Who is Satan? – The Devil Explained



The devil the bane of human existence. The personification of evil, appearing in some from in almost every human religion and thought. The problem of evil is a touchstone of any religion. From our direct confrontation with evil results suffering, and thus endless questions about the meaning of life.

That is why all religions have to give a proper answer regarding the origin, nature and end of evil. The general pattern in Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism is to consider evil as the effect of spiritual ignorance. But in many ancient religions, pantheistic religions and Judaeo-Christian religions evil has a face.

Anthropologists say that the story of religion starts with animism – the concept that all people, animals, plants, water, air, the world and the heaviness are all spiritual beings. Anthropologists state that this was a means for man to interpret and understand the meaning of life and the world around them.

These Ancients also often believed in evil spirts, often people who could not find rest in the afterlife spirit and that disturbing the natural order of things brought pain and was the cause of evil and pain in the world.

This system of belief still exists in some parts of the world, notably Africa, and it led naturally to the pantheism found in ancient societies like Greece and Rome. And it also led naturally to the eastern spiritualist religions as well. In eastern religions the concepts of animism lead naturally to the concept that physical

Matter was bad and the spiritual was good. In these religions pain is caused by attachment to the harsh physical world and to truly gain power and perfection is to escape physical existence. Meanwhile this animistic thought lead to the concept that beings were the cause for all the pain and destruction in the world.

In many ancient religions such as the religions of the Aztecs, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans evil was explained through the imperfections of the gods and by gods of chaos and destruction who manifested evil. In many of these ancient religions good and evil were at war with each other and this

Led to dualistic religions such as Zoroastrianism where good (Ahura Mazda) and Evil (Angra Mainyu) oppose each other. Angra Mainyu – meaning evil spirit attempts to undermine god’s creation by creating death and tempting mankind to sin. Anthropologists often state that these religions owe Zoroastrianism for the concepts of heaven

And hell and Satan, but naturally Christians, Jews and Muslims would not accept this view. This brings us to the Judeo- Christian religions Jews, Chrisitans and Muslims explain evil entering the world through the creation account but all of them view the devil very differently.

Devil comes from the Greek word diabolos, “slanderer,” or “accuser” which is a translation of the Hebrew word Satan. Judism has an unclear view of the devil and view in judism vary from just being a metaphor to being an opposer to God.

Some Jews even think of satan as being an agent of Gods or even someone who acts as a courtroom prosecutor. The word satan appears numerous times in the Hebrew bible, but often it is unclear whether it is an evil spirit or an agent of god.

Forinstance in 2 Samuel 24:1 god tells David to have a census and 1 Chronicles 21:1 says that god did it. In the book of Job Satan speaks to god concerning Job and seems to be acting as ‘devils advocate’ no pun intended.

But it is clear that satan is an evil force in other passages like 1 king 22 and in the book of samual in the from of a evil spirt harassing saul. In Christianity satan is more clearly a fallen angel and an opposer to God.

The new testament interprets passages of the old and identifies the snake in the garden as being the devil. Romans (16:20) and revelation (Rev. 12:9; 20:2). Satan acts as an antagonist to Jesus, attempting to tempt him in the wilderness and unlimitly leading to Jesus death by insiting Judis to betray him.

But in this instance satan is acting according to Gods plan possibly without knowing it. The Devil in the end times will attempt one last rebellion but will usimitly fail. The devil is sometimes called Lucifer, particularly when describing him as an angel before his

Fall, although the reference in Isaiah 14:12 to Lucifer, or the Son of the Morning, is a reference to a Babylonian king. The new testament allows for this though, as it often adds second meanings to passages outside of their original context forinstace Psalm 22 which is originally about king David,

Is interpreted to be about Jesus in the new testament. In Islam the devil is often known as Iblis. Iblis also likely comes from the same root as the word devil, but Muslim scholars often link it to an Arabic word meaning ‘without hope’.

Iblis is mentioned in the Quranic narrative about the creation of humanity. When God created Adam, he ordered the angels to prostrate themselves before him. All did, but Iblis refused and claimed to be superior to Adam out of pride.[Quran 7:12] Therefore, pride but also envy became a sign of “unbelief” in Islam.

Thereafter Iblis was condemned to hell, but God granted him a request to lead humanity astray, knowing the righteous will resist Iblis’ attempts to misguide them. To summrise devils appear in many religions in the from of evil spirits or evil in general Some religions use the devil as a metaphor for evil

Some religions believe evil is caused by the physical world and our attachment to it Judaism has varied ideas about the devil, but usually identify him as an evil spirit or a metaphor Christianity and Islam both believe that Satan is a fallen angel or angelic creature who was guilty of pride.

In Christianity the angel wanted to be as great as God In Islam the angelic Jinn wanted to be greater than man What are your thinking on the topic of satan?

#Satan #Devil #Explained

What is a Religion? Rethinking Religion and Secularism



– This is what I hope will be potentially a future book, which I’m tentatively calling “The Myth of Secularism”, but I’m basically going to share some of my reflections on what is really a work in progress. And looking at a few questions. What is religion?

We usually think of it as a relatively limited concept. Everyone knows what a religion is when they see one. What is din? That’s usually translated. It’s an Arabic word, usually translated as religion. And I want to look at whether that translation, which has been called into question

By a lot of scholars might have something to it. And finally, what is secularism, and that is an area of considerable sort of contention in the contemporary era, but it’s also in a sense, an ideology that underpins the way in which we organize the world, particularly in the Western world today.

So let me begin actually, by looking at some competing conceptions of the notion of religion. There are in a sense, I mean, there are a number of conceptions of what constitutes religion in academic scholarship today. But I wanted to actually think about, perhaps start by looking at the Oxford dictionary definition of religion.

So this is the Oxford dictionary of English. It’s not the OED that 20 volumes of mammoth piece of scholarship, but it’s basically a work of contemporary English usage you could say. So how is this word used in English today? And they sort of define religion as the belief in

And worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. This sounds familiar to most people, but if we think about a religion like Buddhism, which we usually refer to as a religion, about 70% of the global population, half a billion people, there’s no concept of God.

Some scholars have described it as an atheistic religion. So already, even with our common sense, understanding of these things, things are starting to break down. And so, in a sense, you have these two conceptions of religion within the academy one is close to the conventional understanding,

Which we’ll have a look at in a moment, but you also have a notion that religion is actually a modern category. It was invented in the modern period after the 17th century, the wards of religion kind of work constitutive of our understanding of religion today.

And some scholars also talk about the fact that secularism as an idea develops with the concept of religion. Scholars talk about the fact that as they would put it, there is no for religion in pre-modern times, what we refer to as religion doesn’t have a pre-modern equivalent. So that’s actually a widespread view

And we’ll have a look at it. I shouldn’t proceed any further without plugging the work of a colleague at Stanford University, Rushain Abbasi, he’s recently written a mammoth article, a 100 page article called Islam and the invention of religion where he’s basically criticizing what he describes

As the kind of modern orthodoxy in the study of religion, which argues that religion is a modern invention. Rather he says, that concept can be found early on in the Islamic tradition. And that’s something I’ll be looking at in a moment. But as I say, the current academic orthodoxy,

And it might be a little overstating of the case. I think that there are a significant number of scholars and I quote one of them in the transcript, but I’ll be sort of quoting him in passing. They hold this kind of traditional concept of religion that I mentioned earlier but this is

The view of Brent Nongbri, a scholar whose recent book is a 2013 book published by Yale University press called “Before Religion:The History of a Modern Concept”. He actually early on in his book defines religion in this way. “Religion is anything that sufficiently resembles modern Protestant Christianity.” Okay, now stay with him on this.

Let’s stick around. So religion is anything that sufficiently resembles modern Protestant Christianity. Such a definition might seem as crass, simplistic, ethnocentric, Christiancentric, and even a bit flippant. It is all of these things, but it is also highly accurate in reflecting the uses of the term in modern languages.

So this is, as I say, this is a very widespread view that basically what happened was modern Protestant Christianity post reformation kind of develops a conception of itself as a religion. That religion is privatized. That religion is in a sense to stay in the private realm, stay out of public life.

At least that’s the dispensation we live with today for the most part in a place like the UK. And then Europe exported that concept around the world and said, “This is what religion is. Get your religions in line with this.” So this is kind of the argument that scholars like

Brent Nongbri are making, that religion has to be privatized. And this is actually something we hear very often in society. We say, “Well, if it’s a religious matter, it’s a private matter. It should be privatized.” And what he’s saying is that conception of religion is actually a distinctly Protestant conception of religion

Developed after the 17th century in the wake of the wars of religion. And that is actually the way religion is used in other modern languages as well. And that’s a point which I will contest in just a moment, at least with respect to Arabic and other what scholars call Islamic cult languages.

Scholars sometimes make a distinction between Islamic and Islamic cult. And Islamic cult is basically a reference to what you could say, the secular components of a Muslim society, which are in some way imbued with the values of Islam, but are not really part and parcel of the religion.

I’m already using the category of religion that we’ll get back to why I think that is justified. Now, I want to ask us to think beyond Europe and I take my cue from sort of a Bengali historian, my own roots of Bengali as well, from the University of Chicago, a very prolific author,

This is an influential book he wrote in the year 2000 called “Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference”. So Dipesh Chakrabarty is a scholar of post-colonial studies. And he basically is arguing in this book that when we do history in an academic setting, we are so deeply embedded within a Eurocentric paradigm

That it’s extremely difficult to escape from it, even though that’s something that we should try and do. So the very concepts that we’re using, et cetera, are deeply embedded within the conceptual universe of Europe. And in a sense, it’s descendants in a place like the United States.

And so in the spirit of Provincializing Europe, I’m trying to ask ourselves, well, what if we discard this conception of religion and start to think about religion in terms taken from another tradition, the Sonic tradition, for example. Not to say that there’s a single unitary conception of religion in any given tradition.

Sorry on the basis of this I’m trying to look at, okay, is there an Islamic conception of religion? And why should that not be as legitimate of basis for our theoretical ruminations on the category of religion, on society, on the way in which society is organized.

Why should that not be as legitimate a source for those sorts of reflections as sort of what some scholars described as the Eurocentric conception of religion, right? And I think, increasingly it’s possible to ask those sorts of questions. I think maybe a generation or two ago

That suggestion would have been sort of dismissed as being, that’s not scholarship. Scholarship means you have to respect the canon, right? And that canon is now being brought into question. I think that’s a healthy development in our studies. So in Islam you have a concept of din.

So the term din is the Arabic word found in the Quran, found in the hadith literature. And I’ve got a hadith up there, section of its terpene on. And that term is usually translated as religion in modern period. Okay. It’s not always been translated as religion,

But in a sense, a language shifts over time. There’s something to be said about that. But what I’ve got on the screen is actually a hadith, a statement that is attributed to the prophet, which Muslims generally will consider to be authentic in this particular case, authentically attributed.

I’ve just made a note of where it’s found in sort of authoritative missing collections. And it’s a hadith where it’s a statement of the prophet or it’s actually a narrative of something that happened to the prophet and his companions where someone came to the prophet completely unfamiliar. It’s known as the Gabriel hadith

And so kind of title gives away who’s coming. So Gabriel appears in the form of a human and asks the prophet, “What is Islam? What is iman?” Which means faith. “What is the lesson?” Which is sometimes translated as spiritual excellence, and then asks a series of other questions.

And at the end of that hadith, the prophet asks one of his companions, “Do you know who asked that question was?” He had gone at that point. And then the companion response, “God and his messenger know best.” It’s very pious response. And the prophet responds, “(speaks foreign language) That was Gabriel.

He came to teach you your din.” And so early on in the tradition you have this term, which kind of identifies the entire project, din. But what’s interesting is and perhaps in contradistinction with some other traditions and some scholars point out people like Wilfred Cantwell Smith made this observation over 50 years ago.

That Islam is almost unique in history as naming itself. The scripture in a sense names itself. It reifies itself to use a bit of an academic term. And so the Quran itself actually has this sort of 109:6 where it says, “(speaks foreign language).” It not only attributes din to itself

Or the Muslim communities practices, but also attributes it to the other. It says that you have your religion, we have ours. Okay. Or I have mine. And this was addressed according to the unbelievers who are persecuting the prophet, okay. Saying, let us be, you have your religion, we have ours.

So the clan in a sense, uses this word. And this is just one instance but throughout the grant, this term is to be found in my estimation, rather transparently refer to beliefs, norms, practices that a given community adheres to, whether it be approved or disapproved by God.

And sometimes it refers to the din or the religion of Muslims as din will have the true religion. So it will sort of make those sorts of claims. But it’s interesting that that concept is in my estimation, very transparently present in earliest time scripture. And this should disrupt in my view,

What Rushain Abbasi calls the orthodoxy that has formed about the notion that religion is actually a modern category. Now, I’m going to change gears now and think about secularism for a moment. Okay. What is secularism? Another of these concepts, as I say, we all think we know what it is,

But when we start to sort of explore what it means, it’s difficult to pin down. And so, philosophy is sometimes called ideas like this, essentially concepts. Concepts where people are arguing about the very essence of it, the concept itself, democracy. And you could say Britishness, like what is Britishness?

And so secularism is often viewed as the separation of church and state. That’s one very popular definition. Something I’ll come back to towards the end of the lecture. And Charles Taylor, and this really it’s an award-winning book, “A Secular Age”. It’s a huge book, I think it’s 900 pages,

Took a long time to finish reading that. But Charles Taylor has suggested that secularism should better be understood as managing pluralism, a kind of neutrality between different competing religious claims, for example, on the part of the state. So the state should be a neutral umpire between different sort of perspectives.

But as I say, secularism is a contentious topic. How do we define secularism? Talal Asad, the chap whose book is on the left, an influential anthropologist of the secular. So he’s an anthropologist, who instead of looking at sort of traditional societies he said, “Well, what does an anthropology of secular societies look like?”

And he says, “Secularity is a distinct product of European history.” And he’s one of these people who described religion and secularism as Siamese twins for example. Charles Taylor, I’ve already mentioned talks about sort of neutrality. And he also highlights that secularism is about sort of the prevention of the persecution of minorities.

For example, the recognition of pluralism is acceptable, managing pluralism. And then you have, I think this is a relatively conventional view, but one which has been brought into question increasingly as he’s a scholar, I think he’s in Budapest at the moment, but he describes secularism as kind of a natural product of history.

So history kind of tended toward secularism and he’s a very sophisticated scholar, but it strikes me as teleological. It’s kind of history arrived at its conclusion with Europe, for some reason, according to that view. And I would sort of question that kind of a reading, but what about secularism beyond Europe as well?

So, I’m sort of going perhaps a bit backwards, sort of in a sense I’ve already mentioned Dipesh Chakrabarty’s “Provincializing Europe”. And so what I’m suggesting here is that account of secularism as sort of emerging and kind of reflecting natural historical development whereby all societies as they mature, as they advance,

As they progress, they will secularize. This is a very widespread assumption within the sociology of religion as well. And so, in a sense, in accord with that sort of an understanding, I want to sort of go back slightly and mention Bruce Lincoln, as another person who upholds a conception of religion,

Which is relatively conventional in that way. And he describes religion as a consisting of four components. The most important of which I want to highlight is a transcendent discourse, but it also is. And I want to highlight Bruce Lincoln’s definition for two reasons. One is, let’s think about religion,

But let’s think about how this might even apply to the concept of secularism as well. So Bruce Lincoln, a scholar at the University of Chicago as well wrote in this book made an attempt to define religion. And he’s a very sophisticated scholar, one of the finest positive religion of his generation,

But someone who in my view, adheres to the conventional view, that in a sense you can attempt to come up with a universal category of religion that excludes secularism as well. So he defines religion fairly extensively. I have summarized it here as a transcendent discourse, a practice, a community and an institution, right?

So, if we think about Christianity, transcend the discourse, the discourse of the Bible, a practice, there’ll be various rituals attached to it, the community, the Christian communion as were and an institution, the church. But in my estimation, depending on how you define transcendent, that can define any community.

So if we think about the British. Britishness as a discourse, it is also a practice that is regulated through laws, laid out through statute or in the form of the British constitution, whatever that is, a community. I happened to have my passport with me today ’cause I’m flying out tomorrow,

But we actually have sort of like these documents with which we can identify ourselves, and an institution. The institution you could say is the British state. But I think Britain is an institution in a sense. So I mean, one of the things that I should perhaps highlight here is these are all ideas

That there’s nothing natural in the world, which identifies someone as being from some country. These are ideas that we generate and we develop into institutions. The idea of progression college is basically a collectivity of people who have continued certain practices over time, right? And in that way, what I’m suggesting here is that

What is so different about secularism as a practice compared to a religion? The term transcendent is what Bruce Lincoln leans on heavily in my estimation, in order to justify the distinction between religion and secularism. So transcendence, he uses in my estimation, and he doesn’t use the term, God

Probably bearing in mind a traditional Buddhism, right? Or other potentially non-theistic practices, I suspect certain forms of other religions other than Buddhism and I’m not an expert on Hinduism would be considered to be transcendent discourses. Buddhism in a sense believes in spiritual practices that elevate people to around that cannot be accessed

By the normal human beings and so on. So in a sense, transcendence is doing a lot of work here, but to my mind, the values that underlie, any of these religious systems are transcended on some level. And I’m happy to sort of take questions later,

Querying my conception of this, but what is liberty? What is sort of liberalism as an idea? What is individualism as an idea? These are transcendent ideas in a sense, they are concepts and conceptions that we elevate to levels of unimpeachability in order to underpin our legal frameworks,

In order to recognize what is an acceptable social practice in our communities, what is equality? And what I want to suggest is that any normative system has to depend on these norms, which are transcendent ideas on some level, I haven’t gotten the book in the slides, but I’m reminded of William T. Cavanaugh,

Has a wonderful book called “The Myth of Religious Violence” where he basically argues that transcendence is something which is a kind of convenient way. It’s a slight of hand to allow for the creation of religion as a category. So he says that someone who works on Wall Street

And has a commitment to capitalism in a sense engages in a kind of deifying of the market and may spend hours and hours in rituals of devotion to the market, I suppose to give a sort of a locally relevant example, be the City of London, right?

And so I personally think that there’s something to that. And I think that the attempt to distinguish between theistic traditions or even something like Buddhism and an idea like secularism hinges on this conception of transcendence, which I think is highly problematic, I should sort of conclude this slide.

I didn’t mean to take quite so much time on it, but I’m going to plug my colleague, Rushain Abbasi’s work again as being an extraordinary history, his PhD, a 600 page PhD is a remarkable history of the concept of the secular not secularism, but the secular meaning.

He talks about the distinction between a religious realm and a secular realm as being present within the Islamic tradition from early on and theorized by scholars through history. It’s unfortunately unpublished. So if you want to read it, you’ll have to fly to Cambridge, Massachusetts and check-in at the library of Harvard University,

But hopefully it’s a different publication in 2023 with Princeton University Press. So if you’re interested that will be a book to look for. Okay. So I’ve already sort of suggested this, inverting the gaze: secularism as religion. And I’m taking inverting the gaze as a kind of a decolonial phrase, so to speak.

In my estimation, the Islamic view of religion resembles Emile Durkheim sort of famous definition of religion early on in his enormous book, “Les Formes Elementaires de la vie religieuse.” “The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life”. So this is 1912 work. He passed away five years later. It’s kind of his… I’m sorry.

I hope that’s not me. So, this is his great work towards the end of his life. And he defines religion interestingly enough, without reference to God. He says a religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things that is to say things set apart and forbidden.

So that’s his definition of sacred. And in all societies, we set things apart and forbid people from transgressing them in a sense. And practices which unite into one single moral community called the church, all those who adhere to them. So he’s used the term church, I think, that’s a little sort of,

I would query the use of that term, but I think to a certain extent, these sorts of conceptions of various modern ideologies religions is not terribly new. Another example. So this is from 1912, obviously, Emile Durkheim. And in a sense argues towards the end of his book that all societies need religions.

If we were to get rid of religion, we’d have to invent a new one. A decade later, Carlton Hayes, a scholar, a historian at Columbia University. And he writes an essay in a collected volume of essays, nationalism as a religion. It’s out of copyright so you can Google it and read it online.

And a really fascinating, I mean, he expands it later on, I think he published the book form in 1961, so 30-35 years later, but the book is called nationalism or religion, and this is nationalism as a religion. But those sorts of reflections on the way in which various modern ideologies in a sense

Take the place of religions is something which is quite widespread. And so I asked this question, could various modern ideologies be viewed as religions and his, one potential way of looking at this, depending on how one defines religion. And I’ve suggested a few definitions, we could view secularism as a broad church religion

While various secular ideologies, such as liberalism, nationalism may be seen as denominations or sects, right? I suppose denominations is a less loaded term, but perhaps Nazism and fascism should be considered sects. And so, in a sense, these are all post-enlightenment ideologies that predicate themselves on a world focused, what Charles Taylor calls,

“They look through an imminent frame.” They look at the world beyond not as transcendent, as connected somehow to a transcendent world, but only as eminent, only as interacting with the here and now, and well the times as well. And so, this is I think a remarkable transition in the history of humanity,

In a sense this kind of a shift beyond transcendence. But I also think that this is simply another manifestation of human religion. So these religions are ones which the secular wealthy realm, sorry, one’s in which the secular wealthy realm has been converted into an encompassing system that has replaced religious traditions.

And what do I mean by that? I’m just thinking about an idea like liberalism as something that imbues all of our institutions, or at least it should in a sense. So, we see ourselves as a liberal society, the values of liberalism and individuality, equality, all of these sorts of notions,

In a sense what Charles Taylor, the Canadian historian of secularism calls the French revolutionary trinity. Liberty, equality and fraternity. And those values in many respects are things that imbue our institutions. They imbue our laws. They are the basis on which we can actually adjudicate disputes among one another. And in my estimation, we engage in philosophical inquiry, which can be described as theological

With respect to those sorts of traditions. So if what I’m suggesting is a legitimate reading, then we live in a deeply religious age, right? And it sort of subverts our self image as a secular society. So in a sense, I mean, this book is slightly unrelated to the slide,

But I’m highlighting the limitations of the prevailing understanding of secularism in light of Islam, that a number of modern scholars know that Islam even as a practice today, even as a tradition today, not only the pre-modern world, but the Western trend of secularization in a form of marginalizing religion from the political sphere.

Now, most of the time people have rather sort of like unpleasant conceptions of this, partly because of the way in which it has been mediatized. But even beyond the more shocking manifestations that people are used to and form, part of a narrative, which is very problematic and skews our understanding

Of what’s actually happening in the world in my estimation. There are interesting things to be said about the fact that religiosity in the Muslim world often manifests also in the political sphere. And there isn’t really a very widespread conception in parts of the world, which have not been deeply touched by secular paradigms

That that is a bad thing, right? And so, that’s something that we can explore in perhaps the Q&A but it’s just something to recognize that the sort of the common understanding that secularism is the natural way for humanity. And it will gradually sort of secularize the whole world

Still held by a sort of respected sociologist of religion today. I think really needs to be brought into question and not in a historical fashion, but in a fashion that’s reflective and thinks about the sort of plurality of perspectives that exist in the world. These perspectives remain discussable marginal.

So in the broader discourse on whether it’s as an academic level, whether it’s I think greater latitude in this sort of discourse, or certainly in the popular level, they are discussing only marginal due to sort of the dominance of certain in my estimation narrow views of how society should be organized,

What we can think in a sense. So let me give one other example of what we can think of as a nation, as a religion. So I’m taking this again from Carlton Hayes, this is his 1961 book or note, it says 1960 on there.

So his 1960 book, and I’m just riffing off of it. This isn’t necessarily what he’s saying, but I’m just saying, what do we think about modern nation states as kind of these religious entities of sorts? They have sacred histories, all nation states have founding myths.

Why are we sort of Britain rather than England or Scotland? I guess Scotland might happen. But what makes France France? And younger nations have to kind of invent mythologies about themselves. They create museums. They sort of write histories that are to a certain extent, an act of creation,

Not an active sort of discussive discovery. You could say it’s a form of discovery question. It can also be a form of discovery. And so we have founding myths, we have sacred scriptures in my estimation, and I had a sort of Marshall Hall Patel’s book earlier “People of the Book”.

Constitutions, I mean, it’s a bit difficult to say this in the UK, of course. But in some respects statutory law can be seen as having elements of this. These are texts which cannot be ignored. They are true by definition, right? That’s how scripture works, right? The constitution of the United States is a good example because to a certain extent, it’s starting to be a bit archaic,

A couple of 100 years old at this point, or more than that. And it’s creating all sorts of complications with respect to, for example, the second amendment and the right to bear arms and things like that, written in a very different time. Yet, it’s not something that can just be discarded.

It’s a sacred text in practice, and you have a clerical class that adjudicates this sacred texts and various rankings of clerics, the Supreme court justices of the greatest theologians, the sort of the doctors of the church. But you do have a massive theological discourse and describing it somewhat facetiously as theological discourse,

But that’s what legal scholars are there for to mull over these complicated questions as they relate to practice, the philosophers are there to explore the philosophical underpinnings. And sometimes those two realms will overlap as well. You have, as I said, sort of a clerical class, you have unequal ingroups and outgroups

So religions will have members of that confession and people who are outside of that confession, but we have citizens and foreigners, for example. In fact, we’re so committed to our in-groups and out-groups that we create documents to prove that we’re number of one and not a member of another,

And people vie over these things, of course, right? I mean, it’s a tragedy that we’re living through in the course of the refugee crisis. And the state, is in a sense this inviolable sort of entity, the state in a sense becomes quite sacred. And we can talk about that,

But in a sense, the way in which sometimes security is used to run roughshod of a liberty is an illustration of some of these crazy theological debates. And yeah, so I hope that this sort of reading of kind of alternative history of the secular, so to speak,

Based on an Islamic sort of set of presuppositions is an interesting, sort of interesting one that people may consider taking up. That’s my friend, Rushain Abbasi, the scholar at Stanford, and here is a book by Noah Feldman, who’s at Harvard. But in a sense, what we have with secularism

Is the kind of in my estimation, the marginalization of traditional religions and replacement with potentially an alternative religion. Rushain Abbasi argues in his thesis at one point, that Islam’s worldliness. Actually, no, this isn’t a separate article, but Islam’s worldliness may have prevented the formation of secularism within Islamic civilization

And the form that we have within Western civilization. In a sense, this is his argument, that there was a kind of harmony, a natural harmony between the secular and the religious within Islam that allowed for that interplay not to create great tension in the way that he suggests was the case in Europe.

And Noah Feldman also sort of points out in the political realm, which is, in a sense of the reason secularism is the separation of the religion, religious and the political. In the political realm historically sort of… Sorry. Historically the political realm was subordinate to a rule of law system.

Yes, it was based on the sheria, but it was a rule of law system that was seen as just, and operated in ways that conform to society’s values rather than what is very often assumed that, pre-modern religious policies were in some way on the basis of religion despotic,

The divine right of kings doesn’t really exist in the Islamic tradition in my reading. Part of the reason I wrote my latest book about the Arab revolutions of 2011, is that there’s an attempt to revive or in a sense manufacture kind of divine right of kings

Or in the case of the Middle East divine right of dictators. So, that is a problem, but yeah, this is kind of my last slide. And then I’m just going to read a brief, sort of the conclusion to the written version of the paper, which I say is a work in progress.

And so, there’s a lot of stuff here, which I don’t talk about in that paper, but under stuff in that paper, which I didn’t talk about here. But, in a sense the implication of what I’ve said for the last 40 minutes is that it creates a kind of contradiction in secularism self-image, right?

How can secularism be a neutral umpire between religions, if it is self is a religion? I think this question indicates the need for reassessing our conceptions of various concepts. And I hope that, in a sense that I’ve contributed to something useful in that regard, I’m just going to read out

And I hope this is not too much, I don’t drone too much, but I just wanted to read out a brief section, the conclusion of my article. Of course, secularism rejects the notion that it is analogous to the religions of old. It sees itself as a uniquely rational enterprise

That has transcended the superstition of pre-modern religions. Those religions now belonged in the private sphere of the modern secular order. This was essential to maintaining the peace and preventing the world from being written by superstitions wars of other world is south Asian, at least in secularism self-conception.

But in fact, secularism was simply even in genuinely reenacting the established pattern of a new universal religious project. It had simply come to recognize its own salvific qualities and thus it was only reasonable, but it supersede the primitive paradigm of religion in the public sphere. Secularism was the new dispensation

Brought for the salvation of humanity. And it was for humanity’s own good that it’d be accepted in one ideological form or another. Yet unlike a religion like Islam, his scriptures offered the ostensibly unbeatable claim that God had sent Islam as the final revelation through the final prophet to end all profits.

That’s the Muslim belief that the prophet Mohammed was the final prophet. Unlike that secularism could make the claim that it had in fact, superseded the category of religion itself. This was in many ways a master stroke of self legitimation for it cleared away all the traditional competitors for authority in the public sphere.

By masking itself as transcending religion, secularism has arguably found the means of legitimizing itself that is proven remarkably effective. It is called for religion to be largely removed from public life except in a symbolic or vestigial form. In doing so, it has rendered the public sphere, a realm over which it exercises

A monopoly of legitimate violence. Yet, I have tried to suggest, as I’ve tried to suggest over the course of this presentation, there is a deep contradiction at the heart of secularism, as it stands today, namely that it upholds the principle of separation of religion and state or in more recent articulations upholds

The states neutrality or equidistance between all religions. But if secularism is indeed itself a religion, then the claims that the secular state is separate from religion breaks down. And I asked the question, how can the secular state be neutral between religions if it is governed by the rules of one particular religion,

Namely secularism? I don’t have the answer to these questions, versions of which have been posed by certain Christian scholars for some time now. But I do think posting such questions from an Islamic perspective is important in helping us recognize the need for our society to acknowledge that the conversations in these areas

Needs to be broadened to include a wider range of viewpoints that better reflect the people who make up our increasingly diverse societies, the conversations these kinds of reflections might open up can be enriching and mind broadening in many ways. And I hope we’ll foster greater mutual respect

And understanding if what I say contributes to such an outcome, I will consider the job of this brief presentation to be done. Thank you. – If secularism is a religion, what should it mean for the separation of religion and the stats in your view? – Oh my, I hope my conclusion made clear I have no idea. I mean, I think we need to have conversations about this because it does make things a lot more complicated in a sense. And I think that that claim that I have presented, and I’ve not presented it as the truth, but I’m presenting it as a claim that secularism is a religion,

Opens up opportunities for conversations and discussions rather than giving us any answers, to be honest. And I think that that’s the opportunity that we should embrace at this point in time. And, I think it will make for a very interesting sort of, and mutually respectful conversation.

– [Man] Thank you for a fascinating lecture. – Thank you. – [Man] I have a number of questions, but I’ll keep it to one. – Thank you. – [Man] Where in secularism or religion does morality come and I think it’s been subtext there actually. – Right, right.

– But is there a universal morality that can be a bit- – That’s an excellent question. I mean, yes, it’s absolutely. It’s been sort of implied throughout and I’ve used the term, norms throughout. And in a sense, the sort of the enterprise of ethics and moral philosophy and philosophy more generally

Over the last century or two has been trying to address what happens to morality when we lose sort of the traditional sources of that morality. So Christianity or Judaism or any given religious tradition, what I’m suggesting is that actually, and it’s not a suggestion. It’s very well recognized.

Political philosophy is a species of ethics. It’s a species of moral philosophy when people like John Rawls, great sort of liberal philosopher from Harvard wrote a theory of justice. He was basically trying to ask, what is ethical for society? How should societies be organized in a way that’s ethical?

So I think secularism has its own traditions of morality. And liberalism is one such tradition of morality. Religious traditions have that sort of discourses on morality as well. So I think that in my estimation and I figured out a definition for religion from an Islam conception,

But what I take to be the broadly speaking, the understanding of religion is a community that religion is basically a set of norms that govern the community, norms mean that there’s morals involved, right? How should we behave towards one another? What sorts of laws? Laws are intimately tied with our ethics as well,

But what kinds of laws should govern our transactions and interactions with each other? And so, I think religions where that source historically and secularism in its various dispensations, liberalism and forms that we might not like so much, communism and so on. We’ll have the morality’s as well.

And I think we need to recognize, of course, that there’s a diverse array of moralities out there. The question of universalism is a difficult one. I mean, one classical and perhaps dominant Islamic perspective was that virtually relativist one, which was to say that you cannot really know

What is right or wrong without the guidance of God. I think that’s somewhat problematic personally, because then how do you know how to accept what God gives you? Is that right or wrong, right? But there’s interminable debates, anyway. So I hope that answers the question somewhat.

– [Man] Would you say that the periods of political Islam revival, the 1970s to 2010s actually represent a wide rejection of secularism within the Islamic world or due times or perceived Islamic revival merely represent Islamic influence coming from the background to the forefront of society. – It’s a very thoughtful question actually.

So the sort of what’s referred to as political Islam, a term which I think reflects and scholars are increasingly noting this, that even that label reflects a kind of Eurocentric paradigm because you have to give a special label to a religion that has a political component phrase.

But, I think that it reflects not necessarily, I mean, what is secularism? A lot of the groups that are labeled as political Islamists are pro-democracy, they want to uphold a certain regime of human rights, which in many cases we would recognize, in some cases, there would be tensions

With dominant liberal traditions, for example, perhaps on questions of gay rights or things of that nature. I think it’s too simple to say it’s a rejection of secularism. Secularism is an entire tradition. There are lots of things that, secularism in my view as a religious tradition

Has to offer and not all of those things are problematic. In fact, many of those things are quite positive in my estimation. And so those elements don’t need to be rejected by political Islam. And I don’t think are rejected by political Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that I’ve spent some time studying,

Which is probably the largest and most influential organization under the label of political Islam is an organization that is very pro-democracy that is extremely popular and anti dictatorship in the middle east. And that’s why they are hated by the secular autocrats and the secular autocrats sell themselves as secular to the west.

They’re not actually any more secular or less religious than the Muslim Brotherhood. That’s just a good marketing tool to get sort of the west on your side. So, I think in the region that there are interests, but there’s not much to do with the secular religion divided in my estimation.

– One thing that really came to mind when thinking about your ultimate conclusion, secularism as a religion, is why is the word secularism used? And it immediately made me think of France, the concept of laicite. And to my mind and I’d like your observations on this, it’s a device, the word secularism,

It’s a device basically used to make a particular belief system seem more important, neutral, and acceptable in a society. And that in a sense what happened to France because you have a particular belief system. – Right. – [Man] It’s not called a religion, it’s put forward under the concept of laicite

And it privileges certain historic practices. And what I’m really interested in is what do you think about the use of the word secularism, and why is it used? – That’s again, very thoughtful question. Thank you very much. And France is a very unusual sort of case of,

I mean, compared to sort of the liberal polities that we might be used to in the Anglophone world, I lived in the United States for more than five years. And religion is quite widespread in society there and it’s invoked in Congress and all of those sorts of things.

And France is a very kind of laicite is a very aggressive kind of anti religion in a sense. And some such a sociologist of religion actually call it a religion. I mean, not in the sense that I’m talking about, for some reason, this is something I feel a bit irritated by the way,

Some sociologist of religion will label as religious secular ideologies, which tend to be extreme. So they’ll see Nazis and fascism and perhaps laicite can be considered political religions or something. And I’m like, “Well, everything’s a religion.” Anyway, so I think at the end of the day, we use labels…

These developed very often organically in the course of debates. The word secularism emerges from a sort of important English thinker, George Hollyoke who wanted to coin a phrase that would not suggest atheism and immorality. I believe he’s the one who sort of coined the phrase

Sort of secularism, but then it kind of takes a life of its own. And as a philosophical system, it sort of develops into a very important and central idea. I think those things happen through historical accident and then we become wedded to a particular version of that.

So I’m not sure that there’s a particular sort of effort to engineer something by using a particular word. I think whatever word has ended up representing what we think is appropriate, an appropriate ideology or appropriate philosophy and appropriate religion, we will then argue the best thing since its spread

And therefore we must uphold it. And if you’re not upholding it, we need to somehow marginalize and show society that this is not acceptable. All societies do that with their core concepts. And so, I’m not sure it’s particularly unusual to secular societies. I hope that answers the question somewhat.

– [Woman] I can remember when I did my first thesis long, long time ago, but there’s a theologian, who wanted to encompass a whole variety of different theistic and nontheistic, including dialectical materials. and he had angles his material, his stints in the sense of the material world

Is all that counts and the highest (indistinct) but he wanted to call it a religion that would ought to include that in this broad conception of what religion might be. – So I mean, as you can see, I’m quite sort of liberal with the liberal religion, no pun intended.

But what’s interesting about dialectical materialism is that even someone like Bruce Lincoln who holds this sort of notion of religion as transcendent in a footnote in that book argues that, well, it might be reasonable to say dialectical materialism, given that certainties in this sort of like in the ideas that they’ve generated

Can be considered a religion. But again, for me, this is one of the things that irritates me slightly, which is that, well, why make a special case of bad things is religion, right? I think there’s a kind of prejudice in my estimation in the way in which certain things are called religion,

Because there’s something wrong with them. They come into the political realm, that’s a Protestant prejudice. So to speak that is post 17th century for what it’s worth. – [Man] I disagree with most of it. – Great. – I don’t really think that secularism can be defined as a religion because it doesn’t have

The normal characteristics or religion. It doesn’t have a catechism or membership category or rituals. It’s not a religion, it’s a principle. No, I don’t have a religion but I’m a secularist. But if I had a religion, I’d also be a secularism because I do believe as a principal in the separation

Or the neutrality of the state and institutions. So I don’t think that religion should have a special role in the functioning of the state. That’s all that secularism is. So the examples you give really secularism grew out of conflicts within religion not between religions, whereas the Islamic societies you describe,

Have always been almost wholly Muslim. Not always, not always, not always, but mostly have. And secularism, even before (indistinct) had a history, there were many empires, which were broadly speaking secular. They left people to their own devices. They did not interfere or force conversions, et cetera, et cetera.

So I’m not saying that it’s secular, but there were in some ways secular and so secularism has a long history which you seem to be suggesting somehow it’s a completely modern idea. It’s not. – It’s a lot of stuff that you’ve mentioned. I’m just trying to keep up with which points.

I wonder if you’d like to sort of like summarize the question in one or two components. – Well, your definition of secularism as a religion is not substantiated because it does not have the characteristics of religion. It doesn’t have places of worship, does not have catechism rituals.

– So how do we define anything? On what basis do we define something as religion, something as secularism? Basically the conclusions will arrive that will depend on those decisions that are made early on in that sort of thought process. So early on, I kind of set out my store

On how I conceived of religion. And religions are basically, broadly speaking about norms that allow for the cohesive existence of a society. If I define religion on that basis, then certainly I can call it secularism my religion, your defining religion on the basis of, certain other presuppositions.

So we can then go and question, the presuppositions themselves, is it reasonable to say that, if something has a catechism, it is a religion. If something has such and such a component, it is a religion. And I think there are scholars who have argued in that way, as I’ve mentioned with Bruce Lincoln,

But I would suggest that it’s perfectly reasonable to develop this kind of a conception of religion. And I think the resistance to that is something that we’re better bringing into question because it shows us a kind of attachment to ideas which are somewhat arbitrary and historically

Sort of like have come about at a certain point in time for reasons that maybe need to be brought into question. So, yeah, I mean, that would be my sort of broad response to that. We could take specific questions because you raised a lot of…

There were a number of aspects to what you mentioned, and I can’t recall all of them and I didn’t have the presence of mind to make notes at the time. And I’m happy to discuss this with you afterwards, but really it hinges on how you define the category of religion,

The way in which you’ve defined religion. Obviously secularism doesn’t count as a religion because you’ve defined it in a way that precludes the possibility of including secularism Islam as religion. But I’ve brought into question in the course of my talk, and this is, you’re not the only person who does it,

Plenty of scholars have done that. I brought into question, that approach to the definition of religion. And I think that there are cogent reasons to bring that approach into question, but this will be hopefully a conversation we can take on after the session. – I would just like t thank Dr. Usaama al-Azami

For a really fascinating, stimulating evening. – Thank you all. Thank you all very much.

#Religion #Rethinking #Religion #Secularism

The Satanic Panic was Built on Lies | Satan Wants You | On Docs Podcast



♪ Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams, it’s good to see you guys in person. You were on our show a couple years ago for your last film – Someone Like Me – and now you’re here for Satan Wants You. Really excited to talk to you. Before we get into it,

Let’s just show a clip from the trailer. This is a clip from Satan Wants You. Joining me now from Victoria is Michelle Smith – a one-time victim of abuse by a Satanic cult – and Dr. Lawrence Pazder – the psychiatrist who helped her come to terms with that nightmare.

NEWS ANCHOR: The book is called Michelle Remembers. VALERIE PRINGLE: Michelle Remembers. BOTH: We wrote it together. VALERIE: The first publicized account of such rituals. They would put me in cages, sacrifice animals. VALERIE: Eating feces, and orgies, and dismembering fetuses, these were things that you experienced? MICHELLE SMITH: That’s right.

INTERVIEWER: Who are these people? Well, they’re a secret organization, they’re a secret society. Satan. When that book came out, I mean, all hell broke loose. It was a theory that there’s a Satanic conspiracy, and there are children who were kidnapped, stolen, and sacrificed. MAN: It’s known as “The Satanic Panic”

From the 1980s and ’90s. (Sighing) Sean and Steve, hoo-ah! That’s just a little bit of the documentary, but, in the trailer, it mentioned a book called Michelle Remembers. Can you tell us about that book, Michelle Remembers, Sean? Yeah, I mean, I grew up in Victoria,

So, Michelle Remembers is by two authors from Victoria. It is set in Victoria. For me, I mean, my family moved there right after the book was published, while the Satanic Panic was unfolding, and, they were everywhere, Michelle and Larry. They were on TV. They were on the radio. They were in the newspapers.

It was this story that everyone knew about in Victoria, and, like, layer, upon layer, upon layer, of it too, right? Like, stores downtown had Satanic altars in the back, and you had to look out for these people in black, and “Don’t go to the cemetery at night.”

What was it like to grow up in that environment as a kid? Scary. Right? And this, I mean, for me too, the thing about this is, like… you know, it’s how many? Forty years later? So it’s like you forget about all of this stuff until this came back into our life.

And I had no idea, as a kid. Like, you sorta– you’re like, “Oh, yeah, they’re connected to the Satanic Panic.” But I had no idea that the story touched millions and millions of people around the world. Sean, could you just tell us a little bit about who Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder were?

Michelle Smith was a young woman in Victoria, in the ’70s, who started seeing her psychiatrist – Dr. Lawrence Pazder, who everyone refers to as “Larry” – when she had a bad dream after a miscarriage, and this is sorta like the genesis for this book. They go into therapy. They–

And it goes from, like, you know, once a week to every day for eight hours at a time. And then, as they start going deeper and deeper into therapy, more and more memories start– are being recovered from Michelle about this terrible abuse she suffered at the hands of a Satanic cult

When she was five years old, in Victoria, BC. NAM: And Larry actually recorded those sessions. He recorded them. There’s actually video, as well, which, apparently, was burnt, but we got one of the tapes anonymously. One of the therapy tapes that no one has ever heard is in the film.

NAM: Wow. There was video?! STEVE: He recorded everything. He was, like– like, he– He wanted to be famous, didn’t he? One hundred percent. Didn’t he learn anything from Nixon? Like… Don’t– don’t leave– don’t– I mean, don’t, like, tell on yourself like that, man. He wanted to be famous, though. Like, he wanted to be known. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Steve, for people who may not remember this, the Satanic Panic, it was in the ’80s and ’90s.

What exactly happened? What was it about? It was a lot of just, like, wild accusations of people who were, basically, like, taking children and sacrificing them. That was, like, the main thorough thread of what the Satanic Panic was. Many people were definitely accused of it. It happened through daycare centres, anywhere where people really had, like,

Contact with children is where you seemed to see a lot of these cases begin to erupt. And, like, a lot of the people– I just have to say this too, right, like, if you were at all different in the ’80s, this is something that you could’ve been accused of.

Like, so, I mean, we’re both queer men. So many of the people who went on trial in a lot of these daycare cases were queer, right? Or, a single woman in her 20s who wasn’t married. You know, like, these people who were not

Just part of the mainstream culture, and that sort of like, “normal,” let’s just say “American family life,” like you could’ve faced this accusation. How do you defend yourself, right? Yeah, and, Steve, you know when Colin asked you that question, you kind of laughed, and I think you laughed because it’s–

When we hear “Satanic Panic” now, in the framework of, like, 2023, it’s kind of like, “That’s ridiculous.” But when we watch the documentary– and like you mentioned, people’s lives were impacted to the point where people ended up in jail, losing their jobs, losing their livelihood.

So, looking at it from, like, a 2023 viewpoint, how did people not know that this was kind of like, “We needed to ask more questions”? STEVE: I think the questions were being asked. I think you had media that was perpetuating what was, like, thought to be happening.

Valerie Pringle, who was like one of, like, Canada’s– NAM: A very serious journalist. Right? She’s on air asking Michelle if she was eating feces. Like, it was very– and, like, it was like, the noon newscast. Like, it was very– like, it was all over the place, and, it just–

I don’t know. Like, you had law enforcement who were participating. You just had all these authority figures within our society that were saying, “This is happening. This is true.” And so, everybody just– how can– how can you deny that, right? I think police officers who were specifically, like–

Like, that was “their beat” in a way. Like, they were occult specialists, which, it just sounds kind of wild to think about it now, but that’s what they were actually assigned to do, right? It’s like an X-Files episode. (Laughing) Mm-hmm, cops for Christ. Yeah, exactly. Cops for Christ.

Can you talk about what their families were going through while they were on tour with this book? You know, I mean, this is like, for us, you know, there’s several ways to approach a doc, right? So, like, we started with the book. That’s sort of where you start,

And then you expand out from that to sort of talk to all the other people who are around that. And when we started reaching out to the family, and also doing our research and realizing that, you know, we can’t find any interviews with a single family member,

Who, at that time, came out and said, “No, this– you know, this is my version of this “and it’s not correct at all.” So, for us it’s, like, reaching out to Larry’s first ex– first wife, ex-wife, his daughter, Michelle’s sister, Michelle’s best friend. This was a, like, new territory,

A brand new territory for a doc, which is so exciting. And also, like, it was so important for us knowing how big this book was, and how far it spread, and how much media it gained for 15 years, 20 years, and people still talk about it today, to have these family members

And get that story, and create a platform for them to actually be like, “This is the truth.” Well, Blanche Barton says it, right, in the doc, when she’s talking about the talk shows and the people that come on, and it’s all the people who are victims. And, she just says, like,

“Why didn’t they bring out the family members? “Why didn’t the family members ever come on stage and actually say, like, hold them to account?” ‘Cause it would make for bad TV. However, it makes for a great documentary, so… And were they excited to finally talk to you, to someone about this? Oh, yeah. I mean, when we– you know, I was a little nervous, too, doing this, knowing that there is a lot of trauma to this film as well, right? For them, for the other victims of the Satanic Panic.

It’s like, you laugh ’cause it’s, you know, Satanic Panic, but there’s also a real serious side to this. And when we called Larry’s ex-wife, Marylyn, for the first time, I mean, that was nerve-racking. And the funny thing is, like, just said, “Hey, listen, we’re gonna do–”

“we wanna do a film and we wanted to talk to you.” (Snapping fingers) Hour-long. It was like 40 years hadn’t passed at all. She had all the stories and just really wanted to talk to us. NAM: Well, how did you approach that? Because you mentioned that people hadn’t spoken to them.

So, like, Steve, when you call them up, what do you say to them to say– to get them to trust you? You know, you mentioned it’s very traumatic. How do you get them to open up and trust the process that you’re trying to do? I think with a lot of the people

That actually participated in the doc, we contacted, of course, like, other people that were close family members, and it’s just kind of you’re testing the waters, right? You’re seeing who wants to talk, who feels like they have something to say. And like with Marylyn, she’s helped, like, multiple investigators.

She’s kept binders full of just everything, like newspaper articles, anything to do with her divorce. NAM: She recorded one of the bishops, I think. STEVE: She recorded everything. She was like– She was savvy. She was really good. Like spy thriller, right? And so, really,

It was just like the path of least resistance for us, and who felt like they wanted to stand up on the stage and do it, and that’s kind of like the path that we took. Also helped that I was from Victoria for a lot of–

’cause, I mean, a lot of the story is set there, and especially for the family, it’s a shared experience that at least I have some understanding. You know, not at all to the level that they went through, but at least what the city’s like and what actually happened there. Were you kinda surprised

That this started in Victoria, in Canada? I mean, this went on to become very influential, especially in the United States. NAM: They even met the Pope. Well, yeah, and they met the Pope exactly. I mean… (Laughing) This all started in Victoria, BC. Yes, I was surprised. Victoria’s so snoozy. It’s not that kinda city, you guys. It’s not that kinda city, so… COLIN: I guess ’cause I don’t really think– I don’t know. I guess we don’t associate Canadians with ever having that kind of, like, influence on the global stage like that, except for maybe hockey, but–

You know, I mean, one of the claims in Michelle Remembers, of course, is that Victoria was one of the Satanic capitals of the world, right? Victoria, and Geneva, Switzerland, and that was– for a time in the ’80s, that’s what some people thought, so…

And so, it just– doesn’t that kind of make it so, you know, like, people are like, “Victoria is the capital of Satanism?” And it’s like, it just makes it, like, that much more believable because it’s just not believable at all. Like, you know? It felt like that kinda had a play happening.

I appreciated the fact that you, um, let the viewer kind of make up their mind on what’s happening. Who would you say whose fault it was, ultimately, this happened? That’s tricky. COLIN: Satan, obviously. Right? COLIN: I mean, those are the traits of the Devil, right? I mean, greed, influence, power. I think that there was so many different, like, social changes that were happening at the time. Um, like, religion was much more popular. It was much more through the culture. And they had a book that just dropped at the right time, and it kinda just, it clicked.

So, trying to place blame on people, I find it really tricky, because– It’s also hard though, ’cause it’s almost like everyone’s responsible. I mean, it’s like, A, the two authors, plus the institutions, plus the Church, plus the media for participating, plus people who didn’t speak up and say, “You know…”

For me, in our film, one of the takeaways is that moment when the Wiccan police detective Charles Ennis finally says, you know, like, “We, basically, all have a responsibility “to stand up and say ‘This is a lie.’ “And even if it– you know, can’t just say it once,

“you have to say it over, and over, and over again “until, you know, everyone realizes it is a lie.” But nobody realizes it. I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful. COLIN: Do any of the people, though, who were kinda, like, promoting this idea of Satan, like, Satanic ritual abuse,

Like the journalists at the time, like the media figures– like, you know, Maury Povich was around, was popular at this time, Geraldo, Oprah. I mean, I don’t know. Do any of them– have any of them ever come out and said, “Yeah, we messed up here. “This was not, like, credible at all

“and we shoulda done a better job”? Geraldo did give an apology, so I mean, he– you’ll see in the film, there’s– he did one very notorious show that influenced, you know, according to the sociologists– NAM: It was like a three-parter, right? Yeah, that the sociologist that we spoke to said,

“You know, this spread this, “you know, from just being sort of a rumour “into 12 million households, “or 40 million households in the US suddenly were like, “‘Oh, my God. There’s Satanists everywhere.'” Like, he played a big role in that, but he did apologize in the ’90s, which is something.

I mean, ’cause people were really hurt by this. You mentioned daycare. There was a woman by the name of Margaret Kelly Michaels. What happened to her? Oy. (Sighing) Again, she was working in a school, um, with young children, and a parent had accused her, right? SEAN: Mm-hmm.

And it went on to be a super long trial. She went to prison for five years. She was accused of heinous stuff and, like, basically, she was tarred and feathered. She’s had to carry that around with her for the rest of her life, and her life has kind of been ruined by it.

Like, it’s– these types of accusations, like, when people are calling other people, or accusing them of being pedophiles, um, it really– like, it ruins your reputation and it can ruin your life, and Kelly Michaels definitely has felt that. And we should say, I mean, these cases are still being brought to justice,

These false accusations. The film premiered at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, and there’s a case literally right now that is unfolding for a man who has been– you know, this is like 30 or 40 years of his life, and they’re saying, “No, this is not true now.”

Right? Like, it’s not just something from the distant past either, right? These people are still alive. There’s still people in prison. And, furthermore, you know, it’s easy to be like, “Oh, this is just the ’80s and ’90s.” This is happening right now. NAM: In what ways? Through QAnon and Pizzagate,

So that’s sort of the most recent iteration. The Satanic cult conspiracies now involving political figures and Hollywood actors drinking the blood of children to get adrenochrome, or whatever the magical chemical is, right, in the basements of pizzerias and all that stuff in the US.

And for us, I mean, this film, just this past week, there was an article, I think in The Epoch Times. Did I say that right? I don’t think I did. NAM: I think so, yeah. Yeah, did I? NAM: ‘E-P-O-C-H’, yeah, yeah. That basically there’s a Satanic ritual abuse survivor

Talking and saying– referencing our film and saying, “No, I’m actually a victim of Satanic ritual abuse.” And this is 2023, right? So, it is kind of scary. Like, this is something– I was looking for therapists– (Clearing throat) excuse me– last week, and I found a woman, downtown Vancouver,

And one of the things that she treated was ritual abuse. I was like– like, people are still– they’re still treating this. Like, it’s still, like– it’s still within society right now. Like, it is wild. You know, we’re repeating the mistakes of the past now, because a lot of people believe QAnon and Pizzagate.

People have been actually harmed by these theories. I mean, for us, this is another, like, layer to this film. I mean, what does it mean to be human? And why do we believe in things even when there’s no basis, or concrete evidence, or no basis in reality, right?

And this whole thing about storytelling constructing reality is definitely an element to this story, too, and all the different ways storytelling works, right? Like, you share information with a story, you educate somebody. But, you know, if you don’t like somebody, you can also make up a story to ruin their life and their–

You know, like, storytelling is great, it’s terrible, it’s part of being human. Mm-hmm. It truly– like when we can’t explain the things around us that are happening in our life, the easiest thing to fall back on is, a lot of the time, Satan, right? So, it’s just part of who we are.

The big thing that we saw was, like, it happened once, it’s happening again, and it’s probably gonna happen in the future. You mention, though, that, you know, I guess the first Satanic Panic of the ’80s and ’90s, when that was going on, there was a lot of social changes happening.

I think it was more visibility about LGBTQ folks, for example, and I think even now, we’re seeing, you know, more visibility of, like, trans individuals, and LGBTQ folks are also, you know, getting more acceptance, right, and I wonder if that’s playing a role. Just that, you know, the more–

The more we’re seeing changes to, like, gender, ideas around gender and race, if that’s somewhat, maybe, having a role in getting people to go down these kind of dark paths, like QAnon and that sort of thing. Well, definitely. I mean, typically, those are the people who have the devil in them, right?

Right, yeah. You know? And I think technology, too, is also another factor in this, right? Like, daytime TV, talk TV, was the thing in the ’80s and ’90s that spread this everywhere. You know, Facebook, Twitter, social media did it for QAnon and Pizzagate.

And Steve and I always talk now that where AI is, you know? We’re right at the cusp of it. Like, “What is gonna happen?” Comin’ in hot. We were just watching a video, actually, before we started, of an AI-created political commercial. And it looks real, like a hundred percent real.

STEVE: For the Republican Party? Yes. Oh, you knew exactly what I was talking about. Crazy, right? Yeah, yeah, it’s scary. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you mention– like, when I was watching the documentary, ’cause we’re talking about Satan, there’s an actual Church of Satan. What is that?

‘Cause I didn’t know what it was until I watched the documentary. The Church of Satan is– like when they try to distill it down, it’s basically, instead of following these rules, like in Christianity, of the things you’re supposed to be, they just celebrate humans as a whole. So, we have greed,

We have all of these kind of things that are considered negative parts of our lives, but the Church of Satan looks at humans as a whole person, as a whole thing, and that’s– they wanna celebrate that. Yeah, and what I love is– So, we have a former high priestess

Of the Church of Satan, Blanche Barton, as one of the participants in the film, and she says, you know, basically, “Satanism is not a tolerance of your differences. “It’s a celebration of differences,” right? It’s like, “We celebrate how different everyone is.” And I thought that was such a, like,

“Oh, who doesn’t wanna be part of that?” And it’s a complete opposite of what we’ve come to know as Satan. Mm-hmm. NAM: Right? And I thought it was really interesting that insurance companies played a role in Michelle Remembers. Do you wanna go down that– like, can you explain to us how that happened?

Because I was like, “Of course.” (Laughing) SEAN: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Money’s involved. Yeah, I mean, it’s an interesting thing. Like, both in Canada, the US, the UK, this happened, right? So, it’s like, you know, especially in Canada and the UK where there is public– what’s the word I’m looking for? Healthcare, obviously,

Where doctors are billing, like, the government. In the US, it’s different, too. But these doctors are billing and they’re bringing you in for, like, seven sessions a week, for hours, or maybe eight hours a day, and billing for it, and then the insurance companies are on the hook for it, right?

STEVE: And they were talking like millions of dollars, like, over the course of a year. And so, they kind of look at it and they’re like, “Wow, I have one of these patients. “Now, I can bring in their family members.” And all of a sudden, they’re making, like, five million dollars a year,

And so, it really turns into a scam. And this had to do with the therapists that were talking to people who were having these memories that these awful things had happened to them as part of the Satanic Panic. Yeah, I mean, here in Canada, we should say too, like, so you know, Victoria,

Michelle Remembers, that’s one thing. There was a case– like, cases in Southern Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and a really big one in Saskatchewan. It’s not just a US thing. This happened here, too, all at the same time as the US, the UK, Europe, Italy, Brazil, like, it’s Australia, New Zealand.

This was a worldwide thing. And Larry, I mean, we found one newspaper article. He consulted, it said, close to a thousand cases. A thousand of these cases. That’s a lot of money. And it really seeped into popular culture, right? Because I think, you know, Dungeons and Dragons– NAM: Music.

COLIN: Yeah, music, heavy metal. I remember an X-Files episode referencing the Satanic Panic. I mean, how– this was really widespread. Like, it really affected the public imagination in a lot of ways, didn’t it? Mm-hmm. I mean, I think it was hard not to. You hear these wild things

And your mind can just go wild with it, right? You can think of anything and it just– it really seeped into all parts of culture at the time. Like, religious horror was gigantic at the time. It’s funny because, in the book, you can actually see references to, like, The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby.

Like, somebody’s head’s spinnin’ around. Oh, yeah, you know, halfway through Michelle Remembers, there’s a woman who comes to one of the Satanic rituals and her head spins, like, it’s– Right. STEVE: Yeah. What’s funny about that book is the cover looks so much like a Stephen King novel. Right? Like Misery.

Yeah. Yeah, any, like Pet Sematary, one of those. Yeah. I think something that struck me is that people were believing this, like, Satanic ritual abuse is happening. You know, millions of children are being abducted, but, at the same time, you know, we learned in,

I guess, the early aughts, that the Catholic Church has been– you know, there’s a huge sex abuse scandal with children and priests and they’re covering it up. Women, for years, were not believed if they came forward with sexual assault, but people would believe in Satanism. Like, it’s just– it’s ironic, right?

Like, why do we go to this extreme thing and not the most logical thing? It’s weird. I mean, we’ve talked about that a lot, right? Like, it was– like, they were basically pointing their fingers saying, like, “Look over there. Look over there.”

While it was actually the Church that was doing all the things that they said that everybody else was doing. Like, it was, like, really crazy when you actually, like, look at it from that. It’s interesting. I mean, in Austin, at South By Southwest, we had an Indigenous journalist actually in the audience

For our world premiere, and it was the final question of the night, and he just started, you know, talking about residential schools and the Catholic Church, and that was a connection that we hadn’t made. But this was literally the Catholic Church stealing children and abusing them, and then neglecting them

To the point of death, right? Like, this is what the Satanists were accused of, but it was happening… For sure. …within the Church. It was just– yeah. NAM: Well, since we talked about that– we mentioned that Michelle and Larry– was he a psychiatrist or a psychologist? A psychiatrist. Psychiatrist.

They actually met the Pope. What was in it for the Church to be a part of this book, and this, what was happening with Michelle Remembers? I mean, it just got more people into the pews, right? And one of the priests, you know, thought he was gonna make a million dollars, you know? Like, they saw this as actual, like a best-seller like Jaws, right? Their editor in New York actually was the editor for Jaws. So, it’s like, all you see, you dig into this–

And that wasn’t in the movie, but it was just there’s so many layers to this story that you can’t even fit it into 90 minutes, you know? That was the main thing. So, many people just came up to us and were like, “Why can’t this be a three-parter

“or four-parter?” They just wanted more. NAM: Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the people, that was– well, Michelle wasn’t part of it. Did you ask her to be a part of it? STEVE: Yeah. And she said? She didn’t wanna participate. We contacted her twice over the course of about six months,

And she didn’t respond to the first email that we sent. And then, six months later, she did respond and she said she doesn’t wanna participate, which I understand. I mean, it’s been– I think it’s a weird part of your life to dive back into and especially if she doesn’t wanna recant, or, like,

You know, if she– What would you have asked her? Oh, God. I would’ve asked her– Like, literally, I just wanted– like this, at least in my head, was to create a space for her to tell her side of the story. Like the last piece of–

The last interview that we could find of them actually talking about this was in 1990. And then, after talking to all the family, from what we understand, Michelle has never said, “No, this is a lie.” or, basically, or “This is true.” So, it’s this grey area where I just would–

You know, if it wasn’t us, maybe there’s somebody else who can do it, but just to get what happened to her, you know? And I’m also really curious about how, you know, when you start something and you end it, from your point of view, as people were telling the story,

What did you learn at the end that you didn’t know going in, when you decided to make this project? For me, I just didn’t understand how widespread it was. I didn’t understand the Satanic Panic. I’m 42, so I, like, grew up through the ’80s, and I just didn’t know.

I didn’t know how many lives it touched. I didn’t know how widespread it was. It was just one of those things that you look at it and you’re like, “Wow, just had no idea.” And it’s, like, not that far away. If there’s one, I guess, like, takeaway

You want people to have from watching this film, what is it? And I’m thinking in the context of like we’ve talked about with QAnon and these kind of, you know, conspiracy theories. I mean, Trump’s still talking about losing the election. People are really, like, still are susceptible to this sort of thinking.

So, I guess– I don’t know. What do you– is there any, like, thing that we can do to, I guess, convince people not to go down these kind of rabbit holes? You know, I personally come from a really cynical, skeptical family. So, like, there’s a couple characters in the film

That I think people can learn a lot from – the FBI agent Ken Lanning, and the investigative journalist Debbie Nathan. I think everyone needs some more skepticism in their lives. Ask people questions. Ask “Why?” Right? And also take the time to think about rumours,

When you hear them, instead of just jumping on the bandwagon and riding off into the sunset, so… It’s really tricky though. There’s so many influences in our lives and I think it’s really hard to kind of navigate through and figure out what’s real and what’s not real.

And I think just as we go into the future, it’s gonna get harder and harder. NAM: Well, it’s a terrific documentary. How I started it is not where I ended, and then I still had a lot more questions. So, yes, maybe another two-parter? But where can people find the documentary? Do you have plans for distribution? We do. We’re gonna be playing Hot Docs. Right now, we’re finishing our festival run through spring, and then we’ll be doing our theatrical run in August. And it’ll be ready for streaming– Available on CBC starting this fall,

With a date to be announced. So, you can look for, like, SatanWantsYouFilm.com. We have all the dates, if it might be playing at a film festival in your city, or your region, and also on Instagram. If you wanna see all the Satanic stuff, follow us on Instagram. Awesome, Sean and Steve. Congratulations.

Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us today. This was great. BOTH: Thanks for having us. NAM: Thank you. ♪

#Satanic #Panic #Built #Lies #Satan #Docs #Podcast

Interpretation—A Global Dialogue on Museums and Their Publics



– Hello, I’m Heidi Holder, Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose Chair of Education at the Met. And I’m delighted to welcome you to the second session on the first day of our virtual convening titled Interpretation. As part of our program, People: A Global Dialogue on Museums and their Publics.

This is a critical time to examine interpretation, which refers to those activities, experiences, and products that publics and museums do and engage with to make sense of the objects and artifacts within institutions care. In the next session, we will explore innovative ways to approach interpretation that can be drawn from inside

And outside of the art and cultural field. How do we challenge traditional approaches to complex stories? What are the possibilities of new technologies? Or what are the effects and how meaning is conveyed to audiences? How can we amplify different vantage points and perspectives on objects and artifacts and more?

We hope that you’ll use the chat in the presentations and during the panel discussions. Our hope is that these presentations are catalysts for discussions that you’ll join us in that conversation by participating in the chat with questions and comments. We are also offering closed captioning. You can turn closed captioning on or off

By using the CC icon towards the bottom right of your Zoom toolbar. Now, it’s my pleasure to introduce our speakers. Haidy Geismar is Professor of Anthropology University College London. She’s also the Curator of the Ethnography Collections, co-directs the Digital Anthropology Program, and is also faculty vice dean of Strategic Projects,

Developing a new set of research and teaching activities focused on media, heritage and collections. She’s author of the 2018 book “Museum Object Lessons for the Digital Age”. Jack Tchen is a historian, curator, dumpster diver, and teacher, and he’s Inaugural Clement A Price Professor of Public History and Humanities

And the Director of the Price Institute at Rutgers University, Newark. His book, “Yellow Peril” an archive of anti-Asian fare from 2016 is a source book on Western xenophobia and violence. He’s founding Director of the Asia Pacific American Studies Program and Institute at NYU. He co-founded the Museum of Chinese in America.

Kamini Sawhney, is the Director of the Museum of Art and Photography in Bangalore India. As MAP’s first Director, Sawhney is focused on creating a new museum experiences for audiences in India. In her earlier roles Sawhney was the head of Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation at the CSMVS Mumbai. Before her career in museums,

She was a journalist and television anchor reporting on political and cultural events. Governor Brian Vallo is a member of the Pueblo of Acoma tribe in New Mexico. Governor Vallo has 30 years of experiences. Governor Vallo 30 experience working in areas of museum development, cultural resource management, repatriation of ancestoral and cultural patrimony,

The arts and tourism. This session will be moderated by Vishakha Desai. Dr. Desai currently serves as the Senior Advisor for Global Affairs to President Lee Bollinger, Chair of the Committee on Global Thought and Senior Research Scholar in Global Studies at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

Prior to joining Columbia university, Dr. Desai had a variety of positions at the Asia Society from 1990 to 2012, initially as the Director of the Asia Society Museum and for the last eight years as president and CEO. It’s now my pleasure to hand it over to our session participants. Let’s talk, let’s listen.

Thank you. [ No Sound ] [ No Sound ] – Greetings, and thank you Heidi and the entire Education team at the museum for organizing this very special 150th anniversary program at the Metropolitan Museum. I am delighted to be able to moderate this very special session at this point in time.

And I come to you not just as a former director of a museum, or former President of the Association of Art Museum Directors, but particularly as, first and foremost, a museum educator, then a curator, then a director, and now an academic observer both of museums and of things global, and also

As a writer of a new book called “World as Family” in which art plays a very important role. I want to frame this discussion with just a few observations because we have wonderful group of panelists who are really going to take us through the what, and the why, as well as the how

Of the interpretation in museums. So over 50 years or so of my life as a museum person which means that my entire adult life pretty much, I’ve learned one thing, and that is that often when we think of museums especially historical museums, we think that somehow they are either

Cabinets of curiosity as they were called in Germany, window cabinets, or as high temples of aesthetics, somehow housing objects that go above and beyond time and space. At the same time, we know all of us who’ve worked in museums, that it is actually not true, because if you think about museum objects

While you might feel that objects are unchanging, the reality is all these objects are also riddled with many stories, many contexts, and many lives. What do we mean by that? What I mean by that is objects can also be thought of as the time when they were made, the intent of the object,

And then there is the observation and a life of an object over many centuries. For those of us were art historians training in early art from other parts of the world, we know that over 200, 300 years or even a millennia, artists can go through many, many different iterations.

And it’s important to recognize therefore that while the object may seem static in museums, the lives they lead, the context they provide, and the stories they tell, are anything but static. And that is just about the objects. There’s also about the information or the interaction of object with viewers.

So that viewers, especially now when we all try to get many different kinds of years to come to the institutions and change the institutions in the process, we have to recognize that viewers too bring their specific stories, their specific perceptions, and therefore their particular way of looking at an object.

So with all that, let’s just be clear about one thing. And there are about three things that I would say I’ve learned over a lifetime of working in a museum. And that is that actually objects that you interpret, which is the focus of our panel, that interpretation in the very word interpretation

Is a particular point of view. There is no such thing as only one way of looking at an object or presenting an object. So therefore let’s be clear that as museum professionals, those of us who work in museums, is that our point of view is just a point of view.

It is not the point of view, and therefore let’s get away from what sometimes we call in the performing arts industry “the voice of God,” the institutional voice, because everything we do has a particular point of view. So that’s number one. Number two, what is our responsibility? Our responsibility as museum people,

And I say this now, both as an insider or an outsider, is that how can we create a space for opening up other points of view, a point of view that actually may not be your particular point of view. In other words, number one, lay the intent bare.

Let people know where you’re coming from, that may be a point of view. Number two, open up the processes by which there are other interpretations possible. Number three, it isn’t just the interpretation as in the label you write, interpretation comes from the context, how you install objects, what is in relation to what,

Who is gonna speak to whom in terms of the objects. So let’s think about the context in which the objects are seen. And last but not the least let’s also recognize that it is impossible to be all inclusive about all possible interpretations. Therefore, what you choose will say as much about you,

The institution and where you wanna go with your viewers. So the idea of a dialogic museum, which is something my friend and colleague Jack Tchen has talked a lot about, you would know that that dialogue occurs not just between a viewer and an object, but even in the life of an object,

How it talks from one to the other. Having said all of that, the last piece that I would say we should remember is that art refuses to be put in a box. And what I mean by that is that for art, and this is true particularly art objects as we define them.

But art is as much about telling a point of a particular point, a particular story, of a particular time, specificity of time and history and geography matters, but it also has the capacity to transcend time and space to live independently in that space and that’s not just true of an art object,

It’s true of music, it’s true of all kinds of art forms, dance, literature. That it can speak across boundaries, and it also reflects a specificity of time and place. Given that, it’s fair to recognize that in the Euro-American world, especially in America, for much of the 20th century,

We have privileged one part of art, that is to think about the temple of learning above time and space, art object existing independently of time and space. Now it’s time for us to actually go back to also embodying the specificity of an object, not just the original intent

But how it may have been perceived, what it is the product of, and bring it back and imbue the object with that specificity of their stories, their histories, and the perceptions of those objects. However, if we go too far into that pendulum we will also lose that duality,

The multiplicity that art objects function in. So one of the challenges that we will have is as we begin to think about interpretation for our age, for this moment democratisation of interpretation, let’s also make sure that art exists as much for curiosity, imagination of the world we have not seen,

As it is also about giving voice to the voicelessness that has existed for way too long. With that right let’s dive into the conversations today and I’m really delighted that the first presentation is gonna be by Jack Tchen. Thank you. And we’ll come back and have a conversation together

After all the presentations are over. So over to you Jack. [ No Sound ] – Thank you Vishakha. It’s a delight to be on this panel, and thank you for that wonderful context that I think is extremely useful and gets us much further down into this conversation.

I also wanna thank the Met education staff for putting this on, it’s really been a delight being involved in this. And, you know, I didn’t realize until you mentioned it Vishakha that this was 150th anniversary of The Met, which I should have known. I should also mark that it’s also the 100th anniversary

Of the second international eugenics congress that happened at the American Museum of Natural History. I’ll get back to why that’s significant. But also the Vishakha I think it’s really important to mark that this is your 50th anniversary being involved in museums. So I think that trajectory in some ways

Speaks to some of these questions that we’re talking about. The Met of course, was seen as an institution that originally had reproductions and also was meant to be a way to educate the working people of the city who were increasing by leaps and bounds, right? So we’re talking about the 1870s.

The first number of decades are really the heyday of what we think of as the Gilded Age, in which great numbers of Eastern Europeans, Jews especially Southern Europeans were entering into the city in very large number but also Irish of course, and these are in many ways

People who are not considered part of, kind of traditional founding “Native American group” of Anglo-American Protestants. And in may ways, this is a moment in which the founding institutions such as The Met or the New York Historical Society, other kinds of founding institutions the American Museum of Natural History were information

And really coming up with their systems of classification of knowledge production, of what should be displayed. So I think it’s useful to provide a kind of a historical framing as to what those original foundations were, and then the great numbers of people who began populating this nation

And populating the city and sometimes coming to these institutions because there’s a way to aspire and a way to kind of identify with the culture, of the dominant culture, but it was also a place that many people did not feel comfortable coming to, right? So in some ways we’re now grappling

With these kinds of questions of what those deep historical exclusions and deep historical roots are. So I think the tension that Vishakha has identified is a very important one, at the same time I really do believe in museums and these spaces because I think they are, with all their flaws,

Places in which democratic dialogue, and the examination of unresolved issues of the past can happen. But it becomes then a question of whether we as institutions, institutions builders, or people within institutions, or the educators can embrace that. And whether we can actually rise to those challenges.

So I guess I would like to maybe begin with saying a little bit about this question of whether democratic interpretations of objects can really significantly change the perspectives that we begin to develop in places such as museums or about the city itself, for example.

And I’m really bringing in New York City into this because I think this combination of institutions that we have in the city are really quite unique, and also speak to the possibilities of a polyphonic democratic culture. But at the same time, you’re free to look at any of the mainstream primary institutions.

Then we start getting a more kind of layered complex understanding of how wealth and power have operated. So for me, the question of whether inviting broader perspectives alone will then begin to change our interpretations of objects, I think yes, and no. Yes, in the sense that I think it’s absolutely critical

For those who come from many different places, and Vishakha you’re an example, I’m an example, which has different kinds of deep historical cultures, to have those voices and perspectives and frameworks, historical, philosophical, spiritual frameworks brought into dialogue with the objects that are oftentimes from those cultures that are now in these museums.

So the history, for example, in my case of the British introduction of opium from the colony of India and creating the cash crop with opium and introducing that into China was fundamental to the way I was raised being the anchor baby, and the first one born in the United States.

So my very Chinese mother would talk to me about the opium wars, here I am in the Midwest, growing up on the prairie land. And the streets of this new suburb were full of indigenous names. And there were arrowheads in the ground. And I was trying to figure out

How to make sense of all this, right? And in some ways that speaks to the contradictions of a settler American society, but also how do we make sense of the land that we’re on, and the culture that surrounds us and the culture that dominated the Midwest that I grew up within,

In a way that can actually allow for more interpretations and then the civics lessons than they were gaining. So part of my journey has been to look for those clues, those fragments, in which the Chinese American experience, the history of Chinese laundry workers, the history of garment workers

Was really not considered part of anything important to look at, because after all these were people who were doing very modest work and were not considered to be the leaders and the patriarchs of the founding institutions and significant in those ways. If we were to look in the archives

We could not find really anything about Chinese. That would be true at the New York Historical Society. When I first arrived in New York in the mid, in 1975. And it continues to be true to many degrees. So there’s a question of what are the stories that are told about the city?

What are the archives that exist? What are the histories, the official histories? And really what is the kind of awareness that people who come from very different backgrounds with very different frameworks of understanding the past, what do they bring to that? So then we enter into a space such as New York City

The many monuments, for example, in New York City or the many objects that may exist in a history museum or an art museum, what are the dialogues that we have coming from these different knowledge backgrounds, and what are the official stories that are being kind of told in the school rooms,

In the history books, what is being taught in the PhD programs, what books are being created and what are the cannons of the different institutions that we’re entering into? So what I’m suggesting is that there is a contestations and that the more diversity there is of points of view and backgrounds and experience,

The more significant that dialogue can be but not everyone has the equal access or power to actually be in positions to counter and to be in dialogue. So I think those are really important questions that New York institutions are now just starting to reckon with, or maybe I should say

That New York City institutions have necessarily gone through cycles of reckoning. So, and we’re in one of those moments right now, I think where the larger challenges of our society are now being clearly played out, not only within the United States and within the Americas, but within the global world.

So Black Lives Matter, for example, has raised so many so many questions that also relate to why is it that there was a Chinese exclusion law and why is it that most Americans don’t even know about it? So these questions of where are those blank spots,

What we don’t know is actually just as important as what we think we know, and what we think are the kind of civics lessons or the foundational stories that we live, and are tested on, and are able to gain our citizenship based on.

So I guess I would say that it’s important for us, especially being having a more global and more critical perspective on the practices of any one place or any one nation to also understand how knowledge and knowledge systems are constructed. So it’s not strictly about the knowledge of one person,

But something deeply about the political culture of any given place that we’re in. So I would just say maybe two more things. One is that the work that I started doing in New York Chinatown increasingly I understood as increasingly necessarily being not just about the China trade and the fact that

Yes Chinese too are part of New York, and that we have been in New York for a long time. I mean, those are the usual ways in which we claim kind of belonging and citizenship. But in fact, the China trade was foundational to the very formation of the American identity

Of the U.S. project itself. And that speaks to the trade and the desire for luxuries amongst the European aristocracy, but also as that aristocracy transplanted in the new nation of the United States and Canada, those kinds of Anglo America’s values also transplanted so that the desire for certain kinds of luxuries,

And a certain kind of way in which political arithmetic could be used to enrich the country drove a lot of the dispossession of indigenous peoples. So that like clearing the land based on certain kinds of dubious justifications from the Pope to John Locke. Those dubious justifications enabled the extraction

Of resources from the land in a way they could be used to help further the trade. I would also say that therefore enslavement also is part of this picture, because once the land was cleared there needed to be a cheap, if not indentured, if not very low paying ways in which people

Can be brought in to create value from the land itself. So what I began to realize is that the history of Chinese and Chinatown in the United States it’s not simply an isolated phenomenon of bias and prejudice and therefore the artifacts of all that experience should be isolated

In understanding that, but that the experience of Chinese in this country and the China trade are deeply involved in the dispossession and in the enslavement nexus. So with that understanding it helped me understand how racialization processes, and the ways in which we let’s say then acknowledge or don’t acknowledge monuments for example.

For example, the Theodore Roosevelt monument in front of the American Museum of Natural History. How do we understand that? How do we understand Christopher Columbus’ statue that stands in the middle of Columbus Circle? It depends on the frameworks that we have as to whether we have we bring very different perspectives to that

And we can actually engage fairly in a dialogue. And I would say that we have not been. I served on the Mayor’s Commission for Public Art Markers and Monuments, and it was a chaotic experience in which there was no way to ground the many monuments and markers and public art

In the city other than simply saying we should just have more. And somehow if we don’t have enough women, we should have more women. If we don’t have somebody to counterbalance Teddy Roosevelt we should, well, that doesn’t seem to be really the best way to tell the story truthfully of the history

Of a city, but it does open up the possibilities if we can actually have a historical discussion have a dialogue as to why these objects are there. I’m using that example about the city as really also a way to understand the institutions and the objects that we have within museums themselves.

So I would just say that we have to understand these objects as parts of classification and framing systems and those systems are the things that we really need to understand now especially at these moments in which it’s not just more inclusion, it’s not just more voices, but the fundamental frameworks

Of understanding meaning within those frameworks, have to be challenged and reexamined. So maybe I’ll just end them there because there’s so much more to be said, thank you [ No Sound ] – Good evening everybody. And thank you very much for the invitation to participate in this conference.

And I’m really honored to be on a panel with such distinguished companions. And I’m looking for very much to the discussion at the end. So I think I’m picking up on a theme of the entire symposium, which is working in the field of museums at this place, wherever we might be,

And at this time the stakes feel pretty high. And I’m going to talk today from my vantage point as somebody working within a university, with university collections, to really think particularly about how our current moment raises huge questions particularly for example, COVID-19 around contact between people and objects.

And I hope my argument feeds into some of the bigger questions of the panel about how important objects and materiality of things are as well as digital and multimodal ways of knowing, especially as we are so temporarily distanced from many of our collections. I also want to emphasize that it’s important to think

Not just in terms of outcomes or outputs from exhibitions to events, but really it also about practices and ways of working, and that’s what I really want to talk about today. Opening up formations of practice curatorial collections management, as forms of care not just for objects, but for social relationships.

And I’m drawing very much on the concept of a relational ethics that was proposed by a Savoy and Sarr in the very influential report on the restitution of African collections from France. Rather than thinking always as the kind of end outcome or output of what we do,

We need to think about what kinds of relationships and processes we create around our engagement with collections. And I think as it’s already been alluded by Jack, we’ve really seen some dramatic developments and interventions into the museum world in recent years, museums have been drawn into public dialogues

About recognition of past and present injustice, about colonial histories and futures, about restitution and restorative justice. And this is really intensified over the COVID period. And we see debates about repatriation, colonial legacies, decolonization becoming more mainstream than ever. And to me into popular discourse in a way I think that’s quite unprecedented.

So today I want to briefly present some of the moments of dialogue and practice that have emerged in the work I’ve been doing with colleagues at UCL, University College London, in the ethnography collections, which I curate. These are teaching collections that are housed in our department and give us,

I think a bit more of a possibility of experimentation because we’re not working so much within the confines of a formal museum framework. And working with our collections, we ask every day how we can develop ways of working that share a curatorial and interpretable authority with others.

We are always asking how we can work against the internalization of colonial categories and power imbalances. And we work not just to diversify our output but our practice, even those practices that may be less visible to the public. And this is particularly important given the troubling history of ethnographic collection

Which really demands that we ask these questions of ourselves all the time. And I want to just give you two examples of some of the projects that we’ve worked on over the last few years in which we have tried to extend some of this power and interpretable authority

Outside of the university in ways that I think have actually been incredibly influential shifting and changing the very form of what we do. My first example is a project that we called This is a Maori term. Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand, Aotearoa in New Zealand. And it means pathways of spiritual or intangible energy. It was the name of a collaboration between myself and Stuart Foster an interaction designer and Kura Puke, a Maori artists who were both based

At Massey University in New Zealand. And also with Timatahiapo Research Group a cultural and community organization based in Taranaki in the north of Ireland. And the project focuses on this beautiful cloak which is part of the ethnography collections. Originally collected by the Wellcome Institute,

The cloak came to UCL sometime in the mid 20th century. We aren’t sure when, because we have very bad provenance for many of our collections. It was part of a series of donations of nonmedical collections of cloaks that the Institute made to different museums and universities,

Objects they didn’t consider as core to its mission. It was marked only as Maori and had no known provenance. We do not know who made her. We don’t know where or when she was made, but we know she must have been special, a treasure, a Towner, and possibly

Because of her small size woven for a child. The cloak is finding waiver now to New Zealand flax with tassels made out of the hair of the Cudi or Polynesian dog now extinct, and a Wolf fringe bordering the beautiful red and black Tomiko border.

And the condition you can see here is so fantastic. We can gather that not much has happened with this cloak over the years. She’s basically been in storage for nearly 100 years. Intrigued by my characterization of the cloak along with many of our collections as an orphaned object, Kura and Stewart set about

Bringing their massive digital work and grassroots community practice to the cloak. With a background in designing a virtual environments and a long-standing practice of connecting to light and sound to Maori treasures, their intention was in their words to bring the cloak into the light and bathe it with energy from New Zealand.

And working closely with Timatahiapo, we developed a long-term ambition working through the medium of digital technology. Throughout our project the term (foreign language) meaning spiritual energy was used as an encompassing term for the digital, just as digital communication media largely exists as wireless waves of information transmitted all around us.

So do (foreign language) treasured possessions, create networks of conductivity across time and space. And the connection of this cloak through broadband and cellular activity to people in London and in New Zealand was not framed therefore as something new, but actually as a continuation of the kind of work that these treasured artifacts

Are supposed to do, to link people, activate, maintain connections and networks of knowledge. So this is the cloak on display in UCL’s octagon gallery. And you can see the kind of immersive environment that Kura and Stewart came to London to set up in 2014. On June 17th, we created a ceremonial environment

In which transformed our octagon gallery into a Maori space, a Marae, and we at UCL became the guests that were welcomed into this space by Timatahiapo who were at their Marae. (foreign language) at the foot of Mount Taranaki. So as guests, we were ushered into the space, and welcomed and responded with call.

I want to play you a very short clip which I’ve poorly edited, and doesn’t do justice to the events just to show you how the event was recorded in both sites simultaneously So that just shows you how the traditional call and response of a Maori pōwhiri, or a welcoming ceremony where mediated across time and space using basically a FaceTime connection. And what you could also see was that the connection didn’t work perfectly, whilst we could be heard perfectly in New Zealand

Because of broadband inequities in New Zealand, and the fact that they were using a cellular connection rather than the kind of wifi connection we had at UCL, we at UCL was unable to hear all of the words of their welcoming incantation. And as the project progressed and the technology was increasingly a challenge

Frustrating our attempts to communicate clearly, we started to talk more and more about that. What was happening in those gaps. And I started to wonder if actually that imperfect connection was actually one way we could acknowledge the distance and disconnection that is also a part of the cloak’s history

As well as this more celebrated digital connection that we were also creating. Perhaps the failings of technology, the way that it kept reminding us of its presence, as it fails around us, evoked the situation we were in a brave attempt to recreate a connection that can never be fully salvaged to work

Across the distance that is still present and that still remains. At the end of several weeks of exhibiting the cloak, Te Urutahi who you see here in this image in another impoverished FaceTime session, gave our cloak a name, holding our phones high into the air,

We ran around the campus trying to hear clearly and we ended up in the geography department to be told better or to better hear her tell us that the cloak will now be called Tukutuku Roimata, a name that evokes the tears of the ancestors from the spiritual realm into woven

And connecting us with the physical realm through the cloak. And so this is very much a name that evokes absence as well as presence, and the project as a whole explored the capacities of new technologies to connect and explore new relationships between colonial era collections and contemporary source communities in this global context

Speaking to a broader politics of restitution, repatriation, and return. When Kura and Stewart left UCL, they left us with a kind of DIY kit that enables us to plug the cloak in to New Zealand at any time you can dial in, and you can bathe the cloak in the sound

Through speakers and through LED light strips that bring through this digital energy channel lightened sand from New Zealand into our story, and so we continue to activate this relationship. My second very brief example focuses on ongoing work that I’ve been doing with our collections curator, Delphine Mercy

In an afterschool club for high school students. We call this the Young Curators Project, and we explore narrative and poetic strategies for connecting to the ethnography collections. Every student picks an object in the collection to research and they go back into their homes and communities and chooses another object from there

To bring the two together. And then they work with poets, anthropologists, to narrate those connections in their own words for their own exhibition which we show both online and in the university. I just want to show you this little display that was made by Tyanne Hudson, who is from the Harrison Victor’s Academy

In Croydon in south London. She chose to work with lantern slides depicting life in Nigeria in the first half of the 20th century, which speaks to her own cultural background. But she linked them to a collection of cinema tickets that were made during trips that she bought during trips

To the cinema with her family. And this is a little poem that she wrote for her label in the exhibition. And she wrote in a longer text I’m quoting, “I’ve chosen this object because it represents friendship and helps me remember my experiences. For example, when we went to see “Deadpool 2″

As a leaving party and my friend who was leaving didn’t show up”. And she went on to write, “Lantern slides, were used as a way to present information much like PowerPoint, they are photos that can be projected onto a screen used to teach students from UCL

And around the same time they were made. And I chose these images because they are both linked to memories and ways of learning about different cultures.” The films talk about the 21st century, the things we find interesting, and the lantern slides teach us about life in 20th century, Nigeria.

They’re also connected by the way they were shown both on projectors for large audiences. During COVID-19 we created another version of this club because we couldn’t have people into the collection who are Young Curators Online. And this is the kind of online course, which you can do in your own time,

Which creates the dialogue around key issues, statues, and public spaces, and naming of places and important debates around the history and legacies of colonialism particularly in collections. We also train students and oral history recording so they can start to think about what forms of knowledge is in their own communities

That might then become part of a museum or archive. And the course ends with an opportunity to submit an object to a virtual museum of COVID-19. And here you can see a selection of objects that were most meaningful to the lives of young people that participated in the course

During the lockdown of last year. And we start to wonder, are these objects perhaps the ethnographic collections of the future. I’ve only had a very short time to give you two very different examples, both of which are trying to leverage the opportunities inherent in digital technologies, not as ends in of themselves

But as portals to really think about how we might start to reimagine a new future for our collections. I’m very much thinking about the work of Eric Alara and Shelley Butler in that kind of formulation of curatorial dreams, the opportunities that we have as museum workers to imagine how we would really like

To do things if we weren’t always so constrained. And in my curatorial dream, the ethnography collection is activated as a resource not just to connect people to their own cultural heritage, and I very much agree with Jack’s point about it’s not really enough just to say let’s reinterpret

And let’s give multiple perspectives on things, it’s not just about trying to make better displays. It’s also about bringing different people in as the arbiters of those displays to structure and very much inflect the practices that are implicit or often invisible around them. The problematic legacies and histories of the anthropological collection remain.

They’re very much with us. We can’t escape them, but the platforms and the rate them to create sense and meaning can be shifted. Within the collection we have been collecting the documentation from these projects, not in order to connect people to museums and collections, but to develop a new generation of museum practitioners

And to create new, more equitable and open collections for the future. Thank you. [ No Sound ] – Good evening, everyone. I’d first like to thank The Met for inviting me to speak at the symposium. I’m very happy to be a part of the conversation that looks at the museum as learner.

It probably is that the museums should be rethinking their relationship with the community they serve, as equals who share and exchange information that makes the experience so much richer for everyone. So I pulled, I would basically give you an idea of what MAP is all about

Before I move on to the main subject of the discussion, because I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with us. So MAP is a new museum that’s coming up in the heart of Bengaluru in South India. And our mission is to take art back into the heart of the community.

And create a museum going culture because the joke with MAP is we have the most crowded cities in India with the emptiest museums. So we’re hoping that there’s something we can do to change that. And this map gives you an idea of where we are located in the heart of town

Close to the Metro stations, opposite a beautiful park and positioned on one of the arterial roads in the city so that we are easily accessible to everyone. This is an artist rendering of what MAP will look like because construction is still underway and we hope to open in December

Of this year, COVID permitting. And we see MAP as not just a place for objects, but a space for ideas and conversations that we initiate through the collection. So the collection really becomes the catalyst to grow MAP into a kind of cultural hub where there’s plenty of interaction and exchange.

While the collection has different categories of objects, we have pre-modern, modern and contemporary, textile craft and design, living traditions, photography, popular culture. So we are looking to really collapse the hierarchies between what is perceived as high and low art and not view the collection in vertical silos but draw connections across the collection.

We are one of the few if not the only museum in India that has popular culture as integral part of the collection. And the idea is that people from different communities, backgrounds, race, religion, all feel that some part of their lives or cultures reflected here and they are able to connect.

So inclusion and accessibility really are the two pillars of MAP. And we are working on how to be accessible to people with not just physical, but also mental disability. We are fortunate that we are working with the new building. So right from the start, we’ve sat down with the architects

And our consultants, which is the Diversity and Equal Opportunity Center so that we work together to try and make everyone feel that they are welcome at MAP. And this goes for our website as well. We use fonts, colors, color contrast, or text, so that people with visual disabilities

Find it easy to navigate our site. All our events have subtitling and sign language interpretation to help the hearing impaired. So when we talk about accessibility we really need to examine the relationship with the museum has had with audiences in the past. Traditionally, the museum voice was seen as THE voice

That best understood the story and therefore was in the best position to tell that story. Today of course we know that is not true. Curators, art historians, scholars bring knowledge and learning to what they do all very valuable but that is Vishakha said is one aspect of a story.

When we deal with objects, for example that have cultural religious or traditional significance there are several layers of knowledge and storytelling, this would come from members of the community specifically practitioners of that ritual that the object is associated with, worshipers, craftsman involved in its making and so many more.

And context becomes particularly relevant when we are exploring, say living traditions, for example butta pula is a poem of spiritual worship. That’s practiced in Southern Karnataka, the state that MAP is located in. It is a centuries old practice that is performed still today where local spirits or deities are channelized by ritual specialists.

These ceremonies are very significant for the community because traditionally family and village disputes are accord to the spirit as are matters of political justice or even legitimizing political authority. We have a number of such objects at MAP, masks, breast plates, et cetera, that are used in these ceremonies.

And much of the knowledge around these rituals rests with the practitioners in the community. And I would hesitate any interpretation of these objects without drawing on their knowledge. I thought I’ve been speaking of another example from our section on living traditions that includes the work of indigenous artists

From different parts of the country. One of the opening exhibitions on our digital platform represented the work of Bhuri Bai, a Bhil artist from central India. And though her book is now well known, her story has most often been told without her involvement. A conversation that the curators had heard

Was quite revealing because she said that she had all these catalogs, books, articles, about her over the years that she had accumulated but because she was illiterate, she really had no idea of what was being said on her behalf. So taking this into consideration, our exhibition,

“My Life as an Artist” was put together in collaboration with Bhuri Bai, so the curatorial team traveled to Bhopal to meet her record audio interviews and discuss how the exhibition would take shape. These conversations then formed the basis of the exhibition’s narrative. So when we talk about interpretation

It’s often dependent on the scope of the collection, the story that this selection of artwork tells. But what does it exclude? Because those object histories are not represented within the collection and every museum has its wishlist there are bound to be gaps in most collections, and it’s important for museums to recognize that

And to be transparent about it. This is particularly visible in institutions that house private collections where collectors have acquired objects based on a particular interest or preference. At MAP where the core of the collection is donated by its founder, this is a challenge we face as well

And we are very conscious of it. But today, a key factor that is changing the equation between the museum and its audiences is the information freeway. The world online has democratized access to information and learning to a large extent. And yes, it is a double-edged sword. You have inaccurate information,

Information that comes with its own biases, information that is channelized to reinforce our prejudices, but with all its downsides the net has made knowledge sharing much more widespread than it has ever been before. This becomes especially relevant if we think of the museum as an array of difficult histories

Such as colonial pasts, political and racial oppression. Whose story are we telling? As many of us have pointed out. And whose point of view I’ll be presenting? For example, if you look at India’s colonial history and some of the defining moments in that relationship between the colonizer and the colonized,

How do we read evidence? For example, this photograph of the ruins of Lucknow taken in 1860, does it allude to the Indian mutiny of 1857 as the British described it, or the first war of Indian independence as Indians like to think of it. Does the museum as an institution have a role

In altering social attitudes and political structures that enable oppression? In contemporary India, for example, we still struggle with injustice that is experienced as a result of past hierarchies or gender discrimination. The pandemic has simply accelerated the online relationship with audiences as we all experienced. And at MAP we were completely focused

On the roadmap to the physical museum, but the virus literally stopped us in our tracks. And as people brainstorming about the way forward, the message that we were getting from our advisors, our board, friends of MAP, why are you so fixated on the physical space?

For now why don’t you launch a digital museum? And so we decided that if people cannot come to MAP then we need to take MAP to people. And it had its benefits because it expanded the whole scope of how we conceive our audiences. It allows us to reach many more people,

To build a growing international network, and to use the tools that this medium offers to create different experiences. The digital space has also introduced a more informal mode of interaction that’s much less hierarchical because it brings the museum into your home. It creates a new intimacy.

It allows you to be part of cultural discourse seated in your favorite armchair. And technology has also allowed us new modes of storytelling. And we have MAP labs that lies at that intersection of technology and art. And since we are located in the IT capital Bangalore of India,

It made sense to collaborate with the industry to discover tech solutions for art. So our first collaboration was with Accenture on a project that uses artificial intelligence to create a 3D persona of the artist M F Husain. Husain is no more but visitors can interact with him through this holographic persona,

Chat with him asking questions. It’s a way to get young people to know more about one of our iconic artists. We have a small clip of one of those interactions, which we’ll play for you. – What is your name? – You can call me Husain Sahib,

But my full name is Maqbool Fida Husain. – How old are you? – Want to take a guess? As of today I’m over 100 years old. – Are you real? – As close to real, enough to impress you. Please ask me what do you need to know about me?

– So that was the Husain experience. The virtual world has allowed us to connect with museums across the world as well in a time when neither people or objects could travel. So during the pandemic, we developed Museums Without Borders. A collaborative project that makes it possible for objects and people to travel virtually

And encourages new ways of seeing. Basically it juxtaposes an object from MAP with an object from the partner museum. And this could be based on similarities or differences and maybe theams, geographies, mediums. And when objects are placed in dialogues some really interesting conversations emerge,

These are articulated by the curators from the two museums. And this is an example of our collaboration with The British Museum. It contrasts the work of a modernist from India. (indistinct) an 18th century miniature painter from the collection of the BM. We use music as a lens through which to explore them.

So on one hand, you have the solitary drummer beating out a rhythm in this frenzy of despair juxtaposed with this celebratory group of trumpeters. And it becomes particularly interesting when you connect objects in different cultures. For example, the work of two indigenous artists one from India and the other from Canada, Each of their selected words features a central bird figure an owl by Ishiva from the RISD collection and a majestic peacock by Sham in MAPs collection where we juxtapose the unique styles of painting the tremendous impact they work at And let me conclude with another collaborative

Digital project that we are working on with Microsoft, that uses artificial intelligence for cultural heritage. The initiative called Interwoven Global Connections to south Asian textiles has Microsoft working with our curators and collections department to develop the AI tools which can recognize distinct patterns, motives and techniques, which are used in south Asian textiles

From MAPs collection, as well as the data base of images we put together from partner collections in the region. So the platform then connects these textiles with those from around the world, such as the Middle East, Africa, and Central South America. These connections can be explored on an interactive platform.

Our curators have mapped certain journeys through connected artworks with accompsnying text where we then tell stories of how these similarities occur, be it through trade or collaboration, or just by accident. For example, the AI tools may recognize the Paisley motif and link examples of this motif found in Indian textiles with trade textiles

For the European markets in the 19th century, and then how that same motif was picked up in popular culture in the 1960s, and popularized by bands such as the Beatles. And in fact, The Met has come on board as one of our partners on this project. So these are some of the ways

We are looking at our collections, trying to interpret them afresh, and build a more interactive experience with our audience. Thank you very much. [ No Sound ] – Good afternoon. I wanna thank The Met for the invitation to participate in this afternoon’s program and to join all

Of these wonderful speakers for this conversation today. My name is Brian Vallo, and I am the Governor at the Pueblo of Acoma tribe in New Mexico. For those of you who are not familiar with New Mexico, Acoma tribe is located about one hours drive west of Albuquerque.

Acoma is considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in North America. This was my home. For the past 30 years, I have worked in cultural resources management addressing a myriad of issues on behalf of my own tribe and other tribal communities throughout the Southwest. This opportunity has provided me

The chance to have dialogue with other tribal communities and all institutions from throughout the Southwest concerning repatriation, concerning museum and exhibit development, interpretation, access and collections management practice. I’ve also had the opportunity to work directly with tribes in creating their own tribal museums. A movement here that is reshaping

And shaping the ways in which indigenous communities in this country are presenting themselves, their culture and their histories. This work experience has provided me with these great opportunities. And one in particular is the opportunity to implement a federal policy called, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

This was a federal policy that was passed by the Congress in 1990. And what this policy provides is protection of items housed in museums, institutions, and agencies of the federal government and the federal system, which include items of objects of cultural patrimony, ancestral human remains, and their associated funerary objects.

This initial work centered on a review of inventories of items protected by this policy, NAGPRA. And again including human remains associated funerary objects and cultural patrimony. These inventories were mandated by this law. So each institution who was a recipient of federal funding was required to provide to tribes

Throughout the country inventories of their collections of native American materials. For the Pueblo of Acoma, and over the course of the first three years of enactment of this policy, we had received nearly 300 inventories of these items and representing almost a million items that fell under those various categories that were identified

As coming from my tribe. This prompted a second, I guess phase of this implementation, which called for visitation to a numerous institutions throughout the country. And in this photo, the photograph here of the exhibit, some of you might be familiar, is at the Field Museum in Chicago.

And this exhibition, when I first saw it along with other representatives from my tribe, we were utterly shocked and dismayed at the presentation, but really at that time did not have much to say or do to address the concerns that we had concerning exhibition.

What we were concerned with and what we were there for was to review items that were provided in their inventory of Acoma human remains and associated funerary objects. These inventories and these visits to the various museums exposed me personally to just a number of issues and concerns around the ways in which museums

In this country were stewarding these collections. And also other general collections of what were classified as Native American art or cultural items from Native American tribes in this country. And this is really a time in my life when my focus transitioned from cultural resources management to a focus on repatriation and museum development.

So I had the opportunity to work with many museums and to visit some of our country’s flagship institutions where it was quite apparent that in addition to the problem that ancestors of my ancestors remained stored in these facilities, that there were some other glaring issues around presentation, around narrative of not only Acoma

Materials on display, but other materials from tribes throughout this country that were on display. A lot of the information was in error. A lot of the ways in which things were presented in exhibit were likely offensive to many tribal people, including myself. And so it opened my eyes to the issue

That at that time had not been discussed openly among tribal representatives. So NAGPRA brought to the forefront various issues for both native American tribes and museums, many of which remain unresolved due to a number of complex reasons. What this has created however, is a movement among native American museum professionals,

Tribal historic preservation officers, tribal governmental officials, Native American organizations, and thankfully a number of museums who share the same concerns and a desire to invoke some change through more meaningful consultation, collaboration, and inclusion of Native America in museums. Some of the initial outcomes of this process and the photo on the left

Of the reburial of ancestral materials, burial items is a result of the NAGPRA law, the re actual repatriation that has been occurring since the enactment of that law of ancestral human remains and associated funerary objects. The challenge here is that there are so many materials, literally millions of items in museums

That need to be repatriated. The cumbersome process associated with this federal policy and museum policies don’t allow for a – any real ease in the process of repatriation. And so while we remain engaged in that process of repatriation, we have also exerted our tribal sovereignty around these issues around federal policy

But also the need for representation in the world of museums. And it took a congressional act to eventually create the National Museum of the American Indian which is now located on the national mall in Washington DC. And this institution represents all indigenous tribes of this hemisphere, and it is

Houses one of the largest collections of Native American materials in a separate facility in Suitland, Maryland. Many tribes work directly with the National Museum of the American Indian on the repatriation of items back to tribes and the review of document existing documentation around collections on exhibit and development and programming,

And a number of other issues that are important to tribal nations in this country. But there’s much work to be done. And even while the National Museum of American Indian does exist, does actively repatriate and does actively engage with tribes and institutions throughout the world. There is much work to be done,

And on all levels where policy is concerned, on the federal level but also within the field of museum studies, anthropology and archeology. But this movement is something that is evolving and is proving that with continued commitment on the part of tribes and institutions, that there is some promise.

In 2014, I joined the school for Advanced Research which is located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. As the director of the Indian Arts Research Center. And it was there that I had the opportunity to work with many tribal and non-tribal museum professionals from across the country on an initiative

Led by my predecessor, Dr. Cynthia Chavez Lamar, to develop a set of guidelines of how museums can work with source communities. The published guidelines for collaboration had an immediate impact on the field, strengthening established relationships between museums and tribes, instituting discourse on processes for engagement with tribes, by museums for both short

And longer term projects and initiatives, and forging discussion among tribes and museums about building trust, establishing communication, and understandings, and identifying those opportunities for mutually rewarding relationships. The guidelines have strong support of national museum organizations, including AAM and ATALM or the Association of Tribal Archives Libraries and Museum. Many museums throughout the nation

Are utilizing these guidelines. They have implemented these guidelines for specific projects and have used the guidelines to just to begin a dialogue between museums and source communities. I always like to acknowledge the Field Museum in Chicago for being one of the first flag ship institutions in this country to study the guidelines

And to develop a process for engagement of tribal community, source community representatives, and their current and ongoing effort to rehabilitate the Native American Hall. And earlier – an earlier slide, you saw the photo, the black and white photo of a museum tour passing by some display cases of mannequins

Dressed in Native American traditional attire. This is that same exhibit that was on display for nearly 70 years. This movement is creating positive change. It is making the museum field inquisitive and certainly much more responsive to Native American tribes. It is also fueling a critical and creative thought among non-native museum professionals.

I applaud The Met and other institutions for also taking bold steps in response to this movement. This level of commitment is crucial towards achieving equity and true representation of Native America in our museums. In this photo, I want to also highlight that the Yale University assembled students at Yale University,

Assembled an advisory committee of Native American experts to assist them in the curation of an installation at the university. So there’s acknowledgement and there’s engagement and it is active. And this is probably the most profound experiences that we are having now in this time. And again, congratulate The Met on taking that step

In the creation of the Art of Native America, with a advisory committee comprised of both native and non-native experts. The presentation of this private collection of Native American art items in this collection was a process that was quite involved. And the outcome of this was I believe successful.

It really set the stage for the ways in which The Met will continue to work with Native American tribes, will continue to present Native America within its walls and provide opportunities for Native American artists contemporary Native American artists to be part of The Met culture. So many Native American museum professionals,

Tribal leaders, cultural leaders and other experts are engaged in meaningful projects. Many of which will set a new bar for consultation and engagement. I want to spend the remainder of my time to mention briefly the projects associated with the photos in the slide. I mentioned the Yale student exhibition

Which is the first photo. The middle photo is a project at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, where we have a very unique situation of this particular institution working around and navigating the complexities associated with receiving a promised or gift of Native American materials,

And how these materials will be presented in the future, how they will be accessed in the future, and more immediate is how these items will be presented in a publication. This involves and has involved almost two years of consultation with tribal experts to determine how best to present these materials

In a catalog, in a publication. And then of course, the third photo, there is two employees from the Field Museum who I had the opportunity to work with during the dismantling of the former exhibit, and the requests that I made of them for us to bring two significant pieces of materials

From Acoma outdoors, to give them air, to rejuvenate them, and re-engage those items with the natural environment even while this was in Chicago. So there are opportunities, and I hope that the commitment of our museums to this movement remains strong. As I said, there is much work to be done

And I’m very grateful that there is a shown commitment on the part of some institutions and our federal government and of tribal communities alike. Thank you very much. [ No Sound ] [ No Sound ] – Thank you very much for a very rich presentations. There’s so many different questions

And also things are coming up in the chat. Lots of people have things to say. They’re very specific questions to each one of you but let me just start with some broad observation and then ask you some questions. I mean, I thought it was rather interesting that we started

With the idea of specific stories, specific histories, and Jack talked about things that are excluded. And then Brian, with your conversation you brought us back to things that are excluded that actually people who are excluded, who need to be part of the conversation in shaping that dialogue.

Most of you, except for Kamini did focus on the more anthropological aspect of museums, meaning it’s in ethnographic collection at the University of London. Or Brian you’ve talked about the native traditions and especially in the historical museums but now also in the art museums and what we can do.

One thing that I keep thinking about is that for many big museums and I refuse to use the word encyclopedic museums and I tell you why, because I have come to the conclusion there is no such thing as encyclopedic museums. There are museums that are accidents of history and museums of partial histories,

Depending on what they have and what they don’t have. So what we have to figure out is not only to deal with what is excluded, but also what is there that also is about symbols of power and sometimes the aura. So I’d like you to really help our viewers,

Readers, listeners, on this call to think about, especially for art museums which is the world that I inhabited for a very, very long time. There is something about the aura of art and Native American collection when it comes into the art museum it somehow is seen as a little different

From when it was at the Museum of Natural History let’s say. So how do we deal with dismembering if you will or trying to really question that idea of aura of art that exists, especially in art museums and deal with ways of actually looking at the material that also gives you the specificity

Because it does have something to do with that kind of duality, that art objects seems to exist in. And Kamini I’ll start with you and also Jack, when you add something to say there. ‘Cause especially in your case Kamini, you at MAP are trying to really bring

In many different kinds of objects together, from traditional fine art object, to photography, to indigenous collection or the tribal collection and more casual objects. But it seems like a lot of the things you’re doing now online, it would be interesting to find that how you will actually follow

That in front of the object itself. There’s something about objects that we still have to deal with especially objects as seen as art museums. Any thoughts from any one of you? Jack, oh, Kamini and then Jack. – I think the object, you know the focus has so far

Been largely in the past on the collections. And I think it’s so under collections, but the collections exist, the museum exist. We always collections exist for the visitor. So I think what we need to focus as well is to balance this whole relationship between the collection

The focus on the collection and the focus on the visitor. We have all these objects in our museums which have a whole range of stories to tell, and it is for us to unlock those stories, but how do we make this relevant to the visitor who’s coming into the museum now?

So I think the idea of relevance is what we need to search for. And we need, the museum stops has to stop being the dominant voice. We are so used to controlling the conversation. I think we need to become listeners. We need to listen to what our audiences want.

And we at MAP have actually done that because we conducted a study now because we are a new museum. We want our communities to tell us what did they expect to see in a museum? What would they like to see? What do they hope from us? And then instead of us deciding exactly

You must see this and this is how we must see it. Let’s try and bring together both the visitor and our courts and try and create an experience for everyone will enjoy. – So the conceptual focus from museum as collection of things to a place of interaction

Between viewer and the things, is that an important important inflection point to change. Jack any thoughts? – Yeah, I agree that’s very important. At the same time there is so much power invested in a certain way in which the Canon and the gaze has actually existed,

So that it’s very tricky to figure out how to, in some ways, surface that gaze. So that sufficiently understood that it can actually be in some ways put in its place and not just dominant without any critical understanding. Here I’ll just mention the great French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who has studied both empirically

But also qualitatively the whole idea of distinction and how distinction is made and especially Western democratic cultures, and how it’s related to thoughts of prestige, thoughts of what’s important, but also what’s especially important for elites to understand and to appreciate. So why was George Washington, you know this is my favorite research example.

Why was George Washington so obsessed with getting the latest Chinese porcelain wear during the heat of the Revolutionary War in Manhattan? You know, I mean what does that tell us about what those objects represented and how the consumption and association with those objects meant for George Washington?

And it’s not just an idiosyncratic personal quality it’s something that was pervasive throughout the larger culture, of kind of Western enlightenment, Western enlightenment culture of distinction. So it has certain kinds of capital, it’s not just financial, but it’s also the cultural educational, social capital that is embodied.

And the aura, as you were saying Vishakha of that object. I think it’s really important for us to unpack all that in the process of also bringing more voices in because I think it’s very possible that the larger culture itself also is imbued with those kinds of notions of distinction.

And then it’s really not so dynamic conversation or not such a dynamic set of listenings. – So that part of it is what you would say is that knowledge systems embody many other presupposed notions of power, status, for who, unless we question that, and interrogate that it will only be a patchwork.

And that is one of the big fundamental thing. And I think that Brian one of the last slides that you mentioned which is a Yale professor who said to engage with native culture is to rethink America. That actually something to that effect.

And I always think of a Vartan Gregorian who used to say you know, because he too was an immigrant. And he said that every immigrant who comes to this country learns how to be American, but in the process also changes what it means to be American.

And that some point we have to acknowledge that we still haven’t learned the latter part, that it also means to change America. It’s not just that people come in to become what it means to be American. So from your perspective Brian, and also for you

Haidy, that when you work with this anthropological objects especially those that are alive, if you will, and you’re trying to bring the cultures together and I love the way Haidy talked about how even the fact that it couldn’t work properly was to remind us of the disjuncture of that process,

Which I think is really interesting. But the question that sometimes people would ask is that, therefore at what point is it appropriate for you to have that object? And it was in the chat function as well. At what point repatriation is the most important thing?

And I come from that whole questions of repatriation with sort of a double set of eyes, you know both as an Indian who grew up in India, but also as an Indian American who also sees a firsthand experience, my own experience as working with a young African American kids

And getting them excited about objects from the world that they knew nothing about, and really getting very passionate. So how do we think about this issue of repatriation? And I think Brian, you’ve talked a lot about engagement, not just about repatriation to the native land, if you will.

So both of you, what are your thoughts on this particular question, especially because the Sarr-Savoy Report has been so much on people’s minds. – Brian, would you like to go first or should I? – Haidy go ahead. – Thank you for the question. I think I’m very supportive of repatriation and, you know

We’re very open to those discussions with our collection, but I think it has also become perhaps divisive in ways that are obscure some of the kind of generative potentials of the discussion about repatriation, that gets hidden by kind of this polarized perspective between the people that kind of are trying to hold

On or resist this kind of, you know, revisiting of a painful past or don’t want to let go of their authority over objects versus people who have, you know are carrying a really heavy legacy of pain and suffering that has stemmed from those moments of extraction,

And those histories are there and very real. But I think what, you know, why people ask for objects back is because that’s a way a strategy to deal with the relationships that were forged through the ways in which those objects were taken. And we have got opportunities to think about

Remaking relationships in the present that refuse to just perpetuate those dichotomies or perpetuate some of those power imbalances and are re reframed in different ways. And when you see that happening, I think and Brian was talking about that in some of his experiences at places perhaps like the Field Museum,

When you see those relationships developing over time and the conversation about repatriation can change or shift to become something different. So whilst I think it’s very important to recognize you know, the histories of theft and injustice and to make amends for that, and I think that can happen for your return of objects.

The reason those objects are going back as a form is about rebuilding relationships and that’s the most important thing, and we can work on those relationships in a whole host of different ways. So someone in the chat said, is there a request for repatriation of the Maori cloak that I presented?

And no, that cloak is because of the relationships that we have built up at the moment it’s happy, the community that we’ve connected to are happy for the cloak to be in UCL. They have relationship with it and they have and they do set the terms of engagement it.

And we won’t do anything with the cloak without consulting that community, as that relationship shifts the conversation may change and then may be a request in the future, this is a dynamic changing environment. So I think it’s frustrating when the conversation about repatriation becomes so zero sum that it forgets

That really this is about rebuilding, rebuilding trust and relationship building. And that’s what I was trying through all of this. – Very important point you’re making, just at the center of it all the real 300 pound gorilla is the power dynamics, right? Who has the say? Who decides what?

And how do we change that? And I thought, Brian your discussion around that was particularly powerful. And so when you think about repatriation Haidy just, I mean, actually talking about the kind of work you’re doing, but are there issues that come up where you find that the power dynamics still operate

In such a way that the voices of people who are excluded don’t get command and therefore in the name of collaboration it’s an acquiescence to, you know, status quo. – Thank you for the question. So repatriation just makes all of us uncomfortable, right? That discussion, even when the federal policy became law

Many institutions, including our own Smithsonian Network wasn’t sure how to respond. And it took some time for many of these institutions to determine how they would engage in the discussion. But even before that, their understanding of the federal policy was, it was varied, right? From one institution to the next.

And even as inventories were being developed because many unfortunately many of these institutions did not have inventories, and so they were under a time constraint to get the inventories done, and eventually they arrived on our doorsteps but the process almost 30 years later has improved within some institutions while with others,

And I will, you know, use The Met as an example. We’ve not had that conversation. And I don’t know if that conversation will ever happen. And there are many things and so other things associated with us, right? So you have active illegal trafficking of cultural patrimony even today.

We’re currently working on another federal policy. Hopefully it becomes a law this year, that would strengthen this NAGPRA law, the provisions of the law while also provide more protections of these cultural patrimony items. And that’s a whole another conversation. But within museums, I would say that there has been

There have been enough and thankfully successes of repatriation and consultation, meaningful consultation that not only address the repatriation, but open the door for that idea of building trust, a willingness to commit time and resources on the museum’s part, to have a discussion with source communities around not only, again not only repatriation,

But stewardship of these collections while they remain in these institutions until repatriation occurs, access cultural sensitivities around access, even by source community members, because even there that becomes that’s a huge issue. And, you know and then there are other unique situations depending on the institution that sometimes are put on the table

That most tribes are willing to, you know listen and have a conversation about. So, you know, it’s evolving it’s evolving and it’s going to take some time. The other thing, if you don’t mind if I can go back to the aura of art, right? So we haven’t really had the discussion about

The terminology within some institutions because, you know item of cultural patrimony protected by this federal policy for some institutions would be classified as art. There’s still much work to do in that area, but you know, this movement if it will continue and it will, I think, foster those difficult conversations moving forward.

– I mean, I think in a way, what you say is that sometimes I’ve heard from my native friends that museums of natural history are a little more forthcoming than the art museums, partly because there is something around this notion of possession of art and the aesthetic that somehow takes them

To different realms. It’s worth coming back to this ton of questions, which we can’t even go to. But I want to ask last question before this panel ends and that is that Louis Console, colleague and a friend was on this conversation mentioned that how in the late ’60s

Which was another influxion point and early ’70s civil rights struggle in New York City that gave rise to museums like the Museo del Barrio, like the Studio Museum in Harlem, so some things happen. And some of us who came of age at that time we really bought into the idea of museums

With the potential of being institutions of change. That’s what made us passionate, you know because we were all the warriors in that struggle. Then where we are today, and what happened in the ’80s and ’90s is quite different from where we are today. ’90s was even another inflection point

With kind of multiplicity and multiplicity of cultures and the multicultural reality especially in America. I would like all of you as museum leaders to observe and reflect on this moment, we feel it’s an inflection point, too much is going on if anything COVID has really laid bare the fissures of the society,

Things that were always there but they have laid bare. They also have made it possible as Kamini says, about potential of expansiveness of some sort, if you are to project out 10 years, where do you think the museum world will be? And where do you wish it to be?

In terms of interpretation of objects because that’s our panel, interpretation generally speaking in the museum world. So limit your conversation to interpretive aspect of where do you think the world will be 10 years from now I’ll be too old. So I don’t have to answer that question.

Kamini you’re the baby in terms of museum world, because you are a new director of a new museum, where do you think that all this is gonna lead to in 10 years from now? – No, I would be very nervous to make any projections

Vishakha, because one year ago, one and a half year ago did any of us imagine we would be where we are or the whole world would be turned on its head. So I think museums, you know, in any case they cannot be these temples of intellectual asceticism

In future, they really have to reflect a language and an interpretation that looks at the non-elite start-up society as well. And I’m not saying that we go from one extreme to the other, but as one director asked me who are you doing this for? Who are we doing this for?

So I’ll be doing this for an exclusive club or be talking to each other, or I’ll be talking to the people who visit us. So that I think is extremely important for us to do. And going forward, if we don’t only look at the interpretative aspect, but also the hybrid model

For me, I see the way forward as both the digital museum and the physical space sort of forming hybrid going ahead, because I see both of them distinct parts where it’s two parts, at least from up the whole, each has their strengths, the tools that they give us to

Be able to communicate with our audiences. So I think it’s important to address both of these and look at a hybrid model going forward – Thank you. Haidy. – In one sentence. I mean, I think what happened in COVID when museums had to shut as well as exhibition spaces,

I think is really instructive because I think too much emphasis is placed on exhibitions actually, a lot of what we’ve been talking about today has been there, but it isn’t visible. It’s the things that happen in the store rooms and then the library and archive and in offices,

And in the kind of relationship building that’s not happening through public exhibition spaces. And I think, you know, particularly in the UK it’s because museums have become so associated with kind of revenue streams from blockbuster exhibitions. That’s one of the reasons why there has been such a crisis because that seemed to disappear.

And I think we need to bring back actually this idea of museums or spaces for all these other things to, spaces where people can come. Like I think Kamini says absolutely participate in processes of the archiving and collection and research of their own cultures

And as spaces where they can learn about other people. So my final one, I think would be, I mean, Jack said in his talk, he felt optimistic about museums as spaces. And it’s hard to feel optimistic particularly when you work in with ethnographic collections it’s a very heavy history.

But my vision my curatorial dream that I was trying to kind of suggest would actually be to recuperate the good parts of the ethnographic collection without the colonialism without the extractivism, without the violence but the bit, that’s actually about the commitment to understanding the world in its most broad iteration.

And I think art just to tie it all up, art is really working against us in so many ways. And you know art has become a way out for ethnography collections. We talk to artists, we rarely reinterpret collections and they kind of make it all look better because we’re allowing them

In and we give artists authority in a way that we don’t necessarily feel comfortable giving to everyday people that haven’t had an early art training or aren’t participating in elite global art worlds. And I think we need to go back to kind of a more essence of the ethnographic

If we can separate that from it’s difficult history. – Thank you. I think in a way just you take the good bad and the ugly and make sure that we can continue to recognize it and move forward. It’s really very important. Brian, last word, and then I’ll get Jack to round this out.

– Well, I hope that in the next 10 years, that institutions whether they be flagship institutions in this country, or our tribal museums, that we are presenting Native America in a way that is representative of the contemporary voice of Native America, through that lens of knowledge of traditional knowledge and history

Of our own people. And I really hope that there will be a greater level of collaboration between institutions and source communities that needs to happen. And stewardship collections care, conservation, that these areas are also at the forefront sometime in the short-term future,

Because there is a great deal of work that needs to be done. Some understandings that need to be developed, and a mutual commitment between source communities and museums to really care for these items which are so important to our cultures. So I look forward to that continued movement. – Thank you. Jack.

– Yeah, the creativity that we prize so much, the individual creativity that is oftentimes embodied in the notions of the Renaissance artists, those are very valuable I don’t want to discredit that, but at the same time I think what’s being said is that the creativity of generations of people, the creativity of cultures,

The creativity of social groups to tackle problems that we’re facing. I’m very mindful of the clock ticking about global warming. And it’s hard for me to think about the 10 years, without thinking about the six years and change that is supposed to be the tipping point

In which things are gonna get a lot worse and the cascading impacts of fires and hurricane systems. And once in a hundred, once in a thousand year you know, occurrences, aren’t going to start combining. And our current pandemic is really a part of that. It’s a symptom of that.

So I feel that, that same creativity has to be applied in this very artistic, beautiful, joyful way, but in a way that reconnects us to the land. And I know this is an indigenous framework that I’m really just in some ways expressing and relying on the intergovernmental panel on climate change has referred

To specifically indigenous local knowledge as part of the solution that we have to embrace. And that raises profound questions about the carbon economy and extractivism and how we have to really creatively and collectively and collaboratively re-imagine what we’re doing every day, and that to me, seems like a grand creative project

That we should all be happy to take on. But again, the problem of thinking of that as an individual effort or somehow the right one person in the right one position where the right technology to solve all that, I think that’s not gonna be the answer.

So this has to be a much bigger project that we all take on. – Right. I think in a way, what you are saying is that first and foremost, let’s recognize that institutions, museums, and otherwise are part of a larger ecosystem, cultural and otherwise, therefore what is our obligation

To the survival of the planet? That’s kind of a big question. And what is our obligation to the continuing richness of this humanity of 7.7 billion people that inhabit this world. And having just on this book “World as Family” is exactly about that, which is to say,

That unless we think of this larger humanity as part of our family and in that family, we respect, we use, we have dignity, the words that number of people mentioned in the chat it is really not about just access and equity, it’s about partnership. It’s about empathy.

And it is about dignity of others that you bring into the conversation to create this larger world, that Kamini as you said, is to recognize that museums are not just collection of things, they’re about systems. They’re about other things that people don’t get to see and how do we change all of that?

So you’ve all provided out… Jack, you have something to say? – Just add in the only way we’re gonna have a chance to grapple with this is to really deal with the land and our relationship with the land. I mean, I’m learning that the U.S. soil is largely depleted

Because of the system of agriculture as really a destroyed land, the forests are being completed. So really to acknowledge and to enlarge what is alive and not to have the hierarchy in which humans are above all else, and some humans are more equal than others.

I mean, somehow we have to be able to grapple with that in a creative and profound way. – And with that, I hope that all of you who have been on this Zoom conversation have enjoyed this conversation. There’s much more to say, I know that tomorrow

Will be yet another group of fabulous panelists. So please remember to register and continue the conversation. And please join me virtually in thanking our panelists for really providing for such food of thought. Thank you very much everybody, and have a good evening. If you’re in New York, and good day

No matter where you are. Bye-bye. [ No Sound ]

#InterpretationA #Global #Dialogue #Museums #Publics

The Problem of Evil: Crash Course Philosophy #13



Crash Course Philosophy is brought to you by Squarespace Squarespace: share your passion with the world. Why is the sky blue? Which came first: orange the color or orange the fruit? And why is C3PO afraid of everything? Like, who decided it was a good idea to teach a droid to experience fear?

There are some questions that we ask ourselves, either as kids, or adults, or both. They’re questions about weird, everyday things, and they’re weird because most of us don’t know the answers to them offhand. But most of the time, those questions turn out to be pretty answerable.

Like, for the ones I just mentioned, the short answers are: Because of the way photons interact with the molecules in the atmosphere. …the fruit; And…uh…’cause that’s what George Lucas wanted. Maybe because 3PO’s a protocol droid, and they need to be able to relate to humans.

Though, he could stand to turn his fear settings down a notch. Now, as you know, philosophers have a soft spot for questions that can never be answered. Most of the time, these puzzles make for great thought experiments – tests of our skills in logic and argument.

But there are some questions whose very lack of an answer can be downright troubling. Unlike the occasional fluke of physics or bit of Star Wars trivia, there’s a part of us that really wants, or even needs to have an answer to these things.

For the past month or so, we’ve been exploring the philosophy of religion, and we’ve been doing it mainly from a theistic perspective, looking into arguments that justify belief in God. But one of the most persistent challenges to god’s existence is also the root of one of the most-asked,

But least answerable, questions that we, as thinking beings, face. Why is there evil? [Theme Music] Evil comes in many forms. And likewise, for philosophers, poses many problems, especially vis a vis the existence of god. First, there’s what’s known as the logical problem of evil.

Like all rational people, theists can’t help but acknowledge that the world is full of evil. And here, we’re understanding “evil” to be all manner of bad stuff – like, not just Hitler or Darth Vader or Moriarty.

It’s everything that’s in the vast spectrum of badness, from stubbed toes to plagues and everything in between. Theists and atheists both agree that evil exists in this way. But they disagree about the next part. Many theists believe in an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God.

But atheists argue that this creates a contradiction – a set of beliefs that can’t all be true at the same time. Because, evil is bad, right – whether it’s stubbed toes or genocide or paper cuts or epidemics? So, if there’s really an all-knowing God out there, he knows about all the evil.

He might even know about it before it happens. And if he’s all-powerful, he could stop it. And if he’s all-good, then he would want to stop it. And yet he doesn’t. The evil continues. Philosophically rational people shouldn’t hold inconsistent beliefs,

So atheists argue that you’re going to have to give something up – and the thing to give up is God. Some theists, however, take a different route. They choose to give up one or more divine attributes. They argue that maybe God isn’t powerful enough to stop evil,

Or maybe he’s not knowledgeable enough to know about it, or maybe he’s not even good enough to care about stopping it. That might sound weird to some of you, but if you’ve ever heard someone say that God is envious, or petty, or jealous, that’s basically what they’re doing –

They’re acknowledging the possibility that God is not actually good. If you’ve ever checked out the Old Testament, there is a God there who has some anger issues – one who’s not at all opposed to wiping out entire populations just because of some bad behavior.

Still, despite this scriptural evidence, many theists are committed to God’s omni-attributes, and are thus stuck with a problem. They have to resolve the logical problem of evil and find some way to explain why God would allow evil into the world.

And if you can do that, then you are presenting what is known as a theodicy. A theodicy is an attempt to show that the existence of evil doesn’t rule out the possibility of God’s existence. Yes, this is such a big deal that there’s a word for it.

And the most popular theodicy is called The Free Will Defense. This argument holds that God maximized the goodness in the world by creating free beings. And being free means that we have the choice to do evil things – a choice that some of us exercise.

This theodicy says that God doesn’t create evil, but evil can’t be avoided without depriving us of our freedom. And a world without freedom would be a worse place overall. This explanation preserves God’s goodness, because he created the best possible world, and also preserves his omnipotence and omniscience, because,

Although he does know about evil and could stop it, he has a good reason not to – to ensure our freedom. The problem is, the free will defense really only really addresses what’s known as moral evil – or the evil committed, on purpose, by humans.

Now, we’re certainly responsible for a lot of bad stuff, but you can’t blame us for everything. We can’t be held responsible for the fact that the plates of the earth sometimes shift, causing destructive earthquakes, or that a storm might knock a tree over that falls onto someone’s house.

This type of evil – the stuff we’re not responsible for – is called natural evil, and the free will defense can’t resolve natural evil. Religion is one of those philosophical issues that can make it hard for us to consider anything objectively.

That’s where fiction comes in handy because fictional stories can let us see how hypothetical people deal with hypothetical situations. And with that in mind, let’s go to the Thought Bubble for some Flash Philosophy! Let’s consider the case of Ivan, a good Russian who decides to break up with God.

In the novel The Brothers Karamozov, 19th century Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky presents us with Ivan, a man who claims to believe in God. But Ivan finds the fact that God allows evil to exist to be so unforgivable, that he decides worshipping such a god would be, just, unconscionable.

Ivan goes so far as to declare that he is “returning his ticket” to heaven. If the same God who allows evil – particularly the suffering and death of children – is also saving a cozy place in paradise for Ivan, well, Ivan wants nothing to do with it.

So, his way out of the problem of evil is to deny God’s goodness, and to conclude that a bad God is not only unworthy of his worship, he’s also not someone Ivan wants to spend eternity with. It’s like the ultimate un-friending.

Now, some readers have found Ivan’s decision to be noble, and full of integrity. After all, if you really think God is letting all of this bad stuff happen, why would you want to be on his team?

But other people think Ivan is being irrational – why condemn yourself to eternity in hell on principle? For theists, it’s another question that doesn’t have an easy answer. Thanks, Thought Bubble! Now, unlike Ivan, a lot of people aren’t willing to give up their ticket to heaven.

So they need to work on a way to keeping believing in, and worshipping, God, even though evil is still a thing. One way to do that, is to argue that good can’t exist without its opposite. The idea here is that you can’t understand the concept of pleasure without pain.

We don’t know what it feels like to be warm if we haven’t been cold. We can’t understand the goodness of filling our bellies if we’ve never been hungry. But there’s also another way, though it involves a little more work on your part.

20th century English philosopher of religion John Hick offered what’s known as the soul-making theodicy. Unlike the traditional view that God created a perfect world, which we ruined through our own poor choices, Hick argued that God deliberately creates us “unfinished,”

And our earthly lives are designed to toughen us up, in a sense, kinda like boot camp. The harshness of life, Hick said, gives us a robust texture and character that wouldn’t be possible without an imperfect world. Hick said that we’re not just God’s little pets, and he’s not our benevolent owner,

Whose sole job is to keep us in a safe, comfortable environment. Instead, he wants to build us, to train us, into a particular kind of being. So we need an environment that’s suited to the sort of growth that he wants – the sort that this world makes possible.

A lot of people find these and other theodicies to be pretty compelling. However, the problem of evil actually goes a step deeper. What we’ve been talking about so far is the logical problem of evil. This problem can be resolved, if we can explain why there’s evil.

But there’s also the evidential problem of evil. This problem points out that we might be able to explain why evil exists, but we still can’t explain why there’s so much evil in the world. For instance, let’s say that it’s true that we really do need evil in order to understand goodness.

In that case, why can’t we understand the contrast through some sort of low-level evil – like paper cuts and head colds and having to work straight through our lunch hour every now and then? I mean, slow, painful deaths from cancer, and city-destroying hurricanes…

They don’t really add anything valuable to our understanding of goodness. Do they? If God were truly good, and if a negative contrast were really needed in order for us to understand the goodness of the world, then why wouldn’t he give us just the very minimum dosage of necessary to achieve that goal?

A counterargument might suggest that there’s always a good that corresponds to, and is proportionate to, any evil. But empirically, such goodness is really hard to find. What good, for example, could possibly correspond to the horrors of a genocide? In cases like this, Hick’s soul-making doesn’t seem to cut it.

You can’t really argue that “whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” because, sometimes, evil does kill us. A lot of us. And sometimes it kills us before we have a chance to grow and learn from the suffering we’ve endured.

Despite these and other philosophical sticking points, a lot of people have found a theodicy that satisfies them – one that they believe reconciles the apparent evil in the world with God’s existence. Others find all of these theodicies to be flawed, and they reject God’s omni-nature,

Preserving their belief in God by finding him to be less than perfectly powerful, or knowledgeable, or good. Still others are convinced that the evil in the world is simply incompatible with the existence of a god, or at least any god worth worshipping.

Wherever you end up, this is a problem that needs to be grappled with. And you’ll probably be thinking about it long after this lesson has ended. After all, today we have considered the biggest problem in theism – the problem of evil.

We’ve thought about different theodicies – or ways that we might reconcile the existence of evil and the existence of god, and we’ve explored whether those responses are sufficient. Next time, we’ll consider what kinds of justification we need to have for our religious beliefs.

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With the help of these awesome people and our equally fantastic graphics team is Thought Cafe.

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A brief history of the devil – Brian A. Pavlac



Satan, the beast crunching sinners’ bones in his subterranean lair. Lucifer, the fallen angel raging against the established order. Mephistopheles, the trickster striking deals with unsuspecting humans. These three divergent devils are all based on Satan of the Old Testament,

An angelic member of God’s court who torments Job in the Book of Job. But unlike any of these literary devils, the Satan of the Bible was a relatively minor character, with scant information about his deeds or appearance.

So how did he become the ultimate antagonist, with so many different forms? In the New Testament, Satan saw a little more action: tempting Jesus, using demons to possess people, and finally appearing as a giant dragon who is cast into hell. This last image particularly inspired medieval artists and writers,

Who depicted a scaled, shaggy-furred creature with overgrown toenails. In Michael Pacher’s painting of St. Augustine and the Devil, the devil appears as an upright lizard— with a second miniature face glinting on his rear and. The epitome of these monster Satans appeared in Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno.”

Encased in the ninth circle of hell, Dante’s Satan is a three-headed, bat-winged behemoth who feasts on sinners. But he’s also an object of pity: powerless as the panicked beating of his wings only encases him further in ice. The poem’s protagonist escapes from hell by clambering over Satan’s body,

And feels both disgust and sympathy for the trapped beast— prompting the reader to consider the pain of doing evil. By the Renaissance, the devil started to assume a more human form. Artists painted him as a man with cloven hooves and curling horns inspired by Pan, the Greek god of the wild.

In his 1667 masterpiece “Paradise Lost,” English poet John Milton depicted the devil as Lucifer, an angel who started a rebellion on the grounds that God is too powerful. Kicked out of heaven, this charismatic rebel becomes Satan, and declares that he’d rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.

Milton’s take inspired numerous depictions of Lucifer as an ambiguous figure, rather than a purely evil one. Milton’s Lucifer later became an iconic character for the Romantics of the 1800s, who saw him as a hero who defied higher power in pursuit of essential truths, with tragic consequences.

Meanwhile, in the German legend of Doctor Faust, which dates to the 16th century, we get a look at what happens when the devil comes to Earth. Faust, a dissatisfied scholar, pledges his soul to the devil in exchange for bottomless pleasure. With the help of the devil’s messenger Mephistopheles,

Faust quickly seizes women, power, and money— only to fall into the eternal fires of hell. Later versions of the story show Mephistopheles in different lights. In Christopher Marlowe’s account, a cynical Doctor Faustus is happy to strike a deal with Mephistopheles. In Johann Wolfgang van Goethe’s version,

Mephistopheles tricks Faust into a grisly deal. Today, a Faustian bargain refers to a trade that sacrifices integrity for short-term gains. In stagings of Goethe’s play, Mephistopheles appeared in red tights and cape. This version of the devil was often played as a charming trickster— one that eventually paraded through comic books,

Advertising, and film in his red suit. These three takes on the devil are just the tip of the iceberg: the devil continues to stalk the public imagination to this day, tempting artists of all kinds to render him according to new and fantastical visions.

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