Went up to The Cloisters today with some of the students in the Secularism class - their idea, to extend and complement the fun we had going to the Rubin Museum of Art. The location of Fort Tryon Park never fails to take people's breath away, and yesterday's bright Fall light showed it to best advantage. The edifice of The Cloisters never fails to perplex and bemuse - a bricolage of cast-off cloisters and other architectural features from all over Europe and spanning many centuries, improbably reunited in something that's not quite just a museum, and not quite on this side of the Atlantic rather than the other. (I say "cast-off" but everything was - also - paid for, another source of confused feelings.) But the collection itself never fails to astonish. Like this ivory diptych, what worlds of feeling it contains!In the subway (we of course had to Take the A-Train) we discussed a rather shocking full-page ad in today's Times, a call to battle by conservative religious groups against "anti-religious bigotry." You can see the ad, entitled unsubtly Nø Møb Vetø, here. It's ostensibly a response to illegal threats and intimidation of Mormons by protesters angry at the LDS's involvement in the campaign for California's backward-looking Prop 8. Its closing words are far broader, however:
Therefore, despite our fundamental disagreements with one another, we announce today that we will stand shoulder to shoulder to defend any house of worship - Jewish, Hindu, whatever - from violence, regardless of the cause that violence seeks to serve. Furthermore, beginning today, we commit ourselves to exposing and publicly shaming anyone who resorts to the rhetoric of anti- religious bigotry -
against any faith, on any side of any cause, for any reason.It's tempting to take this apart - "Jewish, Hindu, whatever"? "publicly shaming"? "rhetoric of anti-religious bigotry"? "any ... any ... any ... for any reason"? Intemperate words, these, though they're not the first to use the word "bigotry" in this case. Confirmation also, if it was needed, that the US remains divided; while most Americans are purple, most still think some other side (whatever it is) has the upper hand. Even when one wins a battle one fears for the war.
