It’s Possible to Be too Smart for your Own Good, Archbishop Discovers

We live in a world of simplistic sound bites.

If you don’t believe that, see the hysterical reaction to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s exploration of whether sharia law, like other methods of extra-judicial arbitration, should be granted more formal recognition, to make sure its use is consistent with British law and quality standards.

He might has well have suggested that we convert corner stores into government-regulated brothels run by pedophiles with crooked teeth. The reaction to his intellectual premise was swift and vitriolic.

(Talk about deja vu. It seems like just yesterday that Pope Benedict was setting off a firestorm by quoting from a rabid anti-Islamic Byzantine Emperor from the 14th century.)

It is possible to be too nuanced for your own good. The archbishop and the pope both thought they were launching a discussion among academics, forgetting that their every statement is dissected in search of fodder for criticism.

In The Guardian, Madeleine Bunting best sums up Archbishop Williams’ intentions:

“He was honouring his audience last night – many of whom were lawyers and academics – by engaging them in a complex exploratory argument. Here is a fine mind at work: what sort of anti-intellectual populism assumes we should be able to easily understand everything he says?

“It’s a bad day when all our public figures are trapped in a parade of simplistic, anodyne platitudes: our politics have reached that degree of non-speak, and bishops are close behind them.

“What Williams did was defy all media convention – it was a rebellion against the spin and public relations mediation of public life; buried in all the frustration, there has to be a measure of awe for someone so recklessly prepared to buck the system and continue to be what he is – a big mind and a big heart but without a political bone in his body.”

Noble intentions.

Now, if only we lived in a world where the media, religious leaders and politicians were able to engage in intellectual dialogue about important public policy issues without stooping to hyperbole and character assassination.

In that world, there would be a very interesting exploration of how much accommodation western countries should make when dealing with people who have other beliefs, both at home and on the international stage.

Photo via iStockPhoto.com by Chris Schmidt.

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