What’s that? Oh, it’s the underside of the bus
I haven’t said anything here about the stroke Richard Dawkins suffered last weekend, because I figured any sympathy I expressed would sound fake. The reality is that I never wished illness or disability on him, and I’m sorry that it’s happened to him. It’s much the same with Scalia – I was and am ecstatic that he’s not on the court any more, but I would have been fine with retirement as opposed to death. I would have been ecstatic if Dawkins had decided to stop jeering at feminism and Muslim schoolboys on Twitter, and to be a better person instead. I would much have preferred that. But that’s not what happened.
Matthew Facciani at Patheos quotes from a recording Dawkins made yesterday to tell people how he’s doing.
The doctors asked if I had been suffering from stress, and I had to say yes I had, and they keep advising me not to get involved in…controversy. And I had to tell then that not getting involved in controversy, that controvery is not one of those things I can. I told them I had been distressed, that on the 28th of January, I was disinvited from conference to which I had previously been asked, this upset me very much. I’m used to getting hate from religionists, from creationists, but when I get hate from my own people, from left, liberal feminists and so on, that actually hurt me.
So he’s sort of kind of blaming us for his stroke.*
Well, I understand how he feels. It certainly occurred to me often last summer that my (cough) irritation with various people who say harsh things about me could make my brain explode. I’ve also seen plenty of people hoping exactly that would happen, and predicting it would. (Thus I have a duty to breathe deeply and think beautiful thoughts, so that I can thwart them.) But it has also often occurred to me that my irritation at a vast range of other things could make my brain explode. I’m a highly irritable person. Dying of fury seems very likely to be my fate. I think sometimes about deciding to stop being that kind of person, and dismiss the thought almost before it forms. Can’t do it. The irritability is all tangled up with caring about things, and I have no interest in ceasing to care about things.
And the same applies to Dawkins, doesn’t it. Temperamentally I could be his twin. He cares about things, and the caring often leads to irritation. It’s no good pretending he’s not irritable. I was going to say he must realize that about himself just as I realize it about myself, but then I remembered that in his Twitter profile he says he pokes “good-humoured fun” at believers…so maybe he doesn’t.
These days one of the things he gets the most irritable about is his own warped idea of what feminists are like. The result is that he tweets to his 1.36 million followers that particular feminists should be mocked, “the more the merrier.” That’s a bad, unkind thing for him to do. That’s what I said here a week or two ago, thus perhaps being one of the feminists he had in mind when he sort of blamed feminists for upsetting him into a stroke.
I’m sorry the stroke happened, but I don’t think the blame rests with feminists.
In other news, the NECSS executive committee put out a statement this afternoon:
We wish to apologize to Professor Dawkins for our handling of his disinvitation to NECSS 2016. Our actions were not professional, and we should have contacted him directly to express our concerns before acting unilaterally. We have sent Professor Dawkins a private communication expressing this as well. This apology also extends to all NECSS speakers, our attendees, and to the broader skeptical movement.
We wish to use this incident as an opportunity to have a frank and open discussion of the deeper issues implicated here, which are causing conflict both within the skeptical community and within society as a whole. NECSS 2016 will therefore feature a panel discussion addressing these topics. There is room for a range of reasonable opinions on these issues and our conversation will reflect that diversity. We have asked Professor Dawkins to participate in this discussion at NECSS 2016 in addition to his prior scheduled talk, and we hope he will accept our invitation.
This statement and our discussions with Professor Dawkins were initiated prior to learning of his recent illness. All of NECSS wishes Professor Dawkins a speedy and full recovery.
So that’s women thrown under the bus again.
I too wish Dawkins a speedy and full recovery, but I also want him to stop trashing feminism and feminists. That hasn’t changed.
*Updating to add: Richard strongly objects to this accusation, pointing out that I didn’t quote the next part, where he says it was not that upset that preceded his stroke, but rather the good news that NECSS had apologized and reinvited him to their conference.
He does not have very skilled medical care if the MDs have led him to believe that “stress” all by itself caused a stroke. He needs better, smarter, more intelligent doctors.
Bloody cowards… he gets a stroke from having a temper tantrum and they invite him right back…
What an extraordinary thing to say. I thought Dawkins’ idea of a proper feminist is Christina Hoff Sommers. The other kind are the sisterhood of the oppressed; they complain about trivial things like being inappropriately touched by the water cooler and invited to coffee; they get upset by a shirt but not by dear muslima being shot in the head; they talk post-modern rubbish about “privilege”; they love Islamists; university is not for them.
Now all of a sudden the “hate” from “left, liberal feminists” hurts because they’re his “own people”??
@ 2 Knight in Sour Armor
He was invited back before the stroke. Both NECSS and Dawkins say so.
He’s never shown much concern for the hate feminists in (and out of) atheism get. Yes, he co-authored that statement with you, Ophelia–two years after the harassment began, wasn’t it?– but for the most part he’s been utterly oblivious when not actively encouraging the hate.
And his good friend Christina Hoff Sommers is such a fan of the harassment movement known as Gamergate, they call her their “based mom.”
Will this experience lead to increased self-awareness on Dawkins’ part? Maybe. Maybe I’ll inherit a million dollars from a stranger.
This isn’t the worst outcome for this. The panel is a good idea: if Dawkins refuses, then he will look cowardly; if he does show up, then he can be grilled by some people at least. And re-inviting Dawk will shut the fanboys up for a while.
I wonder whether all of the DudeBros who were absolutely incensed at the notion that someone could get PTSD from internet harassment will have anything to say about Dawkins’ insinuation.
@ 4 Silentbob:
Fair enough, though the cowardice comment stands.
Claire @1:
That isn’t what Dawkins said. He said that the doctors had asked him whether he’d been under stress and he said yes.
Then he blamed feminists reacting mostly reasonably to his comments for making him stressed and quite strongly implied that they were in some way responsible for his stroke. Why mention it at all if that wasn’t what he intended to imply? There’s no doubt that the usual suspects will use that quote as proof that feminism is bad.
I don’t think it’s his doctors who need to be smarter.
I sincerely hope he recovers speedily and fully but he doesn’t make sympathy easy.
As for NECCS’ actions, they’re not only cowardly, they’re weasely too:
They can’t bring themselves to name the problem.
I do find Dawkins’ comments a little rich considering, as you say, he encouraged his 1.36 million followers to mock someone who already had three years worth of harassment. No thought for the unfair stress that might cause her?
Good thing you have a certain knack for that then:
;-)
Oh, but you see, that isn’t unfair stress, because she is “vile”. In fact, one of the most vile people he’d ever encountered. (He doesn’t get out much, does he?)
Dawkins does not appear to be capable of seeing those sorts of things from his actions, since he is convinced his actions are always justified, and he just doubles down when he is criticized, rather than examining his action to see if the critiques might be reasonable. I think that’s a natural response; that’s usually what I feel like, too, but some of us are able to eventually consider the possibility that our critic might have a point.
And if yelling at bigots makes her vile, he has a strange definition of vile. Yes, it looks less than pleasant to see someone yelling and cursing. But seriously, if that’s the worst it can get? The world would be a much better place if she was the most vile (or even in the top ten most vile) of the people.
If Lindy West is ‘vile’, I would consider it an honour to achieve ‘appalling’.
The woman he called vile is Chanty Binx. He was irritable with Lindy West in their Twitter exchange, but I don’t think he called her names, let alone saying she should be infinitely harassed.
I’ve never actually bothered to look at the video of Chanty Binx confronting MRA’s. So what if she is aggressive, loud or obnoxious. That just described half of Dawkins supporters anyway. Why on earth does Dawkins concern himself with raining shit down on the head of a street level feminist activist who confronts MRA’s? Frankly it’s beyond bizzare.
Rob, when a male (like Dawkins and his supporters) is aggressive, loud, or obnoxious, they are demonstrating leadership potential. When a woman is same, she is bitchy and emasculating. In fact, a woman doesn’t even have to actually BE loud and obnoxious; if she stands up for herself, she is PERCEIVED as loud and obnoxious, and thus bitchy and emasculating. And therefore worthy of the scorn of Dawkins and his bros.
Remember how bewildered he got when people called him “strident” because he said things they didn’t like?
Ophelia is apparently so eager to revel in the victim’s-eye-view of the underside of the bus, she overlooked the fact that I actually said the exact OPPOSITE of what she so spitefully alleges. I said it MIGHT have seemed easy to claim that my stroke was caused by the stress of being disinvited by NECSS. But I went on explicitly to rule that out because the stroke came AFTER the joyful news that NECSS had decided to re-invite me. And that, by the way, also rules out the equally spiteful suggestion, by one of the commenters on this site, that the NECSS change of mind was a cowardly response to my stroke. To repeat, for the benefit of those who seem to have difficulty understanding plain English, the wonderful (and stress-REDUCING) news of NECSS’s courageous change of mind arrived, and greatly cheered me up, BEFORE my stroke.
And I most certainly do not “jeer at feminism”. I remain a passionate feminist who looks at the world beyond America and clearly sees that by far the majority of misogynistic atrocities are committed in the name of Islam.
I await Ophelia’s apology and thank her in advance for it.
Richard
@ 19 Richard Dawkins
Sir, with regard to your first paragraph I corrected the commenter @4 and they accepted the correction @8.
With regard to your second paragraph, I think it undeniable that there are aspects of feminism you jeer at, and therein lies the point of contention.
I think we all, here, join with Ophelia in wishing you a speedy and full recovery.
I am sorry to learn that you will be unable to attend NECSS.
@ Silentbob
I hope we all jeer at certain aspects of “feminism”, such as when a certain feminist group may support Islamists (or even plain old Islam) over free speech.
What Silentbob said.
It’s strange though how one and the same text can be differently received by different people. When reading the OP, I noticed primarily the part with “Temperamentally I could be his twin” (oh my, this made me chuckle!) and the remarks about caring. To be described as someone who “cares about things” is not exactly that bad, isn’t it?
Admittedly, quite central (at least for me) was also the fragment about tweeting “to his 1.36 million followers that particular feminists should be mocked, “the more the merrier”” – but I read it as a real concern, not spite.
Well, this is of course just my reading. Be that as it may, like Silentbob I’m also sure that everybody here wishes you a speedy recovery.
Wait, Richard Dawkins @19, what precisely do you think is Ophelia alleging, spitefully or not? The NECSS’ statement is from, well, NECSS. And your quoted words are, I presume, your very own words. Did you not say that it is the hate of left, liberal feminists and so on, that actually hurt you? How can quoting your own words be a spiteful act? Unless maybe you meant those words as spitefully as they sounded but you would rather not hear them quoted back at you?
But hey, I’m glad you were able to revive your “Dear Muslima” chorus. That’s an oldie and a goody, surely.
Incidentally, as a (so-called) feminist why is it important to you to take the time to demand apologies from people like Ophelia when you should be looking at the world beyond her blog so that you can clearly see that by far the majority of misogynistic atrocities are committed in the name of Islam? Why Tweet to your followers to suggest that a Western feminist should be mocked when there are real atrocities in the world? Is it because you actually care less about about feminism than you do about using citations of those atrocities as a weapon to silence Western feminists who dare to call you on your bullshit?
Finally, speaking of reveling in a victim’s-eye-view, there’s real irony in you demanding an apology. And I bet you can’t even see that.
As a matter of interest: when is the last time that Richard Dawkins tweeted anything that was _supportive_ of feminism? Any comment that was identifiably supportive of a particular feminist or of a feminist position? At the moment I regard RD’s claim to be a feminist as completely laughable ever since the Dear Muslima incident.
I think the NECSS’ latest decision was cowardly regardless of the timing.
It was brave to take a stand against a very prominent member of the atheist community (and one with a big box-office draw). They made it clear that they saw Richard’s retweeting of the video as a tacit approval of hateful views which “run contrary to [their] mission and the environment [they] wish to foster” and which “do not represent the values of NECSS or its sponsoring organisations.” They must have been aware that the decision would not be popular and that there would be negative consequences, which is why it was a brave move.
This makes it all the more disappointing that they changed their minds. Richard’s approval of the video and subsequent encouragement to mock a victim of persistent abuse – not to mention his many previous ghastly tweets – seem to prove that their decision to disinvite Richard was sound. Those many tweets portray a man seemingly unwilling or incapable of learning from criticism and one whose understanding of feminism is fundamentally flawed at best.
In other words, nothing has changed since they made the decision to disinvite except, perhaps, a backlash from Richard’s supporters. Their reversal of this decision seems like a cowardly act.
@Richard:
As silentbob said, you’ve been known to jeer at aspects of feminism that don’t meet your personal conviction of what feminism ought to be. There’s a scotsman lurking in there somewhere.
I think this speaks volumes. It’s Dear Muslima all over again. We can agree that misogynistic atrocities are routinely carried out in the name of Islam but I think we disagree fundamentally about the importance of other aggressions against women that are even more routine. We can care about both. We can do things about both. Caring and doing things about both is necessary.
Dr. Dawkins,
So do you or do you not believe that it’s possible for “hate,” as you call it, to cause a person to have health issues?
If not, then I don’t know why you mentioned at all that receiving “hate” from “your own people” hurt you and caused you enough stress to tell your doctors about it, and decided to pass on that information in a statement to the public.
If so, then perhaps you ought to reconsider suggesting to your 1.36 million Twitter followers that anyone deserves “abundant mockery, the more the merrier,” or that, with no evidence whatsoever, you believe that a woman who has been the target of such harassment simply made it all up.
You have my full sympathies and best wishes for a speedy recovery. That said, you chose to make your “hurt” at receiving criticism from leftists, liberals, and/or feminists part of the discussion. Either it’s relevant, or it isn’t. If it is, then you ought to consider its relevance to every other person in the world who has been hurt by ridicule, especially those who lack your incredible network of unconditional supporters.
Oh. Good. Doctor Dawkins. I had a few (of the probably standard by now) words, if you’ve a moment.
I expect (or hope) you’ve heard all this by now, perhaps even ad nauseum, but anyway, if so, once more with feeling:
If Greece owes many, many billions of Euros to lenders, and cannot service the debt, your own nation is probably not somehow now better advised to run up debts slightly less unserviceable.
Likewise, if your neighbour regularly burns their house down from playing with gas cans and matches in their living room, it doesn’t become somehow harmless that you regularly smoke in bed.
Similarly, if Saudi Arabia is beheading and stoning people, harassment and marginalization of women in general and feminists especially by possibly nominally atheist (but otherwise rather woefully dense) keyboard warriors does not suddenly become ‘zero bad’, to borrow a phrase originally used technically slightly differently. Nor, are you, personally, somehow exonerated, I think, by speaking about the former, from addressing the latter.
With due respect, I might also mention: Saudi Arabia is rather unlikely to listen to you, on your own, _especially_ if you’re not particularly respected within your own culture. You might, with sufficient lobbying, bring economic pressure to bear, in alliance with significant interests you manage to bring onside, but you have to be in a position to do so. If you are, increasingly, seen as a reactionary, largely isolated from certain progressive voices within otherwise potentially allied interests, this probably isn’t going to improve your leverage to do so. Granted, this doesn’t mean you want to align with people who actually _excuse_ Islamism’s excesses, either, I should hope it would go without saying. But I expect you’ll find there are also plenty saying: fine, yes, they’ve problems, but so do we, and there are many reasons to look at those as well; let us not ignore our own issues, in pointing elsewhere.
And whether or not the Saudis ever listen to you, the regrettably dense keyboard warriors are another animal. They just may*. In my view, this does imply certain responsibilities.
Secularism, I think we both agree, is likely to offer much better ways to run the world than Islamism, sure, but this strikes me as rather an unambitious bar. To get anywhere even worth the trip, I think a little finesse may need to be applied to the exercise; the old hierarchies once largely propped up by many of the world’s religions can hardly be counted to take _themselves_ apart. And on the way, I figure we need to keep showing _how_ much better we can do. Hordes of grunting idiots who apparently learned about feminism from the pages of The Mirror or worse, madly typing about how much better they are than theocratic zealots since they haven’t, recently, beheaded anyone, while tacitly but very effectively aggravating problems much closer to home don’t strike me as a particularly persuasive exhibit. Genuinely inclusive cultures, online and at conferences, I think would be better. I really don’t think we’ve achieved that in online atheism as yet, nor certainly across the web at large, never even mind our culture at large. Regrettably. Clearly, far more could be done. Many women, especially, have been telling you what they’ve been experiencing, the moment they turn their criticism toward their own culture and groups and movements. I think it might be wise to listen to them, more. People kindly reassuring you, oh, no, they’re overstating, everything’s pretty okay among us, you may look elsewhere, they will naturally seem soothing. But as I’d think you’d know by now from any number of other big howlers you’ve been able to weed out of your brain, such soothing banalities are often fairly standard material covering big, culturally-approved lies.
I might also mention: it is my experience that the kinds of people who repeat such soothing banalities make extremely poor allies, over the long haul, even if they do seem easier on your nerves, in the short. Better, always, those with the nerve to slap you up the side of your head when you’re simply wrong, now and then.
Put a final way: critiques of our own culture are more immediately valuable to us, I think. They are, obviously, also a bit harder to take. But such is the way of things. Good advice is rarely entirely painless to take.
I do, sincerely, neither wish to add to your stress nor come across as patronizing straining too hard to avoid it, here. This is probably the kindest version of this I can imagine writing; my apologies if, indeed, it comes off as positively anodyne; I’m feeling strangely out-of-body writing it. Regardless, I’m taking your participation here as implying you figure you’re up to a bit. I might add, as I expect others have also mentioned, by now, rather a lot of people are finding online engagement, and engagement within secularist and rationalist groups more generally, stressful, of late, too. See again the seventh paragraph, for what you, personally, I think, might be able to do about this.
As to Ophelia’s apology (or not), I expect I’ll leave that to the two of you.
*Some will not. I think there are larger tragedies in most people’s lives.
Richard Dawkins, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Josh @28:
And consequently of lots of the things he’s said over the last few years and his apparent refusal to accept fault or blame or to fucking *learn*, yes.
Richard
First of all, I reiterate what I said in the post – I would never have wished illness or disability on you (and I never did), and I’m sorry it happened to you. That’s the first thing I said in the post, and I meant it.
Next – I don’t agree that I “revel in the victim’s-eye-view of the underside of the bus.” I think that accusation is just more of the jeering at feminism that I accused you of and that you deny. I don’t in fact think that I personally am a victim, in general, although it’s undeniable that I’m a target of a great deal of very ugly verbal harassment. But I don’t object to your extended series of Dear Muslimas because they victimize me – of course they don’t. I object to them because I think they help exclude women from the atheist / secularist movement, directly and also indirectly by encouraging your less thoughtful fans to harass women. We talked about this in our email exchange leading up to the statement – I told you then that harassers take comfort and inspiration from your example.
Next, no, I didn’t overlook the rest of what you said. That’s why I said “he’s sort of kind of blaming us for his stroke” – sort of kind of is there for a reason. You did mention it after all, and there is such a thing as implication. I think you have a tendency, at least on Twitter, to imply things and then get indignant when people understand your implication.
Finally, yes, you do indeed jeer at feminism; you do it all the time. And we all know you consider yourself “a passionate feminist who looks at the world beyond America and clearly sees that by far the majority of misogynistic atrocities are committed in the name of Islam.” We know that very well, you’ve said it repeatedly. That’s another one of those implications, by the way – you left unsaid the part you want us to understand: “and therefore I get impatient with American women who complain of inappropriate touching at the water cooler or invitations for coffee.” That’s a jeer right there, and a rather contemptuous belittling.
It’s not your job to tell American feminists what we get to care about and talk about. It’s really not. I don’t see you scolding anti-racism activists in the US, so why do you consider it up to you to scold US feminists?
We can care about more than one thing. We can also care about different things. Consider yourself – you spend time scolding feminists on Twitter when there are much worse things elsewhere you could be working on. You pay attention to church-state issues in the US and UK when you could be paying attention to theocracy in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. So what? You can pay attention to more than one thing, and so can we. You can choose your subjects, and so can we. We don’t need you telling us that misogynist atrocities in the name of Islam are worse than anything we confront.
So I’m sorry, but I can’t give you the exact apology you asked for.
On the other hand…I did omit the part about the timing, because Facciani’s transcript didn’t include it. (I think he may have added it later.) I’ll update the post to add a note about that.
Please note, though, that I did clear up a misunderstanding in my comment @ 15 – I said you did not call Lindy West “vile” or other names.
And how, if I may ask, is the situation of Muslim women remedied by telling Western women to put up with any attempt by Western men to seek personal gratification at their expense or expect the same level of hatred and abuse that you have inspired – even actively encouraged – for the last not-so-few years”? The essence of “Dear Muslima” (and pretty much everything you have had to say on the topic ever since) was not that we should be more concerned with the treatment of women in the Muslim World (if it was, your whole unprovoked attack on Rebecca Watson was a complete non-sequitur). The only honest interpretation was that we should be less concerned with the still unacceptably high levels of sexism faced by Western women. The whole ugly thing boiled down to “We could be treating you a whole lot worse, so shut up and be grateful that we’re only being creepy and disrespectful”
[…] I see what prompted that comment by Richard Dawkins. I was wondering, because I certainly don’t think he generally spends his time reading my […]
You all sound like the Westboro baptist church
Oh Jared, come back when you can think like an adult.
Boy! Jared Lorz @34, you sure told us! You sure put us in our place.
And here I thought all those placards we don’t carry saying “NO GOD HATE NOTHING” were completely invisible to the public. I thought all those funerals at which we don’t protest were ever witnessed by anyone. I thought all that media-whoring we don’t do to make fun of people wasn’t being observed by anyone.
But, you! You have seen it all and called us on it. Darn. I guess we should just go back to all of that nothing we have ever done that is exactly like the Westboro Baptist Church.
While we do that, you should just run along and continue to be the fuckhead you were before you decided to drop that impotent waste of a comment in this thread.
Hugs and kisses!
TonyInBatavia
“Fuckhead” – don’t say that mate, he’ll get all stressed again.
[…] http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2016/whats-that-oh-its-the-underside-of-the-bus/ […]
Professor Dawkins will be waiting for your apology, for
1 – Trashing any chance of a decent adult talk about these issues, and about how feminism can be harmful when in the hands of ideological people who can’t understand simple morality.
2 – The lies in this text
3 – The almost fascist way you people act when someone call you on your ideology.
Equality of gender is one of the most important issues in our society. As Christopher Hitchens would say, the Empowerment of woman is the ONLY known cure for poverty. But people like you don’t care about it, you only care about more and more privileges where you live. You and people like you are a stain in the feminist movement that changed the world in the 20th century.
@Michael Lively
That word wasn’t directed at Dawkins.
I see how US-centric, self-absorbed, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant and dismissive you are and the only therm accurate to describe you would be “ugly american”.
Wow. Richard Dawkins is more passive-aggressive than my cat. Fortran fans will know what a tall order that is.
To quote Mrs. Benson :
“I told you then that harassers take comfort and inspiration from your example.”
I’m curious how you know this. Have you studied the mind of harassers or something? I hear this justification a lot, that someone’s stance encourages and comforts harrassers. (in it’s convenient generality it actually reminds me of neo-cons on message boards telling me during the Bush years I provided “aid and comfort” to the enemy by criticizing the Iraq war, ie. by criticizing their political preferences.)
Is that just the conclusion you have come to by yourself? How do you know what goes on in the mind of harrassers? Perhaps it’s a part of post-modernism, I’m not sure. You have a conclusion you jumped to, a belief you came to (in this example, a prominent person’s anti-feminist stance serves as a role model for harassers), and you base a whole campaign strategy on it, never really examining if it is really true that harassers take their clue from Dawkins’ public critique of feminism. It’s just something you believe and you go with it.
Similarly, the notion that his stance indirectly or directly “excludes” women from atheist circles. Again, without knowing how you come to this conclusion, I presume it’s simply your thoughts and feelings on the matter, but you seem to go with it as if it’s well researched fact. Maybe he annoys YOU with that, but that doesn’t mean that it is excluding “women”. Your opinion or annoyance is not equal to what women believe. That’s yet another thing, again, maybe it’s part of post-modernism, just because YOU have a certain conclusion or political anger, doesn’t mean it can be generalized to women. I mean, are you really so convinced of your insightfulness that you can presume what excludes or includes women? Maybe your attitude is disliked by some women and hence exclusionary. Ever thought about that?
Well, I hadn’t seen this before. What a very silly man Richard Dawkins can be. I think your response, Ophelia, was on the mark.
@Edith & Serd:
I am not entirely sure I quite understand your theses or positions.
All I know is, I feel like there are bees in my bonnet, buzzing; except no such hairwear installed.
And btw, any and all zpeling missteaks is mine bexause I clam them.
But thanks for the “self-absorbed, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant and dismissive” input, it may come in handy one day.
@Yuri: Did you have something of value to add to the conversation? Licking Dawkins’ boots doesn’t count. Oh, and:
(1) The decent adult talk has been happening here for years. No apologies due him.
(2) You didn’t cite a single lie. No apologies due him.
(3) You didn’t cite a single fascist action. No apologies due him.
Doing the math: You failed so spectacularly that you don’t even get a ribbon for participation. Would you like to apologize for being so pathetic?
@Edith Brown: Did you have something of value to add to the conversation? See also: Licking Dawkins’ boots contributes nothing.
@Serd: As just one example to help answer your question about Dawkins excluding women, see here. As just one example to help answer whether Dawkins inspires harassment, see Edith Brown above. Oh, and kissing Dawkins’ ass might feel good to Dawkins but it makes you look like you’re wearing an asshat. If anyone ever calls you an asshat, that’s why.
All three of you asshats: Quit taking valuable time to whine at a lowly American blogger and actually do something about all the Islamic atrocities you pretend to care about. Or do you want to just admit now that you are merely pretending to care?
Oh. I see now that I had missed Yuri’s input above. To tell the truth, not much to miss.
@Serd L
You know, if you’re simply curious, you could ask.
In fact, you’re not curious at all, because you think you know the answer:
Serd, you forgot to phrase that last bit as a question.
As a matter of fact, Ophelia has good reason to think harassers take aid and comfort from Dawkins’ feminist-bashing, there’s a long history there, and Dawkins himself has even acknowledged it.
Again, if you’re curious, you could ask. As opposed to what you’ve done here, which is, well, “You have a conclusion you jumped to, a belief you came to…and you base a whole [internet comment] on it, never really examining if it is really true.”
And by the way, Serd? Ophelia wrote a whole book criticizing postmodernism.
Next time you accuse somebody of making unfounded assumptions, make sure you’re not, you know, making a bunch of unfounded assumptions. That way you won’t make a silly ass of yourself, again.
You’re welcome.
It’s a little bit funny, the way these three new commenters – Yuri, Edith Brown, and Serd L – demonstrate the quality of the people who hang on RD’s every word.
Feminists rule! I love them so much. Can I join your movement??
Actually no I don’t. That was sarcasm. Such a good joke right??
You people hear one dissenting opinion and you attack them like a pack of wolves. Get out of your little bubble and start looking at real issues around the world and in the U.S.
By the way, please excuse my white cisgendered opinion and go easy on me. I’m not looking to be oppressed, my weak mine can’t hand it..
Not just ordinary garden variety minions, but genuine passionate minions.
Ladybuns4869, yes, you’re right. One single opinion. And now Dawkins’ body has been shredded to bits, with us wolves merrily wolfing down his tasty organs and licking the final remnants of his blood from the dirt. Poor, poor man, unable to express any opinions in the future because he is dead at our hands while we laugh at his carcass.
But you are right. We need to look at the real issues in the world.
So, let’s now focus on the real issues outside of the bubble, the ones you believe are important. Yes. Let’s do that. This is so worthy. I want to do what you do. I want to emulate you.
Like, maybe I should go to the blog comments of someone who had the temerity to call Dawkins out on his bullshit and tell the blogger how much they should focus on real issues in the world.
Oooooo! That sounds so exciting and important! Defending one of the most privileged men in the world! That’s a real issue! Can I? Please? Can I please do that, too? I want to defend privileged men!!! That will make me feel so important.
Except, doesn’t the taste of Dawkins’ ass as you lick it taste like shit?
Aw, forget it. The issues you believe are real issues are shit.
I wasn’t talking about Dawkins. I was talking about the two other posters whose opinions were different than yours and you all attacked them like wolves. Make it three now with your pretentious post. Thanks for proving my point!
So, Ladybuns, let me get this straight. You’re…. complaining about people disagreeing with…. people they disagree with?
Wait… isn’t that what they were doing? Isn’t it what you’re doing?
@latsot, Ladybuns is attacking our little bubble like a sarcastic wolf. That’ll learn us.
Aw, yes, these words are like wolves’ teeth, pulling the meat off the bone of those poor, poor drive-by commenters. How ever will they drag their broken, scattered bodies through the blood and muck to get help after having to — gasp! — read words on a blog?!
Hyperbole, much?
Wait. So that’s it? I should care how defenders of Dawkins are being treated? That’s the more important issue I should be caring about?
Wow. Here I thought it was pathetic to defend Dawkins on a blog. But you’re not even doing that. You’re defending the defenders of Dawkins on a blog. And you’re sticking by that, that this is one of the big issues around the world, in the U.S., that we should get out of our bubble to do? Really?
Alrighty, then.
@ 54 Ladybuns4869
It appears you find yourself in an environment where standards or reason and evidence are much higher than you are used to. Your post was “attacked” because it was nothing but unevidenced assertion. First you claimed @51
Then you said @ 54
Which is it? One opinion or two posters? And which two posters? Was it Jared Lorz @34 with this airheaded assertion?
(and received two responses)
Was it Serd L. @43 with their ad hoc claim?
The reality, of course, is that many feminists who have been ridiculed by Dawkins have experienced a concurrent spike in harassment, to the extent that it would be absurd to assume these things were unrelated.
(Serd L. had two responses)
Or were you referring to Yuri @39 with their unevidenced claim?
(they received one response)
Or is it Edith Brown @41 who wrote this nonsense?
(and received one response)
To whom did you refer when speaking of “two other posters”, and since when has two “wolves” been a pack?
Like I said, you are in an environment where it will not do to just throw around conspiratorial assertions, you have to back them up with reason and evidence.
You say:
Okay. For example? What real issues are being ignored, Ladybuns4869? (I caution you that if you mention Goldsmiths Feminist Society and Maryam Namazie you are going to look even more of a fool than you already do.)
Silentbob, you rock. Where I just mock the lickspittled nonsense and belittle these asshats by calling them names, you do a great job of dissecting their words to make them look even more nonsensical. I should probably take a page from your book. Great job.