He who knows what he knows

Two needs have come together. Like many newspapers around the world, the Straits Times has been concerned about losing the next generation of readers to blogs and other online attractions. The government has been concerned about the next generation becoming totally disengaged from Singapore affairs (yes, I know, fingers should be pointed the other way around).

So, to serve both the commercial and the political need, the Straits Times has beefed up its section for younger readers. They are invited to write in and given the pleasure of being published -- which is more than they have ever done for their gay and lesbian readers, where "don't call us, we'll call you if we need a reaction to some new government policy" is the rule.

Anyway, in the YouthLink section of the Straits Times on 1 August 2005, the topic was AIDS. Three letters presented an interesting contrast:

To some extent, it may be because you do not share his belief system, whereas those who share his belief system may consider the second and third letters to be typical foolish stuff from "bleeding-heart liberals".

But I will demonstrate here why the first letter is off-putting even without having to contest his belief system. His style alone comes across poorly.

Toh's letter opens with a degree of smugness that thumps you. "I am not worried about catching Aids. Not now, not ever," he says.

Then he challenges the reader, "Call me complacent, but...."

He goes on to say that the behaviours that might put people at risk are wrong, and simply because they are wrong, he doesn't engage in them. What an austere person! He reveals that he is Christian and dismisses other belief-systems as having "little meaning in this post-modern age when nothing is absolute anymore."

Well, this is not so easily dismissed. There can be very good arguments that in fact the world is relative, and that absolutism is little more than a figment of the imagination. A simple test: different people, all of whom claim that there are absolutes in this world, proclaim different ideas to be absolute. There is no agreement!

And why is "post-modern" a dirty word?

Why is "liberal" a dirty word, as when he says, "And to the rest of you who want to carry on with your liberal lifestyles, the signpost is pretty clear."

His is a letter that places himself on a pedestal, making himself the reference of all things right and proper, pure and good. From that pulpit, he sets out to "exhort you to just say no". He is aware of counter-arguments against his belief system, but he dismisses them by labelling them, and using those labels in a derogatory tone.

He proudly tells his readers that he has no time for empathy: "foolhardy people have to take responsibility for their actions."

* * * * *

Izad Saled Ali's letter provided the rebuttal:

That culture of fear and denial is illustrated by the preceding article When sex, condoms and HIV remain unspeakable.

Desmond Chan's letter was interesting in another way -- he was a straight guy wanting to defend his gay friends, and to do so, he set out to educate himself.

Here is an old saying from Confucius:

Zhi zhi wei zhi zhi 
Bu zhi wei bu zhi 
Zhi ye 

Know what you know 
Own up to what you do not know 
That's wisdom!

-- correct text and translation
courtesy Russell Heng

Does it seem to you that Elgin Toh might have known what he knew, but he stopped there? Chan on the other hand, lived up to the second line of the sage's advice: he was conscious of what he didn't know, which motivated him to find out. Izad asks us all to do the same.

* * * * *

It is no coincidence that Elgin Toh, in his letter, described himself as Christian. Too many who describe themselves as Christian go about life with an inordinate degree of certitude, especially about other people's business. You will have noticed that I am careful to say "he described himself as Christian", for many Christians will argue that his views were most unchristian.

In a way, this difference comes about from the way they access their religion. In her fascinating article, Distorting scripture, literally, Karen Armstrong said,

People talk confidently about scripture, but it is not clear that even the most ardent religious practitioners really know what it is. Protestant fundamentalists, for example, claim that they read the Bible in the same way as the early Christians, but their belief that it is literally true in every detail is a recent innovation, formulated for the first time in the late 19th century.

She argues that much of scripture was meant to be read as allegory, to provoke our own thinking and reflection upon our own times. She noted, for example, that

All the verses of the Quran, for example, are called ayat or parables...

More importantly, scripture is meant to be taken as a whole, instead of

focusing on isolated texts and ignoring others that do not chime with their own predilections...

Two recent changes have distorted our approach to scripture. Universal literacy has meant that people tend to read scripture by themselves for themselves, without the discipline of a broader understanding of its history and how it was meant as a conversation among its various parts. In centuries past, scriptural teaching was mediated by priests and abbots who spent a lifetime in study and contemplation. Armstrong said,

Reading gives people the impression that they have an immediate grasp of their scripture; they are not compelled by a teacher to appreciate its complexity.

The other change was due to the success of the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution that it bred. People acquired the habit of expecting facts in whatever they read. In the same frame of mind, they approach scripture

for accurate information, so that the Bible, for example, becomes a holy encyclopaedia, in which the faithful look up facts about God. Many assume that if the scriptures are not historically and scientifically correct, they cannot be true at all.

That is why, she argued, there is a enormous, and sometimes deadly contest between pseudo-religionists and the real world, between those who use their reading of scripture to justify their ideas of the absolute, and others who'd be more humble and compassionate. These others may be highly religious, except that they use a more reflexive understanding of their faith to better understand and live alongside other people. 

Which is the higher calling? To exhort others to an absolute straight and narrow, or to devote oneself to humility and mercy?

© Yawning Bread 

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