Volume 3, Number 2

[james_morrow]

THE INVENTION OF THE INVENTION OF LYING

For the past several months I’ve been receiving e-mails from fans of my novella, City of Truth, asking how I feel about the recent Ricky Gervais comedy, The Invention of Lying.

The parallels between my novella and Gervais’ movie are many. Both posit societies in which mendacity is unknown. Both sport plot

Comments

Re: I'm Jewish and I'm with Lieberman

[james_morrow]

Dear Anonymous: I appreciate your thoughtful and heartfelt comment. To be honest, I’ve always resisted the notion of “taking offense” at another person’s critique of an arguably problematic worldview. (You know as well as I that the YHWH of the Torah recommends all sorts of vicious behavior.) To adopt such a posture, I feel, is to shut down the most precious post-Enlightenment gift the Western world possesses these days, reasoned discourse: “I’m offended, sir, therefore this conversation is over, period, full stop.” We can do better than that, Anonymous.

That said, I think you’re making an interesting point. Secular humanists, like everyone else, have foibles and hypocrisies. If I understand your reaction to my Joe Lieberman posting, it goes something like this: Is it not paradoxical for unbelievers to simultaneously deny the reality of a Supreme Being while presuming to understand what that same nonexistent God expects of his followers?

I must take issue with you, however, on the details of health-care reform. I, too, have observed the British, European, and Canadian systems up close, and I’ve reached conclusions quite opposite to your own. If these “socialist” institutions are so inefficient and unpopular, Anonymous, how to you account for the fact that no government, conservative or progressive, has ever attempted to get rid of one?

As for your assertion that “Republicans ... care very much about health care reform,” I would adduce the fact that Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, George H. W. Bush, and Bob Dole were proud and conspicuous enemies of Medicare, with Reagan famously claiming that, if that dreaded entitlement were ever enacted, we would all “spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”

Concerning the Republican chant, “Tort reform, tort reform, tort reform,” I can find no evidence that any such tweaking would begin to make quality health care available to the poor. Yes, I suppose there have been some questionable or even outrageous awards over the years, but on the whole the anti-malpractice-suit movement strikes me as just another assault on patients’ rights by the privileged classes.

It was not my intention to attack either your honor or your faith, Anonymous, and I’m sorry you took my remarks that way. When Al Gore selected Mr. Lieberman as his running mate, I nearly shed tears of joy at the thought that a person of Jewish heritage might become our Vice President, and by extension perhaps even President. I have no desire to rescind those tears, but of late I find precious little to admire in the man.

Re: I'm Jewish and I'm with Lieberman

[james_morrow]

Mr. Morrow, thank you for your very thoughtful reply. To begin, I see what you're saying about the notion of "taking offense," and from your point of view I can understand what you're getting at. The fact of the matter, however, is that it is impossible to critique a pre-enlightenment worldview with post-enlightenment premises. I cannot appeal to the kind of "reason" that you and the modern world expects in defending my beliefs in divine revelation, i.e. empirical reasoning. (although empirical reasoning is only one kind of reasoning -- experience and speculation are both in the category of reason, albeit not empirical in the post-enlightenment sense, as I cannot expect you to see what I see, experience what I've experienced, or interpret what I've interpreted. As a Jew, I don't even bother debating religion with members of other faiths. Some of my best friends are Christian, and though I'm interested in learning about what they believe, I respect that their piety is good for them and I am happy that it has brought them happiness. It would seem that a person like yourself -- a secular humanist -- ought to be able to at least not insult someone's religious beliefs. As a secular example, suppose you know a person who's wife you believe is completely nasty to others, but he loves her very much and they have a wonderful marriage. Do you tell your friend that he is a fool to love his wife? On the other hand, if his wife is now influencing him to do nefarious things, who should you criticize -- his wife, or him? It would seem that he is responsible for his own actions. If you want to be mad at God, fine. If you want to be mad at His followers for their actions, that's fine, too. But just pick one or the other. I would take no offense if your criticisms were merely lodged at Lieberman, but to bring his religion into it is what I found offensive.

Moreover, if I was a little too sensitive on this, it is because many of your blog's readers do not share your more refined and thoughtful attitude towards the pious. You have demonstrated, not only in previous blog posts over the years but also in your books, that you have a nuanced attitude towards religion that frankly a number of the commenters on your blog do not share.

Re: I'm Jewish and I'm with Lieberman

[james_morrow]

In addition to that, another reason I am sensitive to this is that Joe Lieberman, being the most prominent Jewish politician in the United States, is cited all over the Internet in anti-semitic slurs and rants. Not only have I seen it, but the Anti-Defamation League has documented hundreds of instances of Lieberman's religion being used as "proof" that Jews are capricious. Some of the ones I've seen include, "Joe the Jew would sacrifice as many Americans as possible for Israel," "Jew Lieberman will not be happy until America is destroyed," and "I would have gassed Joe Lieberman first." The health care issue has ignited even more of them recently. And the fact of the matter is that anti-semitism is now a phenomenon of the political left rather than the political right. While decades ago it used to be christian conservatives who used to hate Jews, it is actually now the liberal minded who have become anti-semitic. In our post-World War II era, the "progressives" have come to despise any kind of nationalism, and Jews being the "fossils of history" (as Toynbee called us), who just won't let our ancient sense of national pride go away (or our "outdated," "irrational" belief in God, for that matter), Jews (and Israel) have become enemies of the liberal project to make everyone in the world in exactly the same "grey group", living under the same collectivized system of pure post-enlightenment reason (which of course would be pretty boring, wouldn't it?). And, since Jews are just greedy, conniving profiteers who own the world (as the narrative continues), Lieberman's opposition to a public option on health care (apparently, according to the left, is motivated by his wife's financial interests), is only lending greater fodder for anti-semitism if you do some Google searches on it. Can't the man just be principally opposed to Obamacare and therefore a political opponent to Obamacare supporters and leave it at that? Unfortunately, most Jews fail to see what the left thinks of us, but that is the perspective of many on the left, nonetheless (the secular humanist author of Towing Jehovah excluded).

As for the politics of health care, I do not wish to get into a lengthy debate on the subject because I believe my point has been made. I will only respond by saying that European style health care has indeed been a big problem for its recipients, and they are constantly looking at ways of reforming it. It has not been eliminated for the sole reason that once you create any kind of government program, it becomes virtually impossible to get rid of it. This is the big reason why we need to be cautious about what we do here in the U.S. Bureaucratic agencies are here to stay once they are formed. There are too many strong interests engulfed in its preservation for them to be eliminated. Also, Europeans generally have a far more collectivized mindset at solving social pathologies while Americans have a more market oriented disposition. Thank G-d for the latter, but I fear that it will not last. As for tort reform, the high costs of health care premiums can indeed be traced to frivolous lawsuits. I am not suggesting that tort reform is the only solution that needs to be implemented, but it is one of the market based strategies that need to happen.

Re: I'm Jewish and I'm with Lieberman

[james_morrow]

One last remark. It occurred to me that your argument, "if nationalized health care in Europe is not bad, why haven't they gotten rid of it?" contains a premise that doesn't accord with even your own worldview. If religion is so bad for us, as secular humanism insists, then why has it lasted and endured all these years? You know as well as I do, Mr. Morrow, that there is such a thing as collective madness, in which people make the same mistakes over and over. It's not that I believe religion is collective madness, but you do, and so you believe in collective madness. There's your answer right there as to why socialized health care hasn't been eliminated in Europe.

Moreover, if there's one thing that I can admire about the political left, it is that they are always reminding us about a phenomenon called "abuse of power." It's the one and only common thread between the classical liberalism of our founders and the reform liberalism of present day "progressives." The problem is, though, that modern day progressives don't listen to their own wisdom. Upon their reminder of abuse of power, they turn around and propose giving power to someone new (usually a bureaucracy), as if this new person / body in power is a philosopher-king incapable of abusing power. So I just don't understand why on one hand law enforcement agents are harassing innocent black Americans and planting evidence against them, yet a bureaucrat working in a cubicle (who, by the way, has far less transparency and accountability on his activities than a policeman does) won't be denying or delaying a black patient's health care treatment? A bureaucrat has nothing to gain or to lose by keeping any patient alive. On the contrary, a dead patient means one less person to treat.