I’m not the greatest proponent of deliberate, out-and-out blasphemy for blasphemy’s sake, nor am I by any means an opponent of blasphemy. I simply have caveats.
For me, offence is an inevitable side effect of challenging sectarian power, not the goal itself. And therein lies the problem for me – like others in a democracy, I have the right to challenge sectarian political power by way of argument and the concept of blasphemy is a good way of stripping me of that right.
My ends may differ from the “offensive” atheists out there who are just in it for the laughs (whoever they are), but like them I don’t see “I’m offended” as a legitimate rejoinder.
So when some “high road” preacher from our side of the fence starts waiving their finger and telling us to take the high road; telling us what not to do; telling us atheists how they are embarrassed by our blasphemy, I’m not at all impressed.
Paul Kurtz, now former chair emeritus of the Center for Inquiry has been in the spotlight, or perhaps hogging the limelight, of late. Kurtz, seemingly increasingly, belongs to the take-the-highroad camp. Objecting to the Center for Inquiry’s Blasphemy Day for not reaching his (increasingly?) lofty ideals.
Similarly, Edd Doerr, former head of The American Humanist Association last December waved his finger at the proliferation of billboard campaigns. Specifically the ads claiming of all things (shock horror), that you can be good without God. Why? Because “divisive ad campaigns invite blowback and stimulate both ends of the religious spectrum to engage in fruitless bouts of name-calling and invective”.
Yes. Doerr is telling us that pointing out that ethics are a product of humanity, a view that religious humanists and godless humanists have in common, is divisive.
There was no invective at all in the Good without God billboard campaign. There was no invective stemming from the campaign. The only invective surrounding it was that directed at it.
Doerr is just taking the be-nice-to-religious-people-as-categorical-imperative to its logical conclusion; pandering to religious bigotry held dear by bigoted religious people. “How dare they say that morals are human in origin and that godless heathens can therefore be as moral as religious people!”
This is why I take more issue with this kind of thing from the Doerrs and the Kurtzs in the world of the godless than I do with the admittedly acquired taste works of the likes of PZ Myers.
Hyperbolic rhetoric at least to some degree risks inflammatory polarisation, but it doesn’t guarantee that anything bad will come of it. This is as strong an argument as the “I’m offended” or “play nice” types can make against the object of their chagrin. It’s not a necessary, nor obvious outcome that their fears, real or contrived, are realised.
On the other hand, it’s a necessary outcome of the “be better” approach that equality is devalued? How so?
There is a minimum standard for intelligent, civic conduct that one can expect from people speaking from a position of privilege. Indeed, I think there are two tiers of minimum conduct – that required to be taken seriously (the one more relevant to this discussion) and another for lawful minimum conduct (e.g. using a media pulpit to call for the assassination of a democratically elected head of state falls below this tier). (For some idea of scope, I consider Myers’ work above the first tier, while Pat Condell’s sillier posts and Thunderf00t’s recent failings I’d place below the first tier but above the second.)
In an equal, pluralistic democracy these standards are the same regardless of what race, gender or religious tradition you hail from. This is where Kurtz and Doerr run into trouble.
Their finger waiving necessarily raises the first tier (behaviour to expect) for atheists, but not for others. This is contrary to the cause of atheist equality, and contrary to the cause of equality in general.
If it weren’t a categorical imperative, if Kurtz and Doerr confined their high expectations to specific office as a matter of pragmatism, I wouldn’t be writing this. But they don’t.
Doerr painted the ‘Good without God’ billboard campaign as intrinsically at odds with secular humanist values. It was practically the secular humanist equivalent of a Papal decree.
And Kurtz takes his “be nicer than you actually are, and nicer than the norm, to get people to merely accept you as normal” schick on the road, selling it to the godless masses.
Part of this equality thing that perhaps more than anything else is supposed to be a part of our mandate, is that we all get a bit of leeway for difference in personality given our differences in nature and nurture; a bit of leeway for difference in approach given the different ways we can be received and a margin for human error – a margin the same as that given to anyone else with the same opportunities, regardless of religiosity. Jokes can fall flat. Tone can be off.
It’s not ideal to screw-up – that much is self-evident - but within reason it’s not something for people to be made to feel ashamed about – again, regardless of religiosity.
If you aren’t on board with atheists being able to screw up as much as anyone else, then you aren’t on board with equality.
The neglect of this very serious point by Kurtz and Doerr is to my mind a far worse infraction, far more substantial than any of PZ Myers’ more misjudged rhetoric. To the extent that I consider it beneath the first tier I talked about – although not beneath the second, lower tier. This error of judgement may not be as colourful, or brazen, or apparently as distasteful as the worst that Pat Condell has to offer, but to me the tiers I talk of aren’t a matter of taste.
I find Kurtz and Doerr’s take on acceptable conduct amongst the godless, to the stated aim of equality, to be as wrong and self-contradictory as Pat Condell’s arguments about women’s clothing and freedom of movement across borders is to his stated aim of freedom. They are just logically, terminally at odds with their stated civic goals.
***
Often, by those of the “mandatory high road” persuasion, much is made of the alliances the godless have, or could have, with people of moderate religions. Indeed, that’s pretty much it – “we won’t win any religious allies” (I paraphrase) – as if that was an argument in and of itself.
Religious allies aren’t necessarily wanted
Let me say that it is by no means self-evident that in a pluralistic democracy, that all persuasions are cherished equally by all people. There is no place for forced affection in a tolerant, multicultural society.
To those of a multicultural persuasion who may disagree, let me put a thought experiment by you. I’m a vegetarian. Would you take away my multicultural street-cred if I didn’t sit around in a kebab shop, eating lamb kebabs? No. There you go – a clear, if simple example. Inter-cultural affection is a multicultural ideal, but not a multicultural necessity.
Similarly, while I would never advocate tearing down a Jeffersonian wall (indeed like Christopher Hitchens, I say “build up that wall”) to tell Christians not to wear their crosses in public and so on. This is me being tolerant, but it doesn’t require that I have a relationship with a single religious person – as it happens I do have relationships with religious people, but in as far as a tolerant pluralism is concerned, this is incidental.
So let me just say that in and of itself, losing potential religious contacts isn’t a deal breaker because it is not self-evident that we want to have relationships with religious people.
But it’s worse, the line that we have to behave like angels to keep our religious friends. Worse because it plays to concepts both naive and sinister about “having the numbers”.
Religious allies aren’t necessarily needed
I always get a kick when Chris Mooney calls people politically naive for not trying to brook alliances with religious progressives. Really, I do. It’s so… Naive.
The trade union movement in Australia used to, and to some extent has a fixation on “having the numbers”. Indeed, this is where the cynical end to an obsession with head counting comes in – branch stacking (oh how that’s killed truly intelligent debate in the Labor party).
But naivety – if you’re a young intern unionist in Australia, you’ll probably be lucky enough to come across some emerging political wisdom in union education that’s being taught these days. Aside from a recognition of where an obsession about “having the numbers” can lead you, it’s being realised that “having the numbers” isn’t as necessary to political success as common wisdom may have you believe.
The battle in South Australia (pre-WorkChoices) to have the right for casual workers to transition to permanent part-time contracts after sufficient periods of employment, amongst other examples, showed how a union movement without the numbers and without help from government, could still effect change.
Ask yourself – why does the Christian Right punch so much above its weight in both terms of money* and head-count?
Treating the existence of religious allies as self-evidently necessary to political success is naive.
Religious allies aren’t necessarily going to be attracted by a softly-softly approach
You know how the null hypothesis works when you are testing for difference between two groups of data? That without evidence to the contrary, no difference is assumed?
Take two groups – success in bringing religious people on board by method – high risk straight talking versus used car sales-man.
Until people telling me that one approach is better than the other present some actual hard data, guess what I’m going to assume?
Yes. Being straight talking can risk provoking the resolution of cognitive dissonance through the dismissal of data – “that mean atheist was rude to me! I don’t have to consider what they said!”
Why is it so hard to consider that other approaches may result in similar dismissal – “that friendly atheist is being sneaky! I don’t have to consider what they said!”
Please, don’t tell me you aren’t aware of poisoning of the well of both stripes. Please don’t tell me that there aren’t manifold means of ego defence. It’s not self-evident that one approach is inherently better than the other.
And for pity’s sake, even when cognitive dissonance isn’t an issue, I’ve more respect for my religious friends than to try to crawl up their arse in the first place.
Potential religious allies aren’t necessarily in line with our stated interests
Let’s take a relatively non-contentious issue amongst humanists – freedom of expression is a universal human right.
Consider some of our prospective religious allies.
Certainly not the Christian right – they’re unlikely to touch us with a barge-pole even if what we are proposing is ultimately in their own best interests.
Broadly, we’re left with religious moderates and the evangelical left.
Whittle that down further – who of the moderate and evangelical left are we most likely to attract by shunning blasphemy – the Pythonesque “I reserve the right to…”, but not actually be able to carry through with the act?
I reserve the right to blaspheme, even though… – It’s “pure Monty Python!”
Sure, amongst those you can attract, you’ll still attract those who take freedom of expression seriously, but perhaps this is using a magnet when a sieve is the appropriate tool.
It may be the case that you don’t want people on board who are on board with anti-blasphemy laws. Otherwise you could be inviting internecine spats like that seen above in The Life of Brian.
Please don’t tell me that you’re unaware of religious moderates who support the banning of blasphemy as a hate-crime. Indeed, with reference to the mentioned tiers of acceptable engagement, I view anti-blasphemy laws as below the second, lower tier – I consider anti-blasphemy laws a crime against humanity, and those who enact them as human rights violators – as criminals, if not in law then in principle.
It’s not necessarily the case that religious allies attracted by a given tact are going to be assets to the cause.
Even when in discreet cases religious allies are wanted, and are needed, it doesn’t necessarily fall to the godless to court them
Maybe if you were an ex-Soviet or Maoist atheist looking to reconcile with Russian Orthodox or Chinese Christians, you’d have your work set out for you. But…
How many of the godless people in humanist or even (ahem) “New Atheist” organisations today, have or have had membership in an organisation that is responsible for building the rift that exists between the religious and the non-religious?
I’ll be blunt. The Roman Catholic Church has a responsibility to build a bridge with atheists. The Church of England has a responsibility to build a bridge with atheists. I don’t have a responsibility to bridge the gap, nor do many, many, many other godless people.
And for pity’s sake, the churches most likely to be responsible actually have more of the material means to do the job! Why the hell am I being hit up for my labour?
You want an alliance to fight for environmental policy? Fine. Tell the CoE and the Roman Catholic church to overcome the obstacles they’ve engineered to make it happen! Stop this pretentious, false mea culpa that it’s the godless who are getting in the way of things.
For the many, many people like me, expecting us to make the effort to meet with the very churches with a history of creating the division in the first place is an imposture. It’s a yoke. Keep the damn thing – and don’t you dare call me divisive and expect me to treat you like a rational, honest, fair human being, just because I don’t don that yoke. I do associate with religious people of my own choosing, and if I don a yoke to do so, it’s because I’ve put it on myself.
And here’s the political risk. It may seem politically expedient to make an effort to woo religious people – there may very well be utility in any given circumstance to doing this. You may very win a political battle that you otherwise wouldn’t have. But to expect that this is where the consequences end is incredibly short-sighted.
There’s already a pervasive attitude that atheists are responsible for divisiveness, despite that the whopping great trench that’s been dug between us and the religious has been there for years and that we did little to dig it. This state of affairs is there, waiting to be inherited. It’s not our burden to inherit.
As with the more attractive trappings of religious tradition – the architecture, the private art collections, the ceremony – the division is the heritage of people who choose to affiliate with the organisations that caused it.
Expecting the godless to just shoulder more than our share of the burden, without acknowledging that it’s not actually our burden to bear, is to my mind setting up an incredibly dangerous political precedent. If we are to do this at all, it should not be before it is widely acknowledged by the leaders of the very churches that dug the stinking great trench, that the participation of the godless (or at least the innocent majority) is an act of grace.
Indeed, so huge is such a political loss, that I think it quite clear that there are numerous political goals that are worth sacrificing in order not to lose just this one. And this is even before considering that publicly telling atheists that they need to be nicer plays to the impression that atheists are less nice than other people – which is hardly an established fact.
Hence, even if religious allies can be useful for some other political goal, I don’t think it necessarily worth while going to the effort to bring them on board. Depending on the consequences of any given tactic, it could very well cost far too much.
***
A few last words
Keep in mind – I’m not some kind of atheist separatist. I’m simply criticising a number of the unspoken and seemingly unexamined assumptions naively propagated each time we atheists are told that playing nice won’t win religious friends. I’m criticising the notion that this is the way that atheists in general, not atheists in specific roles, should conduct themselves.
I’m not averse to being nice to people. I’m not averse to tone. I’m not averse to political timing. I’m certainly not averse to religious people.
I’m not averse to the idea that at least where relevant circumstances permit (China perhaps – perhaps even more-so in dealing with atheists of certain dispositions?), religious people may very well reasonably share all the same concerns I’ve expressed above in as far as their conduct towards the godless is concerned.
I’m not blaming anyone for the state of affairs – it was like this before any of us could have an effect on the situation. The situation is inherited – what parts of the situation being inherited determined by which in-group benefits (and out-group penalties) we opt for or otherwise inherit.
I’m not averse to acknowledging the many contributions that Kurtz and Doerr (and others) have made to humanism, skepticism and the cause of the godless over the length of their careers. I have no ill will (nor indeed much in the way of a crystallised opinion) about Kurtz and Doerr as people themselves – although I’ll admit that Doerr’s frankly misleading own-goal about the ‘Good without God’ billboards has sent my opinion of him in a downward trajectory.
I’m not averse to subjecting the arguments of those on “the other side” to the same scrutiny I’m subjecting those of the likes of Kurtz and Doerr to – I think my treatment of Draw Muhammad Day over the past month bares this out.
What I am averse to is being told along with others that we shouldn’t call a spade a spade, or a dickhead a dickhead, on the grounds that it will cost us religious allies thus necessarily leading to political failure – all with little more justification than that. It is by no means well-known that this is the case – it is by no means obvious – whatever happened to a bit of epistemological humility amongst skeptics?
I may choose to use tact in order to get a point across, but I will not contort my logic merely because my views may be unwelcome. I will not put an issue on the back burner merely because a group of prospective allies don’t want to deal with it – one needs to argue their political method a lot better than that to win me over. Prospective leaders of any ilk need to argue their case a lot better if they expect me to in any way support them.
I find the “play nice” argument unconvincing, and the paternalistic manner in which it is usually conveyed as supposedly obvious truth to be entirely unhelpful.
~ Bruce
* Do you really see corporate money being behind creationism, or RU486 bans? Where’s the profit?
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