Language Matters – Page 33 – Maverick Philosopher

An Apology to the Shade of William Safire

Language matters, but so does accurate quotation. I thank the illustrious Mr. Lull for his contributions to the high level of quality control here at MavPhil.

Dear Bill,

William Safire came up with a list of what he called "fumblerules." "A fumblerule contains an example contrary to the advice it gives . . . ."* Among them is "Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague."** I think that that fumblerule's what Mr Hitchens misquoted.

Best,
Dave

=====
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumblerules
**Mr Safire's fumblerules are widely quoted on the web. I checked on this particular one in his book Fumblerules : a lighthearted guide to grammar and good usage (New York : Doubleday, 1990), page [149], and I've quoted it as it appears there.

From: William F Vallicella

To: Dave Lull

Sent: Monday, February 11, 2013 1:27 PM
Subject: Safire Quotation

Dear Dave,

I recently quoted William Safire as having written, "Avoid stock expressions like the plague." I think I got this quotation form Hitchens' final book. Since I object to the passing off of bogus quotations, can you tell me where Safire wrote the above, if he did?

Regards,

Bill V.

William Safire

He is supposed to have said somewhere, "Avoid stock expressions like the plague."

Ah yes, the perils of giving writing advice. Even the great Orwell stumbles.

Reification and Hypostatization

My tendency has long been to use 'reification' and 'hypostatization' interchangeably. But a remark by E. J. Lowe has caused me to see the error of my ways. He writes, "Reification is not the same as hypostatisation, but is merely the acknowledgement of some putative entity's real existence." ("Essence and Ontology," in Novak et al. eds, Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Analytic, Scholastic, Ontos Verlag, 2012, p. 95) I agree with the first half of Lowe's sentence, but not the second.

Lowe's is a good distinction and I take it on board. I will explain it in my own way. Something can be real without being a substance, without being an entity logically capable of independent existence. An accident, for example, is real but is not a substance. 'Real' from L. res, rei. Same goes for the form of a hylomorphic compound. A statue is a substance but its form, though real, is not. The smile on a face and the bulge in a carpet are both real but incapable of independent existence. So reification is not the same as hypostatization. To consider or treat x as real is not thereby to consider or treat x as a substance.

Lowe seems to ignore that 'reification' and 'hypostatization' name logico-philosophical fallacies, where a fallacy is a typical mistake in reasoning, one that occurs often enough and is seductive enough to be given a label. On this point I diverge from him. For me, reification is the illict imputation of ontological status to something that does not have such status. For example, to treat 'nothing' as a name for something is to reify nothing. If I say that nothing is in the drawer I am not naming something that is in the drawer. Nothing is precisely no thing. As I see it, reification is not acknowledgment of real existence, but an illict imputation of real existence to something that lacks it. I do not reify the bulge in a carpet when I acknowledge its reality.

Or consider the internal relation being the same color as. If two balls are (the same shade of) red, then they stand in this relation to each other. But this relation is an "ontological free lunch" not "an addition to being" to borrow some phaseology from David Armstrong. Internal relations have no ontological status. They reduce to their monadic foundations. The putatively relational fact Rab reduces to the conjunction of two monadic facts: Fa & Fb. To bring it about that two balls are the same color as each other it suffices that I paint them both red (or blue, etc.) I needn't do anything else. If this is right, then to treat internal relations as real is to commit the fallacy of reification. Presumably someone who reifies internal relations will not be tempted to hypostatize them.

To treat external relations as real, however, is not to reify them. On my use of terms, one cannot reify what is already real, any more than one can politicize what is already political. To bring it about that two red balls are two feet from each other, it does not suffice that I create two red balls: I must place them two feet from each other. The relation of being two feet from is therefore real, though presumably not a substance.

To hypostatize is is to treat as a substance what is not a substance. So the relation I just mentioned would be hypostatized were one to consider it as an entity capable of existing even if it didn't relate anything. Liberals who blame society for crime are often guilty of the fallacy of hypostatization. Society, though real, is not a substance, let alone an agent to which blame can be imputed.

If I am right then this is mistaken:

First, I have given good reasons for distinguishing the two terms. Second, the mistake of treating what is abstract as material is not the same as reification or hypostatization. For example, if someone were to regard the null set as a material thing, he would be making a mistake, but he would not be reifying or hypostatizing the the null set unless there were no null set.

Or consider the proposition expressed by 'Snow is white' and 'Schnee ist weiss.' This proposition is an abstact object. If one were to regardit as a material thing one would be making a mistake, but one would not be reifying it because it is already real. Nor would one be hypostatizing it since (arguably) it exists independently.

‘Leftist,’ not ‘Liberal’

Whenever I speak of liberals sans phrase I mean contemporary liberals. But contemporary liberals are leftists, so perhaps I should drop 'liberal' and use 'leftist.' As Roger Kimball remarks,

Usage note: attentive readers will register the fact that I say “leftists,” not “liberals.” Conservatives, I know, often speak about the depredations and bad behavior of “liberals.” But it has been a long time since the people whom we have called liberals were interested in freedom or liberty. What they are interested in, on the contrary, is pursuing the illiberal agenda of control.

In the same short piece Kimball compares the Tractarian Wittgenstein with the politically correct: "Wittgenstein sought to exclude the whole realm of ethics and metaphysics from the kingdom of speech; our politically correct leftists wish to exclude anything that doesn’t conform to their political agenda."

Quick and Dirty: Ten Random Notes on the Gun Debate

1. Is anybody against gun control? Not that I am aware of. Everybody wants there to be some laws regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, transportation, use, etc., of guns. So why do liberals routinely characterize conservatives as against gun control? Because they are mendacious. It is for the same reason that they label conservatives as anti-government. Conservatives stand for limited government, whence it follows that that are for government. A simple inference that even a liberal should be able to process. So why do liberals call conservatives anti-government? Because they are mendacious: they are not interested in civil debate, but in winning at all costs by any means. With respect to both government and gun control, the question is not whether but how much.

2. Terminology matters. 'Magazine' is the correct term for what is popularly called a clip. Don't refer to a round as a bullet. The bullet is the projectile. Avoid emotive phraseology if you are interested in serious discussion. 'Assault weapon' has no clear meaning and is emotive to boot. Do you mean semi-automatic long gun? Then say that. Don't confuse 'semi-automatic' with 'fully automatic.' Bone up on the terminology if you want to be taken seriously.

3. Gun lobbies benefit gun manufacturers. No doubt. But they also defend the Second Amendment rights of citizens, all citizens. Be fair. Don't adduce the first fact while ignoring the second. And don't call the NRA a special interest group. A group that defends free speech may benefit the pornography industry, but that is not to say that the right to free speech is not a right for all. Every citizen has an actual or potential interest in self-defense and the means thereto. It's a general interest. A liberal who has no interest in self-defense and the means thereto is simply a liberal who has yet to be mugged or raped or had her home invaded. Such a liberal's interest is yet potential.

4. Question for liberals: what is your plan in case of a home invasion? Call 9-1-1? What is your plan in case of a fire? Call the Fire Department? Not a bad thought. But before they arrive it would help to have a home fire extinguisher at the ready. Ergo, etc.

5. The president and Congress are fiddling while Rome burns. Compared to the fiscal crisis, the gun issue is a non-issue. That really ought to be obvious. There was no talk of it last year. Why not? It looks to be a red herring, a way of avoiding a truly pressing issue while at the same time advancing the Left's totalitarian agenda. One can strut and posture and show how sensitive and caring one is while avoiding painful decisions that are bound to be unpopular and for some pols suicidal. I am talking about entitlement reform. Here's a part of a solution that would get me tarred and feathered. After a worker has taken from the Social Security system all the money he paid in plus, say, 8% interest, the payments stop. That would do something to mitigate the Ponzi-like features of the current unsustainable system.

6. Believe it or not, Pravda (sic!) has warned Americans about draconian gun control. 'Pravda,' if I am not badly mistaken, is Russian for truth. That took real chutzpah, the commies calling their propaganda organ, Truth. Well, the former commies speak truth, for once, here: "These days, there are few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains: the right to bear arms and use deadly force to defend one's self and possessions." Read the whole thing. Some days I think the US is turning into the SU what with Obama and all his czars.

7. Nannystaters like Dianne Feinstein ought to think carefully before they make foolish proposals. The unintended consequences may come back to bite them. Gun and ammos sales are through the roof. Although more guns in the hands of responsible, trained, individuals leads to less crime, more guns in civilian hands, without qualification, cannot be a good thing.

8. It doesn't follow, however, that if, per impossibile (as the philosophers say) all guns were thrown into the sea we would be better off. The gun is an equalizer, a peace-preserver, a violence-thwarter. Samuel Colt is supposed to have said, "Have no fear of any man no matter what his size, in time of need just call on me and I will equalize." Granny with her .45 is a pretty good match for an unarmed Tookie Williams.

9. SCOTUS saw the light and pronounced it an individual right. You persist in thinking the right to keep and bear arms is a collective right? I wonder if you think that the right to life is also collective. If my right to life is an individual right, how can my right to defend my life and the logically consequent right to the means to such defense not also be an individual right?

10. My parting shot at the gun-grabbers.

“Environmentalists are by Definition Extremists” More on the Misuse of ‘By Definition’

Regular readers of this blog know that I respect and admire Dennis Prager: he is a font of wisdom and a source of insight. And he is a real Mensch to boot. (If I were a Jew and he a rabbi, he'd be my choice.) But I just heard him say, "Environmentalists are by definition extremists." That is another clear example of the illicit use of 'by definition' that I pointed out in an earlier entry. Here are some examples of correct uses of 'by definition':

Bachelors are by definition male
Triangles are by definition three-sided
In logic, sound arguments are by definition valid. (A sound argument is defined as one whose form is valid and all of whose premises are true.)
In physics, work is defined as the product of force and distance moved: W= Fx.
In set theory, a power set is defined to be the set of all subsets of a given set.
By definition, no rifle is a shotgun.
Semi-automatic firearms are by definition capable of firing exactly one round per trigger pull until the magazine (and the chamber!) is empty.
In metaphysics, an accident by definition is logically incapable of existing without a substance of which it is the accident.
In astrophysics, a light-year is by definition a measure of distance, not of time: it is the distance light travels in one year.
By definition, the luminiferous either is a medium for the propagation of electromagnetic signals.

Incorrect uses of 'by definition':

Joe Nocera: "anyone who goes into a school with a semiautomatic and kills 20 children and six
adults is, by definition, mentally ill."
Donald Berwick: "Excellent health care is by definition redistributional."
Illegal aliens are by definition Hispanic.
Bill Maher, et al.: "Taxation is by definition redistributive."
Dennis Prager: "Environmentalists are by definition extremists."
Capitalists are by definition greedy.
Socialists are by definition envious.
Alpha Centauri is by definition 4.3 light-years from earth.
The luminiferous ether exists by definition.
By definition, the luminiferous ether cannot exist.

I hope it is clear why the incorrect uses are incorrect. As for the Prager example, it is certainly true that some environmentalists are extremists. But others are not. So Prager's assertion is not even true. Even if every environmentalist were an extremist, however, it would still not be true by definition that that is so. By definition, what is true by definition is true; but what is true need not be true by definition.

So what game is Prager playing? Is he using 'by definition' as an intensifier? Is he purporting to make a factual claim to the effect that all environmentalists are extremists and then underlining (as it were) the claim by the use of 'by definition'? Or is he assigning by stipulation his own idiosyncratic meaning to 'environmentalist'? Is he serving notice that 'extremist' is part of the very meaning of 'environmentalist' in his idiolect?

Language matters!

On the Illicit Use of ‘By Definition.’ 2012 ‘Gun’ Version

What follows is a reposting of an entry that first appeared in these pages on 19 July 2010. The reposting is prompted by the following surprising statement by Joe Nocera: "But it is equally true that anyone who goes into a school with a semiautomatic and kills 20 children and six adults is, by definition, mentally ill." (Emphasis added.) Well, maybe it isn't so surprising given that Mr. Nocera is a NYT op-ed writer. Surprising or not, Nocera's claim is not only false, but illustrative of complete confusion about the meaning of 'by definition.'

Suppose a Palestinian Arab terrorist enters a yeshiva with a semi-automatic rifle and kills 20 children and six adults. May you validly infer that the terrorist is mentally ill? Of course not. He may or may not be. Were the 9/11 hijackers mentally ill? No. They collectively committed an unspeakably evil act. But only a liberal would confuse an evil act with an insane act. Suppose a young SS soldier is ordered to shoot a group of 26 defenceless Jews, toppling them into a mass grave they were forced to dig. He does so, acting sanely and rationally, knowing that if he does not commit mass murder he himself will be shot to death.

Conceptual confusion and emotive uses of language are trademarks of liberal feel-good 'thinking.' To give one more example from Nocera's piece, he refers to semi-automatics as "killing machines." Question: would a semi-auto pistol or rifle be a "killing machine" if it were used purely defensively or to stop a would-be mass murderer? Is an 'assault weapon' an assault weapon when used for defense? Is a liberal a liberal on the rare occasions when he talks sense?

…………………

What is wrong with the following sentence: "Excellent health care is by definition redistributional"? It is from a speech by Donald Berwick, President Obama's nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, speaking to a British audience about why he favors government-run health care.

I have no objection to someone arguing that health care ought to be redistributional. Argue away, and
good luck! But I object strenuously to an argumentative procedure whereby one proves that X is Y by illict importation of the predicate Y into the definition of X. But that is exactly what Berwick is doing. Obviously, it is no part of the definition of 'health care' or 'excellent health care' that it should be redistributional. Similarly, it is no part of the definition of 'illegal alien' that illegal aliens are Hispanic. It is true that most of them are, but it does not fall out of the definition.

This is the sort of intellectual slovenliness (or is it mendacity?) that one finds not only in leftists but also in Randians like Leonard Peikoff. In one place, he defines 'existence' in such a way that nothing supernatural exists, and then triumphantly 'proves' that God cannot exist! See here.

This has all the advantages of theft over honest toil as Bertrand Russell remarked in a different connection.

One more example. Bill Maher was arguing with Bill O'Reilly one night on The O'Reilly Factor. O'Reilly came out against wealth redistribution via taxation, to which Maher responded in effect that that is just what taxation is. The benighted Maher apparently believes that taxation by definition is redistributional. Now that is plainly idiotic: there is nothing in the nature of taxation to require that it redistribute wealth. Taxation is the coercive taking of monies from citizens in order to fund the functions of government. One can of course argue for progressive taxation and wealth redistribution via
taxation. But those are further ideas not contained in the very notion of taxation.

Leftists are typically intellectual cheaters. They will try to bamboozle you. Listen carefully when they bandy about phrases like 'by definition.' Don't let yourself be fooled.

"But are Berwick, Peikoff, and Maher really trying to fool people, or are they merely confused?" I don't know and it doesn''t matter. The main thing is not to be taken in by their linguistic sleight-of-hand whether intentional or unintentional.

Gun Lovers and Abortion Lovers

One often hears liberals refer to gun owners as gun lovers. Would they refer to pro-choicers as abortion lovers? I don't think so. Why the differential usage? Is it just liberal bias?

If you are pro-choice, then you stand for the right of a woman to have an abortion. You want abortion to be legally permissible. The maintenance of such a stance is consistent with wanting there to be fewer abortions. The following is a logically consistent position: "It would be better if there were fewer or no abortions, but women ought to have the right to choose for themselves."

The analogy with guns is fairly close. The following is a logically consistent position: "It would be better if there were fewer or no guns in civilian hands, but citizens ought to have the right to keep and bear arms if they so choose."

I am making a point about political rhetoric. Unless you liberals are prepared to call pro-choicers abortion lovers, you ought not call gun owners gun lovers. If, that is, you are interested in a calm, serious, truth-seeking discussion. A big 'if'!

Lest any of my conservative friends get the wrong idea, I am (obviously) not maintaining that abortion and gun ownership are on a moral par, that both are morally permissible, and that both ought to be legally permissible. Not at all. Abortion is a grave moral evil. Gun ownership is not. In fact, in some situations gun ownership may be morally obligatory. (But brevity is the soul of blog, so the exfoliation and defence of this latter suggestion belongs elsewhere.)

Chauvinism and Male Chauvinism

In her President Obama's Silly, Sexist Defense of Susan Rice, Kirsten Powers writes,

It's absurd and chauvinistic for Obama to talk about the woman he thinks should be Secretary of State of the United States as if she needs the big strong man to come to her defense because a couple of Senators are criticizing her.

Powers' article is good and I have no problem with its content. But her misuse of 'chauvinistic' is a good occasion for a language rant.

A chauvinist is someone who believes his country is the best in all or most respects. The word derives from 'Chauvin,' the name of an officer in Napoleon Bonaparte's army. This fellow was convinced that everything French was unsurpassingly excellent. To use 'chauvinist' for 'male chauvinist' is to destroy a perfectly useful word. If we acquiesce in this destruction, what then are we to call Chauvin? A 'country-chauvinist'?

Whether Obama is a male chauvinist, I don't know. But he surely isn't a chauvinist!

Note also that Chauvin was himself a male chauvinist in that he was both a male and a chauvinist. Thus 'male chauvinist' is ambiguous, having different meanings depending on whether we take 'male' as a specifying adjective or as a sense-shifting (alienans) adjective. Taken the first way, a male chauvinist is a chauvinist. Taken the second way, a male chauvinist is not a chauvinist any more than artificial leather is leather. Think about it.

This distinction between specifying and sense-shifting adjectives is an important one, and one ought to be aware of it. See my Adjectives category for more examples of alienans constructions. It's fun for the whole family.

While we are on this chauvinist business, there was a time when 'white chauvinist' was in use. Those were the days before leftists seized upon 'racism' as their bludgeon of choice. Vivian Gornick in The Romance of American Communism (Basic Books 1977, p. 170) tells the tale of a poor fellow who was drummed out of the American Communist Party in the 1950s on charges of 'white chauvinism.' His crime? Serving watermelon at a garden party! And you thought that Political Correctness was something new?

PC originated with the CP.

John W. Carlson’s Words of Wisdom: A Philosophical Dictionary for the Perennial Tradition

Dear Bill (if I may),

I came across your interesting 2009 post on "The Dictionary Fallacy," and I would like to follow up.

I wonder whether you are aware of my recent work, Words of Wisdom: A Philosophical Dictionary for the Perennial Tradition (University of Notre Dame Press, 2012). Attached are the publisher's notice, plus an interview I did with the blog called "Catholic World Report." My own thinking about dictionaries — and specifically philosophical dictionaries — can be gathered from the interview, as well as from the Introduction to my volume, which can be accessed as the "Excerpt" highlighted near bottom of p. 1 of the UNDP announcement.

I would be pleased to see you mention Words of Wisdom on "Maverick Philosopher," and to learn what you think about my project.

Best wishes from a philosopher who can't seem to get himself to retire,

John W. (Jack) Carlson
Professor of Philosophy
Creighton University
Omaha, Neb. 68142

Dear Professor Carlson,

I am pleased to announce your book on my weblog which, at the moment, is experiencing traffic of over 2000 page views per day. So I should be able to snag a few readers for your work.

I read the The Catholic World Report interview and I find myself in complete agreement with much of what you say. For example, I wholly agree with the following:

CWR: Let’s begin with a Big Picture question: what is the state of philosophy today? I ask because philosophy today seems to be dismissed often by certain self-appointed critics. For example, the physicist (and atheist) Lawrence Krauss, author of A Universe from Nothing, said in an interview with The Atlantic that philosophy no longer has “content,” indeed, that“philosophy is a field that, unfortunately, reminds me of that old Woody Allen joke, ‘Those that can’t do, teach, and those that can’t teach, teach gym.’” Why this sort of antagonism toward philosophy?

Dr. Carlson:So Krauss in a single sentence denigrates both philosophy and gymnasium. May we begin by remarking that Plato—who thought highly of both—would not be impressed?

Your question, of course, is a good one. A response to it requires noting salient features of Western intellectual culture, as well as key concerns of philosophers in the recent past. Over the last century and a half, our culture has come to be dominated by the natural or empirical sciences and technological advances made possible by their means. It thus is not surprising that there has arisen in various quarters a view that can be characterized as “scientism”—i.e., one according to which all legitimate cognitive pursuits should follow the methods of the modern sciences. Now, somewhat ironically, this view is not itself a scientific one. Rather, it can be recognized as essentially philosophical; that is, it expresses a general account of the nature and limits of human knowledge. But if it indeed is philosophical, we might well ask on what basis scientism is to be recommended. Does this view adequately reflect the variety of ways in which reality can be known? To say the least, it is not obvious that the answer to this question is “Yes.”

Lawrence Krauss is one of a large number (along wth Jerry Coyne, Stephen Hawking, et al.) of preternaturally ignorant scientists whose arrogance stands in inverse relation to their ignorance of what is outside their specialties. They know nothing of philosophy and yet 'pontificate' (if I may be permitted the use of this term in the presence of a Catholic) in a manner most sophomoric. Their education has been completely lopsided: they have no appreciation of the West and its traditions and so no appreciation of how natural science arose.

I criticize Krauss's scientistic nonsense in a number of posts showing him the same sort of contempt that he displays towards his superiors. These posts can be found here. His book is so bad it takes the breath away. If you haven't read it, you should, to get a sense of the lack of humanistic culture among too many contemporary scientists.

What you say about scientism is exactly right. I have made similar points over the years, but it seems one can never get the points through the thick skulls of the science-idolaters.

I have an entire category devoted to scientism. My definition of the term is contained in What is Scientism?

So I salute you and your book, and look forward to reading it.

Yours in the love of philosophy,

Bill Vallicella

P. S. Retiring may be like marrying. Wait too long and you'll never do it.

Why is the Gore Lane So-Called?

See the triangle-like piece of roadway where the routes diverge? That's called the gore lane. Gore lanes are also found near on ramps and exit ramps. Driving across such a lane is a moving violation. The gore lane is not, strictly, a lane, nor is it named after Al Bore Gore.

This scintillating topic came up in conversation with Peter L. yesterday morning after we had done with Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos. Peter maintained that the 'lane' was so-called because of one Officer Gore, a motorcycle cop who supposedly had been killed in a gore lane near an entry ramp to a freeway. But I learned this morning that the noun 'gore' has among it meanings, "a small usually triangular piece of land." This leads me to suspect that Peter's explanation is a bit of urban folklore.

Whether Atheism is a Religion

Yesterday I objected to calling leftism a religion. Curiously, some people call atheism a religion. I object to that too.

The question as to what religion is is not at all easy to answer. It is not even clear that the question makes sense. For when you ask 'What is religion?' you presuppose that it has an essence that can be captured in a definition that specifies necessary and sufficient conditions. But it might be that the concept religion is a family resemblance concept like the concept game (to invoke Wittgenstein's famous example). Think of all the different sorts of games there are. Is there any property or set of properties that all games have and that only games have? Presumably not. The concept game is a family resemblance concept to which no essence corresponds. Noted philosophers of religion such as John Hick maintain the same with respect to the concept religion.

If you take this tack, then you can perhaps argue that Marxism and secular humanism and militant atheism are religions.

But it strikes me as decidedly odd to characterize a militant anti-religionist as having a religion. Indeed,
it smacks of a cheap debating trick: "How can you criticize religion when you yourself have a religion?" I prefer to think along the following lines.

Start with belief-system as your genus and then distinguish two species: belief-systems that are theoretical, though they may have practical applications, and belief-systems that are by their very nature oriented toward action. Call the latter ideologies. Accordingly, an ideology is a system of action-guiding beliefs. Then distinguish between religious and non-religious ideologies. Marxism and militant atheism are non-religious ideologies while the Abrahamic religions and some of the Eastern religions are
religious ideologies.

But this leaves me with the problem of specifying what it is that distinguishes religious from non-religious ideologies. Perhaps this: all and only religions make reference to a transcendent reality, whether of a personal or impersonal nature, contact or community or identification with which is the summum bonum and the ultimate purpose of human existence. For the Abrahamic faiths, Yahweh, God, Allah is the transcendent reality. For Taoism, the Tao. For Hinduism, Brahman. For Buddhism, the transcendent state of nirvana. But I expect the Theravadins to object that nibbana is nothing positive and transcendent, being only the extinguishing or dissolution of the (ultimately illusory) self. I could of course simply deny that Theravada Buddhism is a religion, strictly speaking. I could lump it together with Stoicism as a sort of higher psychotherapy, a set of techniques for achieving equanimity.

There are a number of tricky and unresolved issues here, but I see little point in calling militant atheism a religion, though I concede it is like a religion in some ways.

But as I pointed out yesterday, if one thing is like another, that is not to say that the one thing is the other or is a species of the other.

Leftism: The World’s Most Dynamic Religion?

Dennis Prager answers in the affirmative:

For at least the last hundred years, the world’s most dynamic religion has been neither Christianity nor Islam.

It has been leftism.

Most people do not recognize what is probably the single most important fact of modern life. One reason is that leftism is overwhelmingly secular (more than merely secular: it is inherently opposed to all traditional religions), and therefore people do not regard it as a religion. Another is that leftism so convincingly portrays itself as solely the product of reason, intellect, and science that it has not been seen as the dogma-based ideology that it is. Therefore the vast majority of the people who affirm leftist beliefs think of their views as the only way to properly think about life.

While I agree with the rest of Prager's column, I have trouble with his characterization of leftism as a religion.

It is true that leftism is like a religion in certain key respects. But if one thing is like another it does not follow that the first is a species of the other. Whales are like fish in certain key respects, but a whale is not a fish but a mammal. Whales live in the ocean, can stay underwater for long periods of time and have strong tails to propel themselves. Just like fish. But whales are not fish.

I should think that correct taxonomies in the realm of ideas are just as important as correct taxonomies in the realm of flora and fauna.

Leftism is an anti-religious political ideology that functions in the lives of its adherents much like religions function in the lives of their adherents. This is the truth to which Prager alludes with his sloppy formulation, "leftism is a religion." Leftism in theory is opposed to every religion as to an opiate of the masses, to employ the figure of Karl Marx. In practice, however, today's leftists are rather strangely soft on the representatives of the 'religion of peace.'

Or you could say that leftism is an ersatz religion for leftists. 'Ersatz' here functions as an alienans adjective. It functions like 'decoy' in 'decoy duck.' A decoy duck is not a duck. A substitute for religion is not a religion.

An ideology is a system of action-guiding beliefs. That genus divides into the species religious ideologies and nonreligious ideologies. Leftism, being "overwhelmingly secular" just as Prager says, is a nonreligious ideology. It is not a religion, but it shares some characteristics with religions and functions for its adherents as a substitute for religion.

You might think to accuse me of pedantry. What does it matter that Prager sometimes employs sloppy formulations? Surely it is more important that leftism be defeated than that it be fitted into an optimal taxonomy!

Well yes, slaying the dragon is Job One. But we also need to persuade intelligent and discriminating people. Precision in thought and speech is conducive to that end. And that is why I say, once more: Language matters!

The Constructive Curmudgeon

I don't know whether he is an antediluvian and a bibliomaniac, but Douglas Groothuis is a self-professed curmudgeon, albeit of a constructive stripe. I am not persuaded by his case for Biblical inerrancy, but I find his political observations astute, as in this list of reasons not to vote for Obama. Read the list!

By the way, my opening sentence illustrates the principle that the antecedent of a pronoun need not come before (in the order of reading) the pronoun of which it is the antecedent despite the following bit of schoolmarmishness from Grammar Girl:

Our second antecedent problem is what’s called “anticipatory reference,” which Bryan Garner calls “the vice of referring to something that is yet to be mentioned (5)," meaning that the writer puts the pronoun before the antecedent—a no no.

I say to hell with that. I opened with a beautiful classy sentence. Grammar Girl needs a good spanking not only for endorsing this stupid rule of the dumbed-down and inattentive but also for her use of 'no no' baby talk.

I should rant more fully on pronouns, their antecedents, with an application to Obama's "You didn't build that."

I do have a fine rant here on baby talk and first-grade English.