[lit-ideas] Re: Opposing the Cordoba Mosque, Intolerance or Prudence?
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:10:11 -0700
Lawrence Helm wrote
http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2010/08/opposing-cordoba-mosque-intolerance-or.html
I have in this post taken up some of the opinions advanced (or
perceived by me to have been advanced) by Robert.
Here are some extracts from a conversation that Lawrence and I were
having on his blog. The conversation is lengthy and repetitive. I've
taken two exchanges (which run over two or three blog entries to discuss
on the list). Few on lit-ideas comment on Lawrence's blog (Mike Geary
and I seem to be the only ones), so I'm not sure how many read it.
*Robert*: [quoting Lawrence] 'He [D. H. Lawrence] also believed that we
had no sense of ourselves. We didn't believe in our identity the way
Europeans believed in theirs. Of course if he were alive today he'd have
to revise his opinion of the Europeans. They are now as bad as the
Americans. The fact that some of us are willing to deny the building of
churches (part of our American tradition) in order to deny Islamists
(who have sworn to destroy our tradition) the right to build mosques is
just the sort of absurdity that D. H. Lawrence delighted in ranting about.'
..............
And then in a follow up note Robert went on to say,
*Robert*: What is 'part of our American tradition'? The building of
churches? It's no more part of our American tradition than building
baseball fields or trailer parks. What you seem to mean, but won't say,
is that Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Arkansas snake handlers,
and so on, have a constitutional right to worship as they please and a
civil right to build, zoning laws permitting, places of worship---but
Moslems don't. That's it. Say what you mean and don't wrap yourself in
the shallow and bigoted thought of a man who died in 1930.
*Lawrence*: That could have been written by the ACLU. I am impatient
with that which implies that we have painted ourselves into a
constitutional corner such that we cannot defend ourselves against those
bent on destroying us. Sel[f]-defense trumps constitutional niceties.
And if it doesn't, it ought to.
________
Here I comment anew.
I have no idea what it is to 'deny the building of churches in order to
deny Islamists the right to build mosques.' As written it sounds as if
there were an American 'tradition' of building churches in order to
/prevent/ the building of mosques (by Islamists). This is patent
nonsense, so, it can't be what Lawrence meant. He can't have meant, that
is that the reason churches (Mormon temples, synagogues) were built was,
traditionally, to keep mosques from being built.
Yet what he does mean is never explained; instead, my request for
clarification is dismissed as something the ACLU would have 'written.'
The unexamined assumption here is that anything 'written' by the ACLU is
by definition, or by general agreement, false and unworthy of
consideration. And, of course, my exhortation that Lawrence speak for
himself and leave D. H. Lawrence out of it surely can't be something the
ACLU could have 'written.' It is a different point entirely, and not
concerned with politics.
'Constitutional niceties.' I do like that. If only we could dispense
with the Bill of Rights for a few years, we'd get everything sorted out.
Lawrence, as a student of history, must know of many examples in which
similar ideas were expressed, and of the consequences of their having
been put into practice.
I said I'd discuss two things. The second is that Lawrence believes that
those promoting the building of this mosque are Islamists. I've asked
him why he thinks they're Islamists, in the ordinary---and usually
pejorative---sense of that term, as opposed to their simply being
Moslems. His reply has taken several forms. One is that the distinction
between Islamists and just plain Moslems is no 'big deal.' Another is
that other people have used this term to describe them (so it must be
correct) and provides three Internet sites where they do. These sites
are an article in the Ottawa Citizen; a letter-to-the-editor of a small
Florida newspaper; and something on the page of a Conservative
institution. When I suggested that these weren't evidence of much,
Lawrence replied that they were merely instances in which the term
Islamist was used, and that he was no 'connoisseur of newspapers. I
think the implicature was that I must read the Portland Oregonian, the
Eugene Register-Guard /and/ the New York Times---QED.
Robert Paul,
waiting for rain
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