Activism, Puritanism & Separation of Church-and-State.

I used to get complaints about the books
in the back my video used together you see a hate mail that I was just putting the books on on camera to seem intelligent when I wasn't and right now in the background 100% fake Booker II being shown off on the lower level that's my my girlfriend's Chinese language textbook the textbook my girlfriend learning to use journeys and then above it is a book I hate and resent a real disappointment it's through sit at ease but it's it's the landmark edition of Thucydides which in my opinion is a real ripoff edition of tu savais says of showing off of course if I just turned the camera this way there'd be a whole stack of books showing on on the other part of my desk here oh great lighting tech whatever okay perfect that's just that's just the way I wanted it look guys um I just wrapped a video long long video talking about circumcision and five or six different intersecting ethical and political issues related to Western cultural attitudes were circumcised circumcision progress of scientific knowledge etc etc and all of them have parallels with veganism the issue the most important issue I left out of that video which was spontaneous and unscripted just like this video I'm doing now no prep etc etc no edits um what I left out there was the question of the separation of church and state and that's a really interesting important issue that is part of the approach of this guy Eric Oh God what's the name Eric clapper I have an extensive staff of interns here Thank You videos thank you for your fact-checking intern Eric Klopfer Eric Lauper does draw attention to the fact that part of the problem United States of America in contrast to some other countries other cut he calls more enlightened countries in Northern Europe is the tradition the separation of church and state separation church and state as a concept and as an actual set of laws standards of practice and principles impacts organizing activism on every level in every way not just for some like circumcision also something like veganism many other issues we might want to engage with the American tradition is really peculiar because it emerged out of more than a century of debate in England that was punctuated by the English Civil War now the English Civil War sorry I just mention this Americans will always talk about Puritans and Puritanism and normally in the context of American history the Puritans are described as being sort of dissident intellectuals who opposed the status quo in England and who were escaping as some kind of persecuted minority in England you'd actually say the Puritans are represented in American history kind of parallel to Jews escaping persecution in Spain with the Spanish Inquisition as if this was a persecuted religious minority now of course there's some truth to that like most historical fictions but that's incredibly misleading the real experience the people in England had with the Puritans was precisely that the the Puritans had taken over political power briefly but with devastating impact during the period of the English Civil War so the Puritans went from being a group that was maybe easy to idealize or easy to glamorize to being hated and feared and presented so give a couple examples really quick to to flesh this out it's very easy to idealize the notion that the government should not have control over prayer that there shouldn't be a standardized book of Prayer printed by the government and then forced upon the people of all of England now you can make a rational argument for that whether you're an atheist or a true believer or what-have-you it's very easy to present a philosophical political argument that makes this sound look like like you know very straightforward debate to win but the actual experience of the Puritans abolishing the English Book of Common Prayer was so disastrous so oppressive and so terrible what the Puritans did with popular Christianity in England which included by the way banning Christmas banning Easter banning all of the popular ceremonies and festivals getting rid of the English Book of Common Prayer yes but also replacing it with a horrible openly elitist system of church services that presumed to separate the people who were going to go to heaven after they died the people who were confirmed as among the elect from the common run of man really denigrating and insulting to everyone made everyone's lives miserable frankly in the integers that took over it was so awful and also the enthusiasm was so great that the common run of men in England had demonstrated to them that the state control of religion was not so much something that was forcing people to be more religious than they otherwise would be but in England in those centuries at that time it was of anything kind of protecting the indifferent mass of Englishmen of moderately religious people from zealots and enthusiasts and extremists and then out of this came a unique discourse it's this is a uniquely British discourse of a politics of going back and looking at the Old Testament especially the book of Judges looking at and by the way this is even found within the famous book Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes inquiring into what is the role of kingship and government in the Old Testament in the light of this historical experience and coming to the conclusion that was very influential but maybe just for a century it didn't last that long that the other nations of Europe had missed the point of the Bible in that the Bible contained within it a powerful criticism of tyrannical Kings who sought to control religion and that instead what they ought to have is not quite a democracy of faith but the freedom for different small Protestant groups to set up and operate their own churches etc etc during the period of what's called the the dictatorship in England so this period after the English Civil War this was debated extensively and the conclusions that came to were dissatisfactory to everyone home but there was a long struggle of the Puritans within England in which they made themselves and their ideas incredibly unpopular and it's true many of them not I have no idea what percentage of a significant number of Puritans escaped to America where their ideas didn't meet with the same resistance and when there was just some more empty space for them to unpack their ideas and set up their own ideal idealized communes and communities and miniature dystopias so those ideas got to play themselves out in American history but the the really lasting idea that shaped the American Constitution and this idea of church and state as it exists in the United States today was that the truest form of Christianity and again this is not for the sake of secularism not for the sake of the progress of science it was for the purity of Christianity self as they conceived of it that the truest form of Christianity was allowing these congregations to set up their own set up their own autonomous authorities independent authorities now there is no way for me to express to you the intensity of hatred that Puritans had Puritans and many of these prostatitis Tanisha P within the Anglican Church to them any kind of structured higher authority like this was recreating Catholicism within the Protestant faith faith intense hatred of bishops intense hatred of the government creating something like the English Book of Common Prayer a standard guide which really included things like how implicitly about how different kinds of holidays were supposed to be celebrated what songs and dances you would do at Christmas and Easter and other festivals and of course also prayers and homilies and things that were recited Janet in church this was intensely hated and it was a reaction against that and to establish a very different idea of Orthodoxy and religious purity that separation of church and state was created America now this explains why tell me this was there any freedom of religion for African American slaves zero was there any freedom of religion in the United States of America for indigenous Americans for Native Americans for the mohawks for the Navajo for any of the Algonquian groups on the East Coast there you know sorry the LANAP a to give a specific group that one app it were indigenous to what's now Manhattan and they're there now completely extinct by the way did those peoples have you know even religious toleration no this this concept of separation of church and state was if anything quite an intolerant concept and anyone who's familiar with American history knows that a very difficult time even accommodating the presence of papacy of the Catholic Church it wasn't clear how the stocks would be applied there so out of this tradition now we have this idea which is completely different from a country like modern Germany so Germany at present the concept is that a religion is not allowed to preach or practice principles that are contrary to the fundamental tenets of Germany's own constitution Germany's own Constitution is normal for - as the basic law so that there's a set of principles that are so fundamental that that is where religious freedom ends yeah so an example like circumcision raises exactly those kinds of questions are there some decisions that churches are not allowed to make in the name of church authority are there some decisions that violate basic human rights or even as basic ideas of decency most modern Western countries I know will not allow you to tattoo a child or a minor right a tattoo is in many ways less damaging than circumcision genital mutilation etc right but there's no real discourse and debate about this it is completely unacceptable to my knowledge all 50 states in the United States that the age will differ but under age 16 or under age 18 whatever the age is it's only when the person receiving the tattoo can take responsibility and consent to getting the tattoo even if in your state it's 14 I'm sorry I'm sure it does vary by a few years here and there just like the age of consent for other things does you can only receive a tattoo beyond a beyond a certain age it's egregiously obvious that this same principle could be applied to circumcision as opposed to circumcision being being outlawed absolutely I had a conversation recently with with ask yourself Isaac on on discord and this came up as an illustration as an example in the conversation wasn't the main the main substance of the conversation but I pointed out to him that the people we were debating with who were debating with antenatal ist's antenatal us their argument under the delusion that they knew some fact so simple and of such overwhelming importance that if others knew this fact they would immediately agree with the argument presented they come into conformity with the values espoused by by their by their possession and I pointed out now the particular debate we're having I don't feel the other side had any such facts to appeal to you're talking about antenatal 'san their particular view of life and suffering and childbirth and their of their philosophy of life faith basically I don't think was based on a such outstanding fact now it's tragic it's truly tragic and heartbreaking to be in that position when in fact you are it is tragic to live in a community where people are huffing glue and very often it is children but let's say whether it's minors huffing glue or elderly people having a look if you see children who huffing glue inhaling glue fumes so that they can feel a momentary pleasure of the glue as it evaporates into their their bloodstream and affects their brain chemistry and you know this is going to impair their intelligence for the rest of their lives you know this terrible impact there is a you know this outstanding fact and you don't just want to engage in public outreach and conversation and the happy folk kind of happy relaxed conversation you want to make it illegal you want to use force you want to intervene now you don't want these young people to ruin their lives or ruin the lines of lives of others and you can say from your position if only this person knew what I knew and and this is the most tragic part and if only they were thinking about this rationally and with detachment the if they knew what I know they wouldn't make this decision they'd make a different decision and now here's the really dangerous tragic step and then you're taking the dictatorial authoritarian step of saying therefore I am gonna presume to make that decision for you I am gonna decide and I'm gonna go to the government whatever it is maybe you live in a democracy maybe you live in at the station ship somebody an authority is gonna decide you don't get to make this decision anymore we're gonna make huffing glue illegal we're gonna stop you we're gonna use force you know etc and you know I don't have a word what is the threshold we have to pass what is the standard before we can take that step because we know that about myriad things how do you feel when in your community you see a pregnant woman drinking red wine every single glass of red wine she takes is causing brain damage and other developmental damage to the baby to the unborn infant that she's pregnant with and not only have I met and spoken to people about this and it's it's real hard to be detached and compassionate and caring you know to not walk out do you realize to say do you realize what a terrible person you are do you realize do you realize how you're utterly family to take responsibility of the car reaction oh let's do some let's to submit let's do some you know compassionate engaged outreach and education here people it's it's a challenge how do you feel when you talk to a medical doctor a medical doctor who is advising women that it's okay for them to drink wine or drink beer say three drinks a day that advice is still commonly given and does unbelievable harm does harm to the women themselves it does harm to their unborn infant sense into the next generation of human beings in a country like Canada and by the way basically brain damage caused by alcohol during pregnancy is at epidemic proportions in Canada ken doesn't the list of countries where this is this is a huge huge problem all right and you're not in a position with these examples where you can say you can be a reducer terian you can just say oh well maybe if you just cut down maybe if it's only three glasses of wine maybe if you cut it down to two glasses of wine nope you can sit there with the you know electrocardiogram with various forms of scanners and you can you can watch the woman drinks a glass of red wine and the baby's heart rate goes down and the impact is is obvious right or you could eat sir you can do ultrasound and so on - this stuff is not real mysterious and yes you can look at peer-reviewed medical literature bla bla bla and I you can even find in anyway at some point you know the culture of open-ended discourse and debate of pluralism that's ultimately we're talking about here I mean the culture that the American tradition of separation of church and state tried to foster is not really one of freedom of religious room it's one of pluralism of having a plurality of independent churches each one being just as authoritarian as all the others each one gets to write its own prayer book define its own ceremonies decide who's going to heaven who's going to hell and if you don't like it you can choose not to donate money to this church you can donate money to that church instead right and yet we come up against these horrid facts that make it impossible for us to be plura make it impossible for us to be congenial and flexible and accepting and say oh well everyone gets to make up their own minds right you're allowed to have your own beliefs but you're not allowed to have your own facts this is what makes it so terrible to deal with examples like circumcision and the lifelong consequences that has for an infant examples like fetal alcohol syndrome women who are pregnant drinking alcohol examples like the use of myriad mind-altering drugs that have long-term impact on your brain and I hate to tell you this guys it's not just party drugs it's not just cocaine it's not just marijuana anti-psychotic drugs anti-anxiety medications antidepressants these could have unbelievably terrible term consequences for your cognitive function and they're used on an epidemic scale what do what do you want to say male circumcision Mass General mutilate mutilation is also an epidemic sale and yes for us as vegans if you are vegan if you've even thought about the ecological ethical and health consequences of where food comes from for the billions of human beings who populate this planet relying on many billions more of animals living on a concrete floor in a steel cage until the day their throats are cut and their blood pours through a metal grille on the floor to be collected and desiccated and turned into fertilizer powdered blood in bags we live in a world full of these hard facts that make that culture of pluralism impossible and what we ultimately have to look to government to be responsible for what is in our best interests despite what we want people want to continue tribalistic traditions that involve mutilating their children perhaps in some examples tattooing their children much less harmful but another case where the long arm of the law intervenes in parental authority we have the government intervening in all of these things with the inevitability of a can of tomato soup rolling down a staircase from my perspective if you live in a Democratic Society it is only a matter of time and a question of how much tomato soup is gonna leak out of this can how much blood is going to be spilled how much harm is going to be done how many lives are going to be ruined before you make the hard decisions to make these things illegal to have those legal reforms and the heartbreaking thing as an activist as someone trying to do public education and outreach is that you know the consequences you know that they can't wait I reach out to people with a kind of love because I choose to pretend that even if they've done terrible things in the past they have the potential to do something positive in the future I choose to behave as if I judge them not by their past actions but by their potential to do good in the future in many ways I despise the whole history of the British Empire it's despicable the British Empire was built on slavery in one era it was built on genocide in another and it was built on opium trading and another era still it's unbelievable but when I look today at the societies that the collapse of the British Empire produced the United States Canada Australia etc I see a lot of potential I see a lot of potential to do good just in the next 20 years in the next 50 years we can turn this around guys we can take this society and we can lead the way on important issues like veganism like circumcision like human rights like democracy we can lead the way on these issues even though they're in no way part of our culture illegal and political tradition I'll say that again even though they are in no way a part of our legal cultural and political tradition in the same sense that gay marriage and gay rights were not a part of our legal and cultural tradition until one day they were in the 21st century that's our struggle I hope you'll join me about the sale