Guest post by Josh the SpokesGay
I’m pondering this and haven’t come to any firm conclusions, but I want to float it for conversation.
We’re seeing an enormous number of people (who we thought would know and do better) ignore the most awful behavior from Dawkins. Obviously, not just with him, mind. It’s sometimes staggering; it’s so surprising to see people one knows to be capable of independent thought and analysis turn so completely nasty and dishonest in their attempts to stop any suggestion that Dawkins might be wrong.
We know that people have heroes. We know that we, too, are subject to the same instinct to circle the wagons. But the degree to which Dawkins supporters are doing this genuinely stuns me. It is quite literally watching rational people become irrational, fact-free, religious (perhaps ‘tribal’ is better) adherents for whom no argument is too dishonest or low.
I suspect a structural tragedy is responsible: There simply are not enough venues in public discourse for disaffected secularists to build solidarity, a shared identity, and the confidence to push back against religious privilege. Especially for those with traumatic experiences of religion, Dawkins seems like a lifeline. Finally, somebody isn’t afraid to call the emperor out on his non-existent clothes.
It felt that way to me when Dawkins wrote The God Delusion. I understand this impulse. It’s normal, it’s not weird, and it’s there for good, justifiable reasons. The first fan letter I wrote was to Richard Dawkins, thanking him for being an “oasis” in a sea of privileged religious bafflegab. And I sent this to him even before TGD came out. That he wrote me back the very next morning had me on a cloud for days.
Shorter version: many people perceive, correctly or not, that Dawkins is the only or best “venue” for people like them starved for secular discourse. The threat of that being taken away (meaning that Dawkins might actually be a jerk, or that he may be so badly wrong on other counts that one has to find new heroes) is simply too much for them.
Perhaps that explains Nate Phelps, son of Fred Phelps. Undeniably traumatized by religion, one can understand why he might see Dawkins and his circle as a haven. I recently saw Nate compare Ophelia Benson, of all people, to his father, the vicious preacher Fred. No, he didn’t come right out and say “you’re as bad as he is.” But Nate did compare Ophelia’s stance on “the whole feminism -vs- secularism issue” to the “you’re either for us or against us” approach his fundamentalist father insisted on.
We see this a lot. People victimized by religious extremism often paint other, non-abusive forms of vehement position-staking as “just as bad as the fundamentalists.” They mistake the form for the content. They react against the act of uncompromisingly defending one’s position while not paying attention to the content of the position. They don’t seem to understand that it is not automatically Wrong to have confidence—even a degree of righteousness—in one’s opinion. What matters is whether that confidence is justified.
Whether you totally dig Ophelia or not, I hope anyone can see how badly wrong Nate’s comparison is. So—is it the perception/reality of the scarcity of robust secular voices and spaces, particularly in the US, that causes people to defend Dawkins doing the indefensible? Is it a deeper structural problem that can only be effectively addressed over a long time by building other and better “venues” for being a non-apologetic secularist?
Shortest of all: Is Dawkins a case of perceived but artificial scarcity?
I hate to be cynical but I think some of it has to do with $$$$. Dawkins has a lot, so every organization is lining up to support him at the expense of those being actively hurt by him.
Josh, I disagree with your premise. I think that, for the most part, people aren’t rallying around Dawkins because their loyalty to and affection for him blinds them to his poor behavior here (forgive me if I’m getting your premise wrong, but that seems to be it). I think they’re rallying around Dawkins because they think his behavior here is pretty awesome. He’s saying the things they want said, to the people they want it said to. It’s the same reason they like C.H. Sommers: she’s telling them what they want to hear (that feminists ain’t shit) and ticking off the right people (feminists).
I alluded to this in a comment somewhere recently, so forgive me for repeating myself but: consider the reaction to the Joint Statement. I don’t recall hearing of anyone really moderating their position as to Ophelia, FTB/Skepchick/A+/Axis of Evil, etc. based on Dawkins signing off on it. If anything, there was consternation that Dawkins was wavering from the True Cause.
The problem then becomes being the pointer-outer that the new Emperor has decided to go with the same designers as the previous model of emperor and is also not wearing anything.
Human beings, fate love ’em, love to have someone in charge. Someone to tell them the Big Truths. It’s comforting to get answers. Some turn to religion or philosophy. Some turn to atheism/secularism. Some turn to politicians or rocks stars or actors or science. Some in the atheist/secular movement turned to Dawkins–hey! Successful author of some really beautiful books (“The Ancestor’s Tale” comes to mind), a guy who seemed to say what was on his mind and he told a lot of people exactly what they wanted to hear–nothing succeeds like pandering to your audience a bit. Those who listened to him felt that it made them more erudite, gave them a little extra polish (upper-class English accents get people every time) and fed them arguments they could use.
Then the other stuff started coming out. The polished facade started to slip a bit and let people see the misogynist curmudgeon that had been reasonably well-hidden all along. Sitting atop a Mount Improbable of his own making, I guess he doesn’t feel he has to make the effort to be an actual human being anymore. He’s become a caricature–the dotty old uncle at the end of the table. No one brings dates to dinner any more because they know Uncle is going to spout something offensive. People slip out of the room and don’t come ’round to visit as often. They try to excuse him (“Well, he’s a product of his generation, isn’t he?”) and a few try the, “Do you know who he is and what he’s done?” gambit. But it’s growing less effective. Uncle sits in his corner, taking great umbrage if anyone speaks out against his inanities. He rushes to jump into arguments that don’t even involve him (Shermer? Harris?) with great glee, playing the, “Let’s you and him have a fight!” game while trying to play at being above it all. Eventually, with or without great sadness, the family will finally put Uncle into a home, unable to deal with his nastiness any more.
Then, sadly, we’ll have to deal with the next one.
It was already obvious that this was happening at the time of elevator-gate. It has only gotten worse since then.
Sorry, I meant to finish my thought @2 with this hypothetical:
If Dawkins came out tomorrow with a big article where he explained that he’s given the matter some thought and realized that he was being unjust and dismissive of “SJWs” and that terms like “Thought Police” were unfair and beneath someone who’s spent much of the last decade-plus explaining that criticism censorship, etc. etc.,, how do you think the reaction would break down between:
(1) “WTF? They got to him, too! Stupid Feminazi FTBullies intimidated him into silence, but I will not be deterred!”
(2) “Good old Dawkins. Willing to change his mind based on the evidence. That’s why I admire him so much. He’s right, his comments were inappropriate and it’s so big and noble of him to retract them.”
My guess is you’d see a buttload of (1) and a smattering of (2). (Though among “prominent” individuals, like leaders of organizations, (2) would be a little more common for brownnosing purposes.)
If Dawkins = atheism, then any criticism of Dawkins = an attack on atheism.
He isn’t, but in a world dominated by media which insists on making all issues matters of personality, getting away from that impression will take some work.
Like most of our major issues, I see the best approach to a solution in promoting critical thinking classes wherever and whenever possible – but that would take a generation to have much effect even if we could do it immediately and on a wide scale.
Within the framework we have, elevating other voices to present atheism as a multitude seems the only way to resolve the conundrum Josh raises – but with the flaws of the other surviving “Horsemen” and the notable absence of fresh candidates for the atheist-bestseller lists (and the proven flaws of the whole “hero” model), that prospect remains neither probable nor all that desirable.
Feminism faced the same problem with Gloria Steinem put forward as its incarnation for a decade or so, and only got loose from that as (a) she aged (in person and as a media presence) and (b) corporate media decided to put feminism on the back burner anyway. Gays generally escaped this trap, but mostly by such a wave of already-famous people coming out that Ellen DeGeneres did not stand alone in the spotlight for that long.
Please, people – nobody go convert Ray Rice or Darren Wilson to freethinking!
Josh: A most thoughtful and stimulating post.
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‘People victimized by religious extremism often paint other, non-abusive forms of vehement position-staking as “just as bad as the fundamentalists.” They mistake the form for the content. They react against the act of uncompromisingly defending one’s position while not paying attention to the content of the position. They don’t seem to understand that it is not automatically Wrong [sic] to have confidence—even a degree of righteousness—in one’s opinion. What matters is whether that confidence is justified.’
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In my experience, religious fundamentalists tend to be control freaks. The two syndromes have positive correlation. The fundamentalists’ idea of paradise is everyone thinking the same (as them) and agreeing with their fundy position on the things that count. Some of the OT prophets were like that, Moses particularly. (I don’t think God had much to do with the Ten Commandments. More likely their source was the inside of Moses’ head.)
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Of all the fundamentalisms around today, the Islamic variety is definitely the worst, as shown by the intellectual environment and penalties for heresy, apostasy and the rest of it in every country where Islam has political clout. So people learn what it is best to believe for the sake of prosperity and even survival, and go along publicly with that.
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‘Justified confidence’ is possible in areas where a consensus is likely to form, as in science. But much less on questions of how best to live and how best to behave, and where a great deal of variety of co-existing opinion is possible. So it does not worry me much how far someone like Dawkins wavers from the ‘true cause’; particularly if he is given to thinking aloud and then subsequently backtracking and apologising. Probably goes with the territory.
As I’ve said since the DEEP RIFTS formed, the biggest problem is that a huge chunk of the atheist audience are only here to be told what they want to hear – that they are better and smarter than the wacky baptists or the evil mooslems or the child-raping papists. It’s about having their egos stroked and little more. They don’t want to hear about the bad things they (as a society) do and could work to change – sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and so forth; that makes them feel bad.
Dawkins does the former, so they love him. Those Dawkins is so desperately trying to silence do the former, and they hate them. I suspect that if he did (and I sincerely hope he does) do a 180 on feminism, he’d get the same treatment as the slymepitters and their vile ilk have given to anyone who’s chosen to use their platform to try and make the atheoskpetic audience aware that there’s a lot they could do to make the world a better place than screeching ‘show us your evidence for God!’ at believers on Twitter, spending money on poorly thought out billboards or cosying up to right-wing assholes at CPAC.
It is easy to mimic basic rationality without internalizing why rationality is important. It is easy to selectively apply the tools of rationality only when you want to. When supposedly rational people demonstrate a complete inability to think critically and rationally, they’re usually mostly just demonstrating that they’re cherry pickers who choose whatever methodology works to have their arguments come out the way they want.
Rationality, like any other reasoning tool, can be used in support of motivated reasoning. That’s a big part of why it’s important to have no heroes in atheism, at least not among people you don’t personally know well enough to know that they’ve taken rationality and empathy to heart. There are plenty of people out there who simply don’t want to believe in god and are motivated to mimic rationality to support their desired conclusion. If you don’t really know someone then you can’t know that they’re someone who will know better than to pull a Dawkins.
@ Josh
I find the fact that so many are becoming irrational and fact-free less surprising. I’m used to seeing irrational reactions. In my mind the biggest question is: what the various core emotions that drive this behavior? The feelings are real even if the logic the drive are not so the feelings are the only sure thing we have. I would not expect a single emotion to dominate and any patterns might have to do with what parts of this conflict someone is currently facing. But dealing with a perceived threat is likely to be a big one, and threats cause fear and anger.
Fear of losing social tools is likely a big one. What is the emotion doing? A lot of the behavior that the FTB community has been criticizing is about doing something. Removing/neutralizing threats? Harris, Dawkins, and Shermer are feeling threatened. The people defending them are feeling threatened either directly or indirectly by seeing a liked authority threatened. Direct feeling of threats would be either from loss of community cohesion, loss of those authorities as a voice and thus loss of their power through Dawkins. Some might feel threatened by having to admit that they trusted people that could actually be that bad. Some people started following these authorities after the deep rifts started because of the anti-social justice because they see that as a threat. Too many invest themselves in authorities and make them personal to themselves.
The “forms” you refer to are basically psychological triggers like the sort that can drive many conservatives nutty when you try to talk about communism academically. Either personal experience or their society reinforced the emotions. How they react to the form gives clues. Jokes (real or perceived) suggest they may feel threatened and want to lower the threat profile for example.
“Venue” is the strange part here. Dawkins is not so much of a venue as he is an established voice with people already listening to him. So in that analogy people would fear losing Dawkins as a secular voice that says things that they want him to say. I have seen people try to persuade that others should give up on social justice so that the larger movement is not hurt. But by that argument atheist activism is a kind of social justice activism focused on injustice caused by religion. Since religion is social behavior at it’s core the argument amounts to a request to choose what aspects of religion we fight.
For those people the emotions are related to the movement going away from something or towards something.
A certain amount of resolution and authority is important for motivation, both in sending and receiving. The problem is doing it unthinkingly.
@ 3. canonicalkoi :
(Emphasis added.)
Whilst that was generally a good comment making a strong case, I think implying Dawkin’s isn’t now an “actual human being” is wrong and unfair and the opposite of the situation. Misogynist privileged tribal thinking is very much a human flaw and an easy trap for any human mind even the best of ours to fall into.
The processes of polarisation and division are clearly working strongly here. All of us are human and all of us have our flaws and blind spots.
Personally, some of Dawkin’s latest comments are unacceptable and dreadful though I feel more sorrow than anger over Dawkin’s latest comments but I can understand and also empathise with why others feel differently. I’m not going to tell or even suggest how people think and react here. .
@ 6. Pierce R. Butler :
Not sure I really want to know but what’s wrong with Ellen Degeneres? What has she said or done lately that’s so bad?
Methinks canonicalkoi’s point at #3 was that having a movement strongly identified with just one main figurehead is always problematic with people conflating the movement and the person, whether positively or negatively and no matter who the person is. Thus it’s better for the gay movement that Ellen did not stand as the only celebrity figurehead for very long.
not just better, but as a single factor, explains most of the behavior.
It strikes me as plain authoritarianism. There seems to be a percentage of people who, whether innately or due to socialization, want a figurehead to whom they can be loyal. They’ll accept as that figurehead anyone who says what they want to hear. If you disagree with said figurehead, you are wrong, by definition. They don’t care about the reasoning, they care that you reach the conclusion that they want or expect. That’s where I think the impulse to defend comes from.
I also think that most of these people don’t actually know how to correctly reason. It’s certainly not something we teach in schools in the US anyway. I think a lot of people, up to and including Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are just doing something like “I am rational and think XYZ, therefor it is rational to think XYZ and irrational to think anything else.” And I think a lot of these atheist leaders of ours have always been doing that. We’ve just been OK with it, or oblivious to it because, on the subject of religion, they happened to be right. Now they’re branching off into other topics and all the stuff they’re assuming to be rational because it matches what they already think is badly wrong. And now it’s obvious that they’re not actually reasoning about it at all, they’re just rolling with their presuppositions and letting their unconscious biases lead them around by the nose.
There also seems to be a certain breed of brave defender who does the whole “you agree on 90% of everything, why can’t you just agree to disagree on this one little point?” And that I think is just privileged laziness. It’s people who don’t have to exist in a world where they’re constantly treated as less than who can afford to wink at these comments because it’s not reality to them. It’s just a thought experiment and they think they’re big enough to be able to still respect someone with whom they disagree on a few minor points.
Speaking from personal experience, back during the Elevatorgate incident I was so shocked by what people were saying about Dawkins, and by what he himself wrote, that I tried to find anything and everything to reassure myself that he was a nice person and people were just not getting him. The first time I really questioned my own hopes that he was a decent person only out to make the world better was when he dismissed the questions raised when Bill Maher got that Dawkins Award. Because all too many people I know suffered due to homeopaths, new age woo woo, some even died rather than going in for medical treatment, Bill Maher’s position on the matter is unacceptable to me. And yet I still tried to defend Dawkins. Then this latest incident happened and I just gave up.
I’m sorry I ever stood up for him, I was wrong and unlike him, I am not ashamed to admit to this and learn from my mistakes. I wasn’t looking for a leader, just some decent people representing Atheism. I grew up as an atheist, stayed an atheist and looked for other rational people out there. However, my late Grandfather, the person who introduced me to Dawkins and his books, also raised me to be a feminist. I think it was my love for him that played a major role in wanting to trust RD. However, I don’t want this man to represent me, and I don’t want him to be the person that comes to people’s mind when I talk about myself, or my beloved Grandfather.
Is that what FTB is? Because those whose positions are being opposed certainly seem to think it counts as abusive. Who gets to decide?
Well, no. Because they don’t react against Dawkins “uncompromisingly defending” his position. They leap on it. In some ways, Dawkins uncompromisingness (is that a word?) is comfortingly familiar in its stridency. He’s opposing the things that kept them stupid and held them back. The problem is, it is their perception that feminism is something holding them back, or alternatively something that has the potential to hold them back if it gains more traction. The idea that patriarchy damages men, and that feminism therefore helps men, is clearly hard to convey. Dawkins is confirming their prejudices.
tl;dr: I agree with screechmonkey @2.
I have defended Dawkins in the past. Not recently – I admit that some of his recent sayings are indefensible. I’ve been wondering why I felt I had to do that.
I don’t think I saw him primarily as a defender of atheism, though what he did there was important. I think I saw him as a defender of science, as against the post-modernism which claims that science is no better at discovering facts than any other discipline, or even (if I understand it) that scientific facts are a matter of opinion and are no more important than subjective feelings.
Of course there is a temptation to use science selectively to support one’s own prejudices – for instance, to support the status quo in gender relations. We have seen plenty of that recently. But the remedy is not less science, but more honesty in the use of science.
I was utterly disgusted to see an idiot Dawkins fanboy called Andrew Cummins calling Ophelia a “c**t” on twitter. Appalling stuff.
No.
They ARE being annoyed, angry and instinctively scared because FTB & co are trying to take away something they need, but it’s not the scarce venue of rational discourse Dawkins represents. It’s the sexist status quo. If Dawkins suddenly switched sides because his brain suddenly switched on, they wouldn’t follow. They’d crucify him. I think he knows that, and I wouldn’t put it past him to throw women under the buss even IF, in his head, he rationally agreed with the FTB position. He didn’t fear antagonizing the majority when he clashed with the religious, but that’s because to him, getting rid of religion is a priority. Feminism never was, so even if his supposed superior intelligence eventually registered the fact FTB & Skepchik have a point, he wouldn’t act on it.
by screechymonkey @2:
Which might be part of why he became even more vocal with his reactionary nonsense shortly after the joint statement came out. It’s like he was literally itching to go after the people he supposedly didn’t want harassed, and I’d say that was because a) he’s come to emotionally associate them with the flak he took after Dear Muslima, and now resents them, and b) the majority of his male followers didn’t think the joint statement was a good thing, and that fact wasn’t lost on him.
@12. tigtog :
Okay. That makes sense. Thanks.
I agree with the general thrust of this article, but I think the problem is not so much blind loyalty to Dawkins, but blind loyalty to the skeptic movement.
I’m actually pretty sure it’s called “being human”.
We all do this. Everyone defends people who they see as heroes, or even people who are associated with their own self-identity.
Case in point: FtB. Probably 99% of the time, I’m in agreement with the opinions expressed by the bloggers and commenters here. But that 1% of the time, I express my disagreement or offer an alternative hypothesis not aligned with the OP, and it doesn’t take more than a few minutes before I’m called every name in the book. Shaming, shunning, dismissing arguments with categorical-but-fact-free assertions — it’s as much a part of the playbook here as well as it is everywhere else. For example, there’s a regular here who likes to infantilize opponents by calling them “cupcake”. It’s a dismissive ad hom. And it’s common as grass.
Thinking is hard. Humans don’t like to do it. They use shortcuts all the time that get them into trouble.
Humans also like belonging. IMHO, 90% of the attraction of religion is that it presents people with a built-in “like” group.
And those “like” groups are all over the place. And once you identify yourself with a group, it’s pretty difficult to get you to change allegiances. For example, tell a Yankees fan that the “Yankees suck” and see how far it gets you. Tell a college football fan that their sport is silly and repressive. Go over to Daily Kos and declare that Bernie Sanders would make a terrible President. Tell someone who goes to Burger King that McDonald’s offers a better hamburger.
And on and on.
We’re human. Change is hard because it involves thinking beyond the basic heuristics we all have that are fundamentally essential to getting around the block without bumping into buildings.
Doesn’t mean it’s impossible, though. I changed my mind in a major way a couple of days ago vis-a-vis Dawkins. Just means we shouldn’t be surprised when people will declare that they’re fine with their own in-group and reject the opportunity to think more deeply about their positions. Often with what we see as surprising vehemence. Because thinking is hard.
And that’s being human.
StevoR… @ # 11: … what’s wrong with Ellen Degeneres?
Nothing that I know of (though I don’t follow entertainment news), but if she had been stuck with being The Official Face of Gay for all these years, I doubt it would have done her mind or personality any good.
@StevoR & Tigtog – Sorry for the delay…flu is affecting my usual, cat-like quickness. *falls over* Yes, what Tigtog said (thank you, by the way! You expressed it better than I did), but with also a dash of “actual human being” equating to someone with empathy and sympathy and not a figurehead (thanks, Tig!) frozen in the amber of their own dogma.
What you’re doing here is something I’ve seen anti-feminists do a lot of, namely, announce that the opposition point of view is so obviously untenable that anyone espousing that viewpoint must be lying (consciously or unconsciously), and then go on to speculate on what the lies are meant to camouflage.
No one could sincerely be a feminist, they say, because to them feminism is self-evidently foolish and wrong. Anyone taking the feminist side must be in some sort of thrall to the bullies over at FTB. Or doing it for the clicks. Or trying to get in someone’s pants. Or… something. Anything else but taking us at our word. They have rejected the possibility that feminists say feminist things because we actually believe in feminism, so to them any other explanation seems more likely.
So this sounds familiar, the suggestion that because misogyny is self-evidently foolish and wrong, Dawkins’ current cheering section couldn’t sincerely be a bunch of patriarchy-identified rape apologists. Anyone taking the rapists’ side must be hero-worshiping, or doing it for the clicks, or of a less-enlightened generation, or… something. Anything else, but taking them at their word.
I think it’s more respectful to assume that they are competent adults who are saying what they mean and they mean what they say.
iiii @ 25
I don’t see anyone saying anti-feminists are lying. Speaking only for myself, I think they believe what they say but I also think they haven’t actually reasoned through it. They’re assuming themselves to be rational and thus assuming what they already think to be rational when what they’re actually doing is allowing their biases to lead them around by the nose. I’m not saying this simply because they’re on the opposite side of the fence from me but because I’ve observed this utter failure of reason when they try to actually defend the positions they take. They describe their thought process and then get frustrated when we fail to be convinced by it and then repeatedly try to get us to understand their thought process as if that’s where the disconnect is. The reality is we follow their thought process just fine and we’re trying to show them how their reasoning is wrong and they don’t see it. And this happens so often and adheres so closely to the same pattern that every one of them could be reading from a script.
The battle to preserve the correct use of argumentum ad hominem has been lost, hasn’t it?
Chigau, it may not be the original Latin use of the term, but I totally get where Kevin Kehres is coming from. I stayed away from FtB myself for the past year or so, due to the tone of the arguments getting out of hand with personal insults and bothering me. Just because those personal insults are often coupled with an actual point doesn’t make them any less jarring or juvenile, or doesn’t make the net effect look like cliquish, bullying behavior.
I do understand the fundamental appeal of crafting a clever put-down to appeal to the rest of the FTB tribe and the lurkers when someone says something egregiously stupid. People should be afraid to spout off nonsense for fear of being put in their place with a clever riposte. But calling people losers and fools just provokes them to hate atheists; it doesn’t provoke people to challenging their ideas, like it occasionally does when you call their ideas idiotic and foolish.
FWIW, I didn’t mean to imply that anyone had been bothering me personally, or that I even disagree with the FtB consensus re: feminism or any other topic.
I just didn’t like the cliquish and bullying tone that the comment section frequently devolved into whenever anyone would actually try to argue against the dominant narrative. Argument against the person is in fact the literal translation of argumentum ad hominem, and this idea that it’s okay to do so because you also had a real point to make doesn’t change the fact that it makes your actual arguments look weaker, not stronger. I guess that makes me a tone troll.
@ Jake Hamby
They’re meant to be jarring. You’re welcome to think they’re juvenile but I consider it far more juvenile to refuse to parse words for content just because you didn’t like the tone. As to the net effect: you’ll have to forgive me if I give more weight to the occasional rape/abuse/harassment victim who delurks to express appreciation for the fact that rape/sexism apologists are given no quarter at places like Pharyngula. They’re who these spaces are meant to be safe for, not the type of people who will take their ball and go home if we don’t meet their standard of civility.
And yes it does make you a tone troll.
Jake Hamby
There are 34 blogs on FtB.
Are they all in the “cliquish and bullying” Tribe™?