A Mosque Near Ground Zero (Part I)

When opposition began to get stirred up to the planned Islamic cultural center near (not at!) Ground Zero, I thought the objections were intolerant, and even silly.  Then I was stopped short by the comparison, made by the ADL and others, between opposition to the center and Jewish opposition about ten years ago — opposition with which I agreed — to the building of a Catholic convent and the erecting of crosses near the site of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.

Stopped short, that is to say, for about one minute, before I realized how different the two cases are.  It then took me another day or two to realize that, if a comparison is to be made, it goes exactly the other way.  The center (OK, let’s call it a mosque, though it aims to be much more than that) should be supported for many of the same reasons that the Auschwitz crosses were opposed.

It will take me a couple of posts to explain why.

First, a word about the argument that the mosque will offend the “feelings” and “sensitivities” of  families of 9/11 victims. Others have rightly pointed out that isolated feelings “should not dictate public policy.” That’s right.  But the problem runs much deeper.  This argument is only an example of how badly psychologized our culture has become.  We put how people feel about their own feelings front and center.  And we do it so often and so reflexively that we easily ignore what should really matter.

Modern religion itself is a major culprit here, of course.  So is the emphasis on “self-esteem.”  Even the law has become infected with psychologism.  There are lots of examples, but some readers of this blog might be most familiar with the “endorsement” test for establishment clause violations, which looks to whether a challenged practice (say, a creche in a public park) makes members of religious minorities feel like outsiders.  To be sure, the test requires that the feelings be “reasonable,” but the emphasis is still on the feelings themselves.   This same spirit (pardon the pun) has even infected how we Americans think about civil rights.  We worry so much about whether an act of discrimination makes people feel bad that we sometimes forget that the real question is whether it is unjust.

I should be clear here:   Feelings and emotions are important.  They’re important in all sorts of ways.  The problem starts, however, when feelings and emotions become the subject in and of themselves.  A mystic’s religious ecstasy, for example, can be the mark or occasion of her union with the divine, or even a form of “proof” of God’s existence.  But if the ecstasy itself becomes the goal of the enterprise, we’re no longer talking about genuine mysticism.

Also, only a hyper-rationalist would deny that our moral positions are often based on fundamental intuitions — feelings and emotions.    But it’s one thing, for instance, to recognize that some views for or against abortion rights ultimately come down to gut feelings; it would be something else entirely, and entirely absurd, if we were to ban abortions just because they “offend” pro-lifers or for that matter allow abortions just to protect the “sensitivities” of pro-choicers.

The psychological turn is pernicious in all sorts of ways.   It exalts pure subjectivity.  It ignores how feelings themselves can be the socially constructed products of our obsession with feelings.  Most to the point, though, it deflects attention from the questions that should really occupy us.

So … to come back to the question at hand:  Seen simply in terms of categories such as “sensitivities” and “offense” and “hurt,” the crosses erected near Auschwitz and the mosque proposed near Ground Zero might seem very much alike.  But, once we move past those categories, the comparison actually looks very different.

I’ll try to explain why in my next post.