I’m sure a great number of readers have seen the clusterfuck-of-a-shitstorm concerning ElevatorGate — an issue that has exploded into a flame war with thousands of comments on about 10 blogs over the last 3-4 days. If not, here’s a selection of 4 posts that should best explain the order of events: PZ Myers, Blag Hag, PZ again, Rebecca Watson. Note that clicking on some of these might crash your browser because of the sheer number of comments!
Now, I really don’t want to go into that whole debate here. As far as I’m concerned there isn’t really even room for debate except for maybe one thing that I won’t even mention so as not to sidetrack. The point is about the incident making me lose all respect for Richard Dawkins.
When I first encountered the anti-religious arguments of Dawkins, I found him rude, shrill and extremist. My roommate had The God Delusion which I read in 2006 and thought it was (on top of all these things) arrogant. But pretty quickly I realised the problem was mine — it was my deeply ingrained beliefs that religion must be treated differently that was the cause of my reaction. I then realised that he was right in a great deal of things. The fact that so many people I knew had the same hostile reaction I had (or worse) showed only how much such arguments are needed.
So I’m very grateful to Dawkins for being a part of my development. And yet, the aforementioned clusterfuck has shown that in addition to being the voice of reason on many things he is also a clueless, entitled, silencing, trollish asshole. Now, I have strongly disagreed with many things he said before. But this particular incident is irreversible — I probably cannot in good conscience buy another book of his again and probably won’t listen to a talk by him and so on. [EDIT: Just to clarify, I just know that on a personal level I'll always think of this incident, even if say he apologises. I realise other people are different and I don't mean to say that I'm going to somehow start disagreeing with him on other things because of this.]
There’s always a certain sadness in finding someone you admire is an asshole (as in, not just that they did something wrong but that they did something wrong to the extent that your whole admiration of them must wither). But mostly, I feel a tremendous sense of honour. Especially because people with anti-atheist opinions often brand Dawkins as some sort of pope of atheism or snidely remark that he has some sort of religious following. I feel honoured and lucky to be able to cast aside someone I admire based on the facts. It’s what I hope differentiates my approach from a dogmatic approach. And though I have probably failed similar tests in the past and will almost certainly fail them some time in the future, at least this time I passed.
If that’s not the point of reason and skepticism then what? At least in this case, I don’t have beliefs that might hamper me in casting off people when they deserve it. And I feel incredibly lucky. It’s much more difficult for (eg) a Catholic to respond to something stupid the Pope says by saying “fuck him”. It happens but it’s harder with someone whose authority is an intrinsic part of their position.
In one of Galileo’s works (I think it’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems but it might also be his other one Two New Sciences), he presents an interesting scene. Simplicio (who represents Aristotelian scholasticism) is telling Salviati (who represents Galileo’s own views) that he doesn’t know what to believe because his senses contradict what Aristotle said. What happens next is a passage I think deserves to be one of the classics of science, reason, skepticism and the like:
SALV. Whenever you wish to reconcile what your senses show you with the soundest teachings of Aristotle, you will have no trouble at all. Does not Aristotle say that because of the great distance, celestial matters cannot be treated very definitely?
SIMP. He does say so, quite clearly.
SALV. Does he not also declare that what sensible experience shows ought to be preferred over any argument, even one that seems to be extremely well founded? And does he not say this positively and without a bit of hesitation?
SIMP. He does.
SALV. Then of the two propositions, both of them Aristotelian doctrines, the second — which says it is necessary to prefer the senses over arguments — is a more solid and definite doctrine than the other, which holds the heavens to be inalterable. Therefore it is better Aristotelian philosophy to say “Heaven is alterable because my senses tell me so,” than to say, “Heaven is inalterable because Aristotle was so persuaded by reasoning. [Source, emphasis mine]
That’s the privilege reason can give you. And so I believe that by dismissing Dawkins as a fool and an asshole I’m also being more faithful to the same reason project that he believes in.
18 comments ↓
I don’t think Dawkins is “a fool and an asshole” just because he was wrong in this case. Everyone needs his or her conscience raised from time to time; sometimes we’re not aware of our own privilege or of the insensitivity of something we say. If Dawkins learns from this experience, more power to him.
I think you, and the other bloggers who think that condescension, name-calling, and general nastiness are the appropriate responses to those who disagree with them over a non-event that they weren’t involved in, may in fact be the real assholes here.
Your collective behavior in this has done far more to damage the atheist and skepticism movement than anything Richard Dawkins has said.
For shame.
Pedro, I’ve edited the post to clarify what I mean. I certainly hope that he learns but even so I think I won’t be able to help but associate this with him.
PR — as per the post, this is NOT about what actually happened so I’m not going to get into this.
Michael,
Very nice posting. As usual, I mostly agree with you. What I don’t like about Dawkins’ book (and his approach) is the following implicit implication adopted by many of his followers:
* Religious people are stupid
* I am against religion
* Therefore I am smart
I think some (many) people declare themselves as atheists in the hope of being considered as smarter than the others.
It reminds me a bit what happened with Russian (Soviet) scientists who moved to the West. We know and admire the achievements of (many) Soviet mathematicians. There are some absolutely marvellous scientists (as scientists) who came out of that system. (Regardless of other things they might have done whilst serving the system.) This is used as a poor excuse by some Russians to claim affiliation with the great Soviet school of mathematics, say, in order to get jobs in other countries.
I’ll try to comment more on your posting a bit later. Thanks.
Takis: sorry, but you’re just repeating a stereotype. If you’d actually read Dawkins’ books, you wouldn’t say that about his position or his approach. Next thing you’ll be saying he’s “shrill” or “as fanatical as any believer”.
Dawkins was wrong in this case, as it’s easy to be when we don’t realize our own privilege. Hopefully, he’ll come to realize that, and apologize. But your description of his approach is simply wrong — and, unfortunately, is one often repeated by people who’ve never actually read a book of his, or listened to a talk.
I have read some of Dawkins’ books. Perhaps you misunderstood what I wrote above, and this is, partly my fault. I should have been clearer: I am not saying that this is what I read in his book. But many people DO infer such things from his books, e.g., from the God Delusion. This is something I have observed. If you want to call this “stereotype” or give it any other characterization you like, I don’t mind. It remains something I have observed.
And no, I would never say “as fanatical as any believerâ€? for two reasons: (1) I don’t think he is fanatical. He is very rational and his observations about religion are correct. (2) I don’t think that every religious person is fanatical. Religion is a disease, imposed upon one by its milieu or a biological need for some. (3) “Believer” is not (should not) be considered equivalent to “religious”. The only reason that we associate “belief” to religion is because the latter has no means for enforcing itself or “proving” its “correctness” other than appeal to unsubstantiated faith.
So, don’t be sorry I’m repeating a stereotype. I am sorry for not expressing myself clearly.
OK, fair enough. But have you really met people who are atheists just because it’s “fashionable”, or to appear intelligent and sophisticated? I don’t think I have (though, of course, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist).
Yes, Pedro, I have. My sample is small, I collect no statistics, I do not (and should not) generalize, but this is what I inferred as a drawback of some of Dawkins’ books. Namely, they should make it explicit, just in case, that atheist and smart are different concepts.
Thanx for the post. I never heard about this until today when reading your post.
Several little points:
* I agree with Pedro
* Making an idol is foolish from the get-go. (I know you didn’t but…) Dawkins may be good at Biology, fighting the ugly side of religion and such, but he is just a bloke. I don’t want him to do my surgery, fly my plan, be my marriage counselor …..
* Dawkins was an idiot for publishing that!
* Ironically (and I know if this is politically correct), I wonder if the knights rushing to the the chick’s side are almost ironically showing a sort of exaggerated anti-feminist attitude. Oooops, shit, I shouldn’t have said that — that felt like a Freudian Dawkian-slip.
* I watched Skepchick on Video for the first time — she is good!
* Doesn’t the name “Skepchick” itself buy into anti-feminist hidden persistent bad patterns.
* Thank Buddha that I am no one’s idol — I am such a clumsy mess all the time. I am glad I am not responsible for anyone’s disillusionment.
Sabio — I actually spent a while trying to come up with a word meaning someone I admired for the post’s title. Reluctantly I settled on idol in scare quotes — can you think of anything more appropriate that’s in like with what you said about idols?
As for the specifics of some of Rebecca’s defences, I headed over to her Facebook page to give you an example and it only took me all of 5 seconds to be disgusted with humanity all over again for some of the vileness that people post. Sigh. Anyway, if you’re up for a taste, see http://skepchick.org/2011/03/why-i-deserved-to-be-called-an-offensive-bitch/ — that’s the type of stuff that sets the context for what some of her supporters have been defending her about.
Takis — I see, yes his expression probably lends itself to misinterpretation more than some atheists. Also about the mathematics schools situations, do you mean that you’ve seen people from Russia try cash in on the prestige of Soviet maths by manufacturing some phony association between them and the prestigious institutions of yesteryear?
How about “favorite authors”, “favorite speakers”, “favorite campaigners for Atheism”?
“Idol” sounds like someone (or thing) you admire very broadly: deeds, personality, thoughts …
I think people actually do idolize. Like who cares what Einstein thought about God? Who cares what movie stars think about politics?
I understand the shit women have to put up with. Well “understand” is a gross overstatement, of course. But I still think the defense is ironic. Note at the link you supply me, she says female circumcision is far worse than male circumcision and a guy jumps down her throat.
Dawkins says Muslim women’s treatment of men doesn’t touch the elevator incident and she sees no parallel?
Well I was looking for a single word!
I’m not sure what you mean, I see a parallel but it might be very different to your parallel: in both cases she mentioned something and both times someone else thought the original topic was unworthy and derailed it by pointing to another topic. Which as one blogger I admire broadly said, is a just sophisticated version of the Chewbacca Defence.
PS. Ok, despite my self-promise not to start talking about the actual controversy, I see it’s drawing back in. So, I hereby resolve to give you the last word in the reply comment and will resist the urge to add something to my maximum ability
Sorry, but you can’t simply ignore the topic and think you’re great because you’ve called out a hero/idol/favourite author/respected scientist, he might be right.
It just so happens I have thought a great deal about this and have massive sympathy for both sides, especially the girl who has been caught up in this maelstrom and some of the comments on her site are terrible (but, given my sense of humour, also some are funny) and massive respect to her for leaving them in play.
Okay, so you don’t want to derail your discussion about losing your idols (as Pedro says, you shouldn’t have any!) but I think it important to see if you’re right or not, so I have posted some thoughts here: http://paulforpm.blogspot.com/2011/07/dawkins-in-elevator.html
Basically I feel sorry for Rebecca but think she’s irrational, think Elevator Guy is either socially incompetent or way ahead of his time, Dawkins is essentially right but being rather dickish/trollish/exasperated about it and the internet is full of self righteous twats and misogynysts.
Nah, you can have the last word. I care less about the subject. But I must say, I liked keddaw’s comment!
Some more comments on the actual topic of the original posting:
1) Yes, it is inappropriate for the guy in the elevator to propose in this way.
2) Yes, Dawkins’ response was out of line. He behaved like the average alpha-male teenager.
3) The whole stream of responses and reaction to this incident, made it appear much more severe than it actually was. I’m sure that the elevator guy is now trying to hide…
4) A male proposed to a female in the elevator. What if a female had proposed to a male in the same way? What would the reaction be?
5) I have no problem with the word “idol”, if it is in quotes. It is, merely, a title. Michael explained his using of it. The content of the posting is more important than the title.
@ Takis
Nice jab with #5
@Michael
Yes, indeed, I have seen (personally, but also have have heard stories about) mathematicians from Russia trying to cash in on the prestige of Soviet maths.
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