[Buddha-l] Fallacy of division (Why neo-conservatives are notwelcome on buddha-l)

[jkirk]

> It seems appropriate that in a country as politically divided as ours,
> the fallacy of choice would be the fallacy of division. Just to remind
> you, this is the fallacy that consists in assuming that whatever
> properties a whole has must be shared by each of its parts. For example,
> an ocean is really big. A water molecule is part of an ocean, so a water
> molecule must be really big. You get the idea.
>
> Kenneth Tomlinson, the neo-conservative ideologue who has been given
> control of the government-funded radio and television networks known as
> NPR and PBS argues that our society as a whole is one in which all views
> are given an fair airing. True enough (or at least, a pious fiction that
> we might wish were true.) By employing the fallacy of division,
> Tomlinson concludes that every radio and television program on the air
> should also present all views on every issue presented. So Amy Goodman
> should spend as much time mindlessly praising the Bush administration
> and she spends exposing carefully exposing its weaknesses. (And, by
> parity of bad reasoning, Bill O'Reilly should devote as much time to
> carefully exposing the fallacies in George W. Bush's speeches as he
> devotes to the irresponsible slandering of people he perceives to be
> liberals. But wait a minute. O'Reilly is on Fox news, which is owned and
> controlled by a bigoted billionaire, and Tomlinson's principle applies
> only to organizations that openly receive government funding, not to
> organizations that accept it clandestinely.)
>
> This morning I went to a Unitarian church and heard a sermon with which
> I profoundly disagreed. The conclusion of the sermon was that Unitarians
> ought to welcome political conservatives to their churches. The reason
> given was that Unitarians favor religious and political diversity and
> would therefore be hypocritical not to welcome people who disagree with
> everything Unitarians stand for. Another splendid example of the fallacy
> of division.
>
> What Tomlinson and the Unitarian minister say is like saying that a
> rainbow is a multicolored object, and therefore every band in the
> rainbow must also be multicolored. What this reasoning ignores, of
> course, is that a rainbow can be a rainbow only if every band has a
> distinct color and is NOT multicolored. Similarly, I would argue, a
> pluralistic society can be pluralistic only if there really are a
> plurality of views that can be distinguished from each other. If we let
> O'Reilly be O'Reilly and Amy Goodman be Amy Goodman, and if we do not
> make it illegal for anyone to choose whether they listen to O'Reilly or
> Goodman or both or neither, then we have just exactly the kind of
> pluralistic society most Americans want. Make O'Reilly and Goodman
> indistinguishable from each other, and we no longer have pluralism. All
> we have is mediocrity.
>
> My own view is that religious conservatives SHOULD be made to feel
> uncomfortable and unwanted in a Unitarian church. Let them go elsewhere
> to be with their own kind. There are plenty of evangelical outfits to go
> around.
>
> And, by the same token, I would argue that people who support American
> imperialism, illegal wars, xenophobia and systematic destruction of the
> environment should be made to feel uncomfortable and unwelcome on
> BUDDHA-L. Let such people go to the news groups and into the neo-
> conservative blogosphere. Let them go anywhere, just so long as they do
> not stay here. Let the denizens of BUDDHA-L continue to be as we have
> been for the past fourteen years.
>
> It is not hypocritical to be a Buddhist and to shun neo-conservatives.
> What would be hypocritical would be to pretend to welcome them as they
> are. (Of course, if they were ever to wake up to compassion and clarity
> of mind, they would be most welcome here.)
>
> I'd like to dedicate this sermon to Ken Tomlinson and to the Unitarian
> minister who got me all fired up.
>
> -- 
> Richard Hayes
===================================
The UU church I occasionally go to has not got into this particular riff as 
yet.
But according to an article in the last issue of UU World, one can see that 
some are thinking about the division between liberals and righties not as 
the fallacy of division but as a ram-rod split and an issue of 
communication, perhaps a moral issue. I personally rather doubt that many 
political conservatives will avail themselves of your minister's proposed 
invitation. But if one or two should do, it might be, um, educational for 
both kinds of parties to engage in debate and discussion of differences. 
Everyone need not participate in such a discussion--but some might be 
willing to organize one of the evening get -togethers that UUs like to do 
for this purpose.

This excerpt is from an article in said issue of UU World:
http://www.uuworld.org/2005/03/bookshelf.html

"...It is very hard to remember, think about, or even hear facts that don't 
make sense to you. Those who see conservatives as pro-family and liberals as 
anti-family have no place to put the fact that liberal Massachusetts has the 
lowest divorce rate in the country. It just won't stick in their heads.
Lakoff recommends reframing. Rather than accepting the terminology used by 
your opponents and answering the questions they raise (“Have you stopped 
beating your wife?” ), redescribe the situation in your own terms and raise 
the questions you find significant. Rather than defend the “anti-family” 
position, reframe: Fundamentalists are pro-one-kind-of-family and religious 
liberals are pro-another-kind-of-family. Now you're set up to point out that 
our kind of family works pretty well—hence the Massachusetts divorce 
statistic.

Even if you never manage to change anyone's mind, understanding Lakoff's 
frames and Ault's insights into the mindset of the Christian right can keep 
you from reinforcing negative stereotypes and aggravating old arguments 
unintentionally. Fundamentalists truly do not understand that we are morally 
serious people and that we take our chosen commitments as seriously (if not 
more so) than they take their congenital obligations. If we could 
communicate just that much, we could provoke a major shift in the way they 
view the world..."

[the last assertion strikes me as too optimistic.]

Perhaps it's not such a great idea to draw the boundaries 
exclusively--that's what the fundamentalists do, throwing people out of 
their churches who raise unwelcome questions.  If some UUs want to 
debate/discuss with such folks, let them------soon, I suspect, both parties 
will call it a day as one of the two parties has a much more closed mind 
than the other.

The ABQ UU minister's idea is also striking in that it smacks of the 
Christian idea to take truth to the heathen. His assumption that inviting 
political conservatives to the fellowship is potentially beneficial seems 
naively motivated......as though his own faith and convictions are so 
powerful that anything un-UU will fall on the UU path. I've noticed this 
about quite a few UUs I come across and socialize with--they are rather smug 
in their views.  But I suppose the same can be said of other churches and 
creeds....even Buddhism.

Joanna