Motivated By Inerrancy Or Sexism?

Icon that says "Bible commentary." Image source.

[content note: rape]

A few days ago I published a post called David's Womanizing, which included quotes from the bible about David's 10 concubines who were raped by David's son Absalom. Here's a summary of that story: David was the king. His son, Absalom, started a rebellion and David had to flee from his palace- but he left 10 of his concubines there. Then Absalom's advisor told him it would be a good political strategy for him to have sex with David's concubines, so he did that. Later, Absalom is killed and the rebellion is over, and David comes back home. Here's what happened to the 10 concubines:

When David returned to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to take care of the palace and put them in a house under guard. He provided for them but had no sexual relations with them. They were kept in confinement till the day of their death, living as widows.

After I published that post, I thought I'd do some googling to see if anyone else was as horrified by this bible story as I was. 

I found a few commentary websites- Precept Austin and Biblehub. Both of these contain excerpts from bible commentaries by many different writers. And... wow, I have feelings about this, I don't know why I have so many feelings, I've read plenty of commentaries before, and what I find on these sites is pretty standard commentary stuff... but... they all just read so heartless to me, and I'm shocked and saddened, wondering how these writers could be so heartless toward these 10 women.

Some commentaries put part of the blame on these women, saying they should have tried harder to resist being raped. Some commentaries say that these women could not be seen in public because it would remind people of Absalom's rebellion. Some commentaries say that they were "defiled" by Absalom and so they couldn't be sexual partners to David any more.

Here's one quote on that, but many of the other commentaries said similar things:

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Put them in ward; partly, because they had not vigorously opposed Absalom’s lustful desire, as they should have done, even with the hazard of their lives; and partly, lest the sight of them should renew the memory of Absalom’s filthiness, and of their own and David’s reproach, which it was fit to bury in-perpetual oblivion; and partly, because it might appear incestuous to have to do with those who had been defiled by his own son; and partly, because as David would not, so it was not now convenient that any other man should have any conjugal conversation with them.

I just... how can someone say something like this? Bible scholars sitting there and writing that these women couldn't be seen in public... like for them to even exist isn't proper because then people will have to think about Absalom. Like they can't be people any more, they can only be ugly reminders of what Absalom did.

(This reminds me of how Monica Lewinsky says people have advised her that she should change her name- because her name is also the name of the scandal. Like there's something wrong with her simply existing in public after what happened to her. She says she will not change her name, and asks why nobody ever says Bill Clinton should change his name.)

At the same time though, I don't know enough about what life was like for kings' concubines to know if this is actually a worse situation for them. Is it worse to be required to have sex with the king, or to not be allowed to have sex at all (or to go out in public, apparently)? Note that this meant they could not have children. Either way it's not great for them. It's not like they all had great marriages with David and then Absalom came along and so David suddenly ended his good healthy relationships with these women. Either way, their having sex or not having sex was full of political meaning, and was never about what they wanted. So, I actually don't know if this was a worse outcome for them or not.

But this story just made me think... what if you're a straight man, and your wife gets raped- would you say "well I'll do the bare minimum to provide for her financially, so no one can accuse me of being unfair to her, but we won't have much of a relationship any more, obviously"? How about, like, having some compassion for her? Why is the commentators' only concern about how it makes David look?

(I mean, I know that's not really a good comparison, because what the bible is talking about here is totally different from how we think of marriage today. I wish Christians would acknowledge that, instead of claiming there's some "biblical definition of marriage" which we supposedly still follow.)

So that's when it hit me- these commentary writers really don't care about women, do they? This is just blatant sexism. I mean... I've often heard feminists talk about how the bible is mainly focused on men, how a lot of famous theologians are men, etc, and I never really paid much attention to that, because there's nothing inherently wrong with talking about men, or learning from men. The issue is when women are explicitly being excluded, and typically you can't know for sure that's happening, you can just look at the relative numbers of men and women and feel a bit suspicious about how it ended up that way.

But... I don't know why, something about this just strikes me as "wow they explicitly don't care about women." To discuss rape victims in these kind of terms, like "well yeah then David couldn't have a relationship with them any more because it would look bad." 

But then I thought, maybe it's not sexism, maybe this heartlessness comes out of a belief in biblical inerrancy. You believe that everything in the bible is true, so then if you read something bad in the bible, you have to accept it and just keep reading without thinking too much. That's why the tone of these commentaries is like "well, here's what the logic would have been, in their society, to justify treating these women that way- okay keep it moving, keep it moving, next verse!"

But wait, no, inerrancy wouldn't apply in that way in this passage. Inerrancy would come into play for passages like Deuteronomy 20:16-18, where God commands his people to "completely destroy" all the people in the promised land. To commit genocide. If you believe in inerrancy, you have to believe that God really said this, and that since God said it, it must be right. You have to believe that genocide is right in this case.

This 2 Samuel passage about David is different. Even if you believe in inerrancy, you don't have to believe that David was right. You can say "yes, the bible is inerrantly recording something that really happened. But what David did here was wrong." See, this verse doesn't say anything about God's opinion. God can't be wrong, but other bible characters can be wrong. In fact, that's one of the go-to talking points that inerrantists use. Someone comes along and makes the argument "there's a lot of violence in the bible" and then the inerrantist answers "the bible isn't condoning that. These passages are descriptive, not prescriptive. People aren't perfect! A lot of these bible stories are about teaching us what NOT to do." Which holds up logically if it's something like this, something that the bible says David did but doesn't mention God approving of it. That argument doesn't work when the bible explicitly says it was God who told them to commit violence, for example.

And actually, there was a part of one of the commentaries that said David did wrong:

David came to his house at Jerusalem, and the king took the ten women, the concubines whom he had left to keep the house, and placed them under guard and provided them with sustenance, but did not go in to them - David seems to respond a bit in the flesh in this passage (in my opinion) especially since the act committed against these women was the consequence of David's sin! Oh, the ever widening circle of our secret sins! Beware! After all who had left the concubines in Jerusalem? David had. And who had heard and should have pondered the prophecy by Nathan about his wives (2Sa 12:11-12+). David had heard this prophecy, and theoretically should have taken the concubines (who were considered lesser wives) out of harm's way. Of course it was a prophecy from God and every prophecy is fulfilled perfectly. So one must propose that David had to leave them to fulfill the prophecy. I don't think he knowingly did that, but somehow was caused to forget Nathan's prophecy. In either event, David seems to react strongly against the 10 women who would have had no choice but to surrender to Absalom raping them! They are collateral damage of David's sin with Bathsheba and against Uriah!!!  

Our sins like David's can affect so many others in so many different ways!

This bit is good in that it says David "seems to respond a bit in the flesh"- this is Christianese for "his behavior is sinful and not what God would have wanted." Also it says "the 10 women who would have had no choice but to surrender to Absalom raping them"- good job not blaming the victims for being raped. Seems like that's a low bar to clear, but several of the other commentaries failed to clear it.

So this commentary writer has thought a bit about what it was like for these women, and how David did not treat them right. But the passage I pasted there only talks about that a little bit; its overall point is discussing how this fulfills the prophecy from 2 Samuel 12:11-12, and making a bland point about how our sin affects other people. 2 Samuel 12 is after David rapes Bathsheba and murders her husband Uriah, and the prophet Nathan comes to David and tells him that was wrong, and "Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight." So now, look at that, Absalom rapes David's wives, we've come full circle, the prophecy is fulfilled, score a point for inerrancy.

Heartless. 

Even though this commentary excerpt has some compassion for these women, it's mostly framed in the context of "did David do the right or wrong thing here?" 

Oh and then that web page moves into talking about "Was David Right to Take Concubines?" which is all about the laws that God gave about marriage, and contains nothing about how the concubines were actually treated. It's all about examining whether or not polygamy breaks God's laws. Nothing about how it affects actual people. That's the inerrancy mindset right there.

But then I thought, maybe there's a third explanation for why these commentaries come across so heartless toward these 10 concubines. It's not necessarily about sexism, or inerrancy- it's about the purpose of a commentary. Commentaries are intended to be resources that pastors can use when they write sermons. And sermons are about "how to be a good Christian" or "here are some things you should believe about God." Caring about these concubines doesn't really fit into that. So the commentaries spend very little time on it.

Oh.

So, my whole life, I've had the wrong idea about the purpose of a commentary.

Uh, let's back up, because I'm really deep in the weeds here. I read lots of commentaries when I was evangelical, but that's not really a normal thing that evangelicals do. Pastors do that. Bible study leaders do that. The average evangelical does not. 

The average evangelical talks a lot about how we're all supposed to read our bibles every day, and we feel guilty for not doing it enough. But no one's walking around in church saying "we should all read more commentaries." 

I took all that "read the bible every day" stuff really seriously. Evangelicals are always talking about how it's so important to read the bible and know the bible and memorize the bible and base your whole life on the bible, but very few actually follow through on that. I did. I did read the bible every day, back then, and I often encountered weird things in the bible, and I felt like "this is weird, I need help to understand it better" and so I would go look for commentaries to help.

Commentaries are useful in the sense that they do at least have some kind of comment on every single verse. It may not be that helpful, it may not acknowledge the WTFery of the verse in question, it may leave me with even more questions than I originally had, but at least it will say something. That's better than all the sermons and Sunday school lessons which totally ignore all the super-weird passages in the bible.

But now I'm suddenly realizing, if I want to "understand the bible better", commentaries are not really the right thing. Commentaries are for "I want to write a sermon based on this bible passage. I want to spin this such that it can teach us something about how to be a good Christian."

So... what I actually needed was not a commentary, but something more... academic? I seem to remember occasionally coming across academic papers about the historical context of something in the bible, and they weren't trying to make a point about "here's what this bible verse can teach us about how to live a good Christian life." They were just, you know, talking about a thing.

The awkward thing about an academic treatment of the bible, though, is that it won't be from a biblical-inerrancy perspective! So good evangelicals aren't really allowed to read that.

And what I need now is not really a commentary, but maybe something more along the lines of a feminist reading of the bible. That's why I'm enjoying the book "Womanist Midrash" so much.

But wait, back up, I seem to be saying here "when I was evangelical, I just wanted to understand the bible better, so I read commentaries, but that wasn't really the right thing, because commentaries are written from the perspective 'here's what this bible passage teaches us about how to be a good Christian.'" Uh, hello, when I was evangelical, I *did* believe that all bible passages had something to teach us about how to be a good Christian. I *did* have that mindset when I read the bible. 

Every day I did my daily bible reading, and I believed that I would read something that would inspire me and connect me with God. And when I felt depressed, or lonely, or had doubts, or other negative emotions, I would open the bible and expect that God would help me feel better through reading it.

And it all fell apart when I started to question evangelicalism... I would try to do my daily bible reading, and over and over I would get stuck on this or that weird thing. I would come into it thinking I'm gonna open the bible for 10 minutes and get some inspiring message from God, and instead all I could think about was how so many little things in the passage struck me as wrong. (I wrote about this in 2015: Why on Earth Did I Ever Expect the Bible to be Anything Other Than Incredibly Weird?)

It used to be, when I was feeling bad, I would take my bible and open it and read something- I had a few favorites that I would often read in situations like this- and it would help me feel better. And I took that as evidence that the bible truly is from God. But I'm ex-evangelical now; I don't think that way any more. 

I still have favorite bible passages. There are bible passages I love, that I find very inspiring. But I'm very aware that I picked them out of a sea of, well, everything. A sea of problematic stories and ancient misogynistic laws and violence and genocide. They don't serve as evidence that the bible is "God-breathed"- they just show that all throughout history, there have been at least some people who have had really profound and inspiring things to say about love and justice.

So. Wow this has become a long blog post- can we bring this back to David's concubines somehow? Why do the commentaries care so little about what life was like for them, and the injustice of David responding to their being raped by ending his relationships with them? Is it because of sexism- the commentators are men who just really don't care about women? Is it because of inerrancy- the commentators need to keep their belief that everything the bible condones is right? Is it because of the whole purpose behind writing commentaries in the first place- they're meant to help frame the bible in a way that lends itself to teaching us how to live our lives- and caring about David's concubines doesn't fit into that purpose at all?

I remember when I first began to encounter feminist readings of the bible, how my mind was blown by things that had been there the whole time- I knew these stories, I knew these characters, but I had just never thought of them in that way. I guess I had been held back by sexism, inerrancy, and the belief that the bible is meant to teach us lessons on how to live our lives.

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Related:

Womanist Midrash

David's Womanizing

The Worst Bible Story 

Why on Earth Did I Ever Expect the Bible to be Anything Other Than Incredibly Weird? 

"The Author of Leviticus Would Have Been Cool With It"

Blogaround

1. I've seen a lot of people on the internet talking about this, and I think it's really important: You don't have to burn yourself out constantly being horrified by everything the orange antichrist is doing. It doesn't actually help anyone if you read every news article and feel bad all the time. Figure out a tangible action you can take to help people (for example, donating money to trans people), and do that, instead of trying to keep up with all the news.

Soooo you don't have to read any of these links, if it's not good for your mental health. Go do something nice for a trans person instead.

2. A German Eye On Elon Musk's Hitler Salute (Yes, That's A Hitler Salute) (January 22) "The gesture speaks for itself; it's documented on video."

3. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde confronts Trump in sermon (January 21) "Towards the end of her sermon Budde said, 'I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.'"

Yes! Love this!

But wow the reaction from MAGA land. My goodness. They hear the *actual teachings of Christianity* and they post screeds on social media about how it's extremist "woke" Trump-hating political ideology. These people are gonna be all *surprised pikachu* on that day when Jesus says to them "I never knew you." 

In particular, the orange antichrist called Budde's sermon "nasty", which, uh, what? She wasn't nasty at all. Her remarks were extremely polite, she didn't say anything bad about him at all, she just asked him to have mercy on vulnerable people who are scared- specifically, gay people, trans people, and immigrants. He hears that as an attack on himself. That says a lot about him.

Additional links on this: The Bishop Who Pleaded With Trump: ‘Was Anyone Going to Say Anything?’ and Bishop Mariann Budde tells NPR 'I won't apologize' for sermon addressing Trump

4. I love the Washington Post's new mission statement and so should you (January 16) "We do not speak truth to power; we do not uncover scandals by those put in positions of public trust, we do not have anything there about Facts or Accuracy or Democracy or Information. All of it is sidelined to bring you an almost violently generic mission statement scraped off any one of hundreds of television and movie pitches."

5. Judge blocks Trump’s ‘blatantly unconstitutional’ executive order that aims to end birthright citizenship (January 23) "'Where were the lawyers' when the decision to sign the executive order was made, the judge asked. He said that it 'boggled' his mind that a member of the bar would claim the order was constitutional."

6. Reddit won’t interfere with users revolting against X with subreddit bans (January 23, via) "Since Tuesday, hundreds of subreddits have discussed and/or implemented bans against the site formerly called Twitter, as reported by 404 Media. Dozens of subreddits have already agreed to disallow the sharing of any links to X, with moderators (volunteer Reddit users) agreeing to enforce the bans."

David's Womanizing

David creepily watching Bathsheba. Image source.

I've been writing some posts recently about King David, inspired by the book "Womanist Midrash"- about David and Michal, and David and Abigail. In this post, I just want to post a few quotes from the book, about how David had a huge number of wives.

From page 203:

There is a perception among my students that David had a couple of wives, but certainly not a couple dozen, and that Solomon's legendary marriage volume is de novo and not a generational pattern. These commonly held assumptions do not hold up under close reading of the biblical text. There are ten named individual women to whom David is either engaged or married or with whom he fathers children-- in addition to at least two different groups of women whose numbers and names go unrecorded. These numbers regularly come as a shock to students and congregants. Most are aware of David's notorious transgression with Bathsheba but are not familiar with the extent to which the Bible chronicles his womanizing. Table 1 on the next page is a quick and dirty list of David's women.

The collective categories "Saul's former wives" and "other primary wives and secondary wives taken in Jerusalem" could have included a handful, dozens, or hundreds of women on a Solomonic scale. There is simply no way to know how many marriage and sexual partners David had.

From page 211:

That Maacah, Haggith, Abital, and Eglah join Abigail and Ahinoam, marry David, and give birth to his children at Hebron means David has at least six wives with whom he is living, sleeping, and making babies before he ever lays eyes on Bathsheba; this is in addition to his banished but still legal and accessible wife, Michal. What was life like for all of them?

From page 197:

See 2 Sam. [12]:8, where God through Nathan acknowledges giving David "his master's women," as though that should have kept him from having Bathsheba abducted so that he could rape her.

---

And a couple bible references about David's wives who were raped by David's son Absalom:

2 Samuel 15:14-16

Then David said to all his officials who were with him in Jerusalem, “Come! We must flee, or none of us will escape from Absalom. We must leave immediately, or he will move quickly to overtake us and bring ruin on us and put the city to the sword.”

...

The king set out, with his entire household following him; but he left ten concubines to take care of the palace.

2 Samuel 16:20-22

Absalom said to Ahithophel, “Give us your advice. What should we do?”

Ahithophel answered, “Sleep with your father’s concubines whom he left to take care of the palace. Then all Israel will hear that you have made yourself obnoxious to your father, and the hands of everyone with you will be more resolute.” So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, and he slept with his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.

2 Samuel 20:3 

When David returned to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to take care of the palace and put them in a house under guard. He provided for them but had no sexual relations with them. They were kept in confinement till the day of their death, living as widows.

---

Follow-up post: Motivated By Inerrancy Or Sexism?

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Posts about the book "Womanist Midrash" by Wilda C. Gafney:

Womanist Midrash 
The Slavery We Ignore in the Book of Exodus 
The Second-Worst Bible Story 
Michal wasn't here for David's worship, and now neither am I
Why did I think David was the good guy in the story of Abigail? 
David's Womanizing

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Related:

Bathsheba's Son

Blogaround

1. Mark Zuckerberg Preps for More Ethnic Cleansing (January 15) "You may be left wondering what the big deal is. After all, YOU are so smart and savvy and cool that you haven’t used a Meta product since Facebook opened its doors to people who didn’t even have an official university email address. Allow me to take you back to 2017, when security forces in Myanmar conducted a genocide, butchering the Rohingya ethnic minority, resulting in thousands raped, tens of thousands dead, and hundreds of thousands forced from their homes to become refugees."

2. Trump to make historic move toward revoking birthright citizenship (January 20) "Trump wants to reinterpret the phrasing 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' to mean that the federal government would not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to parents without legal status, incoming White House officials told reporters on a call on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss upcoming actions."

I've read some other articles which clarify this isn't *only* about children whose parents don't have legal status- it also applies if their parents are legal immigrants on a temporary visa. 

Anyway, NOT COOL to target children like this. WTF? 

I support all immigrants. As I've said before, I was shocked to my core when I found out that some people- many people- most people- just aren't allowed to travel to certain countries, just because of where they were born. The US simply will not give visas to people from certain countries, because those countries are judged to be so poor and desperate that there's a significant chance those people might overstay their visas rather than going back. That's what radicalized me. I always took for granted that I can choose to live in any country I want to- turns out I have that opportunity because I'm an English-speaking American. Everyone should be able to live in whatever country they want to.

(Note, though, that many countries don't have birthright citizenship. China doesn't have birthright citizenship. But the situation in China is completely different than the US. The US is "a nation of immigrants," and birthright citizenship is one of the things that makes America great.)

And another NPR article on immigration: Migrants left in despair at the border as asylum system shuts down (January 20) "A few dozen migrants had already scored appointments. Some of them had waited almost a year in Mexico, applying every day for the chance to cross the border legally. And then, within minutes, their dream of making a new life in the U.S. was undone."

I'm so mad about this. What does the orange antichrist know about trying so hard, traveling so far, going to a completely foreign place, hoping to make a better life for your family? He doesn't know anything.

But anyway, instead of being mad, let's donate to RAICES or the ACLU. Fight the legal battles to protect immigrants.

3. Kent Hovind’s latest ‘wife’ says bye-bye (January 16)

4. A Year of Empty Threats and a “Smokescreen” Policy: How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza (January 15, via)

5. Former head of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards has died (January 20) 

6. Photos: Families reunite as the Israel-Hamas ceasefire takes effect (January 19)

7. A Line By Line Analysis Of Trump's Big Anti-Trans Executive Order (January 22) I'm really worried about this too.

Fake Documents

Kids playing outside at a kindergarten in China. Image source.

So, my son recently started kindergarten. In China, kindergarten (幼儿园) is 3 years long, and it starts at age 3. When I was a kid in the US, I had 2 years of preschool (starting at age 3) and then 1 year of kindergarten (age 5), but in China this is combined together and called "kindergarten." The public school system in China starts with kindergarten at age 3 (though as far as I know, kindergarten in not compulsory; compulsory education in China starts at age 6). (Whereas in the US, the public school system starts at age 5, and preschool is kind of optional.)

Anyway, getting him registered for kindergarten was A Whole Thing. In China, the bureaucracy is ridiculous, and also parents are very competitive about getting their kid into "a good school." The one-child policy contributed A LOT to this competitiveness, because if you only have 1 kid, you have to really really really make sure you do everything you possibly can so that kid is successful. Parents spend a lot of money sending their kid to all kinds of extra tutoring and extracurricular activities, and kids don't have any time to just play and have a childhood. (That's my opinion...)

So anyway, we are in Shanghai. Shanghai has a bunch of different districts, with varying levels of how hard it is to get your kid into a public school. In some districts, parents were told not to even bother applying if you're not a Chinese citizen and you don't own your home, because you'll be so far down the list that you definitely won't be able to get into a public kindergarten. (Have to do private instead.) But where we live, there are (comparatively) less people, so we didn't have to deal with any restrictions like that.

Because, yeah, there's a whole hierarchy. A whole priority order of which kids get into public school. It goes something like this:

1. Kid has a Shanghai hukou for the district the school is in
2. Kid has a Shanghai hukou, but the address on the hukou is a different district (for example, if you own property elsewhere in Shanghai, and your hukou address is registered there, but that's not where you actually live or where you want to send your kid to school)
3. Kid has a hukou from somewhere else in China (not Shanghai)
4. Kid is from another country or Hong Kong/ Taiwan/ Macau

Basically it's like that. I didn't check that the details are exactly right, so don't take it as literally true, but this is the basic idea. There's a hierarchy, based on your hukou, and people with a Shanghai hukou have more rights to get into Shanghai's public schools. Also I think whether you own an apartment in Shanghai is a factor in this hierarchy.

Ah, now I have to explain what a hukou (户口) is: It's an official document that all Chinese citizens are supposed to have, which lists the names of all the members of your household, and your address. Ie, this document says what city you are "officially" a resident of. In Shanghai, tons of people come from other cities to work, and their hukou is still registered in their home city. (Apparently if you meet certain requirements- like you work for a certain number of years, pay taxes in Shanghai, have a high enough salary- you can transfer your hukou to Shanghai.) Anyway, for accessing public services like medical care and the public school system, people with a Shanghai hukou have more rights than people without.

Anyway, yeah, this is a problem in China, the inequality between big cities vs small cities vs countryside. But people say the hukou system is "necessary" because the population is so high, so you have to put limits on who can access public services. Or something. 

(And I've heard that in the countryside, some families had multiple kids even though they were under the one-child policy. [Note that the one-child policy ended in 2016 and now China is trying to encourage people to have more kids.] The kids who were born after the first kid weren't able to get a hukou or ID card or documents like that. Which is a huge problem.)

ANYWAY, my kid has US citizenship and a US passport, and also has Chinese citizenship, but doesn't have a hukou because... okay it's so complicated and if I explain the whole thing, I'll never get to the actual point of this blog post. Bureaucracy! China doesn't recognize dual citizenship, but the reality is that my kid has both Chinese and US citizenship, so what does that mean? It means more bureaucracy!

So that was a big problem, trying to figure out what category Square Root would fit into when applying for kindergarten, and which documents he needed to submit. Because for each of the categories in my list above, there's a set of documents that you're supposed to bring, and he doesn't have the complete set for *any* of the categories. International kids are supposed to submit their foreign passport, and their Chinese visa which is in that passport. Well, Square Root has a US passport but he doesn't have a Chinese visa because he's a Chinese citizen so he doesn't need one (and China won't issue him a visa anyway because he's a citizen). 

So we called various officials from the school, education department, and immigration office, to ask them how to handle this situation, and they don't know. Like, isn't it their job to know? Seems like it would be! But nope, they are all totally confused by the existence of a half-Chinese kid. 

Eventually we came up with a set of documents that was acceptable, to register him under the "international" classification. So, thank goodness, but wow that was really stressful.

But then there was a second problem, which is what I actually want to blog about there. I titled this post "Fake Documents"; this second problem is where the fake documents come into play.

See, our second problem was this: You need to have some document proving you live at the address that corresponds to the school you are applying for. There is a public kindergarten right across the street from our apartment complex, and we really wanted him to go to that one, because it's right there. So convenient! Anyway, each public school has a specific geographical area assigned to it (this is called 对口 in Chinese). Our apartment complex is in the designated area for this public school. So far so good, right?

For some reason, I thought that since we live here, we would have no issue fulfilling the "we live here" requirement. I don't know why I thought that; that's a real rookie mistake. In China, it's often much more complicated than that. Turns out that, to prove that you live there, you need to either have a property ownership document (if you own the home) or you need some "rental agreement" document issued by some certain government office.

Now, silly me, I thought that since we signed a contract to rent this apartment, that contract would be the document we would use to prove we live here. LOLOLOL! Nope! It's more complicated than that!

No, you have to go with your landlord down to some certain government office, and they will issue you a document that says you and your kid live at this address.

(Note: The landlord owns 1 individual apartment, not the whole building. I was confused about this when I first came to China.)

So, my husband contacted our landlord to say we need him to come and bring his ID card and property ownership document, and do this for us.

The landlord says he "can't."

And there was some back-and-forth between my husband, the landlord, the apartment agent, and the government office that issues these documents. Trying to work through the reasons why the landlord supposedly "can't" and make it work somehow.

Because, in China, a lot of times when people say they "can't" do something that you need them to do for you, it actually means "they can, but they don't want to, but if you inconvenience them enough about it, then they will do it." (Reminds me of the parable of the persistent widow.)

Eventually it came down to this: If the government office issues this document, they will not issue another one for the same address for the next 5 years. This (supposedly) is to prevent property owners from letting all of their relatives and friends pretend to live at their address, just to get into a good school. So the landlord felt like, what if in the future, he has a grandchild who is going to live in this apartment and go to public school? (I don't even know if he has a grandchild or not.) So that's the reason that he refused in the end.

So... then what? If you don't have this document, then you just can't go to public school. Do we have to move...? My husband and I spent a little bit of time searching for legal avenues that we could use to force the landlord to do this for us. (Some of the moms in the WeChat groups suggested threatening to report your landlord for tax evasion- because it's common that landlords aren't paying taxes on the rental income, even though they're supposed to.) But we couldn't come up with anything workable.

At this point, you should be thinking "wow this system is really broken." Yes! You're right!

So anyway. Then the apartment agent said he found a different landlord who owns an apartment in our complex. This landlord is willing to go with us to the government office and pretend we are renting his apartment. For a fee, of course! The fee that this landlord was asking was less than the price of 1 month of private school. 

So that's what we did. We got this document with a fake address on it (still in our same apartment complex though) and used that to register Square Root for kindergarten. And it worked, now he attends the public kindergarten across the street, and it's going well.

So what I actually want to blog about is the ethical questions about this.

When my husband and I were discussing whether to use a fake address, my concerns were these:

1. Are we going to get in trouble?
2. Are we going to have to use this fake address on other documents, and it's going to be a pain trying to keep track of which documents have our real address and which ones have our fake address, and will lead to further bureaucracy headaches in the future?

I wasn't like "no, this is out of the question because it's unethical to bribe a landlord and submit a document that claims we live at an address that's not our real address." I wasn't concerned about the ethics of it, because I could see how broken the system was. A system that broken is not the arbiter of right and wrong.

Maybe in Shanghai, if you rent your home rather than owning it, you just don't have rights to send your kid to public school. You don't have that right, you can only send your kid to public school if your landlord deigns to allow it. Is that the way it's supposed to work?

(My favorite quote from my husband during this process was "I have paid taxes in Shanghai for 10 years, and my landlord decides whether I can send my kid to public school?")

Sometimes I almost say we "had to" get this fake document, but the reality is we didn't "have to." We could have said, "oh, okay, our landlord has decided that Square Root can't go to public school, and that's just the way it is" and then either moved to a different apartment with a different landlord, or paid tons of money for private school and spent a lot of time every day dropping him off and picking him up from the private school (which is not across the street from our apartment).

So, you see we didn't "have to", but we were very very strongly incentivized to do it. And I've heard of a lot of situations in China where, because the bureaucracy is so huge and ridiculous, people are strongly incentivized to lie to the bureaucracy, like we did. Not because people are trying to cheat and steal or whatever, but because we are just trying to live our normal lives and do completely reasonable things, but the system is heartless and nonsensical, and we feel we deserve better than however things happen to shake out when we follow the rules.

My husband told me this isn't a China thing, this is a "this is what the real world is like" thing. I don't know; I have spent almost all my adult life in China, so there are often things I never was aware of before, which feel to me like "this is how it is in China" but perhaps are actually "this is what being an adult is like."

It's an example of privilege, though. If you're able to live your life and you never get into a situation where you need to lie to a giant heartless bureaucracy, just to get the same rights that everyone else has- that's an indication that you are relatively privileged.

What's interesting to me, though, is that it seemed like nobody actually cared if the address on our document is indeed the actual address of the apartment we are actually renting and living in. The teacher at the school who was helping us seemed to have an approach like "as long as you come up with some configuration of documents that the system will accept, you're good"- like, not caring if those documents were true, just that we had the documents. And also, at another step in the process we needed to get a different document from our apartment management, and my husband told them "we live in building X, but we are using an address in building Y for this, see, we have a contract in building Y" (which was the fake contract from our fake landlord), and the apartment management just totally did not care at all. They asked 0 questions about "why are you using this address if you actually live in building X?" All that mattered was that their policy says they can issue this document that we need if we show we have an apartment contract, and so, that's what they did.

And my husband told some friends about this whole thing, and when he got to part about "the fee that the fake landlord was asking for was less than the price of 1 month of private school" they were like "oh that's great!" like so happy to hear how well this worked out for us. Nobody was like "uh isn't this a little shady?" Like it's just a funny story and thank goodness it all worked out in the end, and there's no, like... ethical questions about it...?

It seems to me like, in China, the bureaucracy is so extensive, and so focused on little tiny details that have to be exactly right or else they can't accept the documents you submit, that everyone has run into absurd problems with it. (Which is one of the reasons I'm glad I didn't change my last name when I got married- can you imagine always having to explain that to random government employees? "Yes my name is different than on my old passport/ diploma/ etc but I am the same person" NOPE their system does not have an option for that [though I've heard you can get your consulate to issue a document officially stating that you are the same person- perhaps that will work].)  Everyone has been in that situation where you just don't have the right fapiao (which is a specific type of receipt you need if you're going to get reimbursed for something) so you're just out of luck. And therefore there's sort of this awareness that these bureaucracy rules are not the definition of "right" and "wrong." Instead, you do what you have to do to make it work for you. 

My view is more like, these systems are set up to benefit society as a whole, and it's not good when people decide "the rules shouldn't apply to me because [reasons]." But here in China, when you see enough little nitpicky bureaucracy headaches, perhaps it's not possible to believe that those rules "benefit society." And yes, I am sort of saying "the rules shouldn't apply to us because we really do live in this apartment complex and we really should have the right to send our kid to the public school across the street, it's just that our landlord is being a jerk- and the fake address is in the same apartment complex as our real address so what difference does it make?" I realize I am "making an excuse", and you don't have to agree that it's ethical to do what we did.

But, I want to tell you, there's more to it than just "well you shouldn't use a fake document, that's just completely out of the question, because it's unethical." It's not right to view the situation in such simplistic terms. If you view it that way, you're saying that this system has the power to define what's ethical and what's not. This system, which allows landlords to refuse to let renters use their address to get into public school. Really? That system? That's the one you need to obey in order to be "ethical"? 

Back when I was evangelical and "on fire for God", I definitely believed lying was a sin. (Though conveniently omitting certain facts- in order to give the impression that something false is true- I thought was okay depending on the situation. Because it doesn't technically fit the definition of lying.) I thought if I was in a situation where it seemed like the best option was to lie, that would be an example of "temptation." And, the bible says, "No temptation has seized you except that which is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out, so you can stand up under it." So, because lying would be a sin, I needed to "trust God" and not lie, even though everything about the practical reality of the situation screamed that it was a bad idea. Somehow, God would work things out.

I don't believe that any more. I mean, just to name 1 example, we have a God who allowed millions of people to die of covid. You really think a God as hands-off as that is going around carefully making sure that no one is harmed by their naive conviction that "lying is a sin, regardless of the situation"?

So. Yeah. We registered our kid for kindergarten using a document that had a fake address on it, because our landlord refused to give us a document with our real address. I won't say that we "had to", because we did have other options: move, or send our kid to a private school which would be way more expensive and far from our home. I think it's okay that we did this, even though it's lying- because the system is set up with so many layers of bureaucracy, which often trips up people who really are trying to follow the rules and do the right thing.

And, you don't have to agree with me, but at least I want you to know that you can't view it like it's as simple as "lying is wrong, and that's that." You have to recognize that there exist systems and societal structures which are so broken that sometimes the right thing to do is to lie to them.

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Related:

Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Me

Perfect Number Watches VeggieTales "The Ballad of Little Joe" (2003)

Blogaround

1. What does it mean that AI is “remixing existing work”? (January 13) "What does that even mean?"

2. Zendaya and Tom Holland Are Engaged! (January 6) 

3. With a TikTok Ban Looming, Users Flee to Chinese App ‘RedNote’ (January 13) "As of Monday, Xiaohongshu was the number one most-downloaded app in Apple’s US App Store, despite the fact that it doesn’t even have an official English name."

I wrote this comment about it on Pillowfort:

Lollll I'm in China so I have to weigh in on this. (I'm American, my husband is Chinese.) I haven't used xiaohongshu but my husband has it on his phone and has used it very occasionally.

So last night my husband hands me his phone and shows me how his whole xiaohongshu feed is all Americans- "tiktok refugees." And then I get to work this morning and my Chinese colleagues are talking about "why are there a bunch of foreigners on xiaohongshu all of a sudden?"

I find the whole thing extremely funny!

I've typically seen xiaohongshu described as a Chinese equivalent to Instagram. It's known for having mostly women users, and people use it to post about their lifestyle/ travel/ things like that. (The linked article does a good job describing it.) My husband says it's mainly used by the people who have enough money to travel and who live in the biggest cities in China, so it doesn't show what the "average" Chinese person's life is like.

When we wanted to take our daughter to get pictures taken, we searched for a local photographer on xiaohongshu. It's useful for that because businesses post there to advertise. And one time we took a cruise to Japan, and we were looking for information on what to do in the various Japanese cities we docked at- we searched on xiaohongshu and found posts by other Chinese tourists, showing interesting things you can do in the area near the dock. Really useful and practical, with maps and photos. Xiaohongshu is good for things like that.

And over the past few days that this has been going on, my husband has been showing me a lot of videos of Americans talking about the things they've learned about normal life for Chinese users of xiaohongshu. Americans are finding out that the cost of living is SO MUCH LOWER in China than in the US. Chinese people finding out about frankly dystopian aspects of US society, like school lunch debt, kids in school saying the pledge of allegiance every day, people in the midst of a medical emergency asking everyone to NOT call an ambulance because it would cost thousands of dollars... and so on.

I think this is great. Just normal people talking about their normal lives. To show you what is really going on, which isn't like what you see in the news or the way politicians talk about China. Seeing that the problems we have in the US aren't inevitable- there are other countries which simply don't have those problems. A better world is possible.

In some of the videos from American tiktok users talking about what they learned about China, though, I'm seeing them making statements which very much oversimplify the situation. (Which is not their fault I guess- it's their first time finding out about these things, so obviously they don't understand all the details.) For example, talking about how in China you can buy a home... uh... what... in reality, it's SO EXPENSIVE to buy a home in big cities in China. We're talking about a husband and wife getting their parents on both sides to contribute their life savings, that's how expensive it is, and that's seen as normal. (And there's nonsense gender roles involved in this too- people talk about how a man has to own an apartment or else no woman would agree to marry him, ugh. In practical terms though I think both partners are contributing to the cost- but people always *say* it's a requirement for the man.) 

And also, it's normal for a mortgage to be WAYYY HIGHER than the price of renting an equivalent apartment. I was super confused when I heard this is the case in Shanghai- isn't a mortgage supposed to be lower than renting, because when you rent you're also paying for the landlord to do maintenance if necessary? That's what the typical financial advice in the US says. But in China people view buying a home as an investment. People will buy an apartment and just leave it empty because the money you could make on rent is not really that much in comparison. Personally I feel like it's a bad idea to buy an apartment as an investment, because what if the market then goes down? 

(I mean, the housing market in Shanghai is absurd though- maybe this is not true of smaller cities.)

But I think the American tiktok users were excited about how China doesn't require homeowners to pay property tax every year. And Chinese users were super confused about the concept of property tax. And like, somehow that message mutated into "people in China can buy homes and everything is wonderful."

And the cost of living is much lower in China than in the US, and for someone like me who works as an engineer, that's great- my salary is lower than what I would get in the US, but it's much higher than the average salary for an average person in Shanghai. So because the average salary is so low, I'm not sure how much it really *helps* that the cost of living is low (in absolute terms compared to US dollars). 

But anyway, I think it would be great if these Americans stick around on xiaohongshu and keep learning more about the world.

4. Democrats Rail Against "GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act" (January 16) "What followed was a series of Democratic representatives hammering the same point home with fiery rhetoric. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez railed against the notion that the bill was about protecting women and girls, stating, 'Republicans, who have voted consistently against the Violence Against Women Act, who have taken the rights of all women to have control over their own body, who as women are bleeding out in parking lots, now want to pretend today that they care about women… And why? To open up genital inspection on little girls across this country in the name of attacking trans girls. We have two words. Not today.'"

See, THIS is what I want to see. Democrats actually taking a stand for trans people. Normally what I see in news stories in Republicans taking a strong stand that trans people are disgusting sexual predators, and Democrats kinda waffling around like "uh I don't know, maybe it's politically beneficial to throw trans people under the bus?" and "yeah I guess I'm not really supposed to say this but I do feel uncomfortable with my daughters playing sports with biological males." Come on! 

This is a clear moral issue, not something to be embarrassed about. Trans people are just normal people who just want to go to the bathroom like everybody else. For sports, let's be reasonable about it and base it on actual scientific evidence, not just ban trans people entirely. It is DISGUSTING that Republicans are spending so much energy attacking this tiny group of people.

5. 'Concerns About A Stronger-Than-Expected Economy' Is A Real CNN Thing We Just Read (January 12) 

6. Resentment vs. gratitude: from parking spaces to ASL (January 14) "I suppose they can shoehorn this into the generic category of a “my tax dollars are being spent on other people who aren’t me, personally” complaint."

So, some right-wing weirdos think there shouldn't be ASL interpreters on tv during the broadcasts about the fires. I mean... this is so absurd, but I feel like I kind of understand it, because I grew up around Republicans and they often made little comments about how exhausting it is that we constantly have to be "politically correct" about some new thing. (Yeah back then it was called "politically correct" instead of "woke.") The logic goes like this: The way things are now is fine for regular people. And now apparently we have to change it, we're not allowed to say certain things, we have to hear "press 2 for Spanish" on the phone, it's like there's always another group we have to "be inclusive" of, and it's just too much. All these things are meaningless- they're just things that we're told we have to do now, otherwise we're not "politically correct" but there's no actual reason for any of it. Just a bunch of inconveniences to regular people. Enough is enough.

And then I found out, those things that we labelled as "politically-correct nonsense"- those things actually matter for people who are affected by them. They are real people. This isn't just some pointless contest about who can be the most politically correct. 

The argument only makes sense if you think deaf people don't actually benefit from having ASL interpreters on tv. Or if you think that they matter so little compared to "regular people" that they should just have to rely on imperfect closed-captioning, in order to not potentially inconvenience any "regular people" by reminding us of their existence. Once you realize that they are real people and ASL helps them a lot, the whining from these MAGA types comes across as obviously ridiculous. 

And, I mean, when I was a child it was understandable that I bought into that, because my Republican role models were very negative about efforts to "be inclusive", and I had to believe that they had a good reason for that- but if you're an adult and you still can't grasp that people who are different from you are people... I don't know what to tell you. That's a YOU problem.

7. Radon (January 13) "When was the planet under this house built?"

I also liked the Chess Zoo.

8. Flags to be raised for Trump's inauguration, despite half-staff order for Carter's death (January 15) What is this nonsense

9. Immigrant workers are helping investigate labor abuses. Will Trump let them stay? (January 15) "'Employers look at you completely differently when you have a social security number,' he says. 'In every sense you feel safe. You feel comfortable. You are free to go anywhere.'"

This is really interesting! I had never heard about this before. The US government gives legal protections to undocumented immigrants who are helping give evidence about employers breaking the law. This is really clever, because it's a big problem that businesses can get away with mistreating undocumented workers, who feel like they can't report it because they'll be deported. 

And it shows that maybe it's easier to give them legal status than one might think. That's great. I support all immigrants.

10. Trump coverage needs to change and here’s how (December 31) "'You’ve got to stop covering him like he’s just another politician, with a different agenda,' Johnston told me recently. 'He’s a criminal and a con artist. And that has to be central to everything you cover about him.'"

11. Lifeboat Capitalism (January 9) "If the term 'crime against humanity' has any meaning, it must apply to very wealthy people who—knowing that their actions are causing a climate change crisis that will devastate future generations and destroy hundreds of millions of lives—chose not to stop those actions, but instead to undertake a systematic campaign of lies and propaganda in order to continue making themselves money. Is there anything, really, more contemptible than this?"

"Elemental": a movie about immigration, culture, and giving up the life your parents built for you

Ember (fire girl) and Wade (water boy). Image source.

Well I'm late to the party on this, but I just saw the 2023 Pixar movie "Elemental" and I LOVED IT. !!!!! Why didn't anyone tell me this was a movie about immigration and cultural differences? I would have watched it much sooner! I knew it was a "forbidden love" sort of story between a fire character and water character, but it's more than that.

Here's an overview of the movie: In the beginning scenes, 2 fire people leave Fireland and immigrate to Element City. ("Fire people" are basically anthropomorphized flames walking around.) Element City is very much NOT built for fire people. There's water flowing and dripping in lots of public places (probably the city was designed for water people). These immigrants built a little shop which sells things to other fire people, and over time more fire people moved to their section of the city. Their daughter, Ember, works in the shop, and her father says she will take over the shop when she's ready.

Then Ember meets Wade, a water person, and they get to know each other and eventually fall in love. Wade is more naive and idealistic than Ember- he is ready to go against all the societal norms so they can be together. For Ember, it's not the simple. She doesn't have the same privileged background that Wade does. Her parents worked hard and sacrificed so much to come to Element City and build a life for themselves and for her, and she feels she can't reject all of that just because she has feelings for Wade.

I was very impressed with how this movie portrayed the sense of being out of place, of standing out in a foreign environment, of being constantly inconvenienced by societal structures which everyone else feels are normal. When Ember goes into the city, and when she goes to Wade's home to meet his family, there are no other fire people there, and she very much stands out. She always carries an umbrella with her, and whips it out many times to protect herself from water being splashed around, while all the water people aren't bothered at all by getting wet- it's a constant inconvenience for her, that other people don't even notice. Even Wade, who accompanies her and wants to help her, fits in so well and is so comfortable in that environment, so he can't *truly* understand what she's going through. 

I have experienced a lot of this, as a white person living in China. As a white person visiting my Chinese husband's family. And also, from the other side of it- bringing my husband to meet my family in the US.

Another theme in the movie is about how cute ideas like "follow your heart" land extremely differently for someone from a privileged, majority-culture background vs an immigrant/minority background. Both Ember and Wade come from families where "elements don't mix", but when Wade decides to challenge this ideology, it's very different than if Ember was challenging it. In Ember's case, her parents have sacrificed so much, and lived through constant discrimination from water people, and worked so hard keeping their little shop going... the idea that she can just turn her back on all of that, just because she loves a water guy? She can't.

My experience with this is that I grew up in an evangelical culture which admired missionaries. We were all so impressed by Americans who were "called by God" to give up everything and go live in some scary poor country. We talked about this "calling" like it could just strike anyone, out of the blue, you're a normal Christian and then one day you're praying and you hear God saying "goooo to Chinaaaaa" and then you have to give up everything and go.

So I was always in this ideology where it was seen as heroic to give up your whole culture and lifestyle for God. We believed our lives didn't really belong to ourselves, but to God, and we should be totally willing to "surrender all."

When I moved to China, it wasn't as a missionary, and it wasn't because "God called me", but it was still very much influenced by this Christian missions ideology. Viewing my lifestyle and culture as something that can easily be sacrificed, something that is not truly mine.

At some point, I realized that the only reason I felt so okay with giving up these things was because I was so privileged- I had always taken for granted that I would have them. I had worked hard, sure, but never with the threat of "if I don't work hard enough, I won't be able to have that kind of [normal white American college-educated] life."

As an example (which I wrote about here: Privilege and "Putting God First"): When I was in college, I was very involved with bible study groups and other Christian activities. I dedicated a LOT of my time to them. And all of us in those groups would always talk about how bible study was more important than the other things in our lives, like homework. About how we needed to get our priorities right, and put God first. Following God was a higher priority than doing well in our classes.

I was only able to think that way because my entire life, I had always taken for granted that I would go to college. There was never any possibility that I wouldn't go to college. And so, it was easy to act like it didn't matter, like "yeah I'd totally give this up for God." To act like I didn't value it. 

I knew other students who were the first people in their families to go to college. And I knew international students whose parents had spent a lot of money to send them to school in the US. Do you think they were walking around talking about how doing well in school didn't *really* matter, and all that mattered was devotion to God?

And from a parent's perspective, how does it feel if you've worked so hard to give your child a good life, and then the child decides they don't want that life at all? Like it's something they can give up so easily? This can go in several different ways, depending on how privileged you are. If the child wants to do something different than what the parent wanted, but it would still work out okay, then the parent should hopefully accept that. But if the child decides they want to go back to the kind of difficult, dangerous life that the parent worked so hard to escape from, well that's not so good.

So I really enjoyed "Elemental," because it showed the experience of being an immigrant and feeling out-of-place in a foreign environment. And how the typical Disney-movie message of "be yourself, follow your heart, don't be limited by your parents' expectations" can play out very differently depending on how privileged your family background is.

---

Related:

On Marriage as an Immigrant in China

Privilege and "Putting God First" 

Culture, Objectivity, God, and the Real Reason I Moved to China 

Runaway Radical: Radical Christian Missions 

"The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" is About Being an Immigrant

The Privilege and Complicity of Fix-It Felix Jr

Zootopia, an Adorable Disney Cartoon about Systemic Racism 

Buzz Lightyear and the Years We Lost to Covid

I'm not sure about "the cruelty is the point"

xkcd comic showing a person on their computer. Someone says to them, "Are you coming to bed?" "I can't. This is important." "What?" "Someone is wrong on the internet." Image source.

Recently on the progressive/liberal side of the internet, I've been seeing this phrase pop up many times: "the cruelty is the point."

For example, maybe someone writes a blog post about a "pro-life" law which doesn't even allow abortion for a fetus with a health condition such that it can't survive. Why? Why? Why? What could possibly be the reason for this law? How can you force a pregnant person in that terrible situation to continue to carry a pregnancy, and suffer all the health problems and risks that come with it, along with the emotional trauma of knowing their baby will not survive? The comments section on such a blog post will be full of comments saying "the cruelty is the point."

The first time I heard this idea, "the cruelty is the point", I *did* think it was meaningful. If you can't make sense of what might motivate someone to do something that negatively affects other people, well, maybe we should consider the possibility that they genuinely want to make other people suffer. After we've tried so hard to figure out someone's motives, and we've come up empty, here's a novel idea. That was how I first understood "the cruelty is the point," and I did think it was helpful, if understood in that way.

But recently I've been seeing comments like this everywhere, and I don't like it. People discussing policies proposed by Republicans which would harm immigrants, trans people, poor people, women, etc- these policies are cruel and we need to fight them. But in general I don't think it's true that "the cruelty is the point," and by saying this, we are spreading misinformation about the motives of people who disagree with us. I don't like how I'm seeing this comment everywhere now, like it's the go-to response when we read about a cruel conservative policy. 

(When I say "everywhere" I just mean the parts of the internet I spend time on. Maybe you haven't seen this phenomenon, in which case you can pretty much ignore this post. But please be skeptical of "the cruelty is the point" if you ever come across it in the future.)

"The cruelty is the point" can explain the motivations of some fraction of people. Maybe they're just sadistic, or maybe they think there are certain groups of people who deserve to be punished, so it's right to make laws which cause those groups to suffer. But in general, no, I don't think this is the main thing that motivates people to support policies which we would call cruel. By jumping so quickly to "the cruelty is the point", we are reducing people to a caricature. This is misinformation.

There are plenty of other reasons people might support bad policies! They likely have different beliefs about how the world works, which lead them to conclude that these bad policies are actually good. Maybe they believe that policies which you might not like will help you to be a better person in the long run. Maybe they want members of their in-group to view them positively, and voicing support for certain political ideas will accomplish that. Plenty of reasons. Not *good* reasons, but more realistic and relatably-human than just "the cruelty is the point."

It is just NOT TRUE that people who support conservative political ideas are mainly motivated by cruelty. Maybe it's true in some cases, but overall, no, it's not. Does it matter what their actual motives are? Well, not necessarily, because we have to fight back against their bad policies regardless. But if your goal is to talk to people and persuade them to change their minds, then you should find out their actual reasons first. If that's not your goal, well that's fine, you're not required to understand bigots, but at least you shouldn't claim that you know they're simply motivated by cruelty.

And think about how it comes across, if somebody supports bad policy xyz for reasons that they think are good reasons, and then they see people on the internet saying that the people who support xyz must be motivated by cruelty. Their response will be "wow, this person doesn't know the first thing about this actual issue" because we're out here on the internet confidently making completely wrong assertions about other people's internal thoughts. 

Maybe let's not do that?

---

Related:

On Washing Machines and Republicans

Blogaround

1. Epiphanies (January 6) "If the person and the life of Jesus Christ taught us humans everything we need to know about God, that life also taught God what it is like to be one of us."

Also from the Slacktivist: Lost in the flood (January 7) "It’s darkly ironic that the rejection of that fact — the refusal to accept that the Bible is often bigger, stranger, more complicated and polyvalent — is referred to as 'a high view of scripture.'"

And: But in Canada, they have waiting lists (January 9) "This whole time, again, my wife is dealing — every day — with a condition that’s painful and inconvenient and disabling and that risks her long-term health."

2. Meta says it will end fact checking as Silicon Valley prepares for Trump (January 7) "The move comes as Meta and other tech companies are working to smooth what has been a rocky relationship with Trump." Oh this sounds bad.

3. Shigatse Earthquake: Over 120 Dead as Rescuers Battle Cold and Rubble (January 8) "A day after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck southwestern China’s Xizang Autonomous Region, the toll has climbed to at least 126 dead, 188 injured, and over 3,600 homes reduced to rubble."

4. Stripe Tales of the Ace and Aro flags (January 8) "I think using colors to represent specific groups raises too many questions about what groups are included or not included, and who 'deserves' to be on the flag."

5. Melchizedek: How a Literary Phantom Became an Eternal Priest and Savior of Israel (September 21) "Jews who interpreted Psalm 110 as a historical poem about Abraham would have discovered that it contained four surplus details about Abraham that were not originally explained in Genesis 14. Granarød believes that the Melchizedek character was invented on the basis of Psalm 110:4 and added to Genesis 14 to fill in those gaps."

6. This New Immigration Bill That’s About to Pass Is a Horrifying Trojan Horse (January 10) "In short, under the guise of punishing a small number of lawbreaking undocumented immigrants, the act would curtail legal immigration and subject law-abiding immigrants to detention and deportation. It is baffling that so many Democrats would sign on to such a cruel and constitutionally dubious scheme."

7. Anita Bryant, a popular singer who became known for opposition to gay rights, dead at age 84 (January 11)

8. Mantracks: a True Story of Fake Fossils (January 11) 1-hour-25-minute video from Dan Olson about the young-earth-creationist claim that human and dinosaur footprints have been discovered together. 

Wow! This video is very well-done. When I was a young-earth creationist, I mostly followed Answers in Genesis, and their position is that these human footprints are fake. Dan Olson talks about this in his video- how some creationists are just shameless grifters, and some are trying to look like real scientists, but they all share this ideology which is incompatible with how science actually works. Real science is about realizing you were wrong, changing your ideas when new evidence comes out- but from a creationist perspective, this is seen as a fundamental weakness. We already know the right answers from the bible, supposedly. Scientists are wrong and you can see that because they have to keep making changes to their theories, whereas we don't have to do that because we're already right.

9. Atheist group faces backlash after publishing, then removing, anti-trans article (December 29, via) "The whole piece is nothing more than anti-trans bigotry wrapped up in a cloak of science."

What Would Abraham Do? (a bible fanfic)

A painting which shows the angel knocking the knife out of Abraham's hand, as Abraham holds Isaac down. Image source.

[content note: it's about the bible story where God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac]

When Sarah got up in the morning, Abraham had already left.

He had told her the night before, he and Isaac were going up the mountain to offer a sacrifice. Isaac was a little young, she thought, but perhaps Abraham thought it was time for him to come along on one of these trips. They would probably be gone for several days; the mountain was far.

In the afternoon, their servant Eliezer came by her tent, while Sarah was making bread. She asked him if he had helped Abraham get one of the goats that morning, for the sacrifice.

"Hmm? No, he didn't come to me for a goat this morning," said Eliezer.

"Maybe a sheep?" asked Sarah.

"No, I didn't talk to him at all this morning. I did see them as they were leaving though- Abraham, Isaac, and two of my sons."

Sarah looked confused. "But they must have taken a goat- he said God told him they should go present a sacrifice."

"Are you sure?" asked Eliezer. "It doesn't make sense. I don't think he's making a sacrifice this time. I can tell you they definitely didn't take a goat with them."

"Okay..." said Sarah, still puzzled. She was sure Abraham had told her that he was going to sacrifice an offering.

After Eliezer left, she continued to think about it as she made her bread. He had definitely told her the night before, that he and Isaac were going to sacrifice an offering. Maybe they changed their plans? But, that didn't make sense either- Abraham had said that God commanded him to sacrifice an offering.

Last time, it was Abraham, the two servants, and the goat. But this time, it was Abraham, the two servants, and Isaac.

Wait.

No, she thought.

Oh no...

He wouldn't.

He wouldn't... right?

She thought about what he had said the night before. It was very normal and routine- sometimes he took two of the servants and traveled for a few days, and this time he was taking Isaac along. He had said it like it was no big deal. But, as she thought about it, she seemed to remember there was something about the way he talked, something more serious in his voice, like he was afraid and trying to hide it.

She ran it over in her head again and again.

No, it couldn't be... He wouldn't...

She grew more and more nervous, and finally she couldn't help herself- she rushed outside and started to run in the direction of the mountain, with wild thoughts of saving her son and bringing him home. Where was he? Her perfect little boy, her little ray of sunshine, who had brought laughter into her life- he was somewhere out there, on that mountain.

She slowed down and came to a stop. There was no way she could catch up with them. They had left hours ago. There was nothing she could do.

All around her, she heard birds singing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Everything felt normal.

So... she would just have to go back to her tent and wait. And not know if Isaac would even come back or not. No... she couldn't imagine what her life would be without Isaac... 

But surely she was being ridiculous. She shouldn't jump to conclusions.

But... When she asked herself whether Abraham would really do that, if his God commanded it... she honestly didn't know the answer. And that terrified her.

He wouldn't, right?

Sarah tried to sleep that night, but all she could think about was her son's beautiful face. The way he talked, the way he laughed, the way he was learning how to help with chores, the way he asked questions, the way he seemed to light up when he was telling her about some interesting thing he had done... He was with his father, so, was he safe? She didn't know. She honestly didn't know.

He wouldn't, right?

She knew she would have to wait a few days for Abraham to come back. It was torture. She tried to go about her life, tried to work just like she usually did, but she couldn't stop thinking about Isaac, worrying for his safety. Wondering if Abraham was the kind of man who would... who would...

No, he wouldn't, right?

What if he would? And there was nothing she could do about it. She didn't even know where Isaac was right then. Somewhere on that mountain.

The days passed so slowly.

Finally, on the seventh day, they came back. 

She heard the servants calling out, and she rushed out of the tent to see what was happening. She was terrified- what if Isaac wasn't with him?

Far away, on the horizon, she saw them- Abraham, Isaac, the two servants, and the donkey. She collapsed right there on the ground, and cried, overwhelmed by all the stress of the past few days. Isaac was safe! He was safe. He was coming home.

She couldn't believe she had been so worried. She couldn't believe she had really thought...

Later, she asked Abraham if he had really offered a sacrifice to God, because he hadn't taken a goat. Abraham said that God had provided a ram, stuck in the bushes, on the mountain, and he had offered that as a sacrifice.

At first she was relieved, and thought about how silly she had been. Of course he was sacrificing a ram. Of course it wasn't... Isaac... their son... of course not. Why had she thought that?

Thank goodness, he wouldn't.

But, still, something didn't add up. They just happened to find a ram stuck in the bushes? Did he know it was going to be there beforehand, when he decided not to take a goat on the trip? How would he have known that? Did God tell him...? She felt there was still something a bit off about this story.

But Isaac was safe. That's all that mattered.

---

Isaac lay in bed that night, unable to sleep. He kept thinking about how his father had tied him up, and raised the knife...

An angel stopped him. And then he killed a ram instead. Isaac kept thinking about the way his father cut that ram's throat, and its blood poured out... Of course he had seen his father kill livestock before, but this time it was different.

It had been a test from God, apparently. And God was pleased, because now God knew that Abraham really would do it.

But, Isaac thought, what if next time there was no angel?

Yes, now God knew that Abraham would do it.

But, even worse, Isaac also knew Abraham would do it.

---

Other bible fanfics:

Love Wins (an Ezra fanfic) 

Strange Fire 

Noah's Evangelism 

Mary's Choice

Related:

Thanos Tested 

For Rizpah (or, a post about human sacrifice in the bible)

No One Can Take The Bible From Me 

Bathsheba's Son

Don't know why I never realized this about Old Testament prophets

Stained glass image of a biblical prophet. Image source.

So here's an interesting post: How a Tale of Demonic Possession Predicted the Decline of an Early Medieval Empire (via).

In the ninth century, Frankish courtier Einhard was, apparently, exorcising a demon. Turns out the demon's name was Wiggo and he had some things to say about the ruling class:

He was Satan’s doorkeeper, Wiggo declared. He had been roaming the land of the Franks with 11 friends for the last several years. “Following our instructions,” the demon continued, “we destroyed the grain, grapes and all the earth’s produce that is useful to mankind. We slaughtered the stock with disease and even directed plague and pestilence against human beings.” The priest asked what had given Wiggo such power. The demon replied, “By reason of the perverseness of this people, and of the manifold sins of those who are set up to rule over them.”

The sins of the Franks and their rulers had made the land fertile for Wiggo and his friends. This was a land without justice in which greed ran rampant: The powerful “abuse the higher place,” Wiggo said, “which they received that they might justly rule their subjects, giving themselves up to pride and vainglory; hatred and malice they direct not only against those who are far off but against their neighbors and those with whom they are allied; friend mistrusts friend, brother hates brother, and father has no love for son.” None, Wiggo concluded, gave honor to God as they did in previous generations. His speech finished and his work apparently done, the demon left the girl, overcome by the power of the martyrs’ relics.

The article is about how people used stories about demons (and other supernatural happenings) as a way to indirectly call out their leaders' abuses of power. Because, you can't really go tell the king "here's my opinion on what you're doing wrong." But you can say "a demon told me that it's been given power to cause all these problems in our society because of the bad behavior of our rulers."

Fascinating!

And, here's a question: What if the prophets from the bible were doing something similar?

I've always conceptualized the Old Testament prophets like this: 

So, God gave all these laws to his people, and they need to simply follow those laws, and God will bless them and make their society prosperous. It's not that hard, just follow the laws. Mostly about believing in the correct religion, and doing whatever little arbitrary traditions God set up, like how exactly to sacrifice animals and when to have feasts and whatever.

But the Israelite people strayed from God and didn't follow his laws. Ugh, you guys, why can't you just do this? It's not that hard. So God sent prophets to tell them "come on you guys, you need to stop worshiping those bad gods, and worship the correct god instead, otherwise all kinds of terrible things will happen to you."

But for the most part the people didn't listen to the prophets. God kept stalling for time, kept delaying the punishment that they deserved, but eventually he let the Assyrians invade Israel and the Babylonians invade Judah, as punishment for the people's sin. And that "sin" was basically believing in the wrong gods.

Basically, when I was evangelical, I took it at face value what the Old Testament prophets said. The people weren't faithful to God, so God sends prophets to warn them, but that doesn't work, so eventually he lets other armies invade and conquer them.

But hey wait a minute, what if it was more like this instead:

It wasn't about "the people" sinning. It was about the rulers and upper class. And their "sin" wasn't simply about believing in the "wrong" gods- it was about oppression and injustice and how they didn't help the poor. And it wasn't really God telling the prophets these things- that was just a way to frame their criticism so that they would be allowed to say it. And when enemy armies invaded, that wasn't actually related to their society's sin. It was unrelated but offered a convenient narrative for the prophets to use.

Hmm, interesting.

Also, I always read the rebuke from Old Testament prophets as being primarily about "you guys are following the wrong gods instead of the right god"- simply about what label you put on your religious activities, not about what you actually *do* and the way you actually *treat people*. Sure, if you had asked me why the other religions were bad, I would have trotted out some apologetics answer about "those other religions had human sacrifice and prostitution" but that was a secondary concern for me- the main concern was that the god you have in mind when you do your worship isn't the right one.

And I always read the bible from that mindset. If the prophets primarily wrote about social justice, I would not even have noticed. Sure, I know there are a few bible passages where the prophets' criticisms are about the way they treat people, and not about which religion they belong to- like Isaiah 58. But mostly their criticism was about which god(s) the people believed in, right? Right? ... It would be fascinating to read the bible again and see if the prophets' writings are mostly about social justice or about what label you use for your god(s).

Another thing I wonder: The people who believed in demons back then- in the bible or in ninth-century Europe- what did those beliefs look like exactly? Did they literally believe it, or was it more of a vibes-based thing?

I've been ex-evangelical for a long time, but I don't think I've thought about this before. Were the biblical prophets speaking to all the people, about their religious affiliation, or were they speaking to those in power, about their failure to create a just society? And were the eventual invasions by Assyria and Babylon really punishments from God, or were they just things that happened that the prophets used as part of their story?

---

Related:

Don't Protect God 

Maybe Jesus Was A Pharisee

My mind is blown by how cool the Synoptic Problem is 

No One Can Take The Bible From Me 

The Bible Stories As I Read Them Were Never Actually In The Bible