The Ethics of Comparison

“Just as the feminist argument rests on the unshakeable rock that justice be done to that half of the race that bears us, so consideration of the other three-quarters or four-fifths of the race must enter into any literary study denominating itself comparative.” (Miner, 11)

In my Religious Studies MA Method and Theory class, we grappled with the dark origins of the discipline- a scholarly enterprise rising out of the desire to show the superiority of Christianity in comparison to all other religions-, and discussed the ethical issues this creates for contemporary scholars. Comparison in this context is a dirty word, unless one explicitly rejects the idea of Truth, and instead focus on diversity and difference. In this case, the word “comparative” is usually dropped in favor of phrases such as “dialogue” or “pluralism.” In the quote above, what does Miner mean by consideration? Justice does not mean simply giving space to “ the other three-quarters or four-fifths of the race.” After all, the early scholars of religion “gave space,” i.e. space on the page in scholarly works, to other religions, but this did not mean it was just.

In response to the Miner readings I want to present a passage by Wendy Doniger for possible consideration in our class discussion:

“My argument here is for the academy, for multicultural, multidisciplinary approaches. I would hope that the respect for 'difference' (and pluralism, and diversity) that prevails in cultural studies would extend to the methodologies within the discipline of the history of religions, and indeed within the academy at large. I have argued against the present trend of studying only one cultural group- Jews, blacks- or, as discussed in chapter 5, only one gender. Now I challenge the trend of limiting those who study any group to those within the group- women studying women, Jews studying Jews- a trend which, if followed slavishly, would automatically eliminate not only y tiny, precious world of cross-cultural comparison but the more general humanism of which it is a part. This is a trend fueled, in large part, by the high moral ground assumed by disciplines, such as feminism and cultural studies, that argue, or imply, that their subject matter (racism, sexism, class struggle, genocide) has such devastating human consequences that there is no room for error or playfulness or the possibility of more than one answer.” (Doniger, 155)

Doniger, Wendy. The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

Doniger came to mind as I was reading the sections on relativism in Miner, and his claim that “the best solution to this problem of controlling relativism known to me is that offered in the first chapter, identification of formally identical features in the things being compared. Even then, success is not ensured, because one may have assumed a degree of identity- of comparability- that in fact does not exist.” (Miner, 232) I find it hard to navigate between the poles of absolute relativism and essentialism, and I would like to deal with this more in class, that is get outside of the dialogue in my head and hear other voices on the issue.