Taking the temperature
Ajita Kamal defends the role of passion in social movements, in the context of explaining why heat is not necessarily or entirely counterproductive for atheism.
There is a very important role that anger, ridicule and passion play in any social movement. While intellectual understanding is key to a movement that is well-grounded, it is the primary emotions that provide the impetus for social organization. Without this, atheism would simply remain an idea to be discussed in academia and in private settings.
I think that’s spot-on. It’s also true that there are obvious dangers – self-righteousness, verbal or literal violence, confirmation bias, groupthink, tribalism, all sorts. But…we need the movement, and we need the passion. We should relentlessly self-monitor for self-righteousness and the rest of it, but we shouldn’t cool down.
True dat. You need your “soldiers” and your “diplomats”, to use Phil Plait’s language (as much as I dislike the war metaphors). To put it another way: you need honest brokers (who try to present people with all the plausible options), and you need issues advocates (who try to press the best option).
The key, though, is that the honest brokers and the issues advocates have to keep mutual faith with one another. This is the thing that Plait tries to do, in his own way, while Mooney doesn’t.
[…] an excellent piece by Ajita Kamal and via Ophelia, who adds: It’s also true that there are obvious dangers – self-righteousness, verbal or literal […]
Hey, what happened to the pretty site? All I’m getting is text! Anyway, yes, of course we need passion. Without passion the whole thing becomes an academic exercise, and that would never do. That’s why the Four Horsemen, so-called, were so very important, because they had passion. They wanted to spark a movement, and they did. Half the atheists in the world then started to get scared, because it meant that they would have to get out there and do something, and it frightened them half to death, so they began applying the breaks by starting to talk about tone. Tone is thing that promotes passion, and we don’t want any of that here! Well, we do, as a matter of fact. We also, as I have suggested, and Ajita certainly does not deny, need thoughtfulness too, and a preparedness to engage the issues, especially the intellectual ones, but if it becomes just an exercise in philosophical impartiality we’ll get nowhere, and as we all know, religion is not going to empty itself of passion. In fact, that’s what religion has got going for it, simple belief and the associated emotions and drive that this brings about, a drive that often becomes dangerous, and can turn deadly.
I have a little challenge which so far nobody has succeeded in meeting: Name one social movement, at any point in history, which was sabotaged because it’s advocates were too outspoken.
Even the obvious dangers that Ophelia lists, those aren’t so much dangers that threaten the failure of a given movement… just threaten bad effects from its success. Which we want to avoid too, of course! But the idea that being too vocal is going to push people to the other side? Sorry, history says no.
Benjamin Nelson is spot on when he says that Plait is an example of an “honest broker” who “keep[s] mutual faith” with the “issues advocates”, while Mooney is an example of one who doesn’t. I’m partway through Unscientific America (and probably not going to finish it) FWIW.
That happened to me once yesterday. I think it failed to load the CSS file or something. I think B&W is having bandwidth problems, and that’s causing it. I refreshed and it went away.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Taking the temperature http://dlvr.it/68zLX […]
The basic complaint, I think is one about tone. Speaking someone who did technical support for 10 odd years, where tone is an essential part of the job, generally speaking, the people who complain about tone don’t know what they’re talking about.
Tone CAN be offensive. One’s voice can be rude, snide, condescending, whatever. I think a good example of this, would be Christopher Hitchens. This is not because he’s an atheist, it’s because he’s a curmudgeon. That’s who he is, and yes, even though I disagree with him sometimes, it makes him a vibrant human being.
But not everybody is like that! The other people attacked often for “tone”..simply don’t have it. Sam Harris talks like an academic, very calm and reserved. Dawkins, quite frankly, is pure charm IMO. Dennett is the same way. Myers writes in a very off-beat, but friendly way. Etc.
No, the problem isn’t how things are being said, the problem is WHAT is being said. Sometimes you can’t wash it off with charm and good intentions. The unfortunate reality is to some people, the existence of atheism at it’s core is the offensive thing. Even to prospective political allies, sometimes the simple phrase “God in all likelihood, does not exist”. is the most offensive thing ever.
So that’s not to say that we never hurt people with our tone. Sometimes we do. And that’s not really THAT productive. But more often than not, it’s the content, and not the tone that hurts people. And there’s really nothing about that we can, or should do.
I suggest three possible principles for uber atheism:
1. Rational Scepticism.
2. Moral Scepticism.
3. Fellowship.
1. Rational scepticism allows for criticism and for people to question truth claims (obviously).
2. Moral scepticism allows for criticism of moral truth claims, and institutions and authorities that claim to be moral.
3. Fellowship is what unites us, no different to fellowship in academia.
These three basic principles allow for minimal corruption while providing a unity of purpose.
As much as I like Dawkins, I can’t entirely agree with you on this one. Sometimes when dealing with theists, he has the facial expression of a person who has just stepped in a particularly wet and slippery pile of dog shit. If someone had that look when he was talking to me, I would think, “This guy obviously thinks I am inferior.” I can’t say I particularly blame him, because some of the tactics used by his opponents can be appalling, and it can be difficult to hide your emotions in such a situation (I don’t think I’m much good at it, for example). But I would say that Harris is much better at remaining calm and unruffled, and even Hitchens, who often has an air of amused superiority, does not often display overt disgust.
Whew, normal view is back. Thanks Josh.
Well yes about the dog shit, but Dawkins is “pure charm” too – he’s a mixture. And the dog shit is in a way part of the charm – of that particular type of charm. It’s alarming but also – you know – gingery. Stimulating. It keeps you on your toes. One wouldn’t want everyone to be like Dawkins but one wouldn’t want there to be no Dawkinses, either. I wouldn’t anyway.
Some people (I know you won’t believe this) even find me a good deal too gingery. Sweet little unassuming me. Yes, it’s true. But others want a little ginger.
(Others again think I’m not gingery at all but a horrible monster with fangs and warts, but they are sick in the head, so we needn’t bother about them.)
Oh, I certainly agree that a variety of personalities is much more interesting, and I have no desire for Dawkins to mend his evil ways. I was just observing that it is not inconceivable to me that someone could have their feathers ruffled by Dawkins for reasons other than that they “just can’t handle the truth.”
Ginger, eh? I always figured your morning feed-bag was full of habaneros. But maybe it’s nice to mix in some ginger now and then.
Karmakin’s right. What they can’t abide is any criticism of faith. It’s disrespectful, they complain. They have a deep conviction that faith is itself desirable, that it makes people better, or even that one can’t be good without it. This may be why they employ the courtier’s reply instead of making arguments directly: they don’t actually understand why they’re right, but they’re certain that they must be.
Dawkins accent and tone are a result of his background as an upper middle class individual who was sent to the top schools and colleges in the 50s and sixties. I think he rubs people up the wrong way since the closest group he resembles (in terms of voice, rather than substance) are particular types of conservative politicians (usually the sort who decide to launch a crusade to bring back ‘family value’ – just before being forced to resign over a sex scandal). He reminds me of a certain type of individual that you sometimes come across at University – someone who, while being rich, somewhat snooty and having a privileged background, is, annoyingly, highly intelligent and effortlessly academically brilliant.
Love the ginger. One of the best women I know like her ginger dipped in chocolate, but thats not necessary for good ginger.
Apart from when peurile journalists try to manufacture controversy by aping their betters overseas, atheism is a non-event in australia. Religious types ( :-) ) are WAY in the minority, and the tone of public life only gets an impact from religion when the smart set decide to pour hate on someone who is religious – like the present leader of the Liberals, who only mentions it when trapped into it by journalists.
Hard to say. Lots of social movements have failed during history (far more than have succeeded). Many have remained marginal. Posture of the advocates may have had a hand in it.
Uh-huh. And it may not have. Without any data, I don’t understand why the accommodationists keep asserting that theirs is the default position.
The title of the article is “Taking the temperature” and I suddenly related this expression to the way the human body’s temperature goes up when it is invaded by bacteria. The bacteria invade the body and temperature goes up as the body fights against the invasion.
Most people see the rise of body temperature as a bad sign in the sense of “my body is being invaded and the bacteria are causing my body’s temperature to go up” instead of a good sign in the sense of “my body’s defences seem to be working well”. Rather than try to lower the body temperature it is better to keep warm so as to help the body deal with the invasion.
In the same way, I would not go out and “attack” people who are religious – let them be is my motto. Till they start attacking me – try to argue with me or try to force me to comply with their rules. I feel invaded, and my temperature goes up. Oh yes, it does – after all I do have a right to defend myself when I am being invaded.
That’s when all those fromm people and their fellow travellers get up and accuse me of not being gentle and polite. Or, as Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote about a notice on a cage in the zoo “Don’t poke at this beast with a stick as it gets angry and bites”.
Most people’s actions are guided more by feeling than thought. This is no problem IF the feelings in question are right. Most ‘religious’ people have little or no concept of what their religion actually means, many supposed atheist are just angry at the god of their upbringing. The argument from design and the problem of evil are FELT but not thought.
Real progress comes when improved understanding actually changes the way we feel, viscerally, to the point that our actions are changed as well as our abstract ideas. Oriana Falacci’s last book struck me this way; she was enraged beyond endurance that ‘politically correct’ feelings somehow kept the contemporary Left from registering an honest level or rage and disgust at the horrors of Islamism.
The superstitious and reactionary are impervious to thought, thus the shrill complaints about ‘new’ atheists. The only thing ‘new’ about us is that we are visible in ways that demand response.
I see this a lot, but see little to no support for it. It has the ring of a canard, an excuse the faithful use to avoid confronting the fact that real people have real reasons for rejecting the faith of their upbringing. Reasons, not just emotions.
The challenge is to give an example, not to say nonspecifically that “posture of the advocates may have had a hand” in the marginalization of some unnamed social movement.
Your point about how it is difficult to point to a single cause for a failed social movement is well-taken… but so far, nobody has even tried to posit an example where “posture” might have even had anything at all to do with it. And your response continues the pattern… I may well be proven wrong, but I’m still waiting.
Re: “just angry at the god of their upbringing”. This always makes me smile, because for quite a long time, while I was, rationally speaking, an atheist, I harbored so much resentment for the “god of my upbringing” that it would be difficult to argue that I was, emotionally speaking, an atheist. Discovering the Gnu Atheist movement really helped me move beyond that — first, because it taught me to laugh at the absurdity of it all, rather than being angry at a fictional character for his intolerance and cruelty; and second, because it finally felt like I could do something positive about all this, by advocating against religious deference and political influence.
So for me, the Gnu Atheism was all about not being “angry at the god of [my] upbringing” any longer.
Eric talks about passion in Post 3, Ophelia in the main post. Others do as well.
When I come into being more vocal about my atheism, I came into as the grandson of a civil rights activist. My grandmother, one of thousands, was heavily involved in the fight to end Indian segregation in Northern California. I know it’s not the traditional segregation most people think of, but the plight of the Indian in Northern California was similar to that of
the black manblack people in the South.She taught me that politeness and kind words may get you an audience with the President (Woodrow Wilson was her example), but it won’t end racial injustice. I heard the words, but I was too young to learn the lesson.
Later in life, I read Letter from a Birmingham Jail, in which MLK wrote:
First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
The part bolded, similar to those, and many other posts in this thread, pierced my heart on civil rights and changed me, I judge for the better, as an adult. Before I read that passage, I was, as that thick-headed young adult, that moderate white person who preferred social peace to social conflict. I thought that, over time, things would work out and that blacks, gays, whomever should just let society change into something better over time…
It was a foolish and petty-evil thing to believe.
So when I see the accommodationist, I see the injustice they preach when they say “accommodate, accept, do not make waves.” I see their willingness to make others suffer so they can have the peace they crave. I see it because, one time, I was there with them.
So, to the Mooney’s of the world, I’m sorry, but I can’t accept injustice to myself and others because of your lack of moral fiber and sense of justice. Call me strident, call me bellicose, call me what you will. But I do except to be able to function in a society where I do not have to bow my head to the Christian Master and suffer the slings and arrows of their prejudices. And I would appreciate it, Mooney, et.al., to just get out of the way. Don’t help if you do not wish to help. But do not burden me with your cowardice and desire for societal peace at the expense of social justice.
Ugh.
….But I do [except ] expect to be able ….
That should teach me to be inattentive to my spell checker choices…
I have read the Vietnam anti-war movement fell apart because of stridency and a certain amount of bickering within the increasingly institutionalized movement. But I think that’s a revisionist history. I think the better argument was it fell apart because the draft was abolished and (six months earlier) Nixon, essentially, ended the war by declaring victory and telling everyone we were going home.
Oh, hey, that’s such a great quote, MosesZD. Precisely the point that needs to be made about accommodationists and religious moderates (liberals), because what the moderates do is to empower all those who really believe. I have spoken with a number of former colleagues, and they still think there is room for liberal Christianity, but that was an illusion, the illusion that you could keep twisting the message so that it was somehow alligned with all the we know is good and just, and that, even though quite consciously an adaptation of a message that we know is shot through with superstition and cruelty, it can still do duty to further causes and concerns that we find particularly worthy of attention. Karen Armstrong does it all the time. Real religion, she says, is about compassion. What she should do is to look and see. It’s not.
The Anglican Church of Canada last Sunday had a “back to church Sunday”, where church-goers invited friends to come to church on that Sunday. Now, the question that is being asked is: Now that they’ve come back, how do we keep them there? One of the proposals that seems too loom fairly large is the “Alpha” programme, which teaches straightforward Christian fundamentalism, the Bible as God’s word, the Christian as Spirit filled, etc. A few years ago I read through some of their literature. It almost made me ill. Now, I don’t know how successful the “back to church Sunday” was, but the truth seems to be that, twist the message as much as you like, turn it into pretzel shapes, if you like, it will always spring back to its original form. Liberal religion strengthens sub-human dogmatism; it does not supercede it. I plead guilty to the charge. I thought it was real, but it was really an illusion. Moderates will never change the real deal. In fact, moderates and liberal religionists will only strengthen the backlash when it comes, because the real deal is written in texts that are revered and sanctified. Liberal theology is only a temporary gloss on the texts. Accommodationism is accommodation, not with the real deal, but with the gloss. It’s a trap.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail is great, and very very apposite. I posted it in Flashback a few months ago for that reason.
After reading the quote from MLK and the rest of this thread, I happened to drop in on normblog, where I read this from the blogger Huw Clayton:
The trouble with Clayton’s answer to norm’s last question is that all too often the easiest assumption one can make about a given social or political situation is that there is nothing one can do. Moreover, there is often nothing an individual can safely do. For example, what can one do about Clayton’s bete noire: Holocaust Denial? It is not a mass movement by any means, but its protagonists no doubt hope that it will become one. I think I could argue till I was blue in the face with say, David Irving, and not get anywhere, partly because I think he probably has a second aganda, and that his Holocaust Denial is a vehicle for that. Likewise, theism for many is not merely a philosophical position. To them it is as a whole operating system is for a computer.
Many of MLK’s white moderates were probably in a cleft stick. Their own morality said that King was clearly right, but their sense of realpolitik (of a huge Southern white mass of segregationist opinion that would be very difficult to shift, and violent in its intransigence) said ‘it’s not the right time’. (Robert Kennedy I believe once said that directly to MLK, only to get the reply ‘it’s never the right time.)
One can think of many open stances to take on Holocaust Denial. Wear a T shirt about that asks ‘did the Holocaust not happen?’ or ‘what next after Holocaust Denial?’ I am sure anyone wearing such a T shirt round the streets of Tehran today would probably not last 20 minutes before the Thought Police arrived. So it would take courage. But the Thought Police by their action would show that they feared single spark that could start a prairie fire.
I think MLK would say: ‘There is never nothing you can do, so doing nothing at all is always the dumbest course of action’.
MosesZD
While that is a valid point, and the ‘middle of the road’ white liberal was not much help, don’t forget that MLK was himself a moderate, acceptable to the general population. It was people like Malcom X, the Black Panthers, Stokely Charmichal who were the actual aggressive ones
From memory:
Swift has sailed into his rest
Savage indignation can
No longer lacerate his breast
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller, he
Served human liberty.
W.B. Yeats’s translation of Jonathan Swift’s Latin Epitaph.
Thank you for your brand of that savage indignation – righteous anger.
Taking my previous comment a bit further (remembering back, I was a teen during those years) that a lot of white America (including my well meaning parents) was a bit nervous about Malcom X and Huey Newton (whom I believe were never invited to the White House), but I also got the sense that it made it easier to accept MLK. Sort of a ‘good cop bad cop’ situation.
Bingo.
MosesZD, my hats off to you as the first person to even attempt to mount an answer to the challenge! It’s an interesting thought, but I have to say that I think as a social movement, the Vietnam anti-war folks were wildly successful. That’s a huge part of what we remember from that era, and it made pacifism a viable position. The success of the political goals can be debated, but of course as you point out, Vietnam was ended by Nixon largely as a result of the unpopularity of the war… So it seems in that arena they were fairly successful too.