That’s a prediction. They tried to invite Sincere Kirabo to the next Mythicist Milwaukee con, and Kirabo is a Very Big Name in the humanist/social justice community, well-respected, and a great writer and speaker. You’d think that was a good sign, right? Wrong. You have to read what they propose that he do.
We are reaching out to see if you would want to be a speaker at Mythcon V. Our idea for your event would to be part of a discussion on “The effects of social justice activism in the African American community” [sic] This topic title is not final. The idea is to have you on stage with someone that would hold opposing views. We would have a moderator that would be present just to keep the conversation moving along.
That was my emphasis. This is exactly the kind of crap they pulled last time: they need an excuse to put an edgelord front and center on stage, and they do it with the pretext of setting up a debate with someone with more respectable views. When I get invited to do a creationist debate, this is always the case: the organizers are really all about promoting the creationist ass on stage, and that’s who the audience is bussed in to see, and they just want me there as a foil for the dishonest twit.
You do have to wonder who the Milwaukee frauds were trying to get who holds opposing views
to a black social justice advocated. Richard Spencer? Jared Taylor? Some whiny racist vlogger from YouTube? It doesn’t matter. They’re going to have another audience of white alt-right anti-social-justice atheists there, and they just want an obliging target for them jeer at. Kirabo’s response is perfect.
Or, as secular activist Alix Jules paraphrases the request that he also received: “Please justify your existence, anger, and rage, while defending your humanity.”
They also tried to get Alix Jules? Jesus.
I will not negotiate my humanity. I will not play accomplice to interrogating the significance of Black liberation to indulge the white gaze.
This leads me to a point many who consider themselves a part of the atheist movement may not want to hear: the misguided audacity Mythicist Milwaukee has displayed reflects aspects of an ethos deeply entrenched within organized atheism communities.
It isn’t like Mythcon 4 is the first time atheists or self-described secular humanists have misapplied the right to free speech to express or celebrate dehumanizing views. It isn’t like Mythcon 4 is the first time atheists or self-described secular humanists have trivialized the struggle for a more just world and dismissed it with terms like “identity politics.”
I acknowledge that these elements are alive and well within the humanist movement, one made up of a non-monolithic variety of outspoken individuals, groups, and organizations who share mutual interests but also embrace diverging goals. I’ve gradually disassociated myself from organized atheism (outside what’s necessary for work) because it’s too common to meet those involved in this movement who not only don’t prioritize matters of social change for collective liberation, but also regard those who value these ambitions with contempt. Those aren’t my people, but more than that, they’re obstacles to my work.
I don’t want to waste time and energy trying to convince people why they should examine their allegiance to unjust ideologies, or why they should want to act in solidarity with marginalized communities. I prefer to invest my time in communities of people who acknowledge that there are major social problems that demand solutions.
I’ll just say right now that this conference is gearing up to bring in speakers, and if you get an invitation from them, just say NO right now, unless you want to get tangled up in another contentious shitshow. Or unless you’re a shitlord. Then just go right ahead.
That isn’t even a thesis you could start to discuss. That’s a noun phrase missing the rest of a sentence.
But see, they cannot lose. Either people like Kirabo and Jules dehumanise themselves and participate or they get to have their all white (male panel) and claim that it’s really not their fault. They really tried to invite black people, but thy wouldn’t come, so it’s not that they’re being kept out, it’s that they’re self-segregating because they’Re the real racists.
Alternatively they find some Ben Carson equivalent.
I can’t figure out what this group is supposed to be about. They need a much more clearly defined mission statement to begin with,* and their events look like a weird hodgepodge with little connection to any defined goals.
It all seems rather confused. And the “core values” of “Equal rights for women and children” and “Ethnic equality” made me laugh. They’re…trying.
* (and a more diverse leadership team)
wow what an insulting topic.
That they quote the late Acharya S/DM Murdock is a giveaway: she was a loon, who promoted the jesus mythicism idea badly. She also commented here a few times, and didn’t even recognize that I was laughing at an article she wrote.
MM, as you might guess from the name, was initially all about the Jesus Myth idea. They’ve since discovered that if they pay a lot of empty lip service to social justice ideas, they can smuggle in a bunch of bigots and shitlords with the pretense of “discussing the controversy”, get lots of publicity, and get alt-right donations. That’s all they are. Phonies and sloppy thinkers.
Thanks. I was suspecting something along those lines.
What will they next try in order to sell more tickets? Gladiatorial games? Feeding someone or other to lions?
I’m sad and disappointed. I thought they started out OK, but wow, totally not interested in them anymore.
I wonder if this is something we should’ve seen coming even two years ago, since it’s kind of inevitable when you are a con about mythicism, and you have people like Robert M. Price over for a big debate at MythCon III, well you’re bound to attract the shitlords, especially seeing he was openly pro-Trump during the US presidential election year.
So when the next year, your “kind of ok and not a rightwing nut” mythicist is Richard Carrier and he loved your con (just read most of his take on it and darn he loves bothsiding and bashing the left), things are gonna get a bit skewed.
=8)-DX
It might actually tell you something that the prominent advocates of Jesus mythicism seem practically all to be either loons like Acharya S., or shits like Carrier, Robert M. Price, and the organisers of the Milwaukee Mythcon.
Maybe some one should start a new thingy on the same day. Social Justice Milwaukee perhaps? Do it right from the ground up.
“The idea is to have you on stage with someone that would hold opposing views. …[snip]…
That was my emphasis. ”
GOD NO!. We can’t have people with opposing views! INCONCEIVABLE! Heaven forbid an actual conversation break out, or worse, the social justice movement can’t actually defend their positions, or justify their value. Is that what you think will happen? Do you feel Kirabo will be capable of actually defending the position of social justice? And is that because you have no faith in Kirabo? Or no faith in social justice? You do understand you can’t continue forcing people to buy your ideology uncritically, you’re going to have to actually start defending it. The fact you keep losing ground, starting on the internet, increasingly in meatspace (gaming, comics, so many of the hobbiest spaces are pushing back against your ideology, and increasingly more vocally, again, both online and in meatspace), so much so that even the cons you formally held sway over are ether dying out or moving to include both sides. If you want to concede that ground, please do. I will only help hasten peoples awakening.
“When I get invited to do a creationist debate, this is always the case: the organizers are really all about promoting the creationist ass on stage, and that’s who the audience is bussed in to see, and they just want me there as a foil for the dishonest twit.”
How arrogant, self important and paranoid, all at the same time. Do you not think they approach the other side in exactly the same way? You were invited to an event to talk with someone with the views on the other side of the discussion topic… must be some plan to make you look the fool (hint, only one persons doing that. Second hint: mirror). Again, heaven forbid an actual discussion take place. And bussing people into a paid conference? Effectively giving away free tickets? All to make you the foil? How arrogant do you need to be to feel so important and yet so persecuted at the same time?
kestrel 9 January 2018 at 10:49 am “What will they next try in order to sell more tickets?”
If appealing to those opposed to SJWs (and apparently ostrasizing the SJWs) is garner more tickets than excluding them and pandering to SJWs… that should tell you something about which views are becoming the more popular ones. Do you really think conceding the ground, rather than standing up and actually defending your views, is going to help that situation?