There are too few of you! Also too many!
Julian Baggini says why he declined to add his signature to a letter protesting against the pope’s visit and why he thinks the pope-protest is a bad thing.
Consider for a moment why almost every secular, liberal-minded person thought that Pastor Terry Jones was wrong to plan to burn Qur’ans on the anniversary of 9/11…The main problem is that by burning the holy book of all Muslims, the protest would fail to target jihadist murderers and would be seen as vehemently anti-Islam.
But jihadist murderers are not necessarily the only problem with Islam; it is not necessarily the case that being anti-Islam is self-evidently bad. It could be the case that there are many things wrong with Islam, and that it is reasonable to be critical of Islam and even anti-Islam. One can be anti-libertarian, anti-socialist, anti-Tory, anti-union. Why should one not be anti-Islam?
The kinds of protests against the pope we’re seeing in the UK do not, of course, match the idiocy of Jones’s pyrotechnics. But they too are creating divisions at a time when mutual understanding is already at a low…
But if it is forbidden to “create divisions” then we can never change anything. If it is automatically and self-evidently bad to “create divisions” then we just have to accept whatever the status quo is without a murmur. Baggini is “creating divisions” just by writing this piece. So what? Yes of course protests against the pope “create divisions”; my relationship with the Vatican, for instance, is at an all-time low. But I don’t think that is a reason to stop saying how bad the Vatican is.
Take Britain’s five million Roman Catholics. They are a very disparate bunch. Many despair of their church’s stance on women priests, homosexuality, condoms and child abuse. They would also like to take this trip as an opportunity to let the pontiff know that his British flock cannot be loyal on these issues. A few have even joined the Protest the Pope campaign. But how many more could have found common cause with their secular brethren had not the latter opposed the trip outright. “Nope pope” is not a slogan of a campaign that is doing its best to bring dissatisfied Catholics along with it.
But you can always say that, about anything – if you made your message more anodyne and ingratiating, you could find common cause with more people. Finding common cause with more people is not always the goal; sometimes the goal is to say what one thinks needs to be said.
It strengthens the perception that Britain is under the sway of what Cardinal Walter Kasper called an “aggressive neo-atheism”. It means that when the pope made a comparison between “atheist extremism” and Nazism, far from seeing it as the absurdity it is, many found themselves wondering if he had a point. We atheists can protest about the slur as much as we like, but we ought to realise that the more we engage in polarising disputes, the easier it will be to portray us as contributing to an atmosphere which, at its extreme, leads to assassination plots against religious leaders.
He says, doing his bit to portray us as contributing to an atmosphere which, at its extreme, leads to assassination plots against “religious leaders.” And what are “religious leaders,” anyway? The pope is the only official one in the world, and none of them are leaders in the democratic sense; they’re just men who have reached the top of some clerical hierarchy or other. The rest of us are under no obligation whatsoever to obey them or “respect” them or bend the knee to them in any way. They’re not the bosses of us. They’re not anyone’s leader except maybe the clerics of their own institutions. I trust I can say that without being accused of contributing to an atmosphere which leads to assassination plots against them.
I am glad that people are protesting on the key issues that the pope has got very wrong. If only a few people were doing so I might have felt it necessary to sign the petition. But when everyone starts piling in, it is perfectly reasonable for others to say it is time to back off before it gets too ugly. Party lines are the death of rational, free-thought movements: divided we stand, united we fall.
So…the protest against the pope is very naughty because it doesn’t find common cause with more people, but on the other hand, the protest against the pope is very naughty because it is too big and everyone is piling in and it’s a party line and divided we stand, united we fall.
It’s both of those? At the same time? Srsly?
All right; in that case they cancel each other out and I will feel free to ignore them.
Baggini: one cannot protest the Pope’s stance on HIV and condoms, women priests, abortion, or criminal investigation of child rape because it’s divisive to do so. On the other hand, the Pope can equate atheism and Nazism because some people might think he has a point. And if atheists object to being called Nazis, well that only makes us blameworthy for hypothetical future assassination attempts.
It’s a stupid game Baggini is asking us to play. The Pope can be as divisive as he likes whilst spreading harmful falsehoods — but nobody should respond, even by articulating the truth, because that would be divisive back.
Yes.
I am not certain what I’m supposed to make of the oracular “divided we stand, united we fall” aphorism.
To be sure, diversity of tactics is worth fighting for. Diversity of principles among reasonable/civil fellow-travellers is also worth training yourself to love. And if that’s what he meant by the above quote, then there’d be no question.
But I think that the idea we’re supposed to be getting is something more like “solidarity is not permissible”. And if that’s the idea, then it’s infantile. After all, if you save all your animus for the people you agree with, then why should any potential convert feel compelled to agree? If Jones treats his friends as if they occupied a class below his own, and treats his enemies with respect, then all other things equal I’d much rather be Jones’s enemy than his friend.
Even if I concede to Baggini’s worry that “…when the pope made a comparison between ‘atheist extremism’ and Nazism, far from seeing it as the absurdity it is, many found themselves wondering if he had a point,” I can still ask him if it isn’t perhaps more worrisome that people can’t distinguish between an absurdity and the justified and strongly asserted claims that the pope may bear some responsibility for the state of his Vatican. And in what sense is it practical–and not downright absurd–for secularists to work for the inclusion of Catholics in a common cause (or movement) to assert free thought?!
Since the Pope’s address at Westminster Hall was so well-attended and lavishly applauded, by the Guardian’s account
it doesn’t seem the least bit out of line to counter the official approbation by joining the opposition, raucous though it may be.
(“Neo-atheist? That makes me want to declare myself a paleo-agnostic, robustly Huxleyan in contrast to New Agey wishy-washiness.
So Ratzi comes to the UK, largely at our expense, and within minutes he starts sounding off about atheists having fascism in their hearts and being a threat to everything that is good, decent and moral … Then he claims that our equalities legislation (we all know that’s what he was referring to) doesn’t constitute ‘authentic’ human rights … and WE’RE the ones being divisive?
Thank you for playing, Mr Baggini.
Oops. Sorry for the ‘jearts’ and the stray bracket. Please blame iPhone!
“Many despair of their church’s stance on women priests, homosexuality, condoms and child abuse”:all about sex. Is there something else we could talk about? I’m tired of sex!
Is there a web-site/agency for dating women priests? No sex involved. Good niche.
I just don’t get it. What is it about some atheists (like Julian Baggini) who seem to want to be so submissively ingratiating with the theocrats? I’m quite prepared to be very gentle with my neighbourhood believers, and think the best of them, very often, because they are, like all of us, trying to live in very difficult circumstances sometimes, and, in most contexts, tradition tells us that religion is the best way to do it. In the town where I live there are four — it used to be five – churches all in a row on the same street. Going from South to North, they are the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church, Baptist Church, Roman Catholic Church, and what used to be the Presbyterian Church, but is now a local historical museum. Then there are at least three other churches in the immediate area, Pentecostal, Mormon and Jehovah’s Witnesses, all in modern new buildings. Belief is normal, unbelief is very rare — or at least organised unbelief is very rare. In fact, in this area it is unknown. So, you either belong to the church or to the Royal Canadian Legion, or the Masons (which is rather exclusive), if you want to belong to community at all. So, visibility of unbelief is a very difficult thing to accomplish, and so long as it’s invisible, it will have no cultural clout at all. And I suspect this is true of many, if not most other places in the so-called “West”.
And then along comes a man who represents a church which, not to put to fine a point on it, is not only incredibly visisble, but takes every word of opposition as some kind of anti-Catholic prejudice, almost like a form of racism. Yet this is a church that does not hesitate to pressure politicians to vote the church’s conscience — note, not necessarily their own conscience — at the expense of membership and perhaps even, if they really believe it, eternal salvation. And it has done this on some very sensitive moral isues, having to do with individual rights. Had it the power, it would change Britain’s abortion laws overnight, and consign women to forced pregnancy no matter what the conditions under which that pregnancy was initiated, no matter what the consequences of carrying that pregnancy on to term. It is quite prepared to condemn homosexual people for being gravely disordered, and for mortal sin, if they should live according to their nature. It has no scruples whatsoever about forcing people to die in misery, and values simply biological life above the choices and life decisions that people might make regarding their lives, and whether or not they find life worth while living under the most extreme circustances of pain, suffering and existential crisis due to disease or accident. It is represented by a man against whom a fairly substantial case can be made for sheltering criminals who have abused children in their charge. And besides all this, the pope has shown himself, time and time again, as perhaps the most reactionary pope since Pius XII, who himself moderated his criticism of the Nazis to such a degree that it is not at all a slander to speak of him as Hitler’s Pope. It is a church which, in the form of its leader, has, without compunction, told historical lies about the source of Nazism, and, in the process, slandered every unbeliever in Britain, and we are supposed to, according to Julian Baggini, moderate our criticism, and submit to a cliché about division vs. unity. Has this man as few scruples as the pope, or does he not see that there are issues of great moral importance here, and that protest is about the mildest way to express concern about them? Speaking of division, does he really think that it is helpful to divide the forces of reason, in order to stand with a church that is arguably one of the chief forces of reaction in the world today?
I do not only disapprove of Julian Baggini. I am incensed by his foolishly myopic view of the cultural crossroads we have arrived at. Either we oppose the increasing resurgence of religion with some energy, or we simply turn over and play dead and let the religious get on with redesigning the world to suit their tastes, a reshaping that will inevitably have further consequnces in violence and oppression. Despite what Baggini says in his article, it is not at all clear that non-believers have made such a spectacle of themselves by their response to the pope’s visit. The protest could, it seems to me, have been much more visible and vociferous, and could have told a few more home truths about this man who, it has to be acknowledged, is one of the greatest disasters to have afflicted the Roman catholic church since Vatican II. Not that John Paul II was either liberal or progressive. He wasn’t. But he was not on the warpath so obviously as our friend Ratzi, who has made it his mission in life to turn back the causes of secularism and progressivism. This should be opposed with all the power at our disposal. That consists mainly in reasonably clear thinking, and in words. And Julian Baggini’s appeal to people to join with their catholic brothers and sisters instead of alienating them, so that ‘united we stand divided we fall’, is a recipe for capitulation, not presence, in the face of an organisation, if the press coverage is anything to go by, that does not need our help or our support.
PZ Myers has posted this on his blog. It’s much more eloquent than I could possibly be. I don’t know whether I will be successful in actually pasting it in here, so if it doesn’t come out right, go over to Pharyngula for the rather jaunty little tune.
No, it didn’t work, so you can see it here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/09/episode_cvii_a_musical_interlu.php#comments
What creates repulsion and disgust among secular people is the simple fact that their hard-earned money has been used to pay for this clown’s trip. The fund-raising abilities of Catholic organizations are supposedly legendary. So why was it so hard for them to pull in this time and spare the rest of us the agony? First you use my tax money without consent, then you compare my beliefs to those of the Nazis, and then lecture me about what I can or cannot say about the whole travesty? Great. Where would we be without these privilege-whores?
I wonder why comment is closed on Baggini’s article.
Ha! Thanks Eric – that is indeed a jaunty and catchy tune. I’m singing it now.
I, too, have absolutely no problem about castigating this and previous popes for the church’s record on child abuse and many other issues. And it is hardly difficult to regard Islamic misogyny, homophobia and sharia judicial systems as sufficient reason to be vocally anti-Islam. Surely Baggini’s strategy is that a pope-protest makes it harder to also have a position that, apart from a few radicals like the 9/11 perpetrators, Islam is basically just fine? And the Catholic Church just has a few naughty priests.
I’m boggling at the Baggini article. The point of protest against those you think are powerful bullies is not to be nice to them so they’ll like you. And if the Pope comes out swinging against atheists, it seems pretty obvious to me that he’s attempting to distract the world from 1) the scandals of priests raping children and Ratzinger telling his minions that on pain of excommunication they must keep it quiet, and 2) the fact that they couldn’t fill the venues where he was to speak so the word went out to Catholic schools to bring the kiddies so the Pope wouldn’t be embarrassed.
When did Baggini become Mr Appeasement?
I don’t know. I especially don’t know when he became Mr Appeasement toward the pope.
Who? Who are these “many”? Where is the poll with British citizens nodding their heads to this slander? Has Britain already forgotten how the Nazis actually behaved, that “many” could find this cheap shot convincing?
Or is it Baggini who finds the comparisons to Nazism compelling, and if he does, why not come out and say why? Don’t hide behind this Wikipedia weaselly stuff.
Yes, I wondered that too. What survey is that from. I too suspected it was just Baggini extrapolating from himself and confusing that with vox pop.
OB: But jihadist murderers are not necessarily the only problem with Islam; it is not necessarily the case that being anti-Islam is self-evidently bad. It could be the case that there are many things wrong with Islam, and that it is reasonable to be critical of Islam and even anti-Islam. One can be anti-libertarian, anti-socialist, anti-Tory, anti-union. Why should one not be anti-Islam?
Exactly.
What an intellectual douchebag and midget this Baggini.
Hamid: What an intellectual douchebag and midget this Baggini.
Really.
He’s made a number of contributions to this site. For example:
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/archived/badmoves/
Yup, he has. Bad Moves dates from 2002 to 2003. (I think – maybe it ran into 2004.) I’m sure he wouldn’t dream of publishing anything on this site now.
OB: I assume, though, that his lack of a desire to publish on this site doesn’t mean he has become an intellectual midget though? Simply that he disagrees with your position on a number of issues?
Of course his lack of desire to publish on this site doesn’t mean he has become an intellectual midget. I didn’t say it did, or that he had. (On the other hand his alleged [by me] lack of desire to publish on this site doesn’t simply mean that he disagrees with my position on a number of issues. It’s more like what he says in that article, which is not just disagreement but moral condemnation. The idea is not just that we’re [I’m] mistaken, it’s that we’re piling on, we’re creating divisions, we’re getting ugly.)
As I have written about on my blog, the problem with Jones’ protest wasn’t so much that it would piss off jihadis, it was that the whole point was to piss people off. If, hypothetically, Jones had been protesting the taking of child brides in certain Islamic sects with supposed Quranic justification, I might not have been wholly opposed to his protest (though I must say that book-burning is a form of protest that is pretty much forever tarnished, and should probably not be used, ever…)
Baggini’s analogy would be apt if the Pope protesters didn’t have any specific criticisms. If the message had been, “The Pope is Ugly!”, then Baggini is dead on the money. But that’s not what the message was, and he knows it.
All protests “create divisions” — that’s inherent in the definition of the word “protest”!!! It is the substance of the divide which matters. If one side is right and the other is wrong….