The savage shaming stunning sullying gleeful fist
I got in a slight brawl with Chris Stedman at Facebook just now. I’m a brawler…but then so is Chris, in his way, only he thinks he isn’t.
He started a thread about “shock horror that atheists sometimes compare the atheist movement and the civil rights movement.” There was lots of obliging shock-horror from his friends – oh yes that is shocking and horrible; that kind of thing. I blew my nose and then commenced brawling, by saying it’s not about saying atheists have it as bad as blacks, it’s about pointing out similarities in the way the movements and the backlashes against them play out. We brawled for awhile, then he had to go get a haircut, but just before that he revealed that he doesn’t see any hostility in Karla McLaren’s guest post at his place.
Now that surprises me. It doesn’t surprise me that he thinks I’m a pain in the ass, of course, but it does surprise me that he thinks that post is hostility-free. Really?
the Four (Dennett excluded) have put those ideas forward at the end of a fist…the form requires that you come out swinging from an extremist position…A polemic [is] made for igniting passions and selling books, for forcing sudden and unsupported change, and for shaming any opposing voices into stunned silence…I often cringe at the savage glee with which these people carry out their attacks and sully the communal discourse.
Not hostile? What is that, friendly?
Actually Ophelia, I think you’re a pain in the ass too. In a good way.
No, no, no. Don’t you see? She’s just pointing out the hostility of others, not being hostile herself!
*sigh*
Heh. Well if that’s what Stedman thinks – he really really needs to learn to spot rhetoric when he sees it. I mean if he thinks that post was just neutrally and levelly pointing out a few facts…….
[collapses in helpless mirth]
How the hell can you not see using the words “savage glee” as being hostile? Maybe it’s deserved (although I disagree), but it’s still hostile.
It’s too bad. I’ve been curious about Chris Stedman. Was thinking about seeing if he wanted to be FB friends, despite the rather acid things I’ve had to say about his project to bring lightbulbs to the people. You know, I’m not really a brawler at heart — too lazy, too easily distracted — and I was thinking that he and I might have some interesting things to say to each other. We might disagree on some key things, but I like a healthy dissensus.
But I don’t know how to communicate with someone who claims not to see any hostility in Karla McLaren’s essay. I understand that McLaren feels “disparaged” by gnus, so if Chris wanted to claim that her hostility was warranted, I might hear that out, but that it’s not there at all? I’m baffled.
Well, it has motivated me to actually comment instead of lurking, just so I can sully the communal discourse.
Are we blogging about Facebook comment walls about blog posts now? This post is r/atheism level ‘look at what I did on FB” content. The lack of irony is again astounding in a post that starts with gleefully crowing about your brawl and ending with a complaining about the implication that some atheists take savage glee in attacking people.
There is clearly hostility (yay, we’re big enough for schisms!) but are we flaming hostility for the sake of it? There is a legitimate debate to be had about the place of interfaith but we’re not contributing to it this way.
Hold on kids… because I’m an actual former brawler. As in I got into actual brawls where people went to the hospital or went to jail. It isn’t much of a coincidence that I’m concerned with this issue at the same time that Ophelia Benson(who I deeply respect) is calling herself and Chris Stedman a couple of “brawlers” when I’m feeling like the anti-atheist crowd are a bunch of pansies. I’ve got to wonder how much blood anyone in this fight has actually tasted, their own blood or someone else’s. I’ve tasted both. I know what it is to hit someone else in the face until my hand felt broken. I know what it is to be hit in the face so much that I’ve walked around bruised and sore for two weeks after the beating. I’ve been beaten bloody over racial issues, and managed to get the better of my attackers on a few occasions.
So I’m sick to tears of the wimpy attitude of people on “my side” who don’t want to upset anyone, when they can feel secure that they won’t be beaten to a bloody pulp for taking a side. I don’t want to hear anyone on either side talk about “brawling” when for them it is just an intellectual exercise. When I talk about being discriminated against, I mean it literally. When I talk about having to fight for my dignity and self-respect, I’m talking about actual physical altercations.
So if I type something that sounds rude or too aggressive, it is always in response to what I see as hostility in other people. In real life, I guess it wouldn’t amount to much, because I don’t think Stedman is tough enough (or comes from enough of a non-privileged background) to back his nastiness with action. Unfortunately, I come from a world where when people talk trash the way he does, it is often followed by violence, and my words are a response to that expected action.
I wish I came from the magically privileged background that the rest of you seem to share, but I just don’t.
Well, thanks for your contribution, SBD. Clearly you’ve noticed the shortage of people telling atheists what they’re doing wrong in their own time & on their own blogs, so well done for throwing your nanny hat into the ring.
On to other matters:
^Simple reversal experiement for the benefit of McLaren & Stedman. I think we all know very well what the reaction would be if the above were written by a GNU atheist.
Come on Joe, isn’t that a bit much? People have used combative metaphors regarding arguments for a long time. It’s got fuck all to do with any kind of privilege (which you for some reason presume is universal); it’s just how people talk.
Should we all just avoid synonyms like “fight” or “battle” in case it upsets someone who’s had an actual physical fight?
1. Why do you assume that that is the conversation we’re having? We’re not (and some people aren’t at all interested in interfaithing* anything). We’re talking about the continued hostile talk against gnu atheists by people who claim not to be hostile.
2. Are Stedman and McLaren contributing to the discussion you reference in any productive way? Looks to me like they’re just slagging off atheists. And we’re tired of it.
We don’t have to interfaith, or talk about interfaithing, or like interfaithing, or praise interfaithing, just because Chris Stedman thinks it’s the best thing since Wonder Bread with oleo margarine.
*Yes, I have just created a new verb.
@Mandrellian
Your dismissive attitude sort of proves my point. For you, combative language is just a metaphor. For those of us who have been forced to deal with other people’s attitudes at the end of a literal fist, the metaphor becomes nonsensical. When the accommodationists talk about more strident atheists being combative, it is a weak metaphor. When people like me talk about other people being combative, we’re talking from the perspective of having actually been beaten up over disagreements.
I’m sure you’ve been in dozens of actual fights, so you can prove me wrong with your personal experience… right? Yeah?
Joe, I don’t think anyone’s trying to dismiss you. I certainly wouldn’t. But this needn’t be so fraught – there’s a disagreement over the appropriateness of a metaphor. You and mandrellian see it differently. I don’t think you need to see this as a challenge to your experience being in fights (and honestly, do we really want to start comparing our prowess in fisticuffs?).
Joe, I’m not dismissing your experience. Nor am I interested in some macho posturing about how many times we’ve ended up in fisticuffs.I’m asking: do you really think people should avoid using metaphors that relate to experiences they have never actually had? Or does it only apply to people having conversations with or near you that relate to your personal experience?
I see Mr Stedman has a guest post on Nietzsche. Nietzsche said the following about Christianity in his Anti-Christ (Kaufmann translation):
Ahh, such a shrill polemic and militant atheist.
@Improbable Joe — Your presumption to know anything about my background is astonishing. What do you know of the privilege I may or may not have, and whether I have been in any physical altercations? As a child I had two big, athletic brothers who loved to brawl; a couple years ago, I was attacked and gay-bashed by a group of men shouting Bible verses at my boyfriend and I; I could go on and on, but why bother. As for my “magically privileged background” — I grew up eating saltine crackers for dinner at the end of the month, wearing clothes that were worn thin and much too small… My mother owned one pair of jeans and a couple sweatshirts and spent all her time caring for four children and her dying mother, while my father worked all day making little money. We didn’t live in squalor, but we struggled. When my parents split, my three siblings and I would all stay in a studio room with my father when we visited him, and my mom worked four jobs including overnights. I’ve been financially independent since I was 17, and have worked very hard in life to get where I am. This isn’t to say I don’t have a good amount of privilege — as a white male, of course I do — but I really don’t see what you’re trying to get at with your posturing and preening about how much “tougher” you are. And you’re wrong about whether I back up my claims with action — it’s just that I don’t think that “brawling” is braver than working in the trenches to increase understanding.
This is why I so rarely bother to entertain comments over here — there is so much assumption at work that it’s hardly worth responding to, and I can hardly afford the time as it is.
@Ophelia — Seriously, a facebook comment exchange merits an entire blog post about? Man, I wish I had that kind of free time… But in all seriousness, I find this very strange. Almost humorous, really. Aren’t there more important things to worry about than what I post on facebook? Also, a simple back-and-forth is hardly a “brawl” — the dramatic theatrics of this post are curious, and I wonder why I’m even responding.
@Cam — I’d be happy to talk. FYI, I don’t think it’s fair to say that Ophelia accurately represented the exchange of comments on my facebook page today. First, I don’t know where this came from: “shock horror that atheists sometimes compare the atheist movement and the civil rights movement.” Second, it was no “brawl” — Ophelia claimed that the (quite thoughtful, mostly atheist) commenters on my page were “spew[ing] venom at atheists.” I asked her for specific examples, at which point she claimed that she was just speaking generally but that there was still some “knee-jerk hostility” in the thread. I again asked her for examples, she quoted part of someone’s comment, I quoted the full comment and said it was hardly “knee-jerk hostility,” and she conceded that I had a “fair point” and that she was “on a hair-trigger.” Then we went back and forth about hostility, which concluded in my leaving a very quick, playful comment before my name was called for my haircut that I didn’t find Karla’s guest post hostile. The thing is, I don’t consider facebook exchanges on the same level as, say, a blog post — there’s very little nuance, and it’s very casual and conversational. So a secondhand “account” (that hardly reveals anything about what actually transpired) of the comments I leave on my facebook page probably isn’t the best basis for judging whether I’d be open to discussion, or even what my opinion is about Karla’s post (which was written by Karla, not me, though I could see how one might be confused about that given how, and how much, Ophelia has blogged about it).
And… as much as I’d like to continue engaging all of this, I’m off to do laundry for the first time in weeks, clean my room, and go to sleep (the parasite-killing medication I’m on is screwing with my body in a bunch of unwelcome ways). Have a good night, folks!
Why the heck not? FB posts to a large fan base are public comments. Why should that be any less appropriate to blog about than any other topic? We are still talking about the public attitude of a gnu-basher. Or do you think we can only blog about things that someone published or has a blog post about?
Scote:
What – did you think the internet was some kind of virtually unregulated multi-nodal forum where people were free to raise whatever point they wanted, wherever they wanted and later had the option to choose to refer to same at a different location (of their choosing)?
Clearly not.
Please visit http://www.DBAD.com for a copy of the current Official International Internet Regulations & Recommended Procedures (PDF, 19Gb). Pay special attention to the sections on “What To Talk About”, “How To Talk About What You Talk About (incl. How To Not Talk About That Which Others Might Not Want You To Talk About Quite So Much)” and “Where To Talk About What You Talk About”.
Oh, thanks. Really, what was I thinking? Though I’m still having trouble finding section 1984.1.7.5.F “Definitions and examples with citations.” I’m sure Phil is working on getting that to us ASAP.
I love the “I have Important Things to do, so I won’t bother responding to you (discounting this 1000 word comment informing you I won’t bother responding)”. Classy.
I reckon this all risks getting a little too meta-meta-meta.
If we’re gonna go with analogy and metaphor, might I suggest we ring the bell and catch a breath and let the cut man work on our eyes before the start of the next round?
I do think the pecking order of importance about written communications is interesting though. I think the order would be something like:
Just a tweet < Just an FB message < Just a comment on a blog < just a blog < just a web article < And then I’m not sure? Just a website? Just a book? Just a speech?
I can downplay any form of communication as “just [insert form here],” and certainly I wouldn’t necessarily hang draw and quarter someone and completely write them off because of a shorter more casual comment, but there’s still a point where it’s still an utterance, still your opinion, and potentially still of interest and worth discussing. Somewhere amongst all that there’s a public vs private discussion to be had too, but this possibly doesn’t seem to be one of those moments.
I dunno, I still think the piece by Karla is worth dissecting, and it has been, and the criticisms, mostly posted here and in the comments section at Chris’s blog, should probably be addressed. And the fact that Chris and Phil P have indorsed the post by Karla really does imply they see substance in what she’s written (Substance which I and others certainly don’t see). Since Chris put it on his blog, with his overt blessing at the start, I don’t think it unreasonable to expect him to defend the claims it makes.
Now I have to go and walk the dog, write some stuff for uni, do some washing and play some videogames; later, I shall watch Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges. Fascinating, isn’t it?
There used to be a link to it, but it always brought up a 1995-vintage “Under Construction” page, completed with a cute little animated gif of a construction worker snoring in the back of a truck.
The critical point about DBAD is that it is really DBADAR (don’t be a dick about religion). It’s fine to be a dick about anti vacc or moon hoaxers.
So who called Chris Stedman a “super-accommodationist” and who is disparaging Karen McClaren et. al? Why are no links provided? I googled “super-accommodationst” and “Chris Stedman” and got nothing except Karen’t article. Certainly she can’t be talking about the “four horseman” whom she disparages in her piece; I doubt they know who she or Chris is. Or are these unsupported allegations like those of Phil in his DBAD speech and Chris Mooney in UA– a way of launching an attack upon others by pretending they have attacked you or are causing unnamed harm to some nebulous cause? Why do these folks spend so much time attacking fellow secularist for supposedly attacking them– when they never any evidence that they were attacked in the first place? From where I sit, that looks much more like “being a dick” then those they think are being a dick Phil admonished us to think about our goals in his DBAD speech– but are people who are writing these anti “new atheist” screeds thinking about their goals? What are their goals– to get others to be more like them?! Why are they unable to provide evidence that their way is more successful in achieving whatever goals they imagine they are more successfully achieving? –They make so many allegations about “fractious” “new atheist” behavior but never link actual evidence (I guess it’s “trivially obvious” in the minds of the trivial), so I conclude they are exaggerating –or worse– like Wally Smith– making stuff up! Do these folks ever test themselves to see if they might be engaging in confirmation bias– because the complete lack of evidence for their claims makes it look that way to me. It seems like they are spreading bigotry while imagining themselves on some moral high ground. And this is what “accommodationism” (being a faitheist) is to me.
I have quoted Karen McClaren’s piece that she wrote for the Skeptical Inquirer multiple times, but this attack on the New Atheists lowers my opinion of her. Shouldn’t scientific minded people be providing evidence for their claims? I think I prefer those she imagines as starting the brawl or whatever. The accommodationists seem much more nasty and divisive than those they criticize. In fact, it appears that a majority prefers the undiluted honesty of the “new atheists” to those engaging in the equivalent of the “courtier’s reply”. All these straw men about the evil cadre of unnamed “new atheists” may be due more to “sour grapes” than to anything any “new atheist” says or does. From my perspective, the accommodationist crowd wants the freedom of speech to criticize the atheists that they think should be more like them– but –oh how they whine when the criticism is returned.
I know the accommodationist crowd imagines themselves on some moral high-ground, but, from my perspective, they are just “being dicks” to the atheists who are much more popular (and dare I say honest?) than they are. I prefer those they criticize as role models. Mendrellians paraphrasing of Karen’a words should illustrate to them just how dickish they sound to us. I don’t really care about how much they “accommodate” religionists, but making Wally Smithish/Nick Matzkeish false allegations makes me want to distant myself from their brand of skepticism much more than they want to distant themselves from the “fractious new atheists”. The criticism they heap upon “new atheists” could be better utilized by themselves.
Karla– not Karen. (Sorry for the typos).
I don’t know whose account of the FB exchange is more correct, Ophelia’s or Chris’s. But if Chris really said that he doesn’t see any hostility in Karla McLaren’s post, I’m inclined to think that maybe his claim that there was no shock-horror, no brawl and no venom on FB is just his refusal to acknowledge it.
It’s a nasty game. If Ophelia (or other Gnus) complain about the attacks on them, the comeback is “What attack? What hostility?” “Why are you so angry?” “Why are you making such a big deal out of a FB comment/blog comment/blog post?” “See, you just can’t have a respectful conversation with these people!” “Oh, look at the gnu’s having one of their tantrums again!”
Chris’s comment is exactly this and I don’t buy it. We’ve seen the “quite thoughtful” comments by other atheists all over the blogosphere, and they’ve been very hostile, very passive aggressive and very nasty. Saying that you just don’t see it is an attempt to make the gnus responding to them seem unreasonable and overreacting. I don’t like that game at all.
@Improbable Joe
Just emerging from lurkdom to say…
Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it, fighting racist thugs. So what? Your idea that it’s not real unless it involves physical pain and violence is just macho bullshit. Yes, sometimes, in some situations, there’s no choice, but that doesn’t make it <i>good</i> fer bog’s sake, or even ‘better’.
As for your rant about ‘misuse’ of the word ‘brawler’, I suggest you read a few political biographies. Many politicians have been called brawlers, for being able to think fast on their feet and come out metaphorically swinging. If you don’t accept that, I’d like to hear your views on <b>Christ</b>mas being only for <b>Christ</b>ians…
Oops sorry, html tags by force of habit.
Well-articulated by Articulett:
And there’s the rub. I think most GNU atheists don’t really mind one way or the other about atheist accomodationists, even the very vocal ones. For the record I think it’s perfectly acceptable for accomodationists to chastise GNUs about our tone – after all, they have a right to express an opinion. However, when they insist on indulging in complaints of stridency, aggression and generalisations whilst using stridency, aggression & generalisations, their misrepresentations, their ad nauseam baseless accusations of bigotry or fundamentalism, their nigh-wilfull misunderstanding of the oft-repeated & oft-clarified GNU position or their courting of unreasonable dogma within a scientific context (a la NCSE), a line is crossed and patience wears thin.
Unfortunately for the accommodationists (and due to what could be, I’ll grant for the sake of charity, the activity of a small, noisy minority) this behaviour has become the trademark of their position.
I’d just like to know how many times a GNU, famous or otherwise, has to say “What makes you think I think that?” or “What evidence do you have to support that allegation?” or “Can you give me a specific example of the GNU you named acting like a dick?” or “What part of “secular” don’t you understand?” or even “How is calling me a dick NOT acting like a dick?” before they receive an actual response instead of more shit-slinging.
The funny things passive aggressive do…
I had one walk right in to my private writing space some time back, being extremely rude. Naturally, I told them where to go, in proportionate, albeit escalating fashion. The end result was that it was inferred that I was crazy and dangerous to be around.
It then turned out that said passive aggressive had been in a genuinely threatening situation an hour before hand, and that this is what had got them all worked up. Understandable, yes. We could have reconciled at that point, that is if they then hadn’t gone around telling people not to tell me about the prior threat they had experienced (I’m not supposed to know).To this day, they think that I don’t know about the threat that set them off, and so they maintain that they were in a perfect frame of mind and yes, that I was the crazy one. Keeping a transgression hush hush, so that you can pretend not to be affected, so that you can accuse someone else of being the aggressive one – pretty sick stuff.
It’s not so dissimilar, sitting her in my private writing space, watching Stedman et al. try and claim not to be aggressive – including how they deceive themselves as to how obvious the pretense is to most everyone around.
Gawd… that comment needed a good sub-editor.
Seconds Out. Round 453. Three falls, one peer reviewed submission, or a knockout.
I always thought that Facebook was supposed to be for friends…
No, that’s MySpace…
Themann1086 said:
My understanding is there’s a new drinking game, where you take a shot if Stedman writes anything without including some comment about how busy he is.
So far, the alcohol’s been evaporating in the glasses. It was attempted the other way, where you drank if he did mention his busy bee schedule, but too many people achieved alcohol poisoning…
This post at Leiter’s blog leaps to mind: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/funny–on-acade.html
Chris –
Hmmmmmm. That’s a very deep question. How does one weigh a Facebook post against a blog post? How does one weigh a blog post against a Facebook post? Hmmmmm. I just don’t know.
So, in the absence of a Theory, I just do what I feel like doing. Discussions happen on Facebook, and I see no obvious reason (apart from the fact that particular posts aren’t universally available, which is a genuine reason) not to discuss the discussions elsewhere.
Hmmmmmmmm. A very difficult question. I’ll have to think hard about that.
[thinks hard for several minutes]
Hmmmmm. Yes, possibly.
Yes of course there are! Aren’t there more important things to worry about than the “polemics” of new atheists? And yet you published a post about that.
I make no claim to blog about only The Very Most Important Things. I blog about what interests me. The backlash against gnu atheism interests me. I probably wouldn’t blog about you if you didn’t keep coming up with exciting new ways to marginalize gnu atheists.
Regarding “brawling,” I don’t know how relevant to the wider discussion this is, but this past Monday evening (in between comments 24 and 31 of this thread, FWIW (not much)) I was physically assaulted. It had nothing to do (AFAIK!) with atheism, accommodationism, religion, or online disagreements at all. Actually, I myself can’t claim to have been brawling; I was just minding my own business, waiting for a bus to take me home from work, when four guys came walking down the street and one of them gave me a roundhouse-right smack to the face. Apparently, it was part of a “who’s the biggest badass?” contest between the four of them; I’m told that a different one of the four cold-cocked a skateboarder a block away from my bus stop a few minutes after they got me.
My 911 call, along with the skateboarder’s, resulted in two arrests and the possibility that I’ll be called as the star witness at my assailant’s trial for assault. I walked off with some facial bruising that’s been annoying but not debilitating for the past five days (plus it’ll be gone within a week or two); the more disturbing part is the continuing realization that the four of them could have hurt me a lot worse if they’d wanted to.
Anyway. Not exactly on-point, but re “brawling,” howsabout them apples? I look pretty thuggish right now.
Ahh importance. Well importance is all a matter of perspective, since there is no grand Importance is there. But of course, visibility is very much the result or end product of this new wave of atheism. Bums on seats. And when you’re racing for public opinion, then of course you’re going to need sell your ideas (and yourself).
That’s what Harris, Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens have all achieved, reaching the masses. And their voices were heard. Now, there is a race from the accommodationists, to get their voices heard. And what is their voice exactly? It’s none other than attacking Harris, Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens, or more specifically attacking their voice. It’s not about co-existing with religion in harmony, that’s not what is important.
Of course, in order to get listened to, you have to do an awful lot of visible work for the good cause first, get lots of recognition, respect.
But respect in the long term means integrity. If people question your integrity, your character, then your voice will begin to go unheard and forgotten, and that is the only result that really matters.
He’s playing the “How Dare You” game.
It works like this. Your opponent makes an analogy between one thing and another thing, purportedly showing how they are the same in a particular way. You then find a different trait one of the things possesses, and declare that it is utterly horrible to analogize a thing with that trait to the other thing.
It almost always works because its not actually an argument, its just an attack. If it were an argument it would be a text book fallacy, because its claiming that your analogy is offensive and therefore wrong. But its really just an attack. And since things are multifaceted, you can usually find at least one way in which it would be offensive to compare any two pairs of things.
Given that Steadman’s FB page is not actually limited to family and actual close friends, it is public. And the still somewhat limited access is actually more of a reason to blog about it since those of us not on his “friends” list can’t just read it for ourselves.
Is that a tacit admission you did not bother to think before you posted on facebook ?
Take care, Rieux. I’m glad to hear you’re o.k. Broken nose? I hope not.
Yikes! Nasty, Rieux. Very sorry to hear it, and glad it’s not worse.
I think about this kind of thing often. How massively lucky we are (we who are that lucky) not to live in places where violence and coercion are the norm. It’s because I live in that kind of place that I get to live the way I want to. So many women don’t get even a glimpse of that ability. The fact that I do rests on a social compact that is…a thing to be enormously grateful for. Thank you Mr Locke, Mr Jefferson, Ms Wollstonecraft, Mr Mill, Mr Lincoln, Mr Reuther, etc.
I’ve had that kind of random physical aggression on the street a couple of times, in much milder forms. Actually more than a couple. But no hard punch in the face by a man. Ech.
<blockquote>Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris have written polemics against religion, and true to the polemical form, they’ve taken a moral absolutist stance which asserts that religion is orders of magnitude more harmful than it is beneficial (if it is beneficial at all). </blockquote>
Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris take the position that religion isn’t TRUE. It’s hard to watch humanity suffer, die, and kill for myths. It’s bizarre that people imagine themselves moral and “saved” because of what they believe in light of the eons of suffering caused by such beliefs. Humanity has no more reasons to believe the supernatural stories of today then we have to believe the supernatural stories of yesteryear.
Accommodationists, seem to purposely miss this point; instead they imagine that the “new atheists” are saying “all religion is bad,” and then attack that straw man. But while they are being protective of god belief, they are also protecting belief in demons and witches and “bad guys” that need to suffer eternally for not following the right nebulous rubric. They are encouraging the underlying premise that “faith” is something worth protecting from scrutiny or criticism.
As Dennett points out, they have a “faith in faith” bias that they are unaware of and this causes them to see all criticism of religion as much more “fractious” or “shrill” than it is. This is why they don’t ever provide evidence for their claims. They cannot– they just assume that it is as obvious to others as it is in their head. Additionally, their “faith in faith” bias keeps them from understanding the actual message the “new atheist” is conveying and, instead, insert a straw man. At the same time they are negating or explaining away the harms of superstitious thinking involving invisible beings called “god” (or Jesus) while telling themselves they are doing no such thing.
I see no evidence that the critics of “new atheists” are achieving more than the “new atheists” they criticize. Where’s the accommodationist equivalent of Dawkins’ Converts Corner? What is it they tell themselves they are accomplishing with their straw man attacks upon the “new atheists”? From my perspective, they are doing what religionists do– they are imagining themselves as being on some moral high ground because of their (unsupported) opinions and beliefs; this gives them the benefit of feeling superior without having to do anything “superior”. They can imagine that they are doing something good without ever having to provide evidence that this is the case. They further a prejudice against their fellow secularists while telling themselves they are fighting for peaceful dialogue. And then they pat each other on the back and tell themselves that they are much better people than those “fractious” “new atheists”.
I much prefer the company and communications of those they criticize.
Interesting that Chris finds calling the exchange a brawl to be dramatic theatrics, while a post calling gnus bomb throwers who present ideas at the end of a fist gets praised for it’s clear thinking.
Ah good point, GD.
Great comment on Sedman’s blog, articulett.
http://nonprophetstatus.com/2011/04/26/why-do-we-need-new-atheists-cant-we-just-spruce-up-the-old-ones/#comment-2970
And I certainly can’t enjoy the company of religionists. It is absolutely easy to befriend Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews or Buddhists. There’s nothing ground breaking or original in doing so. But what you end up with, in your state of friendliness, is the inability to voice your own thoughts. Because once you do so, you are automatically offending someone’s feelings, being polemic, or falling into the other.
What would be interesting is whether gnus can bond together as a community, without the need for a common enemy. Perhaps the reality is, we’re only coming together because of the enemy, and once that enemy diminishes, we may disband away into the greater atheist population.
@Chris — well, openness to communication comes in many forms, but let’s give it a shot, eh?
Thanks for letting me take a look at that FB thread. I wouldn’t have reacted as strongly as Ophelia, but I have to tell you, I can see where she’s coming from.
I’ve been the marginalized X in a sea of Y many, many times. I’ve been the rare woman in heavily male-dominated space (an experience that’s occasionally been spiced with physical threat), the one out bisexual among lesbian-feminists, an out queer among heterosexuals, a poverty-line kid among the bourgeoisie, and a person with a disability among able-bodied people. So I can say that yes, over and over again, issues of passing, covering, solidarity, and tokenism come up. Sometimes they’re blazingly obvious. (“Wow, Cam, women are really stupid, but you! You’re different!” I kid you not.) Sometimes, not so much. But they’re always there, because there is always a market for the token X.
And when you’re offered the opportunity to be a token? Most of the time, it feels good. The people who offer it to you can be very nice and probably think they mean well. (“You know, Chris, atheists are really jerks, but you! You are different! We love you!”) It feels like success. In some ways it is success: you can do some personal branding around that kind of thing. You can get more speaking engagements, if that’s what you want. It’d do pretty well for anybody who isn’t too attached to his integrity. Because if you’re the token atheist, putting down the Bad Atheists basically becomes your job. That is a token’s function: to maintain that hierarchy and show that it’s not so bad, not really, and why can’t those people just shut up?
I can understand why someone would think that you want that job. (And if I’m wrong about you, and you do want that job, I really think you should reconsider.) I mean, right there in that FB post you just announced a deeply ungenerous reading of Lindsay’s essay while implicitly dismissing the matter of passing itself by indulging in what reads to me as a show of sanctimonious horror over his invocation of the civil rights movement. And then you followed it with an open invitation for bitching from the peanut gallery. Stedman, dude, I’m telling you it was a cheap shot that you did not need to take.
There is a time and a place for the cheap shots. But you, Chris, are not in it. (I know, I know, but seriously, not even when you’re provoked.) In pursuing your interfaith projects, you are volunteering to be the X in a sea of Y. I am telling you as an old X that you have got to get your head together. Whether you can see them right now or not, there are a lot of token benefits on offer to you, and if you want to keep your integrity you will learn to handle your rhetoric with a good deal more care. Cheap shots are a luxury you cannot afford.
When you’re the X among Ys, you’re walking a razor’s edge. Everything is pushing at you to pass, cover, and tokenize — basically, to accommodate the preferences of Y. The best way I know to keep your balance is to consciously commit to solidarity with X. That doesn’t mean that you have to agree with every atheist ever, Chris, but it starts with eschewing the cheap shots. You’d have to refuse, again and again, to position yourself against other unbelievers or to contrast yourself flatteringly with other unbelievers. It is skilled work.
I’m agnostic on the whole interfaith thing. I think you could be running an interesting experiment there, Chris, and if you can get it to work I will be intrigued. But if you succumb to accepting the privileges of being a Rare Good Unbeliever, the experiment is useless. It’s only interesting if you show that it can be done without selling out atheists in general and gnu atheists in particular.
Thanks Ophelia!
Did you see this? Why do Americans still dislike atheists? – The Washington Post
Fantastic comment, Cam. If I could do it like that I wouldn’t be so brawlish on Facebook.
Yup, articulett, I saw it; it’s part of the subject of the latest post.
That is an excellent comment, Cam.
There’s a nice suggestion here about how much the accomodationists really need us: http://www.youtube.com/user/healthyaddict#p/u/0/1jOMDeMI9iw
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