A favorite resort of cowards and bullies is the argumentum ad baculum, the argument “from the stick.” It is the use of force or violence – whether physical, psychological, sociological, financial (which is really a part of the sociological), or emotional – to silence others who would otherwise disagree with their positions. Such persons, unable to present a genuinely reasoned case, decide that the vacuum due to the lack of cogency in their claims is to be compensated for with the blunt force trauma they are prepared to inflict. Sometimes “blunt force trauma” is not a metaphor. Just a few days ago, some high-minded “Christians” literally beat their own 19-year-old son to death, so as to properly impress upon him the love of the sweet baby Jesus. Such behavior is not normal, of course, even amongst the viciously right-wing authoritarians in American Christianity today who, regardless of their numbers, garner so much press. But it is also worth remembering that the reason these people are not as bad as, say, ISIL, has nothing to do with the “love” in their hearts, and everything to do with the fact that hard-won secular law stands between them and the kinds of atrocities they’ve committed in the past, and would still be committing if they could get away with it. (Recall Nietzsche’s aphorism: “If the Christians still loved us, they’d still burn us.”)

As I noted in a previous post regarding approaches to religion, “In communities that valorize liberal approaches, the experiential element will be directed toward personal growth and spirituality. In conservative communities, experience will be canalized into orthodoxy and conformity.” The latter, canalizing method must – almost, if not simply, by necessity – appeal to other methods than reason in order to establish such conformity. Reason unleashed invariably follows the multitudinous fibers of possibilities not yet described or even imagined, decrying along the way the permissions of others. This might lead to community, but it will not be the foundation of conformity. Continue reading →