That seminar
The audio of the Humanisterna seminar in Stockholm has been posted. The first part is pretty cringe-worthy – I find that my way of playing for time is not a Caroline Kennedy level of “you know”s (though I do say it now and then), but the simpler expedient of repeating most of my words two or three times. That’s intelligent.
Well what the hell, you know? You have to figure out how the sentence is going to end and you need time to do that, so rather than just fall silent for a few seconds, obviously it’s much better to say this this this and then proceed. Right? Sure.
But I had just put in 19 hours of travel, after all; I was talking after having been up all night in an uncomfortable position in bad air watching a bad movie, so what can one expect? It gets better after the opening remarks, when Sara asks me questions. That’s Sara Larsson you hear (if you listen). She’s an editor at Fri Tanke and at Sans, the Humanisterna magazine. I’ve asked her to do a diary for B&W and she has said she will, when time allows.
I haven’t listened to all of it yet – I don’t know if it includes the audience questions part. I hope so; they were lively questions, and interesting.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: That seminar http://dlvr.it/6J4RN […]
Sounded great to me!
I know what it’s like to listen to yourself speak, and it never sounds right. But you were great! Really great! After all that flying time and still to be so engaging, passionate, eloquent and sharp! Never stumped or stampeded! You have nothing to apologise for at all. And your voice — so very young sounding, I thought, much different than I had expected.
And what must really have been a humbling experience: they all spoke English so well! It’s amazing. How do they do it? Why can’t we? I plod along with my German, but I become easily dispirited, and then I hear Germans or Swedes or Danes speak English. It’s astonishing. In 1959 I left India on board a freighter bound for Halifax. If was crewed by young Norwegian men almost or just out of their teens. All of them, deckhands, engine room workers, spoke English, perfectly, with scarcely an accent. Amazing! But you were great! Nothing to apologise for at all. I don’t think I had known before that the Church Times had reviewed your book, and that it, and not the left wing press, had given it at least qualified approval. What’s left?
Thanks both!
Actually I don’t always think I sound terrible (I’m embarrassed to admit) – I quite liked the Point of Inquiry interview. And I’m fine with the middle part here (I haven’t heard the last part yet). It’s just that the word-repeating tic really made me cringe.
And oh god I know about their English – it’s so abashing. They must start learning it in the womb.
I confess to not having listened attentively. I was doing something else, and only had the opportunity, occasionally, to hear a truly authoritative voice addressing matters of great importance.
Whatever next Islamist democracy? Vote only once!
Thank you Ophelia Benson, for speaking out. I found your voice clear, intelligent and absolutely absent of shrillness or stridency.
I have been thinking and working things out recently, and I’ve come to some dark conclusions (whichI won’t go into). All I can say is that human rights (or can I say individual rights?) are worth defending and are being attacked from above–by the people who should be defending them–and below–by the lazy intellectuals who have fallen for the political rhetoric.
If something can unite us, then defending human (individual) rights perhaps allows us all to clearly define what we stand for. And this allows us to go beyond uber atheism. And it lets us make clear our message.
I was at the seminar, and thought you were doing just fine getting the “message” across Ophelia!
(BTW,we spoke briefly afterwards, where I confessed to my misunderstanding you being..british :-)
Your interview for the Swedish magazine “Axess” has also been published here recently…haven’t found time to read it myself though, but sure will do.
Oh yes, Swedish Chef, I remember that “confession” and that I said I pay a lot of attention to British news and sites so the confusion is almost inevitable.
The Swedish Church seems to have gone into offensive against Humanisterna recently (accusing them of promoting xenophobia). Did you hear anything about that while you were there?
Wonderful talk/discussion. One of your best points, I thought, was that no matter how liberal a spin one gives religious texts, the text–the verse which can be spun yet again–remains (said in the context of T. Ramadan’s “spinning”). I have yet to hear any good arguments in response to this critical point from liberal proponents (or others) who claim that “interpretation is everything.”
windy – no I don’t think so, but I did hear in broader terms that frank atheists/humanists there are subject to much the same kind of hostility that we are in Anglophone countries, and that there are some people within Humanisterna who think Christer Sturmark (the head) and people who agree with him are “too” – you know, too out, too strident, blah blah.
Also that unlike in Norway, where Humanism gets a state subsidy, in Sweden humanism is small and marginal and so it’s considered weird.
Also that the “xenophobia” issue is very much in play there too – the usual stuff – if you’re critical of Islam that means you’re xenophobic.
Thanks Rossana. I too have yet to hear any good arguments from the other direction. I can never figure out what the “interpretation” fans think is going to happen – that the liberal or rights-respecting interpretation will simply displace all the others, forever and ever amen?