Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 207

Quote For The Day II

“Gaza is part of our Land and we will remain there forever. Liberation of parts of our land forever is the only thing that justifies endangering our soldiers in battle to capture land. Subsequent to the elimination of terror from Gaza, it will become part of sovereign Israel and will be populated by Jews. This will also serve to ease the housing crisis in Israel. The coastal train line will be extended, as soon as possible, to reach the entire length of Gaza.

According to polls, most of the Arabs in Gaza wish to leave. Those who were not involved in anti-Israel activity will be offered a generous international emigration package. Those who choose to remain will receive permanent resident status. After a number of years of living in Israel and becoming accustomed to it, contingent on appropriate legislation in the Knesset and the authorization of the Minister of Interior, those who personally accept upon themselves Israel’s rule, substance and way of life of the Jewish State in its Land, will be offered Israeli citizenship,” – MK Moshe Feiglin, outlining a future for Gaza that will also surely, eventually, after another provocation, be applied to the West Bank.

(Photo: A man stands with an Israeli flag on a hill overlooking the Gaza Strip on July 20, 2014 near Sderot, Israel. By Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images.)

The Shocking Truth, Ctd

Recently the Dish noted new research suggesting that people prefer getting electric shocks to being alone with their thoughts. Remarking on the study, Damon Linker gives our restlessness an existentialist gloss. He turns to the German philosopher Martin Heidegger for an explanation of why we crave distraction:

Heidegger proposed that we human beings are uniquely terrified of our own mortality because we’re more keenly aware than any other animal of all we have to lose by dying. Each of us inhabits a world overflowing with meaning. We care deeply, almost infinitely, about ourselves, our lives, our loved ones. And the prospect of losing it all — of the world and everything in it winking out of existence when we cease to be — is unspeakably horrifying. Heidegger also suggested that we spend much of our lives fleeing from the fact of our finitude, throwing ourselves into the world and its concerns, including technological distractions and diversions.

But there are also moments when the truth reveals itself to us. This happens in certain moods, among them anxiety and boredom, when a dawning awareness of the groundlessness of our ordinary, everyday pursuits transfigures the world. When that happens we grasp as we otherwise rarely do that our lives are lived hovering over an abyss that at some level we know with complete certainty will eventually — perhaps a mere moment from now — swallow us whole, along with everything we’ve ever cared about.

Nothingness: that is what we’re trying to wave away when we reach for our phones in line at the grocery store, and when the obtrusive music played during a meal rescues us from what would otherwise be an excruciatingly awkward silence.

(Image of sketch of Heidegger via Arturo Espinosa)

Theology For Technologists

Scott Adams, who was raised Methodist and later became an atheist, describes how he’s now come around to seeing religion as the “user interface to reality.” He writes that “when I hear people debate the existence of God, it feels exactly like debating whether the software they are using is hosted on Amazon’s servers or Rackspace”:

Religion is similar to software, and it doesn’t matter which religion you pick. What matters is that the user interface of religious practice “works” in some sense. The same is true if you are a non-believer and your filter on life is science alone. What matters to you is that your worldview works in some consistent fashion. If you’re deciding how to fight a disease, science is probably the interface that works best. But if you’re trying to feel fulfilled, connected, and important as you navigate life, religion seems to be a perfectly practical interface. But neither science nor religion require an understanding of reality at the detail level. As long as the user interface gives us what we need, all is good.

Some of you non-believers will rush in to say that religion has caused wars and other acts of horror so therefore it is not a good user interface to reality. I would counter that no one has ever objectively measured the good and the bad of religion, and it would be impossible to do so because there is no baseline with which to compare. We only have one history. Would things have gone better with less religion? That is unknowable. … What I know for sure is that plenty of people around me are reporting that they find comfort and social advantages with religion. And science seems to support a correlation between believing, happiness, and health. Anecdotally, religion seems to be a good interface.

Face Of The Day

Ellyn Ruddick-Sunstein spotlights an empowering photo series:

In a world where the words “bikini season” are met with judgement, panic, and dread, it can be hard to embrace our bodies as they are. For breast cancer survivors and patients who have undergone single or double mastectomies, the season’s swimsuits can be alienating, as they are most often designed to accommodate twin bosoms.

Hoping to challenge the damaging pressures and judgements placed on the female chest, Ph.D. Elina Halttunen came up with the idea to manufacture bathing suits specifically for women who, like she, have one breast. With the help of design duo Tärähtäneet ämmät (Nutty Tarts), a group of trailblazing Finnish designers, and a dedicated group of models, all of whom had undergone mastectomies, her dream became a reality. Their fashions and images are all part of the project Monokini 2.0.

Taking inspiration from legendary fashion photographer Helmut Newton, the team at Nutty Tarts have conceived of glamorous, edgy designs with a distinctive yet cohesive aesthetic. The Monokini 2.0 designs comprise looks that convey both strength and softness. Designer Outi Pyy creates pieces designed with warriors and mermaids in mind. Tyra Therman, who works in luxury underwear, sees the project as a way to redefine femininity and celebrate the courage of women.

Support their Kickstarter here.

Loving Your Oppressor

Imam Sohaib N. Sultan offers a Ramadan reflection on the theme:

The Qur’an often describes sins and wrongdoings as “oppressing one’s own soul” (7:23). It begs the question, therefore, what the difference is between the oppressor who commits wrongdoing and the oppressed that is wronged if both are, ultimately, being oppressed. I think, the answer may lie in that oppression attempts to strip the oppressed of their rights and dignity; whereas oppressing strips the oppressor of their very own humanity. …

It is worth noting that the Prophet referred even to the oppressor as “your brother.” When we encounter the tyrant, our first instinct is to wash our hands of him or her and to deny that we have anything to do with them. While this instinct is understandable, the reality is that even the worst of human beings are related to us in humanity, if not faith. And, therefore, opposing the tyrant is an act of sincere love, the same sincerity that one would naturally show to their brother. Opposing oppression must never be rooted in hatred, for that would, inevitably, cause the cycles of oppression to continue.

How Theology Begat Geology

Carl Zimmer suggests that religion and science coexisted easily in many Renaissance minds. The developing science of geology, for example, was influenced by 16th- and 17th-century understandings of the divine:

You don’t have to page through old books to see just how geologically-minded people in the Renaissance had become. Their paintings show us where their eyes turned when they looked at landscapes. And remarkably often, they turned to rocks. A number of the finest painters of the Renaissance incorporated exposed layers of rocks in their pictures – the fruits of careful observation. They were looking at the intricate effects of millions of years of geological change. …

“The world is not eternal,” declared the Jesuit priest Benito Pereira in the 1570s. “From its beginning to those days no more than five thousand six hundred years have elapsed.” It turns out, however, that many philosophers didn’t follow Pereira example very closely.

They accepted that the Earth had not existed forever, but they saw it as lasting far longer than a few thousand years. Some treated Noah’s Flood as a real geological event, but merely as the most recent of many great cataclysms. And for all the vigor of the Counter-Reformation, no one was burned at the stake for such claims.

Writers in Italy and elsewhere continued to develop ideas about the history of Earth. They investigated fossils more deeply, they thought long and hard about how layers of rock formed, and they considered how volcanoes and earthquakes shaped the planet. By the 1700s, the outlines of modern geology were emerging. But the proto-geologists of the 1700s didn’t see their work as a fundamental break from the past. Instead, they saw a seamless connection reaching back centuries.

(Image: Apparition of The Virgin to St Bernard, showing rocks in the background, by Filippino Lippi, 1486, via Wikimedia Commons)

Blowing The “Mormon Moment”?

Last year, Kate Kelly, a human rights lawyer and Mormon, began a campaign to open the priesthood to female leadership. Ordain Women attracted support but also significant controversy within the community, and last month the Church excommunicated Kelly – a decision she’s appealing. Cadence Woodland, a lifelong Mormon, sees (NYT) such stifling of dissent as a sign that the Church’s “Mormon Moment” – “not just the frenzy of interest that rose (and largely faded) with Mitt Romney’s campaigns for the presidency, but a distinct period of dialogue around and within the Mormon community” – has faded. She explains she stopped attended services in December:

The church will continue to lose members like me until it realizes that messages about diversity and inclusion are hollow when excommunication and censorship are the responses to dissent. While the church invests in missionary work, especially overseas, an unwelcoming posture is likely to hinder its growth.

The true legacy of the Mormon Moment might just be that the church was given the chance that many religious institutions desperately need to stay relevant in the 21st century: the opportunity to open itself to criticism and inquiry. The church has chosen not to. And it has killed its own moment by doing so.

Citing Woodland, Hemant Mehta suggests that “Mormons aren’t alone in screwing up their golden opportunity”:

For all the power evangelical Christians, Southern Baptists, the Catholic Church, and the Mormons have today, can you imagine how much more they would have if they supported marriage equality and abortion rights a decade or two ago? Instead, their own actions have forced young people to leave the institutions, drop their religious labels, and search for more welcoming communities.

Woodland is upset about that. She shouldn’t be. She did herself a favor by leaving a Church that shows no desire to improve. If more people followed suit, maybe these institutions would finally rethink their policies.

But in an interview, Kelly explains that she hasn’t given up hope:

How has the campaign been received? Has there been much support within the Church?

We have had a huge outpouring of support from men and women in the Church. It has been amazing to watch this movement grow so quickly. There has also been negative feedback and repercussions, but the good outweighs the bad, by far.

Did excommunication come as a shock?

I was completely shocked. I have lots of faith in humanity and in justice. So, I thought there was no way they would excommunicate me. There was no way they would do something that was just so plainly wrong. …

Will you give up the Ordain Women campaign?

I will not give up speaking on behalf of female ordination. Not because I refuse to do so, but because I am not able to do so. I cannot live an inauthentic life and that is what my leaders are asking of me.

Wisecracker Of Woe

Sara Corbett spotlights comic and Dish fave Maria Bamford (NYT):

Much of Bamford’s work examines the relationship between “people” – generally well-intentioned friends and family – and those who grapple with depression or anxiety or any other challenge to the psyche. Her act is a series of monologues and mini-skits performed rapid fire and often without regard for transition. Deploying a range of deadpan voices, she mimics the faux-enlightened who hover around the afflicted, offering toothless platitudes (“You just need to get out in nature”), bootstrapping pep talks (“It’s all about attitude. You gotta want it!”) or concern warped by self-interest (“You’d think you’d just stop vomiting for me and the kids”).

The humor of any given moment relies not so much on punch lines as it does on the impeccably timed swerves of her tone, the interplay between Bamford’s persona and those of all the people who don’t get her. Often, she is demonstrating helplessness on both sides. “We love you, Maria,” Bamford says, imitating her 69-year-old Midwestern mother, Marilyn, in one of her recorded performances, heaving a fed-up sigh. “We love you, we love you, but it’s hard to be around you.”

Previous Dish on Bamford here and here.

(Video: Part one of wonderfully well-done The Program, a new series by Bamford and Melinda Hill)

Face Of The Day

From a photo series of people wearing the shirts of former lovers:

When all else is gone, it is often the things we most take for granted that endure, like an old, torn t-shirt. For her collaboration with writer and actress Hanne Steen, photographer Carla Richmond collects intimate portraits of the brokenhearted, women wearing shirts left behind by ex-lovers. Hanging loosely about the contours of bodies they do not quite fit, the shirts and their wearers remain anonymous, their words recorded only in unending, stream-of-consciousness style poetry.

From that stream:

It feels like a flag I can’t stop flying. It comforts me in the meantime between the spaces. It’s just a rag I turned into a promise that he would never leave. Some sort of common thread between us. Part of me wants to rip it off. So many what-ifs and could’ve-beens and should’ve-beens and never- weres. It’s just a shirt. It’s been there for me when people haven’t. It makes me feel childish and taken care of. It makes me look a little stronger than I am. As long as I hold onto the shirt she is never completely out of my life. I’d wear it every day if I could. As much as you build a house around it or put a ring on it it’s all still temporary and dissolving so all you can do is love it. Even if it’s painful we need to hold onto something. Proof that we did it. That we went through it. That we learned something. That our hearts were broken. That we were loved. That we weren’t loved enough. For someone I won’t be something that will be so easily shed.

Many more portraits from “Lovers Shirts” here.

The Big Six Oh! Ctd

A reader writes:

I can hardly believe there’s been no reader response to the excerpt quoted in your post about sex after 60. I’m bisexual, polyamorous, almost 60, and recently back on the market after mourning the loss of a partner. Took my saggy old body and face out on the market, fearing the worst. Was welcomed with open arms by wonderful sexy imperfect humans of my own age, people who are out to maximize their pleasure and as much as possible the pleasure of others, and are not possessive. Given the explicitly sexual nature of the market I’m using (Adult Friend Finder, NSFW) and a general acceptance of Fucking on the First Date, one might expect a rough or skanky culture.

Quite the opposite. A generally courteous bunch, appreciative and even affectionate, but in a very non-controlling way. Generous and considerate in bed, and for the most part quite skilled (you pick up a few tricks every decade). Smart, honourable people; good communicators. In their fifties and sixties. Who like to fuck. Who like to try new games, new partners. Who know what they want. Who are really, really good at it.

So my conclusion is all the people who could refute A.A. Gill are all too busy having wonderful sex to bother. And I’m so glad my comments, if published, will be anonymous. Nobody in the town where I live knows what I do on my holidays.

Thanks for all the Dish.

(Photo © Rankin. See more of his work here. Hat tip: Ariane Fairlie)