Just in case there are one or two people out there who don't read Pharyngula every day, here's the latest from PZ Myers: Get meaner, angrier, louder, fiercer. He has little use for appeasers and fencesitters.
Pierce R. Butler had an interesting comment to this post. (#185)
The question is, are PZ's howls in violation of the "let's-all-get-along" social contract justified by the harmfulness of those they're directed at? At the risk of inducing metaphorical whiplash, is the prowler a trivial cold virus or a spirochete? Or even an allergen, a reflexive overreaction to an otherwise tolerable minor irritant? (If your metaphor meter is in the red zone, please unplug it now.)
In the context of creationism's direct threat to working science, you could make a good case that PZ's reactions are as excessive as a Bronx junkyard dog in a Kyoto geisha house. (You were warned.) In context of the general harm to present & future generations of superstition & maleducation, his snapping & slavering more resemble, well, a Bronx junkyard dog in a Bronx junkyard.
So, I think that it's all about the target audience. When you are trying to point out dangers of the positions of those you oppose to those who would naturally tend to agree with you, fire and passion are useful. Strong language and emotion will be helpful in getting those people to pay attention and motivate them to follow your lead.
But while passionately defending your opinions is always appropriate when you believe in something strongly, I still maintain that harsh language is going to be less and less productive if you are actually trying to convince someone from an opposing viewpoint. Basically, I believe that it is possible to be passionate and firm without being one who initiates confrontation.
...I still maintain that harsh language is going to be less and less productive if you are actually trying to convince someone from an opposing viewpoint.
Can you give me some examples of major social changes that were accomplished solely by people who spoke softly? I think you need outspoken radicals in order to get people's attention. The kinder and gentler approach may become effective after the radicals have brought the issue to the fore, but it doesn't work by itself.
I note that Richard Dawkins has done more to stimulate discussion about atheism than any soft-spoken appeaser that I know of.
Fundamentalist Christian leaders are mean, loud, vindictive and bigoted as well as being just plain ignorant. In order to counter their message you have to do more than just softly whisper your displeasure in the quiet of your own home. People have been doing that for 50 years and look where it's gotten them.
"Can you give me some examples of major social changes that were accomplished solely by people who spoke softly?"
I think you are making a false dichotomy, presuming that not speaking harshly is speaking softly. In essence, you are presuming that someone who is not aggressive must be passive, and forgetting the third alternative: being assertive.
Martin Luther King was assertive. He made it absolutely clear that treating human beings as subhuman was unacceptable. He did not, however, gratuitously insult people.
I think you are making a false dichotomy, presuming that not speaking harshly is speaking softly. In essence, you are presuming that someone who is not aggressive must be passive, and forgetting the third alternative: being assertive.
Hmmm ... you make a distinction between speaking harshly and being assertive. The former is non-productive but the latter is effective. I'm sorry but I fail to see this distinction.
Martin Luther King was assertive. He made it absolutely clear that treating human beings as subhuman was unacceptable. He did not, however, gratuitously insult people.
Call it what you will. He pissed off enough people that his house was bombed, he was thrown in jail, and he was assassinated. You may see his actions as being merely "assertive" but lots of white folk saw it as harsh and insulting.
Since we're talking about the middle ground (theistic evolutionists, and appeasers) it might be informative to recall the words of Martin Luther King writing in "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fan in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
"Hmmm ... you make a distinction between speaking harshly and being assertive. The former is non-productive but the latter is effective. I'm sorry but I fail to see this distinction."
There was another blogger who made the distinction pretty well:
I made the point that, just like the Civil Rights Movement, our core messages will be insulting: atheists exist, we don't believe in God, we don't think it's sensible to believe in something like that. People will be offended by it, but that doesn't matter. But ask yourself: What if Martin Luther King, Jr. got up on the podium to give his speech, and instead of delivering the famous "I Have a Dream" speech, he delivered a speech entitled, "All Crackers Belong in Mental Institutions"? The former speech would inevitably offend his critics. The latter one is a different type of "offensive", though.
What I see you, Myers, and Dawkins do is not "merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive." You are not just insulting the religious by your mere insistence that you be treated as human beings, or simply by pointing out the many real flaws in religion. You also tell untruths about religion as well. For example, you (general "you", this refers more to Myers) write as if this flowchart is an accurate description of religion:
Start -> Get an idea -> Ignore contradicting evidence -> Keep idea forever -> End
Never mind that if the flowchart were true, you wouldn't have theistic evolutionists to kick around. And speaking of theistic evolutionists, I note that you never have offered a single fact to support your claim that they "nibble at science and undermine its principles." You have offered much verbiage, but that is not the same thing. Actually, your treatment of religion is very reminiscent of Dawkins' treatment of Thomas Aquinas' fourth way: the real thing is not that difficult to knock down, but you insist on attacking a straw man anyway. You don't just attack religion, but you do it badly, appealing to grossly overgeneralized stereotypes while falling into the trap of confirming the stereotypes of the opposition. This is something Martin Luther King never did.
King never made it easy to confuse him with a crude stereotype of blacks. Notice, too, the conspicuous absence of nastiness in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." He may compare white moderates with the Ku Klux Klanners, but he never conflates them together, as opposed to Dawkins, who in his Neville Chamberlain analogy lumps moderates with fundies and implicitly places them in the role of Hitler. If anything, King's tone is that of disappointment. Even in his bluntness, there is a graciousness that is utterly absent from the likes of you or Myers. (On occasion, Dawkins does muster some grace.)
Never mind that if the flowchart were true, you wouldn't have theistic evolutionists to kick around. And speaking of theistic evolutionists, I note that you never have offered a single fact to support your claim that they "nibble at science and undermine its principles." You have offered much verbiage, but that is not the same thing. Actually, your treatment of religion is very reminiscent of Dawkins' treatment of Thomas Aquinas' fourth way: the real thing is not that difficult to knock down, but you insist on attacking a straw man anyway. You don't just attack religion, but you do it badly, appealing to grossly overgeneralized stereotypes while falling into the trap of confirming the stereotypes of the opposition.
Are you being harsh or merely assertive? :-)
I spent a lot of time defending my position on Theistic Evolution. It seems a little disingenuous of you to dismiss it all as verbiage.
Why not give me some reasons why you think Theistic Evolution is valid science?
Could you also tell me whether the books by Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Simon Conway-Morris qualify as "verbiage" in your mind? I'd like to know whether you are a hypocrite.
Let me clarify one thing about your strawman charge. I'm opposed to people who believe in supernatural beings without having any evidence. Why do you say that's a strawman? I don't understand what you mean when you say that I'm attacking grossly overgeneralized stereotypes. If you believe in superstitions I'm going to try and get you to change our mind. What's so grossly overgeneralized about that?
"Why not give me some reasons why you think Theistic Evolution is valid science?"
I smell the trap of a black-or-white fallacy. The trick is that if theistic evolution isn't valid science, it must be invalid science, right? Wrong. My liking for chocolate isn't valid science, either, but that doesn't make it invalid science. Now I am NOT saying that theistic evolution is a taste like a preference for chocolate. My point is that saying that theistic evolution isn't valid science doesn't get you very far, because things that aren't valid science range from things that are totally irrelevant to science to things that are a direct threat to it. You wrote that "nibble at science and undermine its principles." Now do you have any support for that claim or not?
"Could you also tell me whether the books by Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Simon Conway-Morris qualify as 'verbiage' in your mind? I'd like to know whether you are a hypocrite."
About the only way I could be a hypocrite is if I had read their books yet did not apply the same standards for calling their books verbiage as I did to your article on theistic evolution. I have not read any of those books, so I am in no position to apply any standards to them, double or otherwise. (Having recently been burned by judging a book by its book reviews alone, I am leery of repeating the same mistake here.)
"I don't understand what you mean when you say that I'm attacking grossly overgeneralized stereotypes."
You are not content to describe the religious as merely having incorrect beliefs, but go on to describe them as deluded, or as having let others do their thinking for them. I suggest that you lurk on the Ship-of-Fools forums for a while. You might find that the religious aren't the rubes that you apparently think they are.
BTW, if it wasn't clear, the gross stereotype to which I was alluding was the idea that the religious were idiots or deluded fools, rather than people who are usually sensible but happen to be mistaken on some matters.
8 comments :
Pierce R. Butler had an interesting comment to this post. (#185)
The question is, are PZ's howls in violation of the "let's-all-get-along" social contract justified by the harmfulness of those they're directed at? At the risk of inducing metaphorical whiplash, is the prowler a trivial cold virus or a spirochete? Or even an allergen, a reflexive overreaction to an otherwise tolerable minor irritant? (If your metaphor meter is in the red zone, please unplug it now.)
In the context of creationism's direct threat to working science, you could make a good case that PZ's reactions are as excessive as a Bronx junkyard dog in a Kyoto geisha house. (You were warned.) In context of the general harm to present & future generations of superstition & maleducation, his snapping & slavering more resemble, well, a Bronx junkyard dog in a Bronx junkyard.
So, I think that it's all about the target audience. When you are trying to point out dangers of the positions of those you oppose to those who would naturally tend to agree with you, fire and passion are useful. Strong language and emotion will be helpful in getting those people to pay attention and motivate them to follow your lead.
But while passionately defending your opinions is always appropriate when you believe in something strongly, I still maintain that harsh language is going to be less and less productive if you are actually trying to convince someone from an opposing viewpoint. Basically, I believe that it is possible to be passionate and firm without being one who initiates confrontation.
jasontd says,
...I still maintain that harsh language is going to be less and less productive if you are actually trying to convince someone from an opposing viewpoint.
Can you give me some examples of major social changes that were accomplished solely by people who spoke softly? I think you need outspoken radicals in order to get people's attention. The kinder and gentler approach may become effective after the radicals have brought the issue to the fore, but it doesn't work by itself.
I note that Richard Dawkins has done more to stimulate discussion about atheism than any soft-spoken appeaser that I know of.
Fundamentalist Christian leaders are mean, loud, vindictive and bigoted as well as being just plain ignorant. In order to counter their message you have to do more than just softly whisper your displeasure in the quiet of your own home. People have been doing that for 50 years and look where it's gotten them.
"Can you give me some examples of major social changes that were accomplished solely by people who spoke softly?"
I think you are making a false dichotomy, presuming that not speaking harshly is speaking softly. In essence, you are presuming that someone who is not aggressive must be passive, and forgetting the third alternative: being assertive.
Martin Luther King was assertive. He made it absolutely clear that treating human beings as subhuman was unacceptable. He did not, however, gratuitously insult people.
J. J. Ramsey says,
I think you are making a false dichotomy, presuming that not speaking harshly is speaking softly. In essence, you are presuming that someone who is not aggressive must be passive, and forgetting the third alternative: being assertive.
Hmmm ... you make a distinction between speaking harshly and being assertive. The former is non-productive but the latter is effective. I'm sorry but I fail to see this distinction.
Martin Luther King was assertive. He made it absolutely clear that treating human beings as subhuman was unacceptable. He did not, however, gratuitously insult people.
Call it what you will. He pissed off enough people that his house was bombed, he was thrown in jail, and he was assassinated. You may see his actions as being merely "assertive" but lots of white folk saw it as harsh and insulting.
Since we're talking about the middle ground (theistic evolutionists, and appeasers) it might be informative to recall the words of Martin Luther King writing in "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fan in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
"Hmmm ... you make a distinction between speaking harshly and being assertive. The former is non-productive but the latter is effective. I'm sorry but I fail to see this distinction."
There was another blogger who made the distinction pretty well:
I made the point that, just like the Civil Rights Movement, our core messages will be insulting: atheists exist, we don't believe in God, we don't think it's sensible to believe in something like that. People will be offended by it, but that doesn't matter. But ask yourself: What if Martin Luther King, Jr. got up on the podium to give his speech, and instead of delivering the famous "I Have a Dream" speech, he delivered a speech entitled, "All Crackers Belong in Mental Institutions"? The former speech would inevitably offend his critics. The latter one is a different type of "offensive", though.
What I see you, Myers, and Dawkins do is not "merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive." You are not just insulting the religious by your mere insistence that you be treated as human beings, or simply by pointing out the many real flaws in religion. You also tell untruths about religion as well. For example, you (general "you", this refers more to Myers) write as if this flowchart is an accurate description of religion:
Start -> Get an idea -> Ignore contradicting evidence -> Keep idea forever -> End
Never mind that if the flowchart were true, you wouldn't have theistic evolutionists to kick around. And speaking of theistic evolutionists, I note that you never have offered a single fact to support your claim that they "nibble at science and undermine its principles." You have offered much verbiage, but that is not the same thing. Actually, your treatment of religion is very reminiscent of Dawkins' treatment of Thomas Aquinas' fourth way: the real thing is not that difficult to knock down, but you insist on attacking a straw man anyway. You don't just attack religion, but you do it badly, appealing to grossly overgeneralized stereotypes while falling into the trap of confirming the stereotypes of the opposition. This is something Martin Luther King never did.
King never made it easy to confuse him with a crude stereotype of blacks. Notice, too, the conspicuous absence of nastiness in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." He may compare white moderates with the Ku Klux Klanners, but he never conflates them together, as opposed to Dawkins, who in his Neville Chamberlain analogy lumps moderates with fundies and implicitly places them in the role of Hitler. If anything, King's tone is that of disappointment. Even in his bluntness, there is a graciousness that is utterly absent from the likes of you or Myers. (On occasion, Dawkins does muster some grace.)
J. J. Ramsey says,
Never mind that if the flowchart were true, you wouldn't have theistic evolutionists to kick around. And speaking of theistic evolutionists, I note that you never have offered a single fact to support your claim that they "nibble at science and undermine its principles." You have offered much verbiage, but that is not the same thing. Actually, your treatment of religion is very reminiscent of Dawkins' treatment of Thomas Aquinas' fourth way: the real thing is not that difficult to knock down, but you insist on attacking a straw man anyway. You don't just attack religion, but you do it badly, appealing to grossly overgeneralized stereotypes while falling into the trap of confirming the stereotypes of the opposition.
Are you being harsh or merely assertive? :-)
I spent a lot of time defending my position on Theistic Evolution. It seems a little disingenuous of you to dismiss it all as verbiage.
Why not give me some reasons why you think Theistic Evolution is valid science?
Could you also tell me whether the books by Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Simon Conway-Morris qualify as "verbiage" in your mind? I'd like to know whether you are a hypocrite.
Let me clarify one thing about your strawman charge. I'm opposed to people who believe in supernatural beings without having any evidence. Why do you say that's a strawman? I don't understand what you mean when you say that I'm attacking grossly overgeneralized stereotypes. If you believe in superstitions I'm going to try and get you to change our mind. What's so grossly overgeneralized about that?
"Why not give me some reasons why you think Theistic Evolution is valid science?"
I smell the trap of a black-or-white fallacy. The trick is that if theistic evolution isn't valid science, it must be invalid science, right? Wrong. My liking for chocolate isn't valid science, either, but that doesn't make it invalid science. Now I am NOT saying that theistic evolution is a taste like a preference for chocolate. My point is that saying that theistic evolution isn't valid science doesn't get you very far, because things that aren't valid science range from things that are totally irrelevant to science to things that are a direct threat to it. You wrote that "nibble at science and undermine its principles." Now do you have any support for that claim or not?
"Could you also tell me whether the books by Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Simon Conway-Morris qualify as 'verbiage' in your mind? I'd like to know whether you are a hypocrite."
About the only way I could be a hypocrite is if I had read their books yet did not apply the same standards for calling their books verbiage as I did to your article on theistic evolution. I have not read any of those books, so I am in no position to apply any standards to them, double or otherwise. (Having recently been burned by judging a book by its book reviews alone, I am leery of repeating the same mistake here.)
"I don't understand what you mean when you say that I'm attacking grossly overgeneralized stereotypes."
You are not content to describe the religious as merely having incorrect beliefs, but go on to describe them as deluded, or as having let others do their thinking for them. I suggest that you lurk on the Ship-of-Fools forums for a while. You might find that the religious aren't the rubes that you apparently think they are.
BTW, if it wasn't clear, the gross stereotype to which I was alluding was the idea that the religious were idiots or deluded fools, rather than people who are usually sensible but happen to be mistaken on some matters.
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