If you do decide to go meta
Russell says why metametametameta discussions about Why Gnu Atheists Are So Horrible are likely to be irritating to gnu atheists.
If people who don’t believe they have been especially uncivil are chided not to be “a dick”, or if lies are told about people like them behaving in public in outrageously uncivil ways, and if stories are told that suggest they are uncivil in the manner of the children in Jean’s story, it produces certain emotions. To be blunt, it creates anger and ill-will.
Well yes it does rather. It does that all the more when all these things, and other things too, happen over and over and over again, saying the same thing, pointing at the same people, tutting the same tut. The people who don’t believe they have been especially uncivil start to wonder why the people who keep scolding them for incivility are so obsessed with them. They start to wonder why the scolders are so obsessed, and they start to wonder why they are so obsessed with them.
I wondered that about the post that Russell is answering, for example. I wondered, not for the first time, why Jean Kazez pays such close attention to me.
I wrote the post on January 25, 2011, and I was actually thinking about what I’d been reading at atheist blogs in the weeks and months before that. There had been lots of talk about “adults” who are critical of “gnus”.
The “adults” are…whom [sic]? At Butterflies and Wheels, Phil Plait came under withering criticism on Dec. 6, partly because he wasn’t sufficiently critical of Chris Mooney and (see the comments) also because of his “Don’t be a Dick” speech. I take it Plait is against contempt, but not against candor. There was also upsetness (October 17) about Julian Baggini’s speech at Westminister Abbey, in which he encouraged atheists not to be anti-theists. As the author of an excellent book about atheism he’s hardly a should not be said kind of a guy. There was also upsetness about Andrew Lovley (Jan. 6), who wrote a post encouraging atheists to be conciliatory instead of antagonistic. He’s for lots of interfaith talk, not atheists shutting up.
Three posts, all of them mine. Nobody else mentioned. That’s a lot of attention. It makes me feel Special, and I do love to feel Special, but when I look closely I have to acknowledge that the attention is not altogether admiring. It’s more like getting a lot of attention from an undercover cop.
Russell explains why this kind of thing tends to be…provocative.
…there’s a danger in going meta. Once you move away from debating the truth or falsity of ideas to discussing other people’s behaviour, what should or should not be said, and so on, you almost inevitably add to whatever degree of incivility was around in the first place. That’s not to say that going meta is never appropriate. But people who decide to go meta should be aware of the likely outcome – an escalation of ill-feeling, and even feelings of injustice and moralistic anger – and take this into account. If you do decide to go meta, you’d be advised to show a lot of explicit humility and trepidation. If you then use the annoyed responses of others as evidence of their inherent uncivil tendencies, you’d better be aware that this will be seen by them as further unfairness or injustice … and will provoke even more annoyance.
I could be wrong, but I think provoking even more annoyance is usually the point.
Ophelia’s concentration on the shots Kazez takes at her are understandable, but to me the bigger news in Kazez’s post is that, by the end, she has decided to drop all pretense, at long last, and admit that she just wants people who disagree with her about atheism and incompatibility to shut up. So never mind all that “rude girl calling the Emperor ‘fatty'” nonsense; that was just a disingenuous smokescreen. Kazez, as she has now finally admitted, actually wants the little girl gagged so that she can’t point out that he’s naked at all:
At some point Kazez simply renders herself beneath contempt, doesn’t she?
The public square is apparently the perfect place to talk about God a lot, but it’s the wrong place to mention that gods are fictional?
Is this some kind of don’t-admit-that-Santa’s-not-real thing, or something even stupider?
I always get very suspicious whenever the message seems to be that something shouldn’t be said. Even whacky conspiracy theorists and (in most countries) Holocaust-deniers can say what they like and they like to pride themselves on their usual claim that those who do want to silence them are afraid that their message is too powerful to be heard. The opponents of conspiracy theorists and Holocaust-deniers do not agree with the statements those individuals are making; they think they’re either crazy, deluded or evil. That makes a very interesting contrast to the case of atheists who want Gnus not to say certain things; they claim to agree with our most basic points, i.e. that there is no evidence for the existence of gods and that therefore there is no truth to the claims of religions. They just don’t want us to say it, which makes me have the same reaction as the conspiracy theorists and Holocaust-deniers, but for vastly different reasons: we must have a hell of a powerful message if those who claim to agree with it don’t want it trumpeted about.
This is what annoyed be:
Isn’t this the exact same argument that theists use — “Oh, those ignorant atheists aren’t up on the nuanced theology needed to understand”? No matter whether the people they’re discussing things with are up on their theology or not. It’s a stonewall tactic; depending on context, it can appear a lot like putting your fingers in your ears and sticking out your tongue.
I’d submit that there is no subject so erudite, and no topic so shocking, that it should be swept under the rug with a glib assertion that “You’re all much too ignorant to understand.” Yes, some topics cannot be grasped in their entirety by laypeople, and it’s pointless to discuss them at that level of detail — but if you zoom out a bit to a bigger picture, there’s still a lot of room for discussion. For example, If I’m trying to communicate geology to non-scientist clients, I don’t simply tell them, “well, you’re too clueless to get it, so just trust me.” Instead, I give them a broad outline, with analogies, and offer to answer questions they may have in the course of the subsequent discussion, they learn some geology, and I (hopefully) get my point across. Do some things get over-simplified? No doubt. But effective communication can still occur.
Is it just me, or is there really a whole, realistic middle-ground being sidestepped between meta-ethics and STFU? When I get the message that things ought not to be said coming from people who believe those unspeakable things to be true, it does make me curious about their real motivations. The ones they give so often don’t ring true (or there’s Chris Mooney’s claim that by being vocal about atheism we’re shooting ourselves in the foot with science education – which I imagine most of us at B&W would dispute). The best and most plausible one I can come up with has simply to do with rocking the boat. We want to, they don’t (probably because it scares them) and they are loath to admit that doing things our way might actually change the status quo, so they come up with other justifications or rationalisations for their line.
I just don’t think it really can be our incivility, as is so often claimed, for the simple reason that it is constantly being wildly exaggerated, is actually no worse than that of any other group and the most extreme cases that have been claimed have even turned out to be fiction.
Oops, that was meant to say “injustice”, not “justice”. I’ll go and correct it.
The perception that there is a particularly vicious strand of atheism is extremely valuable to numerous people. Maintenance of the entire religious enterprise requires agreement to dismiss frank atheism, and “the entire religious enterprise” involves a lot of interests.
In 2009, Robert Wright published The Evolution of God, an unapologetically materialist account of the human and historical origins of religions. Why was it so well received? Well, Bob made it a point to reveal that he really doesn’t like the new atheists. Alright, then, brother, you can be part of civil society. And you, Josh. And you, Chris. And so on.
Mendacity.
This really annoys me, because I am researching meta-ethics, and it’s not pretty stuff. The language is awfully obscure and nonsensical. And it’s so unnecessarily obscure and technical, almost as if there is a naked emperor behind all those details and formal logic. And it only makes me smell a rotting fish whenever people begin to talk esoterically, as if natural language is not equipped enough to understand anything.
No doubt, there are plenty of careers resting on the idea that people are doing important work. And secretive language protects those careers. But that means that gnu sceptics have to stick their nose in private places and sniff out those fishy smells. Gnus are very good with their noses, and so don’t underestimate them, they are more than likely in your secretive book somewhere, close reading your sentences, untying your wordy knots, and exposing your birthday suit.
Sounds like Egbert just invented Lol-gnus.
Well, perhaps, but it’s seldom the stated point. The meta meta crowd seemed to be genuinely trying at one point to conduct a public strategy discussion. The trouble with public strategy discussion is that they become part of the larger discussion, and, Mozart in Amadeus, duet become quartet, quartet becomes octet, etc., until the whole point is really lost since there are so many parallel lines of discussion going on and no one knows what is really aimed a whom. And then it becomes — and became — a rather nasty us-them phenomenon, and the ones who were all for civil discourse started being very uncivil indeed. How do you counter incivility, if you have parallel incivilities going on all over the place? You don’t. You just join in. And that’s something that people like Jean and Julian, et co should have discovered long ago.
It’s a bit like the breakdown in relationships that sometimes happens in parishes. Suddenly there are many schools of thought, angry letters are written, people are marching out of meetings in high dudgeon, and no one really knows what the whole thing was really about, or who began it or why.
As for being of interest to the police, Ophelia, trust me, it’s not all that much fun. Why Jean has decided to pick you out of the contemptible crowd of unruly atheists is beyond me. Perhaps, she thinks there’s some purpose being served. There isn’t. The best thing to do when you are involved in meta meta discussions is to get out of the metas and just carry on doing what seems best. Let the meta crowd worry about sorting out their tangled skein. Ignore them, and like most unruly children looking for attention, they’ll start playing another game. They might even play with you! (Once they forget that they once thought you contemptible, that is.)
Oh, and Egbert, really meta-ethics is sometimes very important. Sam Harris forgets that at his peril. But it’s really not hard to understand, and anyone who thinks that it is, simply doesn’t understand.
Eric MacDonald,
I agree that it is very important to understand the origin of morals. As I’ve mentioned before, I think it would make a good gnu project. And I so far, I still stick with my thesis that emotions, especially sympathy, hold the key. I am currently attempting to work through (with difficulty) An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics by Alexander Miller. A book that I will probably read several times or simply abandon in despair. I tend to be sceptical of any philosophy that is not understandable in natural language.
It seems like accomodationists want to bash actual atheists (yes, I said actual) to gain street cred with their inter-faith buddies. Walking on our backs to build bridges.
Ken:
There’s something to that. You have to bash gnus to get street cred as a Reasonable Person. It also helps to be reliably deferential to religion.
Another thing is: In terms of sheer publicity, gnubashers benefit from gnu atheism as much as anyone. There’s a lot of people who wouldn’t have the foggiest clue who David Berlinski (that insufferable bore, that windbag) is but for his debate with Hitchens and/or his gnubashing book. A writer who sells nowhere near the number of books as Dawkins can write a book with “Dawkins” and “Delusion” and “New Atheism” in the title and have his/her volume show up near The God Delusion in an Amazon.com search. It’s pathetic.
Professional intellectuals do indeed have self-interest at heart in their careers, enough motivation to create a bit of controversy for sake of sales. And this is also a motivation among gnus, but it’s not the prime motivation. Gnus are not ‘selling out’ to the highest bidder (hey Templeton if you’re watching) but are genuinely interested in ‘truth’ and what is ‘right’.
At least, that’s my general assessment of gnus. Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris et al, all have some interest in selling books, but their underlying passion is not about selling out with a bright Colgate smile.
Of course, not ALL accommodationists are that morally dubious or business savvy, but it is one motive.
We’re not criticizing religion and irrationality to create ‘controversy’ to cynically sell books, that is my point.
Andy,
Your mention of Berlinski will give me nightmares tonight. I attempted to watch his debate with Hitch, and could not make it 10 minutes due to his gassy literary justifications for god (and I have an undergraduate degree in English Lit!). Something about the beauty of poetry could only be divinely inspired. I thought I was in the 16th century.
Berlinski. Yes. He is that insufferable.
A journalist named Ron Rosenbaum wrote an article for Slate a few months ago titled An Agnostic Manifesto, wherein he relentlesly attacked gnu atheism. Below is a link to an Atheist Experience youtube clip (episode 669) where host Jen skilfully dismantles the article. Jeez, you would think an agnostic would be on our side. Okay, soi-disant agnostic. But still…
http://www.youtube.com/user/theatheistexperience?blend=2&ob=4#p/u/58/5-hVOltksic
Oh no…that Rosenbaum piece.
Plug your ears to keep your head from exploding when you read that dung-pile of an essay.
If we’re discussing writing that made us want to poke our eyes out, I’ll nominate Roger Scruton’s today’s atheists aren’t gracious like my parents routine.
The ongoing theme is that, hey, it really is alright to be an atheist. Hell, my biology professor was an atheist. Nice lady. The problem arises when you suggest that others might do well to consider whether there is any rational basis for belief in supernatural agency. Now, you’ve become an evangelical atheist, and that is unacceptable. Now you’re messing with the foundations of Western civilization, and you need to shut the fuck up.
I said harsh things about that Ron Rosenbaum article here, also the Scruton one. Gnuish of me, no doubt.
So that‘s why Kazez and Rosenau are basking in adulation while obscure wordsmiths like, say, Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and that blogger – what’s his name? – with a fondness for celaphods are crying out into the wilderness.
Sure, I’ve no doubt there are people who just want to flatter their religious buddies but if there’s some kind of glass ceiling for atheism in our culture it’s been smashed more times than Shane MacGowan.
BenSix said:
Ben, you win my highly unofficial Metaphor of the Week Award for “smashed more times than Shane MacGowan.”
Eric, I believe you that it’s not much fun, and I agree with you that ignoring the meta is the best thing to do with it. I’ve been ignoring a lot of meta! Meta with my name on it, at least – I don’t ignore all meta, because I think it’s such a symptom of religion’s unreasonable hold on people’s minds, and the discourse, and the public square, and so many other things. But meta with my name on it or lurking behind it in the thinnest of veils – that I ignore 90% of the time. Today, Russell’s post inspired me.
Egbert, I haven’t read that particular work, but I find that you learn a lot more from discussion than you do from papers. Much like Eric, I don’t find meta-ethics that difficult — but I do think that it is hard to get a grip on, so long as the experts are unabashed elitists.
Thanks, G.
By the way, this (via) has to be the strangest anti-atheistic piece I’ve read. No, scrap that, it’s just the strangest thing I’ve read. Sample weirdness…
Ok there’s one more thing. One more item for the hiatus on ignoring the meta. One more because I find this kind of thing so…disreputable.
To quote again:
Out of idle curiosity I just read that post on Phil Plait – and found that it’s just ludicrous to call it “withering criticism.” Ludicrous.
Well, meta indeed. Four or five levels of meta. But there it is – this is how it’s done – simply announce that the enemy has been wicked, even though it’s not true, and the claim gets out there, and re-enforces the existing dogma that all new atheists are wicked wicked wicked. I vaguely assumed I had been somewhat “withering,” until I happened to read the damn thing, and oh gee what do you know, I hadn’t.
Pfui.
This. A thousand times this.
If I was going to suggest someone to write a “for the layman” metaethics tome, I’d be suggesting Russell, tbh.
His blog regularly does a brilliant job of explaining tricky stuff so that my layman’s brain can follow.
Possibly, it’s not that hard to make things clear if your intention is to, you know, make things clear, even if the subject is necessarily complex. I recently read a debate between Dennett and some guy who’s name eludes me right now, and Dennett had to do the work of one and half people, both his own arguments and restating his oponent’s arguments in intelligible english. And, without fail, once the arugments were worded clearly, they didn’t hold much water.
I’d like to edit an anthology: The Worst Anti-atheist Essays of the New Millennium. Or something like that.
I’d buy it. Sure I would—for the same reason I watch that television show World’s Dumbest Criminals: Caught On Tape!
The lack of proportion gets so mind-boggling sometimes; we are regularly accused of undermining the whole of Western Civilisation (which I suppose I unjustly understated above when I referred to rocking the boat) and what do we actually do in our part of tit-for-tat? Well, for one thing, Russell used the expression “Colgate twins.” I must be dense. Can someone explain to me what’s actually so terrible about that?
I think the real problem is that gnu atheists are encouraging the unforgivable crime of PAWADIP
(Practicing atheism without a degree in philosophy)
The trouble with the meta discussion is that when you get right down to it – the discussion was settled by the ancient Greeks.
They called it ad-hominem. If you cannot tackle the argument you tackle the person making it.
But which argument? This is where the stupid meta- comes crawling in. The argument they want to demolish by bad-mouthing us is not the one about the truth of religion or god’s existence (I take it as agreed in this forum that we are talking about non-believers attacking other non-believers); it’s the one that there’s nothing wrong with saying so openly, even to believers. Reminds me of homeopathy: water remembers everything but not all the excrement it’s been in contact with. So our arguments must be crap because we’re uncivil, even though that doesn’t magically make god pop into existence? Of course, nothing like that is being said, nor, I think, even intended. What’s happening is the real point – STFU – is hardly ever directly alluded to, even though all the diatribes boil down to it. I guess that makes two things our accomodationist foes believe but don’t want to say too explicitly: there’s no god and we shouldn’t be saying there isn’t.
Let me go all accommodationist here. If you’re doing scientific outreach in public among the heathen, teaching evolution or climate change or promoting civil rights, insulting the faithful may not be the best way to win friends and influence people. If the point of a public gathering or a family meal is not a celebration of disbelief, it’s best to be kind, respectful and helpful. That being said, there’s nothing wrong (and much right) with showing the flag.
What’s written in a book, an article or a blog post, anything that someone has to make an effort to find and read, ought not to be subject to such strictures. We should be able to call believers faith-heads, or ridicule Jerry Coyne as the Imelda Marcos of cowboy boots, without worrying about offense, because readers can’t continue to read without their consent.
Nonetheless, believers are threatened by the existence of such assertions because belief is a special, precious, fragile, unhandled thing, threatened by its very mention in a book, article or blog post not read.
Believers are threatened by such assertions but who is threatened in societies where such assertions are not or cannot be made? I could live with a middle ground of the kind Hitchens has described, where all are free to believe or not believe what they want, and nobody gets to force their beliefs, even in the most round-about of ways, on anyone else (or their children). They’re also free to say, in the public square, why they do or don’t believe and believers and non-believers should have this right to an equal degree. To protect believers from views that threaten their beliefs, while not ensuring that non-believers never have to be aware of the existence of religious propaganda, completely violates this utopian equilibrium.
Civility ought to be a two-way street. So long as religious nutters get to bellow imprecations to all sides, why shouldn’t we?
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jim Nugent, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: If you do decide to go meta http://dlvr.it/HJKSN […]
I don’t think anyone really wants to live in a society where imprecations get belllowed all the time (scratch that, what about the Phelpses and their ilk), but there’s got to be some balance. What we get called out for doing is so much less than what the religious do. And when we point that out, we get told that the uncivil, pushy and threatening religious folk aren’t representative. Right, that’s why mega-churches with fire and brimstone preaching have no followers and have never made any money for those running them.
Egbert,
You might want to read “The Emotional Construction of Morals” by Jesse Prinz instead. He’s got the same line as you, but he’s pretty pedantic about going through all the various objections and alternative positions. I don’t think I’d trust any book on morality or ethics that had “meta-ethics” in the title; that strikes me as a title to be full of sound and fury and signify nothing, and the book would likely be the same.
Thanks Verbose Stoic. Yes I’ve come across Jesse Prinz while researching and his book is on my reading list. There is also a work by Michael Slote called The Ethics of Care and Empathy, and relates to a body of feminist literature called Care Ethics. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-ethics/
Bad Jim said:
“Let me go all accommodationist here. If you’re doing scientific outreach in public among the heathen, teaching evolution or climate change or promoting civil rights, insulting the faithful may not be the best way to win friends and influence people.”…
… which is why nobody believed the only example ever provided of gnu atheists doing as you described – Chris Mooney’s notorious “Exhibit A” post.
It’s self evident that going out of your way to insult people in that setting will not be productive towards your conservation or civil rights goals. The trouble is that the accomodationist definition of a gnu atheist is someone who does behave in that way, and if they don’t, for instance Jerry Coyne at his recent meeting with the methodist book club, they are automatically described as behaving as accomodationists. It’s a completely black white reading of the situation. If you don’t simply punch a minister in the face when he says “good morning” then you are “downright accomodationist”, if you are a gnu then you are a danger to the community that needs be warned for their own sake – and that of the livestock.
The thing that puzzles me in arguments between Gnus and Accommodationists is this.
Which group is the Judean People’s Front, and which is the People’s Front of Judea?
I think we should be told.
We’re the liberated ones, who don’t have to go tiptoeing around to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings.
I’ll suggest a moral hierarchy of belief (descending order):
Gnu atheists
plain ole atheists
agnostics
liberal theists
fundamentalist theists
accomodationists
**although given recent discussions with agnostics, I’m tempted to assign them a lower rung on the latter.
***This is for entertainment purposes, but feel free to be offended anyway (people offend so easily these days).
On above post, make that ladder, not latter. I’m still asleep.
‘Come to bed, it’s past three in the morning!’
‘No, I can’t!’
‘Why not?’
‘There’s someone being uncivil on the internet!’
I’m constantly amazed at how restrained and intelligent the commenters are on atheist sites, compared to – say – the kind of mindless, spiteful dreck routinely expressed by readers of UK national newspapers. The truth is that the faithful don’t want trenchant criticism, just respectful nodding. Point out that they’re being bigoted, silly or factually wrong and they don’t like it. Why should they? Expect them to squeal. Buy earplugs. But don’t let those who believe truth and reason aren’t that important compared to blind faith and obfuscation set the rules of the debate.
So we have SIWOTI – someone is wrong on the internet. Now we have SIUOTI – someone is uncivil on the internet. Too bad it’s unpronounceable. SIGOTI? Someone is gnu on the internet?
SIUOTI ?
Surely it would be pronounced sue – ot – ee ?
‘Come to bed, it’s past three in the morning!’
‘No, I can’t!’
‘Why not?’
‘There’s someone being uncivil on the internet!’
:) -Thanks Davelong for a good laugh to start the morning.
Actually, I think one can measure incivility on a site in direct proportion to the number of Americans who frequent it. You look at an American weblog that allows comments, such as Althouse, and you will find many commenters who just show up looking for a fight.
So how are sites like B&W and WEIT spared? How to say…ah, yes…Rude commenters don’t show up because low calibre weapons are unlikely to do much damage around here.
I have developed a hypothesis about gnu atheism and it is this. If you get British humour, such as the Pythons, Steven Fry and Blackadder (to mention just a few) then you will get the point of gnu atheism. British humour tends not to show much respect for religion after all.
Further, when you look at the most vocal critics of gnu atheism, none of them are especially noted for having a sense of humour. They all take themselves rather too seriously. Could you imagine Rosenau or Mooney agreeing to a video being posted on YouTube of them reading out their hate mail ? And doing so in a bemused rather than angry manner ?
Matt – snap. I was noticing that too, a few days ago. Most gnu-haters are neither witty in themselves nor the cause that wit is in other people. Most gnu-haters are gratingly earnest, not to say self-righteous.
I’m sure they’re all very kind to their pets though!
Absolutely. If you can’t describe a concept in plain language you don’t understand it, or worse, you don’t want your audience to understand it.
There are books with plain explanations of quantum physics, cellular biology, and aerodynamics. It can be done. Certainly an explanation of concepts of of ethics (which we are born with some sense of) should be manageable. Unless the author chooses to remain obscure.
Richard Feynman used to say that if the basics of an idea cannot be explained on half a sheet of paper then the idea is not properly understood by the experts. And by explained he meant in a way that someone with no prior knowledge of the idea would get the gist of what it covers.
When you look at the difficult ideas in science it is fairly easy to explain them only half a sheet of paper. Of course such explanations will likely provoke questions from an intelligent lay person, but then I rather suspect that was what Feynman had in mind.
Has Father Ted ever been shown on US TV? It was notionally a British TV program, but the writers, actors and locations were all Irish.
Without doubt the funniest ever TV series about religion. Maybe evangelists would enjoy it, as it was making fun of catholicism?
On a different note, I think one of the things with British anti-gnu sentiment you have to remember is that since most people here are C of E, i.e. barely religious at all, criticism of religion starts to look like mostly criticism of Islam and Catholicism, i.e. criticism of the religion held by people who are mostly brown skinned or Irish. In other words, criticism of religion looks a bit like racism/nationalism, in a way that it doesn’t in the US. (It isn’t, of course, but it can look a bit like that).
There’s some of that in the US (and no doubt other places) too, plus the hint of elitism, classism, all that. It has a shadow of clever people bullying less clever people. There’s some truth in that (and that was a central theme in Philip Kitcher’s article on new atheism)…but only some. Anyway cumpulsory public religion exploits everyone, not just the poor or the uneducated.
As I think I’ve said (something like) before, plumping for the gnu label at all ought to be a clue that we’re the opposite of stuffy and pompous. It doesn’t mean we don’t have a serious point, but it does mean that we don’t expect unearned respect or deference (unlike…).
Rieux’s comment picked out the fact that Jean Kazez had admitted “that she just wants people who disagree with her about atheism and incompatibility to shut up.” Jerry Coyne also noted that.
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/atheists-stfu/
But Jean says in a comment on Jerry’s post that that’s not her view.
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/atheists-stfu/#comment-80127
But it takes a very strained and non-obvious reading of her post to see anything other than “the public square is the wrong place to promote atheism.”
I’m confused.
Speaking of Pythons… I think “you’ve transgressed the unwritten law” is the appropriate line.
Stewart – Hmmmmm…I think there’s actually more than a correlation there. I think a certain kind of damp-palmed concern about theism and gnu incivility etc is related to a certain lack of humor. One of the things about “God” is that it’s just funny. Maybe there’s something to do with temperament that makes some people able to see it that way and other people not so much. Then again maybe I’m just drawing wild conclusions from a tiny sample.
Well, the bigger picture may be that “believers” believe a lot of stark raving bollocks and that everyone except us is too uptight to see how absurd and deserving of belly laughs it is – or would be if the believers in the nonsense didn’t have so much power to do harm to those who don’t share their beliefs.
Also, humour and – especially, in this case – irreverence are crucial to fighting the particular fight that has picked us. You could almost say it’s our chief weapon – our two chief weapons…
And an almost fanatical hatred of the pope…
Well that’s what I was thinking, of course…that it has to do with irreverence. The damp-palm types seem to be naturally reverent in some odd way – reverent toward reverence if nothing else.
The problem (also of course) is that that’s brazenly self-serving, almost as self-serving as telling a story in which the enemy is a pack of screaming children and the party of Self is the wise calm adults. Ho yus we’re irreverent and they’re all po-faced reverers.
And yet…I think there’s some truth in it…
For metametametametameta, seen the latest counterblast?
http://www.jeremystangroom.com/more-from-the-polite-professor/367/
The wise calm adults have spoken!
Of course, one can never be sure of the inside of anyone else’s psyche, but I can’t shake a strong gut feeling that our real crime in the eyes of those who seem to hate us so much is neither more nor less than our irreverence.
Well I’m not going to dwell on it too much. I get the crawls when people draw attention to their own Independence of Mind or Contrarianism or Weirdness or Zaniness or any other self-admiring quality of that kind, so I’m not going to do too much of it myself. I do notice the contrast between the two parties…and that’s all I’ll say on the matter!
:- )
Stewart:
I’d call it our disrespect for majority privilege—here, religious privilege. Which amounts to the same thing, but it makes the parallels with other uppity minorities’ “irreverence” a little more explicit.
Ophelia, I think you’re wrong in your comments about humor. See, Jeremy put a little winky thingy at the end of his post.
snort!
I know, Hamilton. The winky thingy laid the groundwork for my theory. [winky]
(Sobs) I must be a total fraud, then. Airplane? Caddyshack? Hilarious. Monte Python? Yawningly annoying.
BLASPHEMER!!
@Ophelia #59
But it takes a very strained and non-obvious reading of her post to see anything other than “the public square is the wrong place to promote atheism.”
Well in context of her post where she spends two paragraphs describing error theory (and a consequence of that with respect to torturing babies) it seemed quite clear she was saying that the public sphere is not the place to discuss atheism leads to an error theory of morality because it will damage the image of atheism in the laymans eyes (Ha Ha!).
i didnt equate that to public square is the wrong place to promote atheism – In my opinion the views she’s expressing are wrong , but she isnt expressing the same old accomodationist nonsense.
Deepak:
Wait, though: you’re concentrating on the first sentence in the following paragraph and ignoring all of the ones that follow:
Beginning with “Likewise,” I don’t see any way to read that passage other than as an argument that atheists—specifically, in the context of her post, Jerry Coyne—should shut up. ….And that it’s not “appalling” to advocate that.
Kazez is pivoting from (1) her (dubious) notion that no one should argue for an explicitly atheist moral-error theory to (2) her (at least as dubious) notion that no one should argue that science and religion are broadly incompatible. You’ve noticed (1) but appear not to have seen (2) or the pivot to it, Deepak.
Then, of course, the (il)legitimacy of “sweeping assertions of science/religion incompatibility” is among the most prominent points in contention between accommodationists and Gnus. By claiming that such “sweeping assertions” should be gagged, Kazez is, in so many words, demanding the silence of Gnus like Coyne, Dawkins, and Harris.
To my mind, that is “the same old accomodationist nonsense.” The only thing new (not Gnu) about it is that, for the duration of that paragraph, she has dropped the pretense that she isn’t telling atheists to shut up. As Jerry said, Kazez is letting the curtain slip in that paragraph; what it reveals isn’t pretty, and said pretense is left in tatters.
I see that, in some of the later comments on his thread, Coyne has managed to pin Kazez down (to the extent that that’s possible) on the very passage I focused on above—the passage that I think is the central spot in which Kazez has really stepped in it. Jerry clearly thinks so, too.
I can see why Russell Blackford is annoyed by Kazez’s airy notions about silencing discussion of moral error theory, and why Ophelia takes issue with her stupid links to B&W posts. Still, I’d say the “Likewise” garbage is the stuff that really gets down to brass tacks.
@Rieux
Im saying that its clear from her passage that she wasnt talking about not promoting atheism but mentioning that in her view, it would be unwise for a prominent atheist to argue that atheism leads to error theory (if his cause is promoting atheism). she’s clarified that in her comments as well.
Get better glasses then.
What I have noticed is that she is trying to come up with examples of things she doesn’t think are fruitfully discussed in the public sphere. In her comments to Russel Blackford she mentions another example – “we don’t have free will”. The purpose of the examples is I suppose that this isn’t something she has against atheism or gnu’s. We are ofcourse free to say she is wrong and that some of these are useful discussions. But it’s now getting to the point that irrespective of whats being said , some gnu’s are reading it as STFU.
She’s said that for both compatibilists and incompatibilists. So she is demanding the silence(Wow do you think she’ll succeed in banning the internet?) of Coyne,Dawkins,Harris, Mooney, Collins, Scott etc. Stop being melodramatic with the gagging and demanding silence.
And finally what would you say is for e.g. kazez puts up a post , highlights all your criticisms and says oh look gnu’s keep telling me to STFU?
Disagree with her views all you want ofcourse. A better reply would be why is it fruitful to discuss science/religion compatibility with laymen.
Jean says in the comments over at Jerry’s:
Four words. “no to USA Today.” Jerry was practically pulling his hair out to get them, if they were what she meant. I don’t agree with what she’s saying, but I’m certainly happier she said it straight out. The reluctance to do so is what gets me and the first three reasons to pop into my head for why it might be are: a) She doesn’t want to do it on Jerry’s turf, where she knows it’ll rile people. But if she does it anywhere online it will be seen and quoted, so that’s a little silly. b) She does not want to say it in plain unambiguous language; she’d rather keep it academically coded. c) She’s not proud of holding such a view. If she were, why wouldn’t she be completely open about it?
Is it a combination of b) and c)? It is what she thinks, she’s aware of the negative implications of it and she therefore expresses it as abstrusely as possible.
In an earlier comment, she said:
That’s absolutely fine, if one agrees with her that it is preferable not to make such a statement. I think it is ok for her to be in opposition to our view that religion and science are not compatible and if she is open in her opposition to that view, the ins and outs of it can be discussed. If she were only saying “interesting possibility,” most of this would never have come up. How about the possibility that everyone gets to express their opinion, whatever it may be, wherever and for whichever audience they can get it expressed? Some of us feel strongly that the above incompatibility is not only quite glaring, but is deliberately being downplayed in the pursuit of goals absolutely inimical to our interests. Oughtn’t we to say so? Or should ” local religion-science compatibilities and incompatibilities” be established without any open discussion, by fiat of some authority or other? If establishing them (with no dissenting voices?) is indeed desirable, how is it to be achieved without discussion? And how could it be discussed without the making of statements, some of which may be big and broad? An assertion that there is no incompatibility, which we hear loudly and often enough from many quarters, is also big and broad, but somehow I’m not sure those are the ones worrying Jean.
Okay… but in light of the fact that the passage I have (and Coyne has) highlighted is after the stuff about error theory, clearly the above is not a reasonable interpretation of the passage we (as opposed to you) are pointing to.
Mine are kinda scratched, actually (got ’em in India; I suspect they don’t have much in the way of scratch-resistant coatings, etc.). But huh? What part of the passage I have called attention to do you think means something other than I have described?
Really? Where?
I’ve seen her brag, on Jerry’s thread, about one time nineteen months ago she allowed that she wasn’t entirely “sold on some of [the] subarguments” offered in Unscientific America, Chapter 8. I remain underwhelmed.
If you’d like to show me where she’s argued that compatibilists shouldn’t (say) publish their views in USA Today (or, perhaps, make them the official policy of the NCSE?), I’ll be happy to check it out. If she’s an even-handed freakish elitist silencer, that’s at least something. Sort of.
I’m not entirely sure how to parse that sentence, but if Kazez (or you) would like to point out any place in which I’ve argued that she should shut up—or not publish, not write, not argue, etc.—I might take seriously the contention that I gather you’re hypothesizing. I’ve certainly used several unkind terms to describe Kazez’s argument and behavior, but I rather strongly believe that people have the right to make bad arguments and behave inappropriately, within certain limits (that are generally to be found in criminal and civil law).
Says you. I certainly wouldn’t object to such a reply, but it seems to me that heaping the social sanction of shame on bad actors like Kazez is also a worthwhile response, and not self-evidently a less worthy one, to their behavior.
Huh. Lets try this again. She says that she thinks some views should not be discussed in the public square (because of technical reasons). She then tried to give other analogies. when asked by russell blackford she gave a few more examples. She also clarified that she thinks similarly about people who advocate science is incompatible with religion (though she also added that she needed to think some)
With all of this , you read the paragraph and what you take out of it is she says dont promote/discuss atheism in public(false , its there on whyevolutionistrue that she is in favor of discussing atheism) and she is telling us to STFU. How in the world is that a reasonable interpretation?
In the comments of http://kazez.blogspot.com/2011/02/reply-to-blackford.html#more
(She’s referring to people who say science is compatible with religion).
and – http://kazez.blogspot.com/2009/07/atheism-loud-and-quiet-part-2.html
Dont teach incompatibility, Dont teach compatibility is pretty unambiguous. Or is this an unreasonable interpretation as well?
But thats my point. she hasn’t used shut up anywhere either. She has said that she thinks its unwise, that there is no point, etc etc. If you are going to interpret that as STFU , then when you “used several unkind terms to describe Kazez’s argument and behavior” , why shouldnt she or I interpret that as STFU? why is it not reasonable to assume that your name calling about her arguments and behavior is an effort to get her to shut up. ?
We have an opinion about science v/s religion compatibility. We have an opinion on where/when/how it should be discussed. Can reasonable people disagree with that position? If so are they saying STFU?
Don’t complain when accomodationists do the same then(not the same as stfu, its an appeal to consistency) – that they aren’t engaging the ideas, they prefer criticizing the people, the tone, the bad actors.
Deepak:
I think “technical reasons” is being both bashful and overly kind, but all right.
Sure—she hemmed and hawed and beat around the bush, and then Jerry Coyne prodded her out of that bush on his comment thread (you did see that exchange, yes?) and she declared that, okay, all right, he shouldn’t have published his op-ed in USA Today. Sorry, but that does mean STFU.
Oh, hogwash. She can say that some of her best friends are Jews all she wants. Regardless of her self-serving protestations, she is in fact opposed to candid atheism. Concretely, demonstrably: Jerry Coyne in USA Today.
Kazez has stated her opposition to candid atheism and then claimed she doesn’t oppose candid atheism. Her claim is dishonest and unworthy of the credibility you are granting it.
(Note also the point Ophelia made on Jerry’s thread: what Kazez means by “candid atheism” bears no resemblance to actual candid atheism. When real-life candid atheism rears its head, Kazez tone-trolls it. And a prime target is Ms. Benson herself, of course—constantly.)
Because I, unlike (it would appear) you, have noticed what she has actually argued about Gnu Atheist expression, and how she has actually treated it. Her behavior belies her claims about herself.
Sorry, but that example is simply overwhelmed with ambiguity and Kazez’s hedging. And she pointedly avoids arguing that compatibilists ought to shut up. “More thought needed.” Severely unimpressive.
No, that’s legit—though it’s at least worthy of note that she restricts it to “science educators,” rather than addressing the wide panoply of people (non-scientist fans of religion especially) pushing NOMA and similar approaches.
Still, you’re right that she did, in that one spot, suggest that compatibilists ought to shut up as well.
The remaining problem, then, is the severe obscurity of your citation. She made the point you cite as a nigh-microscopic caveat (ooh, she’s not entirely “sold on a subargument”…) to her glowing review of Unscientific America; it’s buried under her lurve for Mooney and Kirshenbaum.
Then, as I noted, that post is nineteen months old, and in the interim the compatibilist chorus has been deafening. We’ve seen prominent dust-ups involving (for example) Josh Rosenau, Rob Knop, and the NCSE just within the past handful of weeks; where has Kazez been? Where was her courageous speak-truth-to-power “don’t teach compatibilism” notion? Dropped. Ignored. Forgotten. (Maybe it’s in the same dusty storage cabinet as her passionate support for candid atheism.)
In the interim, Kazez played dishonorable rear-guard to Chris Mooney’s attempts to disassociate himself from “Tom Johnson.” Far from holding Mooney’s feet to the fire about his open advocacy for compatibilism, she covered his ass on one of the most infamous episodes of dishonesty and journalistic incompetence in the short history of the atheist blogosphere.
I’ll give you that Kazez was consistent, that one time, in her (bizarre) STFU approach. It just happened to be in an obscure blog post more than a year and a half ago, and she’s done nothing whatsoever since to demonstrate that she actually meant it, or that she actually cares.
Yes, well, before you creatively amputated my sentence, it referenced, in addition to “shut up,” “or not publish, not write, not argue, etc.” Which Kazez has argued, and I have not. There are in fact other ways to say “shut up,” and recognizing that does not obligate one to accept that absolutely any argument whatsoever means “shut up.”
What I have argued about my opponents is fundamentally different than what Kazez has argued about hers, and willful blindness to the differences does not erase them.
And that Jerry Coyne should not have published his ideas in USA Today. You are welcome to continue pretending that she never argued that, or that it does not mean “shut up,” but she did, and it does.
Depends upon the content of their disagreement. The notion that incompatibilism should not be openly discussed is not available to reasonable people.
Not if they’re being reasonable. Kazez very clearly is not.
Well, of course I will, if (when) the accommodationists’ targets do not deserve such social sanctions. I won’t pretend that shame is a fundamentally illegitimate element of social discourse, but obviously not all people and not all behaviors deserve it. You’re ignoring the relevant issues again.
And to the extent the people, the tone, the bad actors actually deserve it, that’s just fine. It’s merely becoming increasingly evident that, in the context of this general controversy, accommodationists wouldn’t know a behavior that legitimately deserved social sanction if it bit them in the ass.
Can we do a shorter version of this? Jean states that she is not opposed to candid atheism. She does think Jerry should not have published in USA Today. One could say this appears to be a contradiction. Maybe Jean would like to amend her statement and say that she is in favour of candid atheism, but not without reservation. Then we would know where we stand (and that further questions need to be asked) and would know that we need to distinguish between Jean’s position and that of those unreservedly in favour of candid atheism.
I guess I don’t think Kazez is worth the effort, Stewart.
Certainly her history—including, prominently, her rear-guard action for Mooney in the “Tom Johnson” fiasco, during which she incidentally declared that she thought it was perfectly fine for Mooney to have banned Ophelia from commenting at The Intersocktion for the high crime of asking inconvenient questions—colors my estimation.
I think she’s a dishonest lowlife.
Her answer is consistent with her claim. Why are you omitting that she said Coyne should have published in TNR? How does that fit into your story of STFU?
So who gets to draw the line? Not Kazez. But why do you or Ophelia get to draw the line between what is candid and what is contempt. She has clearly said she is for candid atheism but not for contempt. You are free ofcourse to argue what constitutes candidness and what constitutes contempt. When Kazez clearly endorses Sam Harris’s /Dawkins book, you can’t really make this claim that she is against (reasonably)candid atheism. And yes of course we show contempt for people that we think deserve it, we dont think its wrong and we can argue that with her too.
And What prime target? we have exchanged multiple comments on what Kazez has said , didnt say , meant , didnt mean. Is she our prime target? Are we stalking her? What rubbish it is.
Which is a valid point that I agree with. She said let her think about it , im willing to do that. And the next time an accomodationist spouts the same nonsense I intend to ask her to comment on it. Why not give her the benefit of doubt?
Also something that I agree with. But possibly this more than anything else colors our opinion about Kazez.
So you say. You’ll see this in the sexism video that went around a while back. You dont have to tell a person to shut up to achieve that effect. insults, interruptions, name calling are sometimes enough. She expressed her opinion on the harm/utility of discussing certain controversial subjects in public. She didnt write to the editor of USA Today asking them to never publish Jerry Coyne.
And she is also against discussing *some* controversial topics (not limited to atheistic ones and for reasons other than the topics are controversial) in the public square(later qualified to appropriate public square).
So if there are atheistic topics which are controversial(ha!) then yes she will have to compromise on one of her view points.
I think that Richard Dawkins once commented that his presence would distract from the Dover trial and might even adversely affect it (I am not able to get a link of this , so Im not sure if Im mistaken). Assuming this is true, Do you agree with his view? Would you agree if Kazez were to make the same comment?
Deepak:
False. It’s opposition to candid atheism. Ergo it’s inconsistent. What in the world are you talking about?
Because it’s irrelevant. Telling Coyne not to publish in USA Today is, unavoidably, telling him to STFU. The fact that her demand does not apply to every single imaginable context does not change that fact, especially in light of the disgusting nature of the distinctions she is explicitly drawing between the periodicals.
Anyone who’s applying reasonable standards. Kazez is not.
I simply don’t understand why you see fit to take Kazez’s bullshit claims (e.g., “I’m only complaining about contempt”) seriously. The rest of us are under no such obligation.
I can and have made that claim, because her “endorsement” is just as convenient and dubious as all of the other nonsense of hers you have bought. Kazez currently claims to have appreciated Dawkins and Harris then in service of her ugly claim that Ophelia and company’s “contempt” is objectionable now. It precisely echoes other atheophobes’ supposed love for Russell, Ingersoll, and Twain, who are conveniently too dead to tell the ‘phobes to stick their slimy attacks on Dawkins, Myers, et al. where the sun don’t shine.
Once again, Kazez’s self-serving descriptions of herself, which provide a foundation for her nasty nonsensical attacks, are not credible. You should not accept them.
Your tu quoque nonsense is getting tiresome. I neither said nor implied that the act of selecting a “prime target” is morally objectionable. However, the fact that Kazez’s prime target is Ophelia Benson (who is blatantly innocent of Kazez’s charges) is undeniably relevant to this blog. Why you think a cloying “but youuuu do it toooooo…” response on this point has anything to do with anything I don’t understand.
For how many years? As I pointed out, she’s been “thinking about it” for a year and a half now, straight through “Tom Johnson” and prominent Gnu dust-ups with Josh Rosenau, Rob Knop, and the NCSE—to say nothing of Francis Collins, the Templeton Foundation, et multicetera. From Kazez: utter silence. But from you all she gets is more and more slack, buying every bit of self-congratulation she sells, trying to rule out any criticism of her that she self-congratulatorily denies (WTF?). I find that incomprehensible.
As it should! It demonstrates her severe lack of integrity in her dealings with accommodationists and their critics.
So I have explained, with accompanying reasoning. Your insistence on bending over backward to a comical extent on Kazez’s behalf notwithstanding, some arguments are actually more sound than others, and hers are consistently poor.
Deepak,
Don’t want to get too bogged down in this, but do want to relate to your question. I think the difference between Dawkins saying he might distract from the trial and Jean saying Jerry shouldn’t have written what he did for USA Today is a very obvious one. Surely it doesn’t need spelling out. No one is forcing Jean to write or say anything and if she disagrees with Jerry or anyone else, she can say so and argue whatever points are disagreed upon. If it’s her opinion that certain things should not be said in certain places and to certain audiences, that’s also her right, but she ought not to be surprised if people then think she wants to shut them up. It’s not illegitimate to say “you shouldn’t say (or have said) that,” but it does have consequences. And there is a very palpable difference between reacting with “I disagree, you’re wrong and here’s why” and with “that shouldn’t be said (even if it’s true).”
I haven’t done all the backreading possible on this, so I’m not going to get into a dispute about whether Jean also thinks the other side should keep quiet. What I will say is that, considering how much fuller the media, the bookshelves, you name it (basically everywhere except the atheist blogosphere) are of pro-religious propaganda than of its opposite, anyone wishing to appear even-handed in criticising the über-vocal ought to be pushing harder against the theist side, because it has all the advantages we lack: numbers, social acceptance etc. Not to mention laws on the books in many countries as well as some US states that give them preferential treatment (when they don’t just plain disqualify non-believers).
Oh, and if I didn’t answer your explicit question adequately, of course Jean would have the right to express the same opinion Dawkins expresses. Our problem is not with her right to say whatever she wants. There is something else going on here. There are so many complaints out there about our lack of civility, so few examples given of it and such prominent cases where a campaign to smear us falsely was exposed. On the other hand, ask any gnu atheist with half an hour’s internet time on her/his hands to collect examples of articles and blog entries smearing us for doing what there are so few examples of and they’ll come back to you pretty quickly with a basketful of at least fifty examples, I would guess. The only thing I don’t know is to what degree it’s orchestrated, or whether our mere unabashed existence strikes the same nerve of outraged revulsion in so many people.
I don’t have a problem with people disagreeing with me/us, but there’s a difference between individual disagreements and what looks like a campaign.
As far as I can tell Kazez is in agreement with Mooney’s basic objective – which is that public opinion must be swayed, in the short term, towards accepting the scientific consensus on climate change (and evolution although climate change is the real target for Mooney).
Now the accomodationist argument here is that in order to achieve this goal in the short term it is best if scientists as a whole are portrayed as neutral – or better still friendly and compatible with religion.
If one accepts this objective as a goal then their position towards the gnu’s becomes more understandable. It may very well be the case that short term political goals in the climate change might be better served by having only Ken Miller, Francis Collins and the like as the only scientists that the religious are exposed to.
The problem here is that not everyone has the same goals as Mooney.
The Gnu’s generally have a long term strategy of encouraging critical thinking in the population at large and that objective is not served by discouraging skeptical inquiry of particular topics.
What’s more, despite the prominence it gets on atheistic blogs, evolution is not really under threat. We have won that battle. A few skirmishes threaten to flare up now and then but they are incidental compared to the very real negative effects of religious doctrine in society at large.
What I mean here is things like issues like birth control (itself probably the biggest factor we can use to influence future climate change),homosexual rights, end of life choices and stem cell research.
These are issues that are not affected by evidence – they are the logical consequence of religious scripture. What is the accomodationist policy here?
Sigmund,
You make good points. What especially annoys me about the Mooney, Kazez et al position is that is so US-centric.
Large scale rejection of climate change, and the fact that human activity is a cause of that change, is predominantly an American phenomenon, at least in Western nations. Of course there is denial in other countries, but on nothing like the same scale and with nothing like the same level of denial by politicians.
Evolution is much the same. In the West it is only the US that has such large scale rejection of evolution, and again only in the US is there significant political will to teach ID/creationism.
I have tackled Mooney over this, and other than saying it was an interesting question he did not bother replying. So I simply do not know why only what happens in America is important to him.
You are also spot on in recognising that gnu atheists do not seem to share the limited goals of the likes of Mooney. I will grant that global warming is an issue that is important, but then so are the rights of women, gays, atheists, people with religions other than the dominant one and so on. To be honest, for me the evolution issue in the US is pretty far down the list.
I really do not know why bhu atheists should STFU simply to make things a bit easier for the NCSE. Nor that I am convinced STFUing would make any difference.
Matt,
I’ve given up making the US centric point to Mooney and Rosenau, it just never seems to sink in and just gets ignored by them.The one possible advantage of Mooney getting his Templeton fellowship was that his fellowship course was held in the UK (Cambride, I think) but even that hasn’t seemed to have improved his geographic skills.
This. It’s a classic maneuver (or “frame”). Of course I’m a fan of the great pioneers, who were sensible and moderate and genteel, and whom I don’t want to antagonize. It’s all the noisy riffraff who came along in the wake of the great pioneers, and who have no clout so I’m happy to antagonize them, whom I can’t bear. They’re so vulgar, so impertinent, so disruptive, so inferior. I look down upon them from a great height.
Indeed, this is the worst part:
While that may turn out to be true, to say that that means we should all just STFU about it is elitist in the extreme. It’s goddamn Machiavellian. Like there are truths that must be hidden from the unwashed masses lest their little brains explode.
To say that you think the average person is incapable of grasping a particular concept is already a bit elitist, but I can’t criticize it too much, because I have said much the same thing myself. To then go on to say that they should be shielded from such a concept, or coddled because of their (presumed!) ignorance is the height of arrogance and bigotry.
I think there’s one more step (sort of implicit but I think not entirely) after “they should be shielded from such a concept,” James: the notion that said shielding places a moral obligation on Coyne and the rest of us to silence ourselves—not publish in USA Today, etc.
If Kazez were just airily and apropos-of-nothing suggesting that the plebes ought to be left alone to their ideas about religion, compatibilism, NOMA, etc., that would be one (albeit a little ugly) thing. Instead, though, she’s used that notion as a foundation to argue that atheists saying what we believe “in the public square” is morally objectionable. I can’t claim to be avoiding meta-meta-meta-ism, but I think that final argument of hers is unconscionable.
I think it’s not so much a foundation as an after the fact rationalization. I think the gut dislike of gnu atheism came first and the reasons came after.
Of course she still hasn’t explained why she pays such a disproportionate amount of attention to what I post.
@Rieux
Oh is this what you think you have been doing? There is very little by way of explanation or reasoning in your comments.
Oh really? Coyne asks a direct question on the publishing of his article in two magazines. she says one is fine and shouldnt have been done. And you are saying part of the answer is irrelevant?
So now you seem to think its ok for you to determine what one should or should not like. I usually like what Dawkins, Benson , Blackford, Rosenhouse and Coyne write (all Gnus). But I think Rieux (also a gnu)writes pretty crappy stuff and mostly comes across as a schmuck. Am I a atheophobe too?And if I replace Rieux with Benson do I become one?
Tu quoque is sometimes a way to demonstrate that a person is guilty of hypocrisy. Since you agree that bad behaviors should be called out and condemned , Im just obliging.
You think Ophelia has never been contemptous of anyone?(even by Ophelia’s standards?). The difference is we feel that sometimes contempt is the appropriate response and that it is justified. We feel that showing contempt to vatican policies and officials is the right thing to do. To argue that oh we are only candid not contemptuous is silly.
Its not a you do it too – Its that discussing opinions that people post on their blogs , or arguing about them in blogs of your own doesnt qualify for “prime target”, “stalking” views. Its paranoid to believe this. Its that this happens all the time and I think its normal.
She made that comment a couple of days ago. What exactly are you reading?
Here another example for you to consider
Coyne (rightly) believes that NCSE should adopt a neutral stance between science / religion compatibility (Oh look thats exactly what Jean said elsewhere too..) Eugenie Scott as representative of NCSE takes the position that Science is Compatible with religion (wrongly, because some scientists are religious). She has made some speeches to that effect. Coyne believes that is wrong. Now assume Eugenie directly asks Coyne “ok so in that speech I gave , are you saying I shouldn’t have said what i said?” Assume Coyne tries to clarify that NCSE is different from an individual and it needs to represent all views and so on but Eugenie cuts him and says “quit your waffling , give me a direct answer ,should i have said what i said, yes or no”. To be consistent with his views Coyne replies “yes but …”. Eugenie puts up a blog post saying gnu tells her to STFU. various accomodationists jump in and show righteous anger on this attempt to suppress free speech and pontificate on how they find this act morally repugnant.
Thats what this storm in a teacup feels like to me.
Deepak – Rieux said I was innocent of Kazez’s charges. Those are different from being contemptuous of Vatican policies – at least I think so. The problem with all the evasion and goalpost-moving and analogizing is that it’s not always clear exactly what one is being charged with, but broadly speaking it’s that I’m a rude out of control child who shouts “Fatty!” at people.
This is one of the issues that divides the parties. I do not accept that contempt for Vatican policies equates to being a rude out of control child who shouts “Fatty!” at people. I entirely disagree with Kazez’s characterization of gnu atheists, as I explained to her yesterday. Therefore I don’t accept that my contempt for Vatican policies means I’m not innocent of Kazez’s charges. I think you agree – you say we think it’s the right thing to do. Quite – and shouting “Fatty!” at people is not. I’m not doing that. I’m innocent of charges of that kind. Rieux wasn’t saying I never show contempt for anything or anyone. (I have contempt for the bishop of Phoenix, but it has nothing to do with his appearance.)
Deepak:
The fact that you have repeatedly ignored the reasoning in my comments (as evidenced, again, in the comment I’m responding to here; see below) does not make that reasoning cease to exist.
Yes, obviously, to the question of whether she said that the other “shouldnt have been done.”
Telling Jerry not to publish in USA Today is telling him to shut up. The fact that Kazez said something different about a different periodical in a different statement does absolutely nothing to change the fact that telling Jerry not to publish in USA Today is telling him to shut up. Ergo the matter you demand attention to is irrelevant, because it does absolutely nothing to change the fact that telling Jerry not to publish in USA Today is telling him to shut up. That’s what “irrelevant” means.
A laughable misrepresentation of what I just said (and you just quoted). Here, I’ll boldface the portion that you ignored, in the hopes that you won’t miss it this time:
You responded to this with some silliness about “determining what one should or should not like.” There we have it: I provided reasoning, and you ignored it.
But to get back to what I actually said: Kazez and I (and, for that matter, you) are making moral arguments. Kazez’s continual sniping at Benson consists of allegations that the latter’s alleged “contempt” is morally blameworthy, that it’s worthy of the societal sanction she’s trying to marshal. That, and not some meaningless statement about what Kazez does or does not “like,” is what she is alleging regarding Benson. She is saying that Benson has committed moral wrongs, not that Benson has done things that Kazez doesn’t like; the latter would be pointless and silly.
Next, Kazez’s moral charges against Benson are obviously false. It is very much in doubt whether Benson has in fact engaged in “contempt” in any of the instances Kazez has cited; but more fundamentally, it is clearly not the case that Benson has engaged in morally objectionable contempt. Kazez is wrong to slime Benson because Benson has done nothing blameworthy. That’s the point, and it really escapes me how you have avoided seeing it.
“Stalking”? Where in the hell did that come from? Where do you get off putting quotation marks around that word? Where did I use it?
I have not accused Kazez of stalking. Again, you have simply ignored what I have actually said regarding Kazez and her “prime target”:
That Benson is “a prime target” of Kazez’s criticisms is a simple (and indeed indisputable) fact. It is, quite obviously, not a moral criticism. It’s a simple observation that Kazez has repeatedly directed her attacks at Benson. That’s all; how you leapt from there to “stalker” (wha?) I have no idea.
Yes, of course, lots of us (including me) have “prime targets” of our own criticisms. During the past ~24 hours, my “prime target” has, indeed, been Jean Kazez. So freaking what? Where did you get the bizarre idea that there’s something objectionable about having a “prime target,” such that a tu quoque argument (or an allegation of “hypocrisy”—huh?) made any sense?
Again, you’re ignoring what I’ve actually written and substituting bizarre and irrelevant claims (“stalking”?) that I haven’t remotely approached. It’s more than slightly annoying.
I’m reading the blog post you referred me to, which is nineteen months old. As I pointed out (and you, ahem, ignored…), she has done nothing whatsoever since that July 2009 post to demonstrate that she actually meant the things she said about compatibilists shutting up, or that she actually cares. Given that you’re still trumpeting an obscure statement from nineteen months ago, I wondered how many years you’re willing to cut her such incredible slack.
But again, you ignored everything I was saying: “She made that comment a couple of days ago.” No. Wrong. July 2009, and you cited it. That’s not a couple of days ago.
It’s difficult to conduct a reasoned discussion when one’s opponent simply pretends that any reasoning (s)he finds problematic never existed in the first place.
@Ophelia
The charge being made at you (and gnu’s in general) is that we display contempt and are not civil. It is true that we display contempt. So when we call the Pope some well deserved four letter words – it is displaying contempt.
Yes. Which is why the argument we should be making is that we are for contempt when it is appropriate. yes we will be the arbitrators of when we believe contempt is appropriate – but we will also explain our reasons (which I believe most prominent gnu’s including yourself actually do very well). A lot of the argument has centered around that when we are candid we are accused of being contemptuous(which is also true in some cases) – which makes me feel there is some pretense going around here.
How about contempt for specific Vatican officials? How about contempt for specific Catholics who attempt to defend the policies? How about contempt for specific Catholics who simply ignore issues as if they don’t exist? Again my position is closer to yours than Jean’s and I dont agree with her either but I don’t think her tale is entirely unreasonable (if one sided). To go from that to jean says dont promote atheism and shes telling us to STFU is simply too extreme a reaction – and it seems to be in part kicked of by what other accomodationists have said and done, what happened in the Tom Johnson incident, or because Kazez actually dared support Mooney in that incident – we are better than that.
For e.g. Rieux called Jean a dishonest lowlife here in the threads. It has stood without comment from you and indeed from most other commenters(Again for most gnu’s its fairly obvious that Rieux speaks for himself and we dont feel a need to police him or make tut tut noises or that if he feels justified in using those words , he can). Do you think it is unreasonable that she will interpret it as one more example of angry children calling the emperor “fatty”.
Her charge as I understand it broadly is we display contempt to some religious people(not that we make fun of people’s appearances , which i think Jeremy Stangroom is currently going on about). Guilty as charged , and we will continue to do so.
@Rieux
Im awaiting one more answer. Did Coyne tell Eugenie Scott to STFU?
Well, that takes ignoring-all-my-reasoning to new heights.
Not that I’ve ever seen. Do you have a statement that Jerry has made in mind?
If you seriously see no difference between (a) the statement “What you said was wrong” and (b) “shut the fuck up” (and indeed “Jerry Coyne should not discuss his ideas in USA Today“), I’m afraid there’s not much point in discussing this matter with you.
Deepak
No. That’s incomplete. One, charges being made at me are not identical to charges being made against gnus in general. Some charges are specific to me – they’re personal, not general. Two, the charges are not just that we display contempt and are not civil; that’s one charge, but it’s not exhaustive.
So saying it is true that we display contempt doesn’t get at all the issues. It gets at some of them, but not all of them.
One issue, as I said, is disagreement about what is or is not contempt. Another is Kazez’s habit of moving the goalposts, so it’s no good boiling her many charges down to one simple one when she does the opposite herself. Another is, as Rieux indicates, the personalization. Kazez singles me out for her reprobation, and I don’t see what justifies that.
You’re right as far as it goes, but there’s a lot more to it than that, so your rightness isn’t all that decisive.
@Rieux
Coyne has written numerous posts on NCSE should be neutral about science-religion compatibility. im sure you can find them.Eugenie Scott as representative of NCSE does precisely that (as do Rosenau and others) and give speeches in their official capacity to that effect. It is reasonable to assume that Coyne is saying they should not mention science/religion compatibility in their speeches. Now? Is it STFU? (Dont waffle, dont give me nuances and dont add context to this since you dont extend that privilege to Jean).
Don’t be silly, Deepak. Jerry isn’t saying the NCSE shouldn’t talk fluff about religion and science compatibility because it’s uncivil. He’s not saying it will frighten the horses or scandalize the good people of the heartland or ruin Obama’s chances in 2012 or cause global warming. STFU isn’t about good reasons; that’s why it’s STFU.
It’s not STFU to say don’t teach Intelligent Design in biology class. It’s STFU to say don’t talk smack about religion where the servants might hear you.
Of course not. Taking your account as exhaustive, Jerry has never contended that Eugenie Scott and Josh Rosenau should avoid making their views about compatibility known, regardless of forum. He has, however, argued that Scott and Rosenau are wrong, and he has argued that the NCSE shouldn’t take sides in the compatibility debate.
Again, if you seriously think any part of that bears any actual resemblance to “shut the fuck up,” I’m afraid that’s a personal issue of yours that the rest of us are powerless to remedy.
As for this:
I for one will happily cop to contempt for Jean Kazez and her behavior. (Hell, look at comment #1 in this thread.) But I will not accept that said contempt is morally objectionable—not least because I have spent several hundred words, on this blog, Jerry’s, and Kazez’s own, explaining precisely the facts and inferences that bring me to that conclusion, up to and including “dishonest lowlife.”
Is Kazez capable of whining about all of that that, too, and throwing me in with Ophelia in the “girl calling the Emperor ‘fatty'” metaphor? I imagine it’s possible. (The implicit concession that my advocacy is as worthy of attention as Ophelia’s is would be very flattering to me, though probably a little demeaning to the author of Does God Hate Women?.) But why should anyone care? If I, or any other Gnu, express “contempt” that is thoroughly justified by the factual circumstances—and this is, rather obviously, the case with Ophelia’s comments about (for example) the Vatican—why should we take Gnu-bashing complaints about that seriously?
Why should it trouble us if our opponents level criticisms that are unfounded?
“You are wrong” is telling people not to say that 2+2=5 in math class.
“STFU” is telling people not to say that irrational numbers exist, it would frighten and confuse the poor dears and their poor little minds would never be able to cope and it’s so technical and only highly educated mathematical professionals should discuss these ideas.
So perhaps tomorrow there will be a new parable, in which OB and Rieux murder the emperor and then drink his blood while singing the Marseillaise. That would be amusing!
@Ophelia
This one is hard to judge for me , since Im not the one who is being targetted. All I can say is it doesnt appear that way to me. Or atleast no more than when we target rosenau or mooney. However it will ofcourse appear differently to you and you may very well be right.
Again that is true , but isn’t this a separate argument. To go from this to Jean is against candid atheism is a misrepresentation even when what we call candid , she calls contempt.
But I did tell you I dont want reasons, or nuance or context (because I think Jerry is right). Answer the question without the caveats – dont “waffle”. Does Coyne think that Eugenie Scott should not in her official capacity publically state Science is compatible with religion – yes or no?. And yes the conditions are silly (and thats part of the point ).
Which isn’t what Kazez said either. Her position is elitist – dont talk about stuff that the common folks will misunderstand and which the unscrupulous will misuse – which is wrong , but I dont see how you believe it is deserving of the other epithets that have been hurled.
Well ofcourse.She is wrong about a lot of things – we need to make arguments about those. Im not saying you havent , but most of the fire has been around she told us to STFU.
SAWells
It is easy to make an analogy say whatever you want. My take is she’s saying dont teach irrational numbers to people who arent able to add correctly yet.
@Rieux
Which is an inanimate object. So he’s really saying the employees shouldnt “take sides” i.e. they shouldnt say “religion is compatible with religion” and given that they have already said it – if pressed , he has to admit “they shouldn’t have said it” . You can argue as much as you like that you think its because its wrong (But the NCSE employees don’t think so).
Well I dont think Jerry’s argument has any resemblance to STFU. And thats the point. you shouldnt think Jean’s argument has any resemblance to STFU either. She said it is pointless and complicated or technical – To then keep repeating that it is STFU is downright silly , and now I will have to concede that I cant convince you , its a personal issue of yours , one that Im powerless to remedy.
Deepak:
No, the term you’re looking for is “legal fiction,” and as an attorney I make arguments and pronouncements on behalf of legal fictions every day.
In your latest response to Ophelia you hit on another centrally relevant concept—”in her official capacity.” Legal fictions do, through human beings acting in their official capacities (such as yours truly), take positions and make assertions all the time; they are not “inanimate.” There is nothing “waffle”-ish or absurd about arguing that a particular legal-fiction entity, such as the NCSE, should refrain from taking various positions. And that’s what Coyne, among others, has done.
In their official capacity, sure. There’s nothing a bit wrong with that, and it does not resemble in the slightest Kazez’s declaration that Coyne shouldn’t have published his personal ideas (which did not purport to speak for, for example, the University of Chicago) in USA Today. Neither their stated reasons nor their conclusions bear the slightest similarities to one another—and I get the feeling that you actually know that.
So look: you can pretend, as fervently as you’d like, that the obvious distinctions between Coyne’s action and Kazez’s action (you’ve just pointed out two such distinctions yourself!) don’t exist. You can also pretend that I have written none of the hundreds of words I’ve posted here explaining precisely why Kazez’s action is objectionable, and why her pronouncement does constitute telling Jerry to shut up. But regardless, wishing away the refutations of your arguments doesn’t make them any less conclusive.
Rieux.
Stop waffling. Answer the question directly. Does Jerry Coyne think that Eugenie Scott( in her official capacity ) should not say that religion is compatible with science? (do you see why hounding someone for a gotcha answer is silly?)
Stop wasting time explaining Coynes views. i have already told you I think jerry is right.
Deepak – you stop issuing orders.
Yes, your hounding is extremely silly, given that I answered that question. (Claiming that I have “waffled” is simply ridiculous.)
There you go. Why you continue pursuing this irrelevancy I, once again, cannot understand.
I guess—but you have bizarrely maintained that his position is indistinguishable from Kazez’s position that he should not have published his personal views, representing himself, in USA Today. You are wrong. I have explained why, repeatedly, in considerable detail.
Maybe I should just keep posting that until you demonstrate basic comprehension of what it says.
@Ophelia
is that tongue in cheek or are you serious?
@Rieux
Uh no you havent answered. i didnt ask for a comparison with kazez, i didnt ask for the rightness or wrongness of the views. I said “Does Jerry Coyne think that Eugenie Scott( in her official capacity ) should not say that religion is compatible with science?”
To which you can answer
a. Yes
b. No
c. I don’t know.
Deepak, I’m completely serious. What you were doing in #110 – stop doing that.
Ophelia
This stuff moves on quick, so I suppose we can look forward to a time when it’s the gnus that accommodationists agree with, and it’s the nasty neo-gnus who give atheism a bad name. I’m not sure how you’d feel then. Up the neo-gnus!
@Ophelia
Im going to ask the question below because I genuinely want to know your answer, and this will be the only question about your comment – Im not going to follow up for clarification or argument.
What is it that you are finding problematic/offensive about #110?
I resent the implication of that I am issuing orders when I use statements like stop waffling – or stop wasting time – given that I am in no position to enforce any *order* – whereas you did issue an order in #111 , and you are in a position to enforce your “you stop..”.
Deepak, you seem to have got a bee in your bonnet about this issue but unlike your usual contributions to this site you’re really not arguing this one very well.
For a start you are shifting the goalposts with your Jerry Coyne – Eugenie Scott question.
You started it out as a hypothetical question which has now morphed into what we “think” that Jerry Coyne thinks!
Isn’t “I don’t know” the only possible answer here?
Even if we take the hypothetical of Eugenie saying science is compatible with religion, the real problem with that statement is that she is using the accomodationist tactic of deliberately misrepresenting the data in order to score a political point.
An analagous statement would be “smoking is compatible with living until your late nineties”.
Both the smoking claim and the ‘religion is compatible with science’ claim are factually true (weak deism or pantheism can be compatible with science) but leave out huge amounts of contradictory evidence. The standard anti-accomodationist point is that if Eugenie is going to make a statement about science and religion then she should treat it in a scientific manner where the weight of the overall evidence must be presented, rather than a political manner, where there is no requirement for a balanced argument. On the whole this ‘balanced’ approach would expose the NCSE to questions of a non scientific nature (and distract from their core mission of increasing the quality of scientific education) and it is for this reason that the general verdict of the anti-accomodationists is that the NCSE should stay clear of the religious question.
For instance if we accept Eugenies metric that if a scientist is religious then religion is compatible with science we are faced with the fact that most scientists are not religious (compared to the population at large). One is faced with providing a series of justifications to explain this discrepancy. The NCSE chooses to simply ignore this uncomfortable fact. Eugenies explanation of why creationism is not compatible with science can equally be applied to mainstream Christianity which has equally unscientific claims at the core of their doctrine but the NCSE deliberately chooses to avoid mentioning this point. Noahs flood is just as unscientific as Jesus reanimating after two days and coming back from the dead and yet one one of them is held up by the NCSE as problematic for science.
This is a bad policy for an organization dedicated to science. Evidence should be the basis of everything they seek to promote and it is not censorship to point out this fact.
Thank you for that, Sigmund. The political aspect that you rightly brought up seemed to be in danger of drowning in minutiae and I’d been toying with mentioning it, too.
It’s one thing to think or believe something and to have to make a choice between saying or not saying it. It’s another to have pressure put on one by others not to say certain things that one may believe. And it’s yet another again to have political pressure brought to bear to say certain things that one may not think or that one may think have nothing to do with one’s job and are gratuitous digressions that would never be made unless there were pressure. But the pressure has to be taken seriously, because things like funding may be involved.
To bring this directly back home to our uncivil gnus, if we are as quiet as some would like us to be, we end up colluding with those who are responsible for the religiously motivated political pressure in situations like that.
Never forget, the folks who tell us to keep quiet for our own good are also those who preach that the meek will inherit the earth and we all remember how that one went down (there is a great little piece by George S. Kaufman on precisely that, if you can find it).
About the Kaufman piece, I have it in book form, but it’s online, too, though not free. The first few sample sentences give you an idea: http://www.thenation.com/archive/meek-inherit-earth
That comes as a surprise (the unlike part :) ). Thanks for the thought. But seriously if you think i have a bee in my bonnet I wonder what you think about the other commenters?
isnt that true of any opinion of somebody’s position? You think that kazez thinks and so on. Again you have attempted to point out why Coyne is right. I have already agreed that he is for many of the reasons you mentioned. But if you ask a direct question, insist that all nuances and context be omitted , then you can say Coyne asked Eugenie to not say something in public right? Thats sort of what happened with Kazez’s you should not have published in USA today. Her view (which is wrong) is that certain topics that are hard to understand are better not discussed in public (again nothing specific to atheism) – To move from this she’s telling us to STFU and not promote atheism is just misreading whats said purely on the basis of her posts and subsequent attempts.
Are there other factors that might cause distrust of Kazez. sure – but I dont believe that is sufficient to justify the above. To me it feels that we are picking up religious traits. We are victims elsewhere so anyone who is accomodationist is always out to get us or tell us to shut up or whatever else.
Also on the compatibility topic Eugenie and other accomodationist positions are Science CAN be compatible with religion (hence the number of scientists who are and are not religious is irrelevant as long as there are some who are both religious and scientific). This is trivially true and not what we are arguing about of course.
Deepak,
But only sort of. The problem is that JK moves the goalposts so often that it really doesn’t make sense to “include context” when trying to pin down exactly what she is claiming (or what she is willing to stand by, which itself seems to shift with every reply).
The shifting part isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Maybe she’s thinking aloud, and changing as she goes. Fine. It’s the never admitting the shifting that makes argument so futile. It’s the blaming people who disagree for not being able to anticipate the next location of the goalposts that makes argument so exasperating.
This goes way, way back…
http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=230
@Ophelia
My summarizing post since i think ive spent far too long on this issue and have nothing new to say
Well yes I did notice both you and jean saying there is a history. I dont think i have the full story for your disagreement(for lack of a better word) with her, Ive seen parts of it – and looks personal too.- I should probably stay out of it :).
I didnt see much goal post shifting for this specific incident , I did see it during Mooney’s incident. I’m willing to cut an accomodationist some slack if they believe that science is compatible with religion is just as silly, and if they will come out and say candid atheism is perfectly fine, and contempt is sometimes appropriate. I can quibble the details with them – or ask them to put their money where their mouth is. But it looks like Im in a minority of 1.
I really didn’t like some representations of what some gnu’s have interpreted her post as , which to my reading is reasonably clear and unambiguous (and wrong). I didn’t think some of the fire and brimstone was appropriate especially to someone who seemed to have taken a couple of steps towards our position.
Well in a way Deepak it’s not personal at all – it’s about this public stuff. In another way maybe it is personal, but still the subject matter is all public. There’s no secret personal stuff in the background – or if there is I don’t know about it!
Maybe you’re right about the fire and brimstone, but I didn’t hurl any fire and brimstone. I disputed her claim that she is for candid atheism and against only contemptuous atheism, on the grounds that often what she defines as contemptuous I define as candid. I don’t consider that even a little bit unfair, because it’s central to the whole disagreement. It always has been. Mooney called Jerry’s New Republic article “uncivil.” I thought then and I think now that that was one of the silliest claims I’d ever seen from a sensible person. This is and always has been the issue – if that’s uncivil, what on earth are we allowed to write and say according to their standards?
So how can JK just be taken at face value when she says she’s for candid atheism, when she has been pouncing on posts of mine that I don’t consider uncivil as archetypes of uncivility and childish insulting new brattiness? I do not agree with her reading of gnu atheist blog posts, so why would I unquestioningly accept her claim that she is for candid atheism? Candid atheism is what I take myself to be doing! And she certainly isn’t for what I’m doing.
“Candid atheism” is different from atheists being candid. JK says she has no problem with the former, but she’s clearly bothered by the latter. “Candid atheism” is, I think, the abstract idea that atheists should not deny their atheism, should not apologize for it, and should not be shy about explaining why they’re atheists. It’s easy for someone like JK to say she’s for that, just as it’s easy for President Obama to say, in the abstract, that he supports the full dignity and humanity of LGBT persons (but, somehow, he “struggles with” the specific real-world question of whether or not they should have full marriage rights). As a general proposition, JK is for candid atheism, but when it comes to specific real-world instances in which atheists have been candid, she’s been critical. So she falls into the same bad habit of the gnubasher herd: being too quick to mislabel atheist candor as incivility.
Hmm, maybe that’s it.
I can understand that on a personal level. I think it’s mostly a mistake, because it leaves bad arrangements as they are, but I can understand not wanting to tangle with touchy subjects with actual people. But I have a hard time understanding it as advice to others.
I mean, frankly, and perhaps unfairly, that’s how it used to be with race. Nice people just didn’t discuss it – they ignored it. So nothing changed. That’s no good!
I don’t think theism = racism, of course, but I think hatred of atheists is pretty damn close. I think that’s an urgent reason for people not to go on treating it as a subject one has to be extra cautious about. I think the extra caution just encourages people to continue to think that their religion is Special and in need of mandatory protection and sensitivity. I don’t mind personally, but I’m not a teenager in Oklahoma.
Well, if anything, a television show called “Candid Atheism” would be a fun idea. Just think of the pranks we could pull…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg9ZutIcRg4
Ha! Smile, you’re on Candid Atheist!
You’d think such a program would have pranks like this one, but I doubt I’d participate in something like this. It’s a little cruel:
http://unreasonablefaith.com/2010/04/23/prank-316-the-rapture/
(It’s a 5 minute clip. For those who don’t feel like watching, it’s basically an elaborate prank in which a Christian young woman is lead to believe that she’s been “left behind” in the rapture. The most amazing thing about it, though, is that the perpetrators of the prank were devout Christians themselves. The young woman cries and is, albeit momentarily, traumatized.)
Ewwwww! I hate things like that! I’m supposed to be so savage, but I really hate things like that. Mean jokes; ugh, I hate them.
I’m similarly repulsed. There’s mean jokes, and then there’s mean jokes. A good mean-spirited joke, if presented by a capable comedian, can get a laugh out of me. Like Ricky Gervais says, it depends what the joke is. My problem with the above prank is that it purposely causes very real mental anguish for the sake of a laugh. The prank is funny in the way falsely leading someone to believe their dog has died would be “funny.” (“Har-dee-har-har, look! He’s in tears because he sincerely believes his furry companion has been hit by a Mack truck—how funny that is!” Um, no.) Needless emotional trauma is being caused just for a cheap laugh. That young woman—mistaken as her beliefs may be—was really quite shaken there for a minute. She fell to her knees sobbing, for goodness sake.
This sort of show came up before. I’m still dismayed that you can get these sort of things past TV censers to generate revenue, but not past grant committees to generate knowledge.
Not close enough for a cigar, I’m afraid. You did preface it with the disclaimer that that’s not what you believe, which I appreciate, but let’s not forget how much effort we put into separating race from religion (or lack of; I don’t think it’s different for these purposes). There’s simply the category of things you were born with and can’t change and the category of things you, think, believe or do. They’re different; the first category is what you can’t change, didn’t choose and therefore it’s wrong for you to be judged for it. Our problems with believers and theirs with us, even if the intensity of the hatred can be compared to the hatred of a racist for someone of the wrong race, must fall decisively in the second category. Brainwashing can be very powerful and even impossible to shake, as can convictions arrived at by one’s own efforts, but one still wasn’t born that way and some element of choice (even if someone else’s) was involved.
If this seems like an overreaction, it may be because I was just exposed to a worse case of what you seemed to be teetering on the edge of, from, of all unlikely people, Johann Hari. http://www.johannhari.com/2011/02/25/can-we-talk-about-muslim-homophobia-now
You don’t need me to point out what’s wrong with this sentence:
Islam is a religion, Christianity is a religion and their members include people of all races. Judaism is a religion, but that’s the one case where it seems to have become entangled with an ethnic identity. Hari doesn’t usually make slips like that.
To return to the previous example, there are ways in which anti-atheism can be much worse than racism. I’m referring to the fact that when one works through what a believer thinks of a non-believer, they can’t really avoid the conclusion that we’re tools of Satan, whereas there are certainly forms of racism that impugn no evil to the people of different colour, merely a childlike mentality, or other forms of inferiority not involving moral turpitude.
Back to one of the main themes of this thread, I noticed that the Derbyshire piece you linked to contained:
Stewart
Last point first – yes I noticed that too – though not just in connection with recent er disagreements. It’s a longstanding issue. The Philosophers’ Mag is meant to address more than just philosophical peers, and a good thing too, and that is considered infra dig. by some.
But in all fairness, that’s not Jean Kazez’s view. Her books are not peers-only.
First point – I know – but I meant that some hatred of atheists shares some of the qualities of racism – the mindlessness and the intensity. It’s phobic.
First point only: yes, I thought that must be how you meant it and thought that needed to be clarified (for when you get quote-mined about it some day).
And we are back to being in agreement. Normal service has resumed. :)
:- )
I did misread one part of what JK said – the atheism/objective morality bit. I didn’t realize the / was meant to express opposition, I thought it was just an “or.”
[…] to say about me. (Well that’s the important thing; do admit.) Fellow atheists Jerry Coyne and Ophelia Benson jump into the fray with their own takes on DBAD. Both are known for taking off the gloves in […]