capacity for self-deception, and I especially didn't want to distort somebody else's work. A small quibble over wording, but it makes a big difference. Just read the book and see for yourself, okay?

Two Month Catch-Up, Harris, and Armstrong

Wowza! It's been almost two months since I've posted on here. Two whole months! Well, enough of that silliness.

Let's see, what's happened since then? We've rehearsed Twelfth Night and recently opened it this past week and it's been generally quite well received. That's always nice, being a part of a show you're proud of AND the audience liking it too! Also, when not performing in the evenings, I spent my Reading Week with my family, which was just great. My sister, Gabrielle Volke, is going to be a published author very soon, with a short story in her university literary journal. Let's all cheer her on! Hurrah! Mazeltov! Olé! I'm quite proud of her.

In class we've been talking a lot about the logistics of going into the "real world" and how to survive there: we had a whole class on how to do taxes as an actor, another on resumés, and another still on writing cover letters and thank you letters to theatre companies. Another prof. of ours came in to talk to us about how to get an agent. We're being constantly reminded that we're not long for this undergrad world. As helpful as it has been, it scared the shit out of me, thinking about it so much. My doubts and uncertainty about my future course were only further fed when we were asked to write out a plan of where we want to be in the next year, in five years, ten years, fifteen. Some people had some ambitious and fantastic goals, and I wish them all the best. Others had a little more uncertainty and vagueness to their plans. I fell into the second camp. I noticed that I couldn't really see where I would be in five years like others, let alone the next one. I was considering attending the National Voice Intensive this summer, but I kept flip-flopping about it. So I decided I would wait on that one, and if I was still considering it around this time next year, then it would be the right decision. Only time will tell.

The through-line of my wishy-washy plan was that I be creating new work at every stage. I think this has revealed a very important strain of my artistic leanings, and perhaps what will keep me in theatre. I am not content to just be performing works that other people have made. I have to make my own. Whether it's in the form of a one-person show, collective creation, or as a playwright who lets others perform it, I need to generate new stories. I always believed in the actor as creator, so why not go the whole nine yards on that principle? That's not to say I've fully abandoned the path of auditioning for repertory theatres and whatnot, but there is a lot about that life that will not fully satisfy me. The writer in me will not be denied. On that note, I'm even considering going back to finish my Writing degree. But that's just one option. I'm pretty sure I want to continue with some kind of post-graduate schooling, whether it's for acting or writing. In fact, here is the complete list of options I've even briefly considered:

-Finishing Writing degree at UVic
-Writing MFA at UVic (after I've amassed a sizeable portfolio of written work)
-Acting MFA at York University
-Birmingham Conservatory at the Stratford Festival
-3-year certificate at National Theatre School
-Acting MFA at Yale School of Drama (thanks to Gen and Sarah for pointing it out)

Right now the first two options burn the brightest. But in the interim I need to not be going to school for a while. Again, time will lend some perspective on the matter, and I have no doubt that things will be a little bit clearer if I wait.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, on the book front, I've had the pleasure of reading two books, the authors of which disagree with each other, and so naturally I'd love to hear a conversation between them. The first book was The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. This guy has been lumped into the "New Atheism" camp, along with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. The premise of this book is basically this: moral relativists can sit down and shut up, because there is a way of determining "right" and "wrong", and science is going to figure it out. That's right, not only is science able to show how people behave, but in time it may also show us how we should behave.

He says that the values we hold as human beings (morality) can be related to facts about the world (science). The rightness or wrongness of an act is measured by its effect in the physical world, and in a person's brain specifically, translating into well-being or suffering. These are what we should use to measure a system or morality. He is quick to add that he is not claiming that science has the answers already, especially to some morally ambiguous actions. Nor does he claim that there is just one way. Rather, morality is like a landscape with many peaks and valleys. Some moral systems might be at an equal height on this landscape. Some might not. He points out that they are not all created equal: a moral system that multiplies misery and suffering in this world is not equal to one that mitigates suffering and creates well-being. Hence the peaks and valleys. This is why, he believes, we need not stand back and let something like the Taliban repress women in the name of religion. Those who feel they cannot do anything because who are we to say what's right and wrong? can simply view morality not as a mere cultural norm without any absolute value, nor even a set of arbitrary laws sent down from Heaven, but as a set of actions that translate into measurable facts about human suffering or well-being.

He makes some very fascinating arguments, drawing from his own experience as a neuroscientist, from psychology, and philosophy, but he always keeps it accessible and engaging to a broader audience. I'll admit he devotes a great deal of bile for religion, which disappoints me slightly, because I wanted to read more about a science of morality and save the critique of religion for a different book. But he does focus on the way some people have tried to combine science and religion, or rather used pseudoscience to justify articles of religious faith, with disastrous and embarrassing results, and I suppose this has something to do with his argument. Either way, this has been an extremely provocative read. Here's his TED Talk discussing the idea of this Moral Landscape:



The second book was Karen Armstrong's book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, which my lovely girlfriend got for me on Valentine's Day. It's a short little book, but it is very clever and has a lot to offer. Following her TED Wish to have leaders of world religions to draw up a Charter for Compassion, an act of restoring compassion, and the Golden Rule to the centre of the major religions and moral systems, Armstrong wrote this book. It's basically what its title says: a step by step guide in becoming a more compassionate person. Cleverly modelled on the Twelve Step program for AA, it is a template for how we can take specific action and make compassion a tangible part of our day to day lives.

As you read it, Armstrong advises us to work one step at a time, and not to move on to the next one until you have a firm grasp on the one you're on. She also reminds us that this will not come easily or quickly. It will take all of our lives and requires diligence, patience, humility and will. It is no less than a summary of what all the major religions are at their best: guides for compassion. On that note, she draws freely from these major religions and moral philosophies as points of reference, from Islam to Confucianism to Buddhism to ancient Greek philosophy (Socrates and Plato). She doesn't say anything new; she just repeats what these systems prescribe as far as compassion goes. But I think it's very smart to organize these actions into steps, from easiest to most difficult. This should make the process a little less daunting, in theory. The first step is basically about educating oneself about compassion, and its history. The next is learning about how it can translate into our own contemporary world. The third is learning to be compassionate toward yourself. It goes from there, in an ever-expanding circle, from "love thyself", to "love thy neighbour", all the way to the final step, which is "love thy enemy". The tools at our disposal, she tells us, are our capacity for empathy, practice of mindfulness, and even restoring the ancient practice of Socratic dialogue, a means of arriving at wisdom and understanding, as opposed to the other ancient rhetorical tradition of proving yourself right at whatever cost and shouting down your opponents, something our political leaders indulge way too much in. This book is a great follow-up to The Case for God, where she explains how religion was originally meant to be a spiritual technique that could only make sense in the doing, in action. Here's her TED Talk about the Charter for Compassion:



Alright, that's all for now. So in case I can't blog again until after school's done, this should make up for lost time.

Top 5 Books of 2010

Hello and Happy 2011 to everybody!

I don't really want to do a reflection of 2010. I haven't the energy nor the will for that sort of thing. But I will do what I did last year, and list the five books that had the biggest influence on me. So here they are, in the order I read them:

5. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Alright so I have read this once before, in high-school. I liked it then, but I thought it was even better now. I ended up reading quite a bit of C.S. Lewis this year, including The Great Divorce, Surprised by Joy, and for good measure, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Even today he seems to me to be one of the most brilliant Christian thinkers of the 20th century. I found him far more convincing because he came to his faith through atheism, and he fought in one of the bloodiest wars in history, so he kinda has "street cred" in my mind. Religion and matters of the spirit weren't all just ivory tower musings to him. He saw suffering and he experienced spiritual joy--in short, he really lived. He has perhaps been the most influential writer for me this year, just for his style of writing. But his sheer imaginative power when it comes to Christianity amazes me and is what makes him great. Someone wrote that he wouldn't have been the writer he became if he didn't become a Christian. I believe this is true. This one book can't be taken in isolation from the rest of his works on religion. What it does do is sum up his ideas in a concise way, while further elaborations on his theme can be found in his other books. So Mere Christianity stands as an symbol for his body of work, and for me the introduction to it.

4. The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality by André Comte-Sponville
This book was the first book about atheism that I read, and a first serious consideration of it. I found it easy to read because he is open to dialogue with religious and spiritual thinking people, and he makes a great case for a spiritual life sans Dieu. On that note, he provides robust challenges to the idea of God, and my own views. It is such a unique book, a great counterpoint to C.S. Lewis (as you can read about in my summer posts), and a refreshing alternative to the "New Atheism" of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris.*

3. The Sins of Scipture by John Shelby Spong
Like Mere Christianity, this book acted as a doorway to Spong's work. But I found this book to have the biggest impact on my thinking. In this book he, an Episcopal bishop, puts the Bible on trial, and puts it in its place: not God's mouth, but in history. From there, he proposes that the biblical passages that we today view as prejudiced, arbitrary, destructive, and evil, should be jettisoned from the Bible altogether. He brings to light the Bible scholarship that has been going on since the 19th century that has largely been inaccessible to the public. But the most remarkable part of this book is that while he is attacking many aspects of Christianity, he is able to keep his faith intact. He is using his criticism not to demolish his religion as militant atheists would want to do, but to make it better and help it express its original purpose. I won't say any more on it, because I summarised it a while ago on my blog. It's very well researched and written, and I encourage all to read it.

2. True and False by David Mamet
I think I read this book in 2 or 3 days. He believes that acting schools and techniques and systems are all bullshit. Perhaps he's right, but I don't agree with him. I think what did stick in my mind was when he said that all of these illustrious theatre schools have people come to them, and once the actors are out on the other side and have made a big splash in the world, the schools take the credit for the actor's accomplishments. Thus the schools' reputations are further garnished, when in all likelihood the actor was a genius before she went into the school, and if she was worth her salt, would make it big without the school's help. I don't agree with this. I believe in school, and I wouldn't be here otherwise. However, what Mamet says has helped to weaken the inferiority complex I have had about my own school, because it is not National Theatre School, or Julliard, or Yale. The chances of me being noticed by a big time talent scout might be greater in some other place, but there is no guarantee that I would be a better quality actor just by going to one of these other places. I think the point Mamet makes, or at least what I drew from it, is that so much depends on the individual's talent and drive. We can blame our learning issues on the school, or the teachers, or the classmates, and to some degree these things do have an effect. But of course, the fault, dear Actors, "lies not in our stars, but in ourselves if we are underlings.” The root cause of it is in ourselves. There is more in our control than we think. This book helped to remind me of that.

1. A Fair Country by John Ralston Saul
I just wrote a long and boring post about this book, so I won't go into much detail here. If you really want to know more, just suck it up and read the post, k? I will say that I think Saul is onto something about the correlation between Canada's identity and Aboriginal way of life, and has pointed me in a very good direction to better understand my country and participate in its life.

So that's that for now. Just a recap, really. Perhaps I'll say something about 2011 later. But for that's it for not.

À bientôt!

Liam

*That being said, I would still like to read what Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris are saying. I want to see how my views stand up against the champions of New Atheism. It would be hypocritical of me not to read them, and who knows? they might even shed some light on the subject!

John Ralston Saul, Aboriginals, Citizenship, and Our F#$%ing Inferiority Complex

I just finished reading John Ralston Saul's book A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada. Quite a hefty read for the holidays, but worth it in the long run, I'd say.

A Fair Country revolves around Saul's argument that Canada is a 'Métis Civilization'*. The reason we have such an identity crisis as a nation is because we aren't asking the right questions. He believes that the mythology that our country is based on a European, Enlightenment-era model of a monolithic nation-state is an inaccurate portrayal of ourselves. Rather, our society is based on the values and principles Aboriginal culture: egalitarianism, social welfare, complexity, and balance with the environment. This current runs through our collective unconscious and has for the past four hundred years, Saul believes. The problem is that it remains in the unconscious, not our consciousness.

The reason we stumble as a nation is because we fail to acknowledge this, and when we succeed and excel as a nation it is not merely by accident. Medicare, Peacekeeping, Multiculturalism--ideas spearheaded by ambitious and forward-thinking Canadians--are not things that came about in spite of our national character, but because of it. He argues that Canada was based on three cultural pillars: the French, the English, and the Aboriginals. It is by acknowledging and restoring this third and senior pillar that we can find a balance and unleash our power as a nation. For the first settlers and traders to survive in the harsh conditions of Canada they had to develop strong and trusting relationships with the indigenous peoples, who already lived there. Every model of industry we inherited from Europe, from government to agriculture, only worked when we compromised them and found a balance with the Aboriginal way of life.

The same is true now for our survival as a healthy society. We suffer from an inferiority complex because, as a former colony, we judge ourselves by an imperial yardstick. The idea of linear progress, of a monolithic, racially defined nation-state devoted to Enlightenment ideals, and a Judeo-Christian, Manichean worldview--these elements together do not work for Canada. When we resort to this worldview, we are imagining someone else, not ourselves. And when we see the reality come short of our self-image, we think there is something wrong with us. These European-U.S. models of thinking are not inherently wrong (except maybe for the racially defined part). At least, they certainly aren't inherently ineffective. They worked well for other countries at other times. But what worked for the U.S. will not work for us.

Our greatest blunders are often a result of this colonial thinking, where we defer power and authority to someone else--we didn't do anything unless it had London's approval, and now we don't unless it has Washington's approval. This, Saul argues, has affected every level of Canadian society, but especially its elite. He credits individual initiatives to make the country a better place, but he argues that unless there are sweeping changes in elite thinking and institutional initiative, real change won't be possible. The part of the book where he levels an attack on Canada's elite--business managers, politicians, administrators, leaders in both private and public sectors--he titles 'The Castrati', implying that our elite has been emasculated and weakened as a group by this kind of colonial thinking. The reason we remain in this colonial mind-frame is because we believe that we are the direct inheritors of European thinking. Saul suggests that if we realize that we owe more to the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit for our identity than we do Europe and the Enlightenment, we might be able to break free from our dependancy on Empire for self-worth.

At the very foundation of his whole argument is that Canada's healthy sense of self is linked to the well-being of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada. The former is dependant on the latter. It sounds like a stretch, but even when his arguments are on the verge of collapsing under their own weight, he somehow ties them together. It all kind of makes sense. At least, I'm willing to give the idea a shot.

He's not suggesting that we abandon our European roots that actually do exist--some of these things work!--and start mimicking Aboriginal culture. This would be a superficial act, disrespectful to all parties involved, and beside the point. Nor does it mean that those who are non-Aboriginal need to romanticize, worship and elevate indigenous people to superior status in order to find who we are. What we need to do is own those fundamental principles we have inherited from our indigenous roots as a nation, and recognize that to lose Aboriginal culture is to lose a vital part of ourselves, as much as it would be to lose our Anglophone or Francophone roots.

I'm not really doing the book justice. He talks of Canada being a 'Métis Civilization', that our motto 'Peace, Order, and Good Government' should be 'Peace, Fairness, and Good Government, and that while these are minor details, being careful and precise about the language we use to describe ourselves will have enormous impact on our social imagination. He mounts argument after eye-crossing, head-splitting argument to show the validity of this point. I also might be oversimplifying or misrepresenting some aspects of his ideas, so I suggest reading it for yourself to decide whether or not there's actually something to what he's saying. I'm drawn in by his theories, because it looks to me like he is giving historical evidence for the reasons we fail, and why we are great, which is something I haven't seen anybody else do before. Not so thoroughly, anyway. I'm very green in Canadian politics and history, but I can tell that this is the kind of book that can make waves. Big ones. Andrew Cohen points out the major problems with Canada and proposes solutions, but Saul takes us to the root of the problem, which might strengthen our efforts to improve this country in the long run.

I think a great thing I've taken from reading this book is that, if what he is putting forward is true, then I don't have to be so cynical about our leaders, and politicians in general. I haven't seen much in our leaders today to have hope, but Saul cites examples of gutsy and effective leaders who really did listen to their people and changed the country for the better. Canadian politics may seem childish and ineffective now, but it hasn't always been, nor will it always be that way for all time. Andrew Cohen said that while we haven't produced a Stalin or Hitler, we haven't produced a Churchill or Roosevelt either. The more I learn about our history, the more I have to question that. What made Churchill and Roosevelt great leaders? They spoke to their people in a way that they needed. The words and actions of these men resonated deeply and directly with a certain time and a certain place, and for that they are immortalized. I think that we had leaders just like this, who connected with the people and place of their time. If one must parade our individuals like shiny trophies before the world, then I could list Lester Pearson (Peacekeeping), Pierre Trudeau (Multiculturalism, Charter of Rights and Freedoms), Tommy Douglas (Universal Healthcare), the Fathers of Confederation, who negotiated our independence--making ours the first colony to do so entirely without bloodshed. This is quite extraordinary in that context, and anybody who doesn't recognize that is simply ignorant. I realize that all of these examples are white males. Yes, we obviously have a long way to go. But that's also me not knowing enough of our country's history, its movers and shakers, so I have to throw in that disclaimer. (That's not even counting the legions of brilliant minds that have emerged from our country: Margaret Atwood, Emily Carr, Mordecai Richler, David Suzuki, Leonard Cohen, K'Naan, Alexander Fleming, Marshall McLuhan, Douglas Coupland, Louis Riel, Robertson Davies, Neil Young, Rohinton Mistry, Michel Tremblay, Robert LePage, Tomson Highway). My point is, that although treating these achievements like scores in a competition is silly, we would have no problem dropping names. We have a culture of highly influential people. If this proves nothing, and people still feel that we are immature as a society, then just wait. If this is true, Saul is wrong and we are simply a baby nation, I think Robertson Davies has the best rebuttle to that. "Cabbages can be grown quite quickly; an oak takes longer, and I do not think my country should be contented with a cabbage culture." Either way, I don't think Saul is wrong. It is also our responsibility to embrace our history and actively participate in our communal affairs so we don't repeat the atrocities committed by our forebears. This is an age-old, tired argument to use, but it must be repeated until we get the point. So not only is it crucial that we rise above apathy and cynicism, but it is entirely possible too.

I find that the more I read these kinds of things, the more I understand the full meaning of Citizenship. For a long time I resisted the concept of citizenship as being more than a legal title (I am a Canadian Citizen because the bureaucrats need a way to categorize me). It couldn't possibly have any deeper connection to my identity. Why couldn't I be a member of the human race who happened to be from Canada? Why, like, narrow your definition of self when you're like, so much more universal than that, man? Citizenship implied patriotism, which implied a worship of the Nation-State as an unshakeable entity that will always exist in its present form. Patriotism is so easily confused with Nationalism. But even so, it just didn't seem to be a big part of my life. But the more I have learned about Canada, the world, and myself, the more I realize that I am who I am because of where I am, when I am, and whom I engage with. I think this is what it means to be a citizen. To be an individual and take part in one's community is to be a citizen. I live in a land called Canada and engage with other Canadians as a Canadian myself. I owe nothing to some abstract idea called Nation über alles. That, I think, would no longer be patriotism, or even citizenship. That would be secular idolatry. Rather, I have a responsibility to the land I live in and the people I live in it with. Canada has proven to have far more to do with me than I would have preferred. But that's the nature of the beast. So, I am learning to embrace the term citizen in a deeper, broader, and simpler meaning.

Now Saul goes into great detail about how this colonial mindset has affected the elite, but I think it has seeped into every corner of Canadian society. Our favourite word is 'sorry'. I find myself saying it, not even meaning it, but as a verbal tick as common as 'like' or 'um'. So often at my university I hear people say, with a dash of contempt, 'how Canadian of you' to someone who decides to take the middle road on an argument, seeking a happy medium--as if there were something really wrong with that. It's one thing to be laughed at and scorned by other countries, but when we ourselves don't have much self-respect, that is when I have to draw the line. I'm tired of 'being Canadian' being spoken of in a pejorative sense, as if it was the worst thing you could be.

As actors in training one of our biggest hindrances, we are told, is our Canadian dialect. It is higher-pitched, nasal, and tight-jawed. I'm tired of this being the outward trappings of Canadian. Of course, it is good for an actor to be able to have mastery over many dialects--as many as possible--but we forget that our own can be of great value as well. We need to start associating 'Canadian' with our strengths as well as our weaknesses.

As much as I'd like to think that my identity has nothing to do with my country's identity, everything is interconnected from macro to micro, so any issues with self-confidence I may possess might be related to something that runs deeper in us as a people. This is somewhat a relief, but also rather troubling. We need to learn to own what we have. Really own it. I'm tired of being led to believe that my school is sub-par because it is not American, and my training is not British. I have to face the facts that the quality of training might be elsewhere, but it is tied in with this vicious cycle of self-confidence. So I simply can't think that way anymore. I've seen too much diligence, skill, talent, and extraordinary intellectual and creative energy abounding right where I am to believe that it is of lesser value because it didn't come from somewhere else. I've seen too much weakened self-confidence in others around me and myself to accept that this is okay. We have something great, where we are in this country, and it needs to be identified and embraced.


*He uses Métis in a very loose sense, speaking of Canada being a marriage of European and Aboriginal, but not necessarily the specific group of people that emerged over time.