Oscar A. Rudenstam | Reconsidering religion in society

Why religion can be held accountable for shaping our society for better or for worse

By Oscar A. Rudenstam 03/23/15 10:43pm

In her Wall Street Journal article published last week, “Why Islam Needs a Reformation,” Ayaan Hirsi Ali suggests key areas of reform for Islam to overcome what she sees as its oppressive and extremist elements. To Hirsi Ali, a seasoned critic of religion and especially Islam, being berated for her views after making them known to the world is much more the norm than the exception, and most often, one can be sure that it is not only the extremists who are the culprits.

Few would disagree with the view that, in the 21st century, religion remains an intricate and controversial subject. In the debate on Islam, which has been revitalized in the media recently, spurred by the activity of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Boko Haram in Nigeria as well as a series of terror attacks, the question of whether Islam is inherently promoting oppression and extremism has constituted a particularly inflammatory vein in the public discourse.

“It is foolish to insist [...] that the violent acts committed in the name of Islam can somehow be divorced from the religion itself,” argues Hirsi Ali in the article, targeting the popular sentiment that there is nothing or little in Islam itself inherently at fault in the problems we see in the Middle East today.

“We in the West need to challenge and debate the very substance of Islamic thought and practice,” she urges.

Opponents of this view hold that the problems are mainly or exclusively of a non-religious nature, and that what ostensibly seems to be rooted in religion is merely a power tool veiling political non-religious undercurrents.

But is Hirsi Ali right? If we take a moment to consider how religion is often treated in the public discourse, we might see that there is some legitimacy to Hirsi Ali’s claims. One could very well argue that we do often treat religion with a sort of immunity.

We are free to believe what we want, the reasoning goes, and since religion is a personal matter, it is not to be an object of criticism. This is true, but only partially. A common mistake we make is to extend the idea of human rights — the categorical view that all humans are free and equal — to the realm of ideas. Every individual human being should be treated as equal, and rightly so, but this emphatically does not apply to ideas. Further, religion is far more than an individual relationship to faith, but something that has tangible influences in political, social and other realms of life as well. Considering religion in isolation, or in a strictly theoretical and individualized sense, fails to consider the very real effects religions have on societies in the world.

Hirsi Ali, as we can see, is indeed making a cogent case when she argues that we cannot divorce a religion from its real influences in society. Here, she argues, that Islam does promote oppression and extremism, behaviors that are in conflict with Western liberal ideas. It must be noted that oppression and extremism are behaviors we hold as undesirable based on our own value judgments, and it is crucial to understand that even our most fundamental beliefs about human rights, and our interest in upholding them, are precisely that — value judgments. Inherent in making these judgments is also the idea that our beliefs are superior to those views we see to promote oppression and extremism, lest we should have moral relativism. This is echoed by the views of the American philosopher William James who argued that when we justify having a belief, it is imperative for us to consider its benefits to ourselves and society.

No matter whether one agrees with Hirsi Ali’s views about the degree to which Islam is promoting oppression and extremism, it is necessary for us to see that any set of ideas, regardless of whether they are religious, political, cultural or of some other kind, are prone to have real effects on society. Religion, for all its sanctity and tradition, is no exception.

OSCAR A. RUDENSTAM is a visiting junior from Tokyo, studying economics, sociology and business. His email address is osru@sas.upenn.edu. “The Idealistic Pragmatist” appears every other Tuesday.

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