I saw a discussion of a video of Dawkins talking to someone on a stage in front of an audience, which is an extract from the full video posted by the RDF. It’s an event at Kennesaw State University in Georgia last November 21. I watched the first four minutes of the extract because it’s interesting. I transcribed most of it for the purpose of saying what’s wrong with it.
The guy asking the questions, Dr. Michael L. Sanseviro, Dean of Student Success at Kennesaw State, asks about the controversy about feminism and why Dawkins has been comparing degrees of badness when one could say the same thing about atheism. Yes, Dawkins says. “I want to be clear about this.” Then he pauses to think and then proceeds:
When I say something like, “This kind of maltreatment of women in America is bad but the treatment of women in Islam is worse,” I’m not saying treatment of women in America is good. I’m just saying it’s not asbad. I get the feeling there are some people who can’t tell the difference between saying that this is bad but that’s worse. They seem to think I’m saying this must be good because that’s worse and of course I’m not saying that at all.
No.
No, no, no, no.
People have told him no over and over again. I know he’s seen some of that telling because it was in comments on his website and he replied to comments there. I know he’s had it explained to him repeatedly that that’s not the right description. I also have a hard time believing he can’t figure it out for himself, but if he can’t, he’s doing a pretty decent performance of not being able to.
So I’ll say my version again, because I’m stubborn that way.
Yes, logically he’s right, saying this is worse is not saying that is good, it’s just saying that is not as bad. We all know that. We all know what “worse” means. It doesn’t help to talk to us as if we were 2.
The logic is not all there is to it.
He himself has not been making a solely logical point all this time. “Dear Muslima” was not about logic.
Doing that “other people have it much worse than you do” thing is a well-worn, familiar, classic way of dismissing other people’s complaints. There are times when it’s justified, and also times when if not quite justified it’s at least understandable. But it can also just be an assholish way of telling people to shut up.
Richard is a grown man. He lives in the world. He’s acquainted with some human beings. He can’t possibly be completely unaware of this particular rhetorical move as a rhetorical move. A friend of mine has a funny story about how her mother liked to greet her every moan and whine with the old “I was sad that I had no shoes until I met a man with no feet” line, to the point that my friend would interrupt her mother with “I know I know, shoes, feet.”
So, no. That bullshit is bullshit. We know he’s not literally saying “maltreatment of women in America is good” but that’s not the issue. What he is rhetorically saying is “maltreatment of women in America is trivial and you’re a spoiled bitch and I want you to stop talking.”
And he should cop to that. He should stop getting all innocently indignant when people ask him about it, and pretending all he ever meant was to point out that things are worse in some places than they are in others, as if anyone thought otherwise.
Why would he do that in the first place? Why would he bother announcing that stoning is worse than harassment? Nobody says it’s not, so why bother to say it?
As Sanseviro hints, one could say exactly the same thing to Dawkins about atheism. Atheists in Bangladesh are being chopped to death with machetes, which is worse than what happens to atheists in the UK and the US. That’s just [wide-eyed innocence] a logical point. I’m not saying what happens to atheists in the UK and the US is good. [blink blink]
But why say it at all? If you’re not implying that talking about less-bad thing X is self-indulgent, then why say it at all?
He goes on to expand on the point. Harassment is bad, harassment on the job is bad, harassment on the job by a boss is very bad. He’s had friends in that situation who’ve been fired for not submitting. Bad. Appalling. He’s never said otherwise.
But.
What I have said is that, however appalling that may be, having your clitoris cut off is worse.
Why? Why why why? Why say that? Why has he said that?
Who asked him? What makes him think it needs to be said? Who asked him to pronounce on which abuses of women are worse than other abuses of women? Why is it his job to grade abuses of women?
But he doesn’t care about that. He cares about getting us to understand that saying X is worse than Y ≠ Y is good.
But it’s terribly important to understand that because something is worse that doesn’t mean the first thing is good. [gesturing] That’s bad too. And I’m deeply disturbed that some of the remarks that I’ve made on Twitter have apparently, to my horror, been used to assault women in America with threats of rape and goodness knows what else. Because of a misunderstanding of something that I’ve said. That is truly appalling and I’ve spoken out against that. But isn’t it sort of obvious, this logical point that is bad [gesturing, pointing here then there] and that’s worse, is not saying that that’s good? [faint murmur from audience] [Dawkins louder] Isn’t that bloody obvious? [tiny amount of laughter, applause]
Yes, it is, it is bloody obvious, and no one is confused about it. What’s also bloody obvious is that that is not and never has been the issue.
Gah. Why do we have to keep doing this??
All he would have to do is say the 3 magic words: “I was wrong”
This whole thing is an exercise in cognitive dissonance. He’s apparently concluded that he must be right about everything, and therefore no amount of shovelling it too much as long as he can re-conclude that he is still right. An actual rational person would recognize they’re suffering from a cognitive bias and go “oh, that’s why so many people are mad at me!!!” and fix it (or recognize that they actually disagree with feminism, and explore their reasons) Dawkins appears to be incapable of … thinky stuff. I guess it’s just not a “guy thing.”
Because Dawkins does not think.
He just repeats.
Why say that? Easy. Because The Great and Powerful Dawkins has revealed to you The Important Things to focus on and you aren’t falling in line behind him like all mere mortals should. You aren’t meekly accepting the conclusions His Great Brain hath given unto the world, and instead you are trying shoehorn your plebeian ideas into the perfection of what The Great and Powerful Dawkins hath wrought. You refuse to acknowledge that you are in the presence of a superior human, and that is supremely annoying to someone as great as he. Hosanna!
Marcus @ 2 – Well to be fair he did say “I was wrong.” There was that one comment on one of his RDF posts last summer, in the rather turbulent aftermath of the statement, where he did apologize for Dear Muslima and did say he was wrong.
But in spite of that he continues to insist he was just making this one little logical and factual point. Or to put it another way, that comment is the only time he’s said he was wrong.
From TPM (Talking Points Memo) :
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Wednesday tried to deflect criticism of anti-gay legislation in his home state by saying that LGBT people in Iran are treated much worse.
Richard Dawkins using the same rhetorical device as a Republican Senator from Arkansas, and one regarded by many as an ignorant bigoted fool, my how the mighty have fallen.
Wo, good one.
Dawkins is to feminism as Duane Gish is to biology. When told that he’s wrong, says he’ll correct himself and then continues to repeat the same things.
I no longer give Dawkins the benefit of the doubt that he’s simply mistaken. One doesn’t keep repeating the same mistakes except to make them deliberately.
He’s just trying to be helpful! He’s gearing up to start writing a regular advice column. It’ll be a big success:
Dear Richard Dawkins,
I’m currently unemployed, but have just received two job offers. One of them is in a predominantly Muslim country, and one of the job requirements is having my clitoris cut off. The other job is here in the U.K. and has no such requirement, but the boss is a bit handsy. I can’t decide which job to take — any advice?
Signed,
Confused
Dear Confused,
Sexual harassment is bad, but female genital mutilation is worse. Take the local job.
Dear Richard Dawkins,
My left pinky finger has become gangrenous and the doctors say if it isn’t amputated, the infection will spread and I will die. What should I do?
Signed,
Indecisive
Dear Indecisive,
Losing any finger — even a pinky finger on your non-dominant hand — is terrible. But dying is worse. Get the amputation.
Or maybe we can skip the advice column stage and just have John Prine re-work his song “Dear Abby”:
Dear Dawkins, Dear Dawkins, I just can’t decide,
Should I cut off my finger, or commit suicide?
Both things are bad, so how can I choose?
Please give me your logic, I’ve nothing to lose.
Signed, Indecisive
Re Blanche, and why we have to keep doing this:
Yeah, and I keep thinking I should be able to put something more coherent together on this problem. How bizarre it is that there are even spokesthings associated with atheism, of all things. How this occasionally somewhat confused gentleman from Oxford’s notions on this stuff are going to reflect on the rest of us who might have come to similar conclusions about gods, never mind however inane we might think him on anything else…
It’s a bit long for a bumper sticker or a button, I guess. This is the beginning of the problem, when it comes to who they book to give ‘the atheist viewpoint’ on the talk shows. I guess I could try to sell one of those, all the same: ‘Yes, I think all gods are fictions. Oh, also, as it will annoy me if you assume otherwise, I think Richard Dawkins is pretty clueless about gender politics…’
Yeah. Bit long for the button, like I said.
Continuing rant: I was pretty publicly atheist well before ‘The God Delusion’ made the bestseller list. So why the fuck is this guy being so stubbornly, dreariy uninsightful about this other thing especially my probem, now? Or any of the raving illiterate MRAs on the net or in the skeptics clubs?
Seems like this is the problem. Any club I stand still long enough to get associated with, someone I think appallingly incompetent will insist upon joining. Worse: apparently, they’ll get elected president.
… which leads to the button I’m wearing now: ‘I’m my own club. No, you can’t join’.
(… no, I’m not saying this is a particulary good strategy. Just all I got lately.)
I’m with you, AJ. Just…separately O_O No touchee O_O
OB @ 5
Well, he must have repeated himself, because he dropped that Muslima turd in a thread I was following over at PZ’s house and that was a few years back.
I thought it was an impersonation because it was such a stupid thing to say. I had to be persuaded it was indeed Dawkins.
Blanche:
It’s for the best..
(I’m also spamming local organizations with requests they affiliate themselves with me and send me money… Except that I only verbally abuse them and rudely hang up if they actually agree to join.)
Kamaka – oh I know – that’s what he was apologizing for (without actually naming it) last summer. I know very well. The post that started that thread was about a post of mine as well as about Rebecca’s video, so I was following the discussion. And then I followed the discussions that ensued. For monthsandmonthsandmonths…
@ OB
Oh, I get it, the guy never learned the First Rule of Holes©.
Why? Why why why? Why say that? Why has he said that?
Oh because Islam is the really really really big problem and while we dont sort out that problem , everything else is not important. (And Im doing my best to be charitable to Dawkins – but I don’t know why)
He’s lying. I’m quite comfortable making that call, at this point. He may, by now, be lying to himself as well, but he’s full of shit and I have to think that at some level he knows it.
People understood exactly what he meant when he pulled Dear Muslima. He’s not willing to cop to it and so he can’t walk it back, so he can only keep doing similar things and pretending they don’t have similar meanings in order to bury the original bit of spite under a mountain of feigned confusion. While he does that, people will continue to point out that he’s starting from the same place and therefore each instance has the same problem (as well as the problem you point out, Ophelia, that even if he were just spitballing, apropos of nothing, it’d be a pointless thing to say, better left unsaid). And he’ll continue to have to pretend that people recognizing his bullshit for exactly what it is is actually a mass delusion on their part, because he’s unwilling to look himself in the mirror.
Deepak – same applies to atheism then. Dawkins should be in Bangladesh helping atheists there instead of swanning about giving talks in Georgia and other luxurious spots.
@ OB # 18
Absolutely.
Hey, you have *no idea* how much risk is involved in simply *being* in Georgia, much less giving talks! Why, RD is practically on the front lines there, taking his life in his own hands, as it were! Need I remind everyone that Georgia is technically Deep South, the justifiably feared Bible Belt??? RD will be lucky to get out alive, mark my werds O_O
I’m going to go check how many times he has opened his talks about creationism with “Denying evolution may be bad, but Boko Haram selling girls is worse!”
Morgan/#17:
He may, by now, be lying to himself as well, but he’s full of shit and I have to think that at some level he knows it.
Having said something similar about followers of various religions, I really have to say, for what my own idle speculation is worth:
My own maybe too cynical thought on this, on and off, has been something like: I’ve always wondered if it’s some kinda not necessarily entirely conscious political/social calculus. Clintonian triangulation, unintentional or otherwise, on the notion that maybe the intersection between the membership of atheist/skeptic/etc. organizations and a) outright MRAs and b) folk not especially literate in associated issues and the social sciences in general, and thus generally a bit sold on/soft on the drumbeat of feminism=bad that’s been sold in a lot of places lately is pretty wide. And he figures if he makes too direct an apology for this thing, apart from the whole pain of having to do that on its own, there’s the issue that that lot will see him as ‘caving to the feminists’, throw him under the bus in a second, and there goes his authority/royalties/etc…
Dunno. Cynical, like I said, maybe. Or it’s just that I was just reading Germinal*, and there’s a fair bit in that meditating darkly on how popularity within a social movement can go to your head, and it’s been haunting me a bit, since then.
(/*Yes, I’m name dropping how freakin’ literate I am. So, copping to this, in all honestly, it’s a bit of a one off, for me, as must-read pillars o’ literature goes. But anyway.)
AJ Milne @ 22
Being held in deference (real or feigned) as the great authority by vast numbers of college students likely contributes to the, shall we call it, lack of introspection.
Having shit-tons of money doesn’t help.
Honestly, I think he’s been pretty clear about why: he immediately becomes impatient with USian/European women talking about our problems and experiences, believes this very act constitutes the belittling of others’ experiences, actively wants to get us to shut up. To do so, he’s willing to cynically instrumentalize other people’s suffering and spark years-long campaigns of harassment and threats against the women who dared to discuss their experiences and challenge the sexism and misogyny of their own culture. All with an attitude of smug condescension and a lack of introspection worthy of an archbishop.
I don’t think I understand why you continue to believe he’s going to “get it” and change his ways. He gets it – he knows exactly what he’s doing, and it’s intentional.
Well, SC, your take rings true to me.
He’s old enough to remember the bad old days when it was frowned upon for women to have jobs* and girls sports were practically non-existent. It was a shitty way to run the world for everybody and he just doesn’t get that.
*Sigh, but if you must, you can be a teacher, nurse, librarian, waitress or stewardess (oops, repeated myself). Anything that requires metal hand-tools? Nope, not for you honey. Conformity cops build ugly worlds.
I don’t think I understand why you continue to believe he’s going to “get it” and change his ways.
I didn’t mean that to come across as personally insulting. Something I’ve been thinking about over the past few/several months…: We’ve long recognized that – while faith itself is an inherently rightwing practice – there’s a distinct religious Right and a religious Left. It seems increasingly clear that there’s also an atheist Right and Left. The atheist Right includes Dawkins and several of the other SPI self-declared luminaries, the (ridiculous) SPI as an organization, increasingly it appears American Atheists as an organization, and several bloggers. The problem is that we (and I’m including myself here) have been slow in appreciating this and tend to see statements and acts as individual issues rather than as part of a pattern shaped by longstanding political views. Several haven’t been willing to “own” their rightwing attitudes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t just acknowledge them publicly as the atheist Right, and be clear that their views represent the atheist Right. That doesn’t mean there won’t be many points of agreement on various issues, but we won’t have to fret so much when they continue to say and do rightwing things.
‘Ranking’ the troubles of Rebecca Watson and Malala Yousefsai is so trivial as to be ridiculous. Perhaps a naive observer could act as if the post-elevator complaint was out of scale.
BUT.
The avalanche of enraged, misogynist, bloviation that both women faced demonstrate that the problem is the same. THAT makes the claiming of degrees of badness pointless.
I’m reminded of the scene in Gone With the Wind, where Scarlett is shocked, shocked at the treatment of convict laborers, because ‘her’ Negroes were supposedly well-treated.
The ‘badness’ of slavery is absolute, and trumps any waffling about tradition or ‘good’ ownership.
So being perved in an elevator really IS on the same plane as being shot for going to school. Hair-splitting about degrees of badness is just post-hoc backpeddling to avoid apology.
@ SC
And RD must (pretends to?) have clue zero about the ramifications of rape culture.
Sheik mahandi took the words out of my mouth, or keyboard, on gays in Iraq.
(Funny how the Senator did not mention the “kill the gays” bills in Christian African countries)
When a doctor sexually assaulted me during a workplace physical, and I was fired for reporting it, there were women who said well you weren’t actually RAPED so it wasn’t so bad. Forcible groping and filthy comments vs. rape? I mean, why the FUCK should we have to chose between shitty and shittier? Would Dawkins?
SC @ 24 – I know, I wonder the same thing about myself. Often. I have this stubborn, rather stupid incredulity that people can’t see it if I just point it out to them one more time. I’m basically Dawkins asking the audience, “isn’t it bloody obvious?”
Quantifiers vs. qualifiers.
(“zero bad” ≠ “less bad”)
As a historical note, here’s the Wayback Machine capture of the Pharyngula thread in which the Dear Muslima letter is posted @75.
Oh god. He’s just been on Twitter “asking Socratic questions” and fuming at people who think questions can possibly be anything other than honest, open questions seeking honest replies.
https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/583700253494218752
“@MsAnthr0pe I asked a question. How is asking a question regarded as holding views. Do you not understand what a question is?”
He’s still pretending language is always and everywhere strictly literal – this despite the fact that he resorts to sarcasm almost as much as I do.
HONestly.
The innocent question that was ONLY A QUESTION and had A QUESTION MARK at the end so HOW CAN YOU THINK it was an implication or insinuation or anything other than a sincere SOCRATIC QUESTION?
“”My son’s. a good Muslim … so I don’t understand what he’s doing there [trying to join ISIS].” Is it precisely BECAUSE he’s a good Muslim?”
Isn’t it bloody obvious that that’s just an open-ended question????
https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/583699727352340480
Ever so subtle, our Richard.
@ 33 Ophelia Benson
“Officer, I’ve been raped!”
“Oh, you have, have you? Have you been walking around in public dressed like that? How much have you had to drink?”
No, he’s right. Questions carry no implications at all.
(/sarcasm)
Tangent/Fun story: I recently had a meatspace conversation with someone who clarified a comment with “I’m sorry, that sounded like a Dear Muslima.” Person in question had never heard of Richard Dawkins.
Dictionary illustration for disingenuous assclam.
So Dear Muslima has entered the language at large. Interesting.
It’s worth remembering a few things:
1. Dawkins is well aware of the rhetorical use of the “other people have it worse” tactic; it’s literally and explicitly (if sarcastically) how Dear Muslima started: ” Dear Muslima, Stop whining, will you.” It’s also how it ended: “And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.” Dawkins is pretending like the issue is that we’re all too dense to realize saying one thing is worse than another means saying the first thing is okay or good or acceptable, and not the reason why he’s making the comparison in the first place. Explicit or implied (as I’m sure it often is on Twitter), the point is to tell people to shut up and be grateful for what they have, or (to be as charitable as possible) that their priorities are fucked up and they should focus all efforts on improving the lives of Muslim women before working on any other feminist issues.
2. But then, it seems that Dawkins himself is confused. I mean, if he doesn’t mean to suggest that saying “X is worse than Y” implies that Y is not bad, then he might have wanted to rethink his first post-Dear Muslima comment, wherein he said:
This has been explained to him from the very beginning. Left0ver1under’s comparison to Duane Gish is apt.
If Richard Dawkins wants to apologize for “Dear Muslima”, he knows who he has to apologize to. But, I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
Well drken at the time Rebecca accepted the apology. She tweeted something to the effect that it was a tad…oblique, and ended “meh, I’ll take it.”
It could have been a start. Oh well.
That’s true too, Tom. I’ve been discussing it with Dear Muslima sort of bracketed, or put away in the cupboard for the moment. I guess that’s partly because he’s added to his oeuvre now, with the immortal grading kinds of rape tweets from last summer…But yes, you’re right.
Dawkins seems convinced that he and his lackeys are the only logical, rational people in the world. Everyone else is either too emotional or too stupid to realize a true thought leader’s ideas are the gold standard for thinking thinky thoughts.
You would think that someone who’s dealt with creationists as much as he has would recognize the disingenuousness of the “just asking questions” defense.
Dawkins:
Jeez, Richard, it was just a question.
It’s such a strange thing to watch unfolding in public, like a guy with his dick out wondering why no one will look him in the eye, why the world has gone sideways on him.
This whole thread is revealing, and my comment may be deleted…I don’t care.
Western feminists are extremely decadent. Their focus has always been Straight White Males, and ole anglo-saxon Dawkins certainly embodies that stereotype.
Dead. Horse. Whip?
Someone above compared Malala’s experience with that of Rebecca Watson. Malala took a bullet to the head, but survived. Most of the other girls on that bus were shot dead. As badly as Rebecca was treated there simply isn’t an equivalence between the two, and to posit that there is betrays a disgusting and willful ignorance bordering on the criminal.
What are western feminists doing to prevent the spread of FGM?
Virtually nothing.
What are they doing to prevent the spread of sharia tribunals, tribunals that exist mainly to keep women in their place?
Virtually nothing.
I read a report of one victim of the Rotherham grooming gangs. She said her ‘groomers’ ( love that word!) threw her on a wooden table, nailed her tongue to it so she couldn’t escape and then gang raped her.
This is misogyny of a whole other order and with ongoing demographic changes it is now the ASCENDANT misogyny.
Decker, you’re so ridiculous. No one “compared” Malala’s experience with Rebecca’s in the sense you mean. johnthedrunkard @ 27 pointed out that they’re obviously not comparable:
And none of the other girls on the bus were shot dead. Two others were shot but they recovered and returned to school.
http://poy.time.com/2012/12/19/the-other-girls-on-the-bus-how-malalas-classmates-are-carrying-on/
And then – why are you saying that here? Do you think I ignore FGM? Do you think I ignored or minimized what happened to Malala? What on earth can possibly be your point? Just to join Dawkins in pissing on “Western” feminism?
Western women are “decadent.” How hard were you pulling your pud when you typed that?
No, you certainly don’t ignore FGM…you’ve had many posting on the subject. However, I don’t among those western feminists I find decadent and basically lazy. As for islamists shooting school girls? That happened a lot in 90s Algeria. Whole busloads of girls were killed by the GIA. And I won’t comment on Boko Harem…
And I just don’t characterize Dawkins’ views as ‘pissing’ on western feminism. Do you think that all atheists are what you refer to as ‘progressives’? I think that Dawkins’ views on women in Islam are spot on. Those views are refuted, not by challenging their content, but by portraying Dawkins as engaging in neo-colonialism/neo-imperialism. They attack the man, not the ideas.
I’ve said this here before; I like Dawkins and I like Sam Harris, and I like the fact that ( and you’re pretty good at this too) they confront Islam head on.
That’s all!
Western women are “decadent.” How hard were you pulling your pud when you typed that?
Well, seeings you the “Official SpokesGay” that must be true!
I’m thinking of using a still of *Baby Jane Hudson* as my avatar…
Oh, is that Decker for “Oops, sorry I got my facts so wrong when I said most of the girls on the bus with Malala were shot dead”?
Anyway – that’s the last from you, Decker.
Ah, the good old zero-sum-game fallacy towards trying to silence feminists, wherein they get shouted down about pointing out problems in their own locales and cultures because ARGLE BARGLE IT’S WORSE SOMEWHERE ELSE!!1!!eleven!
I suppose that I should stop petitioning my city to install a street lamp at a dangerously unlit curve because somewhere in Peru there’s a mountain village without power.
Congratulations, Decker, you’ve totally convinced me. /snark
I wonder if people like Decker ever apply this kind of thinking to situations that affect their own life. For example “I can’t ask for a raise at work, there are still people who are slaves in this world! We need to address the bigger problem first.”
Or is it just that when there is a problem that affects my life but not theirs that they show up and remind us which are the really important problems we should be working on?
Well, 42% of Americans still don’t accept evolution. I blame Richard Dawkins myself. Harsh, but perhaps the number would be less if he wasn’t such a dick.
Oh wait, I have one! If we evolved from monkeys, why is there still Dawkins? SEE JUST A QUESTION I USED THE GRAMMERS.
Has Dawkins stopped beating his wife yet? What? IT ‘S JUST A QUESTION.