I had barely finished that post about Stefan Molyneux and his occasional collaboration with Peter Boghossian and my stubborn difficulty taking in just how right-wing some popular atheist men are, when my attention was drawn to a new provocation by Boghossian.
I’ve never understood how someone could be proud of being gay. How can one be proud of something one didn’t work for?
That’s a tweet as well as a Facebook post. His FB posts are all public, so public discussion is possible.
Lindsay Beyerstein pointed out that one way one can be proud of what one worked for in this context has to do with the courage and work it takes to come out. Is it ok with Boghossian if people are proud of that?
I’m so fed up with smug prosperous non-marginal guys publicly gloating over their good luck and taunting people who don’t have that particular form of luck.
I forget, is Boghosian proud of being an atheist?
I imagine it might also be a rhetorical tool to combat the pervasive idea that people should be ashamed of being gay, a way of saying, “Hell no I’m not ashamed!” in a positive way. Or, similarly, “I like what I am, thank you very much.”
But then, I’m not gay, so I don’t know for sure. What I do know for sure is that Boghossian is being a douche.
I’m more shocked by DJ Grothe being reasonable in reply than anything else. Of course, it’s not like this is about an issue that affects him personally, unlike those mean old SJW/feminist professional victims…
It would be interesting, if in reality impossible, for someone to hack one of the atheist “leaders” Twitters when they are not around. Post increasingly sexist, racist, homophobic things … For one would anyone notice? But how far would it have to go before their adoring fan club stopped supporting their statements…
Jason @ 2 – I think that’s right. I think it’s the step beyond mere “tolerance” or “acceptance” which imply that there’s something bad that needs tolerating and accepting. It’s affirmation. Being gay isn’t some sad misfortune, it’s a good & rich thing.
This is an issue for all marginal people. The one (partial) exception is disability. But there’s an exception to that, too, which is deaf culture. I find that pretty confounding, so maybe I’m kind of a Peter Boghossian type on that subject…But that apart, it seems pretty easy to understand why people would want to reject the idea that something fundamental about them is tragically undesirable. So one name for that is “pride”; deal with it.
I’m sure he’s not looking for an answer, but if he were, I don’t know that there’s a better one than Joanna Hoffman’s “Pride.”
On my shortlist for favorite piece of slam poetry of all time.
There are Disability Pride Parades. It’s not a matter of “not being able to see/walk/etc. is awesome” but rather “I’m awesome, I’m not a disappointment, shame, thing to be hidden away, etc.”
Son of a gun. I guess that means those “Proud Americans” in the Republican party must all be immigrants.
@ moarscienceplz : Oooh! One could grill s’mores over that burn!
Ah…sexist jerk is also a homophobic jerk.
Good to know.
Doesn’t change anything, though. I wasn’t buying any of what he’s selling anyway.
It astounds me how this point is so consistently missed regarding minority pride. We’ve existed in cultures for lengths of time I don’t care to ponder in which homosexuality, blackness, gender variance, variance of sexual preference etc. have been seen as a de facto negative. In (personally) astonishingly large segments of the population we still see homosexuality, blackness, gender variance, variance of sexual preference, etc. being seen as de facto negatives. When being anything other than a cis white man is being lesser, taking pride in deviation is an act of subversion. This is should not be a difficult fact to grasp for a learned man such as Boghossian if I, 22 year old college dropout, can grasp it.
I realized after posting my comment that I was ostensibly giving Boghossian a massive benefit of the doubt. I do not give Boghossian the benefit of the doubt. His track record on social justice issues prevent me from believing he’s much more than a a bigot.
But. nyarlathotep, Boghossian is a cis white man O_O
The privileged typically are oblivious to their privilege, except that they know they don’t want to share any.
And I don’t understand why anyone would listen to an evidently clueless asshat like Boghossian.
Blanche Quizno @ 13
I know, I know that even in educated cis white men this is a barrier that might not be broken, and I know that I unconsciously project my experience of interacting with black, queer, and gender variant peoples as an expectation on those with education. I didn’t communicate everything I wanted in my posts, and that’s my own fault.
Wowbagger, Heaper of Scorns @14
Agreed.
I note the irony that “publicly gloating over their good luck” is pretty much the definition of being “proud of something one didn’t work for”.
I am just offended that he wants to commit violence against my native English language by narrowly defining a word to suit his own ends.
Next he will claim a group of Lions can’t be called a “pride” either – because they didn’t work for it.
On my shortlist for favorite piece of slam poetry of all time.
Thanks for that ref. It’s now on my shortlist, too, along with Mali’s “what teacher’s make” and Guante’s “man up”
The most reliable way to utterly conformity confound a philosopher is to show them an aspect of the universe as it is.
oolon #4
So lying would be a good way to make your point?
This makes me think of the Black pride ideas that came out of the 60s and 70s. Does it follow that Black people can’t be proud of being black because they didn’t work to make themselves Black? No.
Hell, even Irish Americans will talk about being proud to be Irish. But they didn’t work to be Irish. They were born that way. Here’s the thing: one can feel pride in being a member of a group that has accomplished good things, or fought off negative stereotypes and oppression. The opposite of feeling proud is to feel shame.
There’s no reason why Black folks should feel shame at being black, or gay people should feel shame b/c they’re gay, etc. But many have had shame forced down their throats by racists, homophobes, sexists, and even anti-Irish attitudes, and whoever else has been victims of societal shaming and cowering historically. There’s nothing wrong with feeling pride as a response to forced shaming.
Charles Sullivan:
“Does it follow that Black people can’t be proud of being black because they didn’t work to make themselves Black? No.”
.
One other idea that came out of the 60s and 70s: before you can love anyone else, you must be able to love yourself. If you don’t love yourself as you are, that is unfortunate, and likely no amount of ‘working for it’ will put it right.
.
And that is sad.
I never liked the use of the term pride as an anthem because of its ambiguity.
Wikipedia breaks it down pretty well:
“Pride is an inwardly directed emotion that carries two common meanings. With a negative connotation, pride refers to an inflated sense of one’s personal status or accomplishments, often used synonymously with hubris. With a positive connotation, pride refers to a satisfied sense of attachment toward one’s own or another’s choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people, and is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, or a fulfilled feeling of belonging.”
In its common usage it evokes conflicting feelings. When I grew up, ‘pride’ was one of the seven capital sins. And in Lake Wobegon it still is frowned upon.
Eh. Even right wingers understand that “pride” in this context is mostly just a reversal of shame. You can hear right wingers saying they’re “Proud to be Christian” or “Proud to be White.”
They’re just being deliberately obtuse.
Up next: Boghossian completely destroys the advertising slogan “They’re great!” by measuring Kellogg’s Frosties.
I made the mistake of reading Mr. Boghossian’s facebook page. You can’t comment unless you belong, I suppose.
In any case, he’s a pretentious git. Seriously. There is nothing else to say. Is he trying to satirize a 3rd Philosophy major? Because, if he isn’t, then his university is throwing good money after bad on his salary. I wouldn’t take his class if I was gay, a woman (which I am) or a racial minority. He’s shown his hand as a racist, sexist, homophobic and (almost worse) pretentious git.
“I’m so fed up with smug prosperous non-marginal guys publicly gloating over their good luck and taunting people who don’t have that particular form of luck.”
Yeah, really annoying and rude. The best I can say is: at least they admit they had good luck. Then, of course, there are the ones who claim that their luck was actually due to their inherent personal superiority. Like most of the billionaires these days (inherited, gambled, or stole, but claim that they “deserve it”)…
I share your “stubborn difficulty taking in just how right-wing some popular atheist men are” and Boghossian is definitely that, and more. He’s a narcissist. And so much so he never responds or comments directly to criticism. I think someone rightly dubbed him the Deepak Chopra of Atheism. I like that. Deepak Boghossian. I hope it sticks.