An important aspect of advancing the cause of humanism
The American Humanist Association has put Dawkins on the naughty step.
Established in 1953, the Humanist of the Year Award is conferred annually by the American Humanist Association (AHA), recognizing the awardee as an exemplar of humanist values. Communication of scientific concepts to the public is an important aspect of advancing the cause of humanism. Richard Dawkins was honored in 1996 by the AHA as Humanist of the Year for his significant contributions in this area.
Regrettably, Richard Dawkins has over the past several years accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values.
Like women for instance? Dear Muslima? Like the schoolboy from a family of Muslim immigrants he taunted as “Clock Boy”? Or…?
His latest statement implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient. His subsequent attempts at clarification are inadequate and convey neither sensitivity nor sincerity.
Women, meh, powerless schoolboys, meh, but identities – now that’s some serious shit.
Consequently, the AHA Board has concluded that Richard Dawkins is no longer deserving of being honored by the AHA, and has voted to withdraw, effective immediately, the 1996 Humanist of the Year award.
I’m not sure I think that’s a good move, but if I did, I would still wonder why women and schoolkids don’t merit such a move but identities do.
AHA is keeping the MAN in huMANism!
Less human perhaps? Out in the middle of a slippery slope there.
The way I read his tweet, it didn’t look to me as though he was saying black identities could be put on and taken off; it looked like he was saying there was no difference between Dolezal and the trans…if he considers trans valid, than Dolezal would be, but he seemed to be saying sex was real. Which is a dissent from trans dogma.
Makes me wonder if Center for Inquiry will rename the “Richard Dawkins Award” (originally established by Atheist Alliance International and handed off to Atheist Alliance of America.) It’s for a“ Distinguished individual from the worlds of science, scholarship, education or entertainment, who publicly proclaims the values of secularism and rationalism, upholding scientific truth wherever it may lead.” Ironic (and infuriating) if they do.
Quite apart from the blithe lack of concern for women and young, Muslim students, I think they’re misrepesenting Dawkins in a way that makes him look worse.
I don’t think that was what he was doing at all. He wasn’t “attacking Black identity,” or saying that it was something that “can be assumed when convenient.” He was using someone who had assumed a Black identity for her convenience. I think he was making a comparison between the actual condemnation of Dolezal’s “identification” as a race she is not, to the expected condemnation one would face for rejecting trans “identification” as the sex they are not. I believe that he was, by holding both identifications up for examination, attempting to say that claiming to be the sex you are not should be considered equally problematic as claiming to be Black when you’re White. He is questioning why the latter is condemned, while the former is not. By hiding the fact that Dawkins was directly comparing the two examples of “identification,” AHA is deflecting attention away from that very comparison, which is verboten. Trans ideology is hiding behind a fabricated smear of “racism.” I believe this distortion is deliberate. Reiterating this embarrassing comparison between “trans racial” and “trans gender” “identities” is just too dangerous, too close to home, so they can’t afford to say that Dawkins’ made it at all, lest the mere mention gives it further, unwanted attention.
It’s just like TA’s deliberate refusal to quote, or link to, J.K. Rowling’s supposedly “transphobic” statements. You would think that direct quotation of actually hurtful, hateful statements would be their best evidence. Except such statements do not exist, so their are none to quote. We have to take it on faith that what she has said is truly awful and beyond the pale, because her actual statements would prove the dishonesty of her accusers. The same thing is being done here to Dawkins.
I see once again that someone who doesn’t accept a particular explanation for transgender identities is being accused of “denying their humanity.”
I’ve been wondering recently if TRAs believe that humanity is a spectrum. I’ve noticed some commenters saying that racist, homophobic, transphobic conservative Christians weren’t fully human, because their humanity was so lacking. I’ve been accused of not being human myself. If this is the way they think of others, it might shed light on this bizarre accusation.
Re #5
Well put, and I agree. Dawkins has said other things before that hint at racism, and nothing came of them. Not that I think he should have been jettisoned over those, either. But this? This is nonsense. He raised a valid point and invited discussion. But it’s trans ideology.
Hmm. Jesus & Mo did a few cartoons mocking trans ideology in the last year or so, and it seems to me that Jesus & Mo has completely disappeared from the comics section in the AHA newsletter. I know some of you know Author; is this change deliberate and permanent and communicated to him?
Re OP:
Yep yep yep. I am absolutely dumbfounded.
Re #4
The “Richard Dawkins Award”, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (currently part of CFI), there may be other things. And some gender-critical columnists.
It is simply breathtaking, seeing these articles and their attendant comment sections from organisations ostensibly committed to reason and dialogue fall so thoroughly into a religious dogma. On the recent Friendly Atheist post, I chanced a glimpse into the comments, and I was frankly baffled by the fervour on display, every bit as devoted to exploring and enforcing a sophisticated theology as any amateur theologian. The amount of intellectual and emotional effort given over to describing the ineffable, intricate, transcendental beauty of the emperor’s fashion, by people and organisations who ostensibly count among their principles the importance of empirical reality, is…I’m not sure I have the words to properly express how disheartening it all is.
Maybe (probably) it was a poisoned chalice from the beginning. Maybe the seeds of “New Atheism” were always cracked and mouldered, and could never have produced a fruit-bearing orchard. Certainly the reactionary wing of dressed-up MRAs and pickup artists and crypto-Trumpists is no more appealing than the sophisticated theologians debating how many genders can dance on the head of a pin.
Seth @#8:
With all due respect, the alleged scholastic debate over the ‘number of angels who could dance on the head of a pin’ was a deliberately confected trope designed to cast doubt on ALL Christian scholasticism, which in turn was a crudely disguised attack on the scholarship that led by way of Luther, (1483-1546), Copernicus (1473 -1543) and Galileo (1564-1642) to modernity. I suggest that it was put out by religious propagandists with the worst of motives and intentions.
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on_the_head_of_a_pin%3F#:~:text=%22How%20many%20angels%20can%20dance,Duns%20Scotus%20and%20Thomas%20Aquinas.
That is certainly an interesting historical perspective, Omar, akin to the inverted meaning of “blood is thicker than water”. Nevertheless its modern usage captures something qualitative about our contemporary meltdown over social justice ideologies and the heresies which their proponents claim to identify everywhere.
lol, I hadn’t noticed, until someone on Twitter pointed it out, the “effective immediately after 25 years” bit.
That’s just how urgent this is!
Isn’t it though. So much solemn respect for the unseen unknown intangible unreal, coupled with so much fervent rage at people who ask why, how, what does that mean, how can you know, how can they know, why do we have to, why can’t we ask these questions.
What I find amusing is we are all descended from African ancestors, so “assuming a black identity” at least has some minimal basis in (ancient) reality. If one even accepts “black identity” as a concrete concept. Remember that some on the left criticized Barrack Obama during his presidency as not black enough. So, Dawkins may be right…it is a valid comparison?
Doesn’t the AHA realize that the transgenderists don’t even care about “humanism”? They are on the path to transhumanism, leaving the poor, benighted, icky animals — humans — far behind. Far superior are they, the transhumanists, who don’t need anything horrible, dirty, and tainted, like biological sex, to overcome the bonds of earth and soar like gods over puny little “humans.”
Until they do, they’ll have to deal with the body’s responses of brittle bones and impaired cognitive function in those “transing” before the completion of puberty. That put a bit of a damper on the “soaring.”
maddog:
Fuck it, I’m ascending: https://youtu.be/MPGxboWWKDg?t=9
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