Should We Judge By People or Ideas?

Rabbis vs. Karaites in The Culture Wars

Should we judge a philosophy/religious denomination/political ideology by what its founding theorists say it’s about or by what its adherents do in its name? And should we be consistent in your answer—or can we judge one ideology by its adherents but another by its founding theorists?

Let’s say you dislike the founding theorists, but find the practitioner-adherents to be noble. Or vice versa, let’s say you like the founding theorists, but find the practitioner-adherents to be ignoble. What’s your sample-size? Do you judge by the worst actors, the best actors, or the average actors?

Jewish-rabbinic tradition rejects Biblical literalists (karaites), people who believe they know what the Bible says without consulting the oral Torah, the mimetic and discursive tradition of Biblical commentary. While the debate between karaites and rabbis might seem obscure, it seems to provide a map for how we think about the evaluation of any tradition.

Karaite-types think they can judge Islam by reading the Quran, Capitalism by reading Adam Smith, Marxism by reading Marx, CRT by reading Derrick Bell, Modern Orthodox Judaism by reading Rav Soloveitchick, Conservative Judaism by reading Solomon Schechter, Calvinism by reading Calvin, postmodern feminism by reading Judith Butler, etc.

Rabbi-types will counter that these are living traditions. If you want to know what they’re about don’t read the books; look at how the people use them. It doesn’t matter what Mohammed or Jesus or Marx say; it matters what people do with those sayings.

But Karaite-types will counter that they alone know what the theory is really about and that practical and institutional applications are distortions. It doesn’t matter if every single person who identifies with a movement interprets it one way; the karaite will say it proves nothing about the essence of the movement.

In a way, karaites are Platonists—the ideas are what matter. Rabbis are Aristotelians—what matters is practical wisdom, discovered through induction and cultivated through habit.

My view is that either standard has merit, but what does not have merit is maintaining a double-standard, e.g., taking a karaite approach to other people’s views, but a rabbinic approach to one’s own.

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