About Me
- Russell Blackford
- Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019); AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021); and HOW WE BECAME POST-LIBERAL: THE RISE AND FALL OF TOLERATION (2024).
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Even more meta
Here's a post by Bruce Everett about going meta. It's too late, alas, to avoid the meta arguments now - although it's still my preference to debate ideas, rather than to debate ideas about what ideas we should promulgate and how, and whether or not someone should have promulgated idea X, and whether ...
Anyway, stuff has happened and we're up to our necks in meta whether we like it or not. But we can at least recognise our situation.
Anyway, stuff has happened and we're up to our necks in meta whether we like it or not. But we can at least recognise our situation.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Jean Kazez on Gnude Clothes and shutting up
Over on her blog, In Living Color, Jean Kazez replies to my recent post, "The Emperor's Gnude Clothes". Now, a debate like this can go very meta, or meta-meta, very quickly. I doubt that we can get to the bottom of why people find some incidents salient, while other people consider them pretty much unimportant. I'm not all that interested in berating Kazez, but the discussion has led her to some positions that ought to raise eyebrows at least slightly.
Before we get to that, she says that her own original story was about how a certain kind of courage in revealing falsehood and credulity can degenerate into contempt. Her original story, as you may recall, was this:
If this is intended to be a metaphor for the New Atheist (sort of) movement - once it goes beyond the four horsemen of the apocalypse to the lower levels of the infantry of the apocalypse, or perhaps the pedestrians of the apocalypse - it's rather strained to say the least. The suggestion is that some group of people who are analogous to the children in the story are not merely being forthright but are engaging in something equivalent to rudeness, shouting, in-your-face laughter, and so on, that they reject all ideas of politeness and communicative restraint, and that they actually call ideas of civility some equivalent of "crap".
That may be how things appear to Jean, but as I suggested in my response and my further thoughts over the past few days, it's not how things seem to me at all. There are several points to be made here. First, there is always going to be a level of very robust debate on the internet, so it's always possible to find examples of people who really are behaving very rudely and perhaps rejecting ideas of politeness. But that's not something unique to people with New Atheist sympathies. You'll find people behaving like this when discussing the merits of political parties, sports teams, movies, comic-book artists, or whatever else people get passionate about. So it's hardly fair saying that the New Atheism encourages incivility any more than these other things. The most that can be said is that the subject of religion is now debated on the internet in a way that was not common a decade ago, so inevitably it attracts the same kind of very robust arguments as, say, sport or politics. Inevitably, some people will let off steam on their own blogs, and we'll see even more robust expression from anonymous commenters.
Second, a great deal of what we've seen has not been "adults" telling the uncivil "children" to please show some communicative restraint. In the case of the debate around Jerry Coyne's "Seeing and Believing" piece in The New Republic, what we saw was someone showing all the appropriate communicative restraint, and basically being told that the content of what he said was not acceptable. He should not have questioned beliefs, criticised certain kinds of believers, or supported the view that there's no God. The "adults" (in this case Barbara Forrest and Chris Mooney) were not telling him to be civil - they were telling not to say these things even in the civil way that he did. More generally, a great deal of the criticism of the New Atheists goes beyond disagreement and beyond tut-tutting about actual incivility (by normal standards of civility) to involve complaints that these people say the things they do at all - or at least that they say them to a wide audience. When, like Cordelia in my version of the story, they express annoyance, they are then attacked further for their "stridency", and so on. Inevitably this escalates the situation.
Now, I'm not going to go to a lot of trouble to document the preceding paragraph. I dealt with some of it last time, as far as the original incident goes. I'm mainly reporting how it seems to those of us on my side of the fence, why the Kazez story seems very unfair, and why it is unlikely to change anyone's behaviour. Simply put, people in my position don't actually feel as if we've shown no communicative restraint, been especially uncivil ... or lacked reasonable justification on those occasions when we have, in fact, expressed annoyance. I'm sure that what I'm saying here will ring true for many readers, or gel with their experience. That's the reality that Jean and others are confronted with.
Third, a great deal that has happened has had a context. If people who don't believe they have been especially uncivil are chided not to be "a dick", or if lies are told about people like them behaving in public in outrageously uncivil ways, and if stories are told that suggest they are uncivil in the manner of the children in Jean's story, it produces certain emotions. To be blunt, it creates anger and ill-will. At a minimum, it looks as if the people (the so-called "adults") saying these things are insensitive to the feelings and grievances of the "children" they are telling to Be Moar Civil. The result is that the children are likely to express annoyance and anger ... and again the whole thing escalates. In such circumstances there will inevitably be genuine examples of uncivil conduct on both sides of the debate. But that happens in any debate - once again, whether it concerns political parties, sports teams, comic-book artists, or whatever you want to name.
One lesson to be learned from all this is that there's a danger in going meta. Once you move away from debating the truth or falsity of ideas to discussing other people's behaviour, what should or should not be said, and so on, you almost inevitably add to whatever degree of incivility was around in the first place. That's not to say that going meta is never appropriate. But people who decide to go meta should be aware of the likely outcome - an escalation of ill-feeling, and even feelings of injustice and moralistic anger - and take this into account. If you do decide to go meta, you'd be advised to show a lot of explicit humility and trepidation. If you then use the annoyed responses of others as evidence of their inherent uncivil tendencies, you'd better be aware that this will be seen by them as further unfairness or injustice ... and will provoke even more annoyance.
In the current Gnu Wars, a lot of ill-feeling was created by the bogus Tom Johnson story, which was used as evidence of Gnu Atheist types engaging in extreme and foolish kinds of public incivility. As this escalated, it became very ill-advised of Phil Plait to go meta in a vague way that seemed to accuse others of being "dicks" - without giving examples. In some other context, what he said may have been quite sensible. In the historical context that he was actually involved in, going meta in this sort of way - and defending it with no real show of humility and understanding of how others felt - was an incredibly dangerous thing to do. I'm not going to say that it was, itself, a dickish thing to do. I just think it was an extremely naive way to act in the volatile circumstances that had arisen at the time, in which any attempt to go meta this way would quite predictably have caused hurt and anger.
Jean offers other examples of supposed incivility, but these are to a couple of posts by Ophelia Benson that don't actually seem uncivil at all. In each case she responds in a way that is forthright, but not out of place on her own blog, to other people going meta in ways that understandably annoyed her. That's not to say that I necessarily feel the same annoyance towards Julian Baggini, for example, that Ophelia does - for a start, she has had personal dealings that she refers to briefly and which I have obviously not had. The whole thing can soon get complicated. But the kind of meta-comment by Julian that Ophelia quotes will inevitably produce annoyance, and it's no use then using a reasonably civil expression of that annoyance - or even a not-so-civil one if that's how you perceive it - as evidence for the initial complaints about incivility.
There's a lot more to say about all of this, but I should comment just very briefly that Jean makes clear that she does actually support arguments for certain things not being said in "the public square" - by which she apparently means not being said in books, journals, etc., aimed at a broad, educated audience. These things should be discussed in academic journals, philosophy classes and seminars, and the like, she thinks, but they should not be said more widely. She gives, as an example, her view that I should not be defending moral error theory in the public square. She also supports the view that Jerry Coyne's stance in his New Republic piece was "unwise".
Now that's a large topic. But I just want to highlight how surprising, if refreshingly honest, it is. Jean says that she's not telling people in the second person to "Shut up," but regardless of whether she issues a command in the second person or merely says, "Russell should not say X or Y in the public square," the effect is much the same. It's being put that certain things should not be said except to a specialised audience of philosophers and philosophy students. Among those things are claims about the incompatibility of science and religion (though she is less confident about this than about promulgating moral error theory).
Now, I'm not someone who defends telling the truth at all costs. If the proverbial Nazi death-squad comes knocking on my door looking for Jews and homosexuals whose location I happen to know ... believe me, I'll do whatever I can to keep my knowledge secret and to mislead the Nazis as well as I'm able. There are many such examples, some of them much more everyday. I'm not committed in a fanatical way to telling the truth.
Perhaps there are utilitarian (or similar) reasons not to say certain things too widely, or even reasons to go out and tell the Folk noble lies that, if believed, will make the world a better place (based on some standard of "better" that most of us would subscribe to, such as having less pain and suffering). I can't rule any of that out, and certainly not in the space of a blog post. But it shouldn't be surprising that many people on the Gnu Atheist side of the debate get the impression that a lot of this ongoing conflict is not really about incivility. Some part of it, at least, really is about whether certain things should be said at all, even in a civil way, out there in the public square. Even if we're not addressed in the second person and directly told, "Shut up!" there are some things that at least some of our opponents just don't want us to say. This comes to much the same thing when we're part of the audience to which it's communicated.
And it produces a reaction.
Before we get to that, she says that her own original story was about how a certain kind of courage in revealing falsehood and credulity can degenerate into contempt. Her original story, as you may recall, was this:
Other kids were impressed with the brave girl. They started saying the same thing--"The emperor has no clothes! The emperor has no clothes!" Soon just saying he had no clothes lost its appeal. They shouted louder and louder, and called the emperor a fatty and laughed uproariously.Now let's look at this for a minute. The children begin shouting, calling the emperor "a fatty", and laughing uproariously. When some adults ask them to control themselves, they call the adults names and they deride "the whole idea of Communicative Restraint and Politeness". This is pretty clearly a story about how the children go beyond saying bravely that the emperor has no clothes to (1) behaving in an uncivil manner (being rude and insulting, shouting, and engaging in uproarious mocking laughter), and (2) deriding the very idea that they should be civil.
Some of the adults said: "Children. You're right he's naked. The brave girl was perfectly right to say so. But you've gotten carried away. It's time to think this through. Maybe the emperor actually enjoys being naked. Maybe he really doesn't know he's naked, and he can't figure it out when you're yelling at him. Maybe when he looks at you, your clothes look ridiculous to him, too! Control yourselves, think about how you're communicating!"
This made the children very, very angry. They wanted to believe they were just like that first brave girl. They didn't want to see themselves as rude and insulting. So the children went after the adults who had chided them, and called them names, and derided the whole idea of Communicative Restraint and Politeness, which they called crap for short.
If this is intended to be a metaphor for the New Atheist (sort of) movement - once it goes beyond the four horsemen of the apocalypse to the lower levels of the infantry of the apocalypse, or perhaps the pedestrians of the apocalypse - it's rather strained to say the least. The suggestion is that some group of people who are analogous to the children in the story are not merely being forthright but are engaging in something equivalent to rudeness, shouting, in-your-face laughter, and so on, that they reject all ideas of politeness and communicative restraint, and that they actually call ideas of civility some equivalent of "crap".
That may be how things appear to Jean, but as I suggested in my response and my further thoughts over the past few days, it's not how things seem to me at all. There are several points to be made here. First, there is always going to be a level of very robust debate on the internet, so it's always possible to find examples of people who really are behaving very rudely and perhaps rejecting ideas of politeness. But that's not something unique to people with New Atheist sympathies. You'll find people behaving like this when discussing the merits of political parties, sports teams, movies, comic-book artists, or whatever else people get passionate about. So it's hardly fair saying that the New Atheism encourages incivility any more than these other things. The most that can be said is that the subject of religion is now debated on the internet in a way that was not common a decade ago, so inevitably it attracts the same kind of very robust arguments as, say, sport or politics. Inevitably, some people will let off steam on their own blogs, and we'll see even more robust expression from anonymous commenters.
Second, a great deal of what we've seen has not been "adults" telling the uncivil "children" to please show some communicative restraint. In the case of the debate around Jerry Coyne's "Seeing and Believing" piece in The New Republic, what we saw was someone showing all the appropriate communicative restraint, and basically being told that the content of what he said was not acceptable. He should not have questioned beliefs, criticised certain kinds of believers, or supported the view that there's no God. The "adults" (in this case Barbara Forrest and Chris Mooney) were not telling him to be civil - they were telling not to say these things even in the civil way that he did. More generally, a great deal of the criticism of the New Atheists goes beyond disagreement and beyond tut-tutting about actual incivility (by normal standards of civility) to involve complaints that these people say the things they do at all - or at least that they say them to a wide audience. When, like Cordelia in my version of the story, they express annoyance, they are then attacked further for their "stridency", and so on. Inevitably this escalates the situation.
Now, I'm not going to go to a lot of trouble to document the preceding paragraph. I dealt with some of it last time, as far as the original incident goes. I'm mainly reporting how it seems to those of us on my side of the fence, why the Kazez story seems very unfair, and why it is unlikely to change anyone's behaviour. Simply put, people in my position don't actually feel as if we've shown no communicative restraint, been especially uncivil ... or lacked reasonable justification on those occasions when we have, in fact, expressed annoyance. I'm sure that what I'm saying here will ring true for many readers, or gel with their experience. That's the reality that Jean and others are confronted with.
Third, a great deal that has happened has had a context. If people who don't believe they have been especially uncivil are chided not to be "a dick", or if lies are told about people like them behaving in public in outrageously uncivil ways, and if stories are told that suggest they are uncivil in the manner of the children in Jean's story, it produces certain emotions. To be blunt, it creates anger and ill-will. At a minimum, it looks as if the people (the so-called "adults") saying these things are insensitive to the feelings and grievances of the "children" they are telling to Be Moar Civil. The result is that the children are likely to express annoyance and anger ... and again the whole thing escalates. In such circumstances there will inevitably be genuine examples of uncivil conduct on both sides of the debate. But that happens in any debate - once again, whether it concerns political parties, sports teams, comic-book artists, or whatever you want to name.
One lesson to be learned from all this is that there's a danger in going meta. Once you move away from debating the truth or falsity of ideas to discussing other people's behaviour, what should or should not be said, and so on, you almost inevitably add to whatever degree of incivility was around in the first place. That's not to say that going meta is never appropriate. But people who decide to go meta should be aware of the likely outcome - an escalation of ill-feeling, and even feelings of injustice and moralistic anger - and take this into account. If you do decide to go meta, you'd be advised to show a lot of explicit humility and trepidation. If you then use the annoyed responses of others as evidence of their inherent uncivil tendencies, you'd better be aware that this will be seen by them as further unfairness or injustice ... and will provoke even more annoyance.
In the current Gnu Wars, a lot of ill-feeling was created by the bogus Tom Johnson story, which was used as evidence of Gnu Atheist types engaging in extreme and foolish kinds of public incivility. As this escalated, it became very ill-advised of Phil Plait to go meta in a vague way that seemed to accuse others of being "dicks" - without giving examples. In some other context, what he said may have been quite sensible. In the historical context that he was actually involved in, going meta in this sort of way - and defending it with no real show of humility and understanding of how others felt - was an incredibly dangerous thing to do. I'm not going to say that it was, itself, a dickish thing to do. I just think it was an extremely naive way to act in the volatile circumstances that had arisen at the time, in which any attempt to go meta this way would quite predictably have caused hurt and anger.
Jean offers other examples of supposed incivility, but these are to a couple of posts by Ophelia Benson that don't actually seem uncivil at all. In each case she responds in a way that is forthright, but not out of place on her own blog, to other people going meta in ways that understandably annoyed her. That's not to say that I necessarily feel the same annoyance towards Julian Baggini, for example, that Ophelia does - for a start, she has had personal dealings that she refers to briefly and which I have obviously not had. The whole thing can soon get complicated. But the kind of meta-comment by Julian that Ophelia quotes will inevitably produce annoyance, and it's no use then using a reasonably civil expression of that annoyance - or even a not-so-civil one if that's how you perceive it - as evidence for the initial complaints about incivility.
There's a lot more to say about all of this, but I should comment just very briefly that Jean makes clear that she does actually support arguments for certain things not being said in "the public square" - by which she apparently means not being said in books, journals, etc., aimed at a broad, educated audience. These things should be discussed in academic journals, philosophy classes and seminars, and the like, she thinks, but they should not be said more widely. She gives, as an example, her view that I should not be defending moral error theory in the public square. She also supports the view that Jerry Coyne's stance in his New Republic piece was "unwise".
Now that's a large topic. But I just want to highlight how surprising, if refreshingly honest, it is. Jean says that she's not telling people in the second person to "Shut up," but regardless of whether she issues a command in the second person or merely says, "Russell should not say X or Y in the public square," the effect is much the same. It's being put that certain things should not be said except to a specialised audience of philosophers and philosophy students. Among those things are claims about the incompatibility of science and religion (though she is less confident about this than about promulgating moral error theory).
Now, I'm not someone who defends telling the truth at all costs. If the proverbial Nazi death-squad comes knocking on my door looking for Jews and homosexuals whose location I happen to know ... believe me, I'll do whatever I can to keep my knowledge secret and to mislead the Nazis as well as I'm able. There are many such examples, some of them much more everyday. I'm not committed in a fanatical way to telling the truth.
Perhaps there are utilitarian (or similar) reasons not to say certain things too widely, or even reasons to go out and tell the Folk noble lies that, if believed, will make the world a better place (based on some standard of "better" that most of us would subscribe to, such as having less pain and suffering). I can't rule any of that out, and certainly not in the space of a blog post. But it shouldn't be surprising that many people on the Gnu Atheist side of the debate get the impression that a lot of this ongoing conflict is not really about incivility. Some part of it, at least, really is about whether certain things should be said at all, even in a civil way, out there in the public square. Even if we're not addressed in the second person and directly told, "Shut up!" there are some things that at least some of our opponents just don't want us to say. This comes to much the same thing when we're part of the audience to which it's communicated.
And it produces a reaction.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Currently reading: Shari'a in the West, ed. Rex Ahdar and Nicholas Aroney
This collection is a "must read" if you're interested in issues to do with the apparent clash between Western secularism and the demands of Islam. I use the word "apparent" deliberately - this "clash" may prove to be an illusion. "Apparent" does not, however, entail "illusory". Perhaps, in the end, the clash will turn out to be a real one: it may yet be a case of "Seems, madam? Nay, it is."
I'm very open to the idea that secular societies can accommodate Islam just as they accommodate many other religions. I hope that's how things turn out. It's going to come down to whether Muslim leaders and organisations are content to live in societies in which Islam is not persecuted, as opposed to societies in which Islamic law and morality are given some kind of legal status that can be enforced against others - whether against the populace as a whole or "merely" against those who have the good or not-so-good fortune to be born into predominately Muslim communities.
We need to talk about the issues very seriously, and to do so without the fear of being accused of "Islamophobia". The fact is that there are elements of Islamic doctrine, history, and practice that are in tension with secularism and liberalism. That tension needs to be understood and examined. I'm not calling for incivility towards Muslims - much less anything worse - but a degree of courage and intellectual honesty is needed as we move into this territory.
I'm only one third of my way through Shari'a in the West. It's a solid collection of essays, and I can already report that the standard is high and that I enjoy the diversity of viewpoints. There are some that I disagree with strongly, but that's okay: I'm happy to read the views of my intellectual opponents. (Hey, from time to time I actually change my mind on something if the case against me is strong enough; so, I suggest, should we all.) At this rate, I expect my understanding of the specific issues surrounding Islam to have deepened considerably by the time I'm finished.
My forthcoming book on religious freedom will deal with the role of Islam in modern secular states, but only as one issue among many (ranging from religious sexual morality to freedom of speech to the teaching of evolutionary theory ... but certainly including how we should respond to the burka). There's an important issue here, what with the aspirations of some Islamists and other Muslims to incorporate Sharia law into Western legal practice. We need to do a lot of more to come to grips with the implications.
I'm very open to the idea that secular societies can accommodate Islam just as they accommodate many other religions. I hope that's how things turn out. It's going to come down to whether Muslim leaders and organisations are content to live in societies in which Islam is not persecuted, as opposed to societies in which Islamic law and morality are given some kind of legal status that can be enforced against others - whether against the populace as a whole or "merely" against those who have the good or not-so-good fortune to be born into predominately Muslim communities.
We need to talk about the issues very seriously, and to do so without the fear of being accused of "Islamophobia". The fact is that there are elements of Islamic doctrine, history, and practice that are in tension with secularism and liberalism. That tension needs to be understood and examined. I'm not calling for incivility towards Muslims - much less anything worse - but a degree of courage and intellectual honesty is needed as we move into this territory.
I'm only one third of my way through Shari'a in the West. It's a solid collection of essays, and I can already report that the standard is high and that I enjoy the diversity of viewpoints. There are some that I disagree with strongly, but that's okay: I'm happy to read the views of my intellectual opponents. (Hey, from time to time I actually change my mind on something if the case against me is strong enough; so, I suggest, should we all.) At this rate, I expect my understanding of the specific issues surrounding Islam to have deepened considerably by the time I'm finished.
My forthcoming book on religious freedom will deal with the role of Islam in modern secular states, but only as one issue among many (ranging from religious sexual morality to freedom of speech to the teaching of evolutionary theory ... but certainly including how we should respond to the burka). There's an important issue here, what with the aspirations of some Islamists and other Muslims to incorporate Sharia law into Western legal practice. We need to do a lot of more to come to grips with the implications.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Risks of ecstasy exaggerated
New research suggests that the effects of the drug ecstasy, or MDMA, are exaggerated - indeed, the real dangers of the drug in its pure form seem to be quite minimal.
As so often with paternalistic legislation, you have to ask whether harsh laws have actually increased the inherent dangers.
H/T James Bradley.
As so often with paternalistic legislation, you have to ask whether harsh laws have actually increased the inherent dangers.
H/T James Bradley.
Review of The Australian Book of Atheism
A very detailed, thoughtful review by Bruce Everett over at Thinker's Podium. The favourable discussion of my own chapter in the book gives me a certain bias, of course. The review praises the book, but also raises interesting points - please consider having a look.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Saturday supervillainy
Edit: And it's canon that Logan actually preferred not having the metal bonded to his bones ... it took a lot for him to decide later on to get it put back.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Sometimes you've gotta laugh
A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I'd not be uncivil ... but added, "surely I should put in some snark near the end just so there's something to complain about."
So ... I did that, by saying the nicely dressed kid of indeterminate sex had a Colgate smile. This was a gentle but obvious reference to the widespread snark about the "Colgate Twins", i.e. the conspicuously good-looking Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. Apparently I've indulged in this sort of snark myself on three previous occasions, or something.
Sure enough, here's Jeremy Stangroom complaining, right on schedule. Apparently he was unable to construe my post in its entirety and get the little joke I made about how I'd deliberately give people like him something to complain about near the end in an otherwise-civil post. It even sent him off on a search of this blog for the word "Colgate".
Oh well, Jeremy seems to be going through some sort of identity crisis of late, poor chap, so there's no use in berating him too much. I guess he's mentally distracted. But I do think I should inject just a leeetle bit of snark here, all in fun of course. Let's be concise:
Hook. Line. Sinker.
So ... I did that, by saying the nicely dressed kid of indeterminate sex had a Colgate smile. This was a gentle but obvious reference to the widespread snark about the "Colgate Twins", i.e. the conspicuously good-looking Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. Apparently I've indulged in this sort of snark myself on three previous occasions, or something.
Sure enough, here's Jeremy Stangroom complaining, right on schedule. Apparently he was unable to construe my post in its entirety and get the little joke I made about how I'd deliberately give people like him something to complain about near the end in an otherwise-civil post. It even sent him off on a search of this blog for the word "Colgate".
Oh well, Jeremy seems to be going through some sort of identity crisis of late, poor chap, so there's no use in berating him too much. I guess he's mentally distracted. But I do think I should inject just a leeetle bit of snark here, all in fun of course. Let's be concise:
Hook. Line. Sinker.
"Someogne is gnasty on the intergnet"
Here's a little thought for the day. You probably have interests that are remote from anything discussed on this blog. Perhaps you're obsessed with competitive water-skiing. Maybe you're an aficianado of Serbian politics. Or spy novels. Or ancient Chinese history.
Some of these topics lend themselves to passion and conflict more than others. Sport and politics are especially effective at getting people to take sides and arouse themselves to frustration and anger. But when I surf around the net looking at forums on stray topics that might interest me I see flame wars provoked by all sorts of seemingly innocuous topics.
In fact, there are two very common phenomena on the internet. Get a bunch of like-minded people together to talk about some topic that interests them - and on which they agree because they are that like-minded - and they'll soon be egging each other on to increasingly extreme positions and increasingly fierce denunciations of all opponents. But get a forum where there's disagreement - over, say, the respective merits of two leading Korean movie-makers, or two competitive water-skiers, who are known to be rivals - and you'll soon see a flame war, complete with boasting, namecalling, dubious accusations about other people's motives and emotions, angry threats to leave the forum, and weird meta-arguments about the epistemic status of opinions ("My opinion is a good as yours; you can't say it's false!" "It's just a fact that Betty Foo is the greatest women's water-skiier of all time, and you can't deny it!" "Sorry, fuckwit, if I'd known you were that stupid, I'd have prefaced every comment with the words, 'In my opinion' (:rolleyes:)!").
Part of this is just human nature, and part of it is the effect of anonymity. When I see this happening, I often despair - it looks like there's a lot of frustration and anger Out There, waiting to be expressed in situations where it won't provoke any serious consequences (lost friendships, lost jobs, actual rather than virtual shouting, physical violence, etc., etc.). And there's certainly the phenomenon that human sympathy can be lost when you're not seeing/expecting to see someone's hurt facial expression or tone of voice. The intergnet can be a gnasty place, and this is not something I enjoy about it, though fortunately most people seem to be robust enough to deal with this without serious emotional hurt.
This, however, is why it's pretty pointless drawing conclusions from gnasty comments made by anonymous people in large online forums - on any subject. You'll very likely find that the biggest forums on competitive water-skiing and Korean movies are full of anger, exasperation, personality clashes, feuds, moderators banning people, moderators showing favoritism, and all the other features of the internet that can make it a less than friendly place.
No one should, however, conclude that fans of competitive water-skiing or Korean movies, or folks with particular opinions on these matters, are especially uncivil people.
Just saying.
Some of these topics lend themselves to passion and conflict more than others. Sport and politics are especially effective at getting people to take sides and arouse themselves to frustration and anger. But when I surf around the net looking at forums on stray topics that might interest me I see flame wars provoked by all sorts of seemingly innocuous topics.
In fact, there are two very common phenomena on the internet. Get a bunch of like-minded people together to talk about some topic that interests them - and on which they agree because they are that like-minded - and they'll soon be egging each other on to increasingly extreme positions and increasingly fierce denunciations of all opponents. But get a forum where there's disagreement - over, say, the respective merits of two leading Korean movie-makers, or two competitive water-skiers, who are known to be rivals - and you'll soon see a flame war, complete with boasting, namecalling, dubious accusations about other people's motives and emotions, angry threats to leave the forum, and weird meta-arguments about the epistemic status of opinions ("My opinion is a good as yours; you can't say it's false!" "It's just a fact that Betty Foo is the greatest women's water-skiier of all time, and you can't deny it!" "Sorry, fuckwit, if I'd known you were that stupid, I'd have prefaced every comment with the words, 'In my opinion' (:rolleyes:)!").
Part of this is just human nature, and part of it is the effect of anonymity. When I see this happening, I often despair - it looks like there's a lot of frustration and anger Out There, waiting to be expressed in situations where it won't provoke any serious consequences (lost friendships, lost jobs, actual rather than virtual shouting, physical violence, etc., etc.). And there's certainly the phenomenon that human sympathy can be lost when you're not seeing/expecting to see someone's hurt facial expression or tone of voice. The intergnet can be a gnasty place, and this is not something I enjoy about it, though fortunately most people seem to be robust enough to deal with this without serious emotional hurt.
This, however, is why it's pretty pointless drawing conclusions from gnasty comments made by anonymous people in large online forums - on any subject. You'll very likely find that the biggest forums on competitive water-skiing and Korean movies are full of anger, exasperation, personality clashes, feuds, moderators banning people, moderators showing favoritism, and all the other features of the internet that can make it a less than friendly place.
No one should, however, conclude that fans of competitive water-skiing or Korean movies, or folks with particular opinions on these matters, are especially uncivil people.
Just saying.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
"The Emperor's Gnude Clothes"
First, H/T to Ophelia Benson for bringing this up at Butterflies and Wheels - I wouldn't have seen it otherwise.
Jean Kazez has a post from a few weeks ago entitled "The Emperor's Gnu Clothes" . This is supposed to be a sequel to the original story in which a brave little girl speaks up and says that the emperor is naked. Kazez continues as follows:
Now, I don't wish to stoop to incivility myself ... so I won't. Well, surely I should put in some snark near the end just so there's something to complain about.
But I mainly want to say how puzzling I find the Kazez account. As far as I can see, the incivility is generally not coming from people who could be considered part of the New Atheist movement - such as Dawkins, or Ophelia, or maybe Jerry Coyne, or perhaps even me if we're going that far down the food chain (though gnus are vegetarian ... so, alas, the food chain metaphor doesn't really work). Most of the mockery, name-calling, gotcha rhetoric, twisting of the truth for effect, adopting outrageous and wildly implausible lies as "Exhibits", and various others forms of downright unfairness actually seem to be coming from such people as Chris Mooney and Josh Rosenau, i.e. people who wish that the Gnus would go away.
Unless I am confronted by egregious examples of power and influence being used destructively - as we see every day from the Catholic Church - I am actually very restrained. The same applies to others who could be seen as belonging in the Gnu herd. Even my commenters tend to be a polite, thoughtful bunch.
What we actually tend to see is reasonably civil, courteous, thoughtful critiques of religion from the Gnus being met with the response that it is so far beyond the pale that it should not be said. Thus, the crucial moment that set off the current round of debates was when Jerry Coyne reviewed two books by religious authors who argued for a compatibility of religion and science. The review was as civil as one could expect from any reviewer who disagrees strongly with key elements of non-fiction books that he or she is reviewing. It was thoughtful, detailed, and followed all the courtesies. See for yourself.
The response from Chris Mooney was that such things should not be said. Again, see for yourself.
Mooney cited - in a way that is clearly an endorsement, as clear as these things can ever be - a speech by Barbara Forrest:
Now, notice what is going on here. The views attributed to Forrest do not relate to some piece of writing or speechmaking that eschews all politeness and communicative restraint. The views that Mooney is attributing to Forrest, and clearly (see for yourself) endorsing, relate to a book review that follows the usual courtesies.
And note what it is said by Forrest/Mooney that we should not do or say. It's not a matter of exercising politeness. It's a matter of 1. do not question the beliefs of liberal religionists; 2. do not criticize pro-evolution liberal Christians, 3. do not make atheistic claims. Again, I don't see how this can be any clearer. What we have here is not a call for politeness or some degree of communicative restraint in the interest of social harmony. It quite plainly says that we should not "criticize" or even "question" the religious views of (so-called) "liberal" Christians or "moderates", and in particular we should not say "there is no God". It's there in black and white.
The current debate is not, in essence, about politeness or communicative restraint. If Jerry Coyne talks to a group of Christians he is polite to them, as long as they are themselves courteous, open to discussion, and so on. So am I. What we are proposing is not mocking individuals or generally behaving like arse/assholes. It is, however, doing the things that Mooney (and, apparently, Forrest) said we should not do. That is, we do intend to go on questioning religious beliefs, even so-called liberal ones, criticising religious apologists, even so-called moderates, and putting the case that "there is no God". We will not do this in a way that lacks all "communicative restraint", though the appropriate degree of restraint will depend very much on the context.
Folks, none of this is inconsistent. Anyway, a more applicable story would go something like this:
Jean Kazez has a post from a few weeks ago entitled "The Emperor's Gnu Clothes" . This is supposed to be a sequel to the original story in which a brave little girl speaks up and says that the emperor is naked. Kazez continues as follows:
Other kids were impressed with the brave girl. They started saying the same thing--"The emperor has no clothes! The emperor has no clothes!" Soon just saying he had no clothes lost its appeal. They shouted louder and louder, and called the emperor a fatty and laughed uproariously.Now, the thread makes it clear that the original brave little girl is, as Kazez thinks of it, someone like Richard Dawkins, standing up and saying unpopular things about the falsehood of religious claims. All the other children are apparently people who have thereafter taken the opportunity to engage in some kind of uncivil name calling, justifying themselves by deriding "the whole idea of Communicative Restraint and Politeness". Kazez keeps saying that her story is meant to provide a picture of "how a likeable sort of brave truthfulness can turn into something else." She adds (this is in an exchange with Ophelia), "I don't expect you to agree that this has happened in the new/gnu atheist movement, but that's how it seems to me."
Some of the adults said: "Children. You're right he's naked. The brave girl was perfectly right to say so. But you've gotten carried away. It's time to think this through. Maybe the emperor actually enjoys being naked. Maybe he really doesn't know he's naked, and he can't figure it out when you're yelling at him. Maybe when he looks at you, your clothes look ridiculous to him, too! Control yourselves, think about how you're communicating!"
This made the children very, very angry. They wanted to believe they were just like that first brave girl. They didn't want to see themselves as rude and insulting. So the children went after the adults who had chided them, and called them names, and derided the whole idea of Communicative Restraint and Politeness, which they called crap for short.
Now, I don't wish to stoop to incivility myself ... so I won't. Well, surely I should put in some snark near the end just so there's something to complain about.
But I mainly want to say how puzzling I find the Kazez account. As far as I can see, the incivility is generally not coming from people who could be considered part of the New Atheist movement - such as Dawkins, or Ophelia, or maybe Jerry Coyne, or perhaps even me if we're going that far down the food chain (though gnus are vegetarian ... so, alas, the food chain metaphor doesn't really work). Most of the mockery, name-calling, gotcha rhetoric, twisting of the truth for effect, adopting outrageous and wildly implausible lies as "Exhibits", and various others forms of downright unfairness actually seem to be coming from such people as Chris Mooney and Josh Rosenau, i.e. people who wish that the Gnus would go away.
Unless I am confronted by egregious examples of power and influence being used destructively - as we see every day from the Catholic Church - I am actually very restrained. The same applies to others who could be seen as belonging in the Gnu herd. Even my commenters tend to be a polite, thoughtful bunch.
What we actually tend to see is reasonably civil, courteous, thoughtful critiques of religion from the Gnus being met with the response that it is so far beyond the pale that it should not be said. Thus, the crucial moment that set off the current round of debates was when Jerry Coyne reviewed two books by religious authors who argued for a compatibility of religion and science. The review was as civil as one could expect from any reviewer who disagrees strongly with key elements of non-fiction books that he or she is reviewing. It was thoughtful, detailed, and followed all the courtesies. See for yourself.
The response from Chris Mooney was that such things should not be said. Again, see for yourself.
Mooney cited - in a way that is clearly an endorsement, as clear as these things can ever be - a speech by Barbara Forrest:
Forrest eloquently defended this view in the first half of her talk; but in the second, she also challenged the latest secularist to start a ruckus–Jerry Coyne, who I’ve criticized before. In a recent New Republic book review, Coyne took on Kenneth Miller and Karl Giberson, two scientists who reconcile science and religion in their own lives. Basically, Forrest’s point was that while Coyne may be right that there’s no good reason to believe in the supernatural, he’s very misguided about strategy. Especially when we have the religious right to worry about, why is he criticizing people like Miller and Giberson for their attempts to reconcile modern science and religion?
Forrest then gave three reasons that secularists should not alienate religious moderates:
1. Etiquette. Or as Forrest put it, “be nice.” Religion is a very private matter, and given that liberal religionists support church-state separation, we really have no business questioning their personal way of making meaning of the world. After all, they are not trying to force it on anybody else.Forrest therefore concluded her talk by saying that we need [an] “epistemological and civic humility”–providing the groundwork for “civic friendship.” To which I can only say: Amen.
2. Diversity. There are so many religions out there, and so much variation even within particular sects or faiths. So why would we want to criticize liberal Christians, who have not sacrificed scientific accuracy, who are pro-evolution, when there are so many fundamentalists out there attacking science and trying to translate their beliefs into public policy?
3. Humility. Science can’t prove a negative: Saying there is no God is saying more than we can ever really know empirically, or based on data and evidence. So why drive a wedge between religious and non-religious defenders of evolution when it is not even possible to definitively prove the former wrong about metaphysics?
Now, notice what is going on here. The views attributed to Forrest do not relate to some piece of writing or speechmaking that eschews all politeness and communicative restraint. The views that Mooney is attributing to Forrest, and clearly (see for yourself) endorsing, relate to a book review that follows the usual courtesies.
And note what it is said by Forrest/Mooney that we should not do or say. It's not a matter of exercising politeness. It's a matter of 1. do not question the beliefs of liberal religionists; 2. do not criticize pro-evolution liberal Christians, 3. do not make atheistic claims. Again, I don't see how this can be any clearer. What we have here is not a call for politeness or some degree of communicative restraint in the interest of social harmony. It quite plainly says that we should not "criticize" or even "question" the religious views of (so-called) "liberal" Christians or "moderates", and in particular we should not say "there is no God". It's there in black and white.
The current debate is not, in essence, about politeness or communicative restraint. If Jerry Coyne talks to a group of Christians he is polite to them, as long as they are themselves courteous, open to discussion, and so on. So am I. What we are proposing is not mocking individuals or generally behaving like arse/assholes. It is, however, doing the things that Mooney (and, apparently, Forrest) said we should not do. That is, we do intend to go on questioning religious beliefs, even so-called liberal ones, criticising religious apologists, even so-called moderates, and putting the case that "there is no God". We will not do this in a way that lacks all "communicative restraint", though the appropriate degree of restraint will depend very much on the context.
Folks, none of this is inconsistent. Anyway, a more applicable story would go something like this:
Some other kids were unimpressed with the brave girl. They started telling her to be quiet. Some even told her, "Yes, the emperor has no clothes, but you must never, ever say such things!"
The girl protested to them, "But it's true, and it's not as if I called the emperor fatty or laughed in his face. Still, he has no clothes, and I think it should be said."
Some of the adults said ... very loudly: "Little girl, you're wrong - clearly he's dressed in beautiful finery. You need to look more carefully."
Others spoke to her in urgent whispers. "You must never say the emperor is naked," one woman said, bending down to the little girl, "not even in the most polite and thoughtful way you can. First, the emperor is not making you go around naked, so why question his clothing choices? Second, the alternative emperor might be a nasty man, so be nice to the one you've got. Third, you can never prove definitively that the emperor has no clothes, so why make trouble? Civic friendship demands that you show epistemological and civic humility about emperors and their various degrees of undress. Now run along and play."
The brave girl was upset by this, but she stood her ground as she thought about it. Some of her friends finally spoke up. "But it's not fair," her friend Cordelia said. "The emperor really is naked."
"But you've both got carried away here," said a nicely-dressed kid with a big white Colgate smile. "Maybe the emperor actually enjoys being naked. Maybe he really doesn't know he's naked, and he can't figure it out when you're speaking to him politely. Maybe when he looks at you, your clothes look ridiculous to him, too! Calm yourselves!"
"I'm perfectly calm," the little girl said in a perfectly calm voice (though she actually still felt a bit upset inside).
"So am I," Cordelia said in a no-nonsense way, "though this is getting a bit annoying."
"Oh noes! No, no, no," said the kid with the Colgate smile. "Now, you're being strident. Think of how you're communicating!"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)