Author: Ophelia Benson

I’ve just read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. I know, I know, you all read it two years ago, where have I been – well I meant to read it but didn’t get to it, but I spotted it at the library the other day and grabbed it.

Absolutely extraordinary novel. Shockingly readable, for one thing, in the way thrillers are supposed to be but mostly (for me) aren’t, and also fascinating in multiple ways.

Consider item (or entry or chapter) 181 for instance. It starts ‘I see everything’ then goes on to enumerate the detail with which Christopher does indeed see and notice, if not everything, at least a great deal more than non-autistic people do.

That is why I don’t like new places. If I am in a place I know, like home, or school, or the bus, or the shop, or the street, I have seen almost everything in it beforehand and all I have to do is look at the things that have changed or moved.

That’s a deeply interesting observation all by itself – and it’s just one piece of the four page entry.

But most people are lazy. They never look at everything. They do what is called glancing, which is the same word for bumping off something and carrying on in almost the same direction, e.g., when a snooker ball glances off another snooker ball. And the information in their head is really simple.

Then he describes what we see or notice if we’re in ‘the countryside,’ and it’s all generalities – grass, some cows, some flowers, a few clouds, a village, a fence; then he gives just a sample of the detail with which he sees the same thing. It’s fascinating because in one way (or perhaps several ways) our way is the ‘right’ way or at least better, and obviously so – just for one thing he doesn’t enjoy the process, it’s overwhelming; that is, as he says, why he doesn’t like new places. But in another way clearly he has a powerful ability that we just don’t have. We’re lazy. We don’t think of it that way of course, and rightly so, in a sense – we’re not lazy, we’re selective, and we need to be; most of the time we need to select out excess detail and just take in generalities. But – it is at least interesting to think of it as lazy.

Christopher concludes 181 with

And that is why I am good at chess and maths and logic, because most people are almost blind and they don’t see most things and there is lots of spare capacity in their heads and it is filled with things which aren’t connected and are silly, like ‘I’m worried that I might have left the gas cooker on.’

We’re lazy and we’re almost blind; we don’t see most things.

My first impulse when I read that was to think yes but our mental lives are much richer because our minds can wander and we can imagine and daydream. But then my second impulse was to second-guess that thought, to realize that yes that kind of mental life seems preferable and richer to us because that is the kind of mental life we have (and thus prefer); and Christopher does find much of the world intensely aversive. But all the same, it’s a trade-off. We’re not good at logic, which means we’re not good at various kinds of highly useful thinking.

My next thought was that probably many people think of other people who do value reason and logic as being like Christopher – skilled (if they are) but profoundly impoverished. Not that I didn’t know that, of course, it’s just that that passage is a brilliant illustration of it.

And the whole novel is full of things like that. That one is perhaps my favourite, but there are lots more. An amazing book.

Peter Tatchell asks some pointed questions.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has executed three more Arab political prisoners…There have been no protests from Britain, the EU or the UN. The UN’s silence comes on top of the truly appalling vote by UN Human Rights Council to abandon its monitoring of human rights abuses in Iran…While condemning Israel for abusing the Palestinian people, Arab states are silent about the abuse of fellow Arabs by the Iranian regime. The anti-imperialist left is also mute. Why the double standards? Palestinian Arabs get the support of progressives and radicals everywhere; Iranian Arabs get no support at all. They swing from nooses in public squares like cattle hanging in an abattoir. Does anyone care? Ahwazi Arabs accuse Tehran of Persian chauvinism, racism and ethnic cleansing, as I previously revealed in Tribune. The response to that article from some Islamists, left-wingers and anti-war activists was to denounce me as racist and anti-Muslim. But how can it be Islamophobic or racist to defend Arab Muslims against Tehran’s persecution?

Ummmmmm…because by criticizing Iran you are playing into the hands of the neocons who want to bomb the bejeezus out of it? Yeah, that’s it. The neocons, pleased with the triumph in Iraq, want to carry on the good work in Iran, therefore – therefore, I say – Iran’s repressive reactionary government can do no wrong, and anyone who says it can is (of course) racist and anti-Muslim – not to mention ‘Islamophobic.’

Quite rightly, most Arabs do not support a US attack on Iran. Military intervention would strengthen the position of the hardliners in Tehran; allowing President Ahmadinejad to play the nationalist card and, using the pretext of defending the country against imperialism, to further crack down on dissent. Many Ahwazis believe the route to liberation is an internal “people power” alliance of Iranian socialists, liberals, democrats, students, trade unionists and minority nationalities.

And outsiders can give moral support and publicity, just as they did with apartheid.

Some anti-war leftists refuse to condemn the Tehran dictatorship and refuse to support the Iranian resistance; arguing that to do so would play into the hands of the US neocons and militarists. I disagree. Opposing imperialism and defending human rights are complementary, not contradictory.

Yeah. Third Camp, you see. It opposes both US militarism and Islamism.

As we saw, Matthew Nisbet cites Paul Kurtz as someone whose lead he is following when he says things like ‘Messages must be positive and respect diversity…[M]any scientists not only fail to think strategically about how to communicate on evolution, but belittle and insult others’ religious beliefs.’ A helpful commenter on his Kurtz post pointed out a recent editorial by Kurtz in Free Inquiry – from the February/March 2007 issue, it was.

The fact that books by Dawkins and Harris have made it to The New York Times best-seller list has apparently sent chills down the spines of many commentators; not only conservative religionists but also some otherwise liberal secularists are worried about this unexpected development. We note that the people now being attacked are affiliated with FREE INQUIRY and the Center for Inquiry. The editors of FREE INQUIRY, of course, are gratified that the views espoused in these pages have received a wider forum. What disturbs us is the preposterous outcry that atheists are “evangelical” and that they have gone too far in their criticism of religion.

Really? The public has been bombarded by pro-religious propaganda from time immemorial—today it comes from pulpits across the land, TV ministries, political hucksters, and best-selling books…Until now, it has been virtually impossible to get a fair hearing for critical comment upon uncontested religious claims. It was considered impolite, in bad taste, and it threatened to raise doubts about God’s existence or hegemony. I have often said that it is as if an “iron curtain” had descended within America, for skeptics have discovered that the critical examination of religion has been virtually verboten. We have experienced firsthand how journalists and producers have killed stories about secular humanism for fear of offending the little old ladies and gentlemen in the suburbs, conservative advertisers, the Catholic hierarchy, or right-wing fundamentalists.

For skeptics have discovered that the critical examination of religion has been virtually verboten. Exactly. This is what I’m saying.

Science columnist William J. Broad, in a piece published earlier this year in the Times…, criticized both Daniel C. Dennett and Edward O. Wilson (another Center for Inquiry stalwart)…Broad faults E.O. Wilson for writing in an earlier book (Consilience) that “the insights of neuroscience and evolution . . . increasingly can illuminate even morality and ethics, with the scientific findings potentially leading ‘more directly and safely to stable moral codes’ than do the dictates of God’s will or the findings of transcendentalism.” Broad remonstrates against such views, maintaining that they exhibit “a kind of arrogance,” and he likewise recommends that scientists declare a truce in their critiques of religion. To which I reply that it is important that we apply scientific inquiry as best we can to all areas of human behavior, including religion and ethics. I fail to see why it is “arrogant” to attempt to do so.

Because…because…well because it alienates fellow citizens.

We note that the National Review and the Jewish Forward are also worried by “militant secularists” who question established religions—they were objecting to an advertisement the Center for Inquiry/Transnational ran on the op-ed page of The New York Times (November 15, 2006), headlined “In Defense of Science and Secularism.” We think it appropriate to defend the integrity of science and the importance of secularism at a time when both are under heavy attack…But why should the nonreligious, nonaffiliated, secular minority in the country remain silent? We dissenters now comprise some 14 to 16 percent of the population. Why should religion be held immune from criticism, and why should the admission that one is a disbeliever be considered so disturbing?…Given all these facts, why should the criticism of religion provoke such an outcry?

Read the whole thing, as the saying goes. It’s very unNisbetesque.