Site Meter Reflections on Playboy: You’re not mad, Tim Cavanaugh; you’re in a moral panic

September 13, 2006

You’re not mad, Tim Cavanaugh; you’re in a moral panic

Et tu, Reason magazine? At least one editor of America’s foremost watchdog journal against moral panics of all political stripes is in a moral panic himself over the intoxicating allure of organized religion. “Is the world mad or am I?” asks Tim Cavanaugh in response to a Tampa, Florida, woman’s conversion to Islam a few years after she lost eight relatives in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At least as far back as February, Cavanaugh has seen moderate religious faith as the gateway drug that leads to the harder stuff pushed by Al Qaeda. Doing so, he puts himself in the embarrassing company of evangelical atheist Sam Harris, who, according to a Reason review of one of his books, suggests with a straight face that we may have to nuke the religious fanatics before they nuke us. Playboy has published at least two essays by Harris, but that’s because Playboy has been an intellectually lazy refuge for several moral panics these days, printing rants against globalization, for example. I still have hope for my two favorite magazines.

“Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man,” said Thomas Paine. But Cavanaugh and other libertarians should think twice before nodding in agreement. Paine reverses the principled libertarian’s understanding of the cause-and-effect relationships between human behavior and the media. Blaming the violent passages of the Koran for terrorism is like blaming video games for violent crime, which Reason has had the good sense never to do. Perhaps, for all I know, Cavanaugh believes that religion deserves all or most of the blame for the world’s moral panics. But “The Sanctimonious Animal,” chapter 15 of Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, has convinced me that they’re partly an unfortunate consequence of the wiring of the human brain. If that’s the case, then atheists aren’t immune.

One of the most regrettable aspects of a moral panic is the demonization of people associated with the thing feared. Scroll down from Cavanaugh’s post, and you’ll see an innocent woman smeared as a gold-digging opportunist by commenters who probably like to think of themselves as pro-choice on everything. But I think she deserves no blame at all for letting Islam trip the circuits for transcendent exaltation in her brain. She has that reaction in common with Osama bin Laden, but so what? Both of them breathe air and drink water, too.

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 2:54 PM

  • Blogger EuroYank left this comment at September 14, 2006 2:54 AM  
    Many in the West are missing the point about the Struggle. Islam thrives in countries that are poor. Where outsiders are considered thieves. Where their world is ruled by fascist dictatorships. Where they have no work. Little food. Little comfort. Where half the population is under 14. Their reward comes in the NEXT LIFE, the current life is HELL. These are the people that may EAT up the WEST. They have nothing to loose, and all the armies, and bombs, and attacks will make little impression. The West on the otherhand has other concerns, as you stated in this post. Excellent by the way from a Western perspective!

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at September 14, 2006 11:36 AM  
    EuroYank,
    I’m convinced that violent religious fanaticism is a consequence of the problems you list, not the other way around.

  • Anonymous Julian Sanchez left this comment at September 15, 2006 1:33 AM  
    In defense of Tim here, whether he's right or wrong on the case in point, I don't think there's any obvious or fundamental inconsistency in treating the potential influence of a comprehensive way of life supported not just by a detailed set of commandemnts in a lenghthy core text but a variety of vehement reinforcing communities, in a somewhat different way than, say, the most recent Vin Diesel action flick.

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at September 15, 2006 5:21 AM  
    Julian Sanchez,
    I’ll admit that “vehement reinforcing communities” can complicate the issue a bit. But in Tampa, an individual’s prerogative to leave the Islamic faith at any time for any reason helps keep the local Muslim community humble and courteous. Islam can’t reinforce anything too vehemently there. Surely this helps explain why Tampa doesn’t breed suicide bombers the way Palestine does. It also strengthens my argument that religion per se does not cause the problem.

  • Anonymous Anonymous left this comment at October 14, 2006 3:31 PM  
    Euroyank: Bah. The world has been filled for years with people who were about to eat America's lunch. The fascists were more disciplined. The Communists were tougher. Et cetera. Ad nauseum. We buried them all, and we'll bury the Muslim terrorists too.

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at October 14, 2006 3:36 PM  
    Thank you, Anonymous. The best system is the one most likely to prevail. How about some optimism, EuroYank?

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