And one more thing. She says something quite rude about Daniel Dennett, and what she says is not accurate. Pp. 9-10.

It is certainly supremely annoying when intellectuals talk down to religious people, speaking as if all smart people are atheists. Philosopher Daniel Dennett is particularly guilty of this. In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, he coined the term ‘brights’ for nonbelievers, suggesting very clearly that the right name for believers was ‘dummies.’

He did not coin the term, as he clearly states in the op-ed piece, right at the top of the second paragraph.

The term ”bright” is a recent coinage by two brights in Sacramento, Calif., who thought our social group — which

As you read further in Nussbaum’s Liberty of Conscience (or at least, as I do), it gets worse. It gets unendurable in places. Parts of it (yes like the curate’s egg) are good, and readable without too much irritation, but there are patches where it becomes simply maddening. I started counting words. On page 52 she uses the word ‘precious’ four times, and both ‘respect’ and ‘dignity’ more than that, along with ‘deep’ or ‘profound’. All five occur much too often, again, on 53-4. Look…even apart from the philosophical aspect, that’s just not a good way to write. If I’d been her editor I would have called her on it very early in the book. It’s not a good idea … Read the rest

In comments on ‘Reading Nussbaum’ Tea mentioned that Nussbaum ‘is not only delusional about religious believers (and dogmatic about respecting religious beliefs), she is also a Freudian.’ True. I’d remembered the Freudian claims in Hiding From Humanity, but when I found that chapter again I realized I’d forgotten that they’re also heavily present in Upheavals of Thought. She introduces the subject in a very interesting way in the latter book (p. 181):

It has become fashionable in the United States to sneer at psychoanalysis. In part this dismissive attitude results from the fact that Americans are generally impatient with complexity and sadness, and tend to want a quick chemical fix for deep human problems. People who have that

The library produced Nussbaum’s Liberty of Conscience for me yesterday so I’ve read some of it and I must say, I was surprised – it’s way worse than I expected. I think it’s terrible – and it’s also extremely irritating. Tooth-grindingly irritating.

We talked about an interview in which she discussed the book with Bill Moyers last April and then we discussed it some more a couple of days later. I was critical of what she’d said then but I also gave her the benefit of the doubt on a lot of things. My mistake. She does mean what I said I thought she didn’t mean. (I see that H E Baber commented on the second post, which is … Read the rest

Not again.

The systematic demonisation of Muslims has become an important part of the central narrative of the British political and media class; it is so entrenched, so much part of normal discussion, that almost nobody notices. Protests go unheard and unnoticed.

No it hasn’t; no it isn’t; no they don’t.

As a community, British Muslims are relatively powerless. There are few Muslim MPs, there has never been a Muslim cabinet minister, no mainstream newspaper is owned by a Muslim and, as far as we are aware, only one national newspaper has a regular Muslim columnist on its comment pages, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown of The Independent.

What does it mean to be powerless as a community? What is a community? … Read the rest