He’s just another dude on the planet
Brian Dalton has a terrible short video raging at people who object to Richard Dawkins’s stream of anti-feminist tweets.
He starts out with outrage about the idea of “breaking up with” the great man. He’s not a god, Dalton tells us patronizingly, he didn’t run for president of United Atheists, and he’s not your freakin’ boyfriend.
He’s just another dude on the planet with opinions of his own, some of which you will agree with and some of which you will clearly not. But when he or Sam or Bill or whomever [sic] says something you disagree with, don’t take it as a personal betrayal. Richard never agreed to be your personal spokesman, let alone boyfriend.
And more of the same.
Here’s what he’s not getting. The issue is not mere opinions. It’s not a matter of disagreeing. It’s more than that. It has to do with bullying and harassment. It has to do with RD’s 1.35 million Twitter followers. It has to do with crude jeering as opposed to reasoned discussion.
Then he explains that we don’t need to “follow” anyone, and that we’re all individuals.
That again simply misses the point. It overlooks the fact that a great many people do follow Dawkins, and when he taunts one particular feminist or another, they follow suit. That’s the issue. It’s not pathetic disillusion with a hero we shouldn’t have been worshipping in the first place, it’s disgust that other people’s hero keeps sending harassment our way. It’s disgust that we’re being systematically driven out of the secular / freethought movement, and that Dawkins is helping with the driving out. Dalton either doesn’t recognize that or doesn’t give a fuck. I think it’s probably the latter, since the former is hard to believe.
Then he tells us we shouldn’t write off another human being “simply because they’ve said something we disagree with, however vehemently.” Again: it’s not just “disagreement.”
Then he tells us we’re never going to find someone, especially someone in the media, in the public eye, who agrees with us 100% of the time, and thank deity for that because how boring would that be. Again: not the issue.
Then he says hooray for diversity, because human beings are not simply the sum total of their last tweet.
And when a person has made major contributions in multiple fields of endeavor, it’s best to greet their current folly by recalling the totality of their life.
He just got through telling us not to hero worship Dawkins or anyone, but that claim is hero worship itself. Major contributions in multiple fields of endeavor? That’s a big exaggeration.
The rest of the claim might be true or at least reasonable were it not for the fact that the “current folly” is doing current harm, to actual people.
Then he says more about disagreement, which, again, is not the issue.
Then there’s a little aria about the freethought community and how we’re all not just individuals but individuals who “think different”; we’re freethinkers, provocateurs, contrarians, all around assholes, who love more than anything else to stir up the pot, make you think, and challenge convention.
Maybe so, although there’s a lot of self-flattery in that claim – but even if we are, it doesn’t follow that we have to bully our underlings.
Then he ends with a zinger about purity tests and that’s why he left religion in the first place. Roll credits.
He never once addresses the fact that outgroups may see this kind of thing differently from the way he does and the way Dawkins does.
Oh, yes, it’s all just offense. But who is the one actually taking “offense”, if we look at it from the big picture? Dawkins took offense that Rebecca Watson didn’t want guys hitting on her in the elevator. He took offense that people thought a young boy should not have been arrested for bringing a clock to school, because “he didn’t really make a clock”. Language purity. He took offense because feminists protested an inappropriate shirt. Dawkins seems to be just one big ball of quivering offense right now, and we’re being told by everyone to lay off being offended because it’s so not freethinking, etc.
I used to try to figure out whether Dawkins was oblivious or malevolent. Now I figure it doesn’t matter. The effect is the same. Over a million fans that think he can do no wrong, and so they rush in a horde to protect him from that feminist blogger who just called him a bad name. Rape threats, death threats – it’s all just being a contrarian, a provocateur. Don’t over react. Just because they posted your address with the subtle statement that someone ought to rape you? Hypersensitive! Thought police!
I’m so tired. I thought I have finally found a home when I joined the freethought community, a place where I could finally have something in common. Now I find myself going through the same terrible experiences day in and day out that I had in the patriarchal religious community I was raised in. Patriarchy doesn’t look too good no matter which clothes it wears.
I think Dalton is right not to expect to agree with anyone 100%. I never expect that (not even you, Ophelia; not even Katha Pollitt). But he’s being a bit disingenuous here, because there are always some things that are more important than others. We are allowed to dismiss Neo-Nazis as role models, even though there may have been some decent things they did. We are allowed to dismiss the KKK as role models, even though many of them are model citizens in other aspects of life. We can just totally refuse to be friends with them, to associate with them, to read their books. We can criticize them online and off. But when the topic is sexism or misogyny, that is just trivial stuff, and merely disagreement. Sorry, don’t buy that.
Dawkins’s statement about inappropriate touching around the water cooler was sort of the last straw for me. This is recognition that sexual harassment happens, but basically he writes it off as not important. Sexual harassment is not important, it’s just “inappropriate touching”. Yes. And inappropriate leering is just inappropriate leering. And inappropriate shirts are just inappropriate shirts. But they all contribute to a pattern that affects one particular group of people disproportionately…a group of people that neither Richard Dawkins or Brian Dalton is part of, which makes their lecturing look just a bit self-serving. It’s very easy to dismiss someone else’s problems as inappropriate. What would happen if we dismissed it as unimportant when someone violated them? (And I hope no one here would ever do that…we can be bigger than that, and show them how it’s done).
That’s my rant for the day.
Just another dude on the planet with millions of followers. Just another dude on the planet, which is why Dalton felt compelled to defend him from other nobodies on the planet who think he’s full of shit.
Exactly lady M. If it’s all a storm in a teacup why comment on it at all. Oh, wait…
Where to begin?
How ’bout like this:
Mr. Dalton–Brian*–I do not at _all_ consider Dr. Dawkins to be my ‘leader’, in any capacity. (‘Thought leader’ or otherwise, which, I might remind you, he did kinda volunteer to call himself, for a while, a while back.) The most I can say about him: he’s written a few decent books, and I have found myself thinking, as I have done with a few writers, over time: ‘fuck, guess I don’t get to write that line anymore; it’s been done and he probably made a lot more for saying it than me’. This is about the extent of it. I’m kinda a pre-Dawkins atheist, anyway, but even this is a bit beside the point, as I don’t really consider Russell or Ingersoll to be my leader–or even mentor–in any real capacity, either. Atheism isn’t one of those things, I also kinda think, you necessary need one of those for much, for. Or I didn’t. Mostly, on the contrary, as maybe I’m a bit unhealthy that way, I tend to resent the bastards for getting published and/or paid for saying whichever it was, first. You too, for that matter. Also Ophelia (sorry, O, but I expect you’d take it as a compliment, if anything.) I’m not much of a team player, I guess.
No, the reason it’s kinda necessary, I’m afraid, page hits or no, _time_ or no, energy or no, for me and others to comment upon this stuff is: Dawkins _is_ extremely prominent, for better and for worse. The go-to atheist talking head a lot of the world seems to think of, of late, when you want the guy to represent that viewpoint on CNN. And, in fact, I might mention, he kinda _does_ choose to be my spokesperson–somewhat involuntarily on both of our parts, I think–every time he shows up for one of those calls.
What that means, practically, for me, is: when he says something I find spectacularly stupid about feminism (a regular occurence, of late), I do have to make a point of saying: in case anyone is assuming otherwise, this man does not speak for me, here. Here’s what he said that I feel was dumb. Here’s how I disagree.
It’s regrettable, of late, rather frequently, in fact. I’d quite _like_ to be able to ignore him, I assure you, same as I generally try to ignore the ignorant old coot at the end of the block railing against immigrants, or whatever the hell it is this week. But while people don’t generally figure I’m likely to agree with _that_ guy (or I guess at last I _hope_ they don’t), they are likely, I fear, due to CNN and the like having Dawkins on their get list, to assume ‘this is what atheists think about feminism’.
It is not, generally. Or certainly not what this one thinks. And I feel it’s rather necessary I make this clear, on occasion. For practical reasons I hope you can appreciate.
It is also, I might mention, especially regrettable in his case because I rather appreciate that the guy did help open the Overton window a bit–together, I’d add, however, with a lot of us doing something similar a bit less prominently–on what we could say publically about religion. And now I figure people are going to take this generally toxic stupidity of his and happily try to imply–logically or not–that _that’s_ what vocal disrespect of religion must be about–being an ignorant tool of people who I figure are actually profoundly anti-egalitarian, however loudly and obnoxiously and improbably they doth protest otherwise. Which, frankly, I figure a certain contingent will always be incredibly quick to do. Poisoning the well to silence any criticism of religion will be attempted however they think they can get away with, and I expect Dawkins is making it increasingly easy for them, with this hamfisted embrace of the rhetoric of the internet’s least wanted. No, it ain’t so much scientific, but this is how opinions are formed, as I’d expect–as someone who does dabble in various media–you’d know. And they’ll find it easy to imply– _especially_ if a lot of us _don’t_ regularly enough stand up and say ‘not my spokesperson on this subject’–to imply that ‘Atheist’=’clueless ranting chauvinist who apparently learned about feminism the same place The Sun’s editorial pool did’. And I just can’t say how delighted I am to find this is my reality, as of 2016.
*Full disclosure: I had dinner with the guy at a conference, once, have otherwise occasionally communicated. He seemed nice. So Brian, if you do, improbably, read this, I hope you’ll take this as coming from someone who doesn’t actually hate you, but does see this particular video as one of your more notably clueless.
That’s ok, Andrew (the part about resenting). I had a lot of accidental luck – doing things because I wanted to do them, that ended up with my getting published. I’d resent it too.
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