So we’ve been remiss around here. We need to get organized. We need to have a good chart of all the things that are worse than other things, so that we can talk only about the worse things and never about the less worse things.
This might turn out to be a fairly tall order, but never mind, I’m sure if we pull our chairs all the way up to the desk, and comb our hair, and wipe the grease from our chins, we will be able to do it.
Let’s see. Labor. Labor issues. Here in the US there are jobs that are badly paid, and jobs that are hazardous, and jobs that are both. Jobs that are both must be worse, so we can’t talk about jobs that are only one but not the other.
But then there are worse jobs in other places. So we have to stop talking about any US labor issues, since there are worse ones elsewhere. Bangladesh is apparently not good at making sure its factories don’t burn down with most of the workers trapped inside, so maybe we should talk only about Bangladesh? Is that the worst? Are there worse ones in Zimbabwe or Mali? I don’t know. I guess it takes some research to find out which places are the very worst so that you know which ones to ignore.
Disease. How do you rank diseases? Ebola is very bad. Cancer is very bad. Crohn’s disease is horrible. Severe respiratory diseases are horrible. Frankly I’m not sure I would know how to rank them. How do people get so confident about knowing how to rank things?
Poverty. There’s a lot of poverty in the US, way more than you would expect from a developed democracy. But there are a few other countries that have a higher proportion of their populations living in poverty. (Not as many as you might think though.) I guess for that one we can just look up the stats and choose whatever country is on the bottom. I think it might be Mali.
Mental illness. Which is worse, depression or anxiety? I don’t know. Both sound very difficult and bad, and I don’t know how to decide which is worse.
No, you know what, this isn’t going to work. I don’t know how to go about it. I can do it if it’s really obvious, like a small scratch is not as bad as an axe wound. But other than that? I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how and more to the point, I don’t feel as if it’s my business. I think it’s a really gruesome kind of officiousness to decide you get to grade and sort and rank other people’s miseries. That’s just not a responsibility I want to take on, because it’s not up to me.
I don’t understand why Richard Dawkins thinks it’s up to him. I really don’t. He explained it to Kimberly Winston as being because he is so passionate about the problems of women in places that are far from the UK and the US, but I don’t find that convincing, because so am I and so are many other people I know, but they don’t think that means problems of women more nearby don’t matter. I guess I’m afraid I think it’s just as simple as Dawkins finding American feminists irritating, for whatever reason, and then rationalizing that as his impassioned concern for women he’ll never have to sit next to on a stage or a bus.
Things are worse in Pakistan than they are in the UK. I wonder if Dawkins systematically ignores everything that happens in the UK.
Yes. I haven’t much to add, except to reiterate how goddamned far my respect for this man has dropped since around 2006.
Dawkins says he’s passionate about the problems of women in places where he doesn’t go but does he actually do anything about it other than use that fact to try to shut people up? And does he care about those because he doesn’t have to sacrifice any of his own privileges (not that he acknowledges that he has any)?
And yeah, I guess I’m JAQing off.
RDF has given the CEMB some financial support, and Dawkins goes to Maryam’s protests and so on. So yes, he does actually do anything about it.
Obviously if he thought it through, it becomes rediculous. There are people being arrested or murdered for saying their beliefs and he had people criticism him. There are places where you can e imprisoned or worse for being an atheist but he regularly takes on atheist issues in the west. It’s obvious he is either really disingenuous about the whole thing or really hasn’t thought his position through.
Richard Dawkins clearly plays both sides of the street on this issue and somehow expects people not to have noticed. ‘Dear Muslima’ was all about mocking the complaints about the ‘less bad’, which he actually considered to in fact be ‘zero bad’. Yet while in the middle of one his recent Twitter tears he stated the contrary, that:
He then rephrased that syllogism several times for emphasis (including one about date rape versus rape at knifepoint).
So, that looks like an encouragement to do nothing about the lesser evil on the one hand, or treating them both as problems on the other. Evenhanded, you might say, sounds legit. My response would be, make your mind up, hypocrite.
Brilliantly put, Ophelia.
Excellent piece of writing, Ophelia. Top of your game. Sorry it has to be about this.
Now obviously I don’t know, but I’m willing to bet The Dawk don’t ride the bus.
I have a nasty headcold; I’m all dizzy, and goopy in my orifices. I’m pretty sure that’s worse than having your honey confiscated?
Post-hoc rationalization done large.
See, the thing is, most people care more about the issues that are close to them. “All politics are local” is a cliche because it’s true. I care WAY more about US immigration policy than Australian immigration policy. I care WAY more about the educational system in my local community and state than I do about the educational system in Borneo.
I care more about school shootings in the US than I do about ISIS and Boko Harem. Doesn’t mean that either of those groups are benign. But they don’t affect me directly, and are not likely to. The epidemic of school shootings? That’s both immediate and present. I care more about that.
As do we all…except, of course, when you’re trying to rationalize your way out of supremely idiotic statements. Then, the further away the problem is, the more urgent it becomes.
Re 10 and caring more about local things – And that’s a good thing: not because distant things are less important or distant people less human, but because caring’s there so we can do something. We can do a lot more about local things than distant things, because that’s where we are. One of the things to do about local things that are wrong – often the first thing, on happy occasion the only thing needed – is make them public and point out they’re wrong.
Condemning people for bringing up local wrongs is pretty nearly the worst thing you can do without lifting a finger. He’s coming down on the basis of most fundamental action for improving the world.
Jobs? Jobs! You live in America and have 3 part-time, minimum wage jobs with no health benefits, and you complain about it? Be thankful that you have job, sweetie! Work your job, and be lucky you do not live in some place like Zimbabwe where the unemployment rate is over 80%. A minimum wage job is bad. Unemployment is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of minimum wage jobs, go away and learn how to think. Now, will you stop complaining and get back to work, cupcake.
Does anyone else feel like Richard just stepped out of the country club in yorkshire? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Yorkshiremen_sketch