Recursively political
Furthermore, Rosenau’s misreading is itself political, in the sense that I dislike. It’s what one might call a little too convenient. It frames me (as I just told him in a comment on his post) as dogmatic and unreasonable and nuance-free and kind of stupid. Well that’s how accommodationists like to frame gnu atheists, isn’t it – so how helpful it is that his foot slipped just as he was reading what I’d written so that he got it backward.
It’s the usual, usual, usual thing. Claim that new atheists say what they don’t say. Claim that new atheists in general say what one new atheist once said in a bilious moment. Paste in what one new atheist said and still claim that she said something much more simple-minded and doctrinaire.
That is what it is to be “self-consciously political.”
Hehe. That’s framing for you.
It’s the familiar defence mechanism of projection, I would think.
And he’s too small even to admit it. Jeez.
I think delusion sometimes spills out of the mind into language. It is not only conformation bias, but the inability to see you have conformation bias. I think this is what is going on with accommodationists. It reminds me of the futile arguments with creationists.
I think we might excuse him on the grounds he does not know he is doing it. He really cannot see what he is doing wrong, which of course makes it worse since it means there is little hope of him changing his ways.
Nobody ever promised that everyone would have clear thought processes – more’s the pity. ( But a scientific education can help!)
Rosenau is supposed to have one of those. I think he left it in Kansas.
Yes, I guess you’re right. He really can’t see it.
This is probably related to the fact that he writes very long posts to say something that should take about 20% of the space.