Normally I do not use my blog to send readers to another blog, but I am preparing to do a series on atheists and I am not yet ready to begin it. This blog by Hoffmeister substantiates an argument I made a while ago about needing a holistic solution to gun violence. Forget the business about the Huffington Post and look at his discussion of video games. With so much concentration on gun control I fear that we are forgetting about video games which I believe to be a greater source of the gun violence problem. Please enjoy this blog and come back in April for the start of my series on atheists.

http://peterbrownhoffmeister.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/on-school-shooters-the-huffington-post-doesnt-want-you-to-read-this/.

I decided to take a page from Mark Regnerus and look at some old data to give it a new twist. Sometimes looking beyond the original intent of the data can provide interesting findings. For example, a couple of years ago my book Compromising Scholarship came out and documented academic bias against religious and political conservatives. It is mainly based on a survey I sent to academics in several disciplines. You can find the details of the survey in the book and how the findings support my contention that a real bias exists against conservative out-groups in academia.
But that is not the issue I wish to blog about today. I want to look at the general idea about tolerance, or accepting those who see things differently than us. My personal experience is that often the people who talk about how important tolerance is are often the most intolerant people I encounter. They are quite tolerant towards those they agree with, but that is not a good measure of tolerance. Real tolerance only becomes relevant when we encounter those we disagree with. It is here that a lot of people who like to talk about tolerance fail. So many times I hear such individuals talk about tolerance one minute and the next minute they are stating some of the most uncharitable stereotypes about their political and/or religious out-groups. My experience is that they are often political and religious progressives who do not see that they are as intolerant as they imagine conservatives to be.
But that is merely my experience. That experience can be corrupted by my own bias. For example, although I am a political moderate, I may be more sensitive to these observations among political progressives since I encounter so many of them in academia. I am more religiously conservative than the vast majority of my colleagues and that may also bias my observations. Until I conducted the research for my book I had to be content with having this observation with no data to support or refute it. But in that survey I asked academics about the qualities they want and those they don’t want in the people they work with. “Tolerance” was on the list of the qualities that academics were asked about wanting in a colleague and “narrow-mindedness” was on the list of the qualities that academics were asked about not wanting in a colleague. I did not report on this question in my book as it was not the focus of my investigation, but in this exploration of measuring the open-mindedness of those who preach tolerance the question is very relevant.
Unfortunately, I did not ask the respondents about their political and religious beliefs. To explore the tolerance of the respondents, it is important to know the out-groups of the respondents. However, past research indicates that academics are highly likely to be political progressives, or radicals, and to be irreligious. It stands to reason that such academics would tend to see religious and political conservatives as out-group members. I will use this assumption as a way to operationalize tolerance even though I know that there will be a small, but unknown, number of respondents who are religious and political conservatives and thus would not see these individuals as out-groups. But this operationalization is strengthened by the findings in my book that it is the religious and political conservatives rejected by the respondents as acceptable colleagues.
I also asked the respondents about their willingness to hire job candidates from different religious and political groups. In theory those who value tolerance or who do not want “narrow-minded” colleagues would not exhibit those qualities. Thus, they would be more open to hiring members of their out-groups, which would be those who are religious or political conservatives, than those who do not value tolerance or who accept narrow-mindedness. The willingness to hire those from one’s own out-groups seems to be a valuable way to express open-mindedness. In the table below I show the correlations coefficients of measures of wanting tolerant colleagues and not wanting narrow-minded colleagues with the propensity of those respondents to be willing to hire individuals from certain religious and political social groups.

This table can be read in this way: those who were likely to state that tolerant was important to them were very slightly less likely (-.003) to be more willing to hire someone who is a Democrat. Those who were likely to state that narrow-mindedness was something they did not want to see in a colleague were slightly more likely (.075) to be more willing to hire someone who is a Democrat. These correlations are not huge, but the ones under the narrow-minded variable were statistically significant at least to the at p < .01 level. None of the correlations coefficients under tolerant variable are statistically significant. An observation worth making is that under the narrow-minded variable, with the exception of accepting ACLU members, the negative scores of rejecting out-group members are more powerful than the positive scores of accepting in-group members. It may be human nature to be more likely to reject our enemies than to accept our friends. I am curious about whether there is other research that would test the relative strength of hatred of enemies as compared to love of friends.
But more important than this tendency to reject our enemies is the qualitative difference between the valuation of tolerance and the opposition of narrow-mindedness. Once again making the logical assumption that most of these respondents are irreligious and politically progressive, the valuation of tolerance is not connected to rejection of out-group members or even support of in-group members. But those who reject narrow-mindedness also concentrate on rejecting their out-group members and offering support for their in-group members. Approving tolerance, or focusing on promotion of a positive quality, is not linked to rejecting others but focusing on negative qualities, such as narrow-mindedness, does lead to such rejection.
One may argue that such a position is not hypocritical. After all it may be the respondents’ opinion that the groups they reject are narrow-minded and thus they are justified in rejecting them. But it not lost on me that these respondents are stating that people they do not like should be hindered from fairly obtaining a job in academia. Such a response does seem to be a type of narrow-mindedness that should be resisted by fair-minded people. I am of the opinion that our religious and political opinion should not factor in an academic hiring decision, with the obvious exception of institutions with a religious mission. That attitude is a broad-minded approach to including people that I may not agree with in my workplace. An opposite approach of rejecting those with different religious and political opinions for employment seems to be narrow-minded to me.
These results emerge from a sample of academics, which is not representative of the larger society. Furthermore, I only selected certain disciplines and there may be a response bias influencing these results. So I am very careful about generalizing this to the rest of society. I rather think of these results as something that can be instructive and maybe someone in the future will design a study that has more far ranging implications. But even given these limitations I am still comfortable stating that at least among these academics, rejection of narrow-mindedness is correlated with rejection of out-group members in what I would argue is a non-tolerant manner.
My expectation that those who talk about how tolerant they are often end up being intolerant does not seem to be true, at least not with this sample. The problem may be with my memory and possible confirmation bias on my account. Perhaps previous friends and acquaintances talked more about the intolerance of others but I remember them as touting their own tolerance. I may have remembered what I perceived as hypocrisy but confused it as their claim that they are something that they are not when in fact those I interpreted as hypocrites assert a hatred for something that they were. If this is true then it is one more reason why we should not just rely on our own personal experience, but should seek out data to confirm or refute our social beliefs.
I take from this that seeing tolerance as a positive value does not lead to being intolerant. But focusing on the “narrow-mindedness” of others is correlated to having elements of that intolerance ourselves. The larger lesson here may be that looking at the negative qualities in others may reflect problems we ourselves have. Someone once told me that the characteristics people hate the most are the ones they themselves tend to have. For example, the person who hates gossip often has problems gossiping his/herself. I know from personal experience of individuals who do not tend to trust others often do so because they themselves are untrustworthy. This data may reveal another case of this aspect of the human psyche. Those who focus on the narrow-mindedness of others may do so since they see it in themselves and do not like what they see.

I remember learning the details about the killing of Osama bin Laden. At the time it was reported that is was a mission in which the military could capture him if that was possible. But, the way I heard it was that they were to shoot him unless there was no possibility he could engage in violence. I guess if they caught him coming out of a shower naked they could know he had no weapons upon him, but otherwise, there was a pretty good chance he was going to be shot down. It was clear to me that the soldiers were there to kill, and not capture, him. This may have been a capture or kill assignment but it was much more on the kill than on the capture. For most Americans that was perfectly fine. If there ever was a villain in the minds of Americans it was bin Laden. Very few Americans mourned his passing. I certainly did not lose any sleep over it.
But to engage in critical thinking we have to go beyond our own personal perceptions. In doing so I recognize that we did not have to focus on killing bin Laden. When the U.S. went after Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), care was taken to capture him instead of killing him. It is possible to capture these terrorists. But President Obama did not focus on capturing bin Laden. He gave orders that almost assured his death.
Why am I bringing back the killing of bin Laden? It is timely in light of what we are learning about Obama’s “kill list”. The leaked document indicates a fairly eager attitude to kill possible enemy combatants. This is not an issue I have looked into deeply but from what I have heard Obama has used hundreds of drone missiles in attempts to kill terrorists or potential terrorists. It goes without saying that some of the misses, and even some of the hits, have resulted in the death of innocent individuals. President Obama may be very progressive on domestic issues, but when it comes to issues of war, he is quite a hawk. No one can mistake him for a pacifist.
Remember President Bush? I remember the calls for his impeachment because of his prosecution of the war. There were plenty of his critics concerned about the innocents who would be killed. There may have been other ways Bush’s war policy contributed to the death of civilians, but when it came to drone missiles he fired a fraction of the missiles that Obama has fired. I will leave it up to the conservative commentators to point out the possible hypocrisy of progressives not asking for Obama’s impeachment when they asked for Bush’s ouster from office. I think it is more interesting to consider why Obama has, in some ways, a more aggressive attitude towards war than Bush.
Remember that Bush was president when KSM was captured. I believe Bush wanted him captured, unlike Obama’s desire to have Bin Laden killed. If Bush was president it seems to me likely that there would have been more of an emphasis on capturing Bin Laden than killing him. Why? There is a different motivational structure for Bush. Since Bush had no problems using “enhanced interrogation”, or what some people call torture, on captured terrorists, he wanted to capture individuals for information. (We can argue whether or not information can be gained through such techniques. But that is a side point. The main point is that Bush believed that information would be gained through enhanced interrogation and acted on that belief). This made a captured terrorist someone who was valuable to Bush. That terrorist can provide information Bush hoped to use against the terrorist’s organization.
On the other hand, a captured terrorist has no value for Obama. What happens if he captures a suspected terrorist? Then he would have to deal with questions of trials and civil liberties. If bin Laden had been captured then Obama has to decide if we use New York or a military base for his trial? Would we be able to get information from Bin Laden if we do not use enhanced interrogations? Does he get the full rights of other criminal defendants which is the right to remain silent? Why would the Obama administration want to deal with those hot potato political questions. Capturing bin Laden would start off as a great political victory, but it would bring about all of these complicated issues and could quickly turn into a public policy nightmare. Thus, a bin Laden with a bullet hole in the head is much better for Obama than a live one in a cell.
Is it not ironic? Obama may be the most progressive president we have ever had but he is the opposite of a pacifist. He may have pulled American troops out of Iraq and may soon do so out of Afghanistan, but his policies are still killing people at a high rate. Bush had no qualms about killing terrorists, but he wanted to capture certain ones more than kill them. If you are a terrorist your life expectancy is shorter under an Obama administration than a Bush government. Not necessarily because Obama is a more effective terrorist fighter, but because Obama is more motivated to kill, and not capture, terrorists.
Now people can argue whether a policy of killing terrorists is less or more moral than Bush’s subjecting them to “enhanced interrogation”. I am not picking sides in whether it is better to capture or to kill terrorists. Someone like Bin Laden or KSM needs to be either captured or killed. We cannot reason with such vermin. But the assumption that the Democrat administrations are softer on terrorists does not comport with reality. Political motivations to keep terrorists out of jails have ironically made Obama more bloodthirsty to terrorists than Bush.
Ultimately, this is more than about Bush or Obama. This is about our society. If we ever need proof that the United States is a militarist society then we have it. Obviously there are still pacifists in the United States. But they have no real power in the public policy of the United States. Even among the more progressive political party, a Dennis Kucinich is not going to get nominated. We are a militaristic society. Pacifism is not an American value. If Obama feels obligated to engage in an aggressive militaristic foreign policy then we should expect any future president to the right of Obama to be just as aggressive. And as I stated before Obama is probably the most progressive president we have ever had.

The recent blog post by Margarita Mooney on suffering and flourishing got me to thinking. One of the traditions of my faith is the fast. I will be the first to admit that I do not fast as much as I should. But fasting is a type of suffering I believe can contribute to our flourishing. Many people think of the denial of food as their idea of fasting, but fasting also includes the denial of whatever distracts us such as media, entertainment, sex etc. On the surface, this does not seem to led to happiness. It does not serve our immediate desires, but I have found that fasting can contribute to our long term flourishing. This is my experience and I have no scientific data to back this up but here are some reasons why I think that fasting can be a part of our larger flourishing.

Increases our appreciation of what we already have – Go without sugar for a week and boy does that dessert taste good when you break your fast. Go without food for a couple of days and your next meal will taste so good you will not believe it. Fasting helps us to appreciate what we usually take for granted. And gratitude is a big key to our long-term happiness.
Even if you have never fasted before you probably know what it is like to appreciate something that you miss. I am fortunate to be a very physically healthy person. Usually most days I do not think about the benefits of being healthy. But when I get sick then I think about the benefits of health. I may lay in bed trying to breath – something I realized I took for granted. Or I may have a headache and think about the day when my head will be clear. In a way fasting is like this. We temporarily deny ourselves something which I believe ultimately helps us to enjoy what we deny ourselves all the more.

Connects us to others who do not possess what we have – There is a big difference between voluntarily giving up food and not having the money for food. But giving up food on my own does allow me to better understand what it is like to be hungry. It puts me a little in touch with those who are less fortunate than I.
Flourishing is not just about my personal comfort and happiness. It is also about being connected to the rest of humanity. It is about being fully human and knowing that we have to work to make the world a better place. Fasting can help me to be empathetic in a way that I cannot be if I never experience some of the pain those with limited resources often have. It reminds me of pain that I must play a role in alleviating.
Before someone says that I am equating fasting with poverty, let me be clear that I am not doing that. Some individuals choose to live below their means to help those in misfortune. They are willing to live simply so that others can live. That is not fasting. It is a commitment beyond the fast. I admire such individuals. Fasting is not a replacement for this level of commitment but rather a reminder of what some sacrifice to help others and that we should do our part even if we are not ready to make that degree of a sacrifice.

Gives us time to think about what is important – One of the arguments for a fast is that we can use the time we normally use for cooking, viewing media or sex to be in prayer or meditation. This works better for some types of fasts than others. But fasting can help us to think about aspects of our lives that normally do not get sufficient attention. As a Christian this means a focus upon my relationship with Christ. But even those who are not religious may find a great benefit in spending extra time considering elements of our lives that go beyond our materialist concerns.
Fasting may be particularly important when there are important decisions to be made or if there are situations that demand our complete attention. There was a period in my life where I fasted from television one day a week. There was a certain amount of turmoil occurring in my life at this time and I found this to be a great way for considering what was happening around me. It helped to keep me centered during a troubling time. Did I miss television on those days? Yes, but at the end of a television-less day, I found myself more satisfied that I made further progress in thinking on the deeper issues I had to get a handle on.

Strengthens our ability to be disciplined – A disciplined life is a better life. This has been my experience. The people I see who get themselves into trouble usually do so because of a lack of discipline. People who do not have discipline in their substance abuse get into trouble. Students who do not have discipline in their studying habits get into trouble. Individuals who do not have discipline in how they conduct their interpersonal relationships get into trouble. I can provide other examples but I think the picture is clear. A disciplined life is a better life.
We can think of fasting as practice for being more disciplined. There is nothing wrong with eating. Obviously we need to eat to live. But to deny ourselves eating is to practice being able to deny ourselves something we want. I have to believe that denying ourselves those things that are not inherently harmful makes it easier for us to deny ourselves those things that are harmful. For example, denying ourselves television when we have time for it makes it easier to turn off the boob tube when we have work to do. Likewise other types of fasts also help us to be a more disciplined people. I would love to see research investigating a possible statistical relationship between fasting and various pro-social behaviors. If anyone knows of such research please send me a link.

These are some of my ideas about fasting and why it can be an important practice for us. I wrote about fasting from my Christian perspective, but tried to offer reasons that may resonate among those without that perspective. Fasting does not seem to be rational. It does not make sense at the surface level that giving up that which gives us pleasure would make our lives, and possibly the lives of others, better. I cannot prove that this is true except that this has been my experience. I started this post stating that I probably do not fast as much as I should. Perhaps that is something I should change now as I have considered it further. Maybe I should fast a bit and think about that.