Siding with the already strong
There’s another thing about Julian Baggini’s rebuke of atheists for ganging up on the pope. It is the fact that it overlooks the gang on the other side. There was the gang that toddled obligingly along to Westminster Hall yesterday to listen deferentially to the pope telling them what’s what.
Pope Benedict tonight used the keynote address of his visit to Britain to protest at “the increasing marginalisation of religion” in public life, maintaining that even the celebration of Christmas was at risk.
In a dense, closely argued speech to an audience that included four former prime ministers, the pope said social consensus alone could not be left to decide policies…
Below him, seated in neat rows that stretched to the back of the vast, 900-year-old hall, were hundreds of parliamentarians and religious leaders.
Among them were Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Sir John Major, Lady Thatcher, William Hague and Nick Clegg.
That gang. The state, basically. There is also the vast majority of the mainstream media. Yet Baggini chooses to characterize atheists and protesters as being too many and too much and too rough.
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.
Why is it the people saying “no” who are piling on and likely to get ugly? Why is it not the monarchy and the government and the media who are creating and enforcing a coercive consensus? Why is Baggini treating power, hierarchy and privilege as normal and protest against those things as deviant and excessive? Why is he worrying about “polarising disputes” and “contributing to an atmosphere” and “party lines” and “collateral damage” only in relation to the protesting minority while letting the theocracy-embracing majority entirely off the hook? Why is he blaming us while shielding them?
Umm….’Cause it pays?
Status quo bias. When things are a certain way for long enough people come to think it’s right and natural they are that way. Every major attempt to foster progress throughout history has been opposed. Some by those whose interests were threatened, some by those with sincere disagreements. But mostly by those who just feel wrong when people start shaking things up. Its a natural inclination, and even laudable in moderate doses. But it hardly ever comes in moderate doses.
What’s that Ratzi? Christmas? The ancient Winter Solstice* festival that Christians co-opted in order to make people more compliant to the new religion? The time of year that priests just decided to make into Jesus’s birthday, hundreds of years after this character had supposedly lived? Oh. Okay then. Just clarifying.
Oh flippin’ ‘eck. This is one of the worst things he’s said thus far. It basically translates to “Those idiot masses can’t be trusted to run their own lives. Those fools need to be RULED. By me (and maybe you too, but only if I say so).”
I believe Rage Against The Machine have a fitting riposte to crap such as this.
*Yule, Saturnalia etc
Are all these faithiest/oh-how-shrill-the-gnu-atheists-are articles written by the same person?
Cause he’s got a new book coming to “them” stores?
Status quo bias; yes; but you’d think a philosopher would know to correct for that.
Assuming I’ve interpreted the term ‘status quo bias’ correctly I’d agree–for those of us who are not philosphers ‘power, hierarchy and privilege’ are normal.regrettably, and apparently comforting to a very large proportion of the population of even Western liberal societies. Perhaps the prospect of a truly secular society is rather alarming for the majority.
Status quo bias won’t wash in this case. Julian says that he would have signed the protest, but decided not to when “everyone” piled in. This is, quite frankly, ridiculous. If there were reasons to sign on in the first place, those reasons don’t suddenly become null just because more people than expected decided to join the protest. It should, other things being equal, have been a confirmation that signing on was the right thing to do.
What Julian is saying, I suspect, is that when he saw who was piling in he decided against signing. The “who” is important, I think, because he is already on record as opposing the aggressive “new” atheists. In fact, he has been quite aggressively oppposed to them. Seeing who was involved he therefore expected things to get ugly, because he thinks the “new” atheists are pretty ugly in their approach to things anyway, and he did not want to be involved with them.
Of course, this is still not a reason not to sign, if in fact he thought that it might have been necessary to sign it, if only a few were going to sign, because it was important to protest those key things that the pope had got wrong. Surely, protesting those serious errors on the pope’s part was still important, no matter how many people signed, if it would have been necessary to sign it if only a few did.
But when you consider the number of people who were very likely to be fawning all over the pope, and lapping up his every precious word, standing with those who had legitimate protests to make should have been a pretty slam dunk decision. For he must have know that, however many people protested, there would almost certainly be far more in the adoring crowds. And knowing British society as he must, he also must have known that members of the British establishment would go out of their way to be strongly represented in that servile multitude.
Good point, Eric. Imagine saying “Oh well I was going to join the march from Selma to Birmingham, but then when buses and cars started rolling into Selma full of people from all over the country prepared to risk their lives alongside others to demonstrate for civil rights, why, then I decided it might get ugly and that all those civil rights marchers were piling on the segregationists and the cops with sticks and the KKKers with guns, so I refused to march and here I am now explaining why that makes me better than all those noisy protesters.”
OK Eric, that’s a good point. In which case I wonder if it isn’t instead some form of meta-contrarianism*, which would be something I’d expect a philosopher to be more vulnerable to.
* reference: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metacontrarianism/
Is that a quote from the soon to be famous “Letter from a comfortable park bench outside the Birmingham jail?”
Hahahahahaha – good one GD.
So Ratzinger gives a speech to a huge audience in Westminster Hall, including four prime ministers, to complain that religion is being marginalized?
You can’t buy marginalization like that.
the pope said social consensus alone could not be left to decide policies…
That’s right, what we need is to invoke mythology to decide policies. And not just any mythology, we need the one that Ratzi prefers.
That will fix everything
@William: Ha. Exactly!
So Ratzinger gives a speech to a huge audience in Westminster Hall, including four prime ministers, to complain that religion is being marginalized?
Actually, Ratzinger is saying that Christianity has been marginalised, and NOT ‘religion’ per se.
Some religions are energetically toasted and treated with kid gloves, their every whim accommodated, and their endless praises sung by various well-oiled bureaucrats, ministers, mayors and presidents.
Of what use is it for atheists and progressive, for example, to protest the Pope’s visit and the Pope’s theology so vocifersouly when there are now more practicing Muslims than Christians in the UK?
The question has to be asked.
I’ve watched images of the ( rather adolescent) protests and listened to some of the ( rather adolescent) speakers, but from what I can tell they’re for more motivated by anti-Catholic bigotry than by any sincere love of secularism.
Seeings the rapid and probably unstoppable theological transformation Europe is now undergoing, would it not be more appropriate for those wishing to Speak-Truth-To-Theological-Power to hold their protests outside a mosque?
The question has to be asked.
Most progressives haven’t quite caught on yet, but if truth be told, Islam is most definately the new Establishment religion.
Blair, Thatcher, Brown and Major have caught on, though, and they now understand that Christianity, be it Anglican or Catholic, is now the underdog, and their meetings with the Pope are merely attempts to figure out what to do about that.
They now fully undetrstand the dangerous challenges/consequences the changing ralities and the changing demographics present.
No one commenting here has even thought about such a scenario, such a rationale.
Tatchel et al are simply far, FAR too bigoted to grasp those changing realities, and so waste their time Speaking-Truth-To-A-Vacum, and in the process foolishly enable and inadvertently promote a theology that represents a mortal danger to their atheism, to their entire way of life.
And also: I’ve been experiencing this in micro-form today on Facebook, where friends have told me to calm down and stop trying to ‘alienate’ people with my posts about the Pope. However no-one seems to be at all worried about how the Pope’s comments re: the Holocaust may alienate atheists, for example.
I think a lot of people who would call themselves atheists genuinely have an instinctive aversion to religious beliefs being questioned (let alone ridiculed or attacked), almost like a phobia (something terrible will happen if…) – because they (like all of us) have been conditioned into the social acceptability of certain things. Questioning religion is a bit like shitting in public: you just don’t do it. But while having a taboo against shitting in public is very functional for a society, a taboo against questioning religion is only functional in so far as your survival in a society depends on submitting to religious authority. This was a real issue for people once. But in modern secular(ish) societies like the UK, it isn’t much any more, and it needn’t be at all (we don’t need religion to survive: far from it). However, the taboo remains and is dressed up as ‘tolerance’. (It doesn’t work on everyone, obviously!)
Conversely, there’s no such taboo against criticising atheists. Atheists have never been in a position of majority or authority and there’s never been this sense of fear i.e. ‘we have to do what the atheists say’, ever, throughout history. So no wonder. People can and do feel very comfortable indeed about telling us to shut up. Indeed partly because we have broken a taboo.
I think some unbelievers really aren’t aware of why the questioning of religious beliefs makes them so uncomfortable. I don’t think they’re aware of why they gravitate toward religious apologism, or attacking atheists, rather than the opposite. Intelligent people like Baggini no doubt have many reasons why they would say that they choose this stance, but I’d like to bet that deep down it’s an emotional reaction. Fear of breaking the taboo – fear of losing social status, or friends, even.
There may be all other kinds of pyschological stuff going on in addition to that, but I reckon it’s part of the answer. Maybe.
@Shifter.
What’s this then, establishment envy ? If you could just get out from under your comfort blanket of imagined persecution you would, perhaps, see that you are mirroring the complaint of vocal Muslims when they complain that they are being marginalised. How you can possibly turn the fawning on the Pope and the kid glove treatment of Catholicism into a plot to bring about the ascendancy of Islam is beyond me. it’s the general rise of strident ( yes that word ) religious special pleading that worries atheists and secularists and we don’t discriminate, we mistrust the lot of you.
Incidentally, what the hell was Clegg doing joining in the Ratzi love-fest, isn’t he supposed to be an atheist ?
<i>How you can possibly turn the fawning on the Pope and the kid glove treatment of Catholicism into a plot to bring about the ascendancy of Islam is beyond me. it’s the general rise of strident ( yes that word ) religious special pleading that worries atheists and secularists and we don’t discriminate, we mistrust the lot of you.</i>
You’ve misread my comment. The Pope is meeting with Britian’s present and former leaders PRECISELY because Islam IS ascendent.
<i>religious special pleading that worries atheists and secularists and we don’t discriminate, we mistrust the lot of you</i>
And just what, pray tell, constitutes the Pope’s “special pleading”?
That only fish be served in every pub, resaurant, school and gov’t institution on Friday’s?
That Catholic parishes be given public funds to prevent extremism by Opus Dei terrorists?
The Pope’s message is lost on a lot of people because western society no longer has the literacy, the academic rigour or the mental discipline to accurately follow involved, complicated reasoning.
The best and quickest way to access papal arguments and reasoning is via the writings of Magdi Allam, one of Italy’s finest journalists and writers. I haven’t come across much of his stuff in English, but I’ve read quite a bit of it in french. He’s absolutely brilliant, and has an uncanny ability to condense into lay language a lot of what the past two popes have been saying.
@Thornavis: Clegg has said he doesn’t believe in god, but nevertheless he thinks religion is just super! His wife is Catholic and his children are being raised Catholic.
While the pope is bashing atheists, Muslims are coming through the backdoor. Maybe atheists are being scapegoated because they are seen as a gigantic threat to weakening Christianity. Not to mention the child abuse issue. I get the feeling that all this ‘deep friendship’ thing is more to do with closing ranks with each other for fear of the Mo crowd rushing en masse through the back door and taking over, just like the latter are in France.
At the abbey, the pope shook hands with the woman canon, Reverend Jane Hedges, a prominent Church of England figure and campaigner for the ordination of women. It was believed to be the first time a pope has shaken hands with a clergywoman. The pope is strongly opposed to the ordination of women, and Vatican rules consider it a “crime against the faith.
Apparently this is the Pope’s apology for the child abuse scandal:
“Above all, I express my deep sorrow to the innocent victims of these unspeakable crimes, along with my hope that the power of Christ’s grace, his sacrifice of reconciliation, will bring deep healing and peace to their lives,” he told the congregation. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11354357)
I don’t see an apology there.
Shifter, please use the formatting provided; don’t use your own, it shows up.
His ability to get a large hall full of establishment figures to sit still and solemnly listen to him tell them what to do.
To name just one item; there are others.
Shifter.
Right so you’re saying that the Pope is involved in an operation with various key establishment figures ( where’s Mandy ? ) to head off the Muzzies at the pass ? Looks like a conspiracy to me, I’m even more worried than I was before or i would be if I took any of that seriously. I’m sorry I haven’t the mental power to follow the sophisticated reasoning of catholic theologians but I can’t be bothered with a lot of self indulgent rambling by people who can’t see that constructing a plausible intellectual system around a complete fantasy is only one step up from the kind of thing Tolkein was doing when he invented Elvish.
Amy,
True. But then…in a way that should be a reason for people of a thoughtful and liberal bent to be more critical of religion and less critical of atheism. But somehow the logic is reversed – religion is seen as the underdog and atheists are seen as the bullies. This is ludicrous, yet it’s nearly universal.
Also, there’s a liberal taboo on picking on despised minorities, and fuck knows atheists are that – yet the taboo doesn’t operate when it comes to atheists. (And when we mention the weird double standard, people line up to accuse us of whining and playing victim. Let me be clear: I’m not whining, and I’m not playing victim. I don’t mind for myself. I’m discussing an issue.) That is on its face somewhat puzzling.
OB,
You’re right, it should be, but perhaps some people aren’t as liberal or thoughtful as they think they are? Perhaps there is a residual underlying fear that trumps some people’s liberal reasoning. Fear has to have something to do with it because that emotion more than any is the driving force for irrationality and prejudice.
Perhaps some people’s fear stems not from religious authority but from some doubt that maybe there is something supernatural out there, even as they call themselves atheists. Perhaps they cherish some of their own irrational beliefs, and feel that if theism is ‘allowed’ it leaves them room to believe stuff too. Perhaps it’s a misplaced sense of having to ‘look after’ theists as though they were children. Or maybe they genuinely have bought into the misinformation about ‘extreme’ atheism and atheists – there’s enough of it out there.
It may even be as simple as fear of attracting negative attention. Like the kid in the school playground who sides with the bullies rather than the kid getting bullied, because they don’t want the heat turned on them. Or the person in the pub who agrees with everyone to avoid arguments. Perhaps we’re underestimating the desire to be everyone’s friend, or the instinct to self-preservation.
Actually theists only have to be reasonably competent (i.e. at the level of a 12-year-old) at mind-games to convince people that they’re the victims when really they’re the bullies (many fellas have done that too in the face of feminism). Perhaps merely being an intelligent liberal doesn’t prevent you from falling for that when operated on a grander scale? The upshot of which is that it’s considered okay to despise a minority when one has convinced oneself that this minority deserves to be despised.
It could be just that despite all kinds of intelligence and learning having taken place, some people, emotionally, haven’t grown up. Having studied social influence in psychology I have to say it is actually quite alarming and surprising what people will do for social approval. So maybe that’s it…
His alternative sucks. Are you seriously proposing that atheists ally themselves with the most vile and corrupt religious institution in the history of mankind to fight off the Muslim horde?
Really. The papal visit has been underlining that one thing you can say for Islam is that it has no Vatican and no pope.
We’ve seen quite a bit of this false equivalence crap from people who are supposed to be on the light and reason side. You think Baggini has Colgate envy?
@Shifter:
I’d love to see some statistics on how much better Muslims in England do than Christians. Maybe a break down of income, access to social services, infant mortality, and education — Christians in one column, Muslims in the other. Surely if the Muslims are so privileged this will be reflected in the statistics on quality of life.
By the way, when’s the last time Parliament paid to put a really important Imam on parade through the UK?
If you think Christianity is marginalized in the western world, then what you’re probably looking at is actually one of the folds in your own colon. Suggest putting one hand on each butt cheek and pushing hard.
1) That Catholicism is the one true church
2) That the Pope is infallible
3) That the Vatican is a sovereign nation
4) That Catholicism is in danger!!11!!!11 Save Christmas!
5) That sexual assault on minors by clergy is not really a matter for the secular legal authorities
6) Apparently, that Catholicism deserves any more regard than Islam. As if Ratzinger doesn’t envy the iron-clad grip of the Ayatollah on his people. If the western world didn’t know how much better rational inquiry works, Catholicism would be just as oppressive, illiberal, and closed-minded as Islam. You’re lucky you live in a society where free thinkers have spent several hundred years prying unearned privilege from the teeth of the church.
And they call atheists arrogant.
Another bit on this. In the western world, literacy rose to unheard-of-in-history levels before the law of diminishing returns bit and we plateaued — at about 99%.
IQ has been rising steadily throughout the western world throughout the 20th century. They have to make IQ tests harder every few decades to make sure 100 is still average.
It’s a little hard to measure “the mental discipline [required] to follow…complicated reasoning.” But can you give even one reason to suppose we’re less, rather than more, able to follow complicated lines of argumentation than folks of whatever mythical golden age you’re projecting on the past? I’ve provided two for “for” and I’m a little tired of religious folks asserting grandiose claims without any evidence whatsoever.