The atheists had it coming
Hmm…I hope Julian isn’t permanently joining the tedious chorus of people shouting at ‘new’ atheists to shut up. It’s not a very glorious vocation.
Intelligent atheism rejects what is false in religion, but should retain an interest in what is true about it. I don’t think many of my fellow atheists would disagree.
I would – depending on what is meant by ‘what is true about it.’ I don’t think anything is true about it, if we mean factually true. If we mean something much looser by ‘true’ such as ‘having some good things to say about compassion or peace’ then I don’t think religion has anything to offer that is inherent to religion as opposed to simply widely-shared moral intuitions, so again, I don’t really think there is anything true about it (about it alone, to the exclusion of other ways of thinking). If I want wisdom about morality or justice I don’t turn to clerics. There are other sources, who are less encumbered by beliefs that need to be protected.
Why is it, then, that we are increasingly seen as shrill, bishop-bashing fanatics who are tone deaf to the spiritual?
Because people like Matthew Nisbet and Madeleine Bunting and now, alas, you, keep writing pieces that call us shrill, bishop-bashing fanatics who are tone deaf to the spiritual, that’s why. Or at least that sure as hell is part of why. It’s a drum that a number of people have been banging on with frenzied energy – Chris Hedges comes to mind – for two or three years now; obviously it’s had an effect! So it’s a little disingenuous to ask such a question while engaged in yet more of the same thing. Why is it that we are seen as shrill fanatics, Julian asks, while engaged in the 40 thousandth piece calling us shrill fanatics.
The answer, I fear, is to be found in St Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” In short, we had it coming.
Really – for what crime? For not being quiet enough? For not being evasive enough?
Last week, in these pages, Madeleine Bunting spoke for many when she complained about the “foghorn volume” and “evangelical fervour” of the New Atheists, with their “contempt for religion”…Atheists who criticised the details of Bunting’s argument missed the point. What it revealed is the negative perception people have of the godless hordes, and the New Atheism must share responsibility for creating its own caricature.
He says, doing his bit to re-enforce it that little bit more.
You can’t publish and lionise books and TV series with titles like The God Delusion, God is Not Great and The Root of All Evil? and then complain when people think you are anti-religious zealots.
You also can’t (or shouldn’t, anyway) set about scolding books with titles like The God Delusion and God is Not Great when you are on record as not having read them, and you also shouldn’t scold people for titles (The Root of all Evil?) that other people chose for them and that they are on record as detesting. That’s unfair, frankly. We mentioned this to Julian last time…
Perhaps a period of New Atheist exuberance was necessary. At least it got people thinking, although I fear it has confirmed every negative stereotype about it. We now need to turn down the volume and engage in a real conversation about what of value is left of religion once its crude superstitions are swept away.
But there again – not having read the books, how can Julian know that the volume is up? How can he know that the ‘new’ atheist books don’t engage in a real conversation about what of value is left of religion?
PZ is also skeptical, and so is Jason Rosenhouse.
Julian here is speaking more on how the public perceives the new atheists than on the new atheists themselves. Appearances count, as he says. For everything there is a time, and maybe it’s the time, as Julian suggests, to moderate the atheist discourse a bit, not because it’s wrong, but because after having a positive and liberating first effect, as Julian affirms, it’s producing a backlash in his opinion.
Sure, but Julian is also blaming the ‘new’ atheists for the way people perceive them without noting 1) that the way people perceive them has been to a large extent constructed by people saying things very like what Julian is saying and 2) without noting that he is contributing to the putative perception himself.
There just really is something odd about piling on and then blaming the people underneath the pile for being there.
And the ‘appearances count’ thing is at the very least dubious. It’s Matthew Nisbet’s line, which seems to convince no one. It’s strange to tell people to talk about something else in order not to annoy some audience or other. As many people said of his last piece, that was said to black people during the Civil Rights movement, and feminists ten years on, too. But they didn’t; and now look. Yes appearances count, but they don’t count much. Integrity and doing the right thing as you see it count a hell of a lot more.
On this issue, and as a gay man, I’m reminded of the early days of the gay rights movement when critic Robert Burstein, reviewing Tennessee Williams’ “Memoirs”, quipped: “The love that previously dared not speak it’s name has now grown hoarse from screaming it.”
That clever bit of homophobia before the often quasi-pornographic street theatre of today’s gay rights parades, the in-your-face rage of “Act-Up” in the 90s and the weekly visibility of cliched gay characters on t.v. sit-coms and dramas.
Too bad if religionists don’t like what they’re hearing. The labels of shrillness, rudeness and insensitivity pass with progress. Who today regards the Suffragettes as a bunch of obnoxious, emasculating shrews rather than women of courage, integrity and extraordinary vision? (Okay, Muktada al Sadr, perhaps.)
Listen for the revisionist tune today’s self-deprecating atheists will be singing if and when the time comes that atheism doesn’t have to assert itself with such vehemence just to be heard in the public forum.
Huh. Brian has completely obviated any need for me to weigh in. So I won’t. What he said.
Come to think of it, I do have one other thing to say. OB, I think you’re being too easy on Julian because you like him personally and he’s generally a smart guy. I say this because Julian’s tendency to undermine and occasionally malign fellow atheists is hardly new: You called him out for using the egregious term “militant atheist” a few years ago (and mentioned doing so in this blog). Frankly, Julian’s been a part of “the tedious chorus of people shouting at ‘new’ atheists to shut up” for a while now, although in a blending in and supporting the harmony sort of way. Apparently his turn has come around for some tedious solos. He has a helluvalot better voice than Bunting, but that’s not saying much – strangling felines produces more melodious sounds than Bunting. It’s the same tired old tune, though.
(Brought to you by the “any metaphor worth running with is worth running into the ground” school of late night commentary.)
Us who do believe might be more understanding of your beliefs if, collectively, atheists were not so aggressively anti-Christian. Has there ever been an article deconstructing Islam; if so, I haven’t seen it. Yet all the time there are rants and personal abuse against all that is Christian. Well, all I can see about the beautiful atheist utopia that is apparently waiting for us is that it didn’t work in Soviet Russia.
Regarding Dr.J – what Brian & G said, with a side order of – another thing that annoys me about him is his position of assumed (but unproven) superiority over the “militant atheists” – especially, as OB pointed out, when he’s prepared to chunter about “what is true” in religion.
I’m also still unimpressed by his “I took the FT’s money, and agreed to all their cuts, but now it’s made me look a bit daft I’m going to throw my hands up and wail about editorial interference” web postings a wee while ago. But that’s just me…
I’m sure he’s an incredibly clever and charming fellow, but he’s being a bit, well, intellectually ‘shifty’, isn’t he?
hmmmm
As for John (in Cheshire):
“Has there ever been an article deconstructing Islam; if so, I haven’t seen it. Yet all the time there are rants and personal abuse against all that is Christian. Well, all I can see about the beautiful atheist utopia that is apparently waiting for us is that it didn’t work in Soviet Russia.”
I’d suggest you start simply by searching other postings here in “notes and comments” – you’ll be happy to find the Islamic brand(s) of supernaturalism being roundly criticised, along with various other forms of unprovable, truth-claiming dogma.
Oh, and mistakenly equating a philosophical/religious standpoint “atheism” (“godlessness”) with a specific political ideology (“authoritarian communism”) doesn’t make for a very strong argument. Sorry.
I think it might be worthwhile looking at what Julian offers as a makeweight to the ‘new atheism’. Here is a quote from Bunting’s foghorn article (Julian’s inspiration):
Not only does Bunting take Karen Armstrong as an expert on religion(as well as John Gray!), but she quotes a bit of anodyne nonsense as exemplifying the heart of ‘true’ religion.
However, since religions have madrassas and religious schools and catechisms in which sets of propositions are still being taught, very often by rote, Armstrong’s religion is what might be called the ‘new religion’. We may not be able to argue with love and compassion, but we shouldn’t forget the unhealthy beliefs which hover in the background of this woolly minded thinking.
And while Julian and Madelaine are going on about foghorns and volume level, has anyone noticed that the pope and the archbishop of Canterbury haven’t exactly been wilting violets, with their every utterance reported as matters of general interest and concern?
Also, it’s worthwhile noting that Sam Harris, for instance, does spend a lot of time in his book The End of Faith dealing with Islam, and I should have thought that the volume knob on Islam has been turned up almost full blast for the last twenty years, and Christians, despite the outrages that Muslims have committed over that period, seem to welcome them as fellow believers, sharers with them in the fight against secularism and unbelief. John (of Cheshire) might take note of the fact that Ayan Hirsi Ali is arguably one of the ‘new atheists’, as is Ibn Warraq, and they deal with Islam in detail. And Michel Onfay is addresses the three Abrahamic monotheisms together.
I think Julian, even if he does have positive things to say, should look a bit more closely at what religion is really up to. (Also, he should read the ‘new athiests’.) There’s much less truth there than he thinks, and most of it comes out of the Enlightenment. When the church had power, it used it. Now that it doesn’t, it’s been trying to convince us for something over a hundred years that it’s main priorities are love and compassion. They aren’t. And, after listening to Rowan Williams, Ratzi, the mullahs in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Harvard, there are lots of religious leaders that need a good thrashing, not to speak of bashing. — sorry to go on so.
Rather than add anything, I would suggest that if you’re at all interested in how I’d respond to this (not that you necessarily should be), if you read the pieces in question again, perhaps you’d see. (This particularly applies to the not having read the books thing.)
The main point to stress though is simply this: are there not good reason for thinking that, whatever the reasons, good or bad, for the style and focus of popular writing on atheism in recent years, now is the time to change direction at least a little? Is that really such a stupid question? I’m afraid almost everyone I meet who is not already a true unbeliever is turned off by Dawkins et al,and I think you can’t just blame misrepresentations of him for that (although I agree he is indeed often badly misrepresented.)
One other point worth noting: I’ve found many of the reactions against my criticisms much more vicious than the criticisms themselves ever were. All I’ve written are couple of articles on this – I’m not engaged in a systematic campaign to destroy atheism from within! Not do I like the suggestion that this is somehow disloyal. I thought that we atheists prized honest debate and intellectual scrutiny. Disagree with what I say, please, but don’t play the loyalty card. Upholding orthodoxy is what the other lot do.
(These comments are not directed at anyone in particular on this site. I’m just venting a general frustration at some of the reaction here and elsewhere.)
Julian: if you’re still tuned in, what evidence do you have that the new atheists are producing a backlash? I’m not claiming that there isn’t a backlash effect, just asking for more hard evidence. If you could show that there is a backlash against the new atheism, your claims would be stronger.
“Well, you’ll just have to wait until September.”
Oh yeah? Well maybe I’ll just ask Julian to send it to me, so ha!
cackle
“OB, I think you’re being too easy on Julian because you like him personally and he’s generally a smart guy.”
Well (if I am being too easy, etc) it’s also because I work for him, and I don’t want to appear to be backstabbing and the like. (As I have once or twice in the past, when venting, which I think was really bad of me. I’m trying not to behave badly.) Arguably I should simply tacitly recuse myself, and ignore the whole thing…but given that I always dispute this kind of thing when I see it, that would look (and be) evasive, and evasiveness is in a way the whole subject here, so I kind of think I shouldn’t tacitly recuse myself. Plus I think there are some real, arguable issues.
“are there not good reason for thinking that, whatever the reasons, good or bad, for the style and focus of popular writing on atheism in recent years, now is the time to change direction at least a little? Is that really such a stupid question?”
Well there might be – but (sorry!) you didn’t really present any in that piece! That is, I didn’t find the reasons you did present convincing. It’s not that it’s such a stupid question (but then I didn’t say it was), but it is quite a loaded or tendentious or provocative one, under the circumstances (which include an avalanche of such questions – the Guardian alone seems to average about two a week) – and it is a very political one, in the way indicated by Brian. When a big part of a ‘movement’ is precisely the claim that ‘we have been silenced too long’ then advice to be quiet is just inevitably going to raise hackles. That doesn’t by itself mean the advice is bad or stupid, but it does mean it won’t always be taken in a spirit of meek humility.
I missed this the first time through…
“Not do I like the suggestion that this is somehow disloyal. I thought that we atheists prized honest debate and intellectual scrutiny. Disagree with what I say, please, but don’t play the loyalty card.”
But that’s exactly why I don’t like the “appearance counts” line – it’s because I prize honest debate and intellectual scrutiny, and I think urging people to worry about appearances, to be quiet because other people have X idea about you, is in direct conflict with that. That’s why I find Matthew Nisbet’s line so repellent; I hate to see Julian saying anything similar.
(By the way, G, I’d completely forgotten the ‘militant atheist’ thing. I still don’t remember it…memory blank.)
Well, I’m not being paid by anyone, feel no great loyalty to any of the players, and I *did* read the 2 articles – all I can say is that Doc B rather failed to address the issues with that response.
And then this:
“I’m afraid almost everyone I meet who is not already a true unbeliever is turned off by Dawkins et al,”
Hmmm..but I’d argue lots of folk *I* meet in that context aren’t, but then, hey, that’s anecdotal evidence and entirely unmissable, since our acquaintances are highly unlikely to be in any way representative of..very much, really.
I’m terribly sorry he’s finding the criticisms harsh, but at the risk of becoming a broken record, he *hasn’t* read the books (merely judged their ‘effect’ in a highly subjective manner), and I’d still love a reason for his post hoc (post payment) whingeing over the FT review-editing.
Seems only fair to me, because after all, I’m not the professional, kick-ass philosopher making the claims about other atheists here?
Yeah same here, but then the people I meet are by definition weird, so that’s no help.
Hahahahaha.
No but seriously – the ‘people I meet are turned off by Dawkins’ argument is exactly the same kind of argument as the loyalty one. Exactly. Both substitute a relational criterion for an epistemic one. If it’s illegitimate in the one case it’s illegitmate in the other.
I found the post G mentioned – it’s from January 2007. It makes clear that Julian has been saying this at least since he wrote his atheism book – so he’s not just jumping on some Buntingesque bandwagon – and also that some of what I disagree with now I also disagreed with then.
OB is absolutely correct: Dr. Baggini, you have not expressed a single one of those supposedly good reasons. Moreover, you have made it clear that you have not even investigated and evaluated the nature of rhetorical tone you nevertheless insist must be changed: You haven’t read the books. These people you cite, “almost everyone I meet who is not already a true unbeliever is turned off by Dawkins et al,” – have they read these books either? Or are they, like you, just forming their opinions based on an impressionistic “vibe” picked up from the sociocultural ether? Because, as you ought to know, the sociocultural ether is quite full of fulminations from people who do in fact misrepresent those books, and from people who’ve repeatedly demonstrated their woolly-headed foolishness (Maddy Bunting, Mark Vernon, etc.). Your uninformed impression of the quality and character of “new” atheist rhetoric, and your citation of the quite possibly just-as-uninformed impression of others, and your siding with willfully misinforming others (Bunting) – these are not good reasons. So again we ask, what are your good reasons for thinking the current direction of public atheism is bad and some new direction is good?
And while I’m asking questions, what is this good in religion you keep talking about? You seem to want to make a distinction between religious beliefs and religious practices – a distinction I also think is important. But practices aren’t “true” in the ordinary sense, so perhaps I’m wrong about your aim. Your vagueness about what new direction you think public atheism ought to take is certainly doing nothing at all to undermine the impression that yours is just another voice demanding that atheists should be polite and conciliatory and deferential – which really seems like just another way to tell atheists to shut the fuck up and stop back-talking their betters.
Atheists generally do prize intellectual scrutiny and honest debate. But, as I (and others) have been pointing out, you have not provided the evidence and arguments to support your position – so you do not seem to be engaged in honest debate. In fact, what you are engaging in seems very much like intellectually dishonest polemic – especially when you start an essay by siding with someone like Bunting, whose primary stock in trade is intellectually dishonest polemic.
The one clear message you seem to be conveying is this: If a great many people are taking offense at what you say or otherwise receiving your message poorly, you might want to consider whether and in what ways that communications break-down is your own fault. Doctor, heal thyself.
Russell,
You don’t know me (there’s no reason you should), but I’m a regular commenter here, as well as a regular reader/sometime commenter on Pharyngula and rd.net. I jump for joy whenever you post a comment or an article, because you’re one of the few working philosophers I know of who is so in touch with how ideas matter in the real world, to real people. You’re not imprisoned in the ivory tower, and you take others to task for getting themselves stuck there.
In short, I’m an admirer of your work, not a critic, which I need you to understand because of what I’m about to say. Russell, I think you’ve really, really got the wrong end of the stick on this issue with Julian. I’ve watched you defend his intellectually lame piece in the Guardian, rationalize what he might have meant (not what he said), and try to deflect criticism of what he DID say by talking about what a great thinker he is in other published works.
Fine. But we’re not talking about those other published works. We’re talking about what he wrote in the Guardian. He made some – frankly – stupid and insulting statements and he needs to take responsibility for them. He hasn’t. He let ego take over, and he’s dug in his heels and refused to assess why it is that people who are his intellectual allies are so upset with him. For him, it just confirms what he already wanted to believe – New Atheists are just exactly as rude, obnoxious, stubborn, and unproductive as I thought. Harrumph.
It’s dishonest crap from a man who is actually a very, very good thinker, and another philosopher I genuinely admire (in his other writings).
And you need to know how your defense of him appears to readers like me (and the appearance is very strong). You appear to be helping a personal friend dodge criticism that he deserves. You appear to be going soft on him – in a way everyone knows you wouldn’t “go soft” on someone else, because we’ve read your writing – because he’s a contributor to your book.
I hate having to write this, because it sounds so stinging, and the last thing I want to do is insult you. But as someone who respects your work, I want you to know how your defense of Julian looks. . .less than honest. It’s disappointing. You may not mean for it to seem that way, and you may not believe you’re acting in that way. You may be right. But it looks for all the world, Russell, to be the case.
No one is asking you to jump all over Julian or declare him persona non grata. But it’s weaselly to defend what is, let’s face it, a crappy essay, based on the quality of his other work. He had a lapse. You know it, and we all know it. I wish you’d reconsider your tack on this.
As a gay man with the same experiences as Brian, I would have written exactly what he did. The situation is perfectly analagous (here in the US, in my experience) to the way frank atheism is characterized as uppity, provocative, and politically unproductive. I’m afraid now, as then, I can’t bring myself to be erudite. The only response I can come up with is: Fuck. Right. Off.
I don’t care – not even a tiny little bit – how many people find outspoken atheists or gay people (substitute your own issue)abrasive. In fact, I revel in it. Not to be provocative for its own sake, but because I want the wider world to see the spectacle of ordinary people going intellectually ballistic over *even the mildest refusal to cloak our views in euphemisms to avoid upsetting peoples’ “world views.”*.
In 20 years, the societal view on being gay has shifted so drastically that many people today WINCE at things they said 20 years ago. They’re *embarrassed* that they once characterized two men holding hands as “obscene” or “shoving your lifestyle down my throat.” These are good, decent people, but they were wrong, and they know it. Many of them are straight acquaintances and friends of mine, and they don’t make any excuses for having been grievously mistaken. They’re just happy – and so am I – to have moved on.
The same thing needs to happen in the public discourse in the US on religion. When I see Madeline Bunting, or Julian Baggini (which still shocks me. .he’s far above her intellectual pay-grade) getting upset at the uppity atheists, I say, “good.” Keep getting upset. You (and the circle of people you claim are universally turned-off by Dawkins et al) provide an excellent public spectacle around which people who share my view are happy to rally.
We’re not going to go away. We’re not going to accede to your attempt to define reasonable skepticism and outspokenness as rudeness or needless provocateuring. We have no intention of going back to the false, mewling “respect” for religious sensibilities that has worked oh-so-well historically. Especially when none of that respect was reciprocal.
I may be very wrong, but my impression is that most people don’t have the slightest idea who the new atheists are. Then there’s a large group of people who probably read the reviews of the new atheist books when they first appeared, then promptly forgot them, as I forgot the name of the new book about the 3rd Reich I read about two days ago. If asked about the new atheists now, they probably could not recall their names or even having read of their existence. Then there’s a smaller group, among which I number myself, who can name all the new atheist writers and have followed the debate out of intellectual curiosity and out of pure idleness, but whose beliefs have not been affected or changed by the new atheists, be they atheists, as I am or liberal theists. Then there’s an even smaller group of readers for whom the new atheists are significant figures in their intellectual development: they either support them or reject them with fervor. I have no idea whether among the very small number of people who have strong reactions, either in favor of or against, the new atheists there are more pro’s than con’s.
It’s probably already been said in various ways, but I think there is an issue of the very greatest importance at stake here. It’s not only because I find Julian’s arguments in his recent Guardian pieces shallow. It’s that he’s seriously wrong, at least in my view.
Religion is losing ground in most places in the world, and as it loses ground, even in Muslim countries, which are being kept in subjection by the sheer force of tradition and terror, religion has been turning up the volume. And they’ve been doing it now, consistently, for well over a decade, but the real watershed moment was 9/11 and the London bombings.
Richard Dawkins is on record as saying that 9/11 was a watershed moment for him, and the reason for his book The God Delusion. I think we should take him at his word. But there is more than that. In the US, until the last election, there was a very real danger of religious domination of the United States. It was happening. There are traces of that left, although the religious right has been severely shaken by its loss in November. Perhaps that is why Obama gave a place to the reprobate Warren at the inauguration, who gave one of the most unconvincing public prayers that I have ever heard – until I muted him out.
But when Madelaine Bunting speaks of foghorn voices and Julian, for whom I have the greatest respect, and whose book on atheism is still a small classic, suggests that we should turn down the volume, I wonder why. Why should we give the platform to religious voices, very insistent and monotonous religious voices, to have their say, and we lapse into silence?
I don’t understand. I simply cannot understand why we should in fact cede the floor to institutions that are arguably at the centre of some of the most serious problems facing the world today, and who claim a more than human authority to deliver their message. Why should we do this? Especially when they are so obviously threatened.
Julian asks the question: “are there not good reason[s] for thinking that, whatever the reasons, good or bad, for the style and focus of popular writing on atheism in recent years, now is the time to change direction at least a little?” My answer is no. There are no good reasons. In fact, I think now, more than ever, we need the voice of reason to be heard. Do the voices sound shrill? I don’t think so. I have just been reading what should, arguably, be the most shrill of them all, Hitchens’ god is not Great. And it is remarkably level headed in many ways. Far more level headed that the ABC or the Pope or the new cardinal archbishop of Westminster, who are all complaining because people disrespect them. Well, they should! If the pope has such stupid things to say, someone should remind him that he is after all only a human being, and stupidity is the mark of all our tribe. But we should be trying, anyway, to make more sense as we go on.
Of course, we are still waiting for Julian to tell us what is good about religion, and, having been a priest for a good part of my life, it seems to me that there probably are some good aspects of religion. But the really bad aspects always come to the fore in times of turmoil, and that is what is happening right now, as the religions return to their holy books, and the liberals are shunted to one side as somehow having let down their side. The trouble with religions of the book – and they’re the most dangerous ones – is that the book, the inspired word, is always there, ready and waiting to be rediscovered and its really really ‘true’ message revealed. That’s when religions are dangerous. They’re dangerous right now.
For the record, Russell’s defense of Julian doesn’t strike me at all the way it strikes Josh. Julian’s article wouldn’t strike me the way it does if it were worded more like the way Russell’s comment is! Russell takes a fallibilist, frankly subjective approach, while Julian takes a rather aggressively scolding one. (Julian, if you read this, with all due respect – you do use some rather chippy rhetoric in both pieces, so you shouldn’t be all that annoyed when people retort! Fair’s fair.) (Maybe that’s how the ‘loyalty’ stuff creeps in – maybe a lot of readers feel something like ‘What are you yelling at us for? What did we do?’)
Actually Eric I do think (while wishing it were otherwise) that there is something religious about it. I think secular institutions can’t really match religion’s adhesive power, at least not often. November 5 2008 and November 20 2009 did a pretty good job, but that’s just two days out of…a lifetime, not once a week.
Mind you, there are also things like Folklife. I did a post about the religion-like power of that kind of thing once…Maybe if we just had more parties and festivals. With something called Derby pie – Eugenie Scott is making it today – it has chocolate, pecans, and bourbon. Godalmighty.
I’m going to (try to) avoid getting involved in this any further, but I should say one thing for the record. I don’t know why people assume that Julian and I are personal friends. It may be from something Tauriq Moosa said on Dawkins’ site that could have been better worded.
Anyway, here’s the score. Julian and I have had some perfectly amicable email exchanges, after I approached him about contributing to a book that I was/am co-editing; and that’s the limit of it. Julian is also one of my Facebook “friends” along with about 550 other people, some of whom ARE personal friends of mine – but most are people who are more a professional network (or several overlapping networks). We have never met.
Obviously I do like Julian, from my very limited dealings with him, and I have enough sense of his views to be particularly keen on cutting off blantant misinformation about them or him (some commenters at PZ’s blog actually seemed to assume that he is a theist, while the initial responses at Dawkins’ site in the first round of this debate struck me, frankly, as knee-jerk, simplistic, and ad hominem). But the (very!) qualified things I’ve said are NOT a case of Russell charging in to support a personal friend.
If anything, accuse me of being an editor sticking up for one of his writers. That’s more plausible. But, really, Julian doesn’t need my protection; he can look after himself. I basically just want the debate to be conducted with some respect for a man who is on our side in the larger struggle – even though I disagree with much of what he’s saying at the moment – and with accurate information.
Yeah – the first flood of comments at the Dawkins site was highly unedifying. Setting people straight did more than ‘protect’ Julian, it also shunted the discussion into a more productive direction. Always worth doing.
I am not so sure that your third point about religion cultivating attitudes of gratitude and humility should go unchallenged. Somehow the humility of people who believe themselves to be the chosen people of the one true god rings hollow to me. Weather it’s the personal relationship of the evangelicals, or the certainty of the more liberal theologians who make the leap from the vague feelings of awe and wonder they speculate about, to their particular sect and creed.
Nope, I’m afraid that anyone who can drop the equivalent of “the architect of the universe and I agree about this…” into a conversation doesn’t get to tell me about humility.
Recently, someone (it may even have been in one of the pages hosted by “B&W”) noted that:
There is nothing new in the “New Atheism” – it is (just) old atheism resurfacing, in response to the aggressive trumpetings of revived sets of religious nutters, various.
He also said that, during the period 1975-2000 (approx) the atheists dropped the ball, assumed they had won, and gave an awful lot of religious claptrap a free pass, when they should not have.
We are now trying to deal with the after-effects of that inattention.
P.S. I think I’ll have a go at correcting (some of) “john in cheshire’s” misapprehensions, but NOT here…..
erm, Greg, I think that might have been me.
http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2009/04/whats-new-about-new-atheism.html
Oops. I guess that close to midnight I should limit myself to reading comments, not making them. I can usually count all the way up to four, honestly.
Eric: The “you” in my comments didn’t refer to “you”, Eric, but to “you” in general. I could have written “one”.
Heh. Listen, I can barely make out the wall when it’s close to midnight, never mind reading anything.
Thanks for the clarification, Russell. I agree with you and OB that the initial flurry of comments against Julian on rd.net were full of personal invective, irrelevant to the issue, and just plain nasty. I was not referring to your (or anyone else’s) justifiable reaction to those nasty commenters. I was referring to what appeared to me (that “appeared” is important, I accept you at face value when you tell me my perception was wrong)to be special pleading and excuse-making for Julian’s badly argued and written Guardian piece.
I accept that Julian is a deep thinker and usually a clear writer on these issues. I’ve stated that multiple times. But that doesn’t change the fact that his Guardian piece was intellectually weak and insulting. He doesn’t get a free pass because he’s a “good guy” or “on our side” on other issues. I’m not trying to tear down his good work; for goodness’ sake, I keep acknowledging it. But it’s not unreasonable for anyone to call him to account for this piece. It’s not rude, or disrespectful, and critics are not required to soften their criticism of *this piece* because his *other* works are good.
If anything, I’m more puzzled and upset to read this from Julian than from a twit like Madeline Bunting, precisely because Julian is miles above her, obviously.
I guess I wonder why Baggini thinks now is somehow a good time to turn down the volume. For one thing, as someone who has criticized the “new atheists,” volume has never been part of my problem with them. But I also don’t get what’s special about now. I can see thinking that the volume was always too high. I can also see thinking that the volume can be lowered after fundamentalism loses power some time in the future. But right now…as Eric hints at, fundamentalism is still powerful politically, so what’s special about now as a time to turn down the volume? Does Baggini think that the culture has reached a saturation point with the “new atheists”? I haven’t observed this.
Oh, I think ‘now’ because Bunting wrote a piece last week, and Dawkins’s book has been out for awhile, and so on. The sociocultural ether is at just the right point. No real reason, in short.
Poor Julian!
Seriously: his column was very different from the run-of-the-mill shut-up-the-new-atheists claptrap.
My take-home message from the article was simply that people are hearing the tone of the religious debate but ignoring the arguments – and that this means that sound atheist arguments are being ignored while woolly-minded but reasonable-sounding commenters get a free ride. To me, he simply seems to be concerned that the arguments – not the ‘God is not Great’ slogans – are heard.
It’s not some Nesbittean framing thing; Julian’s column is pretty uncompromising when it comes to condemning the ‘manifest nonsense’ purveyed by Fraser et al, so he’s clearly not suggesting we should all pretend to be friends.
*Nisbettean* (Nisbetist?) Nothing to do with the Railway Children.
Er. I’d love to agree with you, outeast, but the trouble is, I think that piece was all too much like the familiar ‘shutupatheists’ meme. I think it was unfair in much the same way – I think just citing three titles isn’t enough to back up claims that the ‘new’ atheists are too noisy.
Actually I’d love to be able to teleport myself to the Starbucks nearest Julian and argue with him face to face. I could windmill my arms and go ‘But but but but’
Simon Blackburn, by the way, is up to the same thing. He says it in a recent article in the Times Higher Education Supplement:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=405647&encCode=1215969411BC36249875JTBS737226611
Basically ends up by saying that we don’t need dogmatic atheism, but gentle irony, and that mockery is just as effective and just as wounding. But he seems to forget that for Hume irony was a necessity. Hume was still very conscious that people could be severely dealt with for explicit atheism. Thomas Aikenhead was hanged on the road from Edinburgh to Leith in 1697 for blasphemy (really youthful atheism). And Hume was very cautious about the publication of his Dialogues, which were not published, if recollection serves, until after his death.
I’ve just been rereading the part of god is not Great where Hitchens considers Islam. It is a remarkably even-tempered, thoughtful analysis of the Koran and the basis of Muslim beliefs. It ends up with this, which is worth quoting in full:
I think that atheists such as Simon Blackburn and Julian Baggini should argue the case for lowering the volume. It seems to me that there are clear reasons why we should be turning up the volume and the heat as well.
If you do teleport to Julian I’d like to claim the pay-per-view rights. That debate would be U-Tube gold! Could you get Julian to pound the table while you windmill your arms?
I’ve reread Julian’s article about five times now seeking to find all the things people are imputing to it, and I’m just not seeing them. Where does he say all these things? All I see is a set of narrow claims:
– He argues that the so-called ‘new atheists’ have helped contribute to the caricature that people have of atheists as strident god-haters through the use of deliberately controversial, provocative book and TV titles.
– He argues that the above has left room for a bunch of intellectually unrigorous woolly-minded pseuds to take up the ‘moderate’ middle ground which ‘should’ be the preserve of what he calls ‘intelligent atheism’.
– He suggests that the focus on ‘simplistic, traditionalist creeds’ offers rather limited rewards both practically and intellectually.
Perhaps what’s going on here is partly the old transatlantic thing – perhaps it’s easy for a European to sigh and say forget the ‘simplistic, traditional creeds’ when said creeds have so little foothold in Europe. But I think it’s fair enough anyway – few people who are entrenched in said creeds are likely to be open to persuasion through reason (especially when this is offered with antagonistic book titles!), and for the minority who may be there is now loads out there.
Julian seems to me to be clearly most concerned about the woolly-minded moderately-educated broadly-liberal middle-grounders who are amenable to reason but who are not naturally rigorous thinkers – the typical Guardian reader, basically.
This group do not (think they) hold simple fundamentalist beliefs, and usually reject them; in fact, they reject ‘extremes’ of any kind and see them as being similar (thinking readily of poles like Communism and Fascism as roughly equal evils as a result of their extremism). After all, whence else comes the media fad for ‘balance’?
Such people do not listen to the Pope or to Billy Graham: they reject religious extremes. They like moderation. And they see the anti-religious polemics of Dawkins et al as irrelevant and as an extreme response – as going too far in the opposite direction to extremist religion. This is without having read the books or really heard the arguments, of course: this is a matter of book titles and soundbites.
The Fluffy Commentariat (Bunting et al) are stepping up to the crease for this crowd and are steadily continuing to build the myth that atheism is an extreme position. Fuck knows (and only He cares) what Nisbet would want. I daresay he’d like atheists to stop saying anything blunt about religion, full stop. That’s not what Julian has been arguing we should do: as I pointed out, he explicitly states that the Fluffy Brigade make claims about religion that are patently nonsensical, so he doesn’t shy away from insult!
What he seems to want is for atheists to deal with the (potentially more intellectually challenging!) middle ground. Atheism, after all, is not a fundamentalist position.
That doesn’t sound like ‘shut up’, it sounds like ‘OK, we get it, now lets take this discussion further.’
Nice analysis outeast… However, this would be true only if Julian Baggini hadn’t nailed his colours to the mast by agreeing so wholeheartedly with Madelaine Bunting, and even let her get away with her woolly talk about fine minds.
If he wanted to take the discussion further, that’s what he could (and, arguably, should) have done, to give some idea of what he thought taking it further would be like.
He could have said something to the effect that… well, yes, but… See your point Mady, but really, those minds are not all that fine, the volume isn’t all that high, but I can see the need for atheists to take the discussion further and engage marginal religious thought – and it is marginal – that is woolly minded and precariously balanced between belief and unbelief.
That would have done the trick, and we wouldn’t be having this discussion now. But it’s still not clear how atheists do engage with the religious fringe. Nor is it all that clear that the volume is too high, or even that it matters.
Eric:
No, no, no! Julian never once agreed with anything Bunting said – he just highlighted how her claims are syptomatic of perceptions of atheism.
Really: read it again. Read both columns.
Bunting lauded those on her team, such as Vernon (who ‘advocates a principled agnosticism rooted in an understanding of the limits of human knowledge’), Gray (‘looks to another border of belief for deeper insight into the nature of faith’), and Armstrong. Julian’s characterization of this trio? ‘The fluffy brigade’, intellectually dishonest individuals who ‘appear reasonable’ (implication: but are not) and who ‘flatter the woolly-minded by telling them vagueness is a virtue, not a vice.’
Bunting, echoing the fluffily meaningless Vernon, wrote …the modern distortion was to make God into a proposition in which you either did or did not believe…. Julian’s wholehearted agreement with this? The idea that it is a modern distortion to think of religious beliefs as being factually true is manifest nonsense.
Julian’s article was, from beginning to end, a call to arms for atheists to oppose Bunting and her ilk – to stop ‘the vague platitudes of Bunting and Armstrong [from] win[ning] the war for hearts and minds.’
I can’t believe anyone can seriously read that article in any other way.
I’m not sure what it is that you’re not seeing, outeast – what is it that people are attributing to Julian that is not in the article? I quoted the parts I disagree with the most strongly, and as far as I know that’s all I’m imputing to the article.
I really don’t agree that the article was ‘from beginning to end a call to arms for atheists to oppose Bunting and her ilk’ – it began with another scolding of the atheists, one which strikingly lacked particulars. I’m not claiming that Julian agrees with Bunting, but he has made common cause with her, whether intentionally or not. He has – perhaps inadvertently – endorsed her wholly bogus claim that atheists make too much noise.
One expects that kind of claim from people like Bunting, because people like Bunting of course hate atheism, so they will seize any rhetorical weapon that comes to hand to say why they are wrong and bad and awful. One doesn’t expect other atheists to join the hue and cry – not for reasons of loyalty but for cognitive reasons – one expects other atheists to notice the bogusness of the complaint. That’s all. Bunting’s complaint is bogus. It has no merit. There is nothing to it. It is absurd. We are (as Claire put it) totally allowed to do atheism in public. We are not foghorns.
Come on, outeast…
“That doesn’t sound like ‘shut up’, it sounds like ‘OK, we get it, now lets take this discussion further.'”
He did say “We now need to turn down the volume.” Given that he doesn’t actually give any genuine examples of the volume being up – all he does is complain of three titles – to me that sounds very much like ‘shut up.’ He’s not just saying let’s move on, he’s saying you other wrong people need to be more quiet. He didn’t actually say ‘Sit down and shut up,’ which Nisbet (incredibly) did, but telling us to turn down the volume is…too close.
Well, outeast, I’m still not convinced. As I said, he does in fact pillory Bunting, and suggests that atheists address themselves to woolly minded liberals who should not be allowed to get away with meaningless tripe. But … First, he hasn’t read the four ‘new atheists’ which are most at issue here. He doesn’t know that, in some sense, the problem of woolly mindedness has been addressed by them (at least to a degree), and he attacks them for over-exuberance (well, maybe necessary then, but not now) and high volume – strident is the word that is usually used in this context. But just because the religious brigade responds with wounded feelings, stereotyping atheists as strident (which is, I think, arguably what they are doing, and it doesn’t really depend on what they say), is no reason for thinking the volume is too high.
I’m reminded here of something that is really, really strident, and that is Alister McGrath’s The Twilight of Atheism, before the ‘new atheists’ had made their mark. It’s one of the most exaggeratedly awful piece of religious apologetics. The tone is shrill, the confidence is unmatched, even by the so-called new atheists, and the scholarship is so shoddy it still amazes me that a reputable publisher would print it. And Christians have produced this kind of shrill, strident idiocy ever since TGD came out. And atheists are the ones whose volume is turned up?! It just doesn’t compute. Read Dr. Baggini’s column anyway you like, he’s still wrong (unless, as I say in a moment, he means to be ironic).
Perhaps I exaggerated a little by saying that he nailed his colours to the mast, but it’s not at all clear that he is really criticising Bunting. He takes her as a fair example of a fair response to the ‘new atheism’, and I don’t think it is. You say that he takes her as symptomatic of perceptions of atheism. But of course it is, and this is the case whether atheists are being shrill or thoughtful. Yes, indeed, Baggini says that it is nonsense to think that religious belief is never taken as factually true, and so forth. So either he’s saying the same thing as the new atheists, or he’s saying something different. It seems reasonable, based on what he has said, to think that his piece is an example of typically strident atheism, and that he is really being ironic in speaking about volume, but that doesn’t seem to be the way he has interpreted this himself. And if he’s not using irony here, then there’s some confusion about what he really wants to say.
Sorry Ophelia, my post crossed yours. I could have kept my peace!
How people or groups are perceived is a function of what they present. It’s useless to complain about how anyone is perceived in the public square. So complaints about perceptions (and those who notice, enumerate, echo or express the perceptions) are not valid arguments against the perceptions. The emperor might complain if someone perceives his new clothes, but the validity of the complaint depends on the clothes more than the perception. If everyone thinks he’s wearing something different and he’s not, to change the perception he must prove it is a mistaken perception, rather than complaining about the perception.
The “new” in new atheist is activism. There is a form of influence on public opinion called persuasion, in which the aggregate weight of opinion shifts in some direction as a function of how widespread it becomes as people, for their own reasons, begin to agree with it. There is another form of influence which attempts to force the shift through activism, which can be defined as direct efforts to change laws, demonstrate for justice, and participate in policital processes such as campaigning for (or against) candidates, canvassing for contributions and voting. It is also seen in support or opposition to public works such as monuments, support for or protest against private acts such as building mosques, etc.
Activism may or may not be justified in the atheists’ (or any other) case, but the point here is, it is no use to complain if it is seen as activism.
Justify your activism.