Richard Dawkins

Oh noes, the thought police are suppressing and bullying Richard Dawkins

Tony Thompson, ,

Richard Dawkins seems to think his critics are suppressing and bullying him. During a recent speaking tour in San Francisco, he gave an interview in support of his new memoir and invited a reporter to sit down with him:

Bottom line: He stands by everything he has said — including comments that one form of rape or pedophilia is “worse” than another, and that a drunken woman who is raped might be responsible for her fate.

“I don’t take back anything that I’ve said,” Dawkins said from a shady spot in the leafy backyard of one of his Bay Area supporters. “I would not say it again, however, because I am now accustomed to being misunderstood and so I will … ”

He trailed off momentarily, gazing at his hands resting on a patio table.

“I feel muzzled, and a lot of other people do as well,” he continued. “There is a climate of bullying, a climate of intransigent thought police which is highly influential in the sense that it suppresses people like me.”

Oh dear. He won’t take back anything he’s said and stands by everything he’s said (so much for his apology for Dear Muslima earlier this year), he thinks he is misunderstood, and he thinks he has been bullied and muzzled (oh and he thinks the thought police are after him).  Is that true? Let’s take a look at some of his past comments. When he made his  ‘Dear Muslima‘ comment:

Dear Muslima
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and … yawn … don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so …
And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Richard

he was criticized by many for minimizing the sexism and misogyny that women in the Western world face. People told him that the horrible misogyny women deal with in one part of the world doesn’t erase the misogyny other women in the world face. Those critics read  ‘Dear Muslima’ and came away thinking that was Dawkins’ way of saying “you can’t complain about sexism and misogyny unless you have it this bad”.  

When he made his comments about aborting a fetus with Down Syndrome, he was criticized by many.

“If your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down’s baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child’s own welfare.”

He later said that he wasn’t trying to boss women around:

“Those who thought I was bossily telling a woman what to do rather than let her choose, of course this was absolutely not my intention and I apologise if brevity made it look that way. My true intention was, as stated at length above, simply to say what I personally would do, based upon my own assessment of the pragmatics of the case, and my own moral philosophy which in turn is based on a desire to increase happiness and reduce suffering.”

It’s clear to my eyes why people would criticize Richard Dawkins here. The words he wrote have subtext. They insinuate that if you don’t make the choice that  he, Richard Dawkins would make…if you choose to have a child diagnosed with Down’s, then you’ve made an immoral choice (either that or you don’t share in Dawkins’ morality which is essentially the same thing). He is offering his opinion of women who decide to have a Down’s child.  He is telling those women that he is better than them and that their choice is wrong. He also doesn’t seem to realize that people with Down Syndrome can and do live fulfilling lives.

When he said this:

he was criticized by many people for ranking rape and pedophilia.  They are both horrible. Both are violations of the bodily autonomy of an individual.  It serves no purpose to rank rape or pedophilia (a rapist or a pedophile may face a harsher sentence for their crimes, but that’s a courtroom assessment. It doesn’t mean that one bodily autonomy violating act is worse than another).

Looking back on some of the things he’s said, I can see quite clearly that Richard Dawkins has been the victim of the thought police…that he has been prevented from sharing his thoughts…that he has been bullied into…oh fuck this.

Richard Dawkins is not the victim of anything.  All that happened was people criticized him.  And that, I think, is one of his problems. He doesn’t like being criticized.  He can dole it out to religious leaders and lay believers. He can criticize Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and every other religion out there but he can’t take criticism leveled at him. Especially when it comes from other atheists.  Does he really think he should be immune to criticism? Does he think himself the Atheist Pope (there is no such thing)? Does he think he can do no wrong?

If so, he’s wrong.  And people have called him out on the things he has said. People have explained why his comments are problematic. To him though, the people criticizing him (like PZ Myers and Ophelia Benson) are thought police engaging in witch hunts using online lynch mobs to suppress and bully him (I desperately want someone to shove a dictionary in his face and so he can learn what “thought police”, “witch hunts”, and “lynch mobs” actually mean, bc the way he’s using the phrases?  He hasn’t a fucking clue what they mean).  When I look at the responses Dawkins has received, none of them call for violence against him. None of them say he doesn’t have a right to think what he wants. None of them call for criminally punishing him for having these thoughts. Nope.  All that has happened is that he has been criticized. And I find it laughable that he’s complaining about being suppressed while in an interview in the midst of a speaking tour.  

Dude, you’re not being suppressed or muzzled.  You won’t shut up!  No one has kept you from talking, though many people have wished that you’d get the fuck off Twitter (not like that would stop the sexism from flowing from your lips).  I know of no one with the power to affect your speaking engagements, so you’re not being hurt there. When the media wants to talk to an atheist, your name always comes up. FFS, you have your own blog where you can share your thoughts to the world.  In what way have you been suppressed?

As for the bullying accusation, I find I can’t take that seriously when the worst that has happened to Dawkins is that he’s been criticized for saying things.  Last I checked, that’s not psychological bullying. It’s not emotional bullying.  It’s not physical bullying.  Verbal bullying? Maybe that’s what he means, but again, he has only been criticized.  If he thinks that the criticism he’s faced is the same thing as bullying…he has to explain how, and he hasn’t done that. To me, Dawkins comes off as someone who thinks his right to free speech means “the right to say what I want without criticism”.

Here’s my advice to Dawkins: stay off social media. If you don’t want your words criticized, then don’t fucking express them.  As long as you continue to publicly do so, and as long as you make the insensitive, sexist, misogynistic, Rape Culture enabling comments that you’ve become known for, you’re going to get criticism.  And rightly so.

Oh noes, the thought police are suppressing and bullying Richard Dawkins
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Tauriq Moosa is not happy with the atheist movement

Tony Thompson, , , ,

I won’t be part of a movement resolutely more focused on shielding rich, white dudes than by being inclusive of marganlised, non-male, non-white people. Count me out. Call me back when we give a shit about women and you can admit those of us writing in a small corner of the internet actually care about moral action, not money, for what we do.

You can and ought to read the rest here.

Here’s my response to his post:

There are so many things about this whole crapfest that piss me off. One of the biggest is the refusal of Dawkins, Harris, Shermer, and Nugent, as well as their followers to apply the same tools of logic, reason, and skepticism to their own views. They’re all sooooo ready to use those tools to shred the entrenched views of others (provided they’re religious), but to apply the tools internally? Hell no. They *can’t* do that. To allow others to criticize them and explain in detail why they need to reexamine themselves? Hell no. They *can’t* do that.
Instead of doing that, they double down.
Instead of doing that they whine about being bulled.
Instead of doing that, we get labeled as the ‘thought police’, ‘feminazi’s’, ‘jackbooted thugs’, ‘lynch mobs’, and other hyperbolic B.S. that doesn’t hold up upon examination (I question if Dawkins even understands what Orwell meant by the ‘Thought Police’).
Gah. If not for the fact that I’ve found a subset of the atheist community that does confront their own biases as well as those of others, that actively works to excise their own prejudices and expects the same of others…I don’t think I’d want anything to do with the atheist movement. Which I guess is what that crowd wants. They don’t want more LGBT People of Color among their ranks-at least not unless its on their terms; and for all that they sit upon their ivory throne in their ivory tower, they are not my lords, kings, or bosses. They do not get to dictate the terms of my participation. They *will* treat me with respect. They *will* treat women, LGBT people, and People of Color with respect. Or they will be part of an ever shrinking movement that wants nothing to do with they and their status quo.

Tauriq Moosa is not happy with the atheist movement

Hey Dick! [trigger warning: rape]

Tony Thompson, , 4 Comments

Richard Dawkins continues his descent into utter assholery.

The Tweets he is referring to can be found here.

So now Dawkins is claiming that whether or not someone can remember being raped has bearing on whether or not they were actually raped.  As if not being able to remember being raped somehow means a victim wasn’t raped.  I think we’ll call this the Cee-lo Green defense.

The singer Cee Lo Green has discussed a court case in which he pleaded no contest to supplying ecstasy to a woman in a series of tweets, including one that read : “People who have really been raped REMEMBER!!!”

The woman had claimed that she had no memory of the period between dining with Green at a sushi restaurant in 2012 and waking up naked in the singer’s bed.

Green’s lawyer argued that Green, 40, and the woman had “consensual relations”. No rape charges were filed due to lack of evidence.

Both Cee-lo Green and Richard Dawkins fail to understand (or they do understand but simply don’t care) that if there is no consent to sex, it is rape. If a woman says “I can’t remember what happened”, that doesn’t mean no rape happened. In fact, if she says that, you’ve likely crossed a line, bc you had sex with someone who was possibly impaired.  If your thought processes are impaired, you can’t give informed consent. Without informed consent, IT. IS. RAPE.

Hey Dick! [trigger warning: rape]

Richard Dawkins isn't so bright any more

Tony Thompson,

At The Guardian, Adam Lee writes about the current shitstorm that Richard Dawkins has stirred up.

(excerpt)

The atheist movement – a loosely-knit community of conference-goers, advocacy organizations, writers and activists – has been wracked by infighting the last few years over its persistent gender imbalance and the causes of it. Many female atheists have explained that they don’t get more involved because of the casual sexism endemic to the movement: parts of it see nothing problematic about hosting conferences with all-male speakers or having all-male leadership – and that’s before you get to the vitriolic and dangerous sexual harassment, online and off, that’s designed to intimidate women into silence.

Richard Dawkins has involved himself in some of these controversies, and rarely for the better  – as with his infamous “Dear Muslima”  letter in 2011, in which he essentially argued that, because women in Muslim countries suffer more from sexist mistreatment, women in the west shouldn’t speak up about sexual harassment or physical intimidation. There was also his sneer at women who advocate anti-sexual harassment policies .

But over the last few months, Dawkins showed signs of détente with his feminist critics – even progress. He signed a joint letter with the writer Ophelia Benson, denouncing and rejecting harassment ; he even apologized for the “Dear Muslima” letter . On stage at a conference in Oxford in August, Dawkins claimed to be a feminist  and said that everyone else should be, too.

Then another prominent male atheist, Sam Harris, crammed his foot in his mouth and said that atheist activism lacks an “estrogen vibe” and was “to some degree intrinsically male” . And, just like that, the brief Dawkins Spring was over.

On Twitter these last few days, Dawkins has reverted to his old, sexist ways and then some. He’s been very busy snarling about how feminists are shrill harridans who just want an excuse to take offense, and how Harris’s critics (and his own) are not unlike thought police witch-hunter lynch mobs . Dawkins claimed that his critics are engaged in “clickbait for profit” , that they “fake outrage” , and that he wished there were some way to penalize them.

For good measure, Dawkins argued that rape victims shouldn’t be considered trustworthy if they were drinking .

Benson, with whom Dawkins had signed the anti-harassment letter just weeks earlier, was not impressed. “I’m surprised and, frankly, shocked by Richard’s belligerent remarks about feminist bloggers over the past couple of days,” she told me. “Part of what made The God Delusion so popular was, surely, its indignant bluntness about religion. It was a best-seller; does that mean he ‘faked’ his outrage?”

There’s no denying that Dawkins played a formative role in the atheist movement, but it’s grown beyond just him. Remarks like these make him a liability at best, a punchline at worst. He may have convinced himself that he’s the Most Rational Man Alive, but if his goal is to persuade everyone else that atheism is a welcoming and attractive option, Richard Dawkins is doing a terrible job. Blogger and author Greta Christina  told me, “I can’t tell you how many women, people of color, other marginalized people I’ve talked with who’ve told me, ‘I’m an atheist, but I don’t want anything to do with organized atheism if these guys are the leaders.’”

It’s not just women who are outraged by Dawkins these days: author and blogger PZ Myers  told me, “At a time when our movement needs to expand its reach, it’s a tragedy that our most eminent spokesman has so enthusiastically expressed such a regressive attitude.”

What’s so frustrating, from the standpoint of the large and growing non-religious demographic , is that Dawkins is failing badly to live up to his own standards. As both an atheist and a scientist, he should be the first to defend the principle that no one is above criticism, and that any idea can be challenged, especially an idea in accord with popular prejudices. Instead, with no discernible sense of irony, Dawkins is publicly recycling the bad arguments so often used against him as an atheist: accusing his critics of being “outrage junkies” who are only picking fights for the sake of notoriety; roaring about “thought police” as though it were a bad thing to argue that someone is mistaken and attempt to change their mind; scoffing that they’re “looking for excuses to be angry” as though the tone of the argument, rather than its factual merits, were the most important thing; encouraging those who are targets of criticism to ignore it rather than respond.

It’s incredibly unfortunate to watch Dawkins walk down this path. Despite his claims, he is arguing in favor of maintaining the status quo. He doesn’t actively champion efforts to fight against sexism and sexual harassment in the atheist community (or in the wider culture). In fact, his words help provide support for such actions. Sam Harris is no better. Christopher Hitchens was no better. For all that these Horsemen proclaim to be ‘bright’ shining beacons of rationality and logic, on the subject of social justice issues, especially women’s rights, they are the Religious Right of the Atheist Movement. It’s time for them to shut up and move out of the limelight.

Richard Dawkins isn't so bright any more

Richard Dawkins isn’t so bright any more

Tony Thompson,

At The Guardian, Adam Lee writes about the current shitstorm that Richard Dawkins has stirred up.

(excerpt)

The atheist movement – a loosely-knit community of conference-goers, advocacy organizations, writers and activists – has been wracked by infighting the last few years over its persistent gender imbalance and the causes of it. Many female atheists have explained that they don’t get more involved because of the casual sexism endemic to the movement: parts of it see nothing problematic about hosting conferences with all-male speakers or having all-male leadership – and that’s before you get to the vitriolic and dangerous sexual harassment, online and off, that’s designed to intimidate women into silence.

Richard Dawkins has involved himself in some of these controversies, and rarely for the better  – as with his infamous “Dear Muslima”  letter in 2011, in which he essentially argued that, because women in Muslim countries suffer more from sexist mistreatment, women in the west shouldn’t speak up about sexual harassment or physical intimidation. There was also his sneer at women who advocate anti-sexual harassment policies .

But over the last few months, Dawkins showed signs of détente with his feminist critics – even progress. He signed a joint letter with the writer Ophelia Benson, denouncing and rejecting harassment ; he even apologized for the “Dear Muslima” letter . On stage at a conference in Oxford in August, Dawkins claimed to be a feminist  and said that everyone else should be, too.

Then another prominent male atheist, Sam Harris, crammed his foot in his mouth and said that atheist activism lacks an “estrogen vibe” and was “to some degree intrinsically male” . And, just like that, the brief Dawkins Spring was over.

On Twitter these last few days, Dawkins has reverted to his old, sexist ways and then some. He’s been very busy snarling about how feminists are shrill harridans who just want an excuse to take offense, and how Harris’s critics (and his own) are not unlike thought police witch-hunter lynch mobs . Dawkins claimed that his critics are engaged in “clickbait for profit” , that they “fake outrage” , and that he wished there were some way to penalize them.

For good measure, Dawkins argued that rape victims shouldn’t be considered trustworthy if they were drinking .

Benson, with whom Dawkins had signed the anti-harassment letter just weeks earlier, was not impressed. “I’m surprised and, frankly, shocked by Richard’s belligerent remarks about feminist bloggers over the past couple of days,” she told me. “Part of what made The God Delusion so popular was, surely, its indignant bluntness about religion. It was a best-seller; does that mean he ‘faked’ his outrage?”

There’s no denying that Dawkins played a formative role in the atheist movement, but it’s grown beyond just him. Remarks like these make him a liability at best, a punchline at worst. He may have convinced himself that he’s the Most Rational Man Alive, but if his goal is to persuade everyone else that atheism is a welcoming and attractive option, Richard Dawkins is doing a terrible job. Blogger and author Greta Christina  told me, “I can’t tell you how many women, people of color, other marginalized people I’ve talked with who’ve told me, ‘I’m an atheist, but I don’t want anything to do with organized atheism if these guys are the leaders.’”

It’s not just women who are outraged by Dawkins these days: author and blogger PZ Myers  told me, “At a time when our movement needs to expand its reach, it’s a tragedy that our most eminent spokesman has so enthusiastically expressed such a regressive attitude.”

What’s so frustrating, from the standpoint of the large and growing non-religious demographic , is that Dawkins is failing badly to live up to his own standards. As both an atheist and a scientist, he should be the first to defend the principle that no one is above criticism, and that any idea can be challenged, especially an idea in accord with popular prejudices. Instead, with no discernible sense of irony, Dawkins is publicly recycling the bad arguments so often used against him as an atheist: accusing his critics of being “outrage junkies” who are only picking fights for the sake of notoriety; roaring about “thought police” as though it were a bad thing to argue that someone is mistaken and attempt to change their mind; scoffing that they’re “looking for excuses to be angry” as though the tone of the argument, rather than its factual merits, were the most important thing; encouraging those who are targets of criticism to ignore it rather than respond.

It’s incredibly unfortunate to watch Dawkins walk down this path. Despite his claims, he is arguing in favor of maintaining the status quo. He doesn’t actively champion efforts to fight against sexism and sexual harassment in the atheist community (or in the wider culture). In fact, his words help provide support for such actions. Sam Harris is no better. Christopher Hitchens was no better. For all that these Horsemen proclaim to be ‘bright’ shining beacons of rationality and logic, on the subject of social justice issues, especially women’s rights, they are the Religious Right of the Atheist Movement. It’s time for them to shut up and move out of the limelight.

Richard Dawkins isn’t so bright any more

Disown Dawkins? Sounds good to me!

Tony Thompson, , ,

Via Vice, an article by Allegra Ringo which offers some advice to the Atheist Movement:

A woman was alleging that a man raped her when she was too drunk to give consent, and Dawkins’s immediate response was the mainstay of all conservatives: What if she’s lying? Plenty of Dawkins’s Twitter followers agreed with him. It’s her word against his, they cried. Rape accusations are serious business, they cried.

Yes, rape accusations are serious business. Actually, accusing anyone of a crime, especially a violent crime, is serious business. That’s why we have court systems in place that determine, to the best of their abilities, whether a given accusation is most likely true or false. We have this for virtually every crime. So why are Dawkins and his ilk so preoccupied about false accusations of rape in a world full of false accusations?

The “accuser-might-be-lying” theory inevitably pops up around every rape case. But false accusations of rape occur in only about 2 to 3 percent of cases. That’s roughly the same rate as false accusations of other violent crimes, according to the US Justice Department. Studies in the UK have yielded similar results, but the myth of the always-lying rape accuser persists.

Keir Starmer, England’s Director of Public Prosecutions, stated that rape investigations are “undermined by [the] belief that false accusations are rife.” Dawkins obviously fancies himself the king of reason, yet he buys wholesale into this frat-boy mentality. It’s reasonable to assume an accused person is innocent until proven guilty, but Dawkins is cherry-picking rape cases as the only focus of his doubt.

In a world where women are raped in huge numbers, all the fucking time, and where the rate of false rape accusations are comparatively low, it makes far more sense to believe the victims of rape.  If and when a would-be rapist makes it to trial (and we know that doesn’t happen very often), if they are judged not guilty based on the evidence presented, then people can readjust their opinions. But far too many people inflate the rate of false rape accusations. Dawkins is among those people (he, and other Rape Culture deniers ought to read this article).

Dawkins appears to have adopted the sexism and other forms of narrow-mindeness he purports to hate in religion (plus bonus defenses of pedophilia), proving his own mantras wrong with every new opinion he posts. Read Dawkins’s Twitter at any time for tweets about “objective reality” interspersed with paranoid tweets about Islam, and of course his regularly scheduled uninformed opinions on rape culture. Although he is gradually losing sympathizers, the so-called “new atheist” movement still holds him in too heroic a light. In his time, Dawkins didgroundbreaking work in the field of biology, but his relevance—especially in social matters—is fading quickly. If the new atheist movement wants to move beyond outdated idols preaching old-fashioned discrimination, they need to disown Dawkins—or, at the very least, subtract themselves from his more than 1 million Twitter followers.

Disowning Dawkins is not a problem for me. He had no role in my decision to become an atheist (nor did any of the Four Horsemen; I came into atheism because I took college courses on philosophy and logic in the 90s).  Hell, the only book I’ve read by any of the big name atheists was Dawkins’ The God Delusion and I just finished reading that last month.  I know that many people appreciate Dawkins’ candid words on religion. I think it is nice to see a public figure speak bluntly, without respect for religion.  We need more people like that. Religion is not the force for good in the world that many think it is, and far too many people accord religion and religious beliefs undeserved respect.

That said, Dawkins’ comments about Muslims, his ongoing sexist comments, his dismissal of the severity of child abuse compared to religious indoctrination, and his spreading of Rape Culture myths have resulted in my losing any respect I had for him.  This is compounded by the fact that he’s listening only to his supporters, many of whom are anti-feminists, so-called skeptics (more accurately hyper- or pseudo- skeptics, who demand absurd levels of evidence for ubiquitous crimes like rape; as if rape accusations require the same level of evidence they demand of godbotters), or Islamophobic bigots (like his buddy Sam Harris).  He’s paying little attention to the criticisms of others.  He’s locked himself in his ivory tower and refused to listen to the “little people”.  He refuses to acknowledge his privilege and address his biases and prejudices in an honest way. Hell, with regard to the bigotry he’s displayed, he doesn’t seem to even accept that he has biases and prejudices.

I’m not on Twitter.  I don’t read his blog.  Nor will I. I want nothing to do with Dawkins because of his horrible behavior (which I will still call out as I find out about it, bc it is harmful).  For this atheist, Dawkins has been disowned.  Would that more people would do so.

Disown Dawkins? Sounds good to me!

Richard Dawkins-Here's a clue about 'witch hunts'

Tony Thompson, , ,

Rebecca Watson has the floor:

Dear Muslima Innocent People Murdered in Witch Hunts

Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade were driven from your home in the dead of night by murderers, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car live, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative or you’ll be murdered, and your husband is allowed to beat you tried to murder you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery are seen anywhere near your home again. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters atheist polemicists have to put up with.

Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick” himself a “Horseman of the Apocalypse”, and do you know what happened to herhim? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee People on the Internet took issue with something he said on stage. I am not exaggerating. He They really did. They even laughed at his word choice. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, he was able to reply, and no one censored him or tried to murder him, but even so . . .

And you, Muslima innocent people who were murdered in witch hunts, think you have misogyny witch hunts to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.

Richard

Richard Dawkins-Here's a clue about 'witch hunts'

Richard Dawkins-Here’s a clue about ‘witch hunts’

Tony Thompson, , ,

Rebecca Watson has the floor:

Dear Muslima Innocent People Murdered in Witch Hunts

Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade were driven from your home in the dead of night by murderers, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car live, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative or you’ll be murdered, and your husband is allowed to beat you tried to murder you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery are seen anywhere near your home again. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters atheist polemicists have to put up with.

Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick” himself a “Horseman of the Apocalypse”, and do you know what happened to herhim? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee People on the Internet took issue with something he said on stage. I am not exaggerating. He They really did. They even laughed at his word choice. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, he was able to reply, and no one censored him or tried to murder him, but even so . . .

And you, Muslima innocent people who were murdered in witch hunts, think you have misogyny witch hunts to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.

Richard

Richard Dawkins-Here’s a clue about ‘witch hunts’

Further thoughts on Dawkins and Harris

Tony Thompson, , 1 Comment

Richard Dawkins has double down once again. Hell, he’s digging a hole so deep that it’s got to be getting pretty hot in there.  You can read the latest Tweets from Dawkins here, where he shits on PZ Myers, ostensibly a friend of his.  What are his reasons? I don’t know? Why does he dismiss the criticisms-explained at length, from many people-about his actions or those of Sam Harris?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that both Dawkins and Harris have a problem.  They refuse to confront the ugly shit inside them. The following is a comment I left at Pharyngula:

As I started to compose this comment, I thought: we’re not asking much of people like Dawkins and Harris. That all people are asking is that they listen to what we’re saying. That they open themselves up to criticism and accept that they can be wrong. That they peel back their layers of privilege and recognize the signs of the internalized sexism they’ve carried with them their entire lives.

But then I thought:
Framing it that way appears as if this is an easy task.
I remember when I started confronting my biases. It *wasn’t* easy. I remember when I started seeing how women were treated. When I started listening to what women were saying. When I started recognizing the signs of sexism.
I was horrified.
It was everywhere.
I couldn’t escape it.
I couldn’t go to work and escape it.
I couldn’t go to a gay bar and escape it.
I couldn’t go to the movies or turn on the tv and escape it.
I saw it in the way people dressed.
I saw it in the way people acted.
I saw it in the way people spoke.
I saw it in the way people interacted.

One of the most striking moments for me came when I was sitting at a local gay bar and having a conversation with a friend. We were talking about effeminate gay men and drag queens and dating sites and more. This was maybe 2 years ago. I’d accepted that feminism was a worthy cause and was becoming comfortable calling myself one. But I was still in the process of understanding the sexist views I had.

Well one of those sexist views up and slapped me across the head right then and there.

I realized as my friend and I spoke, that all those people talking about how they won’t date a “girly gay man”…
•or those times when I said that phrase, followed by “I want to date a man bc he’s a man. I don’t want a date a man who acts like a girl”…
•or those people who put at the top of the Adam4Adam, Manhunt, or Grindr profile “not interested in nellie men, only want masculine men”
…I realized then and there that we…I…was trapped in thinking about gender in very rigid terms. I realized that I thought “men are supposed to be this way, and women are supposed to be this way”. I thought that any deviation from that was wrong. I thought that there was something wrong with a man acting like a woman, or having traits or characteristics typically associated with women. I realized how deep sexism ran. It runs so deep it affects how we view ourselves, as well as the people around us. It shapes our opinions of our friends, our family, our coworkers, even strangers.
It.
Runs.
Deep.

Reflecting on that, I realize now, that we *are* asking for a lot from Dawkins and Harris.

But you know what?
We’re not asking the impossible.

We are not asking either of them to do anything we aren’t willing to do ourselves…what we are continually doing ourselves. We’re asking them to be better people. We’re asking them to look deep inside themselves and confront all that is ugly within them.

That’s where it becomes difficult.
Who wants to accept that there’s ugly shit inside you?
Who wants to accept that you can be capable of being a sexist/homophobic/racist/transphobic bigot?

That is hard to do.
It ain’t easy.

But that’s how we’re going to become better people.
That’s how we become a better species.
It’s not going to be a cakewalk. It won’t be unicorns and butterflies and chocolate covered strawberries. It’s going to be tough and it’s not going to end. It’s going to be a continual process that we carry with us for the rest of our lives.

Confronting the internalized issues that we all have is not easy.
But it’s damn well worth it.
And it’s something Every. Fucking. Person. Should. Do.

That’s the only way we’re going to reshape this world and leave it better for those who come after us.

I…We are not holding Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins to some impossible standard. We’re holding them to same standard we hold ourselves and others to. They continue to fail to measure up to that standard.

One day I hope they’ll recognize what they’re doing and dig deep…deep into their core and realize that they have some shit to come to terms with. I hope they do this because not believing in gods is NOT. FUCKING. ENOUGH.

Further thoughts on Dawkins and Harris

Dawkins continues to descend

Tony Thompson,

Richard Dawkins continues his descent into the Pit:

I have elaborated elsewhere on my problems with Sam Harris’ comments. Suffice to say, he has some horrible gender essentialist ideas he needs to confront, and hopefully, reject (you can read my comments on Harris’ sexism here and here). I do want to discuss the thought police comment.

The critics of Harris, Dawkins, Shermer, Thunderf00t, the anti-feminists, the pro-harassment crowd, etc are not engaged in uncovering and punishing thoughtcrime or thought-criminals.

The Thought Police (thinkpol in Newspeak) are the secret police of Oceania in George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

It is the job of the Thought Police to uncover and punish thoughtcrime and thought-criminals. They use psychology and omnipresent surveillance (such as telescreens) to search, find, monitor and arrest members of society who could potentially challenge authority and status quo, even only by thought, hence the name Thought Police.  They use terror and torture to achieve their ends.

What those critics are doing…what we are doing, is calling out bad behavior and criticizing it.  If we see instances of sexism or misogyny, we’re criticizing it. If we see people being homophobic, we criticize it. If we see people being transphobic, we criticize it.  That’s it.  None of us is in any position of power over them.  We are not monitoring their every move.  When we criticize them, it’s bc they’ve spoken out in public and it’s been brought to our attention.  With the exception of rapists like Michael Shermer, we are not advocating for these people to be thrown in jail for their opinions.  We don’t have the power to see that happen even if that’s what we wanted.

Moreover, the label of ‘thought police’ is deeply ironic.  Which group is engaged in harassment and bullying?  Which group wants to maintain the status quo, and see no changes made?  Which group whined about harassment policies-policies intended to act as guidelines for proper behavior and help provide a safe environment at conventions? Which group whines and complains when their heroes-Shermer, Dawkins, or Harris-are criticized for their sexist beliefs? The people doing all that crap are on the other side of the Great Rifts.  Some of them are Pitters.  Some are followers of Dawkins, Shermer, and Harris (note, not all people in either camp are engage in such bad behavior).  They are the ones engaged in the type of behavior that thought police engage in.  These fuckers are projecting.

Among their many problems is that they don’t like being criticized. They don’t like having their beliefs and opinions challenged.  They think they should be able to say what they want, when they want, and not be called out for it.  They don’t want to be held responsible for their words.  They think free speech is absolute, and that there should be no repercussions-such as criticism-for what they say.  I hate to tell them (not really), but that’s not how free speech works.  You can call someone a ‘cunt’, and we can, in turn call you a nincomfuck, or a raging shitstain (note that on this side of the Great Rifts, the use of gendered, homophobic, racist, or ableist slurs is condemned).  Our actions are not those of any “thought police”.  We don’t seek to criminalize the use of gendered insults.  What we’d like is for these people to see the harm done in using gendered slurs and choose not to use them.  I don’t call someone a ‘cunt’ for the same reason I wouldn’t want someone to call me a ‘faggot’ or a ‘nigger’.  I wouldn’t advocate criminalizing people who use that language, but I fully support publicly criticizing people who use such words, and harshly.  If people want to shame the hell out of bigots, that’s great. But that’s as far as it goes.  None of us is acting anything like the thought police and once again Dawkins shows off what an asshole he is.

Dawkins continues to descend