18AR23-32

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AR 23:32 - Southern Poverty Law Center as "smear machine"

In this issue:

DISINFORMATION - online conflict as a moral equivalent to combat

EASTERN MYSTICISM - developing a systematic approach to dharma

PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION - where does psychoanalysis fit in?

SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER - "abandoning its core mission"

Apologia Report 23:32 (1,398)

October 3, 2018

DISINFORMATION

LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media, by P. W. Singer and Emerson Brooking [1] -- from the publisher: "Through the weaponization of social media, the internet is changing war and politics, just as war and politics are changing the internet. ... The result is that war, tech, and politics have blurred into a new kind of battlespace that plays out on our smartphones. ... LikeWar outlines a radical new paradigm for understanding and defending against the unprecedented threats of our networked world."

Kirkus (Jul 15 '18) reports: "Ever since the 2016 presidential campaign, it has dawned on many Americans that social media might just not be our friends - and certainly not the friends of democracy. ... Singer and Brooking sagely note the intensity of interpersonal squabbling online as a moral equivalent of actual combat, and they also discuss how 'humans as a species are uniquely ill-equipped to handle both the instantaneity and the immensity of information that defines the social media age.' The United States seems especially ill-suited.... Information literacy, by this account, becomes a 'national security imperative,' one in which the U.S. is badly lagging and indeed serves as a negative example for the rest of the world. A timely, urgent look at a world of electronic sheep - and wolves aplenty, too."

For more on social media from our back issues, see <www.bit.ly/2DP9jjI>

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EASTERN MYSTICISM

Dharma: The Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh Traditions of India, by Veena R. Howard [2] -- Choice (Jun '18) finds it "a unique vantage point for understanding the most fundamental traditions in India. The essays focus on the traditions' differing expressions of dharma and in so doing provide a systematic approach to the traditions independent of Abrahamic religions and Western philosophy. Dharma pushes against rigid distinctions between the sacred and secular, as well as between religion and philosophy; thus, understanding dharma makes for a better understanding of how traditions work together and comparatively. The inclusion of Sikhs and Sufis is a gift, one that serves to reveal to the reader the expression of Islamic thought in the context of India’s shared concepts. This interesting combination of Abrahamic approaches and India’s dharma tradition serves to bridge Western and Indian thought. All of the essays offer excellent, stimulating scholarship. Summing Up: Highly recommended."

For more on dharma from our back issues, see <www.bit.ly/2NaFFo5>

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PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION

Ana-María Rizzuto and the Psychoanalysis of Religion: The Road to the Living God, by Martha J. Reineke and David M. Goodman [3] -- Choice (Jun '18) considers this "a fine collection of essays related to the pioneering work of psychoanalyst Ana-Maria Rizzuto, whose book The Birth of the Living God transformed the way psychoanalysis approached the topic of religion. The present collection of six essays is in many ways an homage to that book's empirical and clinical interrogation of how representations of God are elaborated over the life-span. Each essay explores a different facet of Rizzuto's contribution to the psychology of religion, considering such topics as atheism, the healing factor in psychotherapy, the therapeutic use of metaphor, and the maternal matrix. A discussion by Rizzuto follows each essay, lending the collection a fresh dialogic dimension. These essays will serve as the best commentary on Rizzuto's important work to date, and will provide clinicians and scholars with material for further speculation on the relationship between psychoanalysis and religion. The interdisciplinary nature of the collection will serve as a model for future scholarship in the fields of religious studies, psychology, and psychotherapy."

The promo for Rizzuto's Birth of the Living God [4] reads: "Utilizing both clinical material based on the life histories of twenty patients and theoretical insights from the works of Freud, Erikson, Fairbairn, and Winnicott, Ana-Maria Rizzuto examines the origin, development, and use of our God images. Whereas Freud postulated that belief in God is based on a child's idea of his father, Rizzuto argues that the God representation draws from a variety of sources and is a major element in the fabric of one's view of self, others, and the world."

For more on Freud and/or psychoanalysis in our back issues, see <www.bit.ly/2IpD1ub>

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SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER

"From Klan Hunters to Multimillion-dollar Smear Machine: By bizarrely going after Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz, and others, the once venerable organization has abandoned its core mission, focusing instead on dirty partisan politics" by Liel Leibovitz -- "According to tax filings, the group took in $136 million last year alone, bringing its total assets to a whopping half-a-billion dollars. ...

"In late March, the SPLC included a piece about the best-selling author [celebrity atheist, Sam Harris] in its daily Hatewatch Headlines, a compilation of media reports on bigots, thugs, and other assorted creeps. Why was the neuroscientist and prominent atheist thrown in together with Mark Anthony Conditt, the Austin bomber who had murdered two black men, and Nazi war criminal Jakiw Palij? Because Harris defended Charles Murray, a political scientist best-known for arguing that genetic differences may account for varying levels of intelligence between races. The assertion drove many in academia and journalism to label Murray a racist; he was famously shouted out of an appearance at Middlebury College last March, and was labeled a 'White Nationalist' and an 'extremist' by the SPLC. But when the prominent Harvard geneticist David Reich echoed Murray's ideas in a New York Times op-ed last month - arguing that "it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among 'races'" - Harris took several of Murray's critics to task on Twitter, including Vox's Ezra Klein. ...

"This was far from the first time that the SPLC applied the blunt force of its historic reputation to label political opponents as racists or extremists. Harris's co-author, Maajid Nawaz, experienced the organization's wrath as well. A former radical Islamist who spent four years in an Egyptian prison, Nawaaz abandoned his zealotry and committed his life to promoting a pluralistic and non-violent version of Islam, a mission that led him to serve as an advisor to three British Prime Ministers. In the fall of 2016, however, Nawaz was placed on the SPLC's list of 'anti-Muslim extremists,' widely disseminated with the header 'a journalist's manual.' His sins, according to the list, included sharing a cartoon of Jesus and Muhammad on Twitter and visiting a London strip club. You hardly have to be a scholar to realize that neither is particularly convincing evidence that Nawaz, himself a practicing Muslim, is some sort of bigot. Joining him on the list was Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a victim of female genital mutilation in her native Somalia and an outspoken campaigner against the practice, as well as others, like child marriage and honor killings, common throughout the Islamic world. ...

"Examples of this sort of lunacy abound. The SPLC, for example, still maintains a watch list of groups and individuals promoting 'male supremacy,' an ideology that 'misrepresents all women as genetically inferior, manipulative and stupid.' Among its preachers, according to the SPLC, is Christina Hoff Sommers, an American philosopher and writer who has criticized the radical feminist position that saw all women as perpetual victims and called instead for an 'equity feminism,' a classical liberal position that focuses on equal treatment of men and women rather than on identity politics. ...

"The SPLC applies the powerful language of civil rights to mark those with whom it disagrees as bigots or racists or white supremacists, inviting likeminded journalists to use the organization's sterling reputation as an unimpeachably credentialed reason to push political opponents outside the bounds of acceptable debate. Facing Hoff Sommers's claim that so many alleged feminists these days spend most of their energy attacking men rather than striving for equality is hard; labeling her an extremist who should therefore not be taken seriously by serious people is much easier." Tablet, Apr 26 '18 <www.bit.ly/2IqQXUz>

For more on the SPLC in our back issues, see <www.bit.ly/2xIKSPe>

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media, by P. W. Singer and Emerson Brooking (Eamon Dolan, 2018, hardcover, 416 pages) <www.amzn.to/2QhMeqZ>

2 - Dharma: The Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh Traditions of India, by Veena R. Howard (I.B. Tauris, 2017, paperback, 272 pages) <www.amzn.to/2zFqcJu>

3 - Ana-maría Rizzuto and the Psychoanalysis of Religion: The Road to the Living God, by Martha J. Reineke and David M. Goodman (Lexington, 2017, hardcover, 228 pages) <www.amzn.to/2NaUyXR>

4 - Birth of the Living God, by Ana-maría Rizzuto (Univ of Chicago Prs, 1981, paperback, 246 pages) <www.amzn.to/2OlClvb>

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