Saturday, May 27, 2006
The Fiddler on the Roof and Al Quaida
“And who has the right, as master of the house, to have the final word at home? The Papa, the Papa! Tradition.” With these words the father of the family tries to settle the issue of his daughter’s marriage in “The Fiddler on the Roof”. But those of us who know the film remember that these words do not settle anything. In fact, as the story goes on it seems that Tevje’s argument seems ever more ridiculous, and in the end he gives up trying to uphold any principle. The message is clear: a traditional Jewish man is confronted with the changes accompanying modernity, and he has to realize that he cannot resist the inevitable. The more he tries, the more ridiculous he looks.
What is presented in humorous fashion in this musical presents us with a highly relevant dilemma: is change good and thus to be welcomed, or bad and thus to be resisted? The former view is often called “progressive”, the latter “traditionalist”. In the West progressives seem to have the upper hand these days, so much so that anybody who does not welcome social change is often branded as “fundamentalist”. Traditional societies on the other hand, most notably Islamic ones, resist what they consider such decadent developments. Sometimes they also consider as enemies perceived perpetrators of such changes.
How can we evaluate a particular social development in order to make a moral judgement? It seems equally ludicrous to just accept it as inevitable as it is to resist it simply on the grounds that it is new. As science allows us to tamper with the environment or human nature it becomes clear that what is possible is not always desirable: in other words we need another criterion than simple feasibility to decide whether to welcome such a development. And resisting all change without argument leads to irrationality.
Some groups have sought to answer our question by arbitrarily drawing a line through history and by arresting their own social development at a particular point in time: the Amish for example will use horse and buggy, but not automobiles. While this keeps all kinds of complicated issues away from them, the increasing connectedness of our societies makes such an approach ever more difficult to uphold. For example will they decide to get computers once the day comes that you can no longer do your banking except online?
Others have maintained that the individual is the sole judge of any particular development. What I judge to be good I accept, the rest I reject. It does not take much philosophical noose to see the flaws in this argument. We are reminded of the Austrian children’s tale where sailors who wanted to remember where north was would make a mark into the deck of their boat. To judge the good or evil of a particular action or course of action we need something outside ourselves, else we become relativists for whom north is wherever the bow of the boat happens to point to. Tevje seems to have tradition as his compass: what his fathers used to do, that is what is good and right, what they did not do is bad. But such a description makes a caricature of what Jews and Christians would understand by tradition. Tradition (with a capital T) is more than just what has always been done; in fact tradition is there to help interpret and evaluate situations which have never been here before. In other words Tradition is not an immovable set of rules, but rather an agreed system of principles which allow those who are “learned in the law” to evaluate new questions. Both Jews and Christians would hold that not all change is bad, and the only way to tell is to look at it in light of principles which come from Scripture and from sacred practice. In that sense they are not fundamentalists, they simply maintain that developments in social thought and practice need to be tested according to principles which their community have agreed to.
What is the alternative to such an approach to life? Another film shows that very clearly. In “Bend it like Beckham” we observe the contrast between a young English woman and her Indian counterpart. Both love to play football, but the Indian seeks to subordinate her athletic desires and plans to the demands of her family and community. She is ridiculed by her English friend for paying such respect to others, rather than just pursuing her own ambitions; but she is also envied by the very same girl for having such a functional and loving family. This proves a very simple point: any community which wants to maintain its integrity and way of life needs to have a way to judge social developments. If it throws up its hands in the face of so-called progress it will soon find itself without any way of life: Tevje’s decision to agree to the marriage of her daughter to a non-Jew has ultimately led to the disintegration of his family. Similarly many people in the West refuse to make a judgement about same-sex marriages or abortion and are then surprised that the very fabric of their society and family has evaporated. It is scarcely surprising that fundamentalism is on the rise when our lack of sound judgement creates a moral vacuum. But it does not have to be like that. We can and need to recapture common principles for evaluating social progress. Else we are at the mercy of whatever silly idea the next fashion brings.
