Guest post: Of gods and Midgard Serpents
Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on Calling all bullies.
To use my go-to example I see “god(s)” exactly the same way I (and practically everyone else) see the Midgard Serpent.
I don’t call myself an “amidgardserpentist”, so why should I call myself an “atheist”? If anyone honestly wants to know what I think, they’re going to have to stick around for the actual content. And if they don’t have time for that, then no real understanding is going to be conveyed by me giving them a label. This is also part of the reason* I no longer call myself a “feminist”. Julie Bindel and Laurie Penny are not different kinds of “feminists” any more than Kate Smurthwaite and Eddie Izzard are different kinds of “women”, or fruit bats and baseball bats are different kinds of “bats”. These are homonyms, not subsets of the same larger set. Saying that “feminism” is, say, “a movement that fights the oppression of women” doesn’t really tell us anything when we can’t even even agree on the meaning of “woman” or “oppression”.
A label can be a convenient description or an indication of affiliation
I think most people – including self-described “atheists” and “skeptics”** – naturally gravitate toward the latter interpretation. Taking a stand based on ideas, values, principles etc. requires a lot of tedious thinking and will not always align neatly with the views of your “friends” and “allies” (as someone once put it, where everyone is thinking the same, no one is doing much thinking at all). Going with whatever passes for the official “atheist™”, “feminist™”, “leftist™”, “progressive™” etc. position requires zero thinking and automatically puts you on the “right” side of every issue even if the “right” side today (“Four legs good, two legs better!”) is the polar opposite of what it was just yesterday (“Four legs good, two legs bad!”).
* Besides not wanting to come across as claiming to speak for women.
** As became abundantly clear during the Deep Rifts.
There are times where labels are unhelpful, but this attitude strikes me as rather arrogant. Professing that your views and thought processes are much too sophisticated to be pinned down, and implying that other people are too lazy to think for themselves and are following others instead of taking stands based on principles, values, etc.?
I feel comfortable calling myself atheist, feminist, progressive, without buying into all the nonsense that comes with those labels. My atheist position evolved over the years, as did my feminist and progressive positions, because I try to think things out (but like everyone else, I may be deluding myself that I think it out, because don’t we all think that?). Having a label is handy in a lot of situations, but too many people take it as a definer of everything you are. If you are a “skeptic”, you must agree with the position of the skeptic “community” that TWAW! No, I’m skeptical of that position. As a feminist, I realize that I disagree with other feminists on key issues sometimes.
The labels are handy indicators, but should not be seen as all I am, and I am okay about wearing labels as long as I am aware that they may fall off at times, or not describe me in some situations. No matter what one group of atheists believes (TWAW!), the only thing that defines me as an atheist is that I believe no gods exist. Therefore, when people want to know my religious beliefs, I will tell them atheist without a problem. If they think that tells them anything more than what I think about gods, they are wrong.
If I want to put a fine point on it, I’d call myself an apatheist, abs not even specify the gods I don’t care about. But people who want to please Midgard serpents don’t spend a lot of time trying to convince me I’ll care about them when I’m dead, nor do they try to pass laws trying to get me to spend money on snakepits nor bade my life on them. I’ve found calling myself an atheist is a definitive enough label that either gets people to stop bothering me, or engage in direct conversation.
Mike H, it’s definitely been useful for getting evangelicals off my porch (but not necessarily Mormons; they still seem to want to talk).
Screechy
The point I was trying to make was not that my “views and thought processes are much too sophisticated to be pinned down”, only that it takes more than a label. Even if your position is something as simple as “I don’t believe in god(s)”, you are not going to reliably get that across by calling yourself and “atheist” as the endless semantic dispute over “atheism” vs. “agnosticism” has shown.
Arrogant or not, I do think it’s accurate to say that people in general are intellectually lazy and that where they stand on a particular issue typically has a lot less to do with “taking stands based on principles, values, etc.” than considerations like
It’s called “leftism”, “feminism”, “progressive” etc.
The “right” people (i.e. my people) are endorsing it.
The “wrong” people are against it.
Etc.
But it’s true for just about everyone, you’re not special in that regard.
Most liberals have conservative views on a couple of issues, and vice versa. It doesn’t mean that the labels “conservative” and “liberal” are useless. They’re extraordinarily useful even if they don’t give you 100% certainty of a particular person’s views on every issue.
You’re letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. “Atheist” may not give you a comprehensive picture of my theological and philosophical views, but it gets you a good chunk of the way. That’s rather efficient for a single word. Which is handy, since I’m not usually inclined to engage people in an hour-long discussion on the nuances of my views, and very few people would be inclined to stick around for it even if I were.
@iknklast – Jehovah’ Witnesses will give up fairly easily because the training is geared for convincing Christians how their interpretation of the Bible is the better one. And they don’t know what to say to atheists.
Mike, I wouldn’t know about that. I will not allow Jehovah’s Witnesses even that much. My experience with them was…genuinely awful. When I was a teen, my dad was in the hospital after having tangled with a post hole digger. He had more than 100 stitches. My mom was trying to go to the hospital to visit (very limited visiting hours in those days) when a car of JWs pulled into the driveway; she couldn’t back out because of the way they parked. She told them her husband was in the hospital and they sympathized…and then proceeded to hold her there for nearly an hour giving her their spiel. It’s the first time I ever saw my mother be polite when someone was in her way, but it made a negative impression on me. I don’t go near ’em, and I don’t let ’em near me. My door closes with a nice, definitive click.
Screechy @ 6 –
Then what on earth are you doing here??!!
Badum tish. That’s a joke but not entirely. I suppose this is why I like blogging: in real life people generally don’t spend hours talking about their views, but in online life you can, because anyone who is bored can just disappear, as opposed to having to shift from foot to foot and think of a polite exit line.
Screechy
Again, my purpose wasn’t to make a point of my own superiority or specialness*. It’s not at all obvious to me that those kinds of labels do more good than harm, especially since they too often become tribal “identities”, and siding with one’s fellow label-wearers too often becomes an end in itself, even long after the actual content of the label has mutated into its polar opposite (actively opposing any effort to stand up for the rights and interests of biological females in the name of “feminism”, condemning same-sex attraction in the name of “LGBT rights” etc.).
Re “hour-long discussion on the nuances of my views**”, my original post did contain the caveat “If anyone honestly wants to know what I think”. If they don’t, I’m certainly not going to force anyone into a conversation on the topic.
* For whatever it’s worth, I have ended up on the opposite side of my former “friends” and “allies” twice in just the last decade or so, first during “Elevatorgate”/”The Anti-Harassment Policy Wars”, and then again during the Gender Wars.
**On the specific topic of “god(s)”, I think I could get pretty far in one minute.
I think “atheist” plus a couple of specifics works for me in most cases. Maybe answering questions. It might take all of fifteen seconds.
I don’t think “feminist” is appropriate for me, for a variety of reasons including being male, so I don’t have as concise an answer for “are you a feminist?”. I do say I hold views that are largely consistent with radical feminism. (“What are those?” That’ll take a couple of minutes, maybe.)
This, to me, is usually a better framing: “My views are consistent with…” versus “I am…”. This way, it’s about what I think, rather than some kind of essence of my self. I do that sometimes with atheism as well: “I don’t think any gods exist, I think the concept is incoherent” versus “I don’t believe in gods” versus “I am an atheist” (“oh, you hate God?”). But some labels are better understood than others.
I certainly don’t think “anti-trans” applies, for many reasons. I have said I hold “gender critical” views, but most people have no clue what that means, or else they translate it to “anti-trans”, so I don’t do that as much as I used to, except among those who know what it means.
I don’t think my views are particularly complicated or special in any way. I just like to be understood, even though I fail at that too often.
I’ve often made the point myself that adopting a label often conditions one to try to maximize one’s embodiment of or conformity to that label. It’s especially true of converts and anyone involved in a movement or “community”. I take great care with the labels I apply to myself for this reason.
That said, this just means that labels are powerful, not that they lack utility. No such argument can be made, as far as I’m aware, that doesn’t also apply to language more generally, and to argue that adjectives, adverbs, nouns, verbs, etc. are not useful is prima facie absurd.
Personaly I make the distinction between what I call myself and what I acknowledge about myself.
If I am asked to give some kind of description of myself, I don’t include my atheism, because it isn’t that important to me. But if someone would ask if I was an atheist, I would certainly confirm that. If someone would ask for my religious affiliation, I would probably answer that I am an atheist.