Varieties of crises of faith in governance (A)

Abuse of Faith in Governance: Mystery of the Unasked Question (Part #2)

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A number of these issues have been reviewed in relation to an earlier commentary on "hope-mongering" (Credibility Crunch engendered by Hope-mongering: "credit crunch" focus as symptom of a dangerous mindset, 2008). Subsequent challenges to hope have been notably reviewed by Naomi Klein (Hopebroken and hopesick: Obama fans need a new start, The Guardian, 17 April 2009). As examples of domains of abuse of faith in different forms of governance, the following may be cited:

Faith in declarations of threat: Both governed and governors are dependent on the fiability of declarations of threat and evaluations of the gravity of that threat. The governance catastrophe associated with the intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq, on the basis of classified information -- notably regarding weapons of mass destruction -- has seriously undermined the capacity of government to make threats credible (other than by citing incidents which it may be suspected have been deliberately set up for that purpose). A situation has been created in which it is unclear what threats declared to be the "greatest threat to civilization" or even to "human survival" are credible rather than devices to advance particular agendas such as increasing military, industrial or research budgets. It has also been made clear -- through many fictional presentations -- how important it is from a governance perspective to avoid "creating panic" amongst the population. Thus it is recognized that a genuine threat, such as a predicted strike by an asteroid, may well not be publicized.

Governance now tends to be caught in the dilemma of the tale of the Little Boy Who Cried Wolf -- with the twist that only by ensuring the presence of surrogate wolves can the boy's credibility be established and sustained.

Faith-based governance: Although faith-based governance has been fundamental in centuries past, the tendency towards "separation of church and state" throughout the 20th century has been subject to a strong reversal. In the USA this is evident in the obligation of credible political candidates to indicate their dependence on faith, the political weight of Christian fundamentalism there, and the consequent capacity of George W. Bush to act "on faith" in ordering executions or military intervention. The role of the faith of Tony Blair in relation to the interpretation of evidence for intervention in Iraq has also been noted -- and confirmed by his creation of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. The consequent military and foreign policy disaster has seriously affected the confidence that those governed might have in such forms of faith-based governance.

On the other hand faith-based governance continues to play a very significant role in many countries, to whatever degree it is directly linked to the governance of the state (Future Challenge of Faith-based Governance, 2003). The destructive interplay of the respective covenants of the Abrahamic religions is a key factor in this respect: the Great Commission of Christianity, the implication of the Aleinu of Judaism, the commitment of Islam to extending sharia through jihad.

Aside from any clash of civilizations inspired by such contrasting faiths, the problematic consequences for human suffering are becoming increasingly evident (Root Irresponsibility for Major World Problems: the unexamined role of Abrahamic faiths in sustaining unrestrained population growth, 2007). The unfortunate declarations of the Pope provide a number of examples: with regard to: contraception and AIDS, Holocaust denial, excommunication following rape, etc. It is unfortunate that theologians of the various religions have proved incapable of resolving their differences in more fruitful ways and identifying more fruitful modes of governance respectful of their respective principles. This is alienating many from such faiths.

Faith in the financial system: Following the financial crisis of 2008, the loss of faith in the financial system has been the subject of extensive commentary in terms of loss of credibility and loss of trust, especially the implications for the regulatory governance of the financial system and the complicity of governments in previously sustaining and promoting the illusion of the financial bubble. Its implications for inter-bank lending have been recognized as dramatic. Through the manner in which that crisis has undermined individual life savings, pension funds, and mortgages, people have been obliged to reassess in what it is wise to have confidence. Much institutional effort has subsequently been devoted to "confidence building", unfortunately indistinguishable from the forms of news management ("spin"), typical of the years prior to the crisis, on which governance has proven to have been increasingly dependent. Confidence has been further eroded by basing remedial action on "quantitative easing", previously scornfully deprecated as "printing money".

This loss of faith has been further undermined by the process of identifying the parties responsible for the disaster or in some way complicit in its emergence. Essentially, despite the huge damage to livelihoods, no specific responsibility has been established and there has been little effort to penalize those complicit in the disaster. It has become increasingly apparent that those who might have been assumed to be responsible are again benefitting to a questionable degree from uncurtailed practices variously considered problematic. This has often been made possible by bailouts provided at the expense of taxpayers..

Faith in economic expertise: The financial crisis has severely undermined the credibility of economists who have justified, with few reservations, the whole trend towards globalization and growth, variously packaged and disguised as "development" and promoted by government. Warning signals, such as those of UNICEF's early plea for "adjustment with a human face (Richard Jolly, Adjustment with a Human Face: a UNICEF record and perspective on the 1980s, World Development, 1991) and those indicating the merits of alternatives, have been effectively ignored -- notably by international financial institutions. It is economics of this kind on which longer-term predictions of a stable future for sustainable development are based -- whilst the immediate concerns are framed in terms of short-term growth. The dangers of systemic dependence on growth have become increasingly apparent with the economic consequences in 2009 of the financial crisis of 2008. It is now quite unclear what confidence it is appropriate to place in their predictions of longer-term stability.

The current situation has been remarkably summarized by James K. Galbraith in a statement to the US Senate Judiciary Committee in May 2010 (Why the 'Experts' Failed to See How Financial Fraud Collapsed the Economy, AlterNet, 15 May 2010). Writing as a member of a "disgraced profession", he notes:

Economic theory, as widely taught since the 1980s, failed miserably to understand the forces behind the financial crisis. Concepts including "rational expectations," "market discipline," and the "efficient markets hypothesis" led economists to argue that speculation would stabilize prices, that sellers would act to protect their reputations, that caveat emptor could be relied on, and that widespread fraud therefore could not occur. Not all economists believed this - but most did. Thus the study of financial fraud received little attention. Practically no research institutes exist; collaboration between economists and criminologists is rare; in the leading departments there are few specialists and very few students. Economists have soft- pedaled the role of fraud in every crisis they examined

Faith in intelligence services: The drama of the purported weapons of mass destruction, the suspected implications of massively invasive electronic surveillance, and the amounts of information held classified "for reasons of national security", all combine to undermine confidence that this is being done in the interests of the wider population -- as argued with respect to ECHELON (From ECHELON to NOLEHCE: enabling a strategic conversion to a faith-based global brain, 2007).

Confidence in the intelligence services is further undermined by allegations of their complicity in torture (Rukeyya Khan, UK government to announce torture complicity inquiry, openDemocracy.net, 30 June 2010; Ian Cobain, In seven paragraphs, the proof of MI5 complicity in torture of Binyam Mohamed, The Guardian, 10 February 2010). Further evidence subsequently became available in the form of hundreds of pages of classified documents revealing extent of UK complicity in the illegal abduction and torture following al-Qaida attacks of 2001 (Ian Cobain and Owen Bowcott, Classified documents reveal UK's role in abuse of its own citizens, The Guardian, 15 July 2010; Covert words that paint a vivid picture of complicity in torture, The Guardian, 15 July 2010).

The failure to detect a global threat, which in fact bankrupted the largest US corporations and severely undermined the US economy (beyond the aspirations of any al-Qaida), is an indication of the erosion of faith in services intrinsic to "homeland security". This follows the US Senate's formal assessment of the "failure of imagination" which had characterized the intelligence approach from which it is still endeavouring to learn (Josh Kerbel, Lost for Words: the Intelligence Community's struggle to find its voice. US Army War College Quarterly, Parameters, Summer 2008).

Faith in military services: Military honour has, in the past, been the exemplification of government honour (Honour Essential to Psycho-social Integrity: challenge of dishonourable leadership to the nameless, 2005). Most curiously faith in the military has evolved from the honour, courage and admiration (with which they have previously been strongly associated) to one riven by ambiguity and concern. This evolution has derived from factors such as the indiscriminate use of essentially inhumane weapons (white phosphorous, thermobaric, etc), facile labelling of profiled "suspects" as legitimate targets (notably to reframe civilian causalities), careless slaughter of civilians (wedding parties, etc), maximizing lack of personal engagement (use of drones, etc) in the face of an enemy prepared to die for a cause, concealment of the scope and consequences of military action (Faluja, etc), extensive use of covert and "black flag" operations, apparent shame associated with those killed or wounded (prohibition of media coverage), dubious statistics of civilians casualties, complicity in abuse of civilians and prisoners (rape, Abu Ghraib, etc). This evolution is notably manifest in attitudes towards veterans. There is a special irony in relation to the declared commitment to winning any wars of "hearts and minds" and rebuilding confidence.

Especially problematic has been the exposure to the supremely confident declarations of a succession of generals taking command of forces in Afghanistan over a decade -- declarations which can only be subsequently understood as having been singularly arrogant and exhibiting an irresponsible degree of ignorance of the situation, whatever briefings they had received. It remains to be seen how history will evaluate the military incompetence of the coalition of NATO forces in Afghanistan, despite access to unprecedented military equipment and faced with what has repeatedly been framed as a disorganized group of poory trained and poorly equipped insurgents.

Faith in police and security services: The traditionally challenging interface between police and public has been further undermined by the range of high profile cases of miscarriage of justice (tampering with evidence, forced confessions, etc). Publicity regarding the disproportionate violence in the handling of public demonstrations has caused many questions to be raised, notably in relation to major summit meetings (London, 2009), especially when police are effectively empowered to act with impunity (Genoa, 2001). The conflation of public demonstration and terrorism under recent anti-terrorism legislation (detention powers, stop-and-search, etc) has also discredited the security services, especially when such powers are abused. The invasive and omni-present use of CCTV has also undermined the relation with the police -- especially when such facilities are not used as evidence for abuse by police. Erosion of confidence in the police is unfortunately symbolized by the conviction of the former president of Interpol, Jackie Selebi, of corruption for accepting bribes from organised crime (South African ex-Interpol chief convicted of corruption, Yahoo News, 2 July 2010).

Faith in clergy: Revelations regarding sexual and others forms of abuse by clergy, previously upheld as providers of the most trustworthy guidance to the faithful in many communities, have been especially harmful to people of religious faith. Their faith has been further undermined by the reported systematic avoidance and cover-up of the issue within religious hierarchies and their framing of it in terms of isolated cases (the "bad apple" argument). The 40-year policy of cover-up is now known to have been reinforced by specific instructions, notably by the Pope in 2005 (in his previous  capacity), to ensure that any investigation was undertaken in the strictest confidence (Row over Vatican order to conceal priests' sex abuse, The Guardian, 18 August 2003; Pope 'obstructed' sex abuse inquiry, The Guardian, 24 April 2005; Will Ratzinger's past trump Benedict's present? The National Catholic Reporter, 27 March 2010). A devastating indictment of the way the Vatican has run a secret legal system that shields paedophile priests from criminal trial around the world has been articulated by Geoffrey Roberston (The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse, 2010).

A 2,600 page report of a 9-year inquiry (Towards Redress and Recovery: The Ryan Report, 2009; Executive Summary) notes that thousands of boys and girls were raped and abused in Catholic schools in Ireland over a periodi of 60 years (Henry McDonald, 'Endemic' rape and abuse of Irish children in Catholic care, inquiry finds, The Guardian, 20 May 2009; Madeleine Bunting, An abuse too far by the Catholic church, The Guardian, 21 May 2009). This was followed by the Murphy Report (November 2009), the result of the public inquiries conducted by Ireland into the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin. In a Vatican statement of September 2009 it was acknowledged that: We know now that in the last 50 years somewhere between 1.5% and 5% of the Catholic clergy has been involved in sexual abuse cases.

The question is whether the abuse has been "endemic" worldwide, beyond the documented cases in the USA and Australia, and why the report on "Ireland" does not draw attention to this possibility given that a number of the religious orders investigated are international in scope. The conclusions of the report, and the process which gave rise to it, can be usefully be seen as illustrative of the manner in which faith may be abused by governance in other domains. It is therefore appropriate to note points made by Bunting in her summary (which specifically notes the discredited "bad apple" defence):

This could not be worse. The Ryan report is the stuff of nightmares. It's the adjectives which chill: systemic, pervasive, chronic, excessive, arbitrary, endemic. They pretty much tell the whole story of the violence and sexual abuse suffered by a generation of some of the most vulnerable children in Ireland over several decades of the middle of the 20th century. This is a crisis for Ireland - Irish bloggers yesterday were describing the scandal as their equivalent of the Holocaust - but it is also a crisis for global Catholicism....

The report rightly challenges the relevant religious orders to "examine how their ideals became debased" and why it was that they consistently put the interests of their institutions before individuals. The report is so damning, not just in dealing with the past, but on how it calls up short present behaviour - the lamentable reluctance of the religious orders to engage with the inquiry or fully accept their role....

These bred a preoccupation with maintaining the prestige and authority of church institutions; any threat to that priority - regardless of the cost to the welfare of individuals - had to be stifled. These are the characteristics which have made the Catholic church morally bankrupt.

As with other cases of abuse of faith, the fundamental issue is the responsibility of the person to whom the institutions were beholden and from whom they derived their moral authority -- in this case the Pope. This example is especially challenging at a time when efforts are being made by Pope Benedict XVI towards the canonisation of Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) -- notably responsible through much of the period of the above abuse -- already challenged by his "silence" regarding a more extreme form of abuse during the Holocaust. The popes subsequently responsible over the period of abuse covered by the Ryan Report include John XXIII (1958-1963), since beatified, and Paul VI (1963-1978), whose beatification was initiated in 1993, and John Paul I (1978), whose canonisation has been variously proposed, as with that of John Paul II (1978-2005). Concerns have been expressed at the unseemly haste of such initiatives, given the circumstances (Tom Kington, Protests mount over fast track for John Paul's beatification, The Guardian, 23 April 2011).

In the light of the scandal, and of the unrelated tensions regarding the issue of ordination of women, the Vatican framed the attempted ordination of women in the same category as clerical abuse of minors, and looking at child pornography -- making all subject to "defrocking" and excommunication (John Hooper, Vatican makes attempted ordination of women a grave crime, The Guardian, 15 July 2001). The announcement immediately followed disclosure of a further scandal in Belgium involving police investigation of clergy and a bishop forced to resign (Doreen Carvajal and Stephen Castle, Abuse Took Years to Ignite Belgian Clergy Inquiry, New York Times, 12 July 2010). Curiously, given the formal provision for excommunication by the Catholic Church, and its recent use in other instances, those recognized to have committed such abuses have effectively been rendered incommunicado rather than being excommunicated -- some even transferred to functions within the Vatican as a protection from the law (A leader who wished to end the crisis would sack Cardinal Bernard Law, The Guardian, 17 March 2010).

Despite papal infallibiliy, given the lack of papal perspicacity with regard to such abuse, it is appropriate for the faithful to ask on what other issues papal judgment may be flawed (cf Begetting: challenges and responsibilities of overpopulation, 2007). It is noteworthy that more Catholic resources have been devoted down the years to covering up reported abuses than to exploring such possibilities. As a consequence, the final form of the Ryan Report is already perceived by those abused to be a cover-up (Steve James, Irish child abuse: The Ryan Report cover-up,  World Socialist Web Site, 26 May 2009).

Given the problematic tradition of the involvement of the clergy in the Inquisition, it is very difficult for outsiders to appreciate the role of military chaplains in relation to those performing analogous interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, or to the interrogated, as described in two complementary accounts by Stephen Mansfield (The Faith of the American Soldiers, 2005) and James Yee (For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire, 2005).

Faith in science: Much has been made of the historical transition from the dominance of knowledge by religious faith to dominance of rationalism -- as exemplified by science. However science is now recognized as facing a number of challenges to the extent that official roles are now considered appropriate to enhance public understanding of it. Such challenges derive from a number of factors: intimate involvement of much research in support of questionable military agendas, investment of massive amounts of public funds in questionable physics and space projects, "scientific" whaling, evidence of public funding of research considered trivial or absurd (as publicized by the Ig Noble Prize), challenges from religion regarding intelligent design and creationism, publicized cases of scientific fraud, questionable aspects of the peer review process, distortion of conventional research by commercial criteria (not applied to the most costly mega-projects), inability to relate proactively to other approaches to knowledge. These are variously described in End of Science: the death knell as sounded by the Royal Society (2008). Also significant is the inability of disciplines deemed "scientific" to resolve their methodological differences in the interest of a significantly more integrative approach to the problems faced by humanity. Whilst "science", through particular disciplines and their associated technologies, has proven competent with respect to the challenges of narrowly bounded systems, it has not proven competent with respect to the complex systems which characterize the current world problematique.

With respect to the peer review process, Anthony Gottlieb (The Limits of Science, Intelligent Life, Autumn 2010) notes:

Most laymen probably assume that the 350-year-old institution of 'peer review', which acts as a gatekeeper to publication in scientific journals, involves some attempt to check the articles that see the light of day. In fact they are rarely checked for accuracy, and, as a study for the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think-tank, reported last year, 'the data and computational methods are so seldom disclosed that post-publication verification is equally rare.' Journals will usually consider only articles that present positive and striking results, and scientists need constantly to publish in order to keep their careers alive. So it is that, like the late comedian Danny Kaye, professional scientists sometimes get their exercise by jumping to conclusions.

Gottlieb then adds:

In a recent book, 'Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us -- And How to Know When Not to Trust Them, David Freedman, an American business and science journalist, does a sobering job of reviewing dozens of studies of ignorance, bias, error and outright fraud in recent academic science. He notes that discredited research is regularly cited in support of other research, even after it has been discredited.

The theme is the focus of a study by Dan Gardner (Future Babble: why expert prediction fail -- and why we believe them anyway, 2010).

Through the acrimonious global warming debate, and the much-publicized "Climategate" crisis, "science" has lost much credibility through the reported actions of climate change scientists. As noted by Fred Pearce: Science has been changed forever by the so-called "climategate" saga ('Climategate' was 'a game-changer' in science reporting, say climatologists, The Guardian, 4 July 2010). However the third report into the matter (The Independent Climate Change Email Review, 2010) cleared scientists of accusations that they fudged their results and silenced critics, but found they had failed to be open enough about their work (David Adam, Climategate scientists cleared of manipulating data on global warming, The Guardian, 8 July 2010; 'Climategate' report: the main points, The Guardian, 8 July 2010). One remaining difficulty for any critics, however, is whether the independence of those undertaking the review could be satisfactorily proven. The debate continues.

Faith in medicine: Huge advances have been made by the medical sciences from which many continue to benefit. The medical profession is however seriously challenged by a range of factors which have undermined faith in it. This is most evident with respect to medical malpractice (whether inadvertent or deliberate), the increasingly exorbitant cost of delivery of medical care, the associated complicity with the commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry, the questionable deprecation and marginalization of other (potentially cheaper or more accessible) approaches to health care on which people may be obliged to depend, the association of medical research with inhumane treatment of millions of laboratory animals each year, together with (complicity of medical research with questionable interrogation methods (recalling those of Josef Mengele). Concern continues, even within the medical profession, regardoing the current complicity of its members with torture (Physicians for Human Rights, Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the 'Enhanced' Interrogation Program, 2010).

Health care effectively faces a challenge analogous to the famed "clash of civilizations" in the continuing battle between "allopathic" and "homeopathic" variants, as such constituting a metaphor of a more general challenge (Remedies to Global Crisis: "Allopathic" or "Homeopathic"? Metaphorical complementarity of "conventional" and "alternative" models, 2009). The vaunted evidence-based objectivity of medicine (in deprecating non-allopathic treatment) is also called into question through its systematic opposition to arguments for voluntary euthanasia -- when a high proportion of health care expenditure (from which the profession directly benefits) is associated with prolonging life as long as possible, irrespective of the condition or desires of the patient.

The implications of the complicity of the pharmaceutical undustry and medical professions with the World Heakth Organization in determining appropriate treatment has been made evident in the case of information regarding the dangers of the swine flu epidemic in 2009, concerns about its exaggeration, and reports regarding the powers of WHO to impose forced vaccination worldwide under Article 21 of its Constitution.Analysts report that pharmaceutical companies banked more than $7 billion following the pressure on governments to stockpile drugs. Given that a high percentage of health professionals in the UK, for example, are refusing to be vaccinated, it becomes unclear from whom objective information  an be confidently obtained. The collusion and complicity of various parties is now the subject of various inquiries (Rob Stein, Reports accuse WHO of exaggerating H1N1 threat, possible ties to drug makers, Washington Post, 4 June 2010; Randeep Ramesh, Report condemns swine flu experts' ties to big pharma, The Guardian, 4 June 2010). As Stein notes with respect to the damage to the credibility of the WHO:

The WHO's response caused widespread, unnecessary fear and prompted countries around the world to waste millions of dollars, according to one report. At the same time, the Geneva-based arm of the United Nations relied on advice from experts with ties to drug makers in developing the guidelines it used to encourage countries to stockpile millions of doses of antiviral medications, according to the second report.

As with science in general, the science behind pharaceutical research is now faced with a credibility problem, as noted by Ben Goldacre (Don't like your findings? Spin them away, The Guardian, 24 July 2010) describing the confrontation by GlaxoSmithKline with an unflattering meta-analysis summarising the results of all 56 trials on one of their treatments in which negative results were delberately minimized (Ben Goldacre, Diabetes drug 'victory' is really an ugly story about incompetence, The Guardian, 17 July 2010). He notes the systematic inquiry into this tendency in formal academic research (Isabelle Boutron, et al. Reporting and Interpretation of Randomized Controlled Trials With Statistically Nonsignificant Results for Primary Outcomes, Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, 2010, 303, pp. 2058-2064). As summarized by Leslie Citrome, The Spin Cycle in Scientific Publishing: Is It Necessary to Have Positive Results to Get Published? Medscape Psychiatry and Mental Health, 12 July 2010), this research concluded:

Spin was identified in the Results and Conclusions sections of the abstracts of 27 (37.5%) and 42 (58.3%) reports, respectively, with the conclusions of 17 (23.6%) focusing only on treatment effectiveness. Spin was identified in the main-text Results, Discussion, and Conclusions sections of 21 (29.2%), 31 (43.1%), and 36 (50.0%) reports, respectively. More than 40% of the reports had spin in at least 2 of these sections in the main text. The conclusion was that in this representative sample of RCTs published in 2006 with statistically nonsignificant primary outcomes, the reporting and interpretation of findings were frequently inconsistent with the results.

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