More managing disagreement ethically from Richard Dawkins.
Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins
The “Big Sister is Watching You” Thought Police hate @CHSommers’ Factual Feminism, and you can see why.
That’s ethical disagreement all right – calling feminists who don’t respect Christina Hoff Sommers ‘The “Big Sister is Watching You” Thought Police.’
What would the other kind look like?
But wait? If he’s a self-professed thought leader, how can we then be the thought police? Should we not be The Revolutionary Thought Cabal? The Loyal Thought Opposition?
If I’m a member of the “Big Sister Is Watching You” Thought Police, I’m doing a really shitty job of it. Look at all these people, thinking!
I should turn in my badge, but I’m just a few days from retirement.
No, no, UnknownEric, he’s the Brave Hero defying the Establishment Gynocracy to speak truth to the Vindictive Powers that Say Mean Things about CHS. He’s defending her honor, you see. (Seriously, the man still hasn’t learned that you need to examine the “facts” that seem self-evident at least as closely as you do “facts” that undermine your position? Does he really believe that CHS calling her crap “factual” makes it actually factual?)
HJ @ 2:
Beware of Mel Gibson.
If so, if he’s ever seen Kids in the Hall, he must get very confused by the recurring “It’s A Fact” sketch.
Also, as Stephanie Zvan has pointed out, thoughts happen inside your head, speech happens when you say it/write it down. So at best, we could maybe be Speech Police? That makes me think of speech therapists, though (that could just be me) and they’re awesome.
It’s really sad to see Dawkins devolve into self-parody.
I guess Dawkins just isn’t prepared to discuss some issues logically. He has to get all emotional about it. Poor dear. You can’t really blame him, though: calm logical discussion has more of an estogen vibe. In evolutionary times, men had to be quick to anger to get their adrenaline flowing so they could bring the hunt to a successful conclusion.
Rhetoric is fascinating, if personal in this case. I almost typed “Thetoric”, but that might not have been so bad if theatrics is included.
There is an intensity of “emotional tone” in words and it persuasively works depending on the person. Dawkins is deliberate simplifying the issue with a hyperbolic tone meant to counter the “emotional signal” of his critics. Twitter encourages this by it’s very nature since everything has to be concentrated into 140 characters.
Which farther drives home the idea of understanding emotion on all sides of this debate. The effects of emotion in trauma matters. The control of emotion when responding to critics matters. The appropriate use of emotion and emotional characterization when focusing on terrible behavior matters. Calling out crappy behavior in authorities is good and “mean sounding” characterizations are fine when they reflect reality. Harris’s comments are terrible and many mean characterizations of them match reality. Dawkins’s characterizations look like crap.
Other kind of disagreement? Or other kind of feminist?
I had never heard of CH Sommers before, but Wikipedia has this pointed remark:
From everything that I have read elsewhere this about sums it up. Richard, we’re watching you! Richard is defending (still defending) his “boys will be boys” shtick, and if Michael Nugent (last post) is the best he can do by way of support, perhaps he should think about his website motto: “Reason. Science. Progress.” He just keeps digging the hole deeper and deeper, and before long he’ll be buried in — you guessed it! — shit! Notice Rotundo’s comment: “neither dispassionate social science nor reflective scholarship.” That’s the way Dawkins is sounding, more and more, personal, peeved, narrow, blinkered, and plodding.
The thought police, they live inside of my head
The thought police, they come to me in my $132 million bed
The thought police, they’re coming to arrest me, oh, no
I like the cheap trick that is the 80s band much more than the one that’s a provocating polemicist.
Is it possible that in this day and age of instant communication, whizzing around the world in fractions of a second, that Richard Dawkins has never heard of the First Rule of Holes?
I see that I need to update my dictionary.
Thought police: People who disagree with me and say so.
Witch hunt : People disagreeing with me and saying so.
FemiNazi: Women who disagree with me and dare to say so.
Censorship: Disagreeing with me and saying so.
Playing the bully: Disagreeing with me and saying so.
Fake outrage: Disagreeing with me and saying so OUT LOUD.
Click bait: Disagreeing with me and saying so to gain attention.
It’s always helpful to have a variety of words for the same thought.
So, extrapolating from Dawkins’ tweet, is it safe to assume that he would agree with the following statements:
Fox News, Factual fair and balanced news, and you can see why.
William Lane Craig, Factual atheism, and you can see why.
Discovery Institute, Factual science, and you can see why.
Deepak Chopra, Factual, just plain factual , and you can see why.
I wonder if Dawkins and his buddies have the slightest clue on how this is playing out outside of the community. Sure, within movement atheism, everybody will kiss his rings and bow in front of him, but with every new ridiculous tweet he makes, his standing amongst the general public sinks lower and lower and lower…
Susannah @12:
I suggest the above change to your last one, and I would add some more:
Mangina: A man who agrees with a woman who disagrees with me
Taking Responsibility: Accepting that it’s ok for a man to do whatever he likes to your body if you’re drunk
Orwellian: Holding people accountable for things they say
Civility: The very important principle of not using naughty words, except if you’re agreeing with me
It looks rather different when written “Other feminists hate @CHSommers’ Factual Feminism, and you can see why.”
BTW: Thought Police.
(My emphases)
Well, given how simplistic Dawkins’ thinking has been revealed to be of late, policing his thoughts wouldn’t take much effort if we did have that capacity. I suspect a quick glance at A Voice For Men, MGTOW and the Slymepit would cover most of it.
John Morales @ 16:
Disagreeing with Dawkins is, in his own mind, terrorizing him, torturing him, and a restriction on his liberty equal to arrest.
By now, most mentions of Dawkins on social media are from atheists either mocking him, or pronouncing how much they now hate him.
This matches the response from the formerly supportive strands of the media. Atheist evangelists like Tom Chivers and Martin Robbins now write that they are embarrassed by Dawkins.
Dawkins has made a complete idiot of himself at the end of a brilliant career. His reputation will not recover.
R Johnston @17, I strongly doubt that.
I do, however, think he’s blithely unaware of the irony of his actions, which is precisely what Ophelia noted.
(And I think he’s relishing throwing his weight about, though it’s eroding his dignitas)
I’m noticing that as well. That said, I’ve gone to some length to avoid the only kind of people who are still cheering him on, so I can’t say I’ve got the best data.
I believe we are getting REALLY behind in the round up phase of the operation to send all of our enemies to Cup Cake Baking Camps for re-education. Come on people.
Where is your grit?
Times’ a wastin’!
I do understand it’s tough not to spend the day rolling around in your money and prestige… but there’s work to be done.
Went to Nugent’s blog this afternoon, read the comments. Felt depressed, confused and generally like not reading another atheits blog for another 3 or 4 years. Came back here, read your comments, laughed a lot, felt better. Apparently a sense of humor is a saving grace requiring no divine (nor annointed talking-head) sponsorship. Thanks, people!
In terms of victim-playing, martyr-posing and gaslighting,
Wise Man Dawkins is tough competition for the Christofascists,
Islamists et al.
Seriously, calling CHS a feminist? He might as well call Ken Ham a biologist or
historian.
Chris Crocker tearfully demanding we leave Britney alone was more
rational and dignified than this….
I thought screechymonkey had won the internet @8, but then Susannah @13… wowza.
Today, we are awarding TWO shiny internetz. You both win!
(Also, it’s been forever since I’ve heard from Eric McDonald @10. I miss your internet presence, my friend!)
thephilosophicalprimate, #26
Wow, thanks, I’ll treasure that!
I also like screechymonkey’s change and additions, #16, especially,
This ‘Thought Police’ stuff from Dawkins…how can he not realise what an embarassing cliche that is, if nothing else? He sounds just like a frothing Daily Mail columnist who’s been told it’s not cool to use some particular slur.
I’m just dreading the announcement of his next book. It’s going to be all about why silly people crticise great thinkers like him, full of talk of “bullies/professional victims/thought police/SJWs”, isn’t it?
Does Dawkins realise that Sommers works for the American Enterprise Institute which is a climate change denialist organisation?
screechymonkey@8: I would bow to your superior powers of snark, but 1) I’m laughing way to hard, and 2) I’ve got a mammoth to hunt.
Sniny internets all around!