One thousand words on objectivism

Which is, perhaps, one thousand more than it deserves

When I was in high school, a friend loaned me a copy of Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead – a lengthy tome about a superstar architect who defies the forces stacked against him to create the buildings that he wants, not the ones that the mediocratic hordes are creating. I remember being enchanted by the idea that someone could stand up for her/himself and refuse to capitulate to the opinions of popular demand. A major part of my personality has been informed (or perhaps reinforced) by the ideas I read in the book – the part of me that speaks my mind unashamedly and tries to be unfailingly honest in expressing my opinions.

Later, I read the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. While I enjoyed the series (except the last 2 books, which were steamy piles of word salad), the sixth book – Faith of the Fallen – really spoke to me. Its protagonist fights the good fight against a self-destructive ideology that punishes those that work hard and rewards malingerers and the lazy, by inspiring the people to reject the idea that mankind is inherently flawed and unworthy of dignity. This book, too, resonated with my sense that human beings should work hard to achieve, and that hard work and innovation should be rewarded. I was later to learn that the author was a Rand devotee, penning his own view on objectivism.

As I was completing my graduate studies, I read (well, as an audio-book) Atlas Shrugged, another novel by Ayn Rand. It sucked. It was awful. The writing was as stilted and awkward as the plot was circuitous and interminable. The plot twists were predictable, the ending plodding and unsatisfying, and there was a billion-page monologue from one character that could have been shortened to maybe 5 pages. I got none of the thrill that I had enjoyed from the other two objectivist works I’d read.

Reading Atlas Shrugged (a title which, incidentally, doesn’t make any sense since Atlas held up the sky and not the Earth), I lost any allegiance I had to self-identifying as an objectivist. The entire philosophy seemed to be based on a view of the world that is fundamentally flawed – creating false dichotomies and presenting people as caricatures rather than believable characters. Those who advocate for others are grasping, greedy leeches that feed off the righteous generation of resources that is the result of the hard work of an elite few. Those who produce are virtuous, upright, honest and fair-dealing – the only iniquity is seen by those that would attempt to sponge off the upright by exploiting a sense of “altruism” (which, to Rand, is just the application of guilt). Completely unexamined is the idea of someone producing goods by exploiting and abusing those with less wealth, or the idea of someone being given a leg up and turning that opportunity into a productive life. In Randian terms there are only the good guys (producers) and the bad guys (leeches) – and I suppose the hodge-podge of people who do manual labour and are employed by the good and bad guys alike.

Of course this kind of black-and-white world view appeals a great deal to a large number of people – particularly those that are millionnaires already. I’ve talked about this before, but it can be incredibly difficult to see the number of helping hands you’ve had along the way to success, and it’s very tempting to conclude that your achievements were gained simply by the sweat of your own brow. That’s so rarely the case as to be laughable – everyone has help at various stages, just as everyone has difficulties. Some people are born with innate abilities that make them more likely to be successful, others are born into familial privilege and are able to capitalize on opportunities to which others would not have access. There are many others that are born with one of these things but not the other. As we can infer from the type of nepotism, cronyism and pandering we see in our electorate and in industry, it’s much better to have the second than the first.

So what becomes of those who have no connections or privilege? In an ideal world, those that are born with inherent gifts are able to apply those abilities and achieve some level of success – success that can be passed on to their descendents. Ostensibly, that’s how those that are rich today gained their wealth. Those that cannot achieve greatness can at least work hard and have a decent standard of living, commensurate to their human dignity. That is a true meritocracy – where your level of success is dependent only on your natural abilities and the amount of work you put in.

However, we don’t live in a meritocracy. We live in the world – a world in which political favours are given to corporate entities based on lobbying and favouritism rather than who does the best job, and those at the top achieve greater wealth by defrauding those lower on the rung than they would by producing a superior product or service. Objectivism does not apply to a world like this – it speaks only to a world in which the only barrier between a person and her success is the amount of work she puts into her life. When people do not behave like rational free-market agents, objectivism can make no meaningful predictions about the world.

So is objectivism a complete waste of time? Are there no lessons that can be gleaned from Rand’s works? I don’t think that’s the case. Like the axioms of religion or admonishments of metaphysical philosophy, there can be great subjective value to be gained from reading Rand allegorically. Forgetting for a moment her insistence that her books are meant to portray real life events and people, we can certainly empathize with a person against whom the odds are stacked standing up and refusing to compromise her/his vision, provided we also recognize that when our vision impacts the lives of others, they also have a stake. We can recoil from anyone that insists that we have a moral obligation to give up what we have to those that don’t, provided we simultaneously remember that it is in our best interests as members of a society that people have the opportunities to do for self, and that our participation in that effort may be required. We can recognize that “profit” and “wealth” are not dirty words – rather measures of the success of an idea – provided that we scrutinize the practices of the wealthy to ensure that those without wealth are not being exploited or defrauded.

We can make the world closer to meritocratic, provided that we don’t try and take objectivism literally.

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There’s no justice, there’s just us

There is a concept in psychology called the “just world hypothesis”, also known as the “just world fallacy”. In its essence, this concept refers to our tendency to infer that the world operates as it should – goodness is rewarded and iniquity is punished. Where the fallacious component of this phenomenon crops up is when we allow this thought process to operate in reverse – those who are punished or rewarded must have deserved it, because the world just works that way.

This is a particularly attractive heuristic for a number of reasons. First, it is reassuring to think that we live in a universe where things exist in a state of balance – chaos is unsettling and potentially dangerous. Second, and perhaps most compellingly, it gives us a sense of satisfaction to think that the hard work we put in will be rewarded. It gives us even more satisfaction to think that those who do wrong will get their come-uppance in the end, a phenomenon called schadenfreude.

There is no place in which the just world fallacy is more obvious than in theology. Regardless of which deity we are talking about, there is always a balance between the forces of good and the forces of evil, with the good guys eventually winning out in the end. Christianity falls down this path most egregiously, with an accounting of a final battle and judgment that is the stuff of great myth; however, all the great religious traditions put great faith in the idea of ultimate balance. The very concept of an afterlife is an implicit reward for a good life or punishment for a life used for ill.

This fallacy pops up outside the realm of religion, however. It is this fallacy that allows us to look at the horrendous disparity between the living conditions of First Nations people, of women, of people living in starvation in southeast Asia and Africa, and rationalize it. Take a look at the comments section of any news report from that region (particularly about what is currently happening in the Ivory Coast), and you’ll undoubtedly come across someone with a brilliant statement like “well all of those African leaders are corrupt – what do they expect?”

It’s nice to be able to explain away injustice with such a simple wave of the hand. Doing so removes any sense of responsibility you might feel for the way corporations from which we purchase goods exploit and devastate those countries, destabilizing them to a point where corruption becomes de rigeur. It removes any feelings of guilt for the fact that our cities are built on First Nations land, much of which was obtained through dishonest treaty processes. It prevents us from having to feel remorse for propping up a misogynistic system that rewards men for fictitious “superiorities” that we have been told to believe we have. We can then go about our lives without having to constantly examine our every thought and assumption, which is an exhausting process that can prevent anything from actually getting accomplished.

The problem with belief in the just world hypothesis is that it blinds us from seeing the world as it truly is. Consider this figure for a moment:

Anyone who has studied classical mechanics (called ‘physics’ in high school) will immediately recognize this as a free body diagram. The various forces at work on the rectangular object are presented. When we can identify the direction and magnitude of these forces, we can make meaningful predictions about the behaviour of the object. However, if we neglect one of the forces either in how strong it is or where it’s going, our predictions – indeed, our very understanding of the object – are fundamentally flawed (e.g., if we forget about friction, we would expect the block to slide down the ramp – friction may keep it exactly where it is).

Society and the people of which it is comprised can be thought of in much the same way. When we neglect to take into account the forces that are at work on us, our predictions and understanding of the world is meaningfully misconstrued. If we add in other forces that aren’t actually there, then we’re realy in trouble. The just world fallacy is just such an addition – it postulates the existence of an outside influence that inherently balances other forces that may result in unjust disparity. We are then relieved from any sense of responsibility to correct injustices.

The ultimate manifestation of this is the bromide “everything happens for a reason”. Starving kids in Ethiopia? Illegal wars? Abuse and deprivation? Exploitation of vulnerable peoples? Don’t worry, everything happens for a reason. Justice will win out in the end, without any need for action from you, safe behind your wall of fallacy.

It’s not exactly difficult to see why this view of the world is fundamentally dangerous. The world is not a fair place. In fact, “fairness” is an essentially human construction – sometimes animals are predated into extinction, sometimes entire ecosystems are destroyed by natural disasters, it’s entirely possible that entire planetary civilizations were wiped out by a supernova in some far-flung corner of the galaxy. These things are only “unfair” to human eyes – as far as the universe is concerned, them’s the breaks. I suppose there is some truth to the statement that “everything happens for a reason” – it’s just that this reason is that we live in a random, uncaring universe.

If we wish to live in a fair world – and I’d like to hope that we do – then it is incumbent upon us to make it that way. The only force for justice that exists is in the hands of human beings, and the only strength behind that force is the level of responsibility we feel to make it so. It is of no use to cluck our tongues and say “well that’s the way it goes” or “things will work out” – making statements like that is the same as saying “I don’t care about the suffering of those people”. If that’s the case (and oftentimes it is), we should at least be honest with ourselves and say it outright.

It is for this reason that I identify as a liberal – I am not content to let the universe sort things out. The universe doesn’t care, and there’s no reason to believe that the unfairness of random chance will result in justice for those that centuries of neglect have left behind. If we care about justice, then it’s up to us to make it happen.

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TL/DR: The world is not a fair place, although we like to try and convince ourselves that it is. If we want to live in a fair world, then we have to make it that way.

The value of the ‘spiritual’

I have a few close friends who describe themselves as ‘spiritual’. In fact, for the intervening period between leaving religious dogma and rejecting god-concepts altogether, I described myself along similar lines. When I said it, and I suppose when my friends say it, it meant that while I did not adhere to a particular religious tradition but still recognized that there was a non-intellectual part of the human experience that made up a non-trivial portion of my life. While my particular ‘spirituality’ did not encompass things like ghosts or angels or other non-corporeal forms of life, it did recognize that there is more in the world than limited human understanding can fully encompass.

In elementary school and throughout my life as a churchie, I was told that in addition to physical, social, emotional and mental health it was important to maintain one’s “spiritual health”. Googling the term gives you a whole flood of holistic sites that make the same claim. The interesting and telling part of both the religious and secular concepts of the spirit is that neither one bothers to actually define it, except in the most vague terms:

Spirituality is having meaning & direction in life. It involves development of positive morals, ethics & values. Being healthy spiritually helps us to demonstrate love, hope & a sense of caring for yourself and others.

The above is the most specific definition I could find, and even it doesn’t really bother to define what the spirit is, merely asserting the effect that having ‘healthy spirituality’ has. Apparently, according to this particular site, morals and values are the domain of the spirit – so much for philosophy and psychology I guess.

The galling part of the ‘spirituality’ issue is that, almost without question, it is describing subjective states of the brain. At least the religious definition posits the existence of a soul, although it is clear from explorations in neuroscience that the ‘soul’ is just another trick of the mind. However, the idea of ‘spirituality’ is inherently flawed in this way – it confuses an illusion with reality, and then back-fills its assumptions to fit the conclusion. First, the ‘spirit’ is created out of thin air; next, characteristics and qualities are ascribed to this figment; finally, a complicated system of diagnostic and treatment techniques are prescribed to maintain the health of the spirit:

  • Create art work and/or writing centered on hope of peace, then have an art show
  • Create cards to send to individuals who are alone, sick or just having a difficult time
  • Draw or write about what you would like to do for a job or career when you get older
  • Participate in mentoring i.e. reading a story to a younger child, either at home or within the school day
  • Participate in random acts of kindness
  • Have a ceremony celebrating Canadian Citizenship (lolwut?)
  • Recognize others special gifts or individuality – e.g. Identify a strength of each person in your class/family
  • Identify/draw a picture of or write about two community resources that help children/youth

It’s not a minor issue – major health care providers offer ‘spiritual health services’, seminars teach courses about how to heal your spirit, books are written that advertise the secrets of ‘boosting your spiritual health’. Millions of dollars are being made every year by people who claim to hold the secret to fixing a part of you that doesn’t exist. What’s more, belief in this non-existent vestigial and ephemeral organ is seen as a virtue – watch as people nod sagely and knowingly as someone repeats the canard “I’m not religious; I’m spiritual.” Contrast that to the reaction to someone who says “I don’t ride horses; I only like unicorns“.

Once we unpack the embedded implication of ‘spirituality’ – that there is something called a ‘spirit’ or a ‘soul’ that exists separately from the body – we are left to explain the pseudo-phenomenon of spirituality. We certainly experience life as though we are a spirit encased in a body, as though there is a living energy (as Orson Scott Card would call it, an aiùa) that comprises our ‘self’, our unique essence. It’s impossible to discuss this phenomenon without leaning heavily on the psycho-babble that makes up the language of spirituality. Anyone who has meditated, been inspired by a beautiful sight or song, felt connected to the planet, or allowed her/his mind to wander cannot deny that there is at least the illusion of a ‘self’ that exists beyond the wet and fleshy bits that make up our body.

What is this a picture of?

If you said ‘a pretty butterfly’, you’re wrong (if you said anything else, you might have a psychological problem). This is a picture of a bunch of coloured dots, arranged in a pattern that resembles a butterfly. The image of the butterfly is the product of your brain interpreting a number of individual stimuli and synthesizing them into one coherent expression. In the same way, your brain takes a variety of sensory information and builds a subjective experience that creates the illusion of a ‘spirit’ or soul:


All this is in no way meant to diminish the power of subjective experiences. I’ve been sublimely moved by works of music or literature (particularly the latter) that have changed the way I look at the world. I have, while looking at the night sky, felt a super-real connection to the universe. I have, on occasion, been knocked completely sideways by a stray thought that altered my perspective. I have, in years past, felt the Lord Jesus Christ in my heart, and had the Holy Spirit speak through me. These kinds of experiences are part of what defines our human experience. However, it is important to remember that while these things may have deep, powerful personal meaning, they do not correspond in any way to objective reality.

Tl/DR: There can be great value in those things we call ‘spiritual’, but the word itself props up a flawed view of the world.

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Movie Friday: Trololololo

It’s April Fool’s Day! This year I am celebrating by trolling the hell out of Canadian Atheist, another site I occasionally blog on.

I am putting this up because I fear that people may not understand that I am joking, and hoping that they click through here for more information.

Here are some other awesome religious troll pranks, in honour of this most foolish of days:

Punk’n the Fundie

Fresh Prince Troll

Miss Cleo Calls a Psychic

The April fool hath said in his heart that this shit ain’t funny.

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The embedded assumptions of belief

I recently had an old acquaintance of mine contact me over Facebook for a status update. I had opined that homeopaths deserve to burn in a “non-existent hell” for stoking hysteria over the Japanese nuclear crisis to sell their snake oil. My friend (who I will hereafter refer to as “Janice”) felt that it was of the utmost importance to contact me and assure me that hell is indeed a real place, and that the earthquake was part of a currently-unfolding Biblical prophecy.

Janice and I haven’t spoken in a number of years, and so it’s not surprising to me that she was unaware of my atheism. It was surprising to me that she didn’t just ignore my heathenism, instead preferring to blindly assert to me that she had special insight into the mind of the Creator of the Universe. In the interest of avoiding a completely unnecessary fight, I thanked Janice for her concern, and suggested that she probably didn’t want to have ‘the religion talk’ with me. After all, I spend a good number of hours every week exploring the bankruptcies of religious arguments, whereas she in all likelihood has never really crossed swords with a Gnu Atheist before.

Janice, not willing to pass up an opportunity to educate me about how great her god is, kept pressing me. She told me that she believed in the 100% truth of the Bible, and that if I only believed as she did, I would also be able to foresee the end of the world by volcanic cataclysm and world war. I won’t go through the entire back-and-forth between us – it was overflowing with the usual atheist responses to tired theist clichés – but suffice it to say I was unconvinced.

The way I left it with Janice (and, assuming I have succeeded in dissuading her from bringing this topic up with me again, the way this conversation has completely left off) was to list some of the several reasons why her assertions about the Biblical forecast of impending armageddon would never be even in the least bit convincing to me.

First Assumption: the universe was created by a conscious, intentional force of some kind.

Despite creationist and other theist protestations to the contrary, the universe shows very little sign of intentional creation. Aside from the fact that the physical laws of the universe permit stability and predictability (a fact that is not as complicated to explain as has been repeatedly claimed), there is nothing at all in the universe that suggests intentionality. There are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy alone, with another 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Only arrogance or ignorance (or some combination thereof) could lead someone to believe that this fact points to Earth as being a unique product of specific creation, or to achieve some specific purpose in which human beings play any part.

This assumption has insufficient evidence to demonstrate its truth, and doesn’t even have the appearance of being likely.

Second Assumption: the conscious, intentional force involves itself in human affairs.

Even if we simply grant the above assumption for the sake of argument, there is a second embedded assumption. Not being content with simply creating the universe and then remaining absent and abstract, this creative force (who I will for the sake of clarity call ‘Phil’) has chosen one specific species on one specific planet in one specific galaxy to reveal itself to. Phil is intimately concerned with the behaviours, actions and thoughts of this one species – so much so that it has created an eternal destination of paradise, and another of unimaginable horror specifically for this species to experience forever.

Looking around at the pattern of belief (and public expressions thereof), there does not appear to be any reason to accept this assumption. Prayers to Phil don’t seem to grant any favours or special treatment – Phil seems almost entirely indifferent to the successes or failures of his special creation. It doesn’t even seem that Phil is particularly interested in convincing us of its existence. There is, once again, no real reason to suspect that this assumption is merited.

Third Assumption: Phil has contacted humans and revealed its plan

Again granting the above assumptions, we have to again assume that Phil has expressed its wishes to humankind. Not only does Phil have a plan for humans, but it has told specific individuals this plan at various points throughout history. Phil has interacted with specific people, rather than the entire species, to convey its wishes. Phil does this communication in ways that are largely indistinguishable from mental illness or some other kind of psychological frailty, common in the species.

It is trivially easy to imagine a method of communication that is far superior to the way in which Phil has supposedly chosen. In fact, humans have developed a multitude of methods for mass communication of ideas. Phil has used none of these. There’s no real reason to suspect that this assumption is worth granting either.

Fourth Assumption: of the multitude of groups that have claimed special communication from Phil, the claim by the Israelites is genuine

There are literally thousands of groups that, throughout history, have claimed to have a special insight from Phil. Each of them claims that their insight is real, whereas those others that conflict are incorrect. There is no real reason to suspect that this one particular group, from this particular time period, in this particular area of the world, has the genuine article while all others are simply worshiping “false gods”. Even if it was genuine, it is highly suspicious that there have been no further communications from Phil (at least any that concur with the Israelites’ initial claim), especially in a time when mass communication of information is trivially simple to achieve.

Fifth Assumption: the Israelites, a non-literate group of nomads, were able to accurately transcribe the original communications of Phil into one book

Once again granting the above assumptions for the sake of argument, the contents of the Bible pre-date a time when Israelite scholars were able to write down the stories that had been spread by word of mouth. Having read a smattering of mythology that comes from oral retelling (the works of Homer, other Greek myths, Roman and Norse mythology, African and Caribbean creation storytelling, First Nations mythology), I immediately recognize the stamp of oral transcription whenever I read the old testament. The new testament has a very well-documented history of human origin, with various councils assembled to decide (by popular vote) which passages and books are the work of Phil and which are apocryphal.

Reality is not decided by vote, and as a direct result I cannot accept the fifth assumption as having any merit.

Sixth Assumption: Janice’s particular interpretation of the words of Phil is the correct one

Janice has asked me to just grant the first 5 assumptions, each without any convincing evidence, not just for the sake of argument, but to accept them as truth. She then goes on to demand that I also accept this final assumption with the justification that she has the Holy Spirit™. Now far be it from me to question Janice’s sincerity or her honesty – she is a great person who I hold in high personal esteem. However, there have been millions of contradictory interpretations of the bible, all from people who claim the same divine inspiration. Even if I were to grant the several particular assumptions (separate from the above 5) that would be required for me to accept the existence of such a spirit, I could not be less persuaded by Janice’s claim to have exclusive access to it.

While I was content to debate with Janice having granted the truth of the first 5 assumptions, I was not really interested in prolonging the discussion. Janice’s beliefs are strong, and completely irrational. She is not a random denizen of the internet, but a personal friend who I do not wish to alienate. However, it is incumbent upon me to be honest and open with her in my objections to being harangued for not believing in her version of the biblical account. I’d rather preempt a long and potentially fractious argument by laying out the many reasons why a discussion that is based on the truth of the bible is basically a waste of time for both of us.

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Why I care, and why you should too

Jeez, it seems like forever since I did one of these.

Regular readers may have noticed a significant up-tick in the number of times I’ve talked explicitly about women’s issues in these past couple of weeks. Really regular readers will have noticed that I often go to bat on behalf of the ladies, even on issues that have nothing to do with race, free speech or religion. The same goes for LGBT issues, actually – it seems as though I can’t stay away from women and gay shit.

It may seem somewhat antithetical, or at least counterproductive, to spend the amount of time and energy that I do talking about issues facing communities to which I have little-to-no connection. Sure, I have sort of a vested interest in women’s issues – many of my friends are women. However, I don’t really have any close gay friends (a fact that has baffled me for years), nor do I think that blogging about women’s issues will somehow impress or mollify my female friends (the women I am friends with are smart enough to judge someone based on his/her actions, rather than his/her blog). Why then do I put so much effort into pointing out women’s and LGBT issues?

First of all, I defend those positions because it’s the right thing to do. Not having a selfish interest in an issue is not license to simply ignore it. To be sure, there are a number of issues that I don’t talk about (quick list: genocide in Sudan, global warming, third world exploitation, naval piracy in Somalia, loss of the manufacturing sector… the list goes on). These topics are all worthy of intense discussion, but there are only so many hours in a day and, as callous as it sounds, there are things I am more passionate about. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care, so much as it means that I have different priorities. I am glad that there are people out there who care more about world hunger than they do about race issues – both are problems that need passionate advocates. I’ve chosen my fight.

Second, I actually do have a selfish interest in the advancement of women. As the rights of women improve, so too does the standard of living for the entire society. From the moment we are conceived, the health of our mother is of direct impact to our physical health. The better educated both of our parents are, the better chance we have of receiving education ourselves. Our interactions with women in the workplace or out in society generally give us a wider viewpoint than we’d expect in a male-dominated society, which allows for cultural progression and growth. From the moment we are born to the moment we die, the welfare of women is directly tied to our own well-being, regardless of our sex.

Thirdly, and perhaps most selfishly, when I speak on behalf of women I am actually speaking on behalf of myself as well. While I may not be a woman, women are a political minority that face generations of prejudice and antiquated attitudes. They are marginalized, and have been for so long that it has simply become the norm – so much so that sometimes it is other women who are doing the marginalizing. Women in North America face economic disparity, are more likely to be victims of crime, and face a disembodied and largely invisible series of obstacles that seem, without discernible effort, to put them at the bottom of the ladder.

The above description could have just as easily been written about black people. The cultural establishment has been, for years, stacked against the advancement of black people, to the point where our standing in the social ladder is thought to be essentially inevitable. The forces we struggle against are no longer concerted efforts by a shadowy cabal of active racists who are trying to disenfranchise the black population, but if one takes a step back, the outcomes are identical – black people are pushed as though by active effort into the margins of society. Being a minority within a minority (black atheist), this kind of cultural pressure is even more palpable to me.

So wherefore the gays? Well it shouldn’t be too difficult to piece together the fact that the same kind of ancient hatred and exclusion that has faced women and black people is currently shouldered by the gay community. The absurd taboo about same-sex attraction is older than the scriptures that are used to justify it. We have begun, as a society, to recognize that gay people are part of the human population and have been since time immemorial. There is no reasonable justification for the way they are treated, or to curtail their civil rights.

So even though Glenn Beck has forever ruined the quote for me (and he gets it wrong in that clip, which I wouldn’t bother watching unless you enjoy the paranoia-stoking ravings of a carefully-cultivated clown act), it does remind me of the old adage:

First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Or perhaps even better expressed by Martin Luther King Jr.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere

I speak about women’s issues, LGBT issues, atheist issues, race issues – all of these and more – because they are all the same thing. The forces stacked against women and against gay people are also stacked against me, and they’re stacked against you too regardless of who you are. It is only by recognizing the shared threat that we all face that we can struggle against them, and prevail.

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Divine mercy: an allegory

Gary woke with no memory of what had happened. Slowly, fighting the urge to retch, he opened his eyes. He immediately regretted doing so, as daggers of light from a single exposed overhead lightbulb pierced through his half-lidded vision and ignited the cobwebs in his head. Raising a hand to block the offending rays, Gary became aware that he was lying naked on a hard concrete floor in a bare room. A grim-looking man with unfamiliar features stood by a solid-looking metal door. Seeing that Gary was awake, the man grunted, heaved the door open, and walked into the hallway outside, letting the door slam behind him.

“Hello?” Gary called querulously. There was no answer. Staggering to his feet, Gary steadied himself against the cold concrete wall and shook his head, trying to dispel the last of his confusion. He lurched toward the door on unsteady feet and wrenched on the knob, to no avail. Gary slammed his open palm against the door and heard a dull boom sound that was quickly absorbed into the walls and high ceiling. “Hello!” he called again “Let me out of here!”

His hand slapped the door again, eliciting the same sound and lack of response from anyone who might be listening. Gary tugged against the knob again then, his small reserve of energy spent, slumped back to the floor. Frantically, he searched his memory hoping to reveal some clue of where he was, how he had arrived there, and who or what he might have offended to deserve such treatment. Suddenly, the door  made a sharp *click* and the knob turned. Gary scrambled to his feet and backed away from the door, imagining that he might be able to make a dash through the portal once whoever was on the other side opened it.

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Privilege: when turnabout isn’t fair play

There is an age-old adage when it comes to argument – “turnabout is fair play”. Basically, the idea is that if an argument is reasonable in one direction, then it’s entirely reasonable when turned around and used the other way. When a homeopath demands 100% positive proof that homeopathy doesn’t work, it is an entirely fair argument to ask them to provide 100% proof that gremlins and faeries don’t exist. Because neither argument is reasonable, they can be scrapped. Similarly, when religious people invoke scripture to prove that something or other is ordained or banned by God, it is reasonable to turn that same argument around and show where the scripture ordains or bans something that contradicts the believer’s position.

Turnabout is entirely fair play in most cases, save one – when privilege is in play. Regular readers of this blog will probably remember my previous discussions of how privilege manifests itself in religious people, in discussions of racism, and even in the atheist movement itself. Privilege, for those unfamiliar with the term, is what happens when belonging to a particular group gives you an automatic advantage over those who are not in that group. The characteristic of this advantage is that it is not inherent to real differences between the groups (it is not, for example, an example of “tall privilege” that tall people can reach high shelves easier than short people), but due to some undeserved social assumption or historical advantage (the fact that tall people are considered more trustworthy and attractive than short people would be perhaps an example of “tall privilege”).

Members of a privileged group are doubly-cursed (or blessed, depending on your perspective) since the usual kind of  advantages that accompany privilege are completely invisible to those inside the group. White folks will angrily rant until they are blue in the face (as only they can be) about how they earned everything they ever had, and how life wasn’t handed to them on a silver platter, and how the real racists are the ones who think that white people enjoy privilege at all! Men will insist that men are the truly oppressed sex, since they are no longer allowed to use sexual banter in the office, and that feminists are neutering their manful impulses. Meanwhile, those of us not in the in-group will patiently wait until they run out of steam and point out that the phrase “mighty white of you” exists for a reason, as does “crying like a little bitch.”

It is in cases like this, where privilege is in play, that turnabout doesn’t function as a reasonable argument. For example, imagine this (not so) fictitious exchange between two people:

Boy: I don’t understand why you’re mad
Girl: That guy just slapped my ass!
Boy: So?
Girl: So it’s degrading and basically sexual assault!
Boy: I would love it if girls came up to me and slapped my ass. I don’t see why you’re making such a big deal out of it – you should take it as a compliment.

I doubt that anyone would find this sample conversation bizarrely unrealistic. Boy is trying to set up a bit of “turnaround is fair play” to illustrate that Girl’s position is unreasonable – being sexually objectified is a compliment and Girl should not be offended. Boy is doing this by showing that when the situation is reversed, there is no offense felt by the objectified party – indeed there is a positive reaction to the same stimulus. Any feeling of offense must therefore be purely in Girl’s mind, and all she has to do is adjust her bad attitude.

And of course this would be a completely reasonable position to take but for the existence of male privilege. Boy exists in a world where women are not sexually aggressive in the way that men are. As a result, he has rarely (if not never) had cause to feel as though his merits are judged solely on his physical appearance. He is not constantly bombarded by messages that make his sexuality the sine qua non of his entire existence. He is not meant to feel stupid for simply being born a man. Perhaps most frustratingly (to Girl, at least), nobody ever condescendingly tries to “woman-splain” to him that his totally reasonable objection to being physically and sexually assaulted is just because of his bad attitude.

Boy is not necessarily a bad person, he has simply not taken the time to consider the real differences between his default position in any social situation and the position of Girl. There are a great number of other forces at work on Girl that Boy doesn’t even have to think about. By assuming that those forces, because he can’t see them, simply don’t exist, Boy is preserving the conditions that creates those forces in the first place.

This isn’t an abstract concept for me – I’ve been Boy more than my fair share of times. It’s a tempting trap to fall into, because then problems become everyone else’s fault and you can sit back and pass judgment on the rest of humanity. This type of thinking definitely runs outside of sexism, to be sure. Anyone who has ever said that black people need to just “get over” something are operating from that exact same position of privilege – racism is someone else’s problem! Anyone who has ever said “this is a Christian country, and if you don’t like it you can leave” is, in addition to being sorely deluded about their facts, operating from another position of majority privilege – civil rights are someone else’s problem!

This is why I harp on about privilege so much – failing to recognize its presence forces us to spend a lot of valuable time pointing it out. There will always be those who stalwartly refuse to recognize that it exists, being much happier to mischaracterize it as a device used by bleeding hearts to make white Christian men feel guilty (which is a crock), but there are others who are genuinely ignorant and are willing to put in the work to see how things might look from another perspective.

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Religion is bad; that’s why I have FAITH

Maybe this has happened to you before. For the past 2 or 3 weeks, I’ve found myself using the phrase “distinction without a difference” in conversation over and over again. It hadn’t previously been part of my usual lexicon, although I know the phrase well. It describes a circumstance in which two concepts are contrasted, despite the fact that they are similar in every way that is relevant to the discussion. If, for example, you were about to be devoured by a great white shark, and a helpful passer-by (or swimmer-by?) pointed out that it was actually a hammerhead shark, in what way would that information be useful to you? While such a distinction would certainly be relevant in discussions of ecology or evolution or taxonomy, for your purposes as the soon-to-be devouree, it’s a fuckin’ shark!

So for some idiosyncratic reason, I’d caught myself using the phrase more often than usual. So when I watched this video, it really seemed to fit. Dr. John Lennox, a Cambridge-educated professor of mathematics, responds to Richard Dawkins’ claim that religion encourages us to embrace nonsensical claims by saying “maybe religion does do that, but not true Bible-based Christian faith!” Dr. Lennox doesn’t have a great white, it’s a hammerhead! Distinction without difference.

This is a common reply when atheists and religious folk discuss. Many believers will happily agree with atheists that religion is bad. While atheists list ad nauseum the list of atrocities committed by religious people, such believers will sagely nod their heads in agreement and say “what a shame” at the appropriate moments. At the end of such diatribes, however, such believers will smugly assert “you’re right: religions ARE bad. That’s why I think it’s better to have faith.” The argument such people are trying to make is that the organized religious authority is the problem, and if only people followed their individual beliefs then there would be no problem.

Distinction without difference.

There are several problems with this argument, chief among which is the fact that it is simply the “No True Scotsman” fallacy turned on its side. A straw man is created of religious people as adherent automatons who believe and behave as they are told, which is then contrasted with the idea of “true” faith, in which individuals are free to question and discover the “true” answers within whatever religious text they choose. It’s a pretty picture, but it’s ultimately false. Within any group of religious people there is a diversity of belief and adherence, none of which fails to qualify as “faith”. To be sure, specific dogma exists within strict religious traditions, but it is rarely so overwhelming that it fuels the kind of violence and vitriol that is the hallmark of religious conflict.

The predictable rejoinder to this argument is that it is the religious trappings – the ritual, the chants, and particularly the clergy – that fuel the real conflict. In Rwanda, we saw church leaders directing state genocide forces to massacre Tutsis. In the Inquisition, we saw the bishops and cardinals directing the Inquisitors to burn heretics. In modern Iran we see mullahs and ayatollahs issuing fatwas and directing jihads. It is the religion, say the “faith” proponents, that leads to these problems; not the beliefs of their followers. If only the followers had found their own “faith” rather than following religion, they would know better and would refuse to follow such monstrous orders.

This counterargument is simply another straw man, in which the cart is put well in front of the horse. What constitutes a “religion” is simply a group of people who share a certain number of articles of “faith” with each other. The trappings of organization are a consequence of that process, not the antecedent. To contrast “faith” with “religion” is like saying ‘let us come together as a group and decide who will be responsible for certain leadership tasks; that’s a better system than having “a government”‘. Once again, distinction without difference. In every way that is germane to the discussion, the two things are identical and it contributes nothing to the discussion to try and forge some kind of contrast between them.

The second major problem with this argument is that it presumes the possibility of a “correct” interpretation of something like religion (or maybe it doesn’t – more on this later). “What I believe is right,” says the argument “and if people simply read the Bible/Qur’an/Bhagavad Gita the way that I do, they’d see that these things are right and those things are wrong.” This is either conceit leagues beyond anything that we arrogant atheists could possibly aspire to, or (more likely) a failure to recognize that scripture works the same way as a Rorschach ink blot – you see what you want to see. If you believe that it is permissible to seek revenge on those who wrong you, then you can explain away the whole “turn the other cheek” thing; vice versa for pacifists who ignore the Mark of Cain or Jesus’ wrath against the money-changers in the temple (to use Christianity as my most familiar example, though Islam is subject to the exact same process, perhaps even more so).

All “faith” is simply interpretation of stories, and as such flies in the face of any claim of the “correct” interpretation. The mind is made up first, and then the evidence is found to support it. A person may not be aware that they are doing this, just as we are not aware of the way that subtle cues and organization patterns in the supermarket influence us to do things without us being conscious of making a decision. Afterward, if we are confronted, we back-fill our reasons and find a way to make it look rational. Watch a kid explain why she/he did a random action – she/he will hunt for a reason and often make up a convoluted and fanciful explanation for an arbitrary act. We adults aren’t much better – we’re just less likely to shug and say “I dunno”. Faith is the same way – we find justifications for our beliefs after we already hold them (and yes, I include myself in this “we”. Although I try my best not to, I am only human).

The only way for this argument to possibly work is to say “everyone should hold their private beliefs, and not share them with each other.” After all, since religion is simply the sharing of  faith-based ideas, the only way to have faith and not be religious is to hold those ideas in your own head and make group decisions on a non-faith basis. Under such an arrangement, we immediately divest ourselves of churches, clergy, religious heirarchy and dogma, leaving only the content of people’s conscience left in which faith could possibly operate. If that’s what you mean when you say “no religion; only faith”, then congratulations! While you might not be an atheist, you’re most definitely a secularist.

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Quick refutations to common homeopath complaints

At the time of writing, the CBC Marketplace piece on homeopathy (in which yours truly makes an appearance) has not yet aired. However, there are already in excess of 100 comments on the 30-second trailer. Part of this is an intentional campaign by homeopaths to troll the comments section and make it look as though CBC’s reporting is reviled by a representative cross-section of Canadians – I’d be inclined to think that most Canadians haven’t even heard of homeopathy let alone tried it. There are, most probably, at least some people who are commenting because they honestly believe in homeopathy, but I’d suspect they’re in the minority.

Of course homeopaths are indeed going bat-shit insane and decrying the Marketplace piece as “one sided and unfair” (again, remember that it hasn’t aired yet) and accusing the lot of us of being sponsored by the pharmaceutical companies (which is such a tiresome lie that I almost don’t want to bother pointing out how untrue it is). For the record – I have received zero pharmaceutical money. My salary is paid by a number of grants, some of which are pharmaceutical. However, my personal income does not change, and would not change from any kind of skeptical involvement. The people who pay my salary (the provincial regulatory body for health services) have no idea what I do outside of work, and my salary is based on a fixed schedule that is common for everyone who has my job title and experience within the organization. I have worked on exactly one pharmaceutically-related project to date, and have had zero direct contact with the funders, who (incidentally) don’t know what my findings are yet; findings that have been presented at public conferences over which the companies exerted zero control.

Rather than going to the trouble of responding to the flood of comments, I will avoid fighting the tide of stupid and respond to the claims generally:

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