Fashion Friday: Black and White Prints

I was fretting to Ingrid the other day about whether black and white prints were becoming a cliche. I freaking love black and white prints, but I’m starting to see them everywhere, and I was fretting that five or ten years from now, they’d be like bell bottoms from the ’70s or shoulder pads from the ’80s. “Do you remember the early 20-teens, when everyone was wearing black and white prints? God, we were such dorks!”

And then I decided: No. Black and white prints aren’t a cliche. Black and white prints are not going to be a cliche. Black and white prints have skipped the “cliche” phase entirely, and are going straight from “trendy” to “basic.”

And there’s a reason. Black and white prints are awesome.

Black and white prints are neutral — i.e., you can wear them with any color — without being boring.

Black and white prints are elegant and classy, but still attention-grabbing and playful. Or, if you prefer: Black and white prints are attention-grabbing and playful, but still elegant and classy.

Black and white prints are a great way to make black a little more interesting. As someone who loves her some black clothing; as someone who used to wear all black all the time; as someone who had to make a New Year’s resolution one year to start buying at least some clothing that wasn’t black — and as someone who was finally, reluctantly, forced to admit that black needs at least a little something else to set it off if it’s not going to go completely flat and disappear into itself — I very much appreciate the value of this.

Black and white prints are super versatile, and can easily be dressed up or dressed down. A black and white print blouse, for instance, can be worn with jeans for a casual look; a jacket and trousers for the office; heels and an elegant skirt for evening.

Black and white prints can be mixed with other prints: either colored prints, or other black and white prints. Mixing prints can be a nifty way to create a dramatic look, but it’s tricky to do without looking like you either dressed in the dark or escaped from the circus. Black and white prints make this balancing act… not easy, exactly, but less difficult.

Black and white prints can, as noted above, be worn with any color. But they can also be worn with no color at all. They’re a perfect way to get the sparse elegance of a no-color look, and still look interesting and eye-catching and not blend into the background.

And you can go in a lot of different directions with a black and white print. You can go with zany patterns or classic stripes; little florals or vivid op-arts; simple checks or wild zebra stripes; strong graphics or subtle patterns that read as gray from a distance. They look great in blouses, dresses, skirts, jackets, tank tops. So there’s a lot of room in there for personal style.

I was so very happy when I started seeing black and white prints everywhere. I love it when styles I love come into fashion. Not because my closet is all of a sudden trendy — I don’t much care about that — but because I’ll be able to buy the clothes I like. Military styling, richly saturated colors… it tickled me pink to see these things show up in the fashion magazines, because it meant they’d be in the stores soon, and I could buy them.

But there is a danger to it. Styles that are trendy today can easily become dated tomorrow. And while, for the most part, I don’t really give a shit about what is or is not currently in fashion, I don’t want my look to be so dated it’s ridiculous. To hammer the “fashion is like a language” metaphor into the ground: I don’t want to be using slang from twenty years ago. I don’t want to be one of those wanna-be hip codgers who has no clue that nobody says “Groovy” anymore.

I don’t think that’s going to happen with black and white prints, though. I think — and I should clarify here that I am by no stretch of the imagination a fashion expert and I could very easily be wrong about this — that black and white prints are not going anywhere. I think they’re becoming a classic. A basic. Like denim, or the little black dress.

There’s a different danger to that, of course. Part of what I like about black and white prints is that they’re so distinctive. And if everyone is wearing them… well, they’re going to be a lot less distinctive. Pretty much by definition.

But I’m okay with that. Again: Black and white prints are versatile enough that they can easily be made distinctive, even if lots of people are wearing them. If they become a basic, I’ll still be able to make them my own: with jewelry, with shoes, with jackets, with colors, with patterned stockings, with other prints. And of course, there can be a nearly infinite variety of prints… just like there’s a nearly infinite variety of little black dresses. There’s lots of room for distinction and expression and playfulness in basics — and there will still be lots of room for distinction and expression and playfulness in black and white prints, even as they become a basic.

And if they become a basic, then they’ll always be in the stores. And I’ll be able to buy them.

Which will be totally awesome.

Fashion Friday: Black and White Prints
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My Sophisticated Tiger-ology

I received a comment on a post yesterday that I felt a strong need to respond to, and I thought the rest of you should see it. I had posted a link to a piece from my archives, Why “I Feel It In My Heart” Is a Terrible Argument for God, in which I said the following:

The human mind did not evolve to perceive and process information 100% accurately. The human mind evolved to find food and escape from predators. Many of our cognitive errors are important and useful in helping us function (or they were 100,000 years ago on the African savannah when we were hunting gazelles and escaping from tigers)… but they make our minds not entirely trustworthy as sources of information.

To which Anon Naturalist replied:

Ahem: there are no tigers in Africa, only in Asia.

I considered carefully, and after much searching of my non-existent soul, I wrote this in reply.

Anon Naturalist @ #4: Your epistemology is so crude. It may not be literally true that there are tigers in Africa… but it’s psychologically true. It’s the narrative of tigers in Africa that resonates on a deep, meaningful level with the human soul. And it should be clear that “tigers in Africa” is meant to be taken metaphorically. Nobody really believes in the literal tigers in Africa: the belief in tigers in Africa is part of a modern, sophisticated tiger-ology that’s much more advanced than you’re giving credit to. But many people are comforted by their belief in tigers in Africa, and it’s very cruel of you to try to take the comfort away.

Or, to put it another way: Oops.

Thoughts? Was I too harsh?

My Sophisticated Tiger-ology

From the Archives: Why Near Death Experiences Are a Terrible Argument for the Soul

Since I moved to the Freethought Blogs network, I have a bunch of new readers who aren’t familiar with my greatest hits from my old, pre-FTB blog. So I’m linking to some of them, about one a day, to introduce them to the new folks.

Today’s archive treasure: Why Near Death Experiences Are a Terrible Argument for the Soul. The tl;dr: Most arguments for spiritual belief that I encounter are so bad, they don’t even count as arguments. But some believers in religion or spirituality do try to make real arguments for their beliefs, and try to defend them with evidence and logic. This evidence and logic are never very good… but they are sincere attempts to engage with reality instead of ignoring it. So I want to do these arguments the honor of taking them seriously… and pointing out how they’re completely mistaken. This piece takes on the argument that near-death experiences provide some sort of real scientific evidence for the existence of an immaterial soul separate from the brain, and which lives on after the brain dies.

A nifty pull quote:

Given that the evidence supporting the “biological process of the brain” explanation is rigorously gathered, carefully tested, thoroughly cross-checked, internally consistent, consistent with everything we know about how the brain and the mind work, able to produce mind-bogglingly accurate predictions, not slanted towards wishful thinking, and is expanding our understanding of the mind every day.

Given that the evidence supporting the “immortal soul separate from the brain” explanation is flimsy, anecdotal, internally inconsistent, blasted into non-existence upon careful examination, totally at odds with everything we know about how the brain and the mind work, and strongly biased towards what people most desperately want to believe.

Which of these explanations of consciousness seems more likely?

And which explanation of near-death experiences seems more likely?

Enjoy!

And now a quick question: Are there any of these evidence-based arguments for religious or spiritual belief that I’m missing?

I wrote this series to address the arguments for religion that actually take the question of whether religion is true or not seriously, and that attempt to offer real evidence in favor of religious claims. Of the countless arguments I’ve seen for religion I was able to come up with five — the first cause argument, the argument from design, the argument from fine-tuning, “I feel it in my heart,” and near-death experiences — that fit this category. The rest are just bafflegab: excuses for why evidence isn’t necessary, defenses of the notion that we shouldn’t care whether religion is true as long as it’s useful, accusations that atheists are mean for raising the question in the first place, Pascal’s Fucking Wager, etc. Are there any actual evidence- based arguments for religion that I should be addressing in this series? If so, please let me know.

From the Archives: Why Near Death Experiences Are a Terrible Argument for the Soul

Greta Speaking in Boston and Cambridge, Oct. 22 and 23

Hi, all! I’m going to be in Boston and Cambridge (Massachusetts, not England) the weekend of October 22 and 23rd. I’ll be speaking at Harvard (sponsored by the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard), Boston University (Boston Atheists and Humanists of Boston University), and Tufts (Tufts Freethought Society). I’ll be speaking on the topics of “Atheism and Sexuality” and “Why Are You Atheists So Angry?” I’ll be doing Q&A and assorted schmoozing at all the events — so if you’re in the area, come by and say hi! Details are below.

EVENT/ HOSTS: Boston Atheists and Humanists of Boston University
DATE: Saturday, October 22
TIME: 3:00 pm
LOCATION: Boston University, SED 130
TOPIC: Why Are You Atheists So Angry?
SUMMARY: The atheist movement is often accused of being driven by anger. What are so many atheists so angry about? Is this anger legitimate? And can anger be an effective force behind a movement for social change?
COST: Free

EVENT/ HOSTS: Tufts Freethought Society, Freethought Week III
DATE: Saturday, October 22
TIME: 6:00 pm
LOCATION: TBA
TOPIC: Atheism and Sexuality
SUMMARY: The sexual morality of traditional religion tends to be based, not on solid ethical principles, but on a set of taboos about what kinds of sex God does and doesn’t want people to have. And while the sex-positive community offers a more thoughtful view of sexual morality, it still often frames sexuality as positive by seeing it as a spiritual experience. What are some atheist alternatives to these views? How can atheists view sexual ethics without a belief in God? And how can atheists view sexual transcendence without a belief in the supernatural?
COST: Free

EVENT/ HOSTS: Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard
DATE: Sunday, October 23
TIME: Noon
LOCATION: 12 Eliot Street (3rd Floor), Cambridge, MA
TOPIC: Atheism and Sexuality
SUMMARY: See above
COST: Free

Hope to see you there!

Greta Speaking in Boston and Cambridge, Oct. 22 and 23

American Cancer Society Moves from Dodging to Covering Their Tracks

And the plot thickens.

The American Cancer Society is now not just evading the issue with bland denials and passive- aggressive little digs at atheists for bringing it up. They’re now apparently taking active steps to cover their tracks.

I just got this email from Todd Stiefel, regarding the story about the American Cancer Society refusing to let the Foundation Beyond Belief participate as a national team in the Relay for Life… and declining a $250,000 matching offer from the Todd Stiefel Foundation to make it happen.

Hi all,

I hate to even have to write this, but the plot is thickening on the ACS front.

A second article was written on this story: http://www.alternet.org/belief/152685/is_atheist_money_too_controversial_for_the_american_cancer_society_/?page=entire

Since then, and this is a bit shocking, the American Cancer Society has begun to cover things up. When Greta Christina was working on the article, I sent her some links to where on the ACS site they listed out their non-profit youth partner national teams. They had links to those teams on the main Relay for Life page and on their college Relay page. Both of those links have been removed since Greta’s article came out. It appears they are trying to hide the fact that they have youth partner national teams with other non-profit groups. The info on their youth teams is still on their site, but you can’t get to it through the site anymore, because the links are disabled. You have to get there by directly typing in the URL. Fortunately, I still had that from the email I sent to Greta: http://relay.acsevents.org/site/PageNavigator/RFL_FY11_NationalYouth.html

I also got a call from one of the charities in their youth partner program. They are pretty upset about what is happening. They also told me that they checked last night, and suddenly their access to their youth partner team webpage had been cut off by ACS. The ACS may try to say that they were already phasing them out, but that would be untrue. They were prominently featured on the new college Relay for Life website that was launched on September 1, 2011. It is only in the last week that they have pulled them off.

The most obvious form of unequal treatment was their denying us of a youth partner national team, like they give to other non-profits, especially student groups. The result of their disabling the links is that now the uninformed will go to their site and find absolutely no evidence that they are working with other non-profits.

Todd

So now they’re alienating other non-profit organizations who are participating in this program — just so they can avoid admitting their mistake and letting the Foundation Beyond Belief take part? And they’re changing their website in a way that makes it harder to see the discrepancy?

I’m sorry, but this does not look good. This does not look an organization that made a good-faith decision based on an institutional policy change that was already in the works. This looks like an organization that’s trying to cover its tracks.

If you’re angry about this situation: Here, once again, is the American Cancer Society’s Facebook page, and their contact info on their Website.

American Cancer Society Moves from Dodging to Covering Their Tracks

Dream diary, 10/13/11: The Atheist Comedian Conference and Pizza Party

I dreamed that Ingrid and I were hosting an atheist conference in our house, with a line-up combining famous atheist writers and atheist stand-up comedians, and with an informal pizza party in our basement at the dinner break. I was enjoying hanging out with Richard Dawkins, but was irritated that the vegetarian pizza all got eaten before I got any.

I woke up thinking, “Wait a minute. We don’t have a basement.”

Dream diary, 10/13/11: The Atheist Comedian Conference and Pizza Party

Listening to the Hair Dryer: Why Nice Religion is Still Problematic, Analogy #37,476

So if some believers are good people whose religion leads them to good moral conclusions… why should atheists care about their religious beliefs?

My friend and colleague Adam Lee at the excellent Daylight Atheism blog just emailed me with a question. There was an analogy about religious faith he thought he’d seen me use, but he couldn’t remember the exact place. And alas, I can’t either. I’m pretty sure that he’s right and I have used it — but it must have been in a comment thread or a talk or something, I can’t find it anywhere. (I guess I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.)

So I’m writing about it here. (I stole this analogy from Brownian in a Pharyngula comment thread, btw. If anyone has a link to the origin, please let me know, so Adam can link to it correctly. Credit where credit is due.)

Here’s the analogy.

Let’s say Person 1 thinks their hair dryer is talking to them, and is telling them to shoot every redhead who gets on the 9:04 train.

And let’s say that Person 2 thinks their hair dryer is talking to them, and is telling them to volunteer twice a week at a homeless shelter.

Is it better to volunteer at a homeless shelter than it is to shoot every redhead who gets on the 9:04 train? Of course it is.

But you still have a basic problem — which is that you think your hair dryer is talking to you.

You are still getting your ethics from a hair dryer. You are still getting your perception of reality and your ideas about how to live your life, not from the core moral values that most human beings seem to share, not from any solid evidence about what decreases suffering and increases fairness and happiness, not from your own observations and experiences of what does and does not work to make the world a better place… but from a household appliance.

And that’s a problem.

It’s a problem for what I hope is an obvious reason: Hair dryers don’t talk to us. Thinking that they do is radically out of touch with reality. And I hope I don’t have to explain why we should care about reality, and about whether the things we believe are really true. (Actually… I don’t hope that. Sad experience has taught me that I do have to explain it. Which is why I’ve done so: here, and here, among many other places.)

But it’s also a problem because, if you think your hair dryer is a valid source of moral guidance… what do you do if it starts telling you something different? Something a little less noble than “volunteer at the homeless shelter twice a week”? Something absurd (and not in a good way); something self-destructive; something grossly immoral?

What do you do if your hair dryer starts telling you to go to your blind date wearing a wedding dress and a hat made out of a rubber chicken? What do you do if your hair dryer starts telling you, not just to volunteer at the homeless shelter twice a week, but to donate your entire paycheck to the homeless shelter, every week, to the point where you become homeless yourself? What do you do if your hair dryer starts telling you to shoot every redhead who gets on the 9:04 train?

If you don’t have a better reason for what you do than, “The hair dryer told me to do it,” you’re in trouble. You have no reality check on your perceptions or ideas or decisions.

And if you do have a better reason for what you do than, “The hair dryer told me to do it”… then why do you need the hair dryer?

So yes. If you’re volunteering at a homeless shelter twice a week, you’re doing better than the person who shoots every redhead who gets on the 9:04 train.

But if you’re getting your ideas about reality and morality from a household appliance… then you’ve got a problem.

And if you’re getting your ideas about reality and morality from an invisible being who nobody can agree about and who you have no good reason to think even exists… then you’ve got a problem.

Faith without evidence is a bad idea. It’s a bad idea to believe things you have no good reason to think are true. Even if it sometimes leads to good conclusions… it’s still a bad idea. Period.

UPDATE: The original source of this analogy has been identified. It’s from Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation:

“The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.”

Thanks to Kazim for the heads-up. (The original extrapolation of this analogy into “why nice religion is still problematic” still belongs to Brownian, as far as I know.)

Listening to the Hair Dryer: Why Nice Religion is Still Problematic, Analogy #37,476

From the Archives: Why “I Feel It In My Heart” Is a Terrible Argument for God

Since I moved to the Freethought Blogs network, I have a bunch of new readers who aren’t familiar with my greatest hits from my old, pre-FTB blog. So I’m linking to some of them, about one a day, to introduce them to the new folks.

Today’s archive treasure: Why “I Feel It In My Heart” Is a Terrible Argument for God. The tl;dr: Most arguments I encounter for religion aren’t even arguments. They’re attempts to make arguments go away: attempts to deflect legitimate questions; bigoted attacks on atheists’ character; fuzzy confusions between evidence and wishful thinking; the moral equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling, “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!” But some arguments for religion and God are real arguments. They’re not good arguments — but they’re sincere attempts to offer evidence supporting the God hypothesis. So I’m taking them seriously, and shredding them one by one. Today’s argument: “I feel it in my heart.”

A nifty pull quote:

As vivid as the experience of our hearts and minds can feel, if we’re going to treat it as evidence in support of a hypothesis, we can’t give it any more weight than we would anyone else’s experience. Intuition is important, but it’s notoriously unreliable and subject to bias. We have to step back from it, and view it like we’d view anyone else’s experience. And when we look at human experience in general, we see that our hearts and minds can’t automatically be trusted.

Enjoy!

From the Archives: Why “I Feel It In My Heart” Is a Terrible Argument for God

American Cancer Society Responds – Sort Of

Well, the American Cancer Society has responded.

If you can call it that.

For two days, the American Cancer Society’s Facebook page has been deluged with posts from angry atheists — and some angry believers — about their refusal to let the Foundation Beyond Belief participate as a national team in the Relay for Life, and their turning down a $250,000 matching offer from the Todd Stiefel Foundation to make this happen. They have finally responded. Here, in total, is their response.

During the past couple of days we’ve heard your comments and we understand your concerns. Like you, many of us have been touched by cancer.

The American Cancer Society fights for everyone, everywhere, but it’s going to take all of us fighting together to end cancer. It’s clear that the American Cancer Society and Foundation Beyond Belief share a passion for saving lives.

We welcome FBB’s participation at our local Relay For Life events and we have not turned down their donations. We have shared this information with FBB and hope they know we welcome their ongoing support and involvement.

[facepalm]

Right. Except that nobody’s disputing any of that. The AlterNet article about this matter made it clear that the American Cancer Society would accept money from the Foundation Beyond Belief, and that they would welcome the FBB’s participation in the Relay for Life at the local level. They just refused any participation from the FBB in the Relay for Life as a national team — despite the fact that many organizations similar to the FBB are participating at this level. They denied this national participation after initially okaying it, and after weeks of evasions and changed stories. Attempts to find a solution were repeatedly shot down. And the explanations they gave, both to Stiefel at the time, and to me when I was interviewing them about the situation, were not only vague, but conflicting. As detailed in the story.

Really? This is the best they can do? A bland, generic press release that evades the actual topic at hand and the actual questions being asked about it? With a passive- aggressive little scold about how “it’s going to take all of us fighting together to end cancer,” and therefore atheists should just shut up about it when we get treated as pariahs?

Move to strike as non-responsive.

If you’re angry about this situation: Here, once again, is the American Cancer Society’s Facebook page, and their contact info on their Website.

American Cancer Society Responds – Sort Of