Results of World View

WSU philosophy professor Dr. Joe Campbell wrote an article called Liberals and the Paradox of Intolerance. Here's my response to it. If you'd like to see a more colorful blog than mine you can see my response and other responses to my response here: Right Mind.

Dr Campbell’s very good article has two problems: first, it contains a couple of assertions that are not factually accurate, and second he assumes things throughout that not all are willing to grant.

Dr. Campbell says, “The name ‘Intoleristas’ has been coined and used against liberal and progressive critics of conservative worldviews.” He went on to say, “It is true that some liberals are intolerant. My fear, though, is that people often slide from this fact to the stronger claim all liberals are intolerant.” But no one that Dr. Campbell is talking about does. No one claims that all liberals are intoleristas. The thing that makes anyone an intolerista is that they claim to be for tolerance and diversity, but the first chance they get to be tolerant or diverse, they try to shut down the speaker, or to have him put “out of our town.” By definition, then, an intolerista could be a liberal or a conservative.

The second factual inaccuracy is that Dr. Campbell’s misunderstands what the Christians are saying when he writes, “religious conservatives believe that slavery has a biblical justification.” The “religious conservatives” he is referring to (assuming I know who they are) say that the Bible assumes slavery, but does not promote it. In fact the Bible gives the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (not rebellion, war, or revolution) as the remedy to slavery. Slavery is always a terrible enemy and should be gotten rid of as soon as it is Biblically possible. To say that religious conservatives give justification to slavery, is simply mistaken.

Third, Dr. Campbell’s discussion of the paradox of intolerance is really very good. It is the same argument the religious conservatives use against abortion, for the death penalty, and various other apple and oranges kinds of discussions. But once again, Dr. Campbell’s example of how “the Bible has been used to support the view it is permissible to punish gay by death or exile” misses the point of what has actually been said and the context in which it was said. There is no denying that the Bible required the death penalty for homosexuality in some instances, and in others, exile. That is a fact. But in other contexts in the Bible the sin of homosexuality is talked about as a sin, but not a crime. With this in mind the Bible says that in cultural contexts where homosexuality is a crime it should be handled one way, where it is not a crime, it should be thought of a different way. In both cases it is an abomination against God, but in one case it is a crime, in another it isn’t. In our culture homosexuality is not a crime. But it remains a very shameful sin. A homosexual person should be treated in our culture is with loving care and with the command to repent. No one is advocating that homosexuals be stoned or run out of town (though Tom Hanson’s internet site does want to run certain Christians out of town, or if they say the wrong thing about the wrong people Joan Opyr wants to kick them in a certain place), but neither are we willing to allow that homosexual behavior is something that builds up our society rather than tearing it down.

The second area of disagreement with Dr. Campbell has to do with the area of presuppositions and assumptions (not to mention the fallacy of an appeal to irrelevant or questionable authority). In the three paragraphs that start "My desktop dictionary..." Dr. Campbell's discussion has some problematic assertions. Every professor of philosophy knows that the parts of an argument have presuppositions. Morality is one of those. "In my view..." is where Dr. Campbell's train runs off the tracks. Where does his view come from? What makes him think homosexuals are in the same class as religious groups or races? Why aren't they in the same class as rapists and muggers?

The answer is usually that homosexuals don't hurt anyone else (a so called victimless crime), but this shows an incredible lack of desire to see what is going actually going on. I suppose there is an antiseptic and philosophic way Dr. Campbell can think about homosexuality, where what goes on in a man's bedroom does not enter into the equation. But when you think about what is actually happening, I can't imagine that any sane person would say that that behavior is somehow a good thing. And don’t forget that the people who do those things behind closed doors are running around in public thinking the same way that brought them to the place that allowed them to do the things they do in private. To hell with philosophy and theology. Let your imagination tell you that homosexuality is just icky.

Just my two cents.