Leituras recomendadas (31/5/2007)

1. Uma entrevista de Daniel Dennett. Nenhuma novidade para quem leu o «Breaking the Spell», mas um resumo útil justamente para quem não o leu. Morceau choisi: «Q. You said that “religions are socially grounded for three main reasons: soothing the sufferings and calming the fear of death, explaining things that otherwise couldn’t be explained, encouraging cooperation in the group”. Don’t you believe that, ultimately, there is something positive in these aspects? D.D. Of course there is—even though they all have serious negative sides; the same religious creeds and practices that can soothe sufferings can also cause terrible guilt and suffering; the explanations are always wrong, and eventually get replaced by better, scientific explanations; and the cooperation so powerfully encouraged by religions often leads to unthinking mob action that has produced some of the most vicious ‘enthusiasms’ seen on the planet. The unquestioning conviction that one’s cause is right, and justifies just about any deed, has led many otherwise good people to perform great crimes.»
2. A polémica entre Pascal Bruckner e Ian Buruma/Garton Ash a propósito de Hirsi Ali (da qual publiquei dois textos de Pascal Bruckner) também tem um resumo. Morceau choisi: «The French philosopher’s criticisms towards the model of multiculturalism (which he claims recognises groups, but oppresses individuals, creating a “legal apartheid”, “a racism of the anti-racists”, which “chains people to their roots”) assume a political and politico-cultural value. Timothy Garton Ash is accused of demonstrating a “francophobia worthy of Washington’s Neocons”, and thus the controversy ‘Buruma/Garton Ash vs Hirsi-Ali/Bruckner’ has become transformed into a battle in which the Anglo-Saxon multicultural model is pitted against the French integrationist one, even in which the Bush/Blair duo is pitted against Franco-European pacisfism (which might make us think, in passing, of the fact that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who supposedly belongs to the second group, is currently employed by a Neocon think tank). Bruckner lauds the French model, “the result of the victory over obscurantism and events like the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. How could we tolerate in Islam that which we no longer tolerate in Catholicism?”. “Fostering an enlightened European Islam is capital” Bruckner concludes. “Europe may become a model, a shining example for reform which will hopefully take place along the lines of Vatican II. It is time to extend our solidarity to all the rebels of the Islamic world, non-believers, atheist libertines, dissenters, sentinels of liberty, as we supported Eastern European dissidents in former times”.»