Thursday, April 28, 2005
(6:20 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Apologia for "Going Public"
Alright, so I was a little hard on sincere evangelical kids in "Going Public". I understand that when you're young, you say some naive things. I've said such things and likely continue to say them, and doing so is by no means unforgiveable. Maybe those kids really would die for their faith, too; maybe it seems to be worth it to them. In my opinion, the faith dispensed by your average generic "church growth"-style evangelical Republican church is objectively not worth dying for. I also don't think that radical Islam is worth dying for, and we could increase the length of the list indefinitely. So yes, I was too hard on the kids, since they're not yet old enough to know better, and in that sense, I apologize for what I said. The fact remains that they are being fed a line of bullshit, and their sincerity only increases the culpability of those feeding it to them.I have no interest in specifying what is "worth dying for," because at least here in the USA, I don't think that's what's really at stake, at all. I'd be surprised if it were what was really at stake much of anywhere else in the world, either. A really effective martyrdom campaign requires very specific circumstances that do not seem to me to prevail anywhere that I know of in the contemporary world.
Also, some may be disturbed by my telling an evangelical Christian ideologue to "go the fuck away" in comments. Some may worry that by doing so, I am becoming the very thing I hate, or shutting down dialogue, or being hypocritical. Even if I were to value something like "dialogue" as an end in itself (and let us be perfectly clear: I do not), the individual who was told to "go the fuck away" clearly was not interested in participating in anything resembling a dialogue. That is, he seemed to be a familiar type, as John Emerson noted -- the type who assumes that the existence of opinions contrary to his own stems from never having been exposed to his correct opinions. His job is not to enter into constructive dialogue, but to be our gracious teacher. Responding to him in an open and engaged manner would have only encouraged him to continue spouting off a message that I believe to be completely bankrupt and with which I am, in any case, already thoroughly familiar. In his case, although I am willing to apologize in the sense of explaining myself, I am not willing to apologize in the sense of renouncing my action. If some readers are offended by this to the point of wanting to stop reading this site, I wish them nothing but the best.
