Good afternoon and welcome, everybody, to our fifth or fifth week of this term.
The third meeting of our Israel Studies Seminar. I'm very happy to present to you our speaker today.
We were hoping to have both Peres and you and your buddy who have co-written the work that will be discussed this afternoon.
But Roger Bundy could not attend for some personal reasons. So I very happy to present to you his co-author,
John Peres was associate professor in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University in a field of research include toleration,
pluralism, religion and state religious relations and the rectification of past wrongs.
He is the author of Freedom for Past Injustices A Critical Evaluation of Claims of Intergenerational Reparations.
And he is the co-author, which was Ubani of Women of the World Navigating Religion in Sacred Sites.
You may have seen the national present, this work here under my predecessor, Rick Penzler,
and lately with you and your money again governing the sacred political toleration in five contested sacred sites,
which is also the title of the talk today. Thank you for joining us.
Let me send you live. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Professor, I've you have got an old friend for inviting me to you present this smoke at your seminar.
Thank you for people attending. I mean, I can't see you in person.
So this is a slightly odd experience, but I hope to be able to enjoy it nonetheless.
And so I also want to mention it is called a joint kind of research call also by myself and Yuval Jovani and I couldn't be here, unfortunately.
So I hope Daljeet. OK, so so so did the Turkish state of governing the secret models of political toleration in contested sacred sites.
And the cover of the new book published by Oxford is right rattly on the slides.
So. So this is the TLC. So this is what we presented today.
So refix Filatov remarks a little bit about the definition from contested sacred sites to six sites.
Then a little bit about methodology, then the models.
And why do we need to do models do for us and the five models of governance of contested sacred sites.
Non-interference. Divide and separate preference. Second, all the models,
which is that this square closure and then some concluding remarks and then I'll be happy to take any questions that you might have.
So let's let's let's start with some explanatory remarks.
So we are that the topic is contessa's sacred sites that reside in public spaces or sites,
and they pose a difficult challenge for states to govern or to manage.
There are many times the source of conflict and violence does very little material normative analysis regarding such sites.
So in what way? This presentation provides a short version of our book Governing the Sacred Political Declaration in five Contessa's Sacred
Sites and represent and not a novel typology of mapping of the models to use to govern such sites within Democratic controls.
Yet as a listing of a context of theology, I'll explain what that means.
And second, and following the broader assessment of the various models.
So these are sites located in public spaces that are sacred or significant of these two groups.
These groups compete over ownership, access, usage rights, permissible religious conduct management,
allocation of space time slices and many other aspects of such sites.
Some examples of the bubble, the magician up and Boyd from Uttar Pradesh, India, the Temple Mount, Ahmed Sharif from Jerusalem,
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from Jerusalem, Devastator National Monument from Wyoming and others will discuss during this talk.
So these are some of those sites read some left or right.
So we have to Devil's Tower up there, Bubley Majia in the middle, then the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Temple Mount.
So these are the sites that correspond to the models, you know, research.
So we suggest to define such sites as fixed sites. We follow a little bit.
Clifford Gilt's in his famous thick description kind of approach.
But we applied to sites, so they fixed site within not a site typically, but not necessarily religious,
which is loaded with different than incompatible meanings that are attributed to it by different agents from this agent's view.
Such meanings are highly significant because sequentially these sites are irreplaceable.
So the definition of a fixed site suggests for made major features of such sites being loaded with different meanings incompatibility.
And you replace ability as Central City and Eteocles ability.
So, so.
How do we build the categories in the models? How do we go from a site with specific histories and cultural context to a model?
So in our research we attempt to move in a context, sensitive fashion from the details of the various case studies.
So the sites to a more general understanding of the category of governance methods of contested sacred sites,
we found that the best way to understand and create such categories of denoted governance models is to examine actual case studies.
Some examples include, as I mentioned, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the bubble in Majida on the bullet, the Western Wall and others.
We limit our exploration to those models that are within democratic norms so broadly conceived.
So theocracy is an oppressive secularism are excluded, right?
It's not that they're not interested. It just couldn't include them in one research.
David. Well, different analysis. The models.
So why do we need models so models can be described as simplified?
I to like an approximation of a given piece of targeted reality.
The models illustrated in a parsimonious way of approximations or idealisation lummox level of mux, more complex sights, events in histories.
The main test of such modelling is the ability to classify Nanase yet himself cases into denoted models using the lessons of
the godding examined in classified cases and categories to better understand not as yet observed new models for the cases.
Models of what governance models of contested sacred sites or sites in which models antonello typology.
So have five models. Non-interference. Divide and separate referents.
And the two second order models. I'll explain the concept in a few slides.
Status quo and closure. So let's begin with the first model.
So the first model is non-interference. And in this category,
the state does not manage a given contested secret site in any religiously
relevant way or in any way that follows the doctrine of a particular religion.
The state or the government maintains law and order.
And if the need arises, utilises an usher function as in a museum or theatre or similar coordination enabling tool, but nothing else.
Religious worship and understandings are left to the believers themselves.
The location, physical structure and the call remain as is.
With alterations made only on non religious grounds. Fixing the bathrooms.
Okay, that's all. This categorically lies on the brother model of separation of religion and state.
However, and this is kind of a general comment on the five models.
That is not necessarily a linkage between a model adopted at a given fixed sites
and the general religion state model in the country in which the site resides.
The reason is that fixed sites, kind of special locations that require a specified treatment.
Non-interference. So continue. So the brief example is Devil's Tower in Wyoming and states.
There is no state enforced limits on religious practise. There is a voluntary ban on climbing the site during the month of June.
And does the site. So does a signal. But there's no coercion.
The advantages of the model given hydrogen dorji anything that heterogeneity of beliefs held by citizens.
The state treats all citizens with equal concern and respect.
The government avoids complex in tandem with religion.
It protects the mother, protects religions from the heavy hand of the state.
The mother avoids factionalism. So there's no picking winners. It's fairly simple to implement.
It promotes the free market of religions, which is advantageous for religions and delivers disadvantages.
So the model raises fears of violence or a backlash? Well, we better quality is found quite often in the literature, not carefully defined.
We define it as the threat of violence could and perhaps should justify the maintenance of a given restrictive of
inegalitarian governance model at a fixed site that is biased in favour of affection that may otherwise resort to violence.
Now we think that that important reasons to reject the backlash argument, sometimes on empirical grounds sometimes and more grounds.
But it is often indicated and should be acknowledged by the 90 Fields model is introduced.
Second model, divide and separate, so such a policy includes the following three features.
The state recognises relevant parties and groups. It divides the thick side and separates a different supplications via the creation and
maintenance of clear and recognised physical or temporal boundaries within such sites.
In order to avoid collisions between parties, this policy is.
If you're looking for kind of legal or mobile routes for this model, that the roots are an even handedness and even handed models.
The government is expected to provide resources to religious groups as long as it treats all religions in a similar fair and equitable manner.
The versions on this model little challenge your comments.
First of Toronto, but also a non-profit adventurism, which is a kind of foam, has long history in American political and legal history.
Brief example, the bubble of Majida. No boy was supposed to be divided to three factions, two Hindu groups, one Muslim group.
However, recently, right at India's Supreme Court has since decided that entire side will be given to him.
The groups. The advantages of the model is it avoids direct collisions between religious groups at the given site.
Right. It aims to be inclusive and fair. Decided unburdens the state from the need to reach further and religiously significant decisions.
And it introduces a straightforward rebellion, bureaucratic institution and does a version of this.
In the case of the party, a couple up and down the can actually see when you reach a protocol.
There were barely a bureaucratic kind of translation off off of this model just confirmed.
Interesting. And it's easy for governments because you can teach it to soldiers on the ground, to police officers and so on,
and challenges that the government needs to do quite a lot here to identify the different groups,
to set the rules of religious practise in the way to limit religious liberty.
Although that is debateable and it's an end state solution that is it's very, very strict.
It does not provide further space for negotiations.
It does exclude unrecognised groups because don't quite often more groups than slices of of of of policy to be allocated.
It introduces the entanglement of religion and state. So there are also challenges for the model.
Third model preference.
So in this category, the state identifies with one denomination and provides sample financial commitment to it in a given fixed site.
The state provide the state or the government provides a given group with a plus financial standing.
This can include possession, usage, rights management, symbolic and other means.
So does a menu rich menu of techniques. Preference, however, does not extend to complete exclusion of none selected groups,
so otherwise it would become the mother of closure and the kind of only lies in what
we call the religious Majola diet approach it adopts as its point of departure.
Declare that there are substantial majorities in some countries that share cultural and religious understandings,
which typically reflect longstanding traditions. Such majorities.
The religious Majuba tion approach argues,
can legitimately used governmental policies and resources to advance their religious and cultural traditions as long as such
policies do not violate the core liberties and rights of minority groups of non-observant members of Desmonte majority groups.
If you're interested in the further details on the religious maduka down and push
to have a different article published in Religion which details this approach.
Should one of the main advocates of this approach is David Miller used to be at Oxford.
So nice. The name and brief example with got to fixed sites is the Western one Jerusalem with the express advantage given to Google Orthodox Judaism,
for example, in the size of the Pearl Plaza and other buttholes introduced or that apply to
dislocation advantages that it expresses their religious majority and an approach.
So whatever arguments are that support the other may well support the preference model.
The challenge as it is inegalitarian. Why is a religious Majola tion approach important, doesn't big debate about this model?
It's very difficult to create distinctions between in egalitarianism and impermissible discrimination.
So the limits to majoritarianism. Right, are at play here.
It's from two, I would say, bring about dissatisfaction for minority groups and especially given the hypersensitivity of fixed sites.
And it entails the entanglement of religion states so often with close relations between religion states that can be detrimental to both sides.
Obviously. OK. Second, all the models.
So the two following model status quo closure of second older models.
Second, all the models of decisions as defined by Kazakhstan,
the legal professor from Harvard and the like, and the old one, it was a philosophy professor at Hebrew.
You defined it jointly, kind of philosophical.
But second,
all the decisions will defer to decisions about the appropriate strategy for reducing the problems associated with making it first order decision.
Second, all the decisions does involve the strategies that people use in order to avoid
getting into an ordinary decision making situation in the first instance.
So the first all the decision here would be to reach a decision with regard to
the veracity of the claims regarding ownership and usage rights in thick sites.
So this is what second all the models wish to avoid.
You can hear me and dance until you see me properly, right?
OK. That's I'll never get used to this, you know, impersonal kind of technology.
OK. Thank you. Okay. So the first. Second or the models.
And that is status quo. So the status quo model refers to a governmental attempt to maintain an existing state of affairs with regard
to conflicting claims to usage rights and ownership claims raised by competing groups in thick sites.
Now, this model, unlike the free preceding models, is not uncaught in a general approach to religion, state relations.
This is a model developed and maintained for the purposes of governing contested sacred sites,
most famously with regard to the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. Advantages.
So, as you can expect from a second order model it unburdens the state functions.
It is ill equipped to handle or manage.
That is, sorting out claims and counterclaims going back hundreds of years regarding rates of possession and usage.
But very quickly, the level of information that deteriorates. So the statistical model simply says you don't have to worry about anything.
Right. Just follow the rules of the status quo. Be such court, the status quo.
That's the second kind of important advantage, attempts to bring about stability.
If the government cannot be recruited to promote a given religious groups demand for larger slices of ownership or usage rights,
no to repress other religious groups at a relevant Secrett fixed site.
The conflict is expected to become less radical and less violent.
Furthermore, the status quo creates a set of clearcut boundaries and rules to be followed by the relevant parties.
The management of a fixed site is transformed into a bureaucratic commission.
You simply follow the rules of the status quo and you ignore questions of holiness or sacredness, of godly intervention and all that is put aside.
So that's an advantage of the status quo challenges.
So the status quo is not consent based, right? It's not necessarily fair or even handed.
It usually reflects the results of various past power struggles.
Crystallise into a state decree. At one point. And unavoidably is a substantive decision regarding religion and ethnic,
it neglects the religious liberties of unrecognised groups and of individuals not belonging to the recognised groups.
It's not completely clear with it whether this is a cynic and not for the achievement of stability.
And some critics argue that the universal ability of status quo agreements
might cause resentment amongst groups who are disadvantaged by the status quo.
It increases coordination costs, making them almost impossible. And finally, the disagreements have gotten.
The rules of the status quo can be fierce. And with regard to D to the example of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Right. The status quo is emergent in certain decrees issued by the Ottoman Empire.
And it was the result indeed of various past power struggles, has nothing to do with fairness or even handedness or so forth.
So in the case, provides a good example to the two that critique.
Final model closure. So the last model to be examined is closure.
So this model, the government's. Restricts access to end of religious practise in six sites,
usually as a response to severe and often violent clashes amongst competing groups
at the site or because of the high likelihood such clashes are about to kill.
Now, the model has several variants. First one is, is partiality.
If the model is partially implemented,
that is if the government chooses to restrict access for the limited period of duling sensitive events selectively implemented in
situations in which the restriction is levied on some but not all groups wishing to worship at a given site or fully implemented.
If the site is is is permanently closed to all religious factions, some brief examples of them of selective control.
The bubble in magic number boy from India. There was no religious practise allowed, said one Hindu faction, for a long period.
So that selective closure, the Temple Mount has different versions of selective closure and the main one and the most famous ones.
The Jewish prayer is banned and occasionally mix a Muslim and filled in prayer and the advantages of the closure,
which is a little bit of a blunt instrument. I have to say, is avoidance of violence.
So you use it when the circumstances are urgent.
I would say in the book we have a long discussion of the precautionary principle,
which is the kind of intellectual device used in such and such cases.
And so avoidance of balance. It unburdens to state from the need to look more substantial decisions and give an exact.
And challenges. Well, violation of religious liberty.
You don't allow people to access or worship at a given site.
Aside from really rare cases, it lacks proportionality. It is illegal to tell and leave indiscriminately in cases of selective closure.
And does a debate whether such a drastic measures are self-defeating?
Because, as you know, if you have young children taking the way, it makes it more desirable.
Right. So it just makes you do wish to access and worship at a given site more urgent.
And then the the measure itself can be counterproductive.
And it's you suggest. I would say for a limited period of time.
So this is kind of a blunt instrument to be used in specified circumstances.
OK. Concluding remarks. Right.
And so the advantage of creating that, a policy of governance model.
So it improved understanding of the arrangements at particular sites. It can now go to specification, enables the components in different cases.
And hopefully it's useful for decision makers.
And we also have, I think, a pluralist conclusion, I think is somewhat different than the other major book in the field that perhaps a document.
Q And can explain. I can explain more so that there is no one size fits all model.
Rather, the evaluation of the faith between a site and a model must be contextualised.
And that's about it. So thank you so much for your attention and I'm looking forward to your questions.
Thank you, Sean. Let me just remind our audience you're most welcome to submit your questions through the Q&A option on your team's app.
If you prefer not to be identified, just leave it as anonymous or put your name if you want to,
the name to be mentioned until people maybe think about what they have to ask you.
And I'm sure. May I just ask you to just bring home your conclusion to the.
How is that immediate experience of the Israeli-Palestinian situation?
Um, do you see this model's business as potentially solving detentions surrounding the Temple Mount,
Harm Sharif and and and the Hebron Moscow maritime umbrella?
Yes, I think you should actually do it. So a technical question. I'm your address.
Should I just stop sharing what you're not sharing now?
And it's fine. And it's very nice to see you speak. Okay. So let me start kicking you.
Okay. Now I can see you and can you see me and hear me? Yes. OK, as you can see how insecure you've got the technology.
I mean, last night, was it not so. Well, actually, I was at Topsfield and we had to be in conversation.
And this is so alienating. OK. So your question, your question in soda bottles.
And am. Well, I'll put it up, put it in a different way.
So what we had in the literature on Cortesio sacred sites prior to this book, right.
Were two kinds of research. One was intensive studies of single cases.
So some of them were fantastic. So Raymond Cohen's book on the Church of Dr Sepulchre and several books on the bubble Majid did.
This fantastic because they are difficult to write. Right.
And you have to be a lot of research and archives and so on, so forth. They provide lots of information on one single case.
Usually historians. Right. And the second kind of jonell.
Well, it's led by Ron Haskins book, which you probably know, which is kind of deductive in nature.
He had a very strong intuition that Secrett ties cannot be divided or shared.
What you need is kind of Ferb hopes, your suffering, Radka, imposing certain governance model.
And you have to be heavy handed. The government has to be like, think of a heavy hand, you know, kind of setting down the rules of the game.
And this did that was the state of the of the field.
And we wanted to do something else. First of all, we wanted to just better understand a menu of options and that and for that,
we needed to kind of look at the intensive studies of single cases and to elucidate
from them models that can be compared and can be used in different circumstances.
And second, as you know, visibly, one huskiness view.
We didn't want to do a deductive war. We wanted to look at X job cases.
And I think that our conclusion is slightly more optimistic because that was very pessimistic.
Says you have to have a heavy handed involvement, and that's all that is.
Everything else is fantasy's by people who really are not realistic enough about the about conflict.
And one of the things that I think that may answer to your question is that we now have a kind of the wide menu of options.
Right. That can be used in that menu did not exist before.
So some of the some of the some of the models are more modern deliberative traditions to come to feel.
And some of them are more attuned to more difficult seem to seek consensus and kogyo.
But did I need improvement? Because before that decision made Kemp or professor, I think people did not have any other option.
So now at least you can choose. So from that perspective, that's an improvement.
Thank you. We have a question from our friend, Matteo Renzi.
Are you in Venice now? Good to see you. At least the online metro is asking.
Have you looked at the examples of transition from one model to the other?
And he adds that you're right. It's much better to do it in person in Oxford. And, you know, at one point, hopefully am.
So they all cases. So there are two kinds of transitions.
One is from one government to the next government. And if you look at those cases that the models are pretty up, do not change.
So if you think of the of the status quo in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. So the same model.
Right. The Ottoman Empire, the British mandate, Jordan,
then the state of Israel and all those did very different countries and ruling countries of descent did not touch the model.
So the models are pretty robust. Right. But there's a reason why.
I mean, what prime minister would want you to amend or change the status quo agreement on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?
That will be an interesting thing to see. There are some cases in which the models shift.
So, for example, in the Bubley Majid there a change in the model.
It used to be selected closure. And then the decision was to do evenhandedness.
And now it's becoming an, I would say, once one sided ownership.
It's kind of for closure in a way.
So there are cases like that and it needs to be seen and further researched how to what influence those changes introduced.
What do we have now that we didn't have before is we have names for the models that we've changed.
So now we can put them into an empirical analytical research. So does this have some kind of film, a fruit of this research?
Another question from Marcus. Could you say a little more about the application of the model of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre and how is it not being the site of interest to Judaism?
Come compete with the other Jerusalem sites that are sacred, both of the truth.
So the so. That's a good question. Right. So so in a way.
One of the things that will interesting to us is the person that holds the keys for the Church of the Sepulchre is a Muslim.
Right. And sometimes when the ruling party has his stake see the side, it becomes more complex.
Right. And so that's kind of that. That's interesting indeed.
When when the British mandate. Right. To cover Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire,
there were real worries from certain factions that the church of also book
that the British Empire would play an active role in how the site is governed.
So anyway, the fact that the governing party right.
Does not have a stake in a given site executive actually makes it less complicated to govern because it it's kind of impartial.
All the governing party wants is social order and stability.
Right. So do governing those sites become really troublesome when when the governing the governing
party attempts to shift the model towards the party with which it identifies once?
That's not the case. Everything counts. Less sounds problematic.
Mark is asking a follow up question. Does the site of the Last Supper in the Old City fit your model?
I actually was there, but actually not sure about the particular site, I'm willing to have a look and see.
Usually the most Christian sites and also in in the Old City in Jerusalem fall under the city's of school agreements.
And but I'm not sure about that one. I can cheque.
And let's move on to another question.
The question is from an anonymous participant to do you approach sacred sites without contextualising their historical or sociopolitical conditions?
The problem in Al-Aqsa or the Abara mosque is that they are under settler colonial occupation.
How you treat these sites must account for the simple fact that Israel is a racist occupier.
How do your model's account for their colonial reality? So I think what's interesting about about the governance models of contested sacred
site is that they are compatible with many different regimes and kinds of government.
So the example goes back to all the time is the church of Thought of sepulchre.
So governments and regardless of their identity, usually treat those sites very carefully because they're explosive.
Right. People fight wars about those sites and they can be used to bring about lots of social unrest.
So the D the general mode of governance and the way those sites are governed are usually completely different.
And I think in the case of the de Patriarca, that's actually a good example because there a divide and separate arrangement taking place and that
it is quite a lot of cooperation between Jews and Muslims indicate in the Cave of the Patriarchs.
So I think these two things should be thought of as two separate issues.
I think not only if I can, again, take the prerogative and ask you another question, to what degree do you think the motives you present,
it goes back to actually to Mattel's language question, I'm sorry to say, concerning transition.
So to what degree are these models, in a sense, bound to what you call the earlier hope to be a Hobbesian concept of sovereignty?
Are these questions solved or seen differently in different understanding of sovereignty?
Let's say was the empire. I'm thinking about this differently than the nation state.
So am I. So the short answer would be no.
Because the saying the same concerns about those sites repeat themselves over and over again.
And when you read some of the literature on contested sacred sites from many different sites,
many different periods and many different governments and democratic and non-democratic and in,
we went over many such documents in the Indian context, in the Israeli Palestinian contacts, in the British modern context,
we read many reports and many court decisions and often kind of share the wolly that those sites are.
It can be a serious source of social discontent and social disorder.
And so they were very careful about about how to deal with them.
One interesting thing that we found in some of the most interesting models will not talk down.
So unlike what has known far, but there will button up.
So some of the most interesting arrangement actually came from local.
I would say initiatives to how to approach those sites.
And when we look at them, we thought about it in Awesomes Walk on the tragedy of the Commons when she
said that sometimes governmental involvement is unnecessary and even harmful.
The government is far away, doesn't understand the local conditions. Local people can reach certain agreements.
And when you look at some of the most promising solutions that bottom up, for example, the voluntary ban, although climbing at the Devil's Tower.
Right. That's a local initiative. So people want to climb it, but it's sacred.
It's a sacred indigenous location. But the indigenous people did not want the government to impose a ban because
they said that that would not express proper respect towards our tradition.
The way to express proper respect told our tradition, if someone understands our tradition and changes here, his or her behaviour accordingly.
So the issue of the voluntary ban and we look at the data of how many how many
persons climbed the devil's tower after the debate was introduced and the numbers,
as far as we saw, went down considerably. So there was no need for the Hopsin Huston area, kind of heavy hand.
And this was for us, kind of an encouraging perspective. Right.
And it will not solve all conflicts on the sacred sites, but it's a helpful mechanism.
Have a whole classification of those mechanisms, signalling and nudging and ushering and so on.
So forth. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. I just want to comment that when you think of a bottom up reaction, you can also.
Well, unfortunately,
the Israeli Palestinian case also offers you examples of where individuals tried to force the hand of the sovereign to to do this or that.
Even just by massacring the worshippers at the Abara Moscow,
the terrorist was trying to force a change that would necessarily be a top down change after he's against the individual act.
But let me move forward to another question from Formalises Simmon.
Could you maybe expand on the issue of violence? Well, not too far in your eyes.
What is the interplay between the history of decide the model and the religious importance which the site holds?
Are other models which generate higher levels of violence, or is this impossible to decipher?
So a lot depends on. So that's a good question. So a lot depends on the perspective of the decision makers.
So and when you look at how the other decisions for those sites will, we'll reach right to that.
So so that some of them are a little bit random like they did in the status quo at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
It was almost random.
The Ottoman Empire had certain concrete interests and that was definitely the agreement reached a decision reached in seventeen fifty seven.
And and a few years before that, they did, which is a different decision.
So there was a little bit of randomness which we can find at the moment in which a model was decided, what your model was decided.
It is not an easily changed.
So for example, another example, in 1967 when Israel and Israel decided on a governance model, which is preference for the Western Wall, the.
It was almost almost by random because the the prime minister,
which left call issued statically allocate into the governance of the Christian holy sites.
And in other Polish sites to the religious communities. Right.
And then the certain rabbis took that decision and read.
And apply that to the Western Wall. So sometimes tough decisions are almost, I would say, unplanned.
What is interesting, however, is once they are decided upon,
though not easily changed and a lot of importance is attributed to does those governance models.
And it's sometimes frustrating for a scholar, because when you look back at the hysterical kind of line leading to that decision
and you read and you say to people that this happened to me in your violin talks,
I said, well, the region of the of the of disagreement is a death decision.
It's not that impressive on epistemological grounds or normative grounds.
And they responded that doesn't do any change in the world. People just said, well, we don't care how it started, but now it's really important.
It's also something if you want I mean this if you're in England, right.
Sir Edmund Burke said something about importance, about about traditional institution, traditional institutions having a power and logic of their own.
And don't think you've just you smart enough in order to kind of redesign everything from scratch.
Right. So maybe there's some point of humility here as well. You know, that's a wonderful conclusion.
Greg, remark on the merit of tradition. I don't see any other questions.
Can I ask the audience if you have a question to raise it now? And if not,
I think it would be a wonderful opportunity to thank you and Sean for this interesting presentation and
encouragement to rethink some of the existing models in our minds regarding not just sacred sites.
Thank you so much for this fascinating time. Thank you very much for having me.
Thank you. Thank you.