On Anger, “Judeo-Christian” Values and the Quran Burning Controversy

These days, as I reflect on the explosive aftereffects of the incineration of copies of the Quran in a US military base in Afghanistan, I find myself re-reading chapters 1-11 of Book Two of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, where he offers his treatment of the passions (the Greek is pathē, from which we get all those “path” terms, like sympathy, empathy, apathy, pathetic, and so on). This “theory of moral sentiments” comes in the context of “a theory of rhetoric”: a reasoned discourse offering analysis and advice concerning the political use of composed speech in situations where persuasion is based on something other than “purely” rational conviction. Central to what Aristotle has to say  is that human beings experience anger on those occasions when they: (1) believe that they themselves or something that they hold dear (or, especially, most dear) has been belittled and (2) cherish a wish for revenge. The paradigmatic example is Achilles, who believing himself to have been robbed of his honor (which is what was most dear to him at that time) by Agamemnon, displays his anger precisely by predicting and praying for (and then enlisting the gods’ support for his predictive prayer) the devastation of the Greek army as a punishment to Agamemnon. This is especially exemplary in that, among other things, it shows why what we euphemistically call “collateral damage” is so endemic to “the work of anger.”

The terrible events that have followed the burning of the Qurans by insufficiently sensitive and ill trained personnel, sadly, were entirely predictable in terms of Aristotle’s account. The anger, with its destructive thirst for revenge, that a believer feels in seeing the testament burned unceremoniously as refuse is immediately understandable for someone who has taken the slightest moment to conceive of how a Muslim relates to the sacred word, and how it differs from the way in which a Christian relates to the sacred word. With just the smallest degree of education—precisely the kind of education Aristotle is trying to provide in his Rhetoric—one could see at an instant the grounds for the anger.

But wait, have I presumed too much? Have I, as Newt Gingrich recently asserted,“surrendered” by claiming that it was, in fact, an error to burn those Qurans—assuredly, in an entirely non-inflammatory and “instrumental” manner?” Am I hasty in suggesting that this is a sign of insufficient sensitivity and improper training on the part of the military and its contractors? No. And Aristotle points us to the reason why. Whoever steps into the public sphere and asks their fellow citizens—or the citizens of other lands—to listen to what they have to say about matters of public concern must have in mind what the character of those listening is like and also what kind of character they can be inspired to want to have. When our leaders uncritically respond to the inflamed and violent protests that have been going on (and make no mistake I find crimes against persons that have been committed in the aftermath of the original burning absolutely unjustified beyond any shadow of doubt), they are in effect telling us: yes, in fact, we are the people who burn Qurans with the rest of the trash, and we are going to continue being those people, and that is in no way in contradiction with our being lovers of freedom who wish to bring to the whole world the possibility of self-determination. Indeed, for some who subscribe to the “clash of civilizations” narrative, these events prove that it is precisely because we are the people who burn Qurans (in the service of removing “radicalizing materials” from a detention facility, and let’s not forget that piece of this tale) that we are the people who are on this democratizing mission.

But that, in this context, is exactly the problem. With rare exceptions (the re-emergence of Rick Santorum into the limelight has provided an instance), our political leaders, from left to right, prefer not to admit a basic fact. America is not (yet) a pluralist and universalist democracy based on ethical-humanist values. Nor is it, by any means, a secular country. Nor yet is it one “founded on Judeo-Christian” values, a hyphenated horror of a phrase I feel I have heard (well, seen) one thousand times in the past weeks. America—and forgive me, President Obama, as I know you’ve tried hard to make the opposite case—is a Christian land. It may be on its way to being something else, something more. Or it may be, actually, becoming more so a Christian land. But at this point it time, it is a Christian country.

In fact, I would claim that if it were “Judeo-Christian” (whatever that would actually mean), then this would not have happened. Why? Because to the extent that that “Judeo” part was in there, I mean was really in there, it simply would not have been possible for folks to be so deeply tone deaf to the significance of burning the word. A Jewish congregation lives in and through the Law; a community of Jewish believers without a building, without a Rabbi, without an institutional structure are all entirely possible. Without the scroll, without the Law, which is itself sacred, with highly ritualized rules for one’s conduct when holding it, or even in its vicinity, there is nothing. For Jews, as for Muslims, there is only God and only those with whom God has seen fit to work on earth, namely the prophets.

The roster may differ, but the structure and the theology remains the same. For this reason, though politically impossible at the moment, it would be much easier to imagine a Islamo-Jewish or Judeo-Islamic political community than a Judeo-Christian one. Theologically, Islam and Judaism are much closer to one another than either is to Christianity. But I digress.

The trace of the divine in the world, then, is to be found in the letter of the law, for Jews as much as Muslims. For this reason, a Jew might very well, and well we know it, burn a Quran. But never in what seems to have been the genuine ignorance at work in this instance.

Let me speak a bit more carefully. I do not know, and I suppose it is not currently known, precisely how far up the chain of command the order to burning these sacred (to some) texts went. Thus, it is irresponsible to speak about the faith traditions to which those individuals belong, or their nationalities. What I mean to address here is not the activity of the burning itself, and its causes, so much as the way that activity is understood by those in whose name it was carried out. And in this respect, I hope to have given us reason to consider the possibility that it is because the United States is a Christian country, and leads its allies in world affairs as a Christian country, that something like this “public relations disaster” could happen. If that is so, or even if it just might be so, then I think we have reason to consider the possibility that it is time for us to have some genuine religious education in the American, so that any (say) 12 year old would know what they would have been taught to believe about the sacred had they been brought up in (to begin with) each of the other Abrahamic faiths.

I have a very hard time imagining that in such a possible Christian—but self-consciously Christian—America, you would find very many 18-25 year olds who would not know that burning a Quran is for a believing Muslim very much unlike burning a “remaindered” King James Bible is for a believing Christian. And, for that reason, I find it fairly likely that in a world in which that America, rather than our current “Judeo-Christian” America, was active in world affairs, not only would Americans be better able to anticipate what makes others angry, but we might actually be able to help bring about a state of affairs where there was at least a little less anger in the world. Which would be a good thing.