Have you ever noticed what a terrible literary character “God” is?

Not like the Greeks. Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo – they were interesting, and they got involved. But “God”? Blegh.

That’s why Jesus, you know. People got bored, and they wanted a god who could put bums on seats, one with some good lines. Jesus can be pretty entertaining, in a rebel without a cause way. He’s uneven, but he has moments.

But “God” is so boring they had to get George Burns to play the part, so that people would think there’s someone interesting behind the name. But there isn’t. George Burns was just acting (he was acting George Burns), and the ____________ behind George Burns is boring as fuck.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Education is Forbidden but murder is not. That’s a strange thing.

Suspected Islamist gunmen have attacked a college in north-eastern Nigeria, killing up to 50 students.

The students were shot dead as they slept in their dormitory at the College of Agriculture in Yobe state.

…

A witness quoted by Reuters news agency counted 40 bodies at the hospital, mostly those of young men believed to be students.

College provost Molima Idi Mato, speaking to Associated Press, also said the number of dead could be as high as 50, adding that security forces were still recovering the bodies and that about 1,000 students had fled the campus.

I suppose they were jealous of the statistics from the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Emer O’Toole relates the misadventures of David Gilmour and her reactions to same to, first, her struggles with devising a new curriculum for an introduction to Irish theatre, and, second, internet dating.

Yes, internet dating. I’m new in town, and I’ve joined a site for the first time. Having indulged in outrageous fanfaronade on my profile page and started shopping for mates, I noticed that hardly any of the other singletons on sale – male or female – listed fiction by women in their “favourite books” section. Were they afraid they’d catch pregnancy or menopause from female writers or something? I changed my profile to stipulate that I only wanted to hear from people who read books by women.

Then something weird happened. People started messaging me about their relationships with gender and literature. Like, lots of people. The messages ranged from good (the person who wrote to say that they’d changed their profile to honour female authors), to bad (the person who listed six male writers on their page, but explained they didn’t define themselves around literature), to ugly (the person who said “I like motorcycles, but I don’t expect you to like motorcycles – why do I have to like books by women?” Answer: because motorcycles are not one half of the human race).

Hmm. That’s not a good answer.

A lot of things follow from the fact that women are half the human race, but having to like books by them isn’t one of them, at least not directly. There’s a case that can be made, and O’Toole goes on to make a case, but that answer doesn’t make it, and it echoes the dopy stereotype of what’s meant by affirmative action. (She could have said, for instance, “I didn’t say you had to like them, I stipulated people who read them, and the reason for that is that no one should systematically ignore all books by half the human race.”)

People wrote to tell me that, in spite of their all male book lists, they didn’t discriminate when assessing literature. These were just the books that they, personally, liked best. Ergo, I was being judgmental. I could have ignored them, but my pedagogical urges are just too strong. I found myself explaining that, of course, I didn’t imagine anyone was thinking “screw those silly scribbling bitches, they can’t teach me nothing, yo” when filling out online dating profiles. I explained that we live in a society that teaches people to value male thought, art, and leadership above female thought, art and leadership. I explained the difference between active and passive discrimination.

That’s more the kind of thing.

It’s funny how people (I’m sure I do it too) assume the sifting process somehow magically chooses only the genuinely actually factually Best. Everybody should be much more sharply aware of what happened when orchestras started doing blind auditions. OMG would you believe it suddenly women started being hired! It turned out that when you couldn’t see that they were women they were just as good as the not-women. It’s almost as if the sifting process sifts for gender first instead of for quality first.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

First published in India’s Frontline magazine; reposted here by permission.

Asaram Bapu’s alleged sexual assault on a young girl offers an opportunity to throw light on India’s superstition industry and lift the veil on the state-temple-corporate complex. By MEERA NANDA

At one level, the arrest of Asaram is a rather humdrum, same-old story. One more godman has fallen from grace. So, what is new under the sun? Aren’t we used to discovering the clay feet of our sadhu sants? Perhaps George Orwell was on to something when he said that “saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent”, for no all-too-human godman can ever live up to the qualities of godliness. Perhaps the wise course to take is to reflect upon the tragedy of overweening human ambition of these fallen gurus and move on.

Yet, if one pauses to think about it, Asaram’s arrest is not just a matter of one more godman’s personal failings. Rather, this episode dramatises the thin line between faith and blind faith, and the near complete merger of faith, politics and money in contemporary Indian society.

Asaram’s alleged rape of a 16-year-old girl is proof—if more proof is needed—why Narendra Dabholkar’s struggle against superstitious beliefs and practices is indeed the need of the hour. The young girl was brought to the guru for an exorcism, of all things. From the revelations that are trickling in, it appears that this girl and her parents were made to believe by Asaram’s associates that she had been possessed by evil spirits which the guru had the ability to drive out. This kind of andh shraddha, or blind faith, which our godmen so routinely encourage and exploit, is precisely what Dabholkar and his Maharashtra Andhshraddha Nirmulan Samiti were fighting against, a fight that cost him his life.

Asaram’s case is also proof—if more proof is needed—that a state-temple-corporate complex is always and everywhere at work in India. Most of the times, it lies hidden in plain sight: we are so used to the sight of our elected representatives and the pillars of civil society—from prominent scientists, business tycoons to Bollywood superstars—prostrating themselves before gods and godmen that we do not notice how smoothly faith, politics and money blend into one another. It is when the godmen behave badly (as in Asaram’s case), or when they fall foul of the powers-that-be (as happened to Baba Ramdev after his anti-corruption rally last year), that the veil is lifted. It is on occasions like these that we see what has been lying under our noses all along, namely, the state-temple-corporate complex.

Narendra Modi and other political leaders may want to distance themselves from the fallen godman for strategic reasons. But it is no secret that Asaram was treated as the de facto rajguru in Gujarat under both BJP and Congress governments. Indeed, when you examine the record closely, it is clear that Asaram’s hugely profitable empire of ashrams, gurukuls and schools was built up with the largesse of land given by the state as grant (which he later expanded through encroachment) and as private donations from the wealthy Sindhi-Marwari community. His political connections created a protective shield around him, immunising him from many allegations of crimes (including murder of children) and misdemeanours. The godman could literally get away with murder. Asaram, of course, is hardly alone in using his political clout to amass a fortune. Behind every successful godman in India today stands a cluster of powerful politicos with free access to the public assets and the machinery of the state. Once launched, the successful gurus build business empires, which attract other corporate interests, especially those with interests in the burgeoning market in education and tourism.

Under the neoliberal regime that India put in place to attract private capital, both global and indigenous, it has become easier than ever before to funnel public money and public assets into religion-cum-business empires. Often all that is needed is an authorisation for a change in land use (from agricultural to institutional or commercial) and the University Grants Commission (UGC) or the State legislature conferring the status of a “university” on a teaching shop set up by a guru’s trust under the pretext of imparting “value-based” education. The neoliberal mantra of public-private partnerships has benefited religious entrepreneurs as much as any other corporate interests. The difference is that the aura of holiness and the layers of shraddha and andh shraddha protect the former from any serious inquiry, let alone a challenge.

Until recently, State governments, especially in BJP-led States, were falling over each other to offer public land to Swami Ramdev to set up subsidiaries of Patanjali Yogpeeth, his flagship ashram-cum-ayurvedic hospital in Haridwar, Uttarakhand. Uttarakhand conferred the status of a “university” on Ramdev’s ashram and Haryana recognised the gurukul set up by the baba. These are fee-charging, for-profit teaching shops, not charities, though perhaps they get tax-breaks as charities. Ramdev’s government-sponsored ayurvedic formulary has made millions selling drugs of dubious safety and efficacy, while Aastha, the TV channel he owns through his proxies, has raked in huge profits. In their take-off stage, these businesses were, in part, subsidised by wealthy donors in India and abroad. Once the physical assets are in place, subsidiary government agencies and corporate interests step in to develop infrastructure such as roads, hotels and resorts and run luxury buses.

This triangular relationship between the state, the peddlers of “ancient values” of Hindu sanskriti and private money has become the standard operating model adopted by nearly all brandname gurus. It makes no difference if the State in question is “secular”, as States ruled by the Congress and the various regional parties claim to be, or is allied with the Hindu nationalists.

Ashram on leased land
Take, for example, the case of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who has constructed the headquarters of his Art of Living (AOL) ashram on land leased to him for 99 years by the State of Karnataka. The corporate support of AOL from Infosys and other Bangalore-based software companies is well known. But, wait, there is more: AOL got a land grant of 200 acres (one acre is 0.4 hectare) from the State of Odisha, where a new university offering “modern teaching with ancient values” started operations last year. The same business model was adopted by Madhya Pradesh, which honoured its native son, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, with a land-grant university. (My book, The God Market, provides evidence of the extensive state involvement in these cases, as it does for Baba Ramdev as well. I have only gathered the publicly available evidence and connected the dots between the active partners involved—the gurus and their political and corporate backers.)

Such state subsidies to gurus are over and above the direct subsidies many State governments provide for paying the salaries of temple priests, covering the cost of temple renovation, conducting pujas on behalf of those who cannot afford them, and setting up Vedic pathshalas, where students learn karma kanda, or priest craft. Perhaps the biggest indirect subsidy temples get from the state is through tourism. New “pilgrimage circuits” are created by States with grants from the Central government. Indeed, it is not uncommon for State tourism departments, in collusion with temple management committees, to invent prachin itithas (ancient history) for the temples they want to promote, to sponsor cultural traditions associated with religious festivals (the spate of state-sponsored Navratri and Makar Sankranti celebrations in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, for example) or to invent brand new traditions altogether (the golden cart processions in the Meenakshi temple in Madurai, the staging of the “celestial” lights in the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, for example).

The open diversion of public funds and assets into religious institutions of Hindus (and of minority faiths as well, depending upon political calculations) is bad enough. But the damage the collusion of state and religions does to the cultural habitat of civil society cannot be measured in rupees alone. The state-temple-corporate complex is grounded in the shared belief in gods and a shared blind faith in gods’ sales representatives here on the earth.

Faith-based nexus
When our elected representatives, policymakers and state functionaries approach the religious establishment as devotees, rather than as officials of a secular state with a constitutional mandate to create a secular public culture, what we get is a culture seeped in a disregard for the law, and a culture that protects irrational beliefs from critical scrutiny.

Take the case of the senior police officer D.G. Vanzara, charged with staging fake encounters in Gujarat. One of such encounters took the life of Ishrat Jahan, 19, and three others. In a letter of resignation written from Sabarmati Central Prison where he is lodged, Vanzara declared Narendra Modi to be his “God” and none other than Asaram to be his “guru”. It appears that his resignation was provoked by the fact that his “God” failed to protect his “guru”. The close entanglement of a law enforcement officer with the Hindu nationalist agenda of Modi on the one hand and with the godman on the other is obvious. The irony is that the “spirituality” he got from his guru was uncontaminated by any ethical considerations against killing innocents in fake encounters. It is indeed sobering to think how many Vanzara-type law enforcers are out there who revere Asaram-type gurus who openly prey upon their devotees. As long as this faith-based nexus is in place, what hope can one reasonably have that lawbreakers will be punished and justice will be done, at least in those cases where the godmen themselves are implicated in the crimes being investigated?

Even more damaging is the state protection that irrational beliefs and damaging religious practices get when the powers that be approach religious authorities on bent knees and with folded hands. A case in point is Lalu Prasad’s recent visit to the ashram of the ‘tantric’ Vibhuti Narayan aka Pagla Baba in Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur district, where he conducted a fairly elaborate prayer.

It is well known that many of the tantric beliefs involve paranormal and occult powers for which there is no scientific evidence whatsoever. Indeed, the bhuta pretas that Asaram was promising to exorcise from the young girl he is alleged to have raped are very much a part of the tantric belief system. So ask yourself this question: will Lalu Prasad use his political clout to promote his “god” or will he promote values of critical thinking which question the existence of bhuta preta? We all know the answer.

A law against superstition?
What is to be done? Can a law against superstition—the kind that Dabholkar and his associates fought so long and hard for—help? Could such a law have prevented the latest horror story that is reported to have taken place in Asaram’s ashram?

Crimes like rape and murder, of course, do not need any new laws. They only require a more stringent and thorough prosecution of the alleged criminals without the fear of god-like powers of either the godmen or their political godfathers.

But what if there were to be a law that prevents any public discourses, advertisements and/or demonstrations by anyone, regardless of which faith or tradition he/she belonged to, about their ability to expel evil spirits, or to bring about miracles that defy all the known laws of physics and biology, or to provide cures for diseases with no known cures as yet? Imagine also that such a law were enacted at the national level, with each State mandated to put it into practice. Let us also imagine—highly improbable though it is—that this law is applied stringently and with no fear or favour. (Our hypothetical law is modelled after the law that had been pending in the Maharashtra State legislature for many years, and was passed as an ordinance following the murder of Dabholkar.)

Could such a law have prevented the rape and other crimes that allegedly happened in Asaram’s ashram?

The answer has to be a qualified “yes”. Such a law could have prevented someone like Asaram from claiming god-like abilities in the first place. It would not, of course, make crimes disappear, as most rapes and murders do not require the cover of faith. But such a law would make it harder for faith to provide cover for crimes, frauds and other misdemeanours.

Even more important, such a law can prevent the corruption of the public discourse that goes on day and night when alleged godmen instil blind faith in occult powers and phenomena that are entirely without any basis in the facts of nature as we know them.

Will such a law deprive people of their constitutional right to freely practice the faith of their choice, as the civil libertarians fear? Is a law against superstition really a law against religion itself, as the conservative forces aligned against Dabholkar’s initiative have asserted?

The right to believe and practise one’s faith is a precious right that must not be infringed upon. On that there is no debate whatsoever. But the question really is this: does the freedom of religion include the freedom to profess, encourage and profit from superstition? Where does religion end and superstition begin? Or, are the conservative critics of an anti-superstition Bill right in assuming that religion cannot exist without superstition?

Those who fear that such a law will deprive Indian citizens of their freedom of conscience and free profession and practice of religion ought to read the Constitution carefully. Freedom of religion in the Constitution is subordinate to the Fundamental Rights of citizens. That means the state reserves the right to regulate or restrict any “economic, financial, political or other secular activity that may be associated with religious practice” if that activity can be shown to contradict “the norms of public order, morality, health and other provisions of this Part” (“this Part” refers to Part III of the Constitution which enumerates the Fundamental Rights of citizens). One would think that curing someone of mental stress falsely attributed to possession by evil spirits, as Asaram was claiming to do, legitimately constitutes a “secular activity associated with religious practice”. There is no reason why the state cannot regulate it in the interest of protecting people’s fundamental interests in life and liberty.

Under the Constitution, the Indian state not only has the authority, but is in fact duty-bound, to curb those secular activities associated with religious practices that it deems contrary to the other fundamental rights of the citizens. Cultivation of a scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform is indeed one of the Fundamental Duties of every citizen of India, as enshrined in Article 51A (h) of the Constitution inserted by the Constitution 42nd Amendment during the Emergency in 1977. The Supreme Court has, in a few cases, accepted the principle that as these duties are obligatory on citizens, the State should also observe them.

Those who find the prospect of such regulation an unbearable restriction on their faith have some soul-searching to do. Is their faith so fragile that it stands or falls with irrational, superstitious and harmful practices? Is it not the duty of those who claim to uphold the faith to see to it that their faith tradition cleanses itself of outmoded beliefs and irrational ways of knowing?

All said and done, there is nothing more important than to carry on with the struggle against blind faith that Dabholkar gave his life for. Commitment to a scientific temper and critical thinking is the only weapon we have against the peddlers of blind faith and their political enablers.

Meera Nanda specialises in the history of modern science. Her most recent book is The God Market: How Globalization is Making India more Hindu, published by Random House in India (2009), Monthly Review Press in the United States (2011).

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Aphorisms. I can’t figure out if I like them or hate them. I suppose the answer is, banally enough, that I like the good ones and the bad ones not so much.

I spotted one I do like a lot. Of course it’s on Twitter; where else would it be? (It’s a funny thing but just a few days ago I heard someone on NPR grumbling about “being told what entrée you chose.” Come on. I was born just as the Vikings invaded Britain and even I know that’s not what Twitter is. There is plenty of random chatty personal stuff, sure, but there are also many many other categories, including fomenting revolution and organizing protests outside the Dáil. And for that matter random personal chatty items have their value, and clever people can make them into an art form, which we might not have known if Twitter hadn’t come along. Stop griping.) It’s Neil deGrasse Tyson.

If the world is something you accept rather than interpret, then you’re susceptible to the influence of charismatic idiots.

It says a lot. There are many things that could follow the first eleven words. I might make mine “…you miss out on a great many ways of understanding.” You?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

This image combined with its caption made me laugh.

You believe in what?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Yes busted. Booya!

The leader of Greece’s extreme-right Golden Dawn party and four other of its lawmakers were formally charged Saturday with membership in a criminal organization with intent to commit crimes, in an escalation of a government crackdown after a fatal stabbing blamed on a supporter.

It was the first time since 1974 that sitting members of Parliament have been arrested. The arrests underline the Greek government’s efforts to stifle the fiercely anti-immigrant party, which has been increasingly on the defensive since the killing.

Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos, party spokesman Ilias Kassidiaris and Yannis Lagos, Nikos Michos and Ilias Panayiotaros were arrested by counterterrorism police. The latter two gave themselves up voluntarily. A sixth lawmaker, Christos Pappas — described in a prosecutor’s report as the Golden Dawn’s No. 2 — remains at large.

An additional 15 people, including 13 Golden Dawn members and two police officers, have also been arrested and are due to appear before a prosecutor and an examining magistrate soon. They face the same charges.

That is good news.

H/t Simon but tell me more promptly next time.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Welp, it appears that Pat Condell got pissed off at PZ the other day.

Expect a few rounds of fuming racist comments today — I have been discovered by Pat Condell, and he’s sending his pals over to set us all straight.

Pat Condell @patcondell Many thanks to @pzmyers and everyone at the North Korea of free thought for a most amusing start to the day. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/09/23/feminism-is-not-an-excuse-for-your-racism-pat-condell/

Ha ha, yes, because a blog network is just like a totalitarian state. I was just telling my kids they need to grow a beard and put on some weight if they ever expect to succeed me.

Pat Condell @patcondell Ha ha. Honoured to be slandered as racist by @pzmyers and his fellow carpet-chewing PC fanatics at the ludicrously named Freethought Blogs.

“PC” is one of those dogwhistles blown by racists, Republicans, and small-minded thugs who don’t want to recognize the rights of all people…only their own privileged subset. It’s a pretty good marker for regressive idiots.

This is FreethoughtBlogs, which means we don’t kowtow to self-appointed leaders of the freethought movement. To the Condells of the world, it’s only freethought if it properly abases itself before the Loud White Men On Pedestals.

Carpet-chewing? What’s that about? I thought it was a slur for gay sex; I wonder what Condell thinks it means.

The Condell fans chimed in, with lashings of stale right-wing formulas – PC feminist warblegarble.

There is something deeply wrong with you if you believe that feminism and Islam are friendly allies. It requires a deeply twisted perspective; it seems to be a story that the right wing press has been pushing hard, though, so if you only read the Daily Mail and Stormfront and Sarah Palin fan sites and the Blaze and Tea Party organs, you’ll get nothing but this breathless assertion that feminists don’t protest against Islam vehemently enough. But note one commonality: these kinds of sites hate both feminism and Islam.

You’d think they’d notice that abortion is outlawed under Sharia, and feminists tend to be pro-choice, just to name one issue. Yet somehow they think they’re allies? Bizarre.

Michael Stephenson @mcsadapted @patcondell @pzmyers Those folks are fully indoctrinated… to deny that feminists ignore Muslim depredations is absurdly dishonest.

I know these guys ignore what I write, for sure. I rattled off a list of feminists I read — Taslima, Maryam, Ophelia, Sikivu, Heina — to claim that any of them ignore Islamist oppression of women is simply willfully ridiculous and ignorant.

Yeah!!

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

And then there’s the academic peonage aspect.

In all the recent talk about dead white males and the living white males who teach them, we’ve missed something about the David Gilmour controversy. It’s not at all unusual for people to want to teach only the things they like, but, generally speaking, it is unusual for them to get what they want.

In other words, why did David Gilmour get such a sweet deal?

Consider this set of well-worn truisms about higher ed: arts enrolment is at an all-time low. The academic job market is bleaker than a house in a novel by Charles Dickens. Actual PhDs, who have trained to teach the curriculum, compete with hundreds of qualified applicants for every one position available. Those who don’t opt out altogether fall back on “sessional” instructor work, which is widely known for its poverty-line wage, lack of job security and low status.

Sessionals don’t get to teach the material they love. They’re usually just grateful if they land in the right department. The image of the overworked instructor working out of the trunk of her car as she commutes between two (and sometimes three) colleges or universities is the poster child for the new “working poor” academic. In many universities, sessionals account for about half the teaching staff, since universities can’t afford to hire more full-timers — what with the system being in crisis and all.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Yeah I already knew that, thanks.

Study: Everyone hates environmentalists and feminists

Of course everyone does. And you know why? Because lots of people work hard to make everyone hate environmentalists and feminists. People who hate feminism and feminists themselves work hard to convince everyone else that feminists are witch-hunters from North Korea. Oil companies and other interested parties hire PR firms to make environmentalists seem like soppy tree-hugging fools who will steal your SUV to plant potatoes in.

Writing in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Bashir and her colleagues describe a series of studies documenting this dynamic. They began with three pilot studies, which found people hold stereotyped views of environmentalists and feminists.

In one, the participants—228 Americans recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk—described both varieties of activists in “overwhelmingly negative” terms. The most frequently mentioned traits describing “typical feminists” included “man-hating” and “unhygienic;” for “typical environmentalists,” they included “tree-hugger” and “hippie.”

Another study, featuring 17 male and 45 female undergraduates, confirmed the pervasiveness of those stereotypes. It further found participants were less interested in befriending activists who participated in stereotypical behavior (such as staging protest rallies), but could easily envision hanging out with those who use “nonabrasive and mainstream methods” such as raising money or organizing social events.

Or writing blog posts and speaking at conferences.

No no no no no no no! That’s even more abrasive and not-mainstream than “staging protest rallies.” Except that one of the much-recycled indictments of the feminist blogging conspiracy is that it’s all slacktivism. Like this for instance:

See? Feminist baaaaaaaaaad because she doesn’t happen to be Ayaan Hirsi Ali (which she has in common with everyone else in the world except one person, so why it’s a rebuke is somewhat mystifying). Feminist does nothing but whine a lot. We hates feminists, precious.

Let’s face it: being a feminist is seen as “abrasive” and non-mainstream no matter what we do. The only way we could be “mainstream” enough to change that is to stop being feminists at all, which would suit the people who hate feminism but would rather defeat our purpose (we who are feminists). In other words, no.

This is, needless to say, frustrating news for activists, and not just the ones mentioned here. The researchers suggest this dynamic may very well apply across the board, such as to activities advocating gay rights or Wall Street reform.

“Unfortunately,” they write, “the very nature of activism leads to negative stereotyping. By aggressively promoting change and advocating unconventional practices, activists become associated with hostile militancy and unconventionality or eccentricity.”

“Furthermore, this tendency to associate activists with negative stereotypes and perceive them as people with whom it would be unpleasant to affiliate reduces individuals’ motivation to adopt the pro-change behaviors that activists advocate.”

So the message to advocates is clear: Avoid rhetoric or actions that reinforce the stereotype of the angry activist. Realize that if people find you off-putting, they’re not going to listen to your message. As Bashir and her colleagues note, potential converts to your cause “may be more receptive to advocates who defy stereotypes by coming across as pleasant and approachable.”

And by shutting the fuck up.

No.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A bit of spam, exactly as is, including quotation marks and line breaks.

“Wow, this post is fastidious, my sister is analyzing these kinds of things, therefore I am
going
to let know her.”

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

So Judge John Jones might as well not have bothered writing that opinion in the Kitzmiller case? I ask because some eternally hopeful types in Kansas have filed a federal lawsuit claiming that science is religion and must be kept out of the public schools.

TOPEKA, Kan. — An anti-evolution group filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to block Kansas from using new, multistate science standards in its public schools, arguing the guidelines promote atheism and violate students’ and parents’ religious freedom.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Exactly. Holger Syme, Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto, on David Gilmour’s version of professing literature.

…unlike Mr. Gilmour, who teaches the odd college course, I am a professor of English literature here, and it stung to see his bizarre, reactionary views on literature and teaching associated in the media with my institution, and in particular with its literary scholars.

That’s why I think it’s important to say that David Gilmour is not a colleague of mine (though I speak in this, and in the rest of this essay, only for myself, not for U of T). As far as I can tell from his published comments, he’s not much of a literature professor either. He seems to be fond of authors, and he says he loves their work–provided they are male, white, and very much like him. If they check those boxes, there are few limits to how far Mr Gilmour is willing to go in his passion. Take Proust, whom he loves so much, he’s read him twice.

Right?? Two whole times!

I don’t know if this inane interview bears any resemblance to what Gilmour is telling his students. I rather hope it doesn’t, but he said what he said, and he hasn’t taken anything back in his subsequent interviews. And what he did say, besides the generally offensive stuff, barely reached the level of the average Wikipedia entry.

It certainly didn’t have much to do with literature. I get why David Gilmour might want to do shots with Chekhov, but I have no idea why he would want to read his works. Authors sound a lot like George W. Bush when Gilmour praises them: great guys to have a beer with. Never mind about the writing, or the government bit.

Quite. It’s really not the sexism that has made me so interested in this, it’s the crudity, the shallowness, the lack of any apparent real interest in literature.

It is obviously Gilmour’s prerogative, as a middle-aged writer, to be interested exclusively in other middle-aged writers. It may make him sound staggeringly narrow-minded and parochial, but so what: it takes all sorts. But what this attitude of I-relate-only-to-myself has to do with teaching is entirely beyond me.

Is passion about our subject matter important in the classroom? Absolutely. Is the passion required in teaching typically stirred because the teacher identifies with the author or the text she teaches? I seriously hope not. I can only speak for myself, but I can categorically say that I have never identified with Shakespeare or Ben Jonson.

One of the qualities needed for teaching is surely curiosity. You need to have it so that you can evoke it in others. You need to know what it’s like in order to know what can awaken it.

Gilmour’s right, though, that passion, even love, are necessary ingredients in pedagogy. What he’s got completely wrong is the who and the what of that love. Great teaching requires empathy — the effort to understand things, ideas, and people totally unlike you. Some of those people are your students. Some of those things are of the past. Some of those ideas are the ideas of authors from different cultures than yours, and yes, shockingly, even of a different gender. Engaging with those people, things, and ideas is what teaching is all about. And not coincidentally, it’s also what research is all about, and why research and teaching go well together. Most crucially, engagement with the other is what reading is.

Quite, and that’s where curiosity comes in. Without it you just want more of the same old thing. You don’t need teachers or books or universities.

What David Gilmour professes isn’t literary scholarship or criticism. Never mind that he says offensive things (a big thing not to mind, I know). I’m sure we all say offensive things from time to time. Far more troubling, to me, is his basic failure to grasp why anyone should read literature at all, his stunningly self-righteous elevation of narcissism into the most powerful source of aesthetic appreciation — the infantile pleasure of self-recognition, and ultimately of self-affirmation as the highest, even the only end of reading.

We can argue about whether Hamlet is right or not when he claims that art holds a mirror up to nature. But let’s just say he is. Here’s what Hamlet doesn’t say: that art is a mirror you choose to pick up to see yourself. Art doesn’t give you that choice. If you’re playing along at all, it forces you to look in a mirror; and what you see there isn’t supposed to be your pre-conceived self-image. It’s something strange, or alien, or scary, or ridiculous, or dull; beautiful or hideous; unsettling or vaguely comforting. But whatever it is, it demands engagement, an engagement that can’t ever be entirely on your terms. And sometimes, the mirror reveals something that you realize isn’t strange at all, but is in fact you — but that shouldn’t be a happy realization. It’s supposed to come at a price. It’s meant to matter. And it’s not meant to be as easy to come by as self-love.

If the thing you see when you look into a book looks exactly like what you think you look like, you’re doing it wrong. David Gilmour is most certainly doing it wrong.

Oh yeah.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Another spike that turned up in the stats: the JREF forum, a 214 page discussion titled Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB). This is on page 212.

I don’t know that person from a hole in the ground. Apparently it’s just perfectly normal to call me Ophie.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Ok I had a mouthful of broken end of the bag Safeway house brand corn chips when I started reading this so I nearly choked myself laughing while keeping my mouth closed. Nobody likes soggy half-chewed generic corn chip bits sprayed all over her desk.

The Life of Virginia Woolf, Beloved Chinese Novelist, As Told By David Gilmour

Virginia Woolf was a famous Chinese novelist. She was born in China, as is so popular among the Chinese, where she was born. She came in third during the Boxer Uprising, after which she wrote The Good Earth, which was about China, while being a woman novelist.

It was “She came in third during the Boxer Uprising” that did me in.

Virginia Woolf was a Chinese novelist but she was not a wolf; nor was she from Virginia. This is a common mistake. She was eaten by wolves in 1942, shortly after finishing The Joy Luck Club, which she also wrote. Those wolves were not from Virginia either. There’s a Chinese guy — I think he’s Chinese — whose office is right down the hall from mine. I don’t know his name. I think maybe it’s Stan. I’m pretty sure he’s Chinese, but I don’t know if he’s ever written a book. I think you’re only allowed to write one novel per family over there. China: a land of contrasts and Virginia Woolf.

Have you ever been to China? They just love Virginia Woolf over there. Can’t get enough of Virginia Woolf. They even made a movie about it. Everybody Loves Virginia Woolf. Liz Taylor was in it. I don’t teach about it, though. I was never a big Liz Taylor fan, and you know what they say: Only teach what you love, even if it’s not Chinese. Some people, they only teach women Chinese novelists, but not me. I’m not afraid to go up against Big Chinese Women Novelists. They don’t scare me. I’m not afraid of Virginia Woolf. You ever been to China? You’re kinda quiet. You Chinese? It’s not offensive, it’s just a question. Have you ever written a novel?

There’s more. You have to read it there. It would be mean to put it all here. Read it there. You Chinese? It’s not offensive, it’s just a question.

H/t Al Dente.

Update: Forgot to say author. Mallory Ortberg.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Hamza Tzortzis explains why it’s ok for a man to fuck a nine-year-old-girl if all the right conditions are met, and how much better that is than the stupid secular way of just having a flat law that nobody can fuck a nine-year-old-girl, period, end of story, never mind if the right conditions are met. Even if her father and her tribe give her to the man, secular law would still say no! Would you believe it?!

That part starts at one hour 56 minutes. The audience applauds enthusiastically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_v2fFSdY2U

In case you don’t want to watch, Secular Party of Australia did a transcript of that section. (The debate was in Melbourne.) John Perkins represents Team Atheism.

John Perkins: Look, I’m afraid that your answer makes me feel – upsetting [disturbances from the audience] . . . Your answer . . . Your answer indicating that you condone the abuse of children . . . I just find it appalling . . . I’m sorry [Faraz interrupts, inaudible] Look I started this whole . . . I’ve tried to honestly say how I think Islam causes harm to people. And all I’m getting is denial, and now, and now you’re even endorsing something which seems to me quite abhorrent . . . [more interruption, from either Faraz or Hamza, “No, that’s not fair!”] . . . I find it quite upsetting.

Hamza Tzortzis: There’s other Islamic principles that you have to take into consideration, right. For example, it’s not just about. . . You see, I’ll ask you the question, what age should a woman get married at? [Pause.] You answer me, what age should she get married at? Give me an age!

John Perkins: When she’s old enough.

[Audience disturbance, laughter, Hamza crying out, “What does that mean?”]

Hamza Tzortzis: You give me a number! I want an answer.

John Perkins: The legal age here—

Hamza Tzortzis: [interrupts] Wait a second, what is the legal age? What is the legal age?

John Perkins: Eighteen.

Hamza Tzortzis: In England it’s sixteen. In Spain it’s twelve. In Greece it’s thirteen. In some places in America it’s twenty-one. This is the fallacy of secular law. It’s very arbitrary. This is our law: it’s nothing to do with age. Now listen to the principles. Number 1. Is she physically fit? Number 2. Is she emotionally ready? Number 3. Is she mentally ready? Number 4. Is this socially acceptable? Number 5. All these different kinds of principles that we apply. And it happened, that there was an outlier from the statistics that a nine-year-old was physically fit, was mentally ready . . . was . . . given by her own father and the tribe, so we have principles which makes our law far more typist, rather than putting a number, saying, you can do it when you’re sixteen. There are some sixteen-year-olds in this country that can’t even tie their shoelace. The point is: if that’s all you’ve got, a sexed-up view of sharia law, a Fox News narrative, if you study the situation properly it’s based on principles that you apply to different scenarios, and yes, if you apply them properly, the eight-year-old will not get married, because look you’ve damaged her, because the problem I have, is that there is no harming, so there should be no harm. So the point is this is really about sharia law on the basis of [inaudible] things and BBC News and Fox News and god knows what we have.

[Audience claps and cheers loudly.]

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Zoe Williams writes on the privatization of state schools in Britain.

Many of the problems associated with free schools are related to the fact that they’re run by faith organisations. But faith schools have been around for decades without letting in the kind of injustice parents complain of now.

In Derby, a headteacher at a Muslim free school left, complaining, among other things, that girls were being asked to sit at the back of the class. Elsewhere there is talk of discrimination on the basis of caste; documented faith provision that doesn’t reflect the local demographic (a Jewish primary school in Wandsworth, a borough that only has 1,600 Jewish constituents in total)…

Girls were being asked to sit at the back of the class? Let’s take a look at that. It’s from the Derby Telegraph, about the Al-Madinah school in Derby.

A FORMER teacher at a school accused of ordering female staff to wear a hijab – an Islamic scarf – claims she quit over pressure to follow Muslim dress code.

The Derby Telegraph revealed exclusively on Friday claims that the city’s Al-Madinah School had imposed a strict dress code, made female pupils sit at the back of classes and told staff they could not take non-halal food into school or wear jewellery.

This is, remember, not a private school, it’s a state school, in the US known as a public school. (Notice also that Zoe Williams actually softened it – she said the girls were asked to sit in the back, but the linked article says they were made to sit in the back.)

The teacher wasn’t told ahead of time that she would be required to “cover her head”; that was sprung on her at an induction session just before the school opened. She reluctantly complied while in the classroom, but then was hassled for not wearing it outside the classroom. Then it got even more so.

The teacher, who does not want to be named, said she began to be “hassled” about the rest of her clothing  and, on one occasion, was sent a text from the school saying it “insisted on” a “modest dress code. Full length dress or skirt acceptable”.

She said she asked how her outfit – a business suit – was not modest. “The skirt was well below the knee and I wore thick black tights that covered my legs.”

She said she was offended   at the suggestion that she had dressed immodestly in the workplace.

The teacher said she was particularly angry after she was told to take instructions from two male teachers about what was considered “modest”. She said: “I wrote back to the head pointed out that ‘in nearly 20 years in teaching, I have always dressed in a professional manner’.

After starting at the school when it opened in September 2012, she claims it was October before the dress code was issued in a handbook to all staff, which indicated that they should only have their faces and hands uncovered when in the school.

Because every bit of the rest of them is pure genitalia. They really shouldn’t be allowed at all.

“I also objected to the school’s policy of sitting girls at the back of classrooms, to no avail. The reason given was that girls are allowed to look at boys but the boys are not allowed to look at the girls, but how can that be good for the children’s education?”

Yeah, that’s what the back of the bus has always been about – who gets to look at whom. Right.

The dress code is included:

Al-MADINAH’S STAFF DRESS CODE

AL-MADINAH is an Islamic Free school. Within the school we value and esteem our teachers and consider them to be strong role models for all of the students and representatives of the school with all external individuals and organisations. We wish to create an Islamic environment within the school for the sake of the students and to cater for the sensitivities of the community. Although some of the following points are not Islamically-binding upon all individuals except those who wish to adhere to the faith by choice, Al-Madinah School has adopted them as a code of dress for all teachers.

The code of dress for teachers has been adopted by the school and all teachers must adhere to it. By signing the contract of employment with Al-Madinah school all employees agree to adhere to this policy.

1. Clothing must cover the entire body, only the hands, face and feet may remain visible

2. The material must not be so thin that one can see through it.

3. The clothing must hang  loose so that the shape of the body is not apparent.

4. The design of the clothing must not display any symbols of other faiths.

5. All clothing must be full sleeved and all lower body  garments must be loose and covering to the ankles.

6. Skirts must be ankle length and must be loose and flowing.

7. Teachers should not wear overt jewellery or clothing accessories.

8. Wearing of the Niqab or Burqa during work hours is not permitted.

Allah has stated in the Quran that women must guard their modesty. “Say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what must ordinarily appear thereof.” (Quran: 24.31)

“Say to the believing man that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty that will make for greater purity for them, and God is well acquainted with all they do.”   (Quran:24.30)

“To cater for the sensitivities of the community” bollocks. One doesn’t “cater” to “sensitivities” of that kind. People are “sensitive” about Other Races, about foreigners, about immigrants, about The Lower Orders, about untouchables, about The Gayz, about The Feminist Menace, about all sorts of stupid shit. Do not cater to such phobias.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

When the silliness of David Gilmour hit the newspapers, Hazlitt magazine posted the full transcript of the interview. It changes nothing.

Keeler: So do you teach mostly, I guess classic lit, or Russian?

Gilmour: I teach modern short fiction to third-years and first. So I teach mostly Russian and American authors. Not much on the Canadian front.

Keeler: That’s too bad.

Gilmour: I know, it is, but I can only teach stuff I love. I can’t teach stuff that’s on that curriculum, and I just haven’t encountered any Canadian writers yet that I love enough to teach.

Gilmour: Come in!

[A student or colleague of Gilmour’s comes in. They speak to each other in French.]

Keeler: I notice that you don’t have many, like, books by women.

Gilmour: I’m not interested in teaching books by women. I’ve never found—Virginia Woolf is the only writer that interests me as a woman writer, so I do teach one short story from Virginia Woolf. But once again, when I was given this job I said I would teach only the people that I truly, truly love. And, unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese, or women. Um. Except for Virginia Woolf. And when I try Virginia Woolf, I find she actually doesn’t work. She’s too sophisticated. She’s too sophisticated for even a third-year class. So you’re quite right, and usually at the beginning of the semester someone asks why there aren’t any women writers in the course. I say I don’t love women writers enough to teach them, if you want women writers go down the hall. What I’m good at is guys.

Keeler: And guys’ guys, too.

Gilmour: Yeah, very serious heterosexual guys. Elmore Leonard. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy guys. That’s a very good observation. Henry Miller. Uh. Philip Roth.

Being the kind of novelist Gilmour truly, truly loves is just more of a guy thing, that’s all.

That’s ok. If the University of Toronto wants a novelist teaching novels – which is not a crazy thing to want – then ok, he doesn’t have to measure up to normal academic standards which would require a considerably broader curriculum. That’s ok. But still the fact is that he’s very narrow, and apparently not even aware that he’s very narrow.

Mary Ellen Foley pointed out a satirical response from the woman down the hall.

I teach only the best. I don’t have low shelf-esteem, so I won’t tell you how many times I’ve read To the Lighthouse (100 times). What happens with great literature is that the shadows on the pages move around. The same thing happens with mediocre literature on a slow afternoon, but I digress. I teach only the best. I haven’t encountered any Russian writers yet that I love enough to teach. Once again, when I was given this job I said I would only teach the people that I truly, truly love. Next semester I plan to offer a seminar on me.

[UPDATE:] Those remarks were totally off the cuff. At the time of the interview, I was Skyping with Israel and the Palestinian Authority to negotiate peace. Moreover, I was gestating a human child inside of my own body.

Someone’s knocking at the door, I gotta go.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)