Year: 2013

  • Pakistan’s education attaché

    Now for a piece of really good news. Malala will be staying in the UK – and thus will be much much less likely to be a target again. She is able to stay because her father has been made a diplomat. Good move. Full marks to whoever did it, even if it’s Tories.

    The Taliban have vowed to target her again. Her father, Ziauddin, has been appointed Pakistan’s education attaché in Birmingham, virtually guaranteeing that Ms. Yousafzai will remain in Britain. Her case has generated worldwide recognition of the struggle for women’s rights in Pakistan. In a sign of her reach, Ms. Yousafzai made the shortlist for Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2012.

    It’s terrible that she’s been driven out of Pakistan, of course. It’s terrible that the girls of Pakistan are put at a distance from her. But it’s worth it.

  • To leaders of secular groups

    And another joy to read part –

    Thunderf00t concludes with a call to conference organisers and leaders of secular groups:

    “Seriously, those who organise conferences, get a grip. You do not have to appease the request of every PC whiner. The secular community can achieve great things, but it will never achieve anything while it has poison like this being dripped into its heart. Please forward this video to leaders of secular groups who you think need to hear this message.”

    Thunderf00t, I’ll give you a straight answer. As an organiser of conferences and as chairperson of Atheist Ireland, I will oppose any attempts to ostracize the people you name, and I will also oppose any attempts to ostracize people like you who disagree with them.

    I have a feeling that Thunderfoot’s plea to “forward this video to leaders of secular groups who you think need to hear this message” isn’t working out as he hoped.

  • Thunderfoot’s inflammatory video

    Never enough time…

    And then spending an hour walking on the beach with the dog first thing in the morning eats into the day something fierce. And yet – it’s walking on the beach first thing in the morning! And I’ve only just realized that it’s actually the best beach for the purpose on the peninsula. I tried to shake up our routine yesterday and go somewhere else for the sunset, but it wasn’t fun – too rocky, not enough beach, and too near the road. Gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but not right for dawn and sunset walks with a dog, or really even for long comfortable walks with or without a dog. This beach here is a strolly beach. Big, and strolly, and nowhere near a road.

    So I’m reading Mick Nugent’s long reply to Thunderfoot. It’s a joy to read.

    The part about Melody, for instance.

    Thunderf00t then attacks Melody Hensley:

    “Look, let me make this simple. I just got back from an experiment where I was surrounded by sane, rational, capable, able, intelligent people. And then you come back to the secular community, where you have people like Melody Hensley, the Executive Director of the Center For Inquiry in DC going creationist style ban happy on people who haven’t even mentioned her name yet, because they might say something bad about her someday.

    And starting flagging campaigns against videos critical of her. Oh, and would you believe it, she labels herself a feminist. It’s just sickening to see someone from the Center For Inquiry embrace with such relish these silencing tactics which we have seen creationist use here on YouTube for years to protect their budget arguments from criticism. I mean, really an Executive Director from the Center For Inquiry running a flagging campaign. Shit, these people would give Scientology a run for their money.”

    So let’s examine TF’s personal attack on Melody.

    Who did she ban from where? She banned nobody from anywhere. She blocked people from following her on twitter, who were also following the Elevatorgate twitter account, which was posting tweets harassing her. That seems like a prudent and sane thing to do. She did not infringe on anybody’s right to freedom of expression.

    Melody then asked her friends on Facebook to flag as ‘bullying’ a video about her, because she was tired of dealing with constant online harassment and bullying. What did this video say about her? It was titled ‘Melodramatic Melody’ and the description began:

    ‘Melody Hensley is executive director of CFI in DC, and has been acting like a total douchebag feminist this past week.’

    Some of the content included:

    “Yours truly, who had never even given a shit about this little twat until today… had she not made it known that she was doing this mass blocking on twitter, people would have gone about their business of not giving a fuck about her at all… The simple fact is she has now stirred the pot and has painted a large bull’s-eye on her ass… She doesn’t know how twitter works, but that’s understandable seeing as how twitter is a bit more complicated than a cappuccino machine… as for Melodramatic Melody, well, she’s off to stick her flag on the top of Mount Moaning Victim. Don’t worry though, it’s more of a small hill than a mountain, because we all know that feminists don’t fare well when faced with real challenges when trying to get to the top…”

    This hate-filled video was published by a woman calling herself the Wooly Bumblebee. The video ends by seeking financial support for a website called a Voice for Boys, which in turn has a link to a website called A Voice for Men, which is so misogynistic a website that it reads like dark parody, and which is currently featuring Thunderf00t’s video which we are discussing here.

    Flagging this ‘Melodramatic Melody’ video seems a prudent and sane thing to do. Flagging is an entirely appropriate facility put in place by YouTube to govern how YouTube oversees the privilege that it gives to people to post videos for free on its website. If you want to start your own video website without flagging facilities, you can do so. If you want to use YouTube’s video service to publish your videos, you have to abide by the rules that YouTube determine. Freedom of expression does not mean that you control the use of other people’s communication platforms.

    A joy to read, I tell you.

  • Jesus and Mo discuss sex and hedonism

    Hedonism is wrong. Wrong wrong wrongity wrong.

  • Afternoon

    I took Cooper to Carmel beach this afternoon. When we got there I realized we had the Chuckit but no ball, because I took him to a crappy place for Chuckit yesterday and the ball went missing on the first chuck. Oh well, it’s a very doggy beach, I’ll probably find one, I told him, so we went down the stairs with the empty Chuckit.

    As soon as we got to the water a guy in a family group said, “Lost the ball?” and I allowed as how we had, and did the rueful laugh thing, while Cooper danced around frantically as he always does. We went ahead north and I heard the guy’s daughter (I assume) telling him “We found a ball…” then a wave crashed as it always does.We strolled along, I looked around for an abandoned tennis ball, Cooper hopped and danced and jumped, the waves crashed, other dogs ran and danced and chased balls, then suddenly the little girl was next to me saying “Here’s a ball” and holding it out to me. Awww. So I said “Fabulous, thank you,” and chucked the ball into the ocean and Cooper raced into his paradise. The family group all laughed. The guy said they don’t know the difference, and I said we’ve donated lots of balls to the beach so it all comes out even.

    Then for half an hour or so we did Cooper’s thing. It’s a great place for Chuckit because the water is so turquoise and clear but at the same time the waves are so thunderous. He loves flinging himself into them. He even seems to love having them break over his head and completely disappear him. He looks like a sock in a washing machine sometimes. Every now and then a wave breaks with a boom or even a bang – there was one bang that made me look around for the source for a second. I think those are the tubular ones – if they get rounded enough they hit with enough force to make a boom. The ones on Monterey beach do that every time.

    As we were walking back to the car, looking down on the beach and Carmel Bay and Pebble Beach and over at the houses and trees, I remembered as I sometimes do that this is a prized and expensive tourist destination, and I get to come here as part of my job. Fun.

  • Bullied or cajoled

    More anti-feminist rage, more pro-feminist pushback. No doubt you’re aware of Thunderfoot’s video, which (for my sins) I watched. That’s the rage. The pushback is…

    Michael Nugent for instance.

    Thunderf00t has published a video in which he includes me on a list of people who he claims have been “bullied or cajoled” into what he calls “a bullshit PC appeasement position” regarding feminism.

    In my case he is referring to an article I wrote last August for Skepchick, without being either bullied or cajoled, as part of a series on speaking out against hate directed at women.

    I’m republishing that article here, because it is still important to speak out against hate directed at women, regardless of your opinions about the internal politics of the atheist movement.

    The article follows. Notice the sweetly indirect way Nugent points out that Thunderfoot lied about him and all the other men who wrote articles for Amy’s series at Skepchick. Thunderfoot said they were all bullied or cajoled, and that’s a falsehood.

    Notice what the lie implies – that all men hate feminism, that all men naturally agree with Thunderfoot about feminism, that no men would have written articles for that series without being bullied or cajoled – and that feminists are manipulative bullies.

    As Adam Lee put it in a comment on Nugent’s post –

    The really bizarre part is how Thunderfoot and others are settling on the position that we can’t be saying this because we actually believe it, that someone must have somehow coerced or blackmailed so many prominent atheist men into speaking out against misogyny. This is black-helicopter territory, folks. I’d love to hear what leverage they think the evil feminists have over so many of us, that they can force us to make statements we don’t truly believe.

    PZ for another instance.

    It’s a new year, and Thunderf00t hasn’t changed a bit — he has a new video where he’s apparently ranting about how feminism is poisoning atheism, which I haven’t watched, so I can’t judge. But there are hints that it’s more of the same. It’s been picked up and praised by A Voice For Men.

    Here are a few of the amusing reactions that the video elicited from that gang. Well, they would be amusing if they didn’t testify to a deep hatred of women.

    Well, now I look upon these women as nothing but Clowns who have deliberately allowed themselves to brainwashed into believing stupid things like the Earth is flat or some other stupid crap. The vomit that spews from their mouths is not just stupid, it is absolutely laughable. I now sit here laughing my head off at what I read. In my own social movements in life, I laugh at the idiotic dialog of the females I come into contact with. It is unbelievable the level of childish trash that issues forth from the mouths of women whose ages range from 20 all the up to nearly 70.

    Women, WILL NEVER BE EQUAL TO MEN!

    I don’t care how they put it, because the simple overwhelming fact throughout the history of Mankind, is that women have NEVER been equal to men and they never will be.

    Will at Skepchick for another instance.

    Thunderfoot has published a video (it’s getting rave reviews from the MRA blog A Voice For Men) in which he accuses Skepchick Surly Amy of “bullying or cajoling” men into contributing to her awesome series of posts “Speaking out against hate directed at women.” Michael Nugent has a blog post up about it, noting that he was never bullied (or cajoled, which is kind of the opposite of bullying) into writing the article and then reposts the article in question. I’m not going to link to Thunderfoot’s video here, but the link is on Nugent’s post for those with the intestinal fortitude.

    I have two major issues with this sort of discourse. First, using “bullying” to poison the well against people because you disagree with them is the exact opposite of rational. And for people in a community that prides itself on rationality and skeptical/critical thinking, there sure is a whole hell of a lot of this kind of nonsense going on.

    The second (and more important) concern that I have about this sort of thing is that it has the effect of diminishing the experiences of people who are actually bullied. It lessens the impact of accusing actual bullies. It’s the same sort of shit that these same people complain about with the use of the word “misogynist.” They’re right about one thing—labeling every instance of sexism directed at women as misogyny does lessen the impact that that word has. So stop fucking doing it with “bully.”

    Of course poisoning the well is the whole point, so they’re not going to stop.

  • Kill all the teachers

    And in Pakistan, seven Pakistani teachers and health workers, six of them women, were shot to death in the Swabi district of the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

    India needs rape jokes in the form of cocktails, and Pakistan needs fewer teachers and health workers and women. That’s the way to make a better world.

    The attack on Tuesday, near the village of Sher Afzal Banda, was conducted by two men on a motorcycle who followed a van taking the workers home and then opened fire on it with assault rifles, the police said. The victims worked for the private Pakistani aid group Support With Working Solution, which works in the health and education sectors.

    …

    The aid group was founded in 1991 and, in conjunction with other aid groups, has focused on Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province and on South Waziristan in the tribal region, both deeply affected by poverty and militancy.

    Five of the dead were young women who worked as teachers at a primary-level school the charity ran in the area, Mr. Akhtar said. The other two were health workers.

    Teachers and health workers. People who work in a region deeply affected by poverty – killed by people who want more poverty and disease and ignorance and murder.

    Perhaps humans were a mistake.

  • Next up: a cookie called “the torturer”

    Good thinking, Bonobo bar in Bombay: selling a cocktail called “the rapist” is a brilliant idea. It’s so convivial and amusing, so jolly and sociable. Rape is such a funny joke, and it’s so hilarious to encourage people to find rape and rapists a source of humor.

    Rape culture? What rape culture? Don’t be silly.

     

  • Where do hate crimes come from?

    Taslima has been writing about the Delhi rape since it happened.

    She wrote about the patriarchal mindset.

    About India, the land of eroticism, sexism and rapism.

    She wrote about saying a woman who was brutally gangraped, tortured, mutilated and killed has “died peacefully.”

    And she wrote about the fact that this kind of thing doesn’t just burst out of nowhere.

    For the very first time, folks were angry. Or did it wake them up? Does wakefulness appear so easily? It is true that for the first time, thousands of men and women of all ages took to the streets demanding from their government the safety and security for the womenfolk. It has also been demanded that the perpetrators should be hanged by the neck till death. Capital punishment by hanging is not a major issue to this government – it is a rather easy, hassle-free solution. But it is a lot more difficult to take measures so that men cease to see women as sex objects, so that from a tender age, human beings learn to recognize and treat other human beings as human beings.

    This is what I was saying yesterday, only to receive a barrage of stupid vicious comments shouting that I was making it all about me despite the fact that I said the precise opposite in the post.

    Taslima is making the same basic point. What happened to the Delhi woman was a hate crime. Where do hate crimes come from? A culture that fosters hatred.

    Married women bear various marks on their bodies to advertise their marital status. Just as lifeless photo-frames are sometimes marked with a red mark as ‘sold’, the application of the vermilion mark on the forehead and the parting of hair suffices as a veritable purchase notice for married women; for them, from the hair on the scalp to toenails are considered property of their husbands. Married men, however, are never properties of their wives. If protests against the rape of women carry on while leaving such patriarchal traditions intact, would rapes ever stop? On one hand, ninety-nine percent of Bollywood movies portray women as sex-objects, television carries the same message, newspapers splash images of barely-clad women; everywhere the women are merely bodies – smooth, soft skin; only breasts, only genitalia; their brains are not brains – women philosophers are not philosophers, scientists are not scientists, intellectuals are not intellectuals, professionals are not professionals. Once they are within reach, are men going to discuss science and philosophy, or are they going to be more inclined towards rape? I don’t think men don’t know that whatever a woman might wear, be it a short skirt or nothing, no one has the right to rape her. I think men know it well. At the same time, they also know that they are the decision makers! Men have more muscles, more brains, more courage; they can take greater risks, and they are beyond shame and fear; men are brave, fearless, powerful, stronger both physically and mentally – there is nothing they cannot do. This is what they have learnt, this is what they have been taught every moment of every day since their birth. The act of rape, to these men, is an evidence of their virility. The truth is, however patriarchy has raped women’s bodies, it has raped women’s minds even more; it has raped their vitality, their lives and liveliness, their limitless possibilities, dreams and freedoms. A physical injury often heals, an emotional injury doesn’t.

    We’re allowed to say this.

     

  • Reading Jonathan Haidt

    I’m reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. So far I’m finding it less annoying than other stuff of his I’ve read. I think I’m seeing a flaw, though, but maybe he gets to what I think is missing later on.

    Groups are useful, so cohesion is useful. Religions foster cohesion, and are an efficient way to discourage cheaters and free riders. People behave better when they think someone is watching.

    Groups can do things that individuals can’t do.

    Haidt thinks modern intellectual types – people like him, people like me – overvalue individuals and undervalue groups.

    I suppose that’s true of me, at least up to a point. But but but

    Well for one thing, modern intellectual types do a pretty good job of managing groups that can accomplish more than individuals can. Far from perfect, but pretty good. For another thing, anti-modern anti-intellectual types who love the group more than the individual can create hells on earth.

    There’s an interesting bit on pp 256-7 though, about a study by the anthropologist Richard Sosis, of 200 communes founded in the US in the 19th century. Some were religious, others were secular and mostly socialist. The religious ones survived longer. Why?

    He found one master variable: the number of costly sacrifices that each commune demanded from its members.

    But that worked for religious ones and not secular ones. Why?

    Sosis argues that rituals, laws, and other constraints work best when they are sacralized. He quotes the anthropologist Roy Rappaport: “To invest social conventions with sanctity is to hide their arbitrariness in a cloak of seeming necessity.”

    Pesky secular people ask why, and refuse to do it if they don’t get a good answer. Then everything falls apart. Costly sacrifice is a good solution to the problem of cooperation without kinship, and secular people are bad at it.

    Interesting. Suggestive. But…

    Well, what if for instance the costly sacrifices are made by just one part of the group? Like, say – oh, just wildly at random here – women? Other races? People branded “untouchable”?

    Haidt can be surprisingly bad at seeing this, or at least at mentioning it. But I’ve read only a little so far (I jumped ahead to 256), so maybe in this book he does better.