Sensibilities and sense
I’ve been having a long and interesting discussion with Jean about sensitivities and what one should defer to and how to figure that out.
I do think there’s a prima facie duty to defer to other people’s sensibilities. “Prima facie” means–at first glance. So the rule isn’t absolute, but it’s always in play. Sometimes a violation is “worth it” and sometimes a violation isn’t. Contrary to what Donohue evidently thinks, every transgression isn’t worth a big fuss.
After a lot of words and a lot of consideration, I’ve ended up (for the moment anyway) still fundamentally suspicious of the whole idea, albeit with exceptions for sensibilities that really do matter – around death, mourning, objects with sentimental value, that kind of thing. Beyond that, I think in general people’s sensibilities have to be judged on their merits and so shouldn’t really start with the benefit of the doubt. Harmless sensibilities can be handled with care, but then we nearly all agree with that anyway, so that doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. Other kinds of sensibilities just have to settle for whatever handling they deserve because of what they are. Lots of people are very sensitive about other races, about women running around unsupervised, about blasphemy, about menstrual blood, about all kinds of things. I don’t think such sensitivities get to start from a position of extra deference merely because they are sensitivities.
What do you think, Linda?
I too am suspicious. The idea that hurting someone’s religious sensibilities constitutes *harm* has not, it seems to me, been shown. Is there any way to pull apart a real feeling of, say, shame or humiliation from the kind of fake righteousness generated by religious *professionals* –for example, the imams who used the Danish cartoons as leverage to consolidate their power? I would dearly like to know a way — an *empirical* way — to differentiate these two impulses, because I am pretty sure that they are qualitatively different. To put a finer point on it: one is honest, and the other is a lie.
Roy, I think even those with “honest” hurt feelings over religious sensibilities are really lying to themselves. What is more, they know it, too (at least at some level), and that knowledge is mostly what fuels their outrage.
Think about it in terms of childhood taunts. “Yo mama is a ho” is viewed as a significant insult because (1) some kids’ mothers really are prostitutes and (2) if it happened to be true in this particular case, the child’s social standing would be significantly damaged.
But what about “Yo mama doesn’t exist”? Assuming that mama is indeed alive and well, no one would take that as an insult. They would just laugh and say no, she’s out in the back yard — go take a look for yourself if you don’t believe it.
The reason why the religious feel outraged when someone says “yo god doesn’t exist” is that they know their bluff has been called and they have nothing to back it up. They have become accustomed to using religion as a tool to exert social power over others, rather than arguing for their positions using evidence and reason. They become angry because you are not respecting their “right” to pull this trump card whenever they fail to come up with any substantive justification to support their claims.
So, even if we restrict ourselves to non-professionals, I think there are very few cases of truly “honest” anger over hurt religious sensibilities.
Edit: That should really be “yo sky-daddy doesn’t exist” for maximum comic impact.
For what it’s worth, I left a comment over at Jean’s blog. I’m not sure what I think about her prima facie rule (I’m mulling it over, and it has some merits, and some problems). But for the sake of argument, I’ll give it to her, but I’m asking her to go back and reconsider why she’s not acknowledging that the motivation behind the PZ Myers “cracker incident” (that motivation being death threats against a college student)is perhaps the best example of a legitimate reason to break her prima facie rule.
Ophelia was trying to get back to this, but Jean wasn’t biting. I think she has an intellectual and ethical obligation to engage this point.
I agree with Jean if by prime facie duty is something like “a default position in a context full of unknowns”. That’s sort of what you see in W.D. Ross, when he describes prime facie duties as arising in the context of a dilemma, where I must “study the situation as fully as I can until I form the considered opinion”. Prime facie duties are sketchy preludes to the real stuff of morals, i.e., the real considered obligations.
But there’s more than one prime facie duty. There’s a duty to be respectful to innocent sensitivities, sure, but there’s also a duty to demand that people be explicit over what public rules are supposed to apply.
If some person happens to have a certain emotional reaction to something you said, then it could just be an innocent feature of their inner life, not some attempt to passively manipulate you. But it’s often impossible on the face of it to distinguish these basic kinds of intuitive or emotional reactions that people may have from deliberate acts of Machievellian theatre. So it makes perfect sense to demand from people that they be able to explicitly articulate what they expect from you, just in case they happen to expect batshit crazy things. If they can’t, or won’t, and there aren’t any conventional opinions of the sort to help you figure what’s going on upstairs, then the duty to respect their sensibilities can justifiably be said to get weaker and weaker.
But most of what we deal with at B&W is not a matter of prime facie duties. It’s religion; the would-be rules for sensitivity are explicit (NOMA). And there are and have been sufficient grounds laid out here for a serious public argument to the effect that NOMA is lousy. So really I take it that we’re just talking about how to act like a Good Canadian when you’re at parties, on the train, etc.
O,
Who’s Linda?
I’m busy protecting my pumpkins from desecration tonight, but will respond to Josh’s comment tomorrow. Yes–W. D Ross is someone I like a lot, and Benjamin’s explanation of the basic idea behind “prima facie duties” talk is helpful. It probably shows I don’t read B&W carefully enough, but who’s Linda?
Thanks Jean – I really appreciate that. I’m jealous that you even have a pumpkin; I didn’t get anything ready in time this year, so I sit here with the porch light off like a Grinch, hoping children don’t knock.
I’ve spent the better part of a year being repeatedly appalled that some people simply cannot seem to grok the motivation behind Crackergate, but Jean’s post and subsequent comments makes me realize that to some people, the motivation may not even matter. I honestly can’t understand why the difference between ‘symbolic response to verbal abuse and threats on academic livelihood and life of Webster Cook (and subsequently PZ himself)’ and ‘spiteful, random act of aggression against a cherished Catholic tradition’ ISN’T significant, but there you are.
To me, it makes all the difference in the world. The latter act, sans context, sounds sophomoric, and pointless. I would not condemn such an act, but neither would I cheer it on–such unanchored acts of iconoclasm just don’t hold much interest for me. With the appropriate background, however, the relevance of the act becomes clear. As such, I fully supported–and continue to support–PZ in his efforts to take the heat off of Webster Cook and shine a light on how many people seem to value magical traditions over the health and welfare of actual living humans.
In most of the ensuing discussions, it has seemed all but impossible for those who don’t get this distinction to acknowledge that there is a middle ground between the ravening horde who just want to see some religious idiocy burned in effigy every night and the pearl clutchers who can’t abide the though of anyone’s delicate sensibilities being bruised–least of all their own. The reason the middle ground exists, is, I contend, largely because of context. It matters. Shouldn’t it? Ah well….
*scampers off to egg Old Man Slocum’s house*
LOL! And just think, if you’d been a nicer little girl, you could have come in and had a glass of wine. But no, you had to go ruin it:)
Yeah, I’m with you, Jennifer. I suspect it has to do with emotional commitments (at least in part), but I’ve gone on about that elsewhere.
*de-lurks with Trivial Pursuit answer*
“What do you think, Linda?” = Fahrenheit 451 reference?
*continues to feel sorry for the few Australian kids trying to trick-or-treat in high summer*
Having breezed over the notes on Jean’s blog, and now having read the notes here, I wonder what all the sound and fury is about – especially when it comes to PZ and the cracker. That is a story of someone having come to the rescue of another person who, in all innocence, it appears, had taken a ‘consecrated wafer’ from a church. (The Canadian Prime Minister did something similar a little later, and there was a flurry of mindless idiocy in the press for a few days over the occurrence and about offence to religious feelings.)
The whole thing seems to me just a bit of a joke, quite frankly, and I’m not sure I understand Jean’s prima facie duty here. Indeed, given the power of the churches to impose their rules on the rest of us – and they do it all the time – perhaps we have a prima facie duty to ‘cut them down to size.’ Indeed, I rather think that we do, and that it’s time we started to call religious people on their overweening sensitivities about things sacred or holy.
Holiness, in case anyone hasn’t noticed it, is a power move in a social game. And Bill Donahue is a past master at the game. Why do we have prima facie duties to respect the feelings of those who use their religion as a source of power? I don’t get it.
Certainly, in individual cases, one doesn’t go charging ahead without regard to others’ feelings, by, say, doing or saying inappropriate things at funerals, when people’s very deep personal feelings are engaged. But when people make a fetish of certain religious sanctities (which is where sanctimony comes in) and expect the rest of the world to respect them just because they do, then it’s time to call in PZ and the laughing brigade, in my view, W.D. Ross notwithstanding.
In the PZ crackergate story the back story is the most important part, remember, and the uses of religious sensitivity to govern how other people should respond to wafers. Once it’s out of the liturgical setting, there is no way of showing that this particular wafer is sacred in the required sense, so the only thing that can be offended is people’s exaggerated affections for trivial things. And then, it seems to me, they should be inure themselves to offence until they get used to the idea that other people are not only not moved by imagined holiness, but are also resistant to it, because they see it as a power play, as a way of imposing their ideas and values on others, and that those others not only don’t like it, but are offended by it. I know I don’t like it, and I am offended when people think they can pull the holiness over my eyes so that I can’t see how achingly idiotic the whole pantomime often is.
Just after I posted that last note, I received notice from Amazon about the book The Price of Monotheism, by Jan Assman. Don’t know exactly what’s in it, but that’s the point that I’m making. People’s idea of religious truth exacts too much from others. Enjoy your religious beliefs if you like them, but don’t come on all heavy with others just because they don’t share your particular strange set of religious obsessions.
(Meanwhile, you can take the transgressive ‘be’ from one sentence in my earlier note. It wandered in unheralded and unwelcome.)
One difference between a consecrated cracker and an object of sentimental value is that the we do not regard the importance of the object as coming from a property of the object.
When it comes to a consecrated wafer Catholics consider that a property of the wafer has changed. Catholic’s admit there is not actually a means of measuring the change.
I see the difference as being one of justification. We can see how being respectful with regards death is important, as we can see how it would affect us. Religious people might say we should be respectful to the body, whilst I would the body is just a lump of dead flesh, and what is important are feelings of the friends and family of the dead person. Either way, we end up agreeing that we should be respectful with regards death.
When it comes to a consecrated cracker we are told we should be respectful because of some property of the cracker. However if I do not accept there has been any change in cracker (and I see no rational grounds for thinking there has) then I should not feel obligated to respect the cracker. If a Catholic Priest could not tell the difference between an unconsecrated wager and a consecrated one, then it becomes very hard to see how they differ in anyway.
I seem to have been misread. I don’t make any judgment about the cracker incident in particular. I don’t say anything about it because I frankly have no opinion. The prima facie duty in question may have been overriden in that case–I can see why people think so. But I have enough doubts not to take that position. Then again, I don’t condemn PZ either. It’s just complicated, what with there being lots of questions, like–did Wesley Cook want PZ Myers’ help? Why did he steal that cracker to begin with? Was Myers gleeful in his protest, positively enjoying upsetting people, or was he restrained? Did he gratuitously upset people or go overboard? I don’t know. Again, I’m neither for nor against PZ on this issue.
What the post says, instead of weighing in on the cracker incident, is that I wonder whether PZ recognizes any prima facie duty to care about the cares of religious people. I wonder that not simply because of the cracker incident–which really may be in a different category–but because of the general style of Pharyngula.
In my post I give several examples where I think the prima facie duty to care about the cares of religious people is overridden by a stronger duty. For example, I say I liked Jon Stewart’s rant against the Catholic church last week. I also say that I liked Randy Cohen’s column urging more of that. My point was not–“don’t ever attack religion.” Rather, it that when you do so, you are in fact transgressing against a duty (maybe justifiably, maybe not). So there ought to be some level of restraint, and maybe even regret for any feelings that get hurt in the process (whether they’re silly or not, and as long as they’re genuine).
Hey, the pumpkins didn’t get desecrated! They’re both still out there! I’m still wondering about Linda…
Sorry…Webster Cook, not Wesley Cook.
Jean,
That is a rather value laden comment. You claim you are not that familiar with the crackergate affair, so why accuse Cook of theft ?
As I understand it Cook, who is a confirmed Catholic attended a Mass at his university with a friend who is not a Catholic. The friend had expressed interest in the Catholic Communion, and asked Cook if he was allowed to take part. Cook explain that was not allowed as he had not been confirmed into the Church.
Cook went up to the alter to receive communion, and rather than consume the wafer immediately, held it in his hand as he returned to his seat. Whilst is it not the standard practice, it is not unknown in some churches for Catholics to take the wafer back to their seats and pray. However as he returned to his seat a woman who was assisting in the service attempted to prise the wafer from his hand. Cook chose to leave the building rather than be subject to further assault. He was then accused by the Catholic Church of a hate crime, and of kidnapping a wafer.
Cook subsequently faced a successful attempt to remove him from the student council, and an unsuccessful attempt to have him expelled from the university. He also received death threats.
What most troubles me is the strength of the term “duty”, which seems to suggest a very high-order obligation. Many (perhaps all) of the examples given of appropriate considerateness seem to me to be adequately covered by other rules – namely manners and the pragmatic demands of communication. But good manners are not a duty, though they are important… To me, it’s too strong an “ought”. We “ought” to be respectful of others’ feelings because it’s civilized and polite, and we “ought not” cause gratuitous offense from a pragmatic point of view because it makes meaningful communication difficult, but these do not amount to a duty as such.
Fine, not stolen. All I meant to say is–I have no opinion, partly because I don’t know all the facts. My post was not about that incident and I have no view about it.
Yes! Gareth Chan got it – it’s Fahrenheit 451 – the movie. The talking head on the telescreen turns to the camera and says piercingly – ‘What do you think, Linda?’ Poor idiot tv-addled Linda-married-to-Montag thinks it’s addressing her, having failed to realize that it is addressing any watcher named Linda.
“There’s a duty to be respectful to innocent sensitivities, sure”
And see even that adds a term – ‘innocent.’ I agree with that, but then that’s what I claimed in the post that we already know. I’m not convinced that there’s a duty to be respectful to sensitivities as such, just because they are sensitivities.
I would argue that it would be impossible to go through life avoiding offending sensibilities.
Some people find eating meat to be abhorrent, so do we stop eating meat so as to avoid causing them offence ? Some people say that working on the Sabbath is offensive to their god, and by extension, to them. Do we stop people working on the Sabbath then ?
If we spent all our time trying to avoid causing offence to others we would never get anything done, we would never be able to articulate anything more than the most tepid opinions.
“other people are not only not moved by imagined holiness, but are also resistant to it, because they see it as a power play”
Money quote.
“we would never be able to articulate anything more than the most tepid opinions.”
Which is much of the burden of Mill’s claim in ‘On Liberty’ – with his reading of Tocqueville in the background.
Which suggests a new question: how does one distinguish between a prima facie duty to defer to other people’s sensibilities, and self-censorship?
That’s a serious question. It seems to me that if you start out with such a duty in mind, you are bound to do a lot of self-censoring. Some self-censoring is good (ask anyone with Tourette’s!) – but sweeping, pervasive, sensibility-deferential self-censorship is (in my view) not.
Outeast, “prime facie duty” is a special term that doesn’t have the force of a full robust honest-to-goodness obligation. It’s just like a default value that you go along with in everyday life until you’re faced with a moral problem. Once you have a problem, you weigh your prime facie duties against each other and look very closely at the context to figure out what you really ought to do, what your real obligation is.
Ophelia, this would be a case where I’m secretly agreeing with you but don’t say so up front because I’m shifty like that. (But my agreeing has a special kind of backstory which you might or might not find problematic.)
This also leads us to ask if there is any reason why religion should be treated differently from other areas of human discourse.
Douglas Adams once gave a talk in which he discussed this and he said how he had thought twice about critical comments he made about religion in the talk. He contrasted that with a discussion on economics, in which he would not have been worried about offending anyone by criticising an economic theory. Whereas in being critical of religion, he said it had crossed his mind he might cause offence.
I think this is all that might be said to be new about the “new” atheists. We refuse to accept that religious beliefs should not be criticised in the way we would criticise political beliefs. It is understandable that religious people might be upset by that, but it is not good reason to carry on treating religion with kid gloves.
Thanks, Benjamin – although i wonder how far everyone agrees that it means something to readily amenable to override as you seem to infer? Certainly such a lightly-interpreted “duty” would not seem likely to me to carry the risk of demanding self-censorship that Ophelia fears. And again – where’s the real difference between a prima-facie duty as thus defined and simple good manners? It *feels* as though it means something more – and Myers (for example) is certainly being help up for approbrium for more than mere unmannerliness.
Ben – shiftyness forgiven (if it even needs forgiveness) for the sake of the how to be a Good Canadian remark.
The thing about ‘new’ atheism and the idea that religion should not get extra deference – yes, and that’s my view and I’ve been saying so with tedious regularity for years. But there are things to be said on the other side – and it’s good to pay attention to them.
(Of course, we already know there are things to be said on the other side, but we think those very things are the problem. We think all this extra sensitivity is itself a problem, in all kinds of ways – not least the infantilization effect. We think believers would mostly benefit from toughening up. But…it’s still worth thinking about serious claims in the other direction.)
Well, for Ross, at least, a prima facie duty is pretty robust, and it prescribes an obligatory action unless it is trumped by another prima facie duty. And I doubt whether we have a prima facie duty not to offend religious sensibilities. Indeed, the idea that we do is something like the idea that the OIC want to establish: that religious people have a right not to be offended by the criticisms of others. So I am really quite troubled to think that in fact there are any prima facie duties hereabouts to refrain from acts which some people might find offensive because of their religious beliefs.
When something is out of the context of the liturgy, whether it was or was not consecrated – how would you ever know, unless you watched his progress from point A to point B – it is, prima facie, not an act of desecration. It is an act by a person who does not share the beliefs with those who would find it a desecration, and does it for the express purpose of showing his disdain for the imaginative sensitivities of others. In fact, it becomes, in itself, a criticism of religion. I do not think we have a prima facie duty not to do this.
So when someone dunks a crucifix into a container of urine and takes a picture of it, he is expressing a disdain for the beliefs which hold the crucifixion to be what Christians claim of it: an act of sacrifice by God for the sins of man. The “Piss Christ” was offensive to a lot of Christians. When I was a Christian, I thought it was offensive, but I never thought that I should call into question the legitimacy of someone having expressed himself in that way. While people may find it offensive, when you stop to think about it, it may be taken as expressing offence itself, since the crucifixion is, one might have thought, an offensive thing, and to use the body of a crucified man as a holy symbol is something which, in itself, I suggest, is worthy of some pretty sharp criticism.
But the claim that we have a prima facie duty not to do this is, that is, not to offend the religious sanctities of other people, is, I suggest, a power play on the part of the religious people concerned, a demand for respect foe ideas or symbols for which other people have a right to express not only criticism but even condemnation.
This is something which seems to be getting lost here. What PZ did seems to be more than unmannerliness just because some people interpreted it as an act of sacrilege, but it would only have been an act of sacrilege if they had done it, and can in a general way be an act of sacrilege in a society only if the group that holds it to be so has the power to enforce its view that it is sacrilege and ought not to be done. Otherwise, it is a criticism of how people regard as sacred what others regard as trivial. I do not think we should give any group in society the power to define symbols in such a way as to make such acts of criticism impossible, though there may of course be times when it would be simply unkind and unmannerly to engage in acts which others regard as sacrilege.
Apologies for the rather lax proof-texting of that last post.
Yes…
I think I (and many people here) must have different intuitions from Jean’s, about whether it is really unkind to (say) make fun of an icon, and conversely whether it is ‘one thought too many’ to think people need that kind of deference. My intuition is that people really ought to be able to handle that kind of thing, where I don’t think they ought to be able to handle mockery at a funeral or similar sorts of things. I think there’s such a thing as too much sensitivity and respect and deference – that it’s not good even for its objects, much less all the people who have to bite their tongues.
But then I really hate being treated like a fragile child in that way. But maybe other people don’t. But maybe they should.
“Linda”, “pretty” in Spanish, is a term used to address any woman by sexist males.
Outeast, more or less. That’s pretty much why I come to the same place as Ophelia, even though technically I agree with Jean.
Part of the problem is that words like “censorship” and “self-censorship” at this level are obscure. It’s as hard to make a principled generalization out of words like “self-censorship” and “censorship” as any other word we might want to use in a contentious discussion. Jennifer pointed out that judging the rightness or wrongness of these sorts of uses is largely due to context, and she’s right, but even that is putting it mildly. If I am feeling terribly sensitive and moody on one day then someone’s raised eyebrow might make me think I’m being being deliberately humiliated, and hence censored. Well, maybe so (though probably not). But it’s not just context, but how people interpret the context.
Everybody has their own sense of manners. i.e., one of Mooney’s defenders put it recently, “The message received is the message sent”, as if the interpretations that pop into the listener’s head are best understood by us as exhausting the force of a message. But if that aims to be a general principle, then it’s exactly and precisely wrong. We have to have a prime facie duty to clear up the muck, to expose unwritten laws to the light of day, just as much as we have a prime facie duty to be careful of innocent therapeutic harmless attitudes. But you have to have a libertarian/liberal attitude towards discussions in order to recognize the prime facie duty to get people to make their expectations explicit. Honestly, you sometimes get the sense from some of these people (Donahue, the accommodationists, many of my leftist friends) that the mere critical examination of their arguments, rules, and concepts is at the same moral level as rape. It makes your heart hurt. But my point is that what’s at fault is that they are coming from a place where honest debate is trivial.
Eric,
You set out sensible ways of interpreting sacrilege there. I find them interesting, and I might agree (I’m not sure). But they’d not agree, possibly as a power-play. But the very fact that we’re on the one hand agreeing that “there may of course be times when it would be simply unkind and unmannerly to engage in acts which others regard as sacrilege”, and also suggesting that at other times or more generally they’re engaging in “a power-play” which ought to be rejected, suggests that we need some kind of explanation in terms of prime facie duties. There’s the prime facie duty to innocent sensitivity of funerals and ceremonies, and there’s the duty to — what else?
I suggested something like “making norms explicit”. This can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, once we make the norms explicit, there’s a moratorium on hostility, at least while we think it through. On the other hand, it doesn’t apply to this case. The new atheists have said: “we’ve thought it through — we’ve tried the way of NOMA, and it has led to all these disgusting and avoidable consequences, and we find it unacceptable”.
Well, Benjamin, my point, I guess, is simply that no one has any business going into the churches and conventicles, mosques, temples or synagogues of the religious and disturbing what goes on there, unless, of course, what goes on there is incitement to violence and hatred, or in other ways makes the existence civil society unstable and uncertain. But, in general, religious people should be able, like everyone else, to go about their affairs undisturbed.
However, religions make enormously large claims, and when they do they come into direct conflict with other members of their society. They should expect that their views will be questioned and, in many cases, denounced. They should also expect that the beliefs on which those claims are made will be also be questioned, and, when appropriate, mocked and scorned in ways that will cause them some distress, since religious beliefs are existential, and tend to go right to the heart of how people regard themselves as in some sense fully human and fully engaged.
Along with this existential ‘depth’ or ‘fullness’ (to use words that Charles Taylor makes use of in his book A Secular Age)go equally strong claims to dictate to society. Thus Muslims often regard Western society as irresponsible with respect to its lack of control of women. Many Muslims in Western societies make this claim. Catholics and some Protestant Christians make huge claims about the moral status of the human embryo and foetus, and strenuously deny the right of suffering people to assistance in dying. And many of them are quite graphic in their depiction of the society around them as sinful and morally bankrupt. Some of those judgements may in fact be sometimes correct, but not because they are made religiously.
All of these claims rest of their metaphysical claims about the nature of reality and how that reality has revealed itself to us. The claims do not rest on argument, but sheerly on the basis of conviction as to the universe’s intentions regarding how we must regulate our own and others’ lives. Having spent most of my life in a context where making such claims on a weekly basis is normative, and recognising that the making of such claims in those contexts reaches far beyond the contexts in which the claims are made, it seems to me that, not only should religious people expect opposition, but that there is every reason that they should expect that others will point out to them, in sometimes peremptory ways, that their views are not shared, nor need to be shared, by all. It seems to me increasingly evident that this is something about which religious believers should be made painfully aware, so that they learn to confine their claims, when based solely on their own claim to special revelation, to themselves. This will not be easy to do, and it will take more than a kindly word or two of advice. The values of toleration are not, contrary to widespread belief, in origin religious, and, in fact, they are beginning to look more and more shopworn as religious people begin to make claims to bind others by their judgements and restrictions. The religious who think that they should be protected against offensive speech should be in for a nasty surprise, because until it is clear that religious groups are, in every respect, what are in effect private societies and associations, they will continue to claim speak generally and for all. Those who value freedom need to make it clear that the claim of the religious to speak with general authority is illegitimate and unacceptable. Religions, as I have said before, are intrinsically transgressive, and they need to learn to know their place.
Sorry to go on so…..
No this is a good discussion.
“the prime facie duty to get people to make their expectations explicit.”
Useful. I should probably start from that assumption when I encounter (what I take to be) a sexist usage in internet disagreements. It was perhaps a failure to do that that got me banned from Talking Philosophy. (The difficulty of doing that comes from the suspicion that the usage is at least partly intended, even if the user is not fully aware of the intention. The irritation comes first, then the sexist usage – this makes it very hard not to suspect that the sexist usage is connected to the irritation. I strongly dislike being subject to a special kind of language by virtue of being female – as if I’m trespassing.)
Atheists are hardly the first people to transgress on other people’s sense of propriety. The “New Atheism” reminds me very much of the Queer movement of the (roughly) 1990s. Before we started to get enough traction to work much on marriage rights, there was a more general cultural fight going on, both against anti-queer oppression and to some extent within what’s now usually called the LGBT community.
Some background: like this thing that people are calling the New Atheism, the Queer movement had very little in the way of formal organizational structure. People formed little groups and followed their own ideas. Some Queer Nation “chapters” were very in-your-face; a lot were basically fun social groups. (Much like our local Seattle Atheists, who mostly do volunteer work and occasionally march with a giant Spaghetti Monster.) A lot of folks who’d consider themselves Queer had no great affiliation with any Queer activist group at all, just as an out atheist is not necessarily a member of any atheist group.
The Queer movement explicitly welcomed bisexuals and transgender people (at least in theory) which itself was a major change. I think Dennett was trying for something like “Queer” when he proposed “Brights”, but I’m pretty sure he would have been better off with a word more along the lines of “Heathen”. It’s psychologically easier to reclaim a word of degradation than to outright proclaim one’s wonderfulness, imho.
Anyway, one of the great strategies of the Queer movement (right down to names like Queer Nation) was the use of vivid indeference to other people’s sensitivities. Remember “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it”?
Consider the kiss-in. Shocking behavior, especially at the time, right? Polite people would do no such thing. But of course the point is to demonstrate the opinion that kissing someone of the same sex is fine. The kiss-in says, “Your sensitivity is not okay and we will not accommodate it. Here we are, not accommodating it. So you’d better re-evaluate, because your discomfort is not our problem.”
Is that unkind? Should we have cared? Oh well.
Say what you like about the delicate feelings of the people who had to observe flamingly queer behavior at the local shopping mall, the queer movement *worked*, though not, perhaps, as radically as many had intended. It brought a fresh influx of energy to the movement, and it galvanized the old bags running gay-rights organizations in the respectable mainstream. (Who, I believe, other would have been quite content to go on forever drawing executive-director paychecks for issuing feeble little complaints of no consequence.) The Overton window has been moved, particularly among younger people.
It’s absurd to talk about atheism as if we were having this nice little philosophical debate which could be just peachy if only those atheists were nicer. This is a political problem in the broad sense. In the queer movement, whether or not we engaged in impolite direct action, we understood that what we knew as politeness was a byproduct of a cultural status quo that disparaged us. The same, I believe, can be said of “new atheists”. PZ’s cracker drama is very much in line with the kiss-ins.
My response to Jean’s comment at her blog. Sorry if the “tone” chafes, but I don’t appreciate being glibly dismissed by someone who ought to know better.
“but I don’t appreciate being glibly dismissed by someone who ought to know better.”
That sounded really solipsistic, and I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that I don’t appreciate having legitimate queries dismissed glibly by those who present themselves as *serious people*.
Oh, Cam, wonderful!
As a veteran of the Queer movement of that time, that’s just exactly what was going on. I hated it then, and I hate it now in the atheist movement. I have enough to do engaging people who are actively opponents of my discursive or legal rights without having “my own” treat me like the enemy too.
I don’t know about you, Cam, but I have special contempt for people “on my side” who want me to shut up and suck up. There is a reward, though, if you’re willing to wait for it. Just as surely as the old Mattachine Society simpering go-along-to-get-alongs faded into irrelevance, so will the tone nannies of the atheist movement look very silly and dated.
Predictable as all get out. Jean has removed my comment with the following message:
“I have a comment policy. Either comply with it or don’t comment here.”
Great post, Cam!
Funny, I was just re-reading an old ‘Dykes to Watch Out For’ the other day, complete with Lois staging a kiss-in at the mall. Didn’t make the connection with the cracker-in.
Eric, there’s probably no real disagreement here… the imperialism of religion, if that’s what we want to call it, is probably a good reason for rejecting NOMA. I just emphasize that this rejection is a considered opinion, after considering the relevant prime facie duties. Anti-NOMA people think they’re acting on certain prime facie duties: justice and beneficence, weighed against the non-maleficence that I think Jean had in mind. (I added my own duty, what we might call the duty to publicity, and pointed out how it led me from there to here.)
Ophelia, I’ve been banned from many places (Something Awful forums, Livejournal, etc.), but it’s always been because the laws weren’t worth following! No philosophy forum bans yet, but there’s still plenty of time.
Well that’s as may be, Ben, but I don’t think too many people can boast of having been banned from Talking Philosophy, which is a classy outfit. I’m Special!
The Intersection is the only other place I’ve been banned from. I’m not sure what the two have in common.
Josh: “Predictable as all get out.”
Not only a “predictable” response but a reasonable and appropriate one, in my view.
Jean K has a clear and unambiguous policy on commments and Josh deliberately posted a comment which violated that policy.
It’s her blog, you play be her rules; it’s that simple.
Jean K: “I do think there’s a prima facie duty to defer to other people’s sensibilities.”
I tend to agree with Jean K here, but I think the phrase “duty to defer” is too strong. That seems too accomodating to me: that combination of “duty” and “defer”.
I stopped visiting Pharyngula ages ago because I though PZM was too frequently deliberately rude and obnoxious when there was no real need for it. Don’t get me wrong. He can do that, it’s his blog; but I don’t have to read it.
Having said that, I don’t disagree with his actions in the “wafer incident”.
“Not only a ‘predictable’ response but a reasonable”
Reasonable? Come on… “Any comments about me or my way of refereeing this blog will be regarded as off-topic and deleted.”
…that’s not a comments policy, it’s a ‘get out of shit free card’
Me: “It’s her blog, you play be her rules; it’s that simple.”
…should be…
It’s her blog, you play BY her rules; it’s that simple.
Keith –
No one’s disputing her right to run her blog as she sees fit. Her comments policy, is, however, open to scrutiny.
The other thing that gets forgotten in discussion of religious “offense” is that religious groups have a history of not just taking “offense” but responding to that “offense” with stunningly disproportionate violence. I mean we’re talking torture, murder, and the burning of whole villages. To my knowledge, no “offended” atheist has EVER done such a thing. So, that’s another “asymmetry” in the situation. When religionists tell us that we’ve offended them, they are implicitly threatening us with violence.
“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. … But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse. And if we chance to forget what that must have been like, we have only to look to those states and societies where the clergy still has the power to dictate its own terms.”
— Christopher Hitchens
Matt Penfold wrote: “I think this is all that might be said to be new about the “new” atheists. We refuse to accept that religious beliefs should not be criticised in the way we would criticise political beliefs. It is understandable that religious people might be upset by that, but it is not good reason to carry on treating religion with kid gloves.”
Benjamin Nelson wrote: “I suggested something like “making norms explicit”. This can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, once we make the norms explicit, there’s a moratorium on hostility, at least while we think it through. On the other hand, it doesn’t apply to this case. The new atheists have said: “we’ve thought it through — we’ve tried the way of NOMA, and it has led to all these disgusting and avoidable consequences, and we find it unacceptable”.”
Ophelia Benson wrote: “The thing about ‘new’ atheism and the idea that religion should not get extra deference – yes, and that’s my view and I’ve been saying so with tedious regularity for years. … We think all this extra sensitivity is itself a problem, in all kinds of ways – not least the infantilization effect. We think believers would mostly benefit from toughening up.”
Eric McDonald wrote: “But the claim that we have a prima facie duty not to do this is, that is, not to offend the religious sanctities of other people, is, I suggest, a power play on the part of the religious people concerned, a demand for respect foe ideas or symbols for which other people have a right to express not only criticism but even condemnation. “
Cam wrote: “Consider the kiss-in. Shocking behavior, especially at the time, right? Polite people would do no such thing. But of course the point is to demonstrate the opinion that kissing someone of the same sex is fine. The kiss-in says, “Your sensitivity is not okay and we will not accommodate it. Here we are, not accommodating it. So you’d better re-evaluate, because your discomfort is not our problem.””
I would like to suggest that all of these comments point to an underlying position, the position of the so-called ‘new atheists’, which I think is more accurately summed up by one word: Unapologetic.
The idea is simple. We have done nothing wrong, and so we have nothing to apologize for. (Please see my post promoting the usage of the word ‘unapologetic’ at http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/18586 )
Jean Kazez is saying that we’ve done something wrong. We have supposedly violated an unwritten rule, a ‘prima facie duty’, to avoid hurting others’ sensibilities. At least, she directly states that she fears/believes that PZ has transgressed this duty without adequate consideration. However, she states that it is merely a prima facie duty, and so could easily be overcome by having a better reason to break the rule. The implication is that we do not, in fact, have these better reasons. Why else bring up this idea of prima facie duties in the first place, if she doesn’t think we have not considered them enough to have good reasons to overcome them?
The unapologetic position is this: Yes, we’ve considered the prima facie duties, and we believe that, all things considered, we are taking the right action. All things considered, it is right to criticize religion, including religious sensitivities themselves, even if we risk hurting people’s feelings on this issue. All things considered, we have not done anything wrong, and so we have nothing to apologize for.
I believe this is the core of the unapologetic vs. accommodationist issue. The accommodationists fall on the other side: They think that, all things considered, we are wrong to criticize religion, precisely because we might hurt people’s feelings. They see it as counter-productive. If you hurt people’s feelings, all sorts of bad things could happen: Those people might not side with you on evolution, they might entrench themselves in a more-fundamentalist position, making it even harder to convince them of anything.
The accommodationists’ critiques of the unapologetics are along the lines of: Don’t you see all the possible negative consequences of hurting people’s feelings? Geez! It’s like you don’t even consider people’s feelings at all. (Hence Jean Kazez’ proto-argument that she thinks PZ has not considered the prima facie duties.)
But we *have* considered people’s feelings. And we *do* feel that we have sufficient justification to be unapologetic atheists.
We were silent before, and look where that got us. The situation did not improve, and things in many ways got worse. Other prima facie duties gained more relevance and urgency than the duty to avoid hurting feelings.
Been there, done that, as they say. Instead of remaining apologetic about people’s overblown religious sensitivities, we now see that it is those sensitivities themselves, and the resulting environment of lack of criticism that they foster, that are a big part of the problem. It is excessive respect for those sensitivities that accounts for the persistence of dangerous religious ideas, which should long ago have been laughed into marginalization.
And so, we have given up on apologies. We have chosen to become unapologetic in our criticism of religion. And we maintain that we have done nothing wrong, and are not doing anything wrong, in being openly critical of religion.
Furthermore, we have the defence of “innocent until proven guilty”. If the religionists and the accommodationists insist that we are doing something wrong in our open criticism, then it is up to them to prove it.
There is a reason why prima facie duties are not, and should not become, enforced by law. It is their very triviality, the fact that there are so many good reasons to break them, and that there are so many competing and contradictory duties, that it is not enough to claim someone has broken one duty to show that they are acting in the wrong. Everybody breaks prima facie duties all the time, every day, in simple daily life. There are too many exceptions to these rules to hold them up as a damning indictment of someone’s considered actions.
What about all the other prima facie duties? The duty to be honest, to speak truth to power, to confront dangerous ideas, to help people break out of mental prisons, to stand up for freedom of speech?
The one thing I think all of us unapologetic atheists can agree on is that there is currently a taboo, or double-standard, against criticism of religion. And I think we can all get behind a defence of our unapologetic atheism by arguing that there is an overriding prima facie duty to challenge unreasonable and dangerous taboos. That competing duty is enough to throw Jean Kazez’ argument out the window; for her argument rests on the idea that there are no other competing duties against the one about hurting peoples’ feelings. Her argument is simply that, all other things being equal, it’s better not to hurt people’s feelings. But all other things are not equal. People’s feelings are not the only consideration here. There are many other competing considerations. And in the grand scheme of things, people’s feelings are frankly small potatoes compared to the motivations we have for being unapologetic in our criticisms of religion.
Consider that PZ Myers was very reluctant to even go through with the cracker desecration. At first, he just wrote a blog post about the incident and that was that. But then things escalated, and he felt compelled to go a step further.
Consider further that PZ took the time and consideration to include pages from the Quran and pages from the God Delusion. This was not an act of ‘glee’ in offending people. He tried to make it clear that there was a message attached to his action, and the message was: This taboo of religious sensitivity needs to be challenged and put into context; hurt feelings are no defence for death threats and harassment.
Consider also that over-sensitive people can literally be offended by *anything*. For some religious people, the mere existence of atheists is offensive. Should we all kill ourselves out of deference to their sensitivity? Clearly not.
There is no case to be made for a human right to *not* be offended. Even Kazez did not attempt to make such a case.
And so I repeat: We have done nothing wrong, and we have nothing to apologize for.
I would finally like to suggest that we should collectively promote the term ‘unapologetic atheist’ to replace ‘new atheist’. The latter has become a dumping ground for uninformed recycling of old anti-atheist stereotypes. Please read my post arguing in favour of the word ‘unapologetic’ here: http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/18586
Well, Wonderist, I think you’ve pretty well summed up the discussion. I agree with you. We don’t have anything to be apologetic about, and others have to show us why we do, if we do. And they have to do it while showing that the religious sensitivities that are being protected are not up to some bad. Given the history of religion, and how it so deviously, and with all the show of generosity and even charity, it worms its way into public discussion in such ways as to pre-empt possible criticism, religions have a great deal of showing to do. Just because they are on the side of the big battalions, doesn’t mean that unblievers aren’t the best shots.
It seems to me, for what it’s worth, that people like Dawkins and Hitchens have actually changed the atmosphere of the discussion, and have actually made it possible for unbelievers to say things and get noticed. That’s a big big change from only a decade ago. I’m all for keeping the advantage, especially now when religions are doing so much damage and threaten to do even more. I’ll even go for ‘unapologetic atheist’ as well. There was never anything new about the ‘new atheists’. They just said it all in a way that made people sit up and take notice. They are unapologetic, that’s all. Let’s keep up the pressure.
Quite so, about ‘we have done nothing wrong.’ I find that thought recurring remarkably often, during these disputes – because given all the rhetoric coming from the other side, it can be very hard not to lose sight of that.
That’s a big part of the problem with Mooney, really – I think he lost sight of that long ago. I’m not sure Kirshenbaum has ever been aware of it.
I have been wondering of late how much input Kirshenbaum had in writing UA. The response to criticism (if you can all it a response) has all from Mooney. Since the book is critical of scientists a cynical part of me wonders if she was useful because Mooney can call her a scientist and thus maybe deflect some criticism.
I think this discussion is a bit too abstract for me–I would like to know *what* insult, exactly, we’re discussing? I don’t disagree with PZ’s wafer stunt, but I do disagree with a lot of the insults he spouts on his website.
I certainly do agree with Jean that we have a prima facie duty not to hurt people’s feelings, in that we shouldn’t do so *unless* there’s a very good reason. Even if those feelings are themselves irrational–so what? Human beings are basically collections of irrational feelings. But often there is a good reason to hurt some types of feelings. What kind of feeling are we talking about? What are its consequences in the real world? Etc.
“I don’t disagree with PZ’s wafer stunt, but I do disagree with a lot of the insults he spouts on his website. “
Could you please be specific and give examples?
Jenavir, right, but that’s what I said – ‘Harmless sensibilities can be handled with care, but then we nearly all agree with that anyway, so that doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.’ We have to ask some questions, so the prima facie duty isn’t really prima facie (because we can’t agree to it without asking the questions).
Wonderist: his most recent entry right now calls people who would pray for a cancer patient about to go under the knife “useless fools.” That’s gratuitous, cruel and false. Praying itself may not do any good; that doesn’t mean the people who do it are “useless” or “fools.”
OB: I think the duty is prima facie because basically we’re nice until we’re shown a reason not to be, right? It’s not the opposite–we’re not mean until people give us a reason to be nice, or at least we shouldn’t be. And it’s not strictly neutral, either. There’s a slight bias in favor of niceness, which can easily be overcome by the other person’s bigotry or other harmfulness. That’s what I took Jean’s “prima facie” to mean.
To put it another way, OB: when you say “ask the question” you make it sound like we start from a position of strict neutrality, and then analyze the harmfulness, and then decide to be nice or not. I don’t think it does or should work that way. I think most well-socialized people’s instinct is to be nice unless something jumps out as harmful, or until it proves to be harmful after a while.
I think this may be more of a semantic difference than a practical one, though.
Jenavir, sure, but you’re re-stating it. Yes of course we’re nice as a default position, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was ‘a prima facie duty to defer to other people’s sensibilities’ – which in context included sensibilities about substantive issues. This is about much more than just being nice.
Especially, too, since it’s not about how we treat people face to face, it’s about how we talk about the things that people care about. That adds at least two levels of distance, so being nice really is kind of irrelevant. I don’t bounce up to strangers on the street, demand what they have strong feelings about, and then deliver my verdict on their sensibilities – but I do have views on whether feelings about the Catholic mass justify bullying of and death threats against a college student. I see a big difference between the two.
“Wonderist: his most recent entry right now calls people who would pray for a cancer patient about to go under the knife “useless fools.” That’s gratuitous, cruel and false. Praying itself may not do any good; that doesn’t mean the people who do it are “useless” or “fools.” “
Jenavir, it is always better to quote directly, rather than pluck out a couple words without context.
It is my policy to follow up on dubious ‘quotes’ to ensure that they are not distorted. So, I followed up on your quoting of PZ. And sure enough, you have distorted what he said. Here is what he said, with context:
“If you’re a useless fool, you might think entreating an imaginary and fickle deity would be the appropriate thing to do, but no…we know that is futile and insulting.”
Notice that he does not say that “people who would pray for a cancer patient about to go under the knife [are] “useless fools.””, as you claimed he said. He said that useless fools might think prayer is the appropriate response to an atheist who has cancer. This leaves open the possibility that non-useless non-fools might also think that prayer is appropriate. It also leaves open that useless fools might not think prayer is appropriate.
In fact, it’s a rather open thing to say. It does not say anything very specific at all. It certainly does *not* say that ‘people who would pray *are definitely* useless fools’.
The point of PZ’s dig there is to denigrate the belief in intercessory prayer for healing cancer as useless and foolish, which indeed it is. The point is not to willy nilly insult people. Who specifically is he insulting? Everyone who believes in intercessory prayer? Nope.
It is the belief itself which he is denigrating, by associating it with uselessness and foolishness. He’s saying, “If you believe in intercessory prayer, watch out, because that’s something useless fools might also believe, and you don’t want to be associated with useless fools, do you?”
It’s like saying, “If you’re an utter moron with Tourette’s, you might think smoking cigarettes near open gasoline is f*cking cool!” Who is this insulting? It’s not even insulting people with Tourette’s (which is just making a joke about the use of a swear word). What it is denigrating is the idea of smoking near gasoline, as something a moron might do.
You can tell that PZ was denigrating the belief and not the person by the fact that he says, “we know that is futile and insulting”. The ‘that’ is referring to the belief in intercessory prayer, not to the believers themselves. Praying for an atheist activist’s cancer is, in fact, futile and insulting (especially to the atheist activist).
The crucial thing to understand here is that there is an important distinction between people and beliefs. If someone says, “You’re an utter moron,” that’s an insult to a person, and the person would be reasonable to be offended, and I would generally stick up for the person. However, if someone says, “that belief (that you hold) is utterly moronic,” that is not an insult to the person, and one should not take it personally, and I would stick up for the critic’s right to say that.
A person is not their beliefs. This is a crucial point. We reserve the right to criticize, mock, and ridicule beliefs all day long till the cows come home. This does not mean we are necessarily mocking or ridiculing the people who hold those beliefs.
It is only when people let their egos get tangled up with their beliefs that they are liable to get offended when someone criticizes their beliefs. My advice to such people is to let go of this entanglement. You are not your beliefs.
I do not get offended personally when people criticize or even mock my beliefs. That is because I do not have my ego tangled up in my beliefs. For me this is an important principle, and not mere stoicism. It is important for me to keep my identity separate from my beliefs because this allows me to *learn* new things, to let go of wrong and mistaken beliefs, and to admit that I was wrong and ignorant. This is the first step in learning. For me, there is no shame in this. In fact, I embrace it. I love to learn, and so I love to have my beliefs challenged and even overturned. I have changed positions on many deeply-held beliefs over the years, and each time I have gained something, not lost something.
“I think the duty is prima facie because basically we’re nice until we’re shown a reason not to be, right? It’s not the opposite–we’re not mean until people give us a reason to be nice, or at least we shouldn’t be. “
But we have given you a reason not to be: To challenge the illegitimate and dangerous taboo against the criticism of religion and religious sensitivities. One of the best ways to challenge a taboo is to break it unapologetically. When Rosa Parks sat at the back of the bus, this was an act of unapologetic defiance against an illegitimate taboo. She challenged the taboo by breaking it.
We believe we have a prima facie duty to challenge dangerous and illegitimate taboos. This prima facie duty competes with the prima facie duty not to hurt people’s feelings. In our opinion, the current cultural and political environment around the world raises the duty to challenge taboos higher than the duty not to hurt feelings. In our opinion, the risk of hurting the feelings of people with eggshell egos attached to their religious beliefs is tiny in comparison to the risk of leaving religion and religious sensitivities unchallenged.
Case in point: In Africa *children* are being persecuted, *tortured*, and *killed* for being suspected witches. If we speak out against this practice, we may have to challenge the belief in witches. These people may become offended, “How dare you criticize my deeply held religious belief in witches?” Too bad! Not only do we reserve the right to criticize the belief in witches, but we also reserve the right to criticize the dangerous taboo against criticizing such beliefs. I might challenge this taboo by outright saying “belief in witches is utterly moronic.” If someone gets offended by that, too bad. Stop killing and torturing children and maybe I’ll be a little more sensitive to your ego, but until then, you brought this unapologetic criticism upon yourself.
Now, thankfully there’s no witch killings in our respective cultures, but there are other examples of religious belief causing problems and going unchallenged because of this dangerous taboo. So, we not only challenge the beliefs, but we also challenge the taboo. By breaking it. Unapologetically.
Wonderist, I think your logical analysis of PZ’s comment is just that–logical. I also think it has little to do with actual communication. That’s not how insults, especially insults by implication, actually work. “You might think that, if you’re a useless fool,” said to a person who actually thinks that, is saying “you’re a useless fool” through implication. Frankly, your analysis reads to me like someone trying to argue that “bitch” isn’t really an insult because there’s nothing wrong with being a female dog. Insults are about more than logic. They are about implication and connotation and conversational tendencies among speakers of a particular language.
I do agree with your distinction between foolish ideas and a person who is a fool. I think that’s an important distinction. I don’t think PZ expressed that distinction well in the instance I quoted from, nor do I think he tends to as a general rule. A better way of expressing what PZ said would be to say, “This is a foolish and useless belief.”
That said, as a practical matter, I try to express my criticisms of a belief by saying it is wrong or misguided without calling it “stupid” or “hateful” or anything else that connotes an insult to the person (even if it technically was only applied to the belief). I do this because nobody lives up to the person/idea dichotomy, which is artificial though useful and important (of course some beliefs are a part of who you are!), 100% of the time. The exception to this is when the belief is really egregiously bad in a way that I think ought to be obvious to a person who’s not stupid or hateful. In those situations, I will be insulting.
Of course, there are people who will feel insulted even at being called wrong. But that’s unavoidable; there would be no way to state my opinion without insulting those people. At that point, I would say their egos have become completely identified with their beliefs, and they’re probably incapable of a rational discussion.
As to your final point: I’m not clear on what you are saying, so I will simply say what I think on the general subject. I don’t think the desirability of breaking the taboo against religious criticism means that I should be cruelly or harshly insulting to a harmless belief. (I think we’re all agreed on this point). I think it means I should vigorously argue against the taboo. It means I should argue honestly and unapologetically with as much or as little harshness as is due, which will depend on the nature and effects of the belief at issue.
Ah, okay, Wonderist, never mind my last paragraph–I see your last point now. Apologies for not getting it sooner. You are saying that the religious nature of the feelings in question is enough to rebut the prima facie assumption in favor of deference to sensibilities, and to make us instead start asking if the particular belief at issue has a harmful or dangerous effect. Is that accurate?
OB: I think “nice” actually conveys the point. I’m not sure “respect” for sensibilities, in a discussion about those sensibilities, boils down to anything other than ordinary niceness (adapted for Internet context rather than face-to-face). What else does it mean, if not that? I really can’t imagine. In any case, I’d certainly never say niceness applies to people who make death threats to an insufficiently deferential college kid.
“Wonderist, I think your logical analysis of PZ’s comment is just that–logical. I also think it has little to do with actual communication. That’s not how insults, especially insults by implication, actually work. “You might think that, if you’re a useless fool,” said to a person who actually thinks that, is saying “you’re a useless fool” through implication. Frankly, your analysis reads to me like someone trying to argue that “bitch” isn’t really an insult because there’s nothing wrong with being a female dog. “
I had a feeling you might take it this way, when my intention was only to be very thorough, not merely nitpicky.
I think you are missing a very crucial aspect to my defense of PZ’s comment.
As preamble, let me state upfront that I do believe my ‘logical’ analysis of PZ’s intention is accurate. I believe he would agree with me that he was intending to denigrate belief in intercessory prayer, and that he does not believe, nor did he intend to communicate, that all people who believe in intercessory prayer are useless fools.
So, you might ask, “Why would he use such a phrasing which could be so easily construed as an insult, if he didn’t intend to insult?”
And this is the crucial aspect I think you’re missing.
Rosa Parks did not politely but unapologetically argue against the taboo of sitting at the back of the bus. She just broke it. She walked right to the back of the bus and sat down. And that’s all she did. And look at the stir it caused!
She did not make a huge scene, she did not threaten anyone with violence, she just pushed the limits of the taboo, and let the taboo-offended make the scene for her.
PZ is doing something similar here. I know he is because I have done, and often do, this myself, depending on the audience. He is deliberately pushing the limits of the taboo. He’s writing what could easily be misconstrued as an insult by someone with an over-sensitive ego, without actually making a real insult.
I do this often myself. I choose provocative words and phrases which are intended to get a rise out of those who are taboo-sensitive.
Instead of saying, “I’m so sorry, my friend, but I happen to have a minor quibble with something you said there, but please don’t take it personally,” I might say, “That’s an obviously stupid idea,” or “I haven’t come across such a bad argument for God in years.” I will, of course, be scrupulously telling the truth when I do this. The idea will indeed be obviously stupid, or I will not say that. The argument for God will indeed be the worst I’ve come across in years (at least two), or I will not say that. The point is to come up with the most provocative, most taboo-breaking, most boundary-pushing thing I can come up with, without actually crossing ethical lines.
There are all sorts of ways to push taboo-sensitive people’s buttons this way. The whole *point* of doing this is to challenge the taboo itself.
I *want* taboo-sensitive people to get offended over a trifling nothing. It is a very effective tactic to show the absurdity of the taboo. It brings the taboo to the surface of the conversation and allows me to further attack and undermine the taboo.
But if you realize that the taboo is illegitimate, then the exact same comments are seen as harmless. This, of course, requires that you walk a fine line without crossing it. That is what PZ was doing there. Pushing taboo-sensitive people’s buttons without actually insulting anybody.
That is why I’m confident in my analysis of his intentions. I understand where he’s coming from and what he’s trying to accomplish. In fact, I admire it. In many cases, there’s quite a bit of wit and cleverness required to pull it off.
Have you ever seen a Monty Python sketch where they tear down an absurd social quirk with ruthlessly dry humour?
Have you seen The Life of Brian, where they all but dismantle Christianity, without actually putting an historical Jesus down? That movie was banned in several places. That’s the whole point; to show the absurdity of the situation.
I won’t claim PZ is as witty as Monty Python, or as oppressed as Rosa Parks, but the principle of action is the same.
Now, I’m not saying this is the only way to challenge a taboo. I’m just saying that it’s a very effective one, and is a legitimate tactic. It is certainly not a tactic we should reject out of hand. And, I would argue, it is definitely a tactic that we (not everyone, but those who are willing) should employ.
“of course some beliefs are a part of who you are!”
No, IMO, they are not. There is the idea of you, and that is the ego. But deeper than that, there is the consciousness itself, and that is the ego-less self. You are not your ego. You have an ego, but the ego is not you. This is not to send us off on a tangent; I just think it’s an important and powerful idea, so I thought I should express it in contradiction to your ‘of course’.
“I don’t think the desirability of breaking the taboo against religious criticism means that I should be cruelly or harshly insulting to a harmless belief. (I think we’re all agreed on this point).”
No, I don’t agree. Specifically, I don’t think it is possible to insult a belief. Especially not ‘cruelly’ or ‘harshly’. People can be insulted. Ideas are not people.
By the way, belief in intercessory prayer is not a particularly harmless belief. Children have literally died for the sake of this belief. Recently, in fact. In America, of all places.
“You are saying that the religious nature of the feelings in question is enough to rebut the prima facie assumption in favor of deference to sensibilities, and to make us instead start asking if the particular belief at issue has a harmful or dangerous effect. Is that accurate? “
I’m saying:
1) Religious beliefs *can be* dangerous.
2) The taboo against criticism of religion *is* dangerous.
3) We have an over-riding prima facie duty to challenge dangerous taboos, which defeats the relatively weaker prima facie duty not to hurt people’s feelings.
4) A good, useful, powerful way to challenge a dangerous taboo is to break the taboo unapologetically, without actually crossing any ethical lines.
5) Not everyone needs to use 4), but neither should they discourage others from doing so, in the name of the taboo-under-question, as long as no ethical lines are actually being crossed. (The prima facie argument made by Jean Kazez does not count as crossing an ethical line, because it fails due to 3).)
Wonderist, why is it impossible to insult a belief? I can insult a car, a building, a book, a work of art, or an article of clothing, so why not a belief? I suppose you could say I can’t insult any of these things, but that is neither self-evident nor compatible with the generally accepted usage of “insult.” In short, I don’t accept your idiosyncratic redefinition of “insult.”
And I can’t accept your Monty Python analogy because that’s very different from mocking people who pray for the sick. Context is everything.
Also, yes, belief in intercessionary prayer is a harmless belief by itself. Those children’s deaths are caused by a belief in not seeking medical care, not by a belief that prayer can help. It is only when the belief in not seeking care is combined with the belief that prayer can help that you get death and suffering. And that doesn’t say very much about intercessionary prayer, since there are few beliefs that can’t harm someone if they’re combined in a certain way with certain other ideas.