|
|
Bury the Spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon
Daniel C Dennett
Allen Lane, 448pp
Review first published in Third Way, October 2006.
What is religion? Where does it come from and how has it evolved? What is its appeal and how does it make believers act the way they do? How can the truth of its claims be judged?
These are interesting questions which Dennett asks in a long, readable book, so it is frustrating that he does not make more of an attempt to answer them. Breaking the Spell is presented as a ‘history of belief’, an ‘explanation for religion’, and one can understand why the publishers might want it to be that, but it really isn’t. It took me 200 pages to grasp where we were going, but Dennett’s concern is not to offer an explanation of religion as a mere natural phenomenon, but to argue that it should be studied as we study natural phenomena. It is not the spell of faith itself that he tries to break, but the enchantment that convinces people it should be shielded from rational analysis. Considering the lengths he has gone to to make the book accessible, it is odd, and disappointing, that it should be so devoted to methodology.
Another warning: How could readers possibly need all this convincing that it is allowable to study religion with scientific and sociological methods? The answer is that this is a US book for a US readership. It is unsettling to picture Dennett’s target readership: if he has any decent understanding of US Christianity, it is appallingly defensive and unquestioning, frighteningly hostile to analysis and reflection. It is either a straw man or a mad monster. Take what Dennett calls ‘the most shocking implication of my inquiry’, which is that it is wrong ‘to adopt the moral teachings of one’s own religion without question’ (his italics). The only shocking thing about it, of course, is that anyone anywhere disagrees. Conversely, Dennett seems to write from the point of view of an affluent comfortable societywhere religion has outlived its usefulness, calling on the rest of the world to follow, without any evident interest in why religion is as important as it is in poorer and more troubled countries.
The book’s relevance to The Rest of the World is limited then, but there is a great deal of interesting stuff in here. Dennett offers an extensive survey of existing religious studies. One of the more sympathetic particularly caught my eye: Rodney Starke and Roger Finke published a cost analysis of faith, in which separatist religion is costly in terms of anxiety and ostracism precisely because this what gives it value, a ‘reassuringly expensive’ separation from the lost. Thus, stirring social conflict is powerful way for faith groups to increase commitment - an important consideration for the peacemakers.
Dennett’s main conclusion from his survey is that much more such research needs to be done, and that when it is it will tell us all we need to know about religious issues. I don’t think you need to be one of his blinkered and blindfolded religious reactionaries, or any kind of believer, to doubt this prospect. Not because the spiritual realm is beyond the reach of scientists, but because worldview is too complex a matter for conclusive experiment. Just apply the same hope to politics - what are the prospects for scientific proof about whether conservatism is better than socialism?
Dennett being a fellow traveller of Richard Dawkins, whom he quotes repeatedly, it is interesting to read a lengthy treatment of religion from this influential reductionist scientific point of view. (We did plan to review Dawkins’s recent TV programme The Root of All Evil, but there is little you can say about a 90-minute splutter of apoplexy.) Dennett is rather more positive about the social and personal benefits of religion, though he too shows surprising misunderstandings sometimes, for example in his criticism of the doctrine of transubstantiation. But ultimately, he says, what we need to know is not whether beliefs help but whether they are true. And all God’s people said amen.
Dennett does present some conclusions and prescriptions. He condemns extremist religion which considers itself above moral and rational principles, demanding that it change its ways, and he seems to commend moderate self-questioning believers - so long as they dissociate themselves from the former. The problem of course is that his readership will presumably fall almost entirely outside those whom he wants to change. He calls on moderate Muslims to join with secularists in opposing the ‘deeply immoral attitude’ of extremists, arguing that ‘multiculturalists who urge us to go easy on them are exacerbating the problem’ - but then isn’t associating moderate Islam in Muslim eyes with western secularism exacerbating the problem at as least badly?
In fact, there is in the end a quite alarming streak of liberal imperialism in this book. Now what do we do? he asks. We should create counter-madrassah schools for the re-education of ‘Muslim boys and girls’. We should use mass media to undermine Muslim certainties. We must work towards the reform of Islam and other religions, ‘desanctifying the excesses of each tradition from the inside’. ‘We must hold these moderate Muslims responsible for reshaping their own religion’. Dear God! Has the US intelligentsia really learnt so little from the diaster of neo-con interference in the Islamic world that it still thinks regime change in Islam is a good idea? Now there’s a spell to break.
we did plan to review Dawkins’s recent TV programme The Root of All Evil, but there is little you can say about a 90-minute splutter of apoplexy