Coming from a seemingly intelligent woman, the assertion that logic, rationality and empiricism may be at the root of misogyny, is a bit unsettling. Kathryn Lofton, in her post So you want to be a new atheist, over at The Immanent Frame blog seems to be implying exactly that.
Lofton finds the New Atheists annoying - a bunch of know-it-all loudmouths whose style may be even more obnoxious than the substance they promulgate. She finds them arrogant, cynical, evangelical in their fervor and also curiously enough, perfectionists who want to help people. She however does not consider their social conscience an entirely wholesome trait. Lofton suspects that there is a conquest like quality to their outreach and beneath their desire to help may lurk an intention to persuade. (What a surprise!)
If you want to be a New Atheist, first and foremost, you need to possess an unrelenting desire to help. The desire may seem at times cruel, but you have to start focusing on a higher good: the goal here is to get the cannibals to put down their wafer and wine glass. It’s not for your wellness, but for the good of mankind. As Georgetown University professor John Haught wrote in his diagnosis of the New Atheists, “To know with such certitude that religion is evil, one must first have already surrendered one’s heart and mind to what is unconditionally good.” The New Atheists may wrap themselves in torn one-liners and haggard scientism, but beneath their cynical swaddle there lies a charming Perfectionism.
The main target of Lofton's derision and despair seems to be the comedian Bill Maher and his anti-religion movie, Religulous. It is not that hard to rip apart a stand up comic who opposes organized religion as well as vaccination. But in pointing to Maher's loose lips and fuzzy logic, Lofton also takes a swipe at Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens whose arguments against faith based social and political systems are a little better thought out and substantive. It is perfectly alright for Lofton or anyone else for that matter, to take issue with the tone that many among the so called New Atheists adopt while making their case. But it would better help the cause of the religionists to also point out the flaws in their arguments and not just in their character.
The nature of the conversation between the religious camp and the New Atheists has by now become quite familiar and predictable to those who have been paying some attention. It reminds me of the different agenda that a restaurant critic and a nutritionist bring to the table when talking about food. One focuses on the mouth watering quality of a 16 oz steak, the butter dripping crab legs, the fatty lamb biriyani and the decadent dessert immaculately prepared and presented by expert chefs and polished waiters. The other comes across as an earnest killjoy who urges you to eat your whole grains and veggies and then alarms you by warning that overindulgance in the delicious fare recommended by the gourmet foodie, poses the risk of developing clogged arteries, a sluggish liver, a ravaged kidney and extra pounds around your midriff. And the pleasurable torpor you feel after that rich meal is actually a sign of reduced energy. I have so far not heard a fine food aficionado clash with a nutritionist on the grounds that the latter has a shrill, strident style and wants to deprive others of the joys of feasting. But defenders of religion like Lofton and Karen Armstrong and the not-quite-pro-religion-but-getting-there types like Terry Eagleton invariably attack atheists for their lack of charm, style, empathy and another nebulous quality (I think of it as *mysterianism*) which keeps them from fully appreciating the true nature of religion. In the first part of her article Lofton sticks to that formula. Toward the end however, she introduces a new accusation that I have not until now seen hurled at the new (or old) atheists.
What is religion? The New Atheists reply, with clarion diagnostic consistency: Religion is something that sells you something invisible so you may feel that which you cannot find elsewhere. It is something for which there is insufficient evidence. It is something people do because they have always done it, not because they know how to think about it. Religion is irrational, it is emotional, and it is instinctual. Religion enslaves you with its wiles, then forgets to remove the handcuffs. It is the fortune teller reading entrails, not the captain consulting his compass. It massages and preys and toys and plays and screws you over, time and again, with a promise it won’t keep because of its irrationality and its whimsy. Religion is a know-at-all with no knowledge. It makes “a virtue out of not thinking.” Religion is cutting the hedge repeatedly around an erection. Religion is, it turns out, a lot like a girl.
Religion as effeminacy is nothing new. Nor indeed is the accusation that religion is socially sanctioned lunacy. Treating it as a neurological disorder, however, sets the New Atheists within a long tradition of critical misogyny. Under the guise of protecting your children, in the effort to best serve your sweet flock of idiots, if you want to be a New Atheist you have reclaimed a New Virility to counter your post-industrial emasculation. This virility plays out in demonstrations of protective strength, plowing away at the big two nemeses (Christianity and Islam) in the interest of protecting the little guy. It is also exhibited in grand tours of scientific proof, or plodding expulsions of religious duplicity.
Wait a minute! Have atheists and skeptics ever said that religion is like a girl? (Not that there is anything wrong with being a girl) Or that believing in unverifiable myths for comfort is exclusively a womanly quality? Have atheists refused to admit women into their fold? Do they claim that women are genetically incapable of possessing rational minds? On the other hand, organized religion has diligently kept women out of leadership roles through much of history. So, the charge of misogyny from a defender of "faith" sounds strange.
Unless the New Atheists have categorically called religion a girlish pursuit or religious males girly men, (Lofton does not say that they have) it is plausible that it is Lofton herself who conflates irrationality and emotionalism with feminine traits and critical thinking and reason with manly characteristics. She may have again confused style with substance. After all, the majority of the high profile and vocal atheists in the public square are all males. Most of them also assume a combative stance while arguing their points of view. Even if Lofton considers the New Atheists arrogant, self absorbed and boorish, based on her opinion of their discursive temperaments, where did she get misogyny? Perhaps in her eagerness to condemn, Lofton uses the red herring of misogyny without any supporting evidence because it fits the rest of her perception of the atheists. Are some atheists women haters? Of course. Could there be a few among the ones she names? Possible. But it has nothing to do with critical thinking which does not bar women from becoming practitioners. And what is the score in the department of misogyny on the religious side? Start your count with the priestly class and the orthodox.
Whom does Lofton think she is kidding with her innuendo about misogyny and atheism? It is particularly galling coming from someone who is presumably a spokesperson for religion. The sacred bastion of virility, organized religion, is thickly populated by misogynistic power hungry males and at least in the Abrahamic tradition, god too is a masculine deity whose behavior is akin to that of an old fashioned patriarch - one who protects, smites and slays at whim. Whereas misogyny can often be a product of politics, commerce and other secular cultural traditions, I doubt that women have been more systematically and ritually degraded within the realm of any other human enterprise than that of organized religion. Only religion explicitly sanctions misogyny. Think Adam's Rib, eater of the forbidden fruit, the temptress, the virgin who is to be alternately worshiped and sacrificed, the ideal of the Sati, stoning to death of an adulteress, the unclean half of the population which menstruates and undergoes messy child birth... on and on ad nauseum. Now Lofton tells us that the source of misogyny actually lies in empiricism and scientific enquiry. Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather!
[thanks to Prasad for the pointer]
Last night I attended a stunning performance of Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus, a two-hour solo piano essay on imagined glances at its eponymous hero. More than a simple "Jesus loves me, this I know" nursery rhyme indoctrination, the Messiaen is religious music. The work isn't merely inspired by doctrines of an organized religion. It is a meditation on religious, irrational, miraculous phenomena, real or hypothetical or hallucinated, and an attempt to express those phenomena in sound. Hearing it in ignorance of its thematic program, one might nevertheless enjoy its "pure" musical drama. But following the program enhances the musical experience, begins to explain it, to locate and identify areas of mystery in human experience heretofore tended largely, but not exclusively, by religion.
Did I attend a "faith based" concert last night? Hell, no! That epithet, Ruchira, is telling. To respect religion (and I use that verb carefully, emphasizing the spectral significance apropos of Vingt regards) is not to condone a particular policy or politics. One of my problems with Dawkins et al. is precisely that they often let the politics or epistemology of religion stand for the whole. It hardly matters to me that Messiaen may have been deluded in his faith. It doesn't matter that he could not have been genuinely inspired when he composed. Regardless of the biographical facts, the piece works as a meditation on certain remarkable imagined phenomena.
Now take your example of the critic and the nutritionist. It gives a good idea of the heat of the dispute, but exactly misses the point. Neither the critic nor the nutritionist holds that food ought to be abolished. Both acknowledge, but each has a different approach to securing its benefits. As for style, it isn't the nutritionist who's likely to deserve condemnation. Food writers tend to be the bad stylists. But if your metaphor doesn't precisely map to the dispute, that doesn't mean Dawkins et al. shouldn't be taken to task for protesting too much. The criticism of their style goes to the diminished persuasiveness of their arguments, not to the merit of their substance. "Two plus two f---ing equals four, you cretin!" is mathematically sound, but stylistically askew.
Nor does the fact that religion is traditionally misogynist immunize atheism against the same charge. Judging from the two quoted paragraphs, Lofton evidently skips a few steps. The muscle-flexing and paternalism, the hammering away with half-baked medical diagnoses (Hitchens is probably the best source for these), are not unlike the tactics used against female mystics. I see what she's after, even if she doesn't elaborate. She's saying that opponents of religion (or whatever it is they're opposing) first subtly insinuate gender into the terms of the argument, and then dispense with the side gendered female. It's a crude template for an analysis that could be refined. It's also irresponsible to state it as crudely as Lofton evidently has, like wondering whether Dawkins no longer beats his wife. But Lofton doesn't have to have effected the conflation of emotion with girls and reason with boys. There's a legacy from which to draw for that, and one hardly needs to say anything to invoke it.
Posted by: Dean C. Rowan | December 06, 2009 at 02:18 PM
Dean, don't go mysterian on me!
We have had this conversation before so I won't sweat the details of where I exactly stand - it may not be where you think it is. My comment here is only about the New Atheists and their vocal opponents like Lofton. I did not have in mind others who have a more nuanced take on either side. As for neither foodies nor nutritionists calling for the abolishment of food, we know why the ban will be harmful for the human race. We have no similar evidence for religion. (Don't go back to telling me about the exquisite music, art, literature etc. that could not have been possible without religion. I have long ago answered why that's a fallacy. Hint: Think market trends.)
I am not defending the "style" of the New Atheists. "Two plus two f---ing equals four, you cretin!" is not a pedagogic or discursive methodology I find attractive. Neither do I care if a piece of religious music is inspired by true or fake devotion. As you said, the beauty and the mystery it evokes is for me to figure out. Similarly, it doesn't much worry me if Ditchens et al, are jerks. I am concerned about the core idea in their argument. Are they asking the right questions in a conversation that the world ought to have had long ago?
Nor does the fact that religion is traditionally misogynist immunize atheism against the same charge.
Never said it does. Neither did I say that atheists cannot be misogynists. The question is do critical thinking and rationalism "cause" misogyny. Lofton seems to imply a cause and effect.
But Lofton doesn't have to have effected the conflation of emotion with girls and reason with boys. There's a legacy from which to draw for that, and one hardly needs to say anything to invoke it.
True. But have the Ditchens explicitly claimed that? Or is it her own projection arising out of her preconceived notion of how the world views masculine and feminine traits?
Posted by: Ruchira | December 06, 2009 at 04:08 PM
Judging from Lofton's description, she applies to it all the negative aspects for which women have been castigated and ridiculed: irrational,emotional,instinctual, enslaves you with its wiles, then forgets to remove the handcuffs. ...the fortune teller reading entrails, not the captain consulting his compass... massages and preys and toys and plays and screws you over, time and again, with a promise it won’t keep because of its irrationality and its whimsy... a know-at-all with no knowledge... makes “a virtue out of not thinking.” ...cutting the hedge repeatedly around an erection.(-Have no idea what this means, if someone would kindly explain!)... a lot like a girl.
Wow, I see a misogynist, and it isn't Dawkins, Hitchens et al. Sadly enough, it's Ms.Lofton, if that's what she conceives women to be. There's another fault much ascribed to women: Projection. Sarah Palin is a genius at it, and Lofton isn't far behind.
Posted by: Sujatha | December 06, 2009 at 05:24 PM
I, too, had hoped to avoid revisiting past polemics, but I have to do so for the sake of clarity. The Vingt regards could not have occurred without religion, period. Would it have been "possible"? Sure, but that's a possibility out of science fiction. My point is that the Messiaen is distinctively religious. Religion is an essential, inescapable part of the historical context of its composition and appreciation. We can pretend it's just pretty music, but that would be as irrational as pretending it can actually allow us to glimpse the infant Jesus. Why "just as irrational"? Because if it's irrational to ignore the evidence that there cannot have been a divine Jesus, let alone transcendent opportunities to catch a gander of him, it's also irrational to ignore the evidence that the piece is motivated by attention to religious themes and phenomena, that understanding the musical meaning and effect requires acknowledging the religious underpinnings. One could use market trend talk to account for the trendiness of certain varieties of religious-themed music, such as all the deplorable New Age dreck, replete with glissando harps and synthesized choirs of angels, but market talk does not explain Messiaen (except perhaps for the fact that he cashed his royalty checks). There are certainly market forces to explore with respect to, say, Bach's sacred output. But so what? Markets don't trump religions just because an economist says they do, and they certainly won't help the interested listener understand the music. At most, they help us understand the product. Along these lines, I acknowledge that I frankly don't care all that much about music. I'm more interested in playing records. But when I do care just a bit about music, I'm not much interested in the market demand it supplies.
The point about the gendered aspect of the New Atheists' arguments doesn't depend on an explicit claim. I wouldn't expect Hitchens to proclaim, "The faithful are ridiculous, just like women." On second thought...
Posted by: Dean C. Rowan | December 06, 2009 at 06:25 PM
Oh for Christ's sake this is still all about style not objective content as the writer claims! I like a lot of Bob Marley's music; it hardly follows that I must somehow celebrate the tyrant Selassie as the second coming. I am an atheist. There is no more reason to expect me to be uncertain in that conviction than there is to expect the devout to question God. I have no truck with conversion because I frankly don't give a damn what anyone thinks on this subject.
Posted by: Erich Russell | December 06, 2009 at 07:11 PM
So Dean, you agree with Lofton that the New Atheists do indeed believe that women may be inferior creatures and they could also possibly be incapable of rational thought? Lofton goes a step further. She seems to also imply that scientific enquiry being inherently a male attribute actually makes those enquiring, anti-women. Do you also make the same "cause and effect" leap of Olympian heights?
I think you have misunderstood / misinterpreted so much of my earlier "polemics" that I don't know if I can cover all the ground to dispel your suspicions. I will give it one more shot, briefly, as best as I can.
That much of art, music and literature in human history is inspired by religion is uncontroversial. I agree with that totally. But if you say that religion is essential for great art, music or literature, I beg to differ. Most of human creative endeavor, be it art or science, is for the most part an effort to understand our own selves and the world around us. For much of human civilization, until very recently, the answers to many of those questions were provided by religion. Religion was in fact the only game in town. Which is what I meant by "market trends" and not the cashing of the check. Artists re-created and interpreted the world around them as they understood it and much of that understanding came from formal religion. So it is hardly an anomaly that they turned to religious myths, symbols and rituals for inspiration. But if you step across the familiar line, beyond the influence of western thought, Christianity in particular, you may find that in cultures whose philosophies were not so rigidly bound by a theistic interpretation of the world, art tended to be not so faith centric as in the European way. Chinese and Japanese art, until the advent of Buddhism (and even after that) focused much more on nature without an excessive dependence on religious iconography because their cultures related far more closely to the natural world and human relations on earth.
It is not a coincidence that as our understanding of the world has gradually moved away from the religious interpretation to the scientific one, the preponderance of religious themes too has ebbed in creative output, be it music, art or literature. So if you wish to tell me that no great art is or could have been possible without a grounding in religion, I do not agree. Art has been created from the well spring of many other human emotions. Love, hate, sexual attraction, anger and patriotism, all have given rise to art and continue to do so. Those for whom religion remains a core emotional filter for relating to the world, will continue to find creative energies there. For others, it comes from elsewhere.
Posted by: Ruchira | December 07, 2009 at 12:03 AM
Dean, the 'Vingt Regards' piece that you speak of as flowing from religious inspiration: when I listen to the following part, I can clearly make out the allusions to the Hindustani raag Bhairav in the opening lines. Messiaen used lots of other influences: Hindustani music, birdsong, Indonesian gamelans (in the latter half of the above piece). in his work, not merely the inspiration from his religion. The overall form and presentation may be claimed to be religious, but I don't think you could say that the vision of Baby Jesus inspired Messiaen to add random lines of Hindustani musical scales to the piece.
Another lighter and altogether more coherent rendition of the Raag Bhairav, with possibly not much divine inspiration (Hindu style bhajan, composed by a Muslim composer, sung by a Hindu, picturised with a Muslim actress- the forces of the marketplace at work)
Posted by: Sujatha | December 07, 2009 at 05:42 AM
So Dean, you agree with Lofton that the New Atheists do indeed believe that women may be inferior creatures and they could also possibly be incapable of rational thought? It has nothing to do with what the NAs believe or claim to believe. Sexism, like racism, doesn't operate as a matter of personal preference. Few of us who participate in a system of sexist devaluation of half of the population's contributions to our estimable goals believe we are, personally, sexist. I think Lofton may have a point in asking the NAs to examine their own high-handed rhetoric and their paternalist, priestly ambitions, but I don't think she has made her point well. That counts for irony.
But if you say that religion is essential for great art... Nope. I'm merely acknowledging that the greatness of some art resides, at least partly, in its relationship to religious concerns. To claim, now that we are or ought to be fully enlightened, that we can and should now tend to those works by diminishing the relevance of religion to them is absurd. Of course there are artistic pursuits almost completely devoid of religious matter. Of course there are entire cultures of artistic production that have no bearing no religion.
It stacks the deck to claim that religion once answered questions about ourselves and our world. To hold religion to such a standard is to neglect its essential fallibility. It's at least as fair to say that religion has prompted the questions but left them unanswered. Religion is one vehicle for addressing uncertainty and fear. It hasn't dispelled either. Neither has a scientific interpretation, except respecting uncertainty in a trivial sense. For the purposes of art, each offers a fund of--if you insist on using this loaded word--inspiration.
Marvelous links, Sujatha. The Aimard is right out of the concert Saturday night. Baiju Bawra will be added to my want list of records to play. I think there is a Bhairav among Nikhil Banerjee's recordings, too. You, too, invoke inspiration, a word that makes me uncomfortable, because it treats the inspiring element as "out there," an active force that fills and constrains a passive artist. I'd prefer to regard religious themes as objects of the artist's work, topics of artistic contemplation and elaboration. You are correct, I trust, about Messiaen's cosmopolitan musical tastes. I'm familiar with his cataloging of bird sounds, but I wasn't aware of his tapping of Eastern musics. None of this discredits the obvious religious significance of this particular work.
Posted by: Dean C. Rowan | December 07, 2009 at 01:16 PM
Sexism, like racism, doesn't operate as a matter of personal preference. Few of us who participate in a system of sexist devaluation of half of the population's contributions to our estimable goals believe we are, personally, sexist. I think Lofton may have a point in asking the NAs to examine their own high-handed rhetoric and their paternalist, priestly ambitions, but I don't think she has made her point well. That counts for irony.
The NAs may well all be misogynists. I am not here to bat for their personal proclivities.
My central question here remains whether rationalism or atheism can be the cause of the high handed priestly ambitions and paternalism of the NAs as Lofton seems to imply. Or are they too drinking from the same cultural trough of unconscious misogyny that everyone else is?
Enjoy Baiju Bawra.
Posted by: Ruchira | December 07, 2009 at 01:31 PM
I don't read the cause-effect relationship you ascribe to Lofton's thesis in the quoted paragraphs. At most she is accusing the NAs of using a rationalist cover ("grand tours of scientific proof") to disguise their impure purposes. That they proclaim their reliance on rational thought doesn't mean they're actually being rational or doing it well. There are countless examples of purportedly rational endeavors that turn out not to have been salutary: eugenics, Larry Summers' musings about women in academia, industrial mass production...
Put it this way: were I a committed atheist--I suppose I am atheist, but I really don't care much about the question--I might be uptight about how the NAs were representing and publicizing my position.
Posted by: Dean C. Rowan | December 07, 2009 at 02:15 PM
Like you, I am not a committed atheist, in the sense that utter indifference to the question of god / no god is my default mode. I do not consider Ditchens my spokespersons. I made up my own mind long ago. Eugenics was a horrendous experiment. So are sharia laws, caste system and the pre-20th century status (actually, even well into the 20th century) of women all over the world, based mostly on religious laws. Musings about women in academia by Larry Summers may have much less to do with rationality as it probably does with old fashioned machismo. Industrial mass production on the other hand, has been a boon for developing nations who cannot afford the luxury of cottage industry. Trust me, I know. Exploitation of labor may still be a concern (to do with age old greed and not rationality) but that was the case even when mom and pop were running the businesses.
However, the ignorance and tyranny of organized religion, especially when it interferes with the law, science education and other public matters IS a source of great annoyance for me, not because I object to anyone having religion but because I believe religious beliefs should be a mostly private issue. I therefore take the NAs for what they do, not how they do it. If they are forcing the public to pay attention, that is good. If they are pissing off the religionists who have held exclusive sway on the public stage until now, so be it. The conversation is what matters to me and I hope that other more polished voices on the side of rationality will feel emboldened to reinforce the point they are making. Two plus two will continue to make four, no matter how colorful or quiet the voices saying it.
Posted by: Ruchira | December 07, 2009 at 03:06 PM
I'm with you respecting the conversation, but you leave out an important scenario: how the NAs do whatever they do might discourage fence-sitters whose opposition to the encroachment of organized religion in public education would be beneficial. And organized religion? That's but a smidgen of what I've intended by religion above. Messiaen did not compose a tribute to the Catholic Church. Nor is it quite fair to complain, "But religions do it, too!" That's no excuse, and it's beside the point.
Posted by: Dean C. Rowan | December 07, 2009 at 03:41 PM
More on this at 3 Quarks Daily.
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/12/critical-thinking-may-lead-to-misogyny.html
Posted by: Ruchira | December 09, 2009 at 10:15 AM
Wow. And I thought we were dilating the conversation just a wee bit excessively! I want to cross wires and confuse the 2.0 schema by posting here a comment on prasad's comment there at 5:37:57. (You can look it up.) First, re: b*tches, of course there are variations and nuances of meanings of words among competing demographics. It is insufficient that some people regard a term as endearing or gender neutral to divest that term of its malicious significance for others. Are people your age, prasad, unaware of the fact that there are in the world people of a different age who might reasonably discern a self-important "attitude" in the public display of the t-short motto? Can I get away with saying just anything because members of my club understand that it's code for something innocuous? Of course not. Personally, I think it's cute that some folks enjoy the humor of the juxtaposition of a word denoting a lofty enterprise and an expletive.
As for Lofton's perception of squishy, flimsy, negative traits as female, isn't this a case of killing the messenger? There is a huge literature, call it feminist, much of it produced during the last half of the former century, that documents and strives to explain the pervasiveness of these attributions. Take, for instance, Dee Garrison's "The Tender Technicians: The Feminization of Public Librarianship, 1876-1905," published in 1973 in the Journal of Social History. (Garrison died earlier this year.) It begins, "The law of nature destines and qualifies the female sex for the bearing and nurture of the children of our race and for the custody of the homes of the world." She is quoting an 1875 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling prohibiting women's admission to the bar. Is Garrison herself "subconsciously attributing" the Wisconsin court's perceptions to women? How can we know? And even if she is, does it matter?
Posted by: Dean C. Rowan | December 09, 2009 at 01:25 PM
Dean,
It is insufficient that some people regard a term as endearing or gender neutral to divest that term of its malicious significance for others.
I should have thought my point was obvious - a previous commenter on that thread had pointed out "Science. It works bitches!" as an example of latent misogyny among many nerds and scientists. I mentioned that the quote (well known in nerdy circles) comes from an xkcd strip, whose author has defended that strip precisely in the terms I outlined as *not* meaning to his audience what it might mean to other audiences, that this author has further expressed unerringly liberal and decent sentiments about women and science etc.
Once I've said that the word needn't mean the same thing to his audience it means broadly, I claim the relevant part of the word choice to the nexus of (ir)religion, scientists and nerdiness, women and misogyny has been explicated. The further deep questions you pose about how and whether and by whom offensive words may be used are more generic, and to my knowledge have nothing specific to do with the already diffuse topics we were dealing with on that thread - for each offensive word, and every dodgy use of it you might pose the same questions quite unmodified.
I suspect that the reason the participants in the that thread didn't take me to task for calling women bitches or something is that that wasn't the point being made.
Posted by: prasad | December 09, 2009 at 08:29 PM
To come at it from a related angle, if I were discussing with someone the appropriateness of calling something unfortunate or uncool 'gay', say whether otherwise non-homophobic people should be comfortable with using or listening to gay-meaning-lame, I'd have to think about questions of the sort you raise.
If instead someone said, "behold homophobic X [aged 17] who calls his poor homework grade gay", I'd say merely that people in that demographic frequently do (whether or not they should) use that word that way without necessarily meaning anything bigoted by it. The questions you raise would remain important, just tangential.
Posted by: prasad | December 09, 2009 at 08:49 PM
PZ pointed me here and I'm glad he did. As a vocal female New Atheist, thank you. We are obviously here, even if we are not yet at the top echelon of name-dropping atheists :) Far from being excluded from participating in the conversation, in general* I have found myself being welcomed in atheist circles. I hear, "How do we get more women atheists?" far more often than I hear "Religion is a girl." (Also, atheist men don't seem to have the knee-jerk distrust of all things female.0
* There was one douche nozzle, but you'll find a troll anywhere so I don't hold atheists as-a-whole responsible. That'd be all emotional and silly of me.
Posted by: Angie the Anti-Theist | December 09, 2009 at 10:33 PM
LIBERATION!
Sing from the rooftops:
"Atheism is dead!"
http://www.conspiracycafe.net/forum/index.php?/topic/25104-atheist-apocalypse/page__pid__117856_
Posted by: atheismisdead | December 09, 2009 at 10:45 PM
as I said on your blog...
angie you are deluded woman looking for some serious problems...and that goes for the rest of you fools...
Posted by: davidmabus | December 10, 2009 at 03:56 AM
Prasad,
I must be missing your point by a wide margin. I am familiar with the xkcd strip and the t-shirt. I knew of it prior to reading the thread. I recognized the context of your explication. But your discussion and examples above do nothing to help me understand. They merely repeat the error I indicate: you're trying to suggest that it's perfectly fine to cabin the significance of an expression by almost algorithmically specifying its exclusive audience, and you're expecting those outside the audience who respond negatively to its utterance to recognize that algorithm's operation. Why is the appropriateness of the use of a word only legitimately a topic for discussion when it is explicitly so, and why is somebody who utters an offending word relieved of responsibility for saying it if he simply explains that his intended (as opposed to actual) audience would never regard it in that way. You would "have to think about the questions of the sort" I raise only when you "were discussing with someone" its appropriateness, but not when, for instance, somebody merely unwittingly paraded it around on a shirt and then wondered why some segment of the viewing public took offense at it. Your point seems to be that the person who took offense should be enlightened about the common reception of the word among another portion of the population.
Or maybe your point is that it's one thing to examine the appropriate use of a word, another to explain how and why some people use it. But surely the ways in which people use offensive words include: unwittingly, negligently, insensitively, without regard for the likelihood that others will take it not in the way the speaker's own cohort would. I don't see how this possibility is tangential when the provoking circumstance was Vicki at 3QD, who commented that the t-shirt affected her negatively. It expressed "attitude."
Why is this mind-numbing nit-picking about semantics even relevant to the original post? I think because Ruchira distinguishes Bill Maher, a so-so comedian with a compulsion to advertise weird opinions, and Dawkins et al., whose arguments "are a little better thought out," yet whose "tone" is equally off-putting, and she urges us to look beyond the tone. Similarly, you advise considering the special significance of an expression for a neatly defined population. I'm saying that the off-putting tone can be deafening. We hardly know when Hitchens is engaging in an argument as opposed to a screed. Why (or how to) pay attention at all?
As for the newcomers whose comments here add curious bits of information, let me offer a personal, if tangential, scenario. My family car was a gift to us from another family member. The car sports religious insignia: the fish, decal in the rear window, etc. I'm only alert to these because the decal slightly obscures my view through the rear view mirror (symbolic, perhaps?) and I wonder whether I should remove it. I subscribe to zero religion, yet I get a perverse pleasure out of tooling around town in a car that advertises an extreme devotion. Why, I often wonder, would anybody want to proclaim his or her political or religious creed on a bumper sticker? Why would even a nerd want to sport a t-shirt proclaiming his or her commitment to science? But think twice when you hear folks singing apocalyptic pronouncements from the rooftops or driving cars proclaiming Christian devotion. The motto, the bumper sticker, may have special significance for the speaker, it may be an entry in a very private lexicon with a significance almost exactly contrary to the common one.
Posted by: Dean C. Rowan | December 10, 2009 at 11:18 AM
Dean,
Why is the appropriateness of the use of a word only legitimately a topic for discussion when it is explicitly so, and why is somebody who utters an offending word relieved of responsibility for saying it if he simply explains that his intended (as opposed to actual) audience would never regard it in that way. You would "have to think about the questions of the sort" I raise only when you "were discussing with someone" its appropriateness
In the 3QD thread, i said, schematically, the following:
1. Given context C1 (comic strip, rightminded comic strip, age, and techie/nerdy/gaming subcultures) a certain action didn't need to imply prejudice against women in its performer.
In my response to you here, I said:
2. In thread context C2 (women and men, religion and irreligion, the value of reason or emotionality, science etc), it was acceptablefor me to provide context C1 to someone seemingly unaware of it, without entering into the deeper questions Q about the acceptability of person in context C1 performing this action.
It is acceptable for me to not-X, as in it is not forbidden to me to X. I wasn't making the inverse claim that it is unacceptable (for me or you or anyone) to X. X and not-X can both be acceptable at the same time. I was not saying any of (in increasing order of implausibility):
2a: it is unacceptable to debate Q in threads situated in C2.
2b: it is unacceptable to debate Q in threads situated in C1.
2b: It is unacceptable to debate Q in threads not about Q
*I* had value to add to that observation re bitchin' science because it seemed Vicki was unaware of certain factual context. Whether and how that context serves to excuse or mitigate is important, but frankly:
a. I had nothing interesting or even intelligent to say about it at the time
b. Even as these word-offense debates go, this one bores me.
c. The thread in question already covers six or seven big issues and I already felt it was too broad.
I stand by 2, but am prepared to debate that further with you should you desire it. Meanwhile I'm not stopping you from examining the questions you raise; here or there or anywhere. Why shouldn't our / hobby horses / pet peeves / lists of topics to pontificate on/ differ?
Posted by: prasad | December 10, 2009 at 01:28 PM
typo:
It is acceptable for me to not-X, as in it is not forbidden to me to not-X. I wasn't making the inverse claim that it is unacceptable (for me or you or anyone) to X.
Posted by: prasad | December 10, 2009 at 01:30 PM
Hey atheismisdead, got any evidence for that statement? Or are we just supposed to take that statement on someone's (in this case your) say-so? Sorry, that argument doesn't work on us.
Posted by: Leon | December 10, 2009 at 03:40 PM
For some reason Lofton's original post at The Immanent Frame has now disappeared. Searching by the name of the author or the title does not yield any results.
Posted by: Ruchira | December 13, 2009 at 01:55 PM
Though the Lofton piece was funny, it also saddened me that the perp of such sloppy concoction is a fellow-woman. The piece is a canonical example of knowing not what one knoweth not, and failing to permit that ignorance to inhibit one's logorrhea.
Lofton's article has been 404'd. Ah, shucks, it was so hilarious. But fortunately, there is more where the essay must've come from:
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
Another relevant link is here:
On the Simulation of Postmodernism and Mental Debility Using Recursive Transition Networks
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.32.4137
Posted by: Tara | December 13, 2009 at 04:51 PM