New sandbox rules
Karl Giberson explains about political science in the US and what it means for how we have to behave:
America has a complex and enduring commitment to pluralism. We want people to be free to act — and believe — as they please. But we must all play in the same sandbox, so we are attentive to the idiosyncrasies of our playmates, especially when they don’t make sense to us.
By “attentive” it turns out he means we don’t disagree with them, and by “idiosyncrasies” it turns out he means beliefs, no matter how unreasonable and arbitrary and evidence-free. So we must all play in the same sandbox, meaning, apparently, that we must all spend our lives three inches from all 300 million of the rest of us, and therefore we must never disagree with any of the beliefs of any of the 300 million.
What a happy and fulfilling life that sounds like! In airless proximity to 300 million people and forbidden to dispute any of their beliefs no matter how demented those beliefs may be. If that’s what pluralism means, I’d better start packing for Antarctica, where there’s a little room to breathe.
Giberson goes on to explain that “informed religious belief can accommodate modern science” and that things are looking good in that department, then he goes on from there to explain that the only problem is, “New Atheists.” Then he goes on to spend the vast bulk of the piece saying what’s so awful about “New Atheists” – thus violating his own rule about how to play in the sandbox, I would have thought, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
Dennet’s brother-in-arms, atheist Jerry Coyne, raked Brown University cell biologist Ken Miller and me over the coals in The New Republic for our claims that Christians can unapologetically embrace science.
Enough with the jokes; now I’m serious. That’s a really offensive claim. Not offensive in the frivolous sense the word is so often used to convey, but genuinely offensive, because it is untrue. Coyne doesn’t rake Miller and Giberson over any coals; he says good things about both of them in that long review in The New Republic; he also disagrees with much of what they claim in their respective books. He does it honestly, and carefully, and with detailed argument. That is not the same thing as raking people over the coals! It is offensive for Karl Giberson to make that accusation in a large-circulation national newspaper. Yet here he is telling other people how to play nicely. It’s so typical – say things about atheists that are not true, in the very act of telling atheists to be Nicer.
For the sake of argument, let us set aside questions about the truth of religion vs. the truth of science. Suppose there is no such thing as religious truth, as Richard Dawkins argued in The God Delusion. Allow that the “New Atheist Noise Machine,” as American University communications professor Matt Nisbet calls it, has a privileged grasp of the truth. Even with these concessions, it still appears that the New Atheists are behaving like a boorish bunch of intellectual bullies.
Does it? Or does it just appear that they are describing reality as they see it, and disputing other descriptions of reality that seem to them to be wrong. That’s how it appears to me. It also appears to me that Karl Giberson is confusing “saying something I don’t like” with “behaving like a boorish bunch of intellectual bullies” – while doing some genuine bullying himself.
There is something profoundly un-American about demanding that people give up cherished, or even uncherished, beliefs just because they don’t comport with science.
But nobody is “demanding” that – because nobody is in a position to demand that. People are pointing out incompatibilities, in public discussions. It seems to me there is “something profoundly un-American” about treating that as impermissible.
I had thought Giberson was a mistaken but decent guy (I got that impression from Coyne’s review, ironically enough), but now I know better.
Giberson’s analogy of children playing together in a sandbox as a representation of society is oddly appropriate, since those who seek to shut down public discourse are playing the Big Mommy card. Mommy has to make sure that nobody ends up with hurt feelings: people are more important, than any idea. And people, are thus infantalized. Religion seems to do that.
People have the RIGHT to BELIEVE whatever they WANT. And fact claims, are shifted into the area of identity and taste, as if one child was making fun of another child’s cowboy hat.
The problem with ‘accommodation’ is the possibility of accommodating the noisiest and most aggressive individuals and their illogical opinions in order to get some ‘peace’.
This is just the usual special pleading by believers -“you must not offend us by presenting rational arguments”,the rules are different for them.
And besides (she said wearily) it’s not even close to true. It’s just not close to true that “we are attentive to the idiosyncrasies of our playmates, especially when they don’t make sense to us” in the sense he means, which is that we don’t disagree with them even in the reasoned, argued, careful way that Jerry Coyne disagreed with the claims of Giberson and Miller in that review. We disagree with the idiosyncrasies of our playmates all the time! What does he think political parties do? What does he think peer reviewers do? What does he think academics do? His claim is completely ludicrous, but he gets away with it (a big national newspaper publishes it) because it’s about theism, even though he pretends it’s about all claims.
Giberson: “There is something profoundly un-American about demanding that people give up cherished, or even uncherished, beliefs just because they don’t comport with science.”
Ophelia: “But nobody is ‘demanding’ that – because nobody is in a position to demand that. People are pointing out incompatibilities, in public discussions….”
To point out an incompatibility is to make an implied demand. If A and B are logically incompatible, then A, B, or logic itself has to go. Giberson appears to sense this.
The belief in reason and the power of it is not a constraining belief, any more than is, say, a belief in the existence of the French railways. Though nobody can operate at all without a number of assumptions and beliefs, those who choose to believe the Biblical story or a modified version of it have an extra mental constraint to handle. At all times and in all situations.
To have that fact simply pointed out to them puts them on the spot. Science and religion do not coexist like eagles and lobsters, each blissfully unaware of the other. They are more like cat and dog. They can appear to get along just fine, but nobody is really suprised when there is the odd explosion.
Like this one:
I think that if I allow that someone who disagrees with me might just have, and only for the sake of argument, “a privileged grasp of the truth”, then it is I who is on the back foot. So having made those ‘concessions’, Giberson (and presumably Nisbet) must immediately withdraw them. Now you see ’em; now you don’t. Giberson and Dawkins are playing in the sandbox. Giberson builds his castle, knocks it down all by himself, and then complains that Dawkins did it.
I would think that a fundamental sandbox rule has just been violated.
Yes, it is becoming a bit claustrophobic, isn’t it? What a boorish man this gibbering Giberson is! Both in this article, and in his article on Jerry Coyne’s assessment of John Avise’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Science article. Sorry Giberson, you’re gibbering. He even entitles it (with an attempt at witticism: “Jerry Coyne’s Insufferable Argument.” Now, that’s boorish! And speaking of the “New Atheist Noise Machine”: that’s boorish. As you point out, Ophelia, he wants us to play like kids, and he gets to play the bully.
But the argument that he uses in his theodicy argument — that, since we don’t know whether God could have created a better world, therefore God is good and loving, and anyway, trees and grasses don’t suffer — is the same old same old that has been said for hundreds of years. At least Leibniz had the guts to say that this is the best of all possible worlds — which it must be, if God is all powerful, all knowing, omnibenevolent, etc. And yet, if you dare to point out that the argument is a bit leaky, the gibbering Giberson calls foul, and says that you’re just being nasty and boorish. But these guys have got to face the fact. This is either the best of all possible worlds, as Leibniz said, or God is not God. And, I gather that no one wants to say that this is the best of all possible worlds. Guess what? Now, that’s what the new atheist noise machine sounds like!
Oh, gosh, I didn’t read the punch line! Giberson is professor of — now, wait for it — Eastern Nazarene College!
Yes, and he doesn’t want to stop being that, so naturally he isn’t going to stop believing the things he believes!
Eagle-lobster cat-dog thing hilarious, Ian.
I wish these bliss ninnies would criticise people who actually fit the bill. Mario Bunge deserves far more critical attention than Dawkins does.
And, conversely, I’m surprised that Bunge’s hair-whitening manifesto, “In Praise of Intolerance toward Academic Charlatanism”, hasn’t been engraved in the B&W masthead by now.
Anyone who quotes Matt Nisbett as an authority can, (and should), be dismissed out of hand.
Hmm. I have read a piece by Bunge in The Flight From Science and Reason…but that’s all. In the dark am I? Not the first time.
All this vacuity about “bad” and “good” theology and insinuating that creationists’ religious beliefs are “uninformed” while his is “informed”. What does this mean? How does calling AiG a cult indicate that you play well with others? Has he ever considered he is wrong about compatibility between science and religion and AiG and atheists are right?
Not to mention, he can’t even spell Dennett’s name correctly.
Yeah, the essay you’re referring to from that volume was the same essay I had in mind. He’s been giving that line of argument since the mid-90s, and that article in particular has been reprinted a few times, evidently without much change.
Nisbet and Moonenbaum and the rest of them usually beat away at a strawman version of a hard-line scientism-ist. They claim that they are criticizing scientists who are intolerant and exclusionary, while usually misrepresentating the people they are referring to. Bunge is remarkable because he really does advocate the expulsion of certain researchers from academia. Dawkins is a tribble in comparison.
Jerry Coyne’s TNR review has been mentioned several times here, but I didn’t see a link.
http://www.tnr.com/article/books/seeing-and-believing
The idea that Jerry Coyne is offensive and that Karl Giberson is not truly is. (Horrible grammar, I know!)
I, too, am guilty of not previously having appreciated Giberson’s mendacity.
Following the above logic, they’ll have to outlaw election campaigns, since candidates from different parties tend to say nasty things about the other candidates’ cherished convictions.
Ah, I see. Well Bunge isn’t a best-seller, and Moonenbaum and Nisbet don’t waste their time on obscurities – that’s the explanation that occurs to me. I suppose I think a lot if not most if not all of what they do is aimed at publicity.
Jerry Coyne murmurs a few words.
You know, by comparing the discussion of God’s existence to a sandbox of children playing, Giberson pretty much admits that believing in God is a trivial sort of game. How dare the ‘new atheists’ take the concept seriously! We’re only playing! Stop examining religious beliefs as if they mean something: it’s rude and disrespectful. Stop treating us as if we’re adults.
Once again, a religious apologist is mistaking forbearance, for respect.
Actually Ophelia, I’ve been looking at properties on the moon in case Sarah Palin becomes President. On the dark side, so I don’t have to watch while everyone nukes each other. I think the moon is a much better prospect than Antarctica.
I was a student of Bunge’s as an undergraduate at roughly the time the piece mentioned above was published. I sort of asked him why he was so angry – though I think he’s justified in anger, if not in what consequences he sometimes advocates. He grew up in Argentina in the 30s and 40s, and saw what horrible consequences academic charlatanism did in Europe (think Nazi Germany) and how it basically, in a slightly muted form, got transfered to the universities in Argentina. Those who debate (for example) Heidegger’s degree of and relationships to Nazism forget sometimes (it seems) that there are still those who remember how he was taken at the time.
[…] As Ophelia Benson writes about the mean-spirited and boorish bullying accusation, That’s a really offensive claim. Not offensive in the frivolous sense the word is so often used to convey, but genuinely offensive, because it is untrue. Coyne doesn’t rake Miller and Giberson over any coals; he says good things about both of them in that long review in The New Republic; he also disagrees with much of what they claim in their respective books. He does it honestly, and carefully, and with detailed argument. That is not the same thing as raking people over the coals! It is offensive for Karl Giberson to make that accusation in a large-circulation national newspaper. Yet here he is telling other people how to play nicely. It’s so typical – say things about atheists that are not true, in the very act of telling atheists to be Nicer. […]
The thing is, Giberson’s hardly an outlier: Lying about atheists and atheism is so normalized that someone I suspect to be quite literally one of the nicest people in the world casually misrepresents us, almost certainly without even noticing. Sayeth the Dalai Lama in today’s NYT: “Radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who hold to religious beliefs.” Uhm, no.
Making points which, even when stated in uncompromising or even outright rude terms, boil down to some variation or other on “You have no evidence whatsoever for your wildly implausible claims, which are based on no more than myths and wishful thinking” is NOT EVEN REMOTELY a “blanket condemnation,” any more than Jerry Coyne’s very politely worded disagreement with Miller’s and Giberson’s respective arguments constituted a coal-raking. Nor, incidentally, is such criticism particularly radical.
Condemnation implies moral blame. Atheists – and many theists, and generally speaking most sensible people, including Tenzin Gyatso – reserve moral blame for the actions people take, and perhaps at the outside for the actions they advocate: Only dogmatic ideologues – primarily but not exclusively religious believers – condemn people for what they think rather than what they do. Religious believers invent and condemn “thought crimes” like coveting, not atheists. Atheists do not condemn people for holding beliefs, we criticize those beliefs and argue that holding them is unjustified. At worst, some atheists think and say that some or even all religious believers are fools/suckers/self-deceivers – which, while it is certainly a judgment, is not even remotely the same as moral condemnation. Moreover, since all the publicly outspoken atheists who could possibly be the target of this vague, sweeping “radical atheist” tag – and not only them, but every atheist vaguely familiar with facts (and most self-described atheists have quite an attachment to facts) – are aware and repeatedly point out that the single most determinative factor shaping people’s religious beliefs is the beliefs of their parents, we can hardly be accused of holding people morally blameworthy for their religious beliefs: We’re quite aware that children don’t choose their parents, thank you very much. Every atheist I know reserves actual moral condemnation for the bad behavior inspired by foolish religious beliefs – such as oppressing and murdering women, oppressing and murdering those who dare deviate from a whole suite of imposed patriarchal sexual norms mandated by imaginary male sky-daddy deities, oppressing and murdering apostates and infidels, lying to schoolchildren about science and history, and on and on and on. As I recall, the Dalai Lama has, on occasion, also condemned such behaviors, and has even spoken critically about the sort of religious dogmatism which inspires such behaviors. Does he consider himself a blanket-condemnation-spouting radical, I wonder?
In an essay blathering on about compassion being a unifying theme of religion and finding common ground between faiths and so on, why is Gyatso’s only mention of atheists (or secularists, or non-believers of any stripe) the wholly negative sentence cited above? Doesn’t he believe the non-religious are capable of compassion? He finds room for that sentence about unspecified “radical atheists,” but he has a whole paragraph or more about how Islam is really about compassion and isn’t primarily a militant religion – ignoring not only the manifestly militant history of Muhammed and much of the actual text of the Koran, but the self-conception and behavior of millions of Muslims who call for the extermination of Jews and apostates and gays and whomever their particular enemy of the moment may be (including grandfatherly cartoonists) while simultaneously exerting abusive social and invidual power to consign half of their own population to second-class, sub-human status – yet somehow he couldn’t find any room to mention that atheists also can be and are compassionate social activists. Sorry, bub: You can’t speak convincingly about understanding and tolerance and coming together while casually excluding and maligning a significant (and growing) percentage of humanity.
/end angry rant
Good rant.
It is a good rant, but what I can’t understand is that, in many of its manifestations, Buddhism is effectively atheistic, certainly non-theistic. Why would the Dalai Lama, a feudalistic overlord manque (I can’t get the ASCII code to work for the accent aigue), simply elide such an important fact? And why, as George asks, would he overlook the horrendous doctrines of Islam? (As Hitchens says, the Qu’ran is a pastiche of plagiarised ideas, and what is native to it is vile.) It’s getting hard to breathe around here!
This isn’t the only tactic and Giberson isn’t the only offender.
At his blog, Coyne withholds dissenting posts and precludes further comment by folks with the temerity to disagree with him. That form of “shut[ting] down public discourse” is far more direct than Giberson’s approach. But I can’t say I’m surprised. Those who whine the longest and the loudest about free expression are often the first to repress dissent when given the opportunity to do so.
Hmph. I’m not talking to you, Eric – you got your retort to Karl Giberson in faster than I got mine in, so yours shows up first. Phooey.
Hahahahaha.
I’ve been a long time visitor and commenter at WEIT and I’ve never seen that, and any number of wack-a-loons have left their mind droppings over there.
And you miss the point, it’s Jerry Coynes blog and he can do as he sees fit. That doesn’t qualify as “repressing dissent”.
It just means you are too lazy to start your own blog and publish your dissenting opinions, I’m sure the world waits in breathless anticipation for this unlikely event.
SomeoneSG, yeah, Coyne’s blog can be a bit weird. Sometimes posts get shut out; e.g., a year ago, my posts never showed up. All I know is that after I complained, he went ahead and fixed whatever stuff needed fixing. (It might be because of his filters.)
Nowadays, I’ve found that so long as I use a recognized email address, it goes through. Otherwise it may or may not show up.
steve
You’re welcome to your opinions on this, but the point is that censorship on blogs demonstrates intellectual cowardice and irrationality. Never mind this “set up your own blog” stuff. When Ophelia was banned from The Intersection, it was because Moonenbaum were playing sad clowns with wilting flowers. They have the right to do whatever they like, but the spirit of the right is cooperation and dialogue, and censorship — even in private forums — is an immolation of the spirit of reason.
Grace,
Nonsense, there are plenty of dissenting comments on Coyne’s blog – and how would you know what he keeps back anyway? Perhaps he kept back comments of yours? But you’re just one person – unless of course you’re many sock puppets, but in that case, it would be no surprise if all your comments were kept back.
I notice a lot of exaggeration about this kind of thing – someone deletes one comment and that becomes “X deletes all comments that don’t agree with her!” One=all with amazing regularity. It’s often sock puppets who are complaining the loudest, which is quite funny. “I commented there under 14 different names and that jerk deleted all of them!!”
Oops, I thought I’d refreshed but I must not have, I missed all those replies to Grace.
Censorship on blogs demonstrates intellectual cowardice and irrationality if all dissent is censored (say), or if most of it is, or similar. But if crude abusive ill-written stupid dissent is censored, for instance – the case is murkier.
I attempted a comment at the Intersection a few hours ago, for the first time since (I think) last summer. It was quite civil, though critical. Last time I checked it still hadn’t appeared. I think that’s not respectable.
Might, might not. The odd “BOOBQUAKE” post from he must not be named is amusing but no one could condemn the blog owner tossing those into the bit bucket. It’s a matter of degree and the personal opinion of the blog owner. Don’t you worry too much about the “immolation of the spirit of reason”, with a right to free expression will take care of that. But free expression does not mean that a blog owner has to publish every little profundity dropped off in a basket on the front steps of their blog.
Why not ? That the empowerment of the Internet. The marketplace of ideas set free from the control a a centralized publication system, be it broadcast TV, newspapers, magazines etc. You think you have some good ideas, put your money where your mouth is (and the cost can approach zero if you don’t mind embedded ads) and publish, publish publish and wait for the world to respond (or yawn).
It’s a lot of work to set up and run a blog. As a commentor one gets to take advantage of all the hard work put in by the blog owner (thank you Ophelia) and make ones viewpoint known in a (semi) public forum without incurring a lot of these costs. So guess what, you don’t get to call the shots on those blogs.
Yeah, but that’s because in the world according to Moonenbaum you are a big mean bully. That goes to show how the idea of “civility” is pretty fungible. It’s completely relative to what you think your duties are to the conversation.
There are areas of overlapping consensus, of course. e.g., lots of people may agree that Johnny Poopoo’s grammatically challenged treatise, ‘Concerning the Romantic Relations between Lie-berals and their Mothers’, is an instance of useless trolling. But it’s never complete agreement. What makes a class of dissenters “similar”? What makes it “abusive”? All but the most toughened worldly editors twist the words to suit their precious feelings.
steve, I do worry, because the argument you’re giving is the same argument that has turned television into the private propaganda machine of special interests. Give it enough time, enough institutionalization, and the same centralization process will gradually happen to the internet.
Our breezy talk about the freedom of the internet (and “the marketplace of ideas”) reminds me of the same kind of naive optimism that laissez-faire proponents boasted in reference to small businesses and the American Dream. Now the prospects of a laissez-faire system are long dead and buried. The market is global, where you have to have massive state support in order to survive. The “marketplace of ideas” is run by freeloading collectives. The phrase becomes farcical.
What does it take to stop this? I don’t know. But for starters, you need to make your standards of civility explicit and defend them like a rational person. Saying “I’m sovereign” and leaving it at that, begs the question; you’re only sovereign insofar as people need you. And, in my view, what we need is a culture of people who are capable of rational debate.
Heh. I know. And naturally my harshest criticism is just within the borders of civility (according to me) while Jenny Poo-poo’s is well outside it, even if a reader on Mars might see no important difference between them. Ahhhhhhh wellllllllll.
The proprietors of Moonenbaum world have a point in the sense that I was relentless. But I have a point in the sense that I was relentless only because they kept Naming Names in the national media week in and week out. I still think their relentlessness was more malicious and more harmful than mine was, because Butterflies and Wheels is not the Los Angeles Times.
And failure to get this is one reason Mooney is not my idea of a Professional Communication Guru.
I’m not sure it needs to be stopped in the sense that blogs should cease censoring posts that the owner does not like for whatever reason.
New blogs will spring into existence in response to this sort of behaviour and the net result may make for a richer, more productive shared environment.
There is an old saying (by Internet standards): the Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it.
There is no need to waste time and energy trying to make old systems conform to your point of view, it’s more productive to create the new systems to replace them.
By “this” I mean the long march towards centralization, the iron law of oligarchy. It can only be tempered by a bit of self-discipline, self-awareness, and insight into how things play out.
There’s no doubt that we have to cut our losses and abandon systems of media that are dysfunctional. But unless people find a way of taking pride in being free and responsible people, our new system (internet) is going to become like our old system (big media). The Libertarian Shrug may be your best option when you have no control over your environment (i.e., over government, media, etc.) But when you do have a bit of influence, you need to have a sense of stewardship. And part of that stewardship involves telling blog owners that they’re being autocratic when it fits the bill; and if they’re stewards themselves, they’ll hopefully chill out a little.
Of course it’s Coyne’s blog and he can do with it what he weants, no matter how petty and egocentric. But to withhold critical posts is just as surely repressing dissent, no matter his right to do so.
Because it happened to me and to at least one other person that I’m aware of.
Yup. It’s small. Very small.
I tackled the Dalai Lama yesterday, and I’m a little ashamed that I glossed over the blanket condemnation George Felis has so astutely pointed out. To emphasize the point, I’d like to mention that there’s an unforgivable double standard in the juxtaposition of his declaration that Islam is a “peaceful religion” and atheists are radicals.
I don’t deny that there are a few radical atheists out there. I’ve got a few who comment on my blog. They blame everything on religion, think theists are bad people, and seem to believe that ending religion would create world peace. But none of them are famous best-selling authors, and most of them are considered annoyances on popular discussion boards. Even Christopher Hitchens, the most vilified of the “Four Horsemen,” is careful to say that religious people are not necessarily bad — just indoctrinated and deluded. That’s a huge difference.
I’m just guessing here, but based on the more or less random addition of atheist facebook friends I’ve experienced in the last year, I’d say the “radical atheists” account for maybe a couple percent of American atheists. Even if it’s as much as ten percent, that still means that 90% of atheists are reasonable people who don’t throw blanket condemnations on all religious people.
So how does that compare with Muslims? How many Muslims think it’s ok to believe in Jesus? How many of them cherry pick just the compassionate, loving, tolerant passages from the Qur’an?
I’m sorry, but even if Tenzin is simply naive, it’s a horrible thing he’s doing — perpetuating the myth that there’s a rabid army of irrational atheists out there. It’s just not true. There are a few websites out there dedicated to angry bitching about religion, but they’re not the movers and shakers of the atheist movement, and they represent a very small (and mostly ignored) set of extremists. (And it’s worth noting that at least 50% of their bitching is in-fighting.)