Ben Shapiro's line, "Facts don't care about your feelings.", is popular among political conservatives. And it should be. It's a good line. At the time I'm writing this, the tweet just linked has close to 400000 likes. The line and variants of it are often repeated, featured in memes, etc.
But it's remarkable how many conservatives have far less concern about facts and reason in religious contexts. If you follow religious discussions at political web sites, on political talk radio, on political television programs, and so forth, you notice that there isn't much interest in religion and that the few religious discussions that do occur tend to be of a shallow nature intellectually. There's often not much depth in their political discussions either. The people who go to these web sites, listen to these radio shows, etc. largely want somebody else, like Shapiro, to do the intellectual work for them. But at least there's more interest shown in intellectual matters and more intellectual work done by laymen in political contexts than in religious ones. And they don't just know more about politics than religion. They also seem to know a lot more about sports, humor, movies, music, and other subjects than they do about religious matters.
Political conservatives are better than the average American in a lot of ways. (See the sources linked here for some of the relevant documentation.) Most Americans don't care much about intellectual issues in religious or political contexts. But if political conservatives are going to be so (rightly) critical of the emotionalism of the political left, and they're going to keep showing so much interest in sentiments like the one expressed in Shapiro's popular line, they ought to be making far more of an effort to be consistent about it. The sentiment Shapiro is expressing matters more in religion than it does in politics, but people act as though the opposite is true.
I'll admit that among all my (mostly unread books) in my library, I don't actually have any ones on political philosophy. I think I have Wealth of Nations (unread) somewhere, but that might be it.
ReplyDeleteThis post complements what John Bugay has been saying about Catholicism. Conservative intellectuals tend to skew Roman Catholic or Jewish, while their listeners and supporters are mostly evangelical Protestants. The lack of seriousness about religious and theological differences is there for a reason. It is in our interest to re-open those issues.
ReplyDeleteBen I obviously think you are right about this.
DeleteBen, my comments don't agree much with what John has been writing in his most recent posts. That's why I responded to him as I did in one of his recent threads. He identifies leftism as "the greatest threat to our country today", and he makes a lot of references to Marxism, intersectionality, cancel culture, and other themes frequently discussed in modern American conservative political circles. He's largely in agreement with political conservatism's analysis of the situation, though he thinks Roman Catholicism should be blamed much more than it has been for the situation. I've explained why I disagree with John on these matters, in my comments linked above and elsewhere.
DeleteYou mention Catholic and Jewish influence in conservative intellectual circles. But I was addressing far more than intellectuals, and John's recent posts have been focused on Catholicism, not Judaism or a combination of the two.
You then comment, "The lack of seriousness about religious and theological differences is there for a reason." But the problem goes deeper than that. There's neglect of religious issues even where disagreements over those religious issues don't exist. And even where there are religious disagreements, why is there a neglect of those differences? For reasons I've outlined in my response to John linked above and elsewhere, like here. Catholicism is involved and deserves some of the blame, but far less blame than John has been suggesting.
John, in light of what I just said in response to Ben, why are you saying that you agree with him?
DeleteIt seems to me the simplest answer to why we see such general disregard about and ambivalence (or overt hostility) toward serious spiritual matters is that most people are unserious about such matters.
ReplyDeleteAnecdotally in my own life most people I know well are unbelievers. Outwardly from a distance most people I'm generally acquainted with, or only see or hear via media, generally act and talk and think like unbelievers.
This leads me to conclude that most people are probably lost, so it's not suprising to me when unredeemed sinners think and behave like unredeemed sinners. They're incapable of doing anything else because they're slaves to sin.