Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
Since Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally didn't leave much in the way of familiar political targets for folks on the left to hammer, some have turned to cultural criticism. I've questioned Beck's theatrical approach before, but their issues are different, and at least a few have stumbled onto something worth talking about. Here's Ed Skelton:
Glenn Beck obviously knows nothing of dignity, so he should shut up about honour, no?
Consider this riposte, via Josh Trevino:
It's fun to watch people that thought "Hope 'n Change" was profound act like "Restoring Honor" is a ridiculous platitude.
Fun, in a way, but not surprising. Honor, after all, is a characteristically aristocratic virtue. Dignity is a characteristically democratic virtue. Honor is the kind of virtue that shows forth vertically -- putting certain people and things above others in accordance with inherited codes of worth and esteem. Dignity, by contrast, is the kind of virtue that shows forth horizontally -- the idea is that every person possess equal dignity as a human being. This kind of foundational moral egalitarianism is deeply at odds with the moral foundations of an aristocratic honor culture.
There's just one catch: Christianity. The Christian religion, as Tocqueville put it (yeah, I'm on a Tocqueville kick again; he's unparalleled here), supplies a powerful moral foundation for democratic politics: "it was necessary that Jesus Christ come to earth to make it understood that all members of the human species are naturally alike and equal." As I suggested yesterday, folks on the right of center tend to defend liberty against the extreme love of equality because that immoderate desire inclines people toward a servile attitude toward earthly rule. Likewise, conservative Christians typically view religion as the proper venue for gratifying our longing for servility and equality: all of us are equally human, equally individual, and equally imperfect in the eyes of God, and our proper relationship with God and Christ is one of loving servitude. Hence Beck:
recognize your place to the creator. Realize that he is our king. He is the one who guides and directs our life and protects us. I ask, not only if you would pray on your knees, but pray on your knees but with your door open for your children to see.
Beck's trip isn't that religion is supposed to take over public life or American politics. More accurately, it's that the satisfaction of our longing for equality in servitude is supposed to take place outside of politics, prior to our face-to-face confrontation and cooperation as citizens. The world of politics and policy isn't the place to secure the dignity of man, for God has already secured it for us. Instead, public life is the realm in which we meet one another, as citizens, to maintain -- or restore, if need be -- what the Founders called, in the closing line of the Declaration, "our sacred honor."
But wait -- isn't honor supposed to be the worldly, aristocratic alternative to democratic equality on the one hand and Christian equality? Well, that's where things get interesting. Our (small-r) republican appreciation for liberty and honor has pre-Christian roots, but it has persisted throughout the Christian era (and, if some are to be believed, into the beginnings of a post-Christian era). That means it was at least somewhat successfully reconciled, in some way, with the radical moral egalitarianism of Christianity. How? By keeping a place for honor in public life while also conceding that government should guarantee a certain minimum of goods that are apt to secure our basic dignity -- and by tempering the fanaticism for worldly equality that has issued again and again from those for whom the typical Christian vision is too otherwordly in its blessings and too indifferent to the unequal sufferings of this world.
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May '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
That's an odd question and an odd view of honor. Honor has always been both a Christian and an American value.
Number 5 on God's Top Ten List starts with the word "honor" and we've asked generations to abide by the motto of "Duty. Honor. Country."
Odd that you should find a disconnect between them.
Jul '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
I don't understand your conception of 'honor.' Honor to me is a virtue that is internal to a person, one that ideally will provide a sure compass as we travel through this vale of tears. Honor implies that one will be honest with oneself and others, It means that in acting 'honorably', one may act without regard to concerns such as one's wealth or (even) one's life. To live as an honorable person means that you don't cheat at exams, even if you can get away with it. Honor is a hard taskmaster, indeed.
And it definitely is not an 'aristocratic' virtue, in the sense of being only upper class. On the other hand, if one is 'honorable', then one is 'aristocratic' in the best sense of the word.
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
EJHill
That's an odd question and an odd view of honor. Honor has always been both a Christian and an American value.
Number 5 on God's Top Ten List starts with the word "honor" and we've asked generations to abide by the motto of "Duty. Honor. Country."
Odd that you should find a disconnect between them. · Aug 29 at 12:40pm
Well, as you see, EJ, I wind up answering that question in the negative. You're spot on in making the important point about #5, but that underscores -- I think -- the kinds of differences you see between honor as it has come out of the Biblical tradition and honor as it has come out of the ancient Greek (and Roman) tradition. That's the kind of distinction that's in keeping with the point that Tocqueville and I are trying to make. (And that's to leave aside -- for now? -- the differences between the Old and New Testaments as far as honor is concerned...)
Jul '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
There is an interesting aspect to this that I am yet to hear anyone mention. Normally, the left would be all over the "Christian" religious message. When in the past have they ever allowed a display like yesterday's without making every snide innuendo they could? However, they are scrupulously avoiding that.My guess is it is because of the GZ Mosque. Suddenly, they are all about religious freedom, so they have to bite their tongues and say nothing, lest their normal hypocrisy become blatantly obvious, even to the most benighted among us.
Jun '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
In this example honour is a self-destructive act, a sacrifice for a perceived better. Whether the better is real or imagined does not lessen the sacrifice as its measure is objective.
Whereas:
“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.”
Speaks to man’s dignity. But what is most instructive is Hamlet rejects this dignity by finding no delight in it.
This to me is the profound difference between honour and dignity. Carton’s sacrifice in The Tale of Two Cities cannot be denied it is objective, where man’s dignity is all too easily denied for it comes from within; it is subjective.
Aug '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
Benedictus maximae, James. To which I'd just like to add that the Founders - with the exception of Jefferson and many of his followers - had real world, first-hand experiences with mobs; and were justifiably wary (and in John and Abigail Adams' case) terrified of them. They'd seen wanton destruction in Boston and other cities; riots, property destruction, murder, and hysteria. They keenly felt the danger to the new American republic.
As Beck has revealed, George Washington invented the Merit Badge (which later became the Purple Heart) given to people who displayed great honor and courage in battle or any human endeavor. He and his compatriots knew that codes of honor were a glue that could hold his army and nation together.
As ardent students of ancient history, they knew that 'democratic' mobs had ruined Greek democracy and the Roman Republic. Most of the educated classes in the 18th Century were predicting that the 'leveling' tendencies of the masses would drag down American culture and government to the lowest common denominator.
Then the French Revolution erupted, and they were proved right. Strangely, Jefferson and his party, the Republicans, pretended not to see or take much notice of it.
May '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
James - de Tocqueville's chapter on honor also speaks of how Americans had found dishonor in idleness. Can we say that's true today? The Speaker of the House praises health care reform because it will allow Americans to pursue such idleness.
Tocqueville said that America would have only "glimpses of the rules of honor" as they would "seldom have time to fix attention upon them." That can not be said in any regard about today's America. In fact, the default explanation of stupidity in America always seems to come back to "Somebody has way too much time on their hands."
Jul '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
To put it more simply, one can act with the appearance of dignity; but can BE honorable without other people seeing one. Walking into a town with no shoes may be 'undignified' to onlookers, but if that poverty results from an honourable life in the face of ill luck, then one is not disgraced. On the contrary. Because it is here that God enters the equation.
May '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
Here's one way to put the problem w/ Beck's new project, as seen from what I take to be a (even if not *the*) thoroughgoing Christian perspective:
He's calling Americans "back to God" without asking them to *convert* into the Church - be baptized & discipled, etc. He's calling folks to come "back to God" outside of the Gospel, or in a way in which the Gospel is peripheral at best.
Instead, on Beck's theology, coming "back to God" becomes a matter of applying "principles" and taking a stand on "values".
Whether this well serves American democracy is one thing, but whether it's at variance w/ confessional Christian theology is another.
As seen from these Evangelical eyes of mine, Beck's theology is a liberation theology for American "white culture" -- loosing the chains of our oppression under socialism and marching into the Promised Land of national greatness and all the rest.
That this sort of theology just is liberation theology seems to be entirely lost on Beck.
Jun '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
James Poulos, Ed.: Consider this riposte, via Josh Trevino:
Josh Trevino make a good point. Most Americans--with the exception of the hard left (who cannot believe that American has ever possessed honor--have a far clearer picture of what "restoring honor" means than the hopelessly ambiguous "hope 'n change" mantra.
Some examples of honor:
America's participation in WWII and the Koren conflict (I would add Vietnam, but will set that one aside to avoid a big debate: I had two friends who died there and both believed they were fighting for something important).
The Berlin airlift.
The Cuban missile crisis.
Reagan's evil empire speech.
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
Bush's targeted effort to make a difference in the AIDs crisis in Africa.
Honor means standing for something clear and explicit. "Change" can be anything, including appeasement of the mullahs, the healthcare bill, and the apology tour.
Edited on Aug 29, 2010 at 2:18pmJun '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
Edward,
That was quite an interesting perspective on Glenn Beck's national, and therefore social, revival. Liberating? I really think that you have hit on the essence of what makes many conservatives a bit uncomfortable with a grand spiritual revival being led from Washington by those that have so much skin in the game of politics.
Thanks.
Jun '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
Part of dignity is cleaning up after yourself, as wonderfully demonstrated here:
Video: On the Mall after the Restoring Honor Rally
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NioIQc6hA8M
May '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
I am smack in the middle of reading Claire Berlinski's excellent biography of Margaret Thatcher and had just finished her chapter on how Thatcher anchored almost her entire platform on morality. For her (as, it seems, for Beck), socialism was not simply an errant economic idea but a blight on the soul of Britain that could only lead to damnation.
It seems that Beck has tapped into Thatcherism, as least a little bit. I can't say I'm sorry to see it. It's long past time that someone made that argument again.
Aug '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
Honor can mean such different things to different people.
For example, in some cultures, a woman who has been raped is considered as dishonored as if she had volunteered for unchastity, while in others, a woman who has been raped may still be considered chaste and honorable, while her attacker incurs the great dishonor. (Tocqueville has something to say about this when he writes of American women.)
Sowell writes in "Black Rednecks, White Liberals" that honor in the redneck South had quite a different meaning from honor among northerners -- honor among rednecks meant a kind of touchy pride, whereas northerners tended to find honor in hard work and "respectability" (the Protestant work ethic, etc).
So I think honor has enough different meanings that it need not be an aristocratic virtue. Honor may also mean a virtue fitting to ordinary folk.
Jul '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
Honor is why a soldier dies for his comrades.
Dignity is a very old Golden Retriever.
May '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
I'm sure many of us this Sunday heard some interesting teaching from Jesus himself on honor, and the pursuit of honor. If you consider who, in his culture was treated with dishonor, the blind and infirm, and the poor, for example,, we can see that much of his ministry was to "restore to honor" those who had been excluded from "honorable" society. He also cast into dishonor the well-dressed hypocritical sort who afflicted them.
I'm in full agreement here. The Founders intended to create a nation that better reflected the existing character and special nature of their society, as the Declaration makes clear. Just and honorable government flows out of a just and honorable people, not the other way around.
May '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
Good points, Edward, though too harsh, I think. I applaud Beck for hammering on the point that good government can only be secured through the good moral behavior of citizens. But you're right that the personal aspect of faith, acknowledging God's active role in our lives and our actions, is essential to true reverence.
It's interesting to me that everyone is talking about honor as something one obtains. There is also a concept of honor as something one offers or does. I can honor my family by supporting them financially. I can honor my country through millitary service. I can honor God through prayer and praise. In this sense, honor is an affirmation of value. Honorable actions prove and reinforce one's committment to others. Establishing or securing my own honor means fulfilling my potential; respecting myself.
Might there also be another dimension to dignity? When Nazi guards made prisoners strip naked, were they robbing those people of dignity or merely failing to honor that dignity? Is dignity something that can be taken by force, analogous to losing physical strength after a series of heavy blows?
Can honor be taken? Or must it be given up?
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
Man, these are some great reflections. I'm still ruminating over them all, so I don't have anything much to add for now -- except thanks!
May '10
Re: Honor! Dignity! Glenn Beck! Religion and Politics in America
This country was founded by a motley group of men whose religious views and personal moral codes varied widely- yet they still found a common ground in a vague Deism that my fellow evangelicals sometimes distastefully dismiss as lukewarm weak tea.
Why was the rally, for ecumenical and common-ground reasons echoing the precise same themes as Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson, a problem if their religious compromises 235 years ago in fact fostered this society? AA works for many by referring to the "higher power". We don't need to read into every man's soul to commit anew to the common elements that bind us.
This was a political rally, not a revival meeting. I invite all to share my evangelical Christian faith. If I cannot persuade you to join me, I want you to at least embrace the Judeo-Christian (and others) moral heritage that enables civil society.
Edward, I'm too dumb to see the alleged parallel with liberation theology. Patriotic, God-centered (not necessarily Jesus-centered) and assisted self-reliance is nothing remotely like using New Testament exhortations toward personal generosity and mercy as the rationale for centralized, grievance-ridden collectivism.