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

[anonymous]

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.