Month: April 2009

G mentioned, and quoted a bit of, On Liberty yesterday. I’d been thinking of quoting it myself, and G sent me to the right bit to quote, so here is some more. From the last paragraph of Chapter 2.

Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent.

That’s just it, you see. Theists and fans of faith were always going to say that atheists were too noisy and ‘militant’ and dogmatic and whatever other stick came to hand. Of course they were. They weren’t going to like explicit atheism, and once the explicit atheism hit the best-seller lists, well – the result was what you might call overdetermined. Of course they would say atheists were too noisy! For the very reason that Mill suggests. Shouting that atheists are too noisy is a lot easier than arguing. So to conclude that therefore atheists really are too noisy and should be more quiet now so that…so that I’m not sure what, is to conclude too much.

With regard to what is commonly meant by intemperate discussion, namely invective, sarcasm, personality, and the like, the denunciation of these weapons would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them equally to both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employment of them against the prevailing opinion: against the unprevailing they may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be likely to obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from their use, is greatest when they are employed against the comparatively defenceless; and whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any opinion from this mode of asserting it, accrues almost exclusively to received opinions.

Bingo.

In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them. For the interest, therefore, of truth and justice, it is far more important to restrain this employment of vituperative language than the other; and, for example, if it were necessary to choose, there would be much more need to discourage offensive attacks on infidelity, than on religion.

Thank you and good evening.

I was going to post a comment to say that things didn’t actually get all that much better but I was relieved to see that someone already had.

This isn’t necessarily a substantive change. The Afghani Constitution is written in a way that simultaneously enshrines conflicting values, leaving wiggle room to really do anything you want regarding women- or remain paralyzed in confusion. And a Western audience is particularly susceptible to not “getting” this because of the power of some of the lipservice to rights, and the common ignorance of how Islamic law actually works…“Equal” does not mean (has not meant) “identical” in an Islamic context regarding gender, especially in the realm of family and personal law. “Equal” can mean “complementary,” (*wink*) meaning, patriarchal gender roles being upheld with the full force of the State. So, basically, women are screwed.

Precisely. Equal can and very often does mean ‘complementary,’ and women are indeed screwed. The Vatican, the FLDS, conservative Baptists – all use this trick. There’s a chapter of Does God Hate Women? that’s largely about that. Pretending to give with one hand and violently snatching away with the other. Bastards.

You know how I keep saying (among other things) ‘But why are all these people calling atheists too loud too talkative too militant too out there too much too often too loud too excessive when they don’t call believers that and yet there are a lot more religious books and articles and invocations and devocations than there are of the atheist variety?’ You do know, right? So today I was at the University bookstore and I decided to do a rough quantitative study. The books on religion of course stretched to the horizon, so I made things easy for myself, I counted the space given to ‘Spirituality’ and ‘Metaphysical and Astrology’ (the two are neighbours). Three sections of shelf, four shelves each, for twelve in all. Atheist books take up less than half of one shelf. That’s a ratio of 24 to 1.

So why are we considered too noisy? Really. When even in a university bookstore the spiritual/’metaphysical’ crowd are 24 times more noisy than we are, and that’s before we even start counting the religious books.

These mysteries are byond human understanding. They are ineffable. I can’t eff ’em, not nohow.

Here’s the thing…It’s illiberal on the face of it to tell people to be quiet, or even to turn down the volume, in a liberal rights-based culture that places a high value on free open frank uninhibited discussion – and one that does so not arbitrarily or as a mere matter of preference but for good reasons, which can be freely openly frankly uninhibitedly discussed. The idea and the value of free open discussion is central to liberal culture, and we all depend on it very heavily indeed, perhaps more heavily than we can realize while we continue to have it. In such a culture there is a presumption against urging people to turn down the volume. That is doubly or triply the case when the subject matter is taken by many to be 1) innocent (not criminal or harmful) and 2) enlightening. So the people who want to say ‘pipe down’ have a heavy burden of justification. The presumption isn’t on their side.

A very strong background assumption in liberal culture is that open free discussion is healthy – is generally a good thing. There are exceptions – certain kinds of discussion of race for instance may be hedged with caution (Ahmadinejad’s speech at Durban II springs to mind) – but even there, caution and hedging are not always seen as the best way to go. Obama said in his great speech on race that we could shut up about the whole subject, but we ought not to. He is the product of a liberal culture; the product of it, an educator about it, a defender of it, an ambassador for it. I think it is one of the better ideas of liberal culture, this idea that we should be able to discuss most things openly, freely, without fear or shyness.

If I’m right about that, then telling people they are discussing something too openly and freely and noisily is inherently likely to antagonize liberals (as opposed to authoritarians). If you’ve followed any of the discussions between Matthew Nisbet and Everyone Else over the past few years, you’ll know what I mean. We’re primed to think that yanking taboo subjects out of that cupboard under the stairs is a good thing, so people who tell us to put it back into the cupboard have a steep hill to climb.