Chris Hedges wrote a pretty good book on fundamentalism called American Fascists; at least, I thought it was pretty good, but now I have my doubts about his credibility. He has a new book, I Don’t Believe in Atheists, and has an essay that summarizes his position. I could not believe how awful it is — it’s basically a declaration that all atheists are exactly like Pat Robertson, and then it charges in with nothing but venom and accusations to defend his position.
Here’s a perfect example.
These atheists share a naïve belief with these fundamentalists in our innate goodness and decency. They, like all religious fundamentalists, fail to grasp the dark reality of human nature, our own capacity for evil, and the morally neutral universe we inhabit. There is nothing in human nature or human history to support the idea that we are morally advancing as a species or that we will overcome the flaws of human nature. We progress technologically and scientifically, but not morally. We use the newest instruments of technological and scientific progress to create more efficient forms of killing, repression, and economic exploitation and to accelerate environmental degradation as well as to nurture and sustain life. There is a good and a bad side to human progress. We are not moving toward a glorious utopia. We are not moving anywhere.
Wait a minute — Christian fundamentalists believe we’re victims of original sin, and will go on and on about what evil people we naturally are, and how it is only the grace of God that prevents us from running off raping and pillaging and killing. He’s starting off with a very peculiar characterization of fundamentalists.
And what about the atheists? Are there utopian dreamers among us? Sure, but not many — it’s hard to be too optimistic when you’re a minority surrounded by glib believers in balderdash. I think we tend to be realists: humanity has done fairly well for itself, and has potential to do better, but human nature is not a perfect ideal, nor is it perfectable, and we’re always going to have conflict and compromise. The question is whether we’re going to resolve those conflicts with reason, or with tribalisms and superstition.
While I don’t see much talk of a “glorious utopia” in atheist circles, I also don’t see as much of the bleak nihilism of Hedges, in which aspiration is pointless because we’re all doomed to futility. Hedges’ black-and-white view seems terribly stark and unrealistic.
He’s also prone to lumping all atheists together into one highly unrepresentative group.
Most of these atheists, like the Christian fundamentalists, support the imperialist projects and preemptive wars of the United States as a necessity. They see the war in Iraq and the greater conflict in the Middle East as an attack on irrational religion and a fight for the civilizing values of western culture. They too divide the world into superior and inferior races, those who are enlightened by reason and knowledge and those who are governed by irrational and dangerous religious beliefs. Hitchens and Harris — who asks us to consider a nuclear first strike on the Arab world — describe the Muslim world, where I spent seven years, most of them as the Middle East Bureau Chief for the New York Times, in language that is as racist, crude, and intolerant as that used by Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell. These authors are as culturally, historically, and linguistically illiterate as Christian fundamentalists, reducing one-fifth of the world’s population to their cartoonish visions of what it means to be a Muslim. They are a secular version of the religious right.
“Most of these atheists”…who has he been talking to? Hitchens and Harris are most emphatically not representative of atheist views on war. When Hitchens spoke at FFRF on the need for strongarming the Muslims in Iraq and Iran into surrender, people walked out on him, and he was loudly decrying atheists as wimps who were weak on the war and were too pro-Democrat, too anti-war. Atheists are politically diverse, and if anything, tend to lean away from the views Hedges assigns to us.
But wait! Hedges is not done making himself look ridiculous!
The New Atheists misuse Darwin and evolutionary biology as egregiously as the Christian fundamentalists misuse the Bible. Darwinism, which pays homage to the final and complete mastery of our animal natures, never posits that human beings can transcend their natures and create a human paradise. It argues the opposite. The illusion of human progress, in the name of evolutionary biology, is actually anti-Darwinian. And in this the New Atheists are honest neither about science nor Darwin. Science is used by them to supplant religion, to provide meaning and hope. It is used to assuage these innate religious yearnings. Since scientific knowledge is cumulative, albeit morally neutral, it gives the illusion that human history and human progress is also cumulative. And in many ways science has simply replaced the faith our premodern ancestors had in God.
Uh, “Darwinism”? If you knew how much I detest that frequently misused term…
And then to follow it up with the weirdest definition of evolution I’ve heard yet — “which pays homage to the final and complete mastery of our animal natures” — I want to know where this guy is getting his information. We do not master our animal natures, we are animals, and our nature is us. It is quite true that a proper understanding of evolution demolishes the idea of an overall pattern of progress towards a single goal, replacing it with an expanding diversity of strategies and a dominance by chance variation, but selection does reveal that there are better strategies for survival, at least in the short term.
And face it, on a social level there are better ways of doing things. Equality is better for all people than racism and discrimination; tolerance is better than oppression; representation is better than tyranny. We don’t sit around passive, saying that well, heck, an occasional lynching of a black man or the existence of gangs that beat up people walking out of gay bars is just as good as the absence of the same … we do have ideals to which we aspire, and we all work towards them. Atheists are people who believe that we can improve society with reason, and that yes, we can supplant the superstition and mythology of religion with better ways of making decisions. This is not wrong. This is how we achieve our goals.
But to see an author dismiss the idea of a betterment of the culture is hypocritical and absurd. Hedges writes books and has them published and sells them to people, I expect with the idea that readers will learn from them. Learning, however, is one of those utopian ideals that he seems to find so pointless.
But more ominously, the New Atheists ignore the wisdom of original sin, as well as studies in cognitive behavior that illustrate that human nature is often irrational and flawed. We are all governed, even in our moments of greatest lucidity, by unconscious forces. This understanding, whether achieved through Augustine or Freud, has been our most potent check on schemes of human perfectibility and utopian visions. But the New Atheists, like all believers in myth, refuse to listen. They peddle the alluring and enticing fantasy of inevitable moral and material progress. This vision is not based on science, history or reason. It is an act of faith. It is a form of the occult. It is no more scientifically legitimate than alchemy.
These “New Atheists” are bizarre products of Hedges’ imagination. The real New Atheists are well aware of the flaws of human character, and have no illusions of inevitability.
But gosh, I’m wasting my time. Hedges is clearly enraptured by his own delusions, and there’s no hope of educating him, or anyone else for that matter; we’re all poor doomed slaves of our impoverished natures, and all attempts to acquire a better, more accurate understanding of the world are pointless, occult mysticisms. There isn’t even any point to buying any of his books, or listening to his lectures, or reading his futile screeds.
We’ve seen this kind of thing before. Clearly Hedges wants to be a pioneer, saying the things that others are afraid to say, shining a light into the darkest corners to enlighten us all on what’s really going on! Unfortunately for him, he’s only shining a light on his exposed ass for everyone to see. He should make friends with “Vox Day”. They can make stuff up together.
I notice also that in his Salon interview he perpetuates the “Harris defends torture” smear.
I am sad again :(….we atheists arent bad people!!! come on!
:(
WTF? Did an atheist, excuse me, “New Atheist” run over his puppy the morning he wrote this?
Don’t you worry, little Chrissy, we’ll track down that mean atheist for you.
Put out an APB on a “New Atheist”, average height, comfortable shoes, soul-patch and straw coming out of the seams in his clothes. Last seen in a car with a darwin fish sticker and puppy guts on the front fender.
The inanity is glaring. Since when does being religious guarantee (or even increase the odds) that the believer will act in a moral and ethical manner? This guy needs to read Hauser’s Moral Minds.
Where, in this context, “peculiar” means “outright wrong.”
Spot-on categorization, because this guy IS a kook.
I looked forward to reading “American Fundamentalists” only to be very disappointed. He spent more time than I expected trying to differentiate moderate Christianity from the more extreme views. But beyond that book, I’ve found his columns at sites like TruthDig to be exactly what you described: a hopeless and very nihilistic view of our world and civilization. Honestly, I have to wonder how it is he hasn’t committed suicide yet.
I wasn’t aware of this most recent work (probably because I’ve been ignoring him), but it strikes me as both pathetic and bizarre that someone who is such a blatant apologist can turn right around and criticize others of buying into a “myth.”
He is actually quite incoherent, and I suspect this is nothing more than a reaction to specific people he doesn’t like (Hitchens or Harris perhaps?) who are famous as atheists — maybe Hitchens slept with his wife or something. I hate trying to psychoanalyze people based on what they write, but what explanation could there be for such vehemence? He’s not merely emotional, his hysterical. The excerpts read like paroxysms of pent-up anger. The sweeping generalizations covering all atheists are also very specific in their content: it’s as if he’s describing someone he hates, but concealing the person’s identity by ascribing all his dastardly attributes to the entire class of atheists.
____________________________________________
But the atheists believe in him. *sincere gaze*
pays homage to the final and complete mastery of our animal natures
I’m not sure how one can be so wrong (not PZ) on a subject. Hedge’s comments are frighteningly devoid of any apparent research and are (and I’m being generous here) hugely generalized. Thinking of all the atheists I know moderately well, I’m not sure even one fits the mold Hedge’s has set out as some kind of example. None of them have a sunshiney view of people or the world. Most begrudgingly support the war (we’re there, gotta finish it). I don’t know a single person who looks at science to provide meaning or hope. All the atheists I know are realists who see the world as it is. Often times that leaves them open to being categorized as overly negative rather than positive.
I’m really not sure how anyone could so horribly misunderstand a group of people (not that one can easily judge or understand a large group by a few members). I’m not sure I could manage to write something more inaccurate if I tried.
Salon has an interview with him, so I’m guessing he’s got a fair bit more exposure than Vox does. That said, the interview is no more coherent than his essay. Compare:
and
First off, it seems odd to say that New Atheists are these moralizing romantics, and at the same time say that the major proponent you identify has no morals. Second, it is completely bizarre to claim that there is some common fundamentalist creed shared among all New Atheists, and then say that Hitchens “doesn’t believe anything”. It just makes no sense, like most of Hedges’ argument in general.
His Salon interview basically boils down to his experience debating Hitchens and Harris, who mocked him and therefore all atheists are poo poo heads. I don’t think he has ever tried to sit down and have normal conversation with someone who didn’t agree with him.
I see the same problem here I often see with people trying to define “humanism,” and I suspect Hedges has gotten his philosophy terms mixed up.
During the Renaissance and Enlightenment, when both science and its underlying philosophy of “humanism” began to really take shape, there was a hybrid form of both which merged the new way of thinking about the world with the old way of thinking about God. This was the “Man is the pinnacle of creation” idea, the Great Chain of Being. The religious belief that God would save us morphed into the only slightly less religious belief that we would save ourselves — progress was inevitable. Paradise on earth. Half reason, half religion.
You still see this “evolution towards Higher Levels” mindset around today in the liberal spiritual takes on humanism — or in religious descriptions of humanism. But you don’t see it in modern Secular Humanism (or scientific humanism). There are no “higher” and “lower” forms. There’s no teleological drive behind things pulling everyone along. We’ve left that baggage behind.
And of course there’s no assurances. As you point out, most scientific atheists are hard-nosed and realistic, and they know better than to believe in Utopia or easy solutions. If we want to improve our lives and our societies, there is no other way than through effort, good will, and reason. That’s it. Magic will not work.
But this is a far cry from “we KNOW it WILL work.” Hedges is either confused, or he wants an easy straw man target to make himself look good against.
Hedges book looks as silly as the Doughy Pantload’s. These guys are experts in the creation and demolition of straw men.
He just transferred all of the standard complaints against communism’s utopian tendencies (and it is true that it had such tendencies, even if not all communists were utopian) to the atheists.
Which is intensely stupid.
Let’s see, Ambrose Bierce, Mencken, and Nietzsche (whether the first two were strictly atheist I don’t know, but they were essentially godless), people whose cheery beliefs in the goodness of humanity spills over into their optimistic writings.
So I guess the mindless anti-atheists are alternating between a view of atheism as depressing and hopeless, and that it is over-optimistic.
I don’t suppose they’d like to bother to get any evidence? Naw, that’s just what those depressing/optimistic atheists do, why should a theist bother?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Quoting from the Powells.com summary:
“Most of these atheists, like the Christian fundamentalists, support the imperialist projects and preemptive wars of the United Statesas a necessity.”
Just _where_ does he get that being an atheist means you’re
stridently aligned with Dick Cheney’s neo-con agenda??
This is completely at odds with the facts.
(On the other hand, if you’re a Christian fundamentalist,
you _are_ going to buy into Bush’s agenda: “he’s one of
‘us’; he’s going to appoint all the Supreme Court nominees
we ask of him; therefore, we’ll follow him to Hell (or
Iraq), if he so requires.”)
This kind of nonsense reminds me of Jonah Goldberg’s
recent screed/book associating liberalism with fascism.
Those who believe in the possibility of this perfection often call for the silencing or eradication of human beings who are defined by them as impediments to human progress.
Yep, Hedges is full of complete bullshit. I would like him to point to one example where any of the “New Atheists” call for the silencing or eradication of anyone? Yep, a lot of us would like to see these ancient myths gradually disappear from society, but that’s done through education and appeal to reason. Yet another person who can’t separate criticism of ideas from attacks on people.
This guy sounds like one of those moderate theists who perpetuates the fallacy of the false middle, also know as the Goldilocks fallacy. “See, fundies are crazy and atheists are crazy so us religious-but-not-too-religious folk must have it just right.” But he has to completely mischaracterize the new atheist position to achieve this illusion. What a dishonest turd.
I had long been a fan of Hedges — his writing on war is insightful, informed, and truly powerful — and appreciated the project of American Fascists (not Fundamentalists). But I saw him speak at a bookstore last summer and was appalled to hear him launch into his rant about Hitchens and Harris. The audience wasn’t sure how to react: But we thought he was one of the good guys! I was hoping this book would never actually make it to print.
Why is Harris getting lumped with Hitchens on the war issue?
And there’s a whole *book* like this, you say? Oh dear.
Hi, PZ. Longtime lurker here.
Well said. I just read an interview w/Hedges at Salon.com and he is absolutely using the “New Atheist” as a strawman for his own barely-coherent theology. Here’s one of my favorite non-sequiturs: “Unlike the religious fundamentalists or the New Atheists, I’m not willing to draw these kind of clean, institutional lines.”
I feel like this is another (hopefully unsuccessful) instance of theists moving the goalposts. If we adhere to our scientific method, we’re fundamentalists. Ass backwards.
He’s probably saying the right things to sell more copies, but I won’t be one of those consumers.
Thom Hartmann interviewed him for his radio show and it was the only time I’ve ever had the urge to call in. Thom gave him a complete pass on his nonsense and even quoted his book approvingly. It just goes to show that anyone who opines negatively about atheists and is even vaguely complimentary of religion is going to get a nod from most people.
Well, it seems to be based on a straw man argument:
I Don’t Believe in Atheists is a call to reject simplistic and Utopian visions.
What Utopian visions? Seriously. Who the hell is writing or professing Utopian visions? I’ve seen compelling arguments that things would better, but not Utopian, without religion poisoning everything. But I’ve not seen his strawman Utopian line of argumentation.
Nor has anyone, at least to my knowledge, who has any kind of “following” said that it would be simple. In fact, society (and making changes therein), with-or-without relgion, is extraordinarily complex and scientists (and the atheists he props up as “high priests”) will tell you that. If anyone is “simple,” it is the mind of the author who apparently wrote a book to the demons of his creation and not the reality on the ground.
I’m so sick of salon.com’s constant attacks on atheism. Has there be a single Atoms and Eden interview in which atheism was not judged and dismissed by some sanctimonious sage? This whole series seems to be designed to keep flinging stones at “The New Atheists.” I wonder what the editorial meeting that came up with that idea was like.
(Actually I don’t. I don’t want to think about the sad reality that a publication pretending to be intellectual would waste effort plotting an attack on disbelief. The state of the world is depressing enough without thinking about that.)
Hmmm, “wisdom” is not quite the word I would use to describe the doctrine of original sin, but never mind.
I just have one point to make – I was under the impression that the entire *point* of the scientific method was that humans can be irrational and flawed and that is why we look for external, verifiable evidence before jumping to conclusions.
That is the whole beauty of the scientific method, it is the only method of answering questions about the Universe that has acknowledged that it’s practitioners are fallible and built that knowledge into it’s very structure.
So why is he saying that atheists, who typically have a great deal of respect for the scientific method, do not believe in the reality of human imperfection? Or is he just making stuff up as he goes along?
Did Hitchens neck the last of his whiskey or something? Granted the man can be a loud-mouthed pain in the arse sometimes but “completely amoral”? Gimme a break.
I second the recommendation of his earlier book “War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning”; it’s tremendously depressing, but was a very useful antidote to the “War is totally awesome!” mentality that seized the nation a few years ago. I thought that book was also scattershot and not very coherent, but the force of his writing carried it through.
Based on what he’s written, I’d be surprised if Hedges finds anything good in *anyone*. If he thinks that all human beings are basically horrible, of course he’s going to see the actions of the “New Atheists” in that light. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t blame him too much; if I had spent a few decades reporting on civil wars, seeing the absolute worst people can do to each other, I’d probably be a nihilist too.
It would have been helpful if he attributed his claims to specific authors throughout the essay. A lot of it reads more like a disingenuous caricature of humanism, rather than criticisms. The rest applies mostly to Hitchens, who always manages to be a giant tool no matter which party he crashes.
Am I getting it all wrong, or is it the first time we can see someone actively defending the “bleak, dark, nihilistic” worldview that’s supposed (by fundies) to be the atheists’ one?
Not only that, but he chastises atheists because they insist on believing in such ideas as: if everybody was nicer to each other, the world would be a better place to live. To him, it’s just too naive. Humans are bad, inherently so, let’s deal with it.
Reminds me of the now forgotten kook that Engels eviscerates in his “Anti-Dühring”.
Atheists think this… Atheists do that… on and on for an entire book. Here I thought an Atheist was just a person who doesn’t believe in God.
They, like all religious fundamentalists, fail to grasp the dark reality of human nature, our own capacity for evil, and the morally neutral universe we inhabit.
Dubya Tee Eff?
If there is anyone who grasps that we inhabit a morally neutral universe, it would be atheists. And clearly we grasp the human capacity for evil, we see it every day. A good deal of it comes from the pulpit, but it comes from infidels too. I think even the densest person could understand the atheist perspective on that after reading any generic atheist rebuttal to the “Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were atheists” chestnut. Hedges must have a density somewhat exceeding that of an average neutron star.
Wait, I’m on the wrong blog for that reference, aren’t I?
Hedges is one of the good guys, but he’s really lost the script on atheism. Hedges is one of the most urgent and thoughtful voices today on issues of war and peace.
For someone who has written so eloquently about the suffering caused by religious conflict, it’s very strange to see Hedges as a partisan in the atheism debates.
This is the first segment of his debate with Sam Harris:
One can only assume that through prolonged self reflection and some sort of ritualistic fasting that Hedges has finally reach the highest level of solipsism.
Lumping atheists together is silly. The only thing they have in common is that they don’t believe in a sky-fairy.
He might as well start a tirade against people with red cars or people who enjoy cheese.
What is it with these people? Why aren’t they happy to just believe what they want and let everyone else do the same…..
I read the Salon interview last night, and I’m glad I’m not the only one taken aback by Hedges’ comments. I was appalled at his cavalier extrapolation of two individuals (Hitchens and Harris, Dawkins somehow doesn’t count because he’s British) to a social movement like fundamentalism. There’s just so very much wrong with what Hedges is saying.
I’ve been meaning to revisit “American Fascists.” This may be the excuse I need.
Well, Hitchens calls for the extirpation (?) of the Jihadists. But then if you define the Jihadists as those who want to kill freedom loving people and impose Sharia law, I’m probably in favor of that. I don’t think that it would be necessary to destroy them as people, but as Jihadists (which might be possible with education or reason). If you define the Jihadists as the oppressed people of Iraq who are fighting to expel a military force they see as occupying their country illegally, I’m less inclined to support their extirpation…
That religious slime has the freaking gall to judge us on
all the matters that his isane religious has perpetrated
down through history! It infuriates me to have an insane
crud question our superior behavior and intellect on the
basis of what we don’t believe in. I only wish that some
of us were there live when he ranted on; we could take
that deranged moron apart bit by bit and have him begging
for his god to help him!
I skimmed over the last half of his essay, but from the first half and the overall gist, I mostly agree with him.
Atheism, Christianity, and Islam are not the cancers of the world. Extremism is. In any form. Period.
If you are unable to conceive that other people in the world view the same world differently, you are the problem. No matter who you are.
We’re in an arms race though. Everyone says “But… the (others) are so extremist, we need to ramp up our efforts!”
Whether “others” is Muslims, Christians, Atheists, or Infidels, all groups use the exact same sentence.
How about some tolerance for a change?
i kinda like hitchens and harris, hitchens just makes me laugh, best person to watch an inteview of…whenever the interview starts he looks like he is pissed off to be there. brow slumped down, slouched over, probably hung over..and he just realy looks like he doesnt want to be there.
and he is never cut off, because he will talk over that person until he shuts up and lets him finish what he was saying…always funny.
i like some of what harris has to say too, irony though putting him into the “new atheists” dispite the fact that he has said on many occasions he doesnt like the term atheist…believe he states it “as though they have drawn a chalk outline on the ground and you have walked up and layed down” which always makes me laugh.
but there is no way to group atheists into one set of ideals, atheists are very much varied on the matter, because atheism is just a lack of a belief in a god. it doesnt entail the belief in anything else.
so maybe there are atheists that fit this little straw man, maybe not…but there is no point in trying to put every atheist into it.
this guy shows a notable lack of understanding of the topic of which he is speaking.
These atheists share a naïve belief with these fundamentalists in our innate goodness and decency
He’s referring to fundamentalist worshippers of Stuart Smalley, right? Because he can’t be talking about fundamentalist worshippers of Jesus. Never thought I’d find myself defending Christian fundies, but whatever charges one can fairly lay at their door — and there are many — that is emphatically not one of them.
I mean, these are the people who believe evey word of the bible literally and infallibly true. Hedges’s accusation is hard to square with a literal reading of Romans 3:10 (“There is none righteous, no, not one”, for the few non bible-readers round here).
No tolerance for intolerance when it involves religion.
So he’s mad at the idea that science will move humanity into a technologically advanced utopia? That sounds like very few of the atheists I know. If anything, it kinda sounds like he just hates Star Trek and is blaming all atheists for it.
So, in summary: humans are not perfectible in a godless universe, so we need religion to prevent people from doing evil things like bombing abortion clinics and flying planes into buildings.
“We are not moving toward a glorious utopia. We are not moving anywhere.”
Well not with bloody THAT attitude! Sheesh.
Let’s be generous here. Perhaps he just needs glasses. When he sees the words New Ager, perhaps he reads it as New Athiest.
Enough generosity, there’s too much venom & hatred to be a simple error.
I have never come across much Utopian thinking among Atheists, at least among adults. It is just another Fairy Belief. The Fairy of the “ultimate goodness” of mankind.
The idea that, because of the horrible historical record, the world would be a better place without organized religion is a logical conclusion rather than Utopian thinking. Better hardly implies Perfect.
As to the “wisdom of original sin”, what utter rubbish. Sin, a code of conduct decreed by a divine entity, is a Fairy Belief as the source of it is the proclamations of a Fairy. Original Sin is the Belief that the Big Fairy has placed sin inside the little Fairy (or soul) animating humans. It is not only a foolish idea, but an actively destructive idea. If the Big Fairy did exist and did create Original Sin, then I would have to consider such an entity to be actively evil and worthy of contempt rather than worship.
Hedges demonstrates his nihlistic Belief in the Fairy of the “ultimate evilness” of mankind.
I thought “War is a Force that Gives us Meaning” was an incredible book. When someone sent me a copy of one of his articles “I don’t believe in atheists” I knew he’d spent too much time in DivSchool. His brain done melted.
I suspect the Hedges is just a religious apologist.
If he attacks what he sees as the extremes, fundamentalists and atheists, he makes the case for “moderate” godbots.
He just looks stupid now.
Sorry if this repeats the thoughts of another — I have just a few seconds to compose this before I dash off.
and
Which is it? Are we innately good and decent, or are we bound by our animal natures? (I assume he sees an animal nature as de facto amoral.)
Wait… if we are part of a morally neutral universe, how is human nature suddenly swung so far off the neutral to this “great capacity for evil” that he speaks of. If the universe is devoid of moral judgment, in what sense can a human be declared evil or good but by the opinion of another human? (which given Chris’ declaration here, we can glean a bit of his attitude towards his fellow humans) If the universe has zero moral content doesn’t that just give humans a great capacity for doing things that some human at some other time may call good or evil?
As an atheist I fully grasp that I don’t believe in a god… wait… wasn’t I supposed to grasp something about the universe being morally neutral? Cripes, what would the word for that be anyway? Acosmomoralist?
And no tolerance for atheists(so called) who insist on
quoting insanities from that insane screed, the bible.
We all know what is contained in that useless waste of
paper of abject superstitious crap, and to keep on quoting
from that garbage does not imbue our message that we do
not want to deal with anything that reeks of religion.
I never make reference to that piece of crap and threw
that shit out many years ago when it dawned on me that it
is a useless concoction of deranged minds and to have it
around only expresses the irrational need to quote it.
So he is deliberately trying to marginalize atheists and fundamentalists by a technique know as “Being a Lying Sack of Shit”. So who is his target audience for this? Moderate Christian conservatives? It would fit I would think; they would be a group feeling torn between fundamentalism or atheism and accept the argument that humans are inherently evil and looking for someone to justify their position.
While this may be strictly true, up to a point, some people really would like to see more research in to whether basing much of your world view on completely untestable claims – particularly when it is considered as disrespectful to question those claims – is a good, bad, or indifferent, strategy for human progress, and whether extremism is more likely under those conditions. Is that too much to ask?
Sure, as long as they are not making claims that are demonstrably false and then influencing public policy based on those claims. There really, really are some right answers, you know? What those are and how we demonstrate them is always open to discussion. Nobody has said that it isn’t. What we oppose is the shutting down of discussion, and the deference to ‘faith’.
I heart you.
Uh, did you actually read any of those books Mr. Hedges?
Atheists arent looking for utopia, thats what religion attempts to fabricate. Atheists simply would like to able to think freely, and make the best decisions they can without being fetterd by someone else’ invisible friend.
This book of his makes me suspect Chris Hedges credibility as a journalist.
Of course, I bet he expects to cash in on the Christians’ love of paying for things that confirm their conceits.
“Never underestimate the power of denial.” -American Beauty
I think his rant is a symptom of some extreme cognitive dissonance on his part. He sees the benefits of rationalism and secular humanism, but can’t reconcile that with his own moderate religious beliefs. So he unconsciously constructs these elaborate strawman versions of the atheist movement in order to preserve the comfort of his old beliefs and avoid any jarring transition in philosophy.
Furthermore, his nihilistic views on the universe indicate some form of depression – he talks of the “evil” within all of us as if that’s an established fact. Sure, we’re all capable of causing pain, but to focus on that while completely ignoring our species’ propensity for good is a classic sign of depression.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: attempting to get atheist to agree on anything (outside of basic theology that is) is really very difficult. It’s like herding cats. And there is a reason for it.
Many atheists have often overcome dogma and indoctrination. Many atheists seek answers from the world around them… through science, philosophy or whatever. But the one thing atheists don’t do is march to the beat of a particular drum. There are too many skeptical, free-thinkers among us for this to happen.
As such you’ll find total conservative atheists and hard-core leftists. Anarchists and liberterians. War-hawks and peacniks. Hitchens and PZ. Worlds apart of politcal and social issues (other than keeping religion from confusing the issue). The only binding glue is a rejection that a supernatural sky-fairy will send us all to Hades. This is part of why a unified, atheist political blok has been so difficult to organise.
As I said… herding cats. Hedges would do well to consider this before he makes stupid statements like “new” atheists supporting the war in Iraq.
I have to disagree with you Holbach. Completely getting rid of the bible just because its the work of ancient crazies is not really solid reasoning. Should we toss out the paintings of Picasso just because he was a little off his nut?
Making a reference to it to try to prove a moral stance is wrong, I’ll admit that, but nothing stops some parts from being a riveting good read. Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon are actually pretty good books taken as poetic works (hell, Song of Solomon is almost a Harlequin romance novel) and not the literal truth of Gawd. The bible is in so much western literature that being completely ignorant of the stories in it leaves you not getting the reference sometimes.
AJ Hawks,
Please define extremist atheism for me. By saying any form of extremism is the problem, are you equating the actions of Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens with someone like Ted Haggert or Bin Laden.
I would tend to disagree with you. Hitchens ripping someone a new one in a debate is hardly comparable to blowing up 3,000 innocent people.
strange man.
he thinks atheists arent aware of their/our animal instincts?
luckily its perhaps us who are and try to keep them in check. Its often the religious who are blind when they are fully engaging in them. When I am reminded of those hideous muslim inflicted decapitations i am quite aware that what is happening there really isnt much different than when you see a troop of chimps ripping apart another from a different group, the dying man is reduced to a defacating, screeching primate with little to separate him from any other.
the difference here is that the religious mind imposing the action thinks its doing something right, something good, something deserved, when all its doing is acting out its most basic instincts, the type of thing that i hopefully will never have to do.
So if I understand correctly Hedges is opposed to the strawman position that Atheists believe that if religion disappears then there will be a utopia. I don’t know if anyone actually believes that but I’m certain without fundamentalism the world will be better off but not exactly a utopia since there are many other philosophies.
Perhaps he thinks those who think that if smallpox is eradicated from the planet the world will be a better place are just like Pat Robertson. Surely if some disease that affects humanity in a negative way is removed then that’s a positive. Perhaps Chris is thinking that hope and progress is a thing to be fought against, kinda like McCain’s campaign speeches rallying against Obama’s message of hope and positive change.
It’s a shame, with American Fundamentalists Chris Hedges actually appeared enlightened. But if you scratch a religious person enough you’ll uncover the unthinking bigot underneath.
O M F G !
(…for those of you who believe in that sort of thing ;-)
Such a litany of malformed, fallacious, tendencious, illogical arguments, an unbelievable mound of misinformation and disinformation.
Almost(?) every sentence in this text contains a falsehood, or a premise that is highly debatable. Is Chris Hedges a pseudonym for Harun Yahya?
I just knew PZ (& co.) would rip this apart in the best way possible. Thanks for an enjoyable afternoon’s reading! Now to head over to Salon and trash Hedges some more.
WTF?
I am baffled.
the Chewbacca defense? (or “offense”?)
Some better things to read than Hedges, in the new Nature: Armand Leroi reviews David Sedley’s Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity, Frans de Waal reviews a book on animal language, and a mechanism that converts a racemic mixture of organic molecules to a single “handedness” is discussed.
This guy is a piece of shit.
There’s ‘wisdom’ in “original sin”? Huh?
And as for those ‘studies’ they supposedly ‘ignore’, I’m guessing he’s glossed over the fact that Sam Harris is studying neuroscience and Dan Dennett (the ‘overlooked’ one of the “New Atheists”) has written quite a bit about cognitive behavior and consciousness. And, from what I remember, both recognize that humans are quite often irrational…
Projection – SOMEONE is refusing to listen, that’s for sure… (or ‘read’, as the case may be).
What a crock. Going by what I remember right now from reading all of the “Four Horsemen’s” major books is that progress is possible, with more of a dedication to propagating rational worldviews and STUDYING human consciousness, scientifically, and using that knowledge to help us progress.
Now, I don’t know what kind of deficient education this tool got, but from what I learned in school, looking at the real world for evidence and applying information gained from that evidence to attempted solutions sounds more like science than faith.
How does he label himself, I wonder? Ehyck, my brain just threw up on all that I just read from him.
# 57 Your disagreeing with me does not change my opinion
one iota concerning that deranged book. Come now, Picasso
was a living person, and all his work could not be equated
with that insane book. His Blue Period for example. Perhaps
he found religion and the bible and went bonkers as he
expressed in his later paintings. I will never in my life
honor or equate what is in that deranged book as part of
Western literature, and think it deplorable to have it
even considered so. Good grief, look at all the great
stuff you should be reading that should supplant that book
of insanities: Astronomy, Geology, Geography, History,
Biography, Travel, Art, Literature, and so on through the
litany of worthwhile non-fiction. When I do read fiction,
it is the works of Dickens, Conrad, Edmund Wilson, Hugo,
and so many more who can plumb the depth of human pathos
and make me the wiser for it. But to spend one second with
that insane bible crap is anathema not only to my intellect but also to digestive system. ‘Animal Farm” would be a more worthwhile and entertaining read.
I make it a point to throw that crud book into the waste
basket in my hotel room whenever I travel. My distaste for
that “book’ is unequivocal and shall always remain so.
Putting to one side for the moment the ridiculous sweeping generalisations about atheist beliefs, Hedges’ point relating to an absence of evidence for moral progress in humans is completely wrong.
Steven Pinker, for example, has demonstrated that levels of violence have fallen dramatically since the Enlightenment. Even with the two world wars, the 20th century resulted in the lowest per capita rate of violent death in recorded history (I think the per capita number of violent deaths in the two world wars was about 1 / 20th of pre-Enlightenment levels). Pinker also notes that the phenomenon is fractal in nature; the trend can be seen over centuries, decades, and years. We undoubtedly have a long way to go in ‘eliminating’ violence, but we have made significant progress in recent times.
@A.J. Hawks
While I agree that extremism is less palatable than moderism, it is faith that drives them both, and it is faith that is the cancer of the world; faith as a subset of dogma (see Stalin/Hitler/Mao et al). Wherever belief does not scale with evidence, danger lies.
The granny who goes to church every Sunday and prays for her children isn’t likely to support the killing of non-believers, but the unquestioned (and often unquestionable) faith that she holds (and that we allow her to hold) provides all the justification the fundamentalists need; their actions (which are, in reality, no more than a more thorough reading of the same ‘holy’ books) are legitimized by the fact that our society has agreed to hold faith in the highest regard. Faith is the scourge of the Earth, and the sooner we realize this, the better off we’ll be.
We (rational people) are, in every sense, at war with Islam. But we are not simply at war with Islam. We are at war with faith. If Christians of the 14th century we’re magically transported to the present time, we’d be at war with them in the same way.
This is not to say we are at war with all Muslims, in the same way as we’re not at war with the aforementioned granny. We’re merely (!!!) at war with the underlying ideology.
There’s been a lot of talk about how books are organized in stores. Walking into one of my local Chapters stores (a large chain here in Canada), I found The God Delusion in the science section and then again in the “Chapters’ Recommendations” shelf. All other books in the science section were science books (pop science, admittedly, but still science). Books such as the one you mention were being sold from a section called “Ideas and Opinions.” I’ve never been so proud to be an Ottawan!
Ironically, this original post and its comments seem to prove Hedges’ point. When I read this blog, I often have to filter out all the anger, vitriol, and name-calling to get to the actual point or argument the author is trying to make. Sometimes there is no point: just venom. People like me actually want to read arguments and ideas without personal attacks and finger-pointing.
One of the greatest strengths of the scientific method is peer review and criticism. But calling someone an idiot is not reviewing their work; that makes for bad science and terrible philosophy. But this blog — which purports to advocate good science — is rife with such name-calling. So, why would a blog that argues tirelessly for adhereance to the scientific method willingly and deliberately skip over the crucial step in the method itself? Hedges’ book may be able to provide an answer.
*stunned silence*
Pot, meet kettle.
Wow.
uh…
searching for an appropriate response to that one here…
nothing will do but:
“Fuck you.”
holbach @51,
And no tolerance for atheists(so called) who insist on
quoting insanities from that insane screed, the bible.
As I quoted the bible upthread, you might be referring to me (though I’d probably be closer to deist than atheist). This thread is not about biblical insanity, though; it’s about Chris Hedges saying something silly.
If the bible says “everything is red”, that might well be insane, but its insanity isn’t the point here. The point is that Hedges is criticising fundamentalists — people who believe the bible literally true — for thinking everything is blue. The second belief might be just as insane as the first one, but it is not a form of insanity found in the bible, and hence not something fundamentalists believe. Hedges is criticising both atheists and fundamentalists for what they believe. The very first sentence PZ quotes in this post shows that Hedges doesn’t understand what atheists or fundamentalists believe; the entire foundation of his criticism is false.
Have to go with H. Jones on the bible thing, though. There’s some important literature in the bible, tucked in among the begats and thou-shalt-nots, and if one knows nothing of the book, one won’t “get” an awful lot of western culture. But if you find the thing annoying, then sure, toss it in the bin. I have to say, though, I’ve usually found that it goes the other way: the average atheist knows the bible better than the average Christian does.
Chris Hedges is the new Amy Sullivan I guess.
“So, why would a blog that argues tirelessly for adhereance to the scientific method willingly and deliberately skip over the crucial step in the method itself?”
PZ argued against Hedges arguments, and there was no namecalling. (except the kooks tag, because he was saying some pretty kooky things.) Besides the “stoop to namecalling” argument is way too overused and abused. When someone says something only an idiot would say, there’s no point being polite about it, provided you explain WHY what was said was idiotic.
PZ’s science is in studying embryonic development, not blog posts, what kind of “method” is to be used against an opinion piece, other than statements about where you find it lacking? should he take a DNA sample from Hedges and see if there are any kooky genes in there?
People like me actually want to read arguments and ideas without personal attacks and finger-pointing.
Some of Hedge’s arguments do indeed seem ridiculous. But I also agree that a detailed critique is more beneficial than pure vitriol. Having just done battle with ev-fundies on another site, it makes me appreciate the logic and clarity of the critiques of IDiocy that often appear on PZ’s blog. More light, less heat please.
Oh, look! dsmvwld has shown up again! Should I go back to the other threads to find your responses on how you were indoctrinated into atheism and where exactly PZ has been dogmatic and insubstantive, or is it a lost cause to think that you will ever provide more information than a drop-in sneer? There were a lot of people eagerly awaiting your responses; it’s a shame to think that you’re the type of person who never backs up anything you say.
Hedges interview on the Thom Hartmann radio show can be listened to here
I didn’t read American Fascists but I saw him on CSPAN and was impressed. He referred to his time in the seminary. I slid him into my exceptionally exclusive (total population: 2) category of decent, good, but a theologian. Nevermind that. We’re back to a population of one.
Schmeer;
While this is basically a reiteration of most of PZ’s points, I couldn’t contain myself in the face of such cynicism…
To quote Joe Piscopo as Frank Sinatra: “You had me, then you lost me!”
I won’t disagree with certain aspects of his thesis. I agree that there are athiests who will sometimes go so far in one direction they’ll start curving around to be almost indistinguishable from those they oppose. (I’m sometimes a little put-off by the tenor of some of the comments on this site, to be honest.) Ironically, Hedges takes this thesis and runs over a cliff with it, becoming that which he is railing against.
For example:
Wah…huh? Hedges vehemence in this regard is so absolute he shoots himself in the foot (THEN runs off a cliff!). Who,exactly, fails to grasp “the dark reality of human nature?” NOBODY! In fact, most people–Theists and Athiests alike–tend to fail to see the positive side of human nature. I’ve talked with people who are so sure of man’s “evil” nature they’re blind to the manner in which collaboration has built cities. And dare I say that while 19 people brought down the twin towers, BILLIONS of people stood together in solidarity against such evil?
If man is by nature evil, how have wew survived and prospered this long?
And if he truly believe that the universe is morally neutral (a philosophical position I absolutely share), how exactly does he define the “flaws of human nature?” You can’t be both objective and subjective.
We aren’t? Could Barack Obama have been a serious contender for president in 1950? For that matter, could Hillary?
I have not read either Hitchen’s and Harris’ books, so I won’t comment specifically on the veracity of this claim, but it’s disengenious to extrapolate the ideals of two people onto a whole group. That’s the definition of racism. Of sexism. Of agism. Of…you get the idea. I, for one, as an athiest, do not advocate a nuclear strike on ANYTHING! Who the hell would want to run down that slippery slope?
Um…yes. Yes indeed. Put another way, it is used to counter the innate fearmongering of most religious doctrines with reasonable assertions about how the universe really operates. Which is better: “Worship God or you will burn in hell,” or “Though education, research, and collaboration we can learn how to eradicate disease, hunger, and poverty?” Failing at the secular “utopian” ideal is still a better option, in my opinion, than succeeding at Christian hegemony. (OK, I know, Hedges apparently doesn’t like the idea of “Christian hegemony” either, but to counter it by essentially countering it with the idea that science is false as well is completely illogical.)
This is absolutely true. We don’t recognize “wisdom” in the concept of original sin. Why should we? The universe is morally neutral!
Once again: wah…huh? Irrational, yes. I buy that. I absolutely buy that. There is no overlap between intellect and emotion. And I don’t care who you are, when intellect and emotion argues, emotion almost always wins.
Flawed? Sure, but by whose standards? Do I need to throw out the “morally neutral universe” trope again? Mr. Hedges, what exactly are you arguing here?
Oh.
I won’t dispute this. I won’t. Becuase it’s correct. But what Mr. Hedges fails to see is that there is no expectation that such ideals will bear instantaneous fruit. While there is a socialist ideal running through this argument, yes, Mr. Hedges is drawing a picture of New Athiests as tie-died extremists who want to erect a colony of pup-tents in upstate New York and tend to vegetable gardens and live in mud and peace. That’s ridiculous. Anybody will tell you why that won’t work.
First of all, he’s correct on one point: it’s been my experience that those who profess belief in God are more likely to either tacitly or expressly approve of war and/or genocide as a means of building a hegemenous world order. It has not been my experience, however, that Athiests are of this same mind. Once again, Mr. Hedges is extrapolating the hawkish views of Mr. Hitchens and heaping them upon everyone else. You’re free, Mr. Hedges, to counter his arguments, but please don’t put words in everyone’s mouths.
That’s true, yes, but fear and ignorance have killed more. Many more. Orders of magnitude more.
I’ll be honest. Mr. Hedges does make one point for which I will attest allegiance: I do belive in and expect humanity to achieve the “utopian” ideal. I do. But it’s certainly not something I expect to see in my lifetime. Or my son’s lifetime. Or his son’s. Or his son’s son’s. Of for several thousand generations (or even much, much longer). And it’s not something I’m willing to advocate genocide for, because that’s the antithesis of my ideal.
Mr. Hedges, science and reason will lift humanity out of it’s “flawed” condition. Humans could not have come this far without recognizing that a solipsistic or selfish worldview is not in our best individual interests. We exist now because a collaborative philosophy evolved exponentially over the course of hundreds of thousands of generations, and it will continue to evolve.
Keep your cynicism, Mr. Hedges. It sells books. I’ll keep my money and my optimism.
Holbach,
You’ll never have the pleasure of writing a letter to Sally Kern and commanding her to shut her mouth BECAUSE of what her bible demands. (1 Timothy 2:12, But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.)
You’ll never be able to effectively engage with the majority of the population because you have no clue what their Beliefs actually are and how inconsistent & self-contradictory they are. All you can do is ignore the 90% of our fellow citizens who believe the nonsense in their holy book. You can do no good for them.
Ps. When I’m in a motel room with a bible, I always fold the pages to highlight my favorite piece, Psalm 137.9, which most people know the first verse of thanks to Bob Marley, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.” Verse 9 tells how god blesses those “ that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. I find this much more satisfying than throwing away the bible, as it will just be replaced and increase the number of bibles printed & sold.
There’s an evolutionary paradigm at work with the likes of Sullivan and Hedges, and it’s called finding their niche – in the broader ecosystem of U.S. journalmalism. There are plenty of liberals who are religious (or at least would like to be) that don’t want to toss out their baby of belief along with the bathwater of religious fundamentalism. You can see this in the writing of someone like Rev. Spong, who to his credit wants fundamentalists to see the error of their ways, but of course doesn’t want to see faith itself go away in the process.
So for Hedges (and Sullivan), it’s natural to lump together both fundamentalists and atheists as being two sides of the same coin of ideological zealots who need to realize that a little good-natured faith is what the world needs now. Besides love, sweet love of course.
I heard that Air America’s “progressive” Thom Hartmann was having him on for an interview. I couldn’t bear to listen, after having heard Hartmann argue for a complete show that atheism is a religion, I figured he was gonna fellate this guy.
That’s the first time I’ve heard atheism described as utopian neocons (and now that I think about it, that’s quite close to an oxymoron).
Holbach, mellow out. Don’t condemn the Bible itself for its role in Christianity. If you’re looking for history and literature, the Bible’s a prime example. Hell, one of the world’s very first attempts at prose literature is buried in the Old Testament. You just need to appreciate it in its proper context.
An atheist is just someone who doesn’t back up whatever opinion they happen to hold with some kind of god-being.
Hey everybody! I’ve found the Utopia we’ve all been looking for all these days.
It’s–tee-hee–in my pants.
Chris Hedges isn’t invited.
Digression: Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Chris Hedges bears some resemblance to Bill Dembski? (To be sure, it’s not as strong a resemblance as the one between Amy Adams and Kristen Wiig.) Not that I put any stock into physiognomy.
Party in Brownian’s pants! I’ll bring chips.
Sometimes there is no point: just venom.
Sometimes a thing deserves nothing but opprobrium.
Chris:
Chris, you must not have been reading this thread very closely. I see all sorts of very specific refutations of Hedges’ claims. If the language at times is vehement, that’s because Hedges’ claims are so transparently false, so much so that one has to question the sincerity and/or intelligence of the claimant.
Look, Christopher Hitchens is a nut. Everyone knows that. And by no means is he representative of “atheists” in general.
Like homosexuals, atheists come from all races, creeds and colors – from all walks of life. There is no grand unifying characteristic of atheists – other than their disbelief in the supernatural. There is no political consensus among atheists; Hitchens is in fact exceptional in his neoconservatism. (In fact, Hitchens is a pretty odd duck all the way around. He supposedly went from being a Marxist to now being an extreme neoconservative.) Most “atheists” that I know and am familiar with are generally more liberal politically – and I can’t even think of one who actually supported the war that Hitchens has been so excited about.
I always laugh when I hear theists accuse atheists of being naive – and especially when they assert that atheists basically are practicing “secular religion” – which is a contradiction in itself. Besides, aren’t we all atheists to one degree or another? People don’t still believe in Zeus, do they? Christians, Jews and Muslims don’t believe that Sri Krishna is God – so they are atheistic towards Hinduism. Christians, Jews and Muslims seem to have animosity against “atheists” because they don’t embrace Jesus/Jehova/Yahweh/Allah as God. Only *this* form of atheism seems to matter to them.
I don’t call myself an atheist anymore, but insofar as the major monotheistic religions are concerned I guess that I am. I am probably closer to being some combination of scientist/humanist/gnostic/universalist/unitarian – with a little Krishna-based Hinduism thrown in for good measure. I don’t consider Jesus as “the son of God” but I do look to his teachings – and I do mean HIS teachings, not those of “Christian” churches – and revere him as a great rabbi, teacher and philosopher. I find great inspiration and comfort in the Bhagavad Gita. I also find quite beautiful some parts of of the Qur’an and the Torah. Heck, I even find inspiration in science fiction novels! I refuse to limit myself to one book, one interpretation, one source for religious knowledge – only an ignorant person would.
When I was young and religious, I had trouble with the doctrine of original sin.
Now that I’m not religious, it’s the one doctrine I don’t have trouble with.
Wait a minute. He thinks Freud has something to tell us about the basic character of human psychology?
This guy is seriously out to lunch.
What an idiot! I wonder if he even knows any real atheists!
Holbach, your rabid tirades against the Bible give it much more respect than it deserves. It’s not kryptonite or some smallpox-infested blanket. It’s a collection of writings, some kind of interesting, most irrelevant and ridiculous.
My knowledge of the Bible makes me a better atheist, because I understand quite well where the religious are coming from, and I can respond to them in their own terms. You are certainly correct that there are better and more interesting things to read. But aren’t you at least glad that some atheists have the background to explain WHY the Bible is so very messed up, rather than merely stating that it is?
. If you’re looking for history and literature, the Bible’s a prime example.
not hardly.
archeology supports very little of what is written in that book as accurate at all.
If you don’t believe me, I highly suggest you actually read some of the work of people who spend their lives actually researching the relevant archeology. Hector Avalos, for example, is a prime example of a religious studies professor who has spent a lifetime examining the relevant archeology and documentation surrounding this book, and found many things that simply are not supported looking at modern archaeological data.
http://www.philrs.iastate.edu/avalos.shtml
I think there are some vids of lectures he has given on the subject floating around as well, if you prefer not to read.
beyond that, even as a work of fiction, the bible is hardly coherent.
so it’s neither a good source of history, nor is it decent literature.
it is, however, a book, so in the broad sense, I could grant you it is “literature”.
That’s the first time I’ve heard atheism described as utopian neocons (and now that I think about it, that’s quite close to an oxymoron).
seconded.
@58, Schmeer:
I came back realizing someone would probably ask that question, so I’m glad you did :)
I would personally define an atheist extremist as anyone who thinks religion should be abolished. And let’s face it, that’s a lot of / most of the vocal atheists. That includes the authors Hedges is referring to.
In general, I would call an extremist someone who thinks their personal view of the world should fit everyone’s and anyone who doesn’t share that view should somehow be treated with fewer rights.
I would seem to be one of the few people who thinks religion and reason can coincide. Science & reason answers all of the “how” questions for us, and religion and philosophy answer the “why”. I don’t think they should overlap.
I suspect the reason Hedges can’t see straight about Hitchens is that Hitchens made Hedges look an utter, complete fool in the debate they had a little while ago — and, as most here know, Hitchens certainly isn’t above rubbing it in when he’s skewering pretentious, pompous arguments like the ones Hedges offered during that debate. In Hedges’ heart-of-hearts, Hitchens’ real offense probably had more to do with his getting the debate audience to laugh at Hedges than his unusually violent (for an atheist) views on Iraq, the Middle East, and Islam. It’s Hedges’ wounded pride at work here.
who need to realize that a little good-natured faith is what the world needs now
…and yet have never given a supportable argument as to why they claim such.
what the world needs now is rationality, sweet rationality, more than they will ever need a security blanky.
…and I can sure back that argument up with a “thousand points of light”
I would personally define an atheist extremist as anyone who thinks religion should be abolished.
make sure you also distinguish that from a rationalist, as long as you are trying to define things.
Nonsense. For example, that is certainly not the position of Dawkins. He thinks that it is irrational for people to be religious, and believes that the religious should be convinced of the irrationality of their beliefs and thus abandon them, but I don’t see him calling on the power of the State to “abolish” religion.
I don’t know of any “vocal atheist” who suggests that religion as a whole should be forcibly “abolished”. Granted, there are some (such as Hitchens) who suggest using force against radical religions that threaten violence against more moderate countries, but I’m not sure that counts as wanting to abolish all of religion.
Science & reason answers all of the “how” questions for us, and religion and philosophy answer the “why”. I don’t think they should overlap.
nope.
science answers the why questions, too. One of the reasons NOMA simply is logically unsound.
Here’s a simple example –
We ask ourselves the question:
Why are there so many different species?
The answer to this ultimate question is:
Evolution.
But HOW did that work?
(One) answer to this proximate question is via the mechanism of natural selection. There are several other proximate answers as well, taking the form of the other mechanisms we have discovered, like neutral drift, etc.
see?
both how and why questions, answered by science, and far more efficaciously than religion ever has or ever will.
In the reverse direction, ID is little more than an example (one of many) of religion attempting to cobble together answers to the proximate question (IOW: How). With the ultimate explanation being: goddidit.
sorry, but the idea that NOMA is sustainable is little more than wishful thinking.
Not to say you can’t apply the concept tactically, but realistically, it is doomed to inevitable failure.
Chris Hedges wrote a pretty good book on fundamentalism called American Fundamentalists….
As I’m sure others have pointed out, the book is American Fascists.
[I]it’s basically a declaration that all atheists are exactly like Pat Robertson….
Well, except for where he says that “[t]here are many people of great moral probity and courage who seek meaning outside of formal religious structures, who reject religious language and religious ritual and define themselves as atheists.”
He’s starting off with a very peculiar characterization of fundamentalists.
He isn’t as clear as he could be, but the fundamentalist utopian vision I think he sees is the idea that God’s going to step in and make things right.
Are there utopian dreamers among us? Sure, but not many — it’s hard to be too optimistic when you’re a minority surrounded by glib believers in balderdash.
The utopianism Hedges sees here is excessive faith in reason, most particularly in one’s ability to interpret reality. Many atheists extrapolate from the idea that reason and the scientific method allow us to ascertain facts about the world to the idea that reason and the scientific method are similarly applicable to other pursuits (e.g., to interpretive moral judgments). It’s a particular concern with folks like Hitchens and Harris (who I think Hedges sees as too representative of the “New Atheists”) who seem all too ready to nuke the Islamic world.
The question is whether we’re going to resolve those conflicts with reason, or with tribalisms and superstition.
The point Hedges makes in his book is that we all tend to think that our opinions are based upon reason and that their opinions are nonsense even though reason provides precious little support for how to make interpretive choices in many of the areas that matter most (politics, economics, etc.). Every value system is predicated upon baseline assumptions that — inherently — cannot be evidenced. Reason can’t tell me much about (for example) how to value freedom relative to equality when they necessarily conflict. Hitchens and Harris (and for that matter, Dawkins) are incredibly naïve (at best) in this area.
Equality is better for all people than racism and discrimination; tolerance is better than oppression; representation is better than tyranny.
I agree with you here, but you can’t show these to be so evidencially without making some unevidenced assumptions (e.g., that “better” should mean what’s better for the most people). I don’t think you can show, for example, that equality is better than discrimination based upon ability (even though I think it is).
But to see an author dismiss the idea of a betterment of the culture is hypocritical and absurd.
I don’t think Hedges dismisses it so much as he’s realistic about it. It’s pretty easy to infer from the “Four Horsemen” that if we’d just get rid of religion, everything would be dandy. Yet the great tyrannies of the 20th C. all thought they had were offering “a betterment of the culture” based upon science and reason. That they failed doesn’t show that all such efforts will necessarily fail or that the goal isn’t a noble one. The point is that people like Hitchens and Harris (and Dubya too) are far too sure of themselves and of the righteousness of their causes).
But gosh, I’m wasting my time. Hedges is clearly enraptured by his own delusions, and there’s no hope of educating him….
Pot. Kettle. Introductions.
You know, in all shouting and whining about “atheists are extremists!” and “atheists believe in Utopia!” and this and that about atheists and atheism and how they’re so wrong about people and so wrong about the world and so wrong about religion and so wrong about society, as far as I can tell they don’t ever seem to get around to just discussing the simpler question of whether or not God exists. It’s as if that’s quite beside the point.
Maybe that’s his point. “Look at something else!”
Science & reason answers all of the “how” questions for us, and religion and philosophy answer the “why”.
I used to believe this. But now I think that science and reason give us a much better answer for “why” as well. Here’s a question: Why is there so much suffering in the world? I am much more comforted by the answer “It’s a by-product of what organisms need to do to survive, and a by-product of the way some societies are structured, and life sucks sometimes” than “Well, there’s a magical being in charge of everything who could make it all better, but he’s a narcissistic asshole who likes to make everyone grovel to him for little bits of goodness, and then usually still tells them no and makes them suffer just because he can”.
i’m an atheist and i’m against the war.
I also know that if social order breaks down its time to get a gun because people go nuts and all bets are off – just look at what happened in New Orleans.
I have no delusions about human morals getting better.
I guess that makes me an “old” atheist rather than a “new” one. plus i’m 40 something so nothing is new to me.
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone do a better job of suggesting a place for religion than PZ has–a hobby like bowling. Either Hecht or Jacoby, I forget which, in a review of “god Is Not Great,” quipped that “religion doesn’t poison latkes.” For me, it doesn’t poison Christmas trees or gifts or some religious music and art. But I see it for what it is: A human construct intended at the time it was created to meet certain human needs for social cohesion and existential comfort. Those are not unimportant considerations, and in the many years since the Bronze Age, we have continued to improve–radically–on those first drafts. As someone said, during a dark age, it might make sense to follow the blind man of religion; but when the light dawns, it no longer makes sense to do so. We are in that painful period of transition right now. When people can enjoy religion as a human artform with no epistemic baggage, as I did recently at a voodoo drumming exhibition, we will have achieved a wonderful measure of success. When the Bible can be read the same way as Norse or Greek or Roman mythology is–for whatever it has to say about the human condition–then we will have become more sane as a species. Speed the day.
as far as I can tell they don’t ever seem to get around to just discussing the simpler question of whether or not God exists. It’s as if that’s quite beside the point.
or it’s already been answered and they simply would rather not think about it…
Shields up, religionauts!
someday, some of you “believers” will realize what it means when one’s mind constantly spins walls of irrational defenses around itself, and continually acts to compartmentalize further and further…
AJ Hawks,
Thanks for clearing that up. I would say that the kind of atheist you describe seems to be few and far in between. I would agree that telling the religious that they can’t hold any set of private views is despicable. Most of the commenters here would just want to keep the government secular and allow personal religous freedom, which seems to be what you are asking.
While I can’t speak for the authors mentioned I can say that after having read at least one book from Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins each, I don’t recall any intention of banning religion as you mentioned. I read much condemnation of religion and religious thinking, but not any endorsement of government action to ban it. In fact Hitchens and Dawkins both condemn the Communist approach to banning religion.
Paul Schfield,
I made no pretense that Haggard and Bin Laden were equal, merely that they were both dispicable and religious. Haggard is a hypocrite, Bin Laden is a mass-murder planning zealot.
If you go back and read (or watch a clip of) what Hitchens actually said at the conference you may find it differs from PZ’s account. I commented in that thread that Hitchens was off the deep end if PZ’s comments were accurate.
After watching a clip of the talk, I changed my opinon and disagree with PZ. Hitchens was not calling for wholesale murder. Check the video yourself.
What’s the source for that? I wanna read it. :)
waste time listening to the materialist song: http://weblog.xanga.com/The_Astrocreep/646774501/materialist-songs.html
I disagree. Religion and/or philosophy might make us feel all warm and fuzzy about it, and allow us to rationalize it in our minds, but they aren’t answers. They are made up rationalizations.
I made this comment elsewhere about theology: “God works in mysterious ways” is not an answer to anything, no matter how many theologians agree with it.
These atheists share a naïve belief with these fundamentalists in our innate goodness and decency. They, like all religious fundamentalists, fail to grasp the dark reality of human nature, our own capacity for evil, and the morally neutral universe we inhabit.
But more ominously, the New Atheists ignore the wisdom of original sin….
Ow. That article almost made my eyes bleed.
A lot of people have pointed out the absurdity of the caricatured ‘atheist’ Hedges argues against, but the two quotes suggest something else to me: it suggests that Hedges really doesn’t know anything about his own religion. Anybody who actually had any sort of depth of understanding of the concept of Original Sin, in its many incarnations and interpretations, would see at once the absurdity of complaining that atheists don’t see the wisdom in it.
What all the varied interpretations of Original Sin have in commmon is that they all take the existence of God for granted! It’s like listening to a curmudgeon whining “You know what really pisses me off about atheists? They don’t believe in God!” Only someone who had not really thought what they were saying through could be astonished that atheists don’t accept the ‘wisdom’ of Original Sin.
Ditto for his bizarre complaint that Christian fundamentalists have “a naïve belief…in our innate goodness and decency”. In fact, the common Christian fundamentalist view is very fond of Original Sin, which it interprets to mean that human nature is completely and utterly depraved. Has the man never encountered the phrase “sin nature” in his whole investigation of fundamentalism?
I wouldn’t recommend reading Ray Comfort’s blog to hardly anyone, but clearly Chris Hedges is an exception.
Poor Hedge. Shining a light into an empty room, he nonetheless sees pixies and goblins in every corner.
It’s sad when you lose respect for an author (and actually begin to pity them), but Hedges has given me absolutely no choice here.
Pinker on the history of violence:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/163
Authors choose controversial subjects and use contrarian prose because that is what…drum roll…sells books.
It has now become an art form of which I detest.
I have had to do this to some degree in the debate club, where we had to defend an idea that we didn’t believe in, yet sometimes winning the debate.
In fact, the common Christian fundamentalist view is very fond of Original Sin, which it interprets to mean that human nature is completely and utterly depraved
IOW, they project their own fears of their own immorality, and spin them into a common worldview.
…and people wonder why rational people everywhere detest them so.
Little me, Atheist : “I think it’s a good thing if we to try to seek answers to the questions we ask about the world around us, using our reason and the knowledge we’ve already gained, not the dogma of any religion”
CH : “the New Atheists ignore the wisdom of original sin”
I must confess, i also try the ignore the wisdom embedded in that marvelous tale of the Three little piglets, and The tale of creation, the flood, Gilgamesh’s adventures , etc
It’s embarrassing to watch someone work so hard to invent the opponent he wants to trash– this kind of lurid fantasizing should be kept private. It says far more about Hedges and his favourite betes noires than it does about atheists, new or old.
@Ichthyic, 99:
I apologize if I was misleading in my brevity. I didn’t mean to imply that the Bible is an accurate account of history; rather, it is a piece and product of history, and as such can tell us indirectly about the world in which it was written.
For instance, the incident in Exodus with the golden calf is a complete fabrication. But as such, in combination with archaeological data, it tells us a great deal about the sociopolitical climate in post-divide Israel from the perspective of the disenfranchised Mushite Levites.
And that contributes to the Bible’s place in literature; you have to understand how and why the Bible was written in order to fully appreciate the craft that went into it. (I should point out that I say this while thinking primarily of the Old Testament; I am less equipped to judge the New.)
I highly recommend the writings of Richard Elliot Friedman to learn about Old Testament authorship and the Documentary Hypothesis.
Sounds like someone took South Park too literally.
Name one “why” question that religion has ever provided the answer to? Philosophy is fine, but one need not believe anything on insufficient evidence to be a philosopher.
Besides, the two do overlap; you can’t have virgin births, resurrections, and transubstantiation without overriding some of the things science tells us are fairly fundamental about the world. To believe one, you must disbelieve the other; thus, they do not coexist.
Sinbad #107 wrote:
No it’s not. It’s not easy to infer that at all. I think it must take a lot of hard work to think that’s what they’re saying.
All 4 writers have taken great pains to point out that religion is far from the only irrationality out there. Dogma and extremism come in many forms — they all discuss the Soviet Union, for example. As far as I can tell, in all their books and articles and lectures and debates not a single one of them has made the simplistic argument that “if we’d just get rid of religion, everything would be dandy.”
Why would they? That would just be stupid.
But that’s not to say religion isn’t a problem anyway. Although they all make different points and have different emphasis, they agree that one major issue unique to religion is that it entrenches dogma in its own special way. It’s beliefs aren’t open to demonstration and critique on common ground. It selects those who “choose” to believe, and so removes too many rather important assertions from rational discussion and dispute. It divides people and elevates irrationality and refusal to change into a virtue — and it’s set up to do that very easily. Too easily.
As Sam Harris said, no society has ever inflicted great harm on its people by being too reasonable. There are a lot of irrational philosophies out there, but religion is vulnerable in ways political views are not — and has developed protections.
The question of whether God exists or not should be asked — again and again and again. Not just “what is the nature of God?” Or “what does God want?” But “IS there a God?” God is not sacred.
Name one “why” question that religion has ever provided the answer to?
now, now…
“Goddidit” answers EVERY question, all you have to do is believe!
Right, I forgot! Silly me.
The book on Christian Fundamentalisim is “American Facists”, and was quite interesting. It also helps explain some of the fundamentalist activity in the middle ease (Hedges speciality) and the parralels between Christian and Moslem Fundamentalists. I his new book in the bookstore the other day and I may buy it. Do not be so quick to dismiss. Have you ever thought he may not be talking about you? People like Dawkins, who seem to have an excessive amount of zeal, make me nervous no matter what they are talking about. Science has been misapplied, or perhaps more accurately misused to justify evil actions in the past, eugenics, social Darwinisim, etc. But then again so has religion.
rather, it is a piece and product of history, and as such can tell us indirectly about the world in which it was written.
ah, that’s much clearer.
But as such, in combination with archaeological data, it tells us a great deal about the sociopolitical climate in post-divide Israel from the perspective of the disenfranchised Mushite Levites.
except for the fact that there is no archaeological evidence that there was a huge tribe of Israelites that walked the desert.
I would agree, though, that there might be interesting things to learn from the bible from a socio-historical perspective, though, just like there is from any writing of any kind from times past.
just like a piece of pottery can tell us a small bit about the people where the pottery was found, with a bit of work, one can make logical hypotheses regarding the people who contributed to a collection of written translations of an oral tradition.
so, I will go back a bit on what I said earlier, and while not conceding there is any archeo-historical value to the book, there indeed is value from a socio-historical perspective, at least to some extent.
no more so than any other book that takes orally passed stories and attempts to put them on paper, like “The Illiad” though.
Atheism, Christianity, and Islam are not the cancers of the world. Extremism is. In any form. Period.
So what is extremism qua extremism, and what makes it a “cancer of the world”?
If you are unable to conceive that other people in the world view the same world differently, you are the problem. No matter who you are.
This would seem to bring us closer to a definition of extremism, but in fact it would rule out certain people commonly classed as “extremists”. For example, Osama bin Laden is by no means under any illusion that the West shares his views. That’s one of the things that generates his rage at the West. In fact, the “extremists” are most commonly the ones who have the clearest notion of how widespread the acceptance of their views is, and come up with various conspiracies to explain why their view isn’t getting the recognition they think it deserves. For Osama bin Laden, it’s the malign influence of the Great Satan, the deceiver, for the white supremacists, it’s the machinations of ZOG, the Zionist-Occupied Government, and so on.
Right, I forgot! Silly me.
Arrogant fool of a Mike! God Designed and set in motion a Perfect Plan for his most beloved creations which includes your forgetfullness and you have the audacity to assume this aspect of His Divine Plan is some result of your volition and you call it silly?
As penance, you have to go read Twaddle’s step-by-step to reading the Bible correctly.
Except “Why did God do it?” Religion is all for “why” questions, except that one.
As penance, you have to go read Twaddle’s step-by-step to reading the Bible correctly.
careful, if you’re going to direct him there, he’s gonna find out how the use of “twaddle” is beneath you, B., just as he finds out how exactly one is supposed to interpret a work of innerancy.
:p
Except “Why did God do it?” Religion is all for “why” questions, except that one.
I thought the answer to that one was entirely circular?
how dare you question the wisdom of the creator!
didn’t you read the book of Job??
what, you want boils and sores or something?
Ichy, I think the evidence shows that few things, if any, are beneath me.
Did I already mention the party in my pants?
Granted, but that’s not what I’m talking about. The golden calf story was written (yes, written, not copied from oral tradition) after Israel divided from Judah, a few generations after the reign of King David (if I recall correctly). The golden calves did exist, but Moses and Aaron (if they existed, which they probably didn’t) had nothing to do with them.
I appear to be the only one at the party at the moment, though, and it’s getting pretty lonely in here!
Whoops. Hit Tab and Enter, apparently.
The reason I ask what extremism is is that I see the accusation being flung around all the time without any appropriate regard for meaning. For example, I’m an anarchist. By the reckoning of some, that would make me an “extremist” in terms of my political views. But I still have the same way of thinking that I did when I was a moderate conservative, and when I was a social democrat. I didn’t subscribe to a philosophy called “extremism”; I didn’t undergo any abrupt psychological deconversion. In fact, my present views arose from simply the falling away of every naïve belief I had held, most of which had been inculcated in me by the public school system (American government is the best in the world, representative democracy is capable of generating equality of opportunity, that sort of stuff).
So, if I am an extremist, exactly when did that “extremism” manifest itself? If I wasn’t an extremist when I was a moderate conservative, or a social democrat (which would be middle-of-the-road to center-left in the European context), how did I become one?
The extremism charge is easy to lob, too easy, in fact, to be of much use in my view. Often it occurs in the discourse of people who want to pose as rationalists without adducing rational reasons for their positions (e.g. Jodi Dean’s very sharp critique of Michael Bérubé’s What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts?). I don’t find that particularly useful or illuminating, so if you have a decisive and unambiguous way of determining “extremism” across a variety of cases, then I’d be interested in hearing it.
Ichy, I think the evidence shows that few things, if any, are beneath me.
I was just pointing out that Twaddle seems to think otherwise.
another notion he is wrong about. I just wanted to be consistent.
*shrug*
;)
Shoot, I KNOW he’s not talking about me. When he talks about atheists supporting the war and wanting to nuke the middle east, then that isn’t me in any way.
But the real question is, has HE ever thought that he isn’t talking about me? The title of his book isn’t “I don’t believe in Chris Hitchens.” He says “atheists,” which is a group that would include me. But what he says does not apply to me, so if he thinks he is talking about me, he is wrong.
and it’s getting pretty lonely in here!
did you bring a flashlight and magnifier?
@Aaron.
If biblical archaeology is something of interest to you, I think you really would enjoy some of Hector Avalos’ work in the area.
great stuff.
I appear to be the only one at the party at the moment, though, and it’s getting pretty lonely in here!
Yeah, I was worried about that. I figured there’d be a much bigger turnout, so I purposely booked the party in a place with a lot of empty space that doesn’t get used much.
With all these comments, nobody has bothered to remark on this part:
One problem with this analysis: Those aren’t races. “Discriminating” against people based on their voluntary actions (e.g. supporting a given religion) is quite different from discriminating against them based on conditions they have no control over.
You might as well say that the British were being racist when they forbade the traditional Indian custom of incinerating widows on their husbands’ funeral pyres – whether the widows volunteered or not. (Oddly enough, most of the reductiones ad absurdum for cultural relativism come from religious customs.)
AFAIK, that custom is not practiced anymore (and wasn’t reinstated by the independent Indian government). There’s moral progress for you. Slavery has been widely outlawed, nearly abolished, and sexism has been at least greatly reduced.
As an atheist, I believe that our natural moral shortcomings, whatever they may be, are no more *necessarily* fated and incorrectible than our physiological shortcomings such as nearsightedness or asthma or susceptibility to addiction. The project of identifying and overcoming them may be difficult, but I see no reason to believe a priori that it is impossible. Evidence shows that a priori statements of impossibility have a lousy track record, anyway.
I’m an anarchist
actually, I’d like to be enlightened as to what are the defining characteristics of the modern anarchist?
It’s obviously not just libertarianism, so what is it exactly these days?
Really liked that article, I do not agree with all that he said but he some of it is sound reasoning.
PZ wrote
“I could not believe how awful it is — it’s basically a declaration that all atheists are exactly like Pat Robertson”
Why is it awful?
I have seen Hitchens rebuttal to the religious argument that we need some god to give us absolute values, it goes something like this:
Morals did not come from god(s), morals come from man and
were co-opted by religion.
Sure gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, aren’t we wonderful with our innate moral values.
Crap, 100% pure pandering tripe. There are no morals only
evolved behaviors that allow us to to form a society.
I wonder if Hitchens uses this line of reasoning because
stating that morals don’t exist would alienate to
many people.
Hedges has a point as soon as you suggest that morals or good exist you have entered the world of religion.
There are no morals and altruism is a fantasy.
Yeah, I was worried about that. I figured there’d be a much bigger turnout, so I purposely booked the party in a place with a lot of empty space that doesn’t get used much.
You know atheists, can’t convince them to do anything. Everybody’s probably stuck inside those little boxes, sitting on a stool thinking about the futility of life.
Why is it awful?
let’s see… yours is post number 147.
did you bother to read any of the other posts?
Don’t feel bad, atheists – Chris Hedges doesn’t understand the fundamentalists too well either.
At truthdig.com, on 12/31/06, Hedges wrote:
One of the most highly publicized hyperchristian events of 2006 was Operation Save America’s prolonged siege of the only abortion-providing clinic in Mississippi (and local Muslims, as targets of opportunity). The Jackson police evidently handled the whole process calmly, allowing all sides to speak out while preventing (most) violence. If anything, they showed a bias against pro-choice activists, yet they were loudly and repeatedly denounced in rather extreme terms by OSA ringleaders.
This is not an isolated example of anti-choicer/police friction. It remains a puzzle as to how an experienced reporter doing two years of research could have misread his subjects so profoundly.
Everybody’s probably stuck inside those little boxes, sitting on a stool thinking about the futility of life.
yeah, but my box has cool pictures of fish tacked on the walls.
There are no morals only evolved behaviors that allow us to to form a society.
Many of these are indistiguishable from what we’ve traditionally identified as ‘morals’.
There are no morals and altruism is a fantasy.
Not entirely true, given what I wrote above. ‘True’ altruism–like ‘true’ free will–may not exist or even be possible (for a given definition of ‘true’), but there is strong evidence for a reasonable facsimile.
how dare you question the wisdom of the creator!
didn’t you read the book of Job??
what, you want boils and sores or something?
I have the pottery shards ready, so bring it on!
Besides, it would be interesting to see what species of bacteria God would use for inducing the magical boils?
hey, I like to party as much as the next guy, but despite my atheism I’m not nearly amoral enough to enter Brownian’s pants.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Carlie’s chips seem kind of attractive though…
This is not an isolated example of anti-choicer/police friction. It remains a puzzle as to how an experienced reporter doing two years of research could have misread his subjects so profoundly.
perhaps he mostly ran into the pro-authoritarian fundamentalists?
there are both you know, anti government militia-style fundamentalists, and Megachurch going authority brown nosers.
He might have run into one group more than the other in his travels.
However, it seems his entire diatribe on atheists is only based on internet hyberbole.
(I don’t believe in) Chris Hedges also did an interview for Read Express.
» EXPRESS: So, to be clear: Despite the title, you do believe atheists are people who don’t believe in God, right?
» HEDGES: Martin Luther said, “We all have gods, it just depends which one.” Or the theologian Paul Tillich said, “Find out somebody’s ultimate concern and you’ve found out their god.” I suspect that’s a true statement. I think the existence of people who believe in nothing is probably rare to impossible. So, on sort of a deep theological level, I’m not sure that I do.
Hence the title.
Besides, it would be interesting to see what species of bacteria God would use for inducing the magical boils?
oh, I rather think it might be a virally based biological attack instead.
various strains of smallpox come to mind…
OTOH, that would still be interesting, you’re right about that.
yeah, but my box has cool pictures of fish tacked on the walls.
But they are pale, lifeless, two-dimensional representations of fish, which serve only as reminders that the oceans are being depleted by the greed of humanity and that soon, the pictures will be all we have left. How sad.
Sven, I also have dip!
Carlie’s chips seem kind of attractive though…
Is that what the kids are calling them these days?
How sad.
*sniff*
now you’ve made me cry.
meanie.
oh well, that works just as well as a distraction from the futility you mentioned.
billybob #147 wrote:
No. Morals are simply “principles or rules for right conduct,” and they obviously exist in every society.
However, as soon as you suggest that universal morals or a universal Good exists, you have entered the world of philosophy and ethics. Justifying either as a divine command is only one way to justify or explain them (and it’s an inferior way.)
actually, I’d like to be enlightened as to what are the defining characteristics of the modern anarchist?
It’s obviously not just libertarianism, so what is it exactly these days?
Well, it’s difficult to talk about it without giving a book length-treatment, so I’ll just go the subjective, autobiographical route. I got over being a moderate conservative in the mid-90s, just as the Republican Party was hitting its nadir. The Gingrich Revolution was basically one man clinging to power by any means necessary, and bringing the baggage of the xenophobes, fundamentalists, etc. with him. That led me to question whether or not being a conservative was really a good fit for my beliefs. I decided it wasn’t. While I shared a belief with the moderate conservatives of the dignity of the individual, I noticed that their idea of “individual” (as opposed to, I suppose, the baying hordes of gays and illegal immigrants) was rather restricted.
I toyed with being an American liberal, but I could even back then that they have their own unexamined issues on race, gender, sexuality, etc. which manifest themselves in a recurring cycle of stupid and egregiously offensive statements and recriminations (e.g. “Blackface Joe” Lieberman).
So I became a social democrat. But I actually got to see a social democratic nation at work for a full year on exchange to Germany. What I saw was a society with a greater social safety net, and certainly one is more valuable than none at all, but the same dynamics of power held between the rich and poor, and the kind of equality I had grown up being told was possible wasn’t much in evidence. The Hartz-Konzept is an excellent example of what I’m talking about. When German politicians decided that welfare reform was needed, what they did was left it in the hands of a very rich man, Peter Hartz, the human resources executive at Volkswagen AG. They didn’t run to sociologists, welfare case workers, or, heaven forbid, the poor themselves, they gave it over to a man who had never been poor a day in his life. The system of means testing that was arrived at was so counterproductive that, in the case of Hartz IV recipients, parts of it have been ruled unconstitutional.
When I got to thinking about that, I was ready for a broader critique of state power. Eventually my beliefs crystallized around the idea that governments were superfluous, at best, and most of the time existed to shore up the power relations which were already established in prior monarchic and feudal societies. I thought that people working together in the absence of a government might be able to make a better way for themselves, and that these collectives could be organized around principles of direct democracy and cooperation. My view is that of a social anarchist, a view which was very well explained by Peter Kropotkin in The Conquest of Bread, the first anarchist book I ever read. I was astonished to see that something that I was just coming around to had been dealt with about one hundred years ago.
So basically, direct democracy is good, horizontal systems of organization are good, vertical systems of domination and submission are not so good and easily exploited to become very bad indeed, and that if we’re ever to have a hope in hell of genuine human equality, we’re probably going to have to dispense with them. That’s the basics of what I believe, and there are elaborations to deal with specifics, but those are negotiable.
I would really like to know Hedges’ religious affiliation.
I’m probably jumping to conclusions here, but the word “Catholic” immediately came to my mind.
Just trying to convince himself that his religion is the only rational superstition.
I enjoyed “Bizarro” today…
See, Ichthyic, a party would cheer you right up!
Martin Luther said, “We all have gods, it just depends which one.” Or the theologian Paul Tillich said, “Find out somebody’s ultimate concern and you’ve found out their god.” I suspect that’s a true statement.
So Chris Hedges would be completely comfortable with the statement, “I don’t believe in Christian Teenagers”, since the stereotypical teenager is actually a GetLaidist.
Socrates had a point too: religion does not really answer the question of why morals and good are morals and good.
By the way, Ichthyc, there’s an excellent FAQ at infoshop.org about anarchism, which I find generally quite valuable.
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/
There are also book-length introductions to anarchism. Among the best, and cheap, come from AK Press’ Working Classics series. They just released The Conquest of Bread and Berkman’s ABC of Anarchism was their first publication.
There’s also Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction by Colin Ward, which is an excellent introduction to anarchism today. I like all the VSIs, because they’re small enough to slip in a slacks pocket and read anywhere.
As an atheist who was raised to be a fundamentalist, I’d like to point out that he is as unfamiliar with that particular brand of confused mind as he is about Dawkins.
Quote: “These atheists share a naïve belief with these fundamentalists in our innate goodness and decency. They, like all religious fundamentalists, fail to grasp the dark reality of human nature, our own capacity for evil, and the morally neutral universe we inhabit.”
Excuse me? I was fed hellfire and brimstone for breakfast my whole childhood, and if fundamentalists have a message about human nature, it is that we are evil and depraved, and it is only by wallowing before the Abusive Daddy in the Sky that we can hope to stave off our just punishment.
So Hedges defines god as simply something that one thinks is very important?
What crap. He makes his argument by inventing bizarre definitions that have no correspondence with actual usage.
Sure, make my little box–decorated only by 2-dimensional representations of highly endangered chelonians–just that much more lonely, why dontcha.
You’re asking the wrong guy, man.
Sorry, are you folks still talking seriously about atheism? My apologies. Carry on.
His descriptions of the “New Atheists” sounds awfully—18th century. He’s attacking a straw-man. For the record, I have some of the same difficulties with Harris & Hitchens that he does.
Back then, yes, there were naive utopian atheists who proclaimed the perfectibility of man, etc.
No one believes this now…not after Auschwitz.
My fundamentalist-raised ex-wife had the same kind of relentless pessimism as Hedges! (and some of the same ideas about atheists, including me, her then husband) I’m normally something of a morose pessimist myself, but damn! Being exposed to such relentless, dark pessimism exceeding my own day in day out forced me to sometimes defend a guarded optimist take on the world, if only to preserve my own sanity.
There has decidedly been an improvement in race relations in the USA since the 1950s and 1960s…problems remain, more deep than many would probably like to acknowledge in polite society these days–but the situation is markedly better than what it was. It would be insane to conclude otherwise.
The Daily Show made this point a few weeks back, playing an audio clip from a segregationist politician from 1946, contrasting it with today’s discussions of race in the current Democratic primary.
Not even Marxists believe in the historical inevitability of progress, etc, today. And sure we could slip and regress back to less enlightened political and social practices if the wrong forces gain enough political power. But that’s not inevitable either.
I intend to give it a look. :-) In return, I highly recommend Friedman’s “Who Wrote the Bible.”
I thought Atheist just meant i didn’t believe in any of the few desert myths still floating around. I’m supposed to have a specific view on the Iraq war???? I wish Hedges would have told me what most of my views are before……..I’m always the last to know about this stuff
did he say “the wisdom of original sin”?????? Its wise to say that babies are born not good enough for their god and we had to kill that gods son to make them good enough???
When German politicians decided that welfare reform was needed, what they did was left it in the hands of a very rich man, Peter Hartz, the human resources executive at Volkswagen AG.
SoS. Happens everywhere you go; those that express interest in power are rarely the best equipped to utilize it correctly.
When I got to thinking about that, I was ready for a broader critique of state power.
personally, I’ve never thought the problem was “power” per se, but, like I mentioned above, the lack of interest of people who could actually utilize it effectively for the benefit of all, instead of just themselves.
Eventually my beliefs crystallized around the idea that governments were superfluous, at best,
In a perfect world, I would tend to agree.
I would say the same thing of police forces, armies, etc.
however, the value of cheating in such a system is just too high; inevitably, it would always lead to a need to punish cheaters, or compensate for their influence, at least.
I thought that people working together in the absence of a government might be able to make a better way for themselves, and that these collectives could be organized around principles of direct democracy and cooperation.
there were a number of sociological studies published in the late 60’s and early 70’s that examined what happens to group dynamics in social collectives that were quite common during those times.
Ohhh Jeeeefffff…
I’m sure Jeff could point to some interesting lit. along those lines; I only recall glancing at a few of those papers years ago, but do recall that standard game theory applied fairly well in predicting the results of the group dynamics that ended up forming in most of the collectives.
there’s a reason that collectives are no longer very common in the US, and it had little to do with outside influences for the most part.
So basically, direct democracy is good, horizontal systems of organization are good, vertical systems of domination and submission are not so good and easily exploited to become very bad indeed,
all of these things are entirely relative to the people who choose to employ them.
direct democracy works great in a well educated group that actually works hard to participate in it. However, do recall Mill’s warning.
vertical systems of organization are often more efficient in other cases, and serve to balance often competing interests.
all interesting discussion, of course, but what DOES an anarchist do these days?
are you looking to form a collective of like-minded individuals and test ideas of horizontal organization yourself?
could be fun, if you have the time and resources available to do so.
Sure, make my little box–decorated only by 2-dimensional representations of highly endangered chelonians–just that much more lonely, why dontcha.
There’s still plenty of room in Brownian’s pants. I think they have an elastic waist!
Back to atheism – this kind of misrepresentation is the kind of thing that makes me wish “atheist” wasn’t a word. It’s too easy to take a word and start ascribing categorical traits to it. Can’t people who don’t believe in magic just be called “normal”?
Aw, Bob,
That hurt to read. If Hedges silly statements were true that would only turn us all into polytheists. Not to mention the line “on a sort of deep theological level,” meaning, “I have no way to back this up.”
As for everyone who likes to use the pot and kettle argument, I appreciate that in using it you agree to the fact that 1) Hedges “charges in with nothing but venom and accusations to defend his position.” #72
And 2) “Hedges is clearly enraptured by his own delusions, and there’s no hope of educating him.” #107
Thanks for playing.
If the language at times is vehement, that’s because Hedges’ claims are so transparently false, so much so that one has to question the sincerity and/or intelligence of the claimant.
But that’s precisely the point: attacking someone, and their views, simply because you’ve declared them “transparently false”, insincere, and stupid, is a tactic that is completely invalid and philosophically crass. You can’t expect to be taken seriously if you simply point your finger at someone and declare them to be wrong.
You’re quite right to say that Dr. Myers makes some actual points, which is obviously a good thing. But he backtracks, and plays right into Hedges point. In his fourth paragraph, Dr. Myers writes there aren’t many “utopian dreamers” among atheists, and admits there will always be “conflict and compromise”. Then, in the very next sentence, he suddenly adopts the utopian position by claiming that those conflicts can be resolved with reason. Myers says he hasn’t heard much utopian talk in atheist circles, then proceeds immediately to utopian talk. So, which is it? Are humans capable of rising above our present inadequacies with reason, or not? Can’t be both.
Several paragraphs later, Dr. Myers then continues to advocate the uptopia-through-reason view that he just finished claiming few atheists believe in: “Atheists are people who believe that we can improve society with reason, and that yes, we can supplant the superstition and mythology of religion with better ways of making decisions…this is how we achieve our goals.”
What goals? Well, obviously, utopian goals. What makes you think that human reason can get us there, Dr. Myers? Where’s the evidence that you cherish and possess in such abundance so as to authorize repeated attacks on those you claim have no evidence? That’s where Hedges comes in, pointing out that this kind of humanism is as superstitious and mythological as religious fundamentalism. There’s utterly no evidence whatsoever to suggests that humankind can reason itself into an ideal state.
Dr. Myers throws in some straw man arguments for good measure by accusing Hedges of “dismiss[ing] the idea of a betterment of the culture”, then wondering why Hedges bothers trying to educate through literature when he opposes the utopian ideal. What a grotesque misstatement of Hedges’ argument!
You keep saying “Utopian” in reference to using reason to attempt to solve problems.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
“There is nothing in human nature or human history to support the idea that we are morally advancing as a species….”
What about the development and spread of democracy or the end of apartied in S. Africa or sufferage, medical practice, etc., etc.? I think that once again a religious belief, in this case Original Sin, sets up a kind of unproductive dualism: Yes humans can do some good things but we are evil by nature so that our good actions can’t make things (really) better.
The desire to drive a wedge between our inner state and our external actions is harmful and dangerous. Collaboration can produce benefits and when it does it is morally good. Do we hit the nail on the head every time? No, of course not but neither are we doomed to necessarily go out in a flash of nuclear explosions. We have the potential to think and adapt. It’s up to us not our ‘immutable inner nature’.
Consider the New York City sewers- the many individuals and disciples that collaborated to create a functioning, technical, mundane and, yes, moral system. If you could pick any historical period to live in what would it be?
GetLaidist.
are GetHighists subspecies of GetLaidists?
False dichotomy, Chris. Hedges says “we are not moving anywhere.” Your argument rests on the implicit claim that ANY OTHER VIEW is a utopian position.
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/
I’ll check that out.
Chris #177 wrote:
There’s a big difference between saying “Atheists are people who believe that we can improve society with reason” and your translation.
Many conflicts and problems can be made better through reasonable negotiation and understanding. That is not to say that it’s reasonable to think all conflicts will one day disappear. Chris Hedges himself has written against war: does that mean he thinks that one day there will be no war? If not, why bother to speak against it? After all, if we’re not going to become perfect, why improve anything?
You seem to be advocating a strange sort of all-or-nothing view of progress. Surely the concept of “better” means something to you.
Can’t people who don’t believe in magic just be called “normal”?
From now on, when people ask me what my religion is, I’m going to say, “No, I’m normal.”
Chris wrote:
I’m agreeing with Michael X; “Utopian” does not mean what you think it means.
Just because you can resolve some conflicts through reason doesn’t mean you can or want to create a utopia. It just means you can resolve some conflicts. Your statement makes no sense.
And, in my opinion, Hedges’ irrationality started showing up in his debates with Harris and Hitchens, here, long before this book came out.
All 4 writers have taken great pains to point out that religion is far from the only irrationality out there. Dogma and extremism come in many forms — they all discuss the Soviet Union, for example. As far as I can tell, in all their books and articles and lectures and debates not a single one of them has made the simplistic argument that “if we’d just get rid of religion, everything would be dandy.”
My colloquial language was designed to make the (I think obvious) point that it’s easy to infer that the “Four Horseman” think that the world would be a dramatically better place without religion. Check out Dawkins’s “Imagine No Religion” tract for example. I see no evidence for that idea, which is why I think Hedges sees them as naive utopians.
Better =/= Perfect. Get a fucking dictionary.
Right, because people are capable of evil regardless, etc.
There is, however, evidence that the secularity of a society correlates with livability. I realize this doesn’t necessarily extend to “no religion = utopia” – but who is making that claim, aside from the one Hedges has fashioned out of straw?
“He’s also prone to lumping all atheists together into one highly unrepresentative group.”
This would be very problematic, if it were true. The quote offered in support of the claim, however, begins “Most of these atheists…”, which already invalidates the claim that he was talking about “all atheists.” He is not even talking about all of “these atheists.” And who are “these atheists”?
The preceding paragraph reads “These New Atheists attack a form of religious belief many of us hate. I wrote a book called American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. I am no friend of Christian radicals. The New Atheists and I dislike the same people. We do not dislike them for the same reason. This is not a small difference.”
Clearly “these atheists” means “The New Atheists.” That term is never clearly defined, except by example: “The New Atheist authors, from Richard Dawkins to Sam Harris to Daniel Dennett to Christopher Hitchens….”
So all this complaining about how Hitchens and Harris aren’t representative of all atheists is valid, but doesn’t address the question of whether they are representative of these New Atheists. Hedges seems to be carefully avoiding painting all atheists with a broad brush, tying his critique specifically to that particular clatch of writers. The error of over-generalization lies elsewhere.
Better =/= Perfect. Get a fucking dictionary.
Brilliant, Bob. I said “dramatically better,” and a common dictionary definition of “utopian” is an ardent but impractical political or social reformer, a visionary, or an idealist.
Well played.
As evidenced by the carefully chosen title of his book.
Try this one.
Utopia – any visionary system of political or social perfection.
Even dramatically better still isn’t necessarily perfect.
Well played indeed.
Right, because people are capable of evil regardless, etc.
Actually, my view is stronger than that. For example, I think we have every reason to believe that religion is only a helpful expedient when it comes to terrorism. Without it, another ism would work just as well (Exhibit A, the Tamil Tigers).
There is, however, evidence that the secularity of a society correlates with livability.
I don’t see the correlation. Secular Europe is generally “more livable” than a number of highly religious countries, but unless you somehow deem places like China and Cambodia (not to mention the old Eastern block) not secular, the driver looks more like political and economic freedom and opportunity than secularity.
Just because you can resolve some conflicts through reason doesn’t mean you can or want to create a utopia.
Just because you can resolve some conflicts through reason doesn’t mean you can or want to create a utopia.
Okay, that’s a fair response. But you’re acknowledging, then, the limitations of reason and humanism in improving the human condition; in other words, reason is good for solving “some” problems, but not creating a utopia. So, what do we do without the other problems, then? If you’re suggesting that humans have particular problems or behaviors or traits beyond the reach of reason, that would be very interesting philosophical territory…
Nonsense. There’s a difference between having pie-in -the-expectations of utopia and believing that you have a sensible approach that will have some immediate practical utility. You’re making the sam mistake as Hedges, assuming that the only two possibilities are nihilistic futility and extravagant utopianism.
> If we want to improve our lives and our societies,
> there is no other way than through effort, good will,
> and reason. That’s it. Magic will not work.
>
Time has passed, ‘effort, good will and reason’ will not do it too. Dirt cheap energy did it for the ‘good boys’, but no longer. The fact that there is no creator was a nice realization. But it does not follow that the king has changed his invisible pants (with invisible hands). Makes me wonder why nobody ever reads e.m.cioran, the most theologically read man of the nuclear-age, spotting his disgust of neo-isms.
“Das Leben ist der Kitsch der Materie”
this is intranslatable read Ortega y Gasset(too)
SoS. Happens everywhere you go; those that express interest in power are rarely the best equipped to utilize it correctly.
You’re making my case for me. If those that express interest in power are rarely the best equipped to utilize it correctly, then the corrolary goes that those who express no interest in obtaining and exploiting power are the people who should be empowered.
personally, I’ve never thought the problem was “power” per se, but, like I mentioned above, the lack of interest of people who could actually utilize it effectively for the benefit of all, instead of just themselves.
That’s been the age-old dream since Plato’s Philosopher-Kings. It doesn’t seem to work that way.
In a perfect world, I would tend to agree.
I would say the same thing of police forces, armies, etc.
however, the value of cheating in such a system is just too high; inevitably, it would always lead to a need to punish cheaters, or compensate for their influence, at least.
Why is it that every discussion I have on anarchism turns to this? It’s really boring, trust me.
Again, there is no need for a state in order to have a system which compensates for the influence of cheaters. In fact, a state is an active detriment to such a system, because the best cheaters are going to know how to exploit the rules and, eventually, obtain office where they can cheat to their heart’s content with the blessing of the state. Horizontally organized systems discourage cheating because the cheated gets as much a voice as anybody else. This is not the case where the cheater is the government, and the cheated is the citizen. Then you’re just screwed. As a case in point, just look at Police Oversight boards. Ours in San Diego is a complete farce. Only testimony from police officers is admitted, which leaves the powers that be in the position of gaming the system to their benefit.
there were a number of sociological studies published in the late 60’s and early 70’s that examined what happens to group dynamics in social collectives that were quite common during those times.
[…]
there’s a reason that collectives are no longer very common in the US, and it had little to do with outside influences for the most part.
I doubt a sociological study would be competent to address that, especially one conducted during the late sixties and early seventies, before COINTELPRO came to light. After all, how would you establish for certain that your organization wasn’t being undermined by “outside influences” in the forms of agents provocateur? You’d have to know for certain which groups were being fucked with and when, and that’s not the sort of information which the FBI cares to dole out. We had an agent provocateur in an organization I am affiliated with called Kansas Mutual Aid (after Kropotkin’s book Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution) in 2004, over a quarter century after the COINTELPRO program was supposed to be gone for good. And the only way I know that he was an informer is simply because of a general weirdness about him (he was allegedly ‘arrested’ at RNC protests in 2004, but didn’t bother to answer the summons to appear, he was pulled out of the PTV by self-identifying FBI agents, then let go with no federal charges levelled, and the FOIA documents we have point to an informer within the same time, etc.)
This also goes back to your cheating concern, because certainly being an informer is a kind of cheating. He was confronted about this, and the collective demanded an explanation, and then our informant was gone by the next week.
all of these things are entirely relative to the people who choose to employ them.
direct democracy works great in a well educated group that actually works hard to participate in it. However, do recall Mill’s warning.
I’m not really interested in Mill’s warning, because invoking the names of political philosophers is not a substitute for practical experience. How ‘educated’ were the peasants of Aragon when they collectivized? You don’t need a formal education to feel pissed off when someone’s boot is in your face, even if it’s a bootprint that is left from afar. There are subsistence farmers in Ghana who know more about the political and economic apparatus of the “First World” than many degreed poli sci professors, because they deal with it every day in the form of IMF demands to privatize the water, protests, and the suppression of those protests.
On the other hand, much of bourgeious education in the “First World” is designed to hide the facts of the world from our own awareness. Nothing much has changed since Bakunin wrote on the subject in 1869. That’s not to imply that I dismiss the value of an education wholesale; in fact the point of Bakunin’s essay and something I hold is that the benefits of education should be distributed more widely. However, when it comes to the content of an education, much of what passes for education is as much an exercise in hiding truth as it is in illuminating it.
vertical systems of organization are often more efficient in other cases, and serve to balance often competing interests.
Yes, they “balance” competing interests by ensuring that the interests with the greatest clout get everything they want.
all interesting discussion, of course, but what DOES an anarchist do these days?
Well, I personally am active with several groups, some explicitly anarchist, some not. I work with Food Not Bombs, the local chapter of the Anarchist Black Cross, and I’m currently organizing my own group to finance the screening of documentary films that highlight issues of concern, like “Sir No Sir!” or “Deadline”.
In Kansas, I worked with a group that had its own community garden, Food Not Bombs chapter, published a newsletter for prisoners, ran a lit distribution service, and maintained a library/community space on Mass St. in Downtown Lawrence, assisted the striking Goodyear workers in Topeka, and was looking to start a community grocery co-op, conducted protests of the war, was taking the lead in organizing a DNC-RNC protest for 2008, etc., etc.
There are a lot of things anarchists do. My view is that we, as anarchists, need to demonstrate the viability of horizontal systems of organization and set up an equitable, egalitarian infrastructure which can compete with and eventually displace similar government-dominated functions..
Try this one.
Utopia – any visionary system of political or social perfection.
Even dramatically better still isn’t necessarily perfect.
Well played indeed.
Do you have an honesty problem? You offer one definition and pretend it’s the only one when it obviously isn’t. Sheesh.
http://www.onelook.com/?w=utopian&ls=a
I don’t know where Hedges gets his ideas about atheists from. From his ass, I guess.
My instinct tells me that Hedges fears that the growing influence of atheism in the United States will only serve to strengthen Christian extremism in response. Maybe he feels that we atheists need to be cut down to size so as to make his brand of Christian liberalism more palatable. It still sucks though. I used to respect him, but not anymore.
Do you have an honesty problem? You offer one definition and pretend it’s the only one when it obviously isn’t. Sheesh.
Oh, so you can give the one definition of a utopian that’s broad enough to support your position and I can’t go with the narrower one that actually means something. By your definition anyone who wants to make the world a better place is a naive utopian. And I’m the one being dishonest. Nice touch.
Josh,
Are you sure?
You’re correct to point out that PZ’s “lumping” claim isn’t literally true, but look at your own analysis of who “these athesists” are:
True, but in the quoted passage to which PZ’s “lumping” claim refers, Hedges is not at all careful about voiding painting “these atheists” with a broad brush. As you explicitly stated, “these atheists” are the four writers mentioned and, by implication, includes the many others who are interested in what those four have to say about atheism and religion and who are inclined to share their views on those topics.
But Hedges claims “Most of these atheists […] support the imperialist projects and preemptive wars of the United States as a necessity.”
If that’s not painting “most” of “these atheists” with a broad brush, I don’t know what is. He’s imposing the opinions of Harris and Hitchens with regard to “imperialist projects and preemptive wars” upon a majority of atheists who are by and large ideologically compatible with the four, not just two, authors who allegedly represent them on the subject of atheism and religion – but not necessarily on the subject of imperialism and war.
Anecdotal evidence gathered here on Pharyngula and elsewhere on the web, and in my own travels through daily life over the past six years, suggests that many of “these atheists” are vehemently opposed to the imperialist projects that Hedges claims (with what confirming evidence, by the way?) they support.
So, really. Who’s over-generalizing in an attempt to make a point? PZ? Perhaps. Hedges? In the paragraph PZ quoted, almost certainly yes.
What’s a New Atheist? How is it different from an Old Atheist?
I gotta admit I couldn’t read more than three or four paragraphs. I cut out at the ‘darwinism’ crap.
What a moron.
Hedges @ “I don’t know where Hedges gets his ideas about atheists from. From his ass, I guess.”
It looks like he thinks Neo-Cons are the typical atheist. Then again he’s a theologian; they specialize in being ambiguous so I doubt if he even knows.
Irreverent bunch of party hearty types, I see we have here. Now why can’t you lot just sit quietly and listen to all the serious atheist pontification going on? You are never going to make it to Oblivion if you keep that up.
Anyone else up for some of this?
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Seven-Layer-Dip-II/Detail.aspx
Chris #194 wrote:
I assume you meant “what do we do about the other problems (the ones reason can’t solve)?”
Keep trying new ideas. Or — if you prefer — “I don’t know.” I don’t.
There are going to be conflicts and problems which it may not be possible to fix, at least not to everyone’s satisfaction. There may be diseases which cannot be cured. There may be asteroids which cannot be stopped. And when we meet with them we suffer, and can do nothing but work to minimize damage, and see if we can come up with something better next time (if there is one…)
I don’t know; I think it would be much more philosophically interesting (not to mention surprising) if we don’t.
I finally got around to reading the whole thing. Apparently, Div School makes J-School graduates even dumber. That was ridiculous.
Ichthyic @ 155 – to be sure: those I call hyperchristians are a motley tribe indeed.
perhaps he mostly ran into the pro-authoritarian fundamentalists?
The point I had in mind was to question how a professional journalist purportedly “researching” a movement could have overlooked a week-long brawl that made headlines around the country six months before he wrote.
Hedges didn’t “mostly run into” the pro-police/military factions, he sought them. My current hypothesis is that he thought he was researching “American fascism” and thus ended up seeking pro-authoritarian fundies – and didn’t try to look beyond the initial confirmation of his own hypothesis.
None of which criticism of Hedges should be taken as disagreement with his view that fascism can be found in certain churches, except that he may be understating the threat by missing its full context.
Why is it that every discussion I have on anarchism turns to this? It’s really boring, trust me.
because it still applies, trust me.
I’m not really interested in Mill’s warning, because invoking the names of political philosophers is not a substitute for practical experience.
huh? so the tyranny of the majority is a myth, eh? not based on practical experience whatsoever…
hmm.
as far as practical experience is concerned, again I point you to those who formed collectives during the 60’s and 70’s.
it was they themselves that saw and reported on how the group dynamics formed, the sociologists just tried to organize and interpret the results of the observations for publication.
I recall seeing a lot of interviews with very intelligent folks who formed collectives during that time, who in their own words spoke of the problems that arose within the group dynamics.
Yes, they “balance” competing interests by ensuring that the interests with the greatest clout get everything they want.
I know the point you are getting at, but that’s horridly simplistic over-generalization, and frankly demonstrably not true, otherwise for example, there would be no bill of rights (whatever you think of its efficacy).
the US is hardly a complete plutocracy (yet, anyway), despite considerable efforts on behalf of such.
That’s been the age-old dream since Plato’s Philosopher-Kings. It doesn’t seem to work that way.
but this is exactly why the reverse won’t work either. Pure democracy only works when all individuals take personal responsibility for maintaining and participating in it, which apparently is just as idealistic.
individuals, AFAICT, have been and always will be preoccupied with things other than governance, usually to the entire exclusion of concern, and often to the point of not even bothering to vote, even in a representative democracy (let alone a pure one).
I think this is why representative democracies are commonly favored in economically “stable” situations – it abrogates the responsibility of the individual to someone “else”.
don’t blame the system, blame the people.
I just think that, if you want a real democracy, with horizontal control points, rather than wasting time trying to tear down the current control system, you need to convince a majority to become involved in their own governance. IMO, this is where the counter-culture revolution of the 60’s and 70’s failed. They did a good job of defining the weaknesses and foibles of the current government, not so good a job at convincing others that another way would work better.
Frankly, I would have loved to see that happen, but as you say…
That’s been the age-old dream since Plato’s Philosopher-Kings.
as to education, I think you misunderstood what I meant.
How ‘educated’ were the peasants of Aragon when they collectivized?
educated enough to be able to make competent decisions about their own governance.
that’s what i mean.
If you’re going to farm, one would think it best to be educated about farming, yes? Unless all participants are well educated on the issues facing their collective well being, then by default they will abrogate responsibility to those they feel “better qualified” to make decisions, thus leading to a representative democracy, or what have you.
Just to be clear, I grew up in Rethuglican Orange County, with an aunt who was a true-blue hippie, and got my grad degree at Berkeley. I’m sympathetic to the goals, if not necessarily the arguments.
and I’m currently organizing my own group to finance the screening of documentary films that highlight issues of concern, like “Sir No Sir!” or “Deadline”.
I’m not familiar with those films… link? If they focus on trying to show people a better way, rather than just trying to list off the foibles of government historically (all too easy), I think that would be productive.
My view is that we, as anarchists, need to demonstrate the viability of horizontal systems of organization
i couldn’t agree more, and I do wish you luck in your endeavors.
I’m always supportive of efforts to get people to look at alternatives, and discuss the pros and cons of various forms of government. It’s exactly why I was curious as to what the modern anarchists were up to these days.
The point I had in mind was to question how a professional journalist purportedly “researching” a movement could have overlooked a week-long brawl that made headlines around the country six months before he wrote.
yes, good point.
It’s not like I felt a need to defend hedges, so much as I was just trying to point out that there are large differences amongst fundamentalist groups as well.
differences hedges missed even having “traveled amongst them”, as you rightly point out.
with that said, his musings on atheists are even worse, for the exponentially smaller sample size he uses (and abuses).
and again, just like you pointed out with the fundies, he cherry picked the sample set he was going to focus on.
to be sure: those I call hyperchristians are a motley tribe indeed.
these days, the tent is so large as to make a big-top seem an outhouse by comparison.
I mean, they currently embrace Harun yahya, for fuck’s sake.
Hedges is just playing a little game of bait-and-switch?
This is just idiotic. Why should anyone take this crap seriously, except as a means to insult?
I go back to what I said above: theology doesn’t have answers, so who gives a rat’s fart what Martin Luther or some theologian say?
Here’s my quote: “Biologist PZ Myers has said that Chris Hedges is a big doo-doo head. I suspect that’s a true statement.”
Next I will write a book about how Hedges smells of poo and looks like an arse. It is a natural consequence of being a big doo-doo head.
How is that any different from what Hedges has done? Definition by baseless assertion followed by stupid non-sequitor?
Next I will write a book about how Hedges smells of poo and looks like an arse. It is a natural consequence of being a big doo-doo head.
How is that any different from what Hedges has done?
It’s not, technically, but I think it would still be more entertaining at least.
The point I had in mind was to question how a professional journalist purportedly “researching” a movement could have overlooked a week-long brawl that made headlines around the country six months before he wrote.
Hmm, might the fact that professional journalist isn’t trained in any academic field other than stenography play a role? No research required; just get quotes from “opposing” sides and you’ve got a story!
I read American Fascists when it hit the shelves and it was a very good book, but I had no illusions while reading it that the author and myself were on the same side – he’s religious, but rational to a point. He’s intelligent while holding irrational belief.
Essentially he’s the type of religious which, if it did not foster a climate in which religious fundamentalism can prosper, would be entirely unobjectionable.
That’s why, I think, he misunderstands the atheist position – and that’s what his book is, a misunderstanding.
I’ll probably read it anyway – I respect his intelligence enough that I wish to understand his reasoning more completely.
Josh: Actually in the first paragraph he equates ‘most self proclaimed atheists’ with fundamentalists. He only mentions ‘the new atheists’ at the beginning of the second paragraph. Thus while he later narrows the field somewhat, that is only after equating ‘most self proclaimed atheist’ with fundamentalists. In other words, according to Hedges, if you are a self proclaimed atheist and not even just a new atheist you are probably akin to a fundamentalist (BTW I have been a vocal self proclaimed atheist for 45+ years so am far from being a new atheist) so that probably makes me akin to a fundamentalist. Sorry, what was the point you were trying to make again, I think it skipped past me while rereading Hedges.
And lets not forget that even the fundies, no friends of mine by any means, are also presented as strawmen in his article. It appears that he understand neither atheist or fundamentalist so has to create a kind of fictional caricatures of both to make his case. Either that or he is just a moderate xian liar for Jesus.
Ichthyic @ 210 – So much for the promised social benefits of ecumenicalism…
From comment 107, the last one I’ve read before going to bed…
Come on. Should we cut taxes for the rich? This question of economic policy is a scientific question, and the answer (“no”) is based on the two experiments that have been conducted (by Raygun and Fearless Flightsuit).
Science? Reason? On both sides beliefs in paradise on Earth, the infallibility of leader figures, absolute good and absolute evil, and immense hatred of science that happened to contradict the inerrant ideology, leading to the inventions of German Physics respectively Lysenkoism. National Socialism was a single anti-rationalist enterprise, and so were the most murderous forms of communism. Did you really not know that?
From comment 107, the last one I’ve read before going to bed…
Come on. Should we cut taxes for the rich? This question of economic policy is a scientific question, and the answer (“no”) is based on the two experiments that have been conducted (by Raygun and Fearless Flightsuit).
Science? Reason? On both sides beliefs in paradise on Earth, the infallibility of leader figures, absolute good and absolute evil, and immense hatred of science that happened to contradict the inerrant ideology, leading to the inventions of German Physics respectively Lysenkoism. National Socialism was a single anti-rationalist enterprise, and so were the most murderous forms of communism. Did you really not know that?
Essentially he’s the type of religious which, if it did not foster a climate in which religious fundamentalism can prosper, would be entirely unobjectionable.
He’s of the “faith is important” school as long as “faith” is something contentless shared by all religious people.
MAJeff @ 213: No research required; just get quotes from “opposing” sides and you’ve got a story!
That’s a fair critique of most “journalism” these days, but give Hedges his due – he’s proven he’s not just another J-school hack. Even the work which prompted tonight’s rants, for example, doesn’t seem to follow the he-said/he-said formula.
Following up on the suggestion in # 163 above that Hedges might be Catholic, I dug through my archives and found an article he wrote for truthdig.com with lines such as
If he’s Catholic, he’s not a “good” one.
Speaking (# 219) of Catholicism, can anyone who’s read American Fascists report on the treatment of Catholics in that work? Hedges has very little to say about the Holy Mother Church that I can find.
Of possible interest to anyone who’s followed the thread this far: I found video of a public debate between Chris Hedges and Sam Harris, moderated by Robert Scheer at UCLA on Mary 22, 2007. I haven’t watched this myself, so please don’t consider the link as my endorsement.
Ahem – that’s May 22nd – the Supreme Atheist Council has not yet gone public with its Virgin-cloning experiments…
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many examples of (apparently purposeful) equivocation in so small a number of sentences. Every one of Hedges’ “Where the fundamentalists have X, the New Atheists respond with an equally bad Y” comparisons involve X-Y pairs that are about as closely related, by any measure, as Shaquille O’Neal and Herve Villechaize.
I don’t believe it—221 posts (and counting) on a blog entry mentioning nihilism, and NOT ONE QUOTE from “The Big Lebowski” yet.
“We believe in nozzink, Lebowski. Nozzink!”
What a disappointment! I admire Chris Hedges. I enjoyed American Fascism. His War is a Force that Give Us Meaning is terrific also.
Watch Hitchens slam Hedges on C-SPAN.
(go to 8:19)
“Mr. Hedges is one of the sinister, creepy people who is a pacifist half the time and… an apologist for terrorists the rest of the time… He can’t write and he can’t argue either.”
They don’t seem like each other at all. It goes back to their disagreement over the war in Iraq.
Pierce R. Butler
Yea, the Truthdig site. If you page through the comments under Hedges opening statement, here I think:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070523_chris_hedges_i_dont_believe_in_atheists/CP2/
You’ll eventually find me arguing with someone called straight_talk_11 about “consciousness.”
That’s a fair critique of most “journalism” these days, but give Hedges his due – he’s proven he’s not just another J-school hack. Even the work which prompted tonight’s rants, for example, doesn’t seem to follow the he-said/he-said formula
Add Harvard div and you’ve got the importance of “faith” without content and the whole “Love” as “god” as the basis of the universe woo, which, let’s be honest, is what the closing of “War is a Force” was about. I’m not about to denigrate love, but it’s amazing that he accuses us of being utopian.
Not much of a thinker.
I get the feeling this book is the result of a big blow-up between Hitchens and Hedges.
From Salon:
Well, not Harris. Harris is just intellectually shallow. Harris doesn’t know anything about religion or the Middle East. For Hitchens, it’s about a performance, and that was true when he was on the left. He hasn’t changed. It’s all about him. It’s all about being a contrarian. He reminds me of Ann Coulter, he’s that kind of a figure. He’s witty, and he’s funny and insulting. You know I debated him, and in the middle of the debate he starts shouting, “Shame on you for defending suicide bombers!” Of course, unlike him, I’ve actually stood at the edge of a suicide bombing attack. That kind of stuff is just … it’s the epistemology of television. They make a lot of money off it, but it’s gross and disgusting and anti-intellectual and not at all about real discussion.
Do you think Hitchens really believes what he writes?
I think he’s completely amoral. I think he doesn’t have a moral core. I think he doesn’t believe anything. What’s good for Christopher Hitchens is about as moral as he gets.
Yikes!
At least he didn’t title his book: I don’t believe in atheism. I’m going to take that to mean there’s still hope.
What a total (little) prick. It is surely evident to the man that it is technology that has greatly aided him in his quest to bring the true horrors of war to the Western world, and in doing so, changed many minds. Is that not science helping us advance our morality. It puzzles me how religious people like Mr Hedges can witness how bad a war scene really is and yet allocate no blame to the monster they think promotes it?
What is becoming clear is that advancement in science, amplified by OUR New Atheist voice, has these gullible tossers panicking. They can visualize a very uncomfortable future transition for themselves, a time when they have to face facts that science reveals and become atheist. Bronze Age myth will die and people the likes of Christ Hedges will be left trying to come to terms with their deep remorse and crippling shame, but, their new given consolation is, of course, that this eventually stops at death.
He must believe that this latest work is the spanner that fouls up our machine, sad mistaken wassack. Educate them into extinction PZ.
huh? so the tyranny of the majority is a myth, eh? not based on practical experience whatsoever…
Yup, that’s pretty much it. I mean, in all seriousness, when has the “tyranny of the majority” actually generated something which unambiguously looked like tyrrany? Representative democracies, however, degenerate into actual tyrannies on a depressingly regular basis. The canonical example is Hitler gaming the 1933 coalition government for power, but it can also be seen in many other manifestations, for example the autogolpe (“self-coup”) of Alberto Fujimori in Peru.
Furthermore, just throwing around the phrase “tyranny of the majority” misunderstands the degree to which anarchism in practice incorporates the views of dissenters.
as far as practical experience is concerned, again I point you to those who formed collectives during the 60’s and 70’s.
And again I think “Who cares?” One, as I pointed out, there is the problem of collapse due to outside influence. Sociological studies from the period are not going to be able to adequately control for that. Two, “collective” doesn’t equate to “anarchist”. Most of these groups had a centralized, vertical approach to organization because they were Marxist-Leninist, Stalinist, or Maoist (e.g. the Weather Underground). Three, I really don’t care what many of the sixties kids did. Yes, it was a time when left politics seemed to flourish, but it was also a time when, if I may call them this, “lifestyle hippies” came out from the woodwork from bourgeois backgrounds to whom politics took a back seat to fucking and getting stoned.
it was they themselves that saw and reported on how the group dynamics formed, the sociologists just tried to organize and interpret the results of the observations for publication.
Well, the problem is that I do not know, nor do they, which organizations were being manipulated by outside influences and which were not (unless, of course, we’re talking about the Black Panthers, AIM, and so on, in which case they definitely were being manipulated by the Feds). That alone makes the research valueless, because you cannot be certain whether or not the group dynamics being reported were authentic.
I recall seeing a lot of interviews with very intelligent folks who formed collectives during that time, who in their own words spoke of the problems that arose within the group dynamics.
WHO CARES? Seriously, problems? That’s all you have to bring to the table by way of criticism? Every form of political organization generates problems. I am not under the impression that anarchism is going to be free from all problems forevermore, amen. Isn’t the post we’re responding in devoted, in part, to pointing out the absurdity of the claim that there are atheists with a belief in the perfectability of human social organization?
I know the point you are getting at, but that’s horridly simplistic over-generalization, and frankly demonstrably not true, otherwise for example, there would be no bill of rights (whatever you think of its efficacy).
The Bill of Rights only exists because of political posturing. Nobody wanted it. The Federalists wrote the Constitution without it, and the Anti-Federalists simply used the issue as leverage to attempt to overturn the entire Constitution. When time came to vote on it, the Federalists were the ones voting for, not out of conviction, but because they wanted the wedge issue to go away, and the Anti-Federalists voted against because they wanted their popular wedge issue around as a tool for attacking the Constitution.
the US is hardly a complete plutocracy (yet, anyway), despite considerable efforts on behalf of such.
And when it becomes one, you can be sure that the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, will be there, just the same. Dubya was right about one thing: the Constitution is just a piece of paper. It only means what a majority on the court wants it to mean, and in practice that meaning has revolved around upholding and extending the status quo. For example, after the laughable doctrine of “corporate personhood” was introduced, nine-tenths of SCotUS 14th amendment cases were about the application of the 14th amendment to the corporation. Only one tenth dealt with the civil rights of people of colour, which is what the amendment was written for.
but this is exactly why the reverse won’t work either. Pure democracy only works when all individuals take personal responsibility for maintaining and participating in it, which apparently is just as idealistic.
Not hardly. Have you ever been involved in any group run by consensus process? A lot of the time, many people don’t bother to show up and vote. The organization chugs on just as well despite people taking an imperfect degree of participation in it. If people care enough to actually have an anarchist society in the first place, then they are going to care about the running of said society. Maybe not all the time. Maybe a kid with a fever is going to take precedence one day, but the whole system is hardly going to fall apart because of that.
individuals, AFAICT, have been and always will be preoccupied with things other than governance, usually to the entire exclusion of concern, and often to the point of not even bothering to vote, even in a representative democracy (let alone a pure one).
Why “even in a representative democracy”? It should be “especially in a representative democracy” because in a representative democracy, one’s vote is worthless. It’s representative democracy which generates the alienation and anomie you’re claiming is a characteristic of people in general.
I think this is why representative democracies are commonly favored in economically “stable” situations – it abrogates the responsibility of the individual to someone “else”.
Actually, the reason representative democracies are commonly favoured is because they deliver it up for the powerful, while maintaining the illusion of the legitimacy arising from popular acclaim. Consider the context in which representative democracies arose. They arose in the context of monarchies or from colonization by a monarchic government, and were seen as the best way for the powerful to maintain their grip on the reins, otherwise it simply wouldn’t have been allowed to happen.
When you have a genuine popular uprising, it tends to bypass representative democracy, as in the Soviet Union, because in their view it would be a farce. The original Soviet Union is so named because of the “soviets”, or worker’s councils, which were supposed to be making autonomous, collective decisions (see Anton Pannekoek’s Workers Councils for some historical discussion around the concept). That lasted for all of fifteen minutes, thanks to the Bolsheviks, and it’s indicative that the system then reverted to bourgeois representative democracy when freedom was being quashed all around the country. That’s because Lenin and Stalin liked their power, and they saw that representative democracy provided a “choke point” for seizing and maintaining power by allowing only one political party to run in every election.
don’t blame the system, blame the people.
I can blame both with equal justification. I blame both the system, and the people who set it up.
I just think that, if you want a real democracy, with horizontal control points, rather than wasting time trying to tear down the current control system, you need to convince a majority to become involved in their own governance.
I’m not sure how successful that will be if the existing system of control is still in operation.
IMO, this is where the counter-culture revolution of the 60’s and 70’s failed. They did a good job of defining the weaknesses and foibles of the current government, not so good a job at convincing others that another way would work better.
I’m more than happy to try to do that, too.
as to education, I think you misunderstood what I meant.
educated enough to be able to make competent decisions about their own governance.
that’s what i mean.
Well, then anarchism should work practically anywhere. I don’t know people who are so ignorant that they do not have a basic awareness of what they need and what they can contribute.
If you’re going to farm, one would think it best to be educated about farming, yes? Unless all participants are well educated on the issues facing their collective well being, then by default they will abrogate responsibility to those they feel “better qualified” to make decisions, thus leading to a representative democracy, or what have you.
That doesn’t follow at all, and I’m not ever sure what “collective well being” even means. They don’t have to be informed about the issues surrounding their “collective” well being, they only have to be informed about their individual well-being. What is good for the collective will then be a process of negotiation between the many poles of individual well-being, trying to satisfy as many as possible and harming as few as possible.
Just to be clear, I grew up in Rethuglican Orange County, with an aunt who was a true-blue hippie, and got my grad degree at Berkeley. I’m sympathetic to the goals, if not necessarily the arguments.
My response would be the same in any case.
I’m not familiar with those films… link? If they focus on trying to show people a better way, rather than just trying to list off the foibles of government historically (all too easy), I think that would be productive.
Sir No Sir! is about the GI resistance movement during the Vietnam War. I would say that’s an excellent case of showing people a better way, because it demonstrates the power of concerted organization around a specific issue. Unfortunately, their site seems to be out of whack, but perhaps you can Google it then use the URLs it turns up to go look at their synopsis in the Internet Archive.
Deadline is about the year leading up to ex-Gov. Ryan’s blanket clemency for all the death row inmates in Illinois. The point is to get people thinking not just about the issue of guilt and innocence of specific individuals, but the way in which prisons are the point at which state power is most nakedly apparent.
i couldn’t agree more, and I do wish you luck in your endeavors.
I’m always supportive of efforts to get people to look at alternatives, and discuss the pros and cons of various forms of government. It’s exactly why I was curious as to what the modern anarchists were up to these days.
I can’t speak for all of them, just for myself, and my own personal approach is to do social justice work in explicitly anarchist contexts, and stand as an alternative to the systems of domination which currently exist.
Well, not Harris. Harris is just intellectually shallow. Harris doesn’t know anything about religion or the Middle East. For Hitchens, it’s about a performance, and that was true when he was on the left. He hasn’t changed. It’s all about him. It’s all about being a contrarian. He reminds me of Ann Coulter, he’s that kind of a figure. He’s witty, and he’s funny and insulting. You know I debated him, and in the middle of the debate he starts shouting, “Shame on you for defending suicide bombers!” Of course, unlike him, I’ve actually stood at the edge of a suicide bombing attack. That kind of stuff is just … it’s the epistemology of television. They make a lot of money off it, but it’s gross and disgusting and anti-intellectual and not at all about real discussion.
Do you think Hitchens really believes what he writes?
I think he’s completely amoral. I think he doesn’t have a moral core. I think he doesn’t believe anything. What’s good for Christopher Hitchens is about as moral as he gets.
I read this, and I think “Even a stopped clock….” In my view, he has Hitchens fairly well nailed down. The problem, of course, comes when he extends the Hitchenite tropes to atheists in general.
Norman Finkelstein had an excellent article which made the same point in “Hitchens as the Model Apostate”.
The whole article is a blistering, but deserved, take-down of Hitchens. To paraphrase Hamlet, he would be better off with a bad epitaph than Finkelstein’s ill report while he lives.
actually generated something which unambiguously looked like tyrrany?
you don’t live in northern florida do you? Creationists outnumber sane folks there about 2:1. enough power to directly intimidate local school boards into not teaching good science. Somehow, I don’t think you really understand the argument that Mill was making. have you read his essay on liberty?
or, on the lighter side, have you ever seen the movie “Idiocracy”?
I don’t know people who are so ignorant that they do not have a basic awareness of what they need and what they can contribute.
heh. funny, I do. a whole lot of them, in fact.
..and they haven’t got the slightest clue as to what role what they do plays in larger society, or even want to know.
I see them actually vote against their own stated interests on a regular basis.
*shrug*
you don’t live in northern florida do you? Creationists outnumber sane folks there about 2:1. enough power to directly intimidate local school boards into not teaching good science.
I know outlandish hyperbole is the order of the day here, but this is rather absurd, even by the standards here. Can you explain how creationists voting for creationists on local school boards is a sufficient condition for tyranny?
Somehow, I don’t think you really understand the argument that Mill was making. have you read his essay on liberty?
Yes. Can you explain to me why I should care about Mill’s argument?
or, on the lighter side, have you ever seen the movie “Idiocracy”?
No. Other people whose opinions I respect told me about it, and indicated it wasn’t worth my time.
heh. funny, I do. a whole lot of them, in fact.
..and they haven’t got the slightest clue as to what role what they do plays in larger society, or even want to know.
I see them actually vote against their own stated interests on a regular basis.
*shrug*
Which, of course, has fuck-all to do with what I said. If anything, it demonstrates the problems with a representative government, where the powerful get all the public time and influence.
Furthermore, the whole What’s the Matter with Kansas? thesis is based on pure bullshit. The Democrats are not the party for whom poor rural people should vote out of self interest or for any other reason. The Democrats are absolutely as much a part of the problem as the Republicans when it comes to rural poverty. So people who see that the Democrats don’t do shit for them, but have social views which line up more with the Republicans will vote Republican in order to have someone, anyone who minimally represents some of their views in power.
On second thought, you needn’t bother responding to my questions, because I’m no longer interested in this conversation. My interest has been waning throughout, and hit its nadir when I read that creationists voting for creationists is a sufficient condition of tyranny and the implication that if I disagree with Mill, it is because I do not understand him. In fact, understanding him is why I disagree with him. Understanding him is also why I hardly think he’s a safe platform from which to base a defense of bourgeois social liberalism.
Which, of course, has fuck-all to do with what I said.
on the contrary, it’s got everything to do with it.
if you want to plan on a coordinated democracy, and there are a bunch of people so ignorant they haven’t got the slightest clue what would work best to further their own interests, any kind of pure democracy, or communism for that matter, will fail. Has nothing whatsoever to do with the type of democracy you set up, it has to do with the people occupying it.
sorry, but you still seem not to grasp this for some reason, and I can’t see that further debate will clarify it for you.
frankly, I’m hoping it’s just the case that you overestimate people in general.
Can you explain how creationists voting for creationists on local school boards is a sufficient condition for tyranny?
ok, now you’re being fucking obtuse. One, where did I say anything about VOTING, i said INTIMIDATE and two, I hope you enjoy your theocracy.
how do you plan to stop them, eh?
I suppose you also have no problems with these guys, right:
http://christianexodus.org/
btw, if you really think the failure of the collectives in the 60’s and 70’s was due to external influences, you’re not only going to end up repeating their mistakes, but you’re too paranoid for your own good.
good luck with that, but I can’t see how you will ever succeed if you ignore past attempts.
past that, I have the links to info you provided, which will be more than sufficient, thanks.
I can see it’s pointless to debate the issue further.
you needn’t bother responding to my questions,
oops, that just showed up on my screen.
good we agree on something.
on the contrary, it’s got everything to do with it.
if you want to plan on a coordinated democracy, and there are a bunch of people so ignorant they haven’t got the slightest clue what would work best to further their own interests, any kind of pure democracy, or communism for that matter, will fail. Has nothing whatsoever to do with the type of democracy you set up, it has to do with the people occupying it.
Ah, I see. Then clearly what we need to do is set up political systems without people and then there won’t be any problems to muck up the Platonic clarity of our systems.
Again, I am not claiming that people are perfectable, and I don’t think they need to be. Unless you can provide some way in which your critique is relevant, then it’s not going to interest me. You give the example of people “voting against their self-interest”. Not only does that not tell me anything, I think it’s horse shit. People do not vote against their self-interest in this country; they are left with two political parties neither of which represent their economic interests. It’s a failure of bourgeois representative democracy, not anarchism.
In an anarchist system, you get more than a vote, you get a means of helping set the agenda. Not only do your hypothetical, alleged people have to “vote against their best interests” for some perverse reason inherent to them as humans, rather than out of some reason of poor education which could be rectified with greater participation, but also have to be utterly unable to formulate any statement of wishes and needs whatsoever. Perhaps if they’re literally brain dead this might be the case, and we have sufficient medical knowledge to care for those types of people. Other than that, I don’t think your complaint is relevance and you’ve done nothing but assert it as an article of faith that it is.
sorry, but you still seem not to grasp this for some reason, and I can’t see that further debate will clarify it for you.
I grasp what you’re saying. The problem is that it’s bullshit.
ok, now you’re being fucking obtuse. One, where did I say anything about VOTING, i said INTIMIDATE and two, I hope you enjoy your theocracy.
Then can you explain to me how a majority of creationists intimidates the school board? Rocks through windows? Judicial kidnappings? Or is it just that the threat hangs over them that if they don’t do what the creationists want, that they’ll be voted out? If so, BFD. That’s not a tyranny.
how do you plan to stop them, eh?
I suppose you also have no problems with these guys, right:
http://christianexodus.org/
Then you’ve answered your own question. If I have no problems with them, then stopping them is counterproductive.
I’m taking the piss, of course, but if you weren’t behaving like a fucking propagandist you might actually deserve a serious response.
btw, if you really think the failure of the collectives in the 60’s and 70’s was due to external influences, you’re not only going to end up repeating their mistakes, but you’re too paranoid for your own good.
I didn’t say that. Congratulations on being a good little propagandist again.
What I said is that the sociological studies, if they exist, conducted during the 60s and 70s were worthless if they couldn’t eliminate the complicating factor of COINTELPRO, which, I argued, they couldn’t.
good luck with that, but I can’t see how you will ever succeed if you ignore past attempts.
Who said I was ignoring anything, besides your content-free screeds?
I can see it’s pointless to debate the issue further.
On the contrary, debate might make a change. What you are doing has not been debate; it has been systematically ignoring what I said in order to be a propagandist. That is not interesting, not illuminating, and not informative.
When I take thirty minutes to write a post like #230, using historical illustrations to make my point, I think something more is required in response than a lot of wanking and misdirection on behalf of a pale, bourgeois liberalism which is utterly valueless in the real world.
However, I guess I have to hand it to you. If your stale, petrified prejudices passing for political thought is what I can expect of most people, then you have a point. Fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t think that an anarchist society will arise when people are still capable of indulging in such self-satisfied, masturbatory asshattery. So despite how depressing it is to deal with it in person, it’s not actually going to dissuade me.
oops, that just showed up on my screen.
good we agree on something.
We certainly do! You didn’t respond to my questions at all in any case, so the “oops” was superfluous.
Hmmm, that was the Chris Hedges I thought it was. More proof that it’s impossible to agree with anyone 100%. I’ve heard him speak on foreign policy and the fraud that is the Iraq war, and he makes sense. On this he makes none.
The concept of original sin as the model for limiting humanity’s dive into an immoral abyss? How? What about it can realistically stop ANYONE from doing immoral things? Nothing. Why? Because a god isn’t here to enforce it. Laws are simple statments as well, but at the very least there is real physical control that can be exercised when they are broken. Don’t even get me started on the 10 Commandments, a small minority of which are actual laws. What Hedges is admitting is that nothing but the rank promulgation of fear has been used for millenia in order to keep people in line. The thought that a god or gods that we can’t see, touch, smell, taste, etc. holds sway over our lives is nothing but Oz-like magic. It doesn’t exist. It’s a thin, false veil. And just because people reject that veil hardly means they are more inclined to be immoral. Does Hedges have any proof of this whatsoever? If Hedges cannot understand the really very simple basis for atheism, methinks he is far too concerned with worshipping a deity, insufficiently self-critical to beg the question before giving an answer.
And, I’m not the most well-read person on Earth, but to my knowledge Hitchens is the only public atheist that is openly and unrepentently pro-war. He’s also the only remaining liberal as such (other supposedly liberal pro-war personalities really are not at all). I would agree if Hedges was referencing say, libertarian atheists; that is more likely. But when I watched the Four Horsemen videos linked on Dawkins’ site, Harris never once announced agreement with Hitchens’ assertions of Islamic extirpation in the ME.
Hedges is condescending (intentionally or otherwise) when he, like so many others, equates atheism with a belief, and continues by incorrectly assigning moral codes and stances political and ethical to it. Dare I say it even Thom Hartmann makes this mistake too, though not nearly as ineloquently.
If your stale, petrified prejudices passing for political thought is what I can expect of most people, then you have a point
*yawn*
like i said, good luck. I eagerly await the new revolution.
When I take thirty minutes to write a post like #230
it took you thirty minutes to write that?
damn, I hope you aren’t LEADING the anarchy movement.
It would make the whole thing entirely laughable, and, as I mentioned, I would rather it not be.
Thanks for your latest response. It confirms everything I thought about you and then some. You were just trolling, and I was stupid enough to fall for it.
it took you thirty minutes to write that?
damn, I hope you aren’t LEADING the anarchy movement.
Case in point: troll.
It would make the whole thing entirely laughable, and, as I mentioned, I would rather it not be.
It makes the thing entirely laughable that I have other things to do on a Thursday evening than spend my undivided attention writing a lengthy blog post? This new learning amazes me.
Case in point: troll.
LOL
what’s left?
you dragged it into the mud, I’m just making sure it stays covered.
It makes the thing entirely laughable that I have other things to do on a Thursday evening than spend my undivided attention writing a lengthy blog post? This new learning amazes me.
funny, i was thinking it was your refusal to learn from those that came before you that was amazing.
I still get a kick out of you saying that the reason you refuse to look at the published sociology studies from the 70’s is that they were “tainted by the man”.
LOL
like i said, laughable.
debate’s over, but I can keep this up all night.
you?
debate’s over, but I can keep this up all night.
Oh, don’t bother. I’ll make my concession here: you’re the biggest swinging dick on teh intart00bz. Congratulations.
That really is what this is all about. Understanding never came into it, and to my discredit I only recognized that fact very belatedly. I assumed that the misrepresentations were due to ignorance, which was correctable, but instead they were deliberate and designed to deceive, which is why I lost my patience as the misrepresentations grew in size and scope until they swallowed my very words so completely that not a trace was left of any point I was making. So wank off to that: I did lose my patience. Congratulations. You well and truly trolled me.
Now to get that blog killfile I have heard so much about….
I want to defend Hitchens here, I don’t think he had ever stated that we should go nuclear on the Islamic world. What he did say was that Islamists should never be able to lay their hands on nuclear weapons. You see, nuclear weapons can actually be one of the greatest deterrent of war, just like how neither US or Russia would be willing to fight an open war with each other, they fully understand that it would just lead to both their destruction. However the problem comes when some mad fanatic thinking that heaven has 72 virgins for him gets hold of one of those devastating device.
We live in a perilous world, it would just take one batshit insane nut to destroy civilisation, especially with knowledge of how to build nuclear weapons so readily available. Faced with this problem, perhaps the only solution is to make people think that there is no life after this one, to make them appreciate the fact that once you die, you just die.
ou’re the biggest swinging dick on teh intart00bz.
hey, that’s two awards I’ve won from morons tonight.
I should start my own “jerry springer” show I guess.
That really is what this is all about.
no, it wasn’t, until you decided to take it that way.
Understanding never came into it
i can’t disagree with that, though perhaps not in the way you are thinking.
I assumed that the misrepresentations were due to ignorance
nice projection on your part.
but instead they were deliberate and designed to deceive
that’s not true on either side, AFAICT. so why construct a strawman to knock down for no reason?
which is why I lost my patience
you would have anyways, and you likely do often, I’m guessing.
that particular nuance is no skin off my nose, I’m the same way.
Now to get that blog killfile I have heard so much about….
LALALALALLALA
says the Vancome Lady…
yes, I can’t help but think there is value in us completely ignoring each other from this point on.
I’ll go on to change things through NGO’s, and you will go on to change things with community food banks…
who knows? maybe we’ll meet in the middle somewhere and we can ignore each other face to face.
It’s been fun.
hey, that’s two awards I’ve won from morons tonight.
Oh, ouch! I’m cut to the quick!
Sorry, false alarm. That was a flea bite I was feeling.
no, it wasn’t, until you decided to take it that way.
Then what was it about? It certainly wasn’t about trying to have any sort of fruitful discussion, because you ruined all that with your constant, willful misrepresentations of my statements, then ignoring the 80% that you couldn’t twist into some caricature.
that’s not true on either side, AFAICT. so why construct a strawman to knock down for no reason?
Do you have any reason for me to believe that you weren’t making misrepresentations deliberately?
you would have anyways, and you likely do often, I’m guessing.
Well, at least you’re maintaining a consistent level of accuracy with your guesses: none at all.
I’ll go on to change things through NGO’s
Hey, maybe I shouldn’t ignore you after all! If you can manage to change anything through an NGO, then you’d be a better conjurer than Houdini. Well, that’s a little unfair. NGOs do change things when they collaborate with Western governments to enact “regime change”.
Now, what I remember of the NGOs at the Seattle protests is that they retreated to a hotel basement for a long, eye-gougingly boring confab on globalization while the rest of us took it to the streets, and then tried to take credit for ‘winning’ the Battle in Seattle.
who knows? maybe we’ll meet in the middle somewhere and we can ignore each other face to face.
I’ll make sure to drop you a line whenever I enter the region of deluded, masturbatory, and worthless liberal activism.
because you ruined all that with your constant, willful misrepresentations of my statements
you mean like when you misrepresented what I said about the majority of creationists intimidating people in northern florida as an issue of voting instead?
like that?
project much?
Do you have any reason for me to believe that you weren’t making misrepresentations deliberately?
like i said, i was genuinely interested in seeing how things had changed with anarchists since I last looked at the issue, many years ago.
frankly, I’m still seeing a lot of paranoia coming from you.
why shouldn’t I throw the same question right back at you?
Why should I assume, as i have been up till now, that you are being honest? After all, you do seem to like to project your own method of presentation on to those who disagree with you.
If you can manage to change anything through an NGO, then you’d be a better conjurer than Houdini. Well, that’s a little unfair. NGOs do change things when they collaborate with Western governments to enact “regime change”.
well, i work more along the lines of conservation biology and research on things fish (hence the handle), but what the hell, I suppose upgrading to “regime change” would be a nice change of pace.
Does it pay better?
Now, what I remember of the NGOs at the Seattle protests is that they retreated to a hotel basement for a long, eye-gougingly boring confab on globalization while the rest of us took it to the streets, and then tried to take credit for ‘winning’ the Battle in Seattle.
hmm, doesn’t sound like it pays better after all. somebody actually “won” that fracas? I suppose any publicity is good publicity, right?
I’ll make sure to drop you a line whenever I enter the region of deluded, masturbatory, and worthless liberal activism.
again, project much?
Hey, maybe I shouldn’t ignore you after all!
actually, I have no problem with whatever you decide to do.
here, if you want help finding what you said you were looking for:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/04/an_even_better_killfile_for_ph.php
enjoy.
frankly, I don’t find it worth the bother.
What can I say that hasn’t been said already, except that I find Sam Harris the most misinterpreted “New Atheist” of them all, even by “fellow” atheists or non-believers. I have read both his books, many of his essays, and seen many of his videos. I don’t agree with some things he says (as the actual importance of what he calls, “for lack of a better term”, spirituality), but I have never read or seen him advocating nuking muslims preemptively.
you mean like when you misrepresented what I said about the majority of creationists intimidating people in northern florida as an issue of voting instead?
No, actually like attributing “the failure of the collectives in the 60’s and 70’s was due to external influences” as a claim to me.
Or claiming that I would be “just fine” with the Christian Exodus project. Which, I suppose, I am. I’d just suggest someplace a bit more…southerly than South Carolina, like Antarctica.
I asked you what sort of “intimidation” was being deployed, and you didn’t answer. If it’s not “if you vote for evolution in the science standards, I won’t vote for you next election” then pray tell what sort of tyrannical “intimidation” is going on here?
like i said, i was genuinely interested in seeing how things had changed with anarchists since I last looked at the issue, many years ago.
But then you decided that examining that just wasn’t as much fun as lying and baiting me into an intemperate response, right?
frankly, I’m still seeing a lot of paranoia coming from you.
Unfortunately, I do not care what you think, only what you can demonstrate. If you can demonstrate paranoia, then you’ll be worth listening to. However, to demonstrate that, you’d have to actually grapple with the historical fact that COINTELPRO was a program for disrupting groups with a political slant the Bureau did not approve of. It means grappling with facts, to which you are seemingly allergic. If I have misjudged you, then you may find Jim Vander Wall and Ward Churchill’s Agents of Repression and The COINTELPRO Papers, as well as Jules Boykoff’s Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States helpful as a starting point.
why shouldn’t I throw the same question right back at you? Why should I assume, as i have been up till now, that you are being honest?
Because what I claim, I support with historical examples, references, etc. Things outside your toolkit of distortion, mockery, deliberate incomprehension, and general wankery. Except, of course, for my own history, but whether you believe me or not on that score is a matter of supreme indifference to me.
well, i work more along the lines of conservation biology and research on things fish (hence the handle), but what the hell, I suppose upgrading to “regime change” would be a nice change of pace.
Great. When has your work changed anything?
Does it pay better?
I understand it pays very well. The AFL-CIO NGO, the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, got 90% of its 2003-04 funding from U.S. sources, almost $30 million.
Plus, of course, you get to travel to exotic locales like Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Venezuela, etc.
hmm, doesn’t sound like it pays better after all. somebody actually “won” that fracas? I suppose any publicity is good publicity, right?
Well, the NGOs, as I was saying, were having their moots in swank hotels while the rest of us were exposed to CS gas, pepper spray, rubber (and plastic!) bullets, and so on.
again, project much?
No projection whatsoever. After all, I’m not a liberal.
Unfortunately, I do not care what you think,
LOL
uh, did you see that link to the killfile script i provided for you?
feel free to use it, seriously.
That’s it? One half sentence ripped out of context? Who am I dealing with? Mike Behe?
Actually, that’s obviously not the case, because even he had the wit to turn the comma into a period to obscure his dishonesty. Yours, on the other hand, is made manifest by your own incompetence.
To give the full quote: “Unfortunately, I do not care what you think, only what you can demonstrate.”
I guess that little content-free post was a tacit admission that you cannot demonstrate a goddamn thing.
I think that deserves to be the epitaph to your trollish performance this evening.
Who am I dealing with? Mike Behe?
well, I did take a year of biochemistry while getting my undergrad. I don’t recall calling you a pussy yet, though. Should I? I mean, just so your label fits better.
so, you lied about playing Vancome Lady?
you didn’t want the killfile script?
man, it took me 30 minutes to find that thing…
It seems like most of the publicity goes to people — like Hedges and the fundamentalists on one side, or Hitchens and Dawkins on the other — who cram everybody on the other side of the theistic/nontheistic divide into ridiculous caricatures.
Not every religious person is theistic (e.g. Buddhists, most Unitarians). Not every theistic person is fundamentalist (e.g. Reformed and Reconstructionist Jews). And I suppose that not every fundamentalist is an asshole about it.
Not every nonreligious person is nontheistic (e.g. all of those who just don’t care!). Not every nontheistic person is atheist (there’s a difference between not needing the theistic hypothesis and insisting on excluding it). And not every atheist sees fit to condemn all religion (some forms, such as Zen, actually provide insight on aspects of life for which reasoning is slow, inadequate, or missing the point).
There’s only one group of atheist fundamentalists that I can think of, and that’s the Communists. They took the flawed and incomplete theory of Marxism and turned it into dogma, splitting into several sects before ultimately proving ineffective at both economic results and retaining the support of the workers they theoretically championed.
Yet modern economic theory owes a lot to Marx as well as Adam Smith — plus to hundreds of lesser-known names. Calling economics “Marxism” or “Smithism” would make as much sense as calling modern biology (which is to say, evolutionary biology) “Darwinism” or modern physics “Newtonism” or “Einsteinism” or “Maxwellism”. No science has just one author or prophet, it’s a community enterprise that owes its success more to the scientists who try to disprove the reigning theories, mostly fail, but manage to clarify it on the edges.
So I don’t see religion vs. atheism as a very interesting dichotomy. I’ve often been reminded that people of the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic traditions are just atheists who make one exception. Why you believe or disbelieve is more important than what — because only those sources of knowledge which are open and flexible can adapt to the real world.
I’d like to draw the lines, frame the discussion if you will, to distinguish between “People of The Book” (whether the book may be the Bible, the Koran, the Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, or what have you) and freethinkers, who are not only open to new ideas but respect some rules of evidence and rhetoric so that ideas are fairly treated.
Dr. Myers, I’m not sure whether you give religion a fair shake — but it’s hard to tell, because you’ve quite got your hands full stomping down the deceitful fundamentalists who don’t deserve one. More power to you!
And thanks for all those other posts (cephalopods!) on the beauty of life and the universe for which no *final* explanation is adequate or necessary.
Has that idiot ever pondered atheists’ writings by Michael Martin, Graham Oppy or Jordan Howard Sobel? Can he even find fault with their argumentation? What temerity to proclaim those who value reason with those who merely brayy!
He does not apparnently understand naturalilsm/rationalism and humanism. Now that we have made our comments which he should note, I declare him a liar if he continues in spite of being corrected.[ If he does not get wind of our comments, then he is just wrong.]
PZ., what about such as John Haught and Ian Barbour? I have just read something critical of the former and know nothing of the nonsense of the latter. They supposedly find naturalism lacking stuff that religion gives.
I read Kai Nielsen and Richard Carrier on naturalism. PZ., thanks for the informative essay!
How theists have the temerity to find us wrongheaded!
H.Humbert, yes, that is a false false dilemma as is also the one that posts agnosticism as midpoint between theism and atheism. Both errancy and inerrancy are faith postions and both thus are irrational. And yet errantists try to equate us with fundamentalists!
There are now many books advocating atheism,not just those of the New Atheists!
#200: Oh, so you can give the one definition of a utopian that’s broad enough to support your position and I can’t go with the narrower one that actually means something.
You can’t if you want to criticize my position honestly.
By your definition anyone who wants to make the world a better place is a naive utopian.
Obviously false. Read what I wrote please. From #190: “I said ‘dramatically better,’ and a common dictionary definition of ‘utopian’ is an ardent but impractical political or social reformer, a visionary, or an idealist.”
#217: Science? Reason? On both sides beliefs in paradise on Earth, the infallibility of leader figures, absolute good and absolute evil, and immense hatred of science that happened to contradict the inerrant ideology, leading to the inventions of German Physics respectively Lysenkoism. National Socialism was a single anti-rationalist enterprise, and so were the most murderous forms of communism. Did you really not know that?
I love the sound of bagpipes in the morning.
@147: Crap, 100% pure pandering tripe. There are no morals only evolved behaviors that allow us to to form a society.
What’s the difference, exactly? Evolved behaviors conducive to a society could fit some sort of logically derived moral law in the same way that a Nautilus’s shell fits a Fibonacci spiral.
If you’re saying that there are no divinely decreed morals, I’ll grant you that. Except that the universe exists, with some lovely things in it, and whose to say where that rich potential comes from?
@106: on ultimate questions “Why?”, proximate questions “How?”, and non-overlapping magisteria.
I’ll grant you that the “non-overlapping magisteria argument” is a bogus concept, but not for exactly those reasons. Science doesn’t answer ultimate questions, only proximate questions — ones for which the evidence and theory are ready. For example, a child asking “Why does the sun shine?” might get an answer related to God (and thereby to ultimate questions) from a religious parent, but mine will get a snoozy bedtime story about gravitational pressure and fusion.
The reason that NOMA is bogus is that “ultimate questions” fall into two categories: those that can probably never be answered, and those that can. The latter kind (“Why does the sun shine?” “Where did peole come from?”) regularly get turned into proximate questions. The religious person who tries to keep up with science in that race falls into a tiresome God-of-the-gaps rationalization.
The ultimate questions that science can probably never answer are most likely without universal answers at all. Without objective evidence for one answer or another, any answers are subjectively chosen, because they feel right or make somebody happy. Nothing wrong with that, so long as you don’t claim divine authority for them.
In other words, I’m fine with weak NOMA, that subjective experience, philosophical outlooks, and religions deserve some respect, so long as their subjectivity is admitted. It’s strong non-overlapping magisteria that’s a crock, because religions which believe their revealed wisdom to be objective truth will always have problems with science.
Ouch. s/whose/who’s/
Paco, have you read Dawkins’s books? Any of them? Exactly what you say he does, and what he’s got infamous for (lumping together everyone as “ridiculous caricatures”), he does not do. It’s just what people (religious or non-religious alike) who haven’t read the book like to think, and they just say it. They omit a very clear caveat at the beginning of The God Delusion that explains his mostly taking on creationists and others alike.
The response that he’s taking on a caricatured straw man is the most disingenuous answer, and the most dishonest one too. That it’s become the main criticism of his book tells us about how wrong (and by “wrong” I mean right) he was, as the biggest “flaw” is no flaw at all. At least if fundamentalist criticize him for being the devil or something they’re being honest in their twisted reality. Look up PZ’s great parable about “the Courtier’s Reply” on this site.
Yes, but John Lennon’s not the only one.
I think he means “our animal natures’ mastery over us”, not “our mastery over our animal natures”.
We progress technologically and scientifically, but not morally. […]
Ugh. This one always drives me to distraction. Seems to me that a significant reason we fail to keep pace morally with the advance of technology is that we continue to drag this sea anchor called religion around with us. Sorry, but I don’t think the Bible or even the relatively modern Koran has anything of use to say about stem cell research or genetic engineering. I suppose if one tries hard enough, one can beat the square peg of modern technology into the round hole of some Iron Age parable. I don’t think I consider that “progress”, tho.
Joss Whedon, atheist, responding to the notion of “Utopia”:
“Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I’m asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they’ll swing back to the belief that they can make people better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave.”
Attempts at perfection through science and technology, for him, seem not only unattainable, but deeply distasteful. Maybe he’s not “New,” though. If Hedges want tocherry-pick his opponents, he should tar with a much smaller brush.
Quoted for emphasis. This is spot on. Science advanced once we shed the notion that (a) nature wasn’t worth knowing and (b) that nature was a direct product of the actions of the gods (thank you, Thales). Today, even the most staunch YEC is likely to concede that DNA is the genetic material and that the sun produces light and heat by nuclear fusion.
No such luck when it comes to morality. We’ll never begin to solve the fundamental basis of why we are moral (and why we are not) until we accept that morality isn’t the product of divine intervention, but merely a consequence of specific neural pathways, which have been molded by evolution. The same YEC who accepts DNA and nuclear fusion is unlikely to concede the same naturalistic explanation for morals. Unfortunately for us, it’s not just the YEC who think this. It’s the average run-of-the-mill theist too; even those who accept the fundamental tenets of science.
The “anchor” of religion is an apt metaphor, I think.
That quote bothers me too, but for a more obvious reason (maybe someone has already mentioned it, if so, sorry), being that it’s complete bullshit. It’s just plainly a lie. Just in the past few decades black people, women and just about any minority were much more oppressed. Just in the past few years homosexuals were much worse off. And the past centuries have been just plain horrifying, no doubt about it. And, the reason of that is clearly dogmatic mob behavior, which religions are too comfortable with. In fact, it is their MO. We don’t have that anymore where dogmatic regimes don’t have much power (or are spread among competing dogmatic groups). That does say something about the corrupting power of religion, and it does mean we have progressed morally tremendously. It doesn’t mean we can’t go back either, but if it happens, science would all but stop in its tracks.
@ #247:
I know Hitchens has never overtly called for the use of nuclear weapons as the solution in the promulgation of war against, in this case, Islamic extremism. My impression is he would find that an awfully messy way of conducting a war that would give really bad and undue license to other countries to drop a couple where they see fit. I also do not disregard the threat posed by crazy Islamic wingnuts getting their hands on a nuke. But if that were truly our concern, we would have invaded Pakistan by now, because they actually have nukes.
The very least we can hope for is that while plans to make such weapons are readily available, the means by which to make them is not nearly so. We’re not talkig gunpowder and chemicals in tubes. Further, the world’s powers are working toward low-enriched uranium as a nuclear fusion power source. My understanding is that high-enriched uranium is required for nukes, whereas low-enriched uranium is basically useless for such purposes. If we could get the world’s nuclear power facilities on low-enriched material, the nuke issue would begin to fade becuase the material necessary would no longer be viable.
I in fact do not begrudge Hitchens’ distaste for the elements he hates. I do not begrudge him that extremists need to be dealt with, many times harshly to stop them from hurting others or infecting society detrimentally. I agree with him that religion is the source for many glaring problems. What I do begrudge though is his support of a reckless policy that has had the opposite effect on terrorism as a whole, one that we cannot afford indefinitely or even in the now-past short term, and one that is the antithesis of the idea of fighting an unconventional war (if terrorists fight unconventionally, why use a conventional military to oppose them?).
Hitchens and Hedges have had a fued going for a while now. I believe that Hedges wrote the book simply to criticize Hitchens. Hitchens was on InDepth on C-SPAN and he had some not kind words to say about Hedges. If I remember correctly it was “he can’t think and he can’t write either”.
#259 “For example, a child asking “Why does the sun shine?” might get an answer related to God (and thereby to ultimate questions) from a religious parent, but mine will get a snoozy bedtime story about gravitational pressure and fusion.”
Paco what do you say if Jonnie isn’t sleepy and goes on to ask where gravity came from and fusion? Reasonable people who have looked into the evolution theory have found it wanting. Since 1976 a resurgence of creationism has taken place however, much inspired by Dr. Henry Morris’ book, “The Genesis Record”. Dr. Morris, founder and President Emeritus of the Institute for Creation Research, a leading research association in America, has a team of 74 eminent scientists. Among them, “57 have earned doctorates in their fields from accredited universities”. Hundreds more scientists around the world are allied with ICR and are listed on their website, having similar qualifications. These notable all mutually embrace the tenets of absolute biblical inerrant authority, and promote the position our earth is young and thoughtfully created. The following information is taken from an ICR Impact publication (April 2002 article #346) normally devoted to scientific creation evidence. This article reveals the competence and influence of some of the scientists. To show the reader the esteemed prominence of the creation worldview, a few of these Genesis believing scientists are listed here. Kenneth B. Cumming (Dean and Professor of Biology) has a Ph.D. from Harvard where he studied under Ernst Mayr, “often considered the dean of living evolutionists”. Dr. Carl B. Fliermans (Microbiology) is a microbial ecologist with Dupont with over 60 technical publications. He is well known as the scientist who first identified the “Legionnaire’s Disease” bacterium. Dr. Kelly Hollowell (Molecular Biology) has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology from the University of Miami. She is also an attorney (J.D.). Dr. Hollowell’s work includes a number of publications in the fields of DNA technology, cloning, and neurobiology. Dr. Raymond V. Damadian, M.D. is an inventor, most notably of the M.R.I. machine. Dr. Kurt Wise (Paleontology) has the M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, having studied under the dedicated evolutionist, Stephen J. Gould. “Dr. Wise is currently in charge of the science division at Bryan College.” Dr. Duane T. Gish (Senior Vice President and Professor of Biochemistry) has earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. Beyond his career as a research chemist, and 24 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, Dr. Gish “is also known worldwide for winning over 300 scientific debates with evolutionists”. As you can see, many fully credentialed scientists deeply intimate with the varied aspects of evolution, have wholly rejected the ideas. There are many more scientists today numbering in the thousands, who have also turned away from the monkey-man conjecture, and who now likewise embrace the literal Genesis 6000 year-old record of human origin.
Nope.
I get the feeling that Hedges writes with his heart more than his brain. That is, very emotionally driven and engrossed but not very clinical. For “War is a Force…” this seemed OK since it’s a violent, visceral subject. For “American Fascists” it was less compelling. Even as someone pre-disposed to agree with his ideas I found myself thinking, “This really is pretty shallow and polemical”. If I wanted to give someone a book suggestion to understand fundamentalism in the US it wouldn’t be that one.
I’m guessing he read the more combative parts of Hitchens and Harris and all and just got mad and wrote a book about it. Moral indignation can be a great inspiration apparently.
Now for a musical setting of Michael Woelfel’s contributions to Pharyngula:
Spam, Spa m, Spam Spam….
“These notable all mutually embrace the tenets of absolute biblical inerrant authority”
You and Heddle ought to have a discussion on biblical inerrancy. As long as I’m far enough out of the snooze zone, that is.
Michael Woefel #270 wrote:
Leaving aside your implication that gravity and fusion are somehow supposed to be explained by “evolution,” I think there is a more serious problem using God to “explain” questions like “why does the sun shine?” or “where did gravity and fusion come from?” Even if God existed, simply invoking God to explain something does not explain it.
What are the answers provided by a theistic perspective?
Where did gravity come from?
Gravity came from a gravity-creating source.
Where did fusion come from?
Fusion came from a fusion-creating force.
Is this informative? Are we really any wiser? Let’s ask the “big question” and see what your explanation looks like:
Where did the universe come from?
The universe came from a universe-creating source.
How this this source create the universe?
It used its universe-creating power.
What is ‘universe-creating power?’
It is what is used to create universes.
How does ‘universe-creating-power’ work?
It works by creating universes.
Where did the ‘universe-creating power’ come from?
It came from a universe-creating-power-source.
And so on.
Do you see the problem? Nothing is being explained. There are no mechanisms, nothing is taken apart, nothing complex is explained in terms of something simpler. Questions are just being moved around and given as answers.
These are not “explanations” — they are evasions. Religion does not and can not provide answers to these kinds of questions in the first place.
At this very moment, my behavior is being powered by a chuckling-at-Sastra-power-source.
Seems to me that Hedges is attacking the IDiot’s strawman version of “evolution” as “progress/advancement” of the species.
Someone needs to whack this guy upside the head with a clue by four. Natural selection favors those individuals of a species who reproduce successfully, not those who “advance”, morally or otherwise.
Holy shit. Ichthyic, you normally bring useful ideas into these threads. What happened today?
Are you seriously denying that COINTELPRO existed?
Not to mention that it’s a top-to-bottom set of misrepresentations. I hadn’t refused to examine anything, for the most part because not a damn thing was cited. Secondly, the phrase enclosed in quotes was never spoken by me. Thirdly is the implication you point out.
The whole interaction was illuminating on a number of levels, although sadly not in any way which does credit to the liberal project.
“You see, sometimes when two nuclei like each other very, very much…”
Ok, I like windy’s answer the best…
BlueIndependent #240 says, “More proof that it’s impossible to agree with anyone 100%.”
Never mind the scattershot. What counts is that it’s entirely possible to disagree with somebody 100%.
Hedges is the sort of bozo who thinks they are clever and have things of original importance to say, things they think other bozos never thought of.
One might wonder, exactly, what this particular bozo characterizes himself as (if not “theist” AND not “atheist”, by his own “definitions”), but it’s such an inconsequential matter that my curiosity fails me. I’d rather watch an icicle melt today. More fascinating by far.
Sastra #275: Beautifully, straightforwardly, put. Exactly right.
Alas, no, Michael Woefel is utterly incapable of “seeing the problem” here. He’s just another one of dem bozos.
Another tactic I and others have noticed about Hedges is that he tries to pass off his geographical proximity to events as granting him authority. “I was there in Gaza…”, “I was there in the streets of…”
Not Catholic, but Presbyterian– Hedges’ father was/is a Presbyterian minister; and Hedges does not have a scientific education; that’s two strikes right there. I think that he has three children to put through college, so he has to sell books. There is really no need to try to explain his behavior as if it were rational; it’s just caused by original sin.
You’re selling Hedges short. To know where he is coming from may I suggest reading “War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning”.
Do not judge a book by its title, of course. Often, as in this case, it can mislead one relying on preconceived notions.
I dont know two atheists who agree on anything apart from the fact that they have no belief in God :-)
The only merit in what he says is as a warning to the Atheist community not to allow itself to become a “movement” in the sense of requiring “adherents” to have some core set of beliefs ( as oppposed to a core lack of belief in God). Our diversity is our strength. I have seen comments and posts by Atheists saying to others “oh you cant say that if your an Atheist”. Rare – but I have come across it.
We all like to think as Atheists that what we try to do is simply to confront “reality” as it is. We must remember though that there is no uniform agreement about this “reality”.
As for Atheists being either Utopian or negative – I suspect I am both at different times – it depends how I feel when I get up in the morning.
I’ve seen similar “New Atheist” smears before, but this one is painfully dumb, and Hedges really should know better. I really hate false equivalencies, but Hedges’ argument is so blatantly counterfactual it makes me question whether he did any research before he started his rant.
I’m about half-way through I Don’t Beleive in Atheists and will probably write a review of sorts when I get done.
I generally agree with what Meyers has written except the part where he says Hedges accuses all atheists of being fundamentalists like Robertson. That’s not quite true: in the book Hedges states that if you’re an atheist and don’t support the War on Terror or torture or totalitarian capitalism and what not then you’re not a fundamentalist.
However, he uses “they” over and over again when should actually just be writing “he” because the vast majority of his criticism really only applies to Sam Harris.
The book makes some valid points, has some legitimate criticism, and is mixed with cartoonishly bizarre claims about prominent atheists.
Hedges asserts that E.O. Wilson justified the subjugation of women and social inequality in On Human Nature. Dawkins and Dennett are advocates of indoctrination and mind-control. Atheist fundamentalists are utopians. He says it over and over again, in fact. Etc.
Hedges at one point says that it is possible for individuals and societies to progress morally, but one of the central premises of the book is that humans can’t progress morally. Where Hedges says that we’ll always strugle with/against the worst aspects of human nature he’s reasonable, but where he says that the belief in moral progress leads to Nazism and Communism and totalitarian visions of utopia and what not he’s absurd.
Hedges says that Nazism and Communism are both “satellite ideologies” of the Enlightenment, born out of the belief that humanity can progress morally.
Hedges is what the Non-Prophets (radio/podcast) call fractal wrongness. It is wrong in the big picture and when you examine every single part of it, it is equally if not more wrong.
The Mandelbrot set of wrongness.
Chris Hedges was humiliated by Hitchens in a public
debate on Iraq and I mean he absolutely went down in
quiet abject flames. I am not an atheist, not a Hitchens
fan, I did admirer Hedges for his book “American Fascists”
& agree with his position on the war. Hedges is trying
to recover from the humimiation but I’m afraid that will
never happen. Now I think both Hitchens and Hedges should step aside. I’ll have to actually read a Sam Harris book to see
where he is coming from regards Iraq and why.
Chris Hedges was humiliated by Hitchens in a public
debate on Iraq and I mean he absolutely went down in
quiet abject flames. I am not an atheist, not a Hitchens
fan, I did admirer Hedges for his book “American Fascists”
& agree with his position on the war. Hedges is trying
to recover from the humiliation but I’m afraid that will
never happen. Now I think both Hitchens and Hedges should step aside.
I’ll have to actually read a Sam Harris book to see
where he is coming from regards Iraq and why.
#288: “I’ve seen similar ‘New Atheist’ smears before, but this one is painfully dumb, and Hedges really should know better.”
There’s an attempt to smear ‘New Atheists’ currently going on at another ScienceBlog: Mixing Memory. I would have thought that a fellow science-blogger would know better, but it seems not.
Chris Hedges is upset because Sam Harris totally owned his punk ass in the truthdig debate. He was arguing against many positions Sam Harris didn’t hold.
Chris Hedges:
Controversial as some of their views are, this statement shows that Chris Hedges is either crazy, has no idea what he’s talking about, or both.
Chris Hedges:
To make him look super ridiculous it turns out he’s an atheist himself.
MH:
And amazingly, if you read his responses to the comments, he attacks the scientific method. He is also a classic example of one who doesn’t recognize religion as a phenominon and uses this to smear ‘New Atheists’ as having a with us or against us mindset, he just sees it as many different ways to view the world and science as one of them. He also thinks that while flat earth can be debunked objectively, monotheism can’t. So all in all, a bit mixed up. but then, science blogs isn’t meant to be a bastion of atheism, it just feels that way most of the time ;).
To all who have posted comments:
I’ve read all of Chris Hedges’ books, and I can tell you that he has a fascinating and intricate way of looking at the world. I find it quite brilliant. Many of you attack him out of passionate rhetoric, and should remember that lucid thoughts come through when you are disinterested in a subject.
To put it simply, he argues in both American Fascists and I Don’t believe in Atheists that any groups of people that believe in absolutes, “us and them”, don’t acknowledge life’s inconsistencies. Life does not pose a solution. The “new atheists” and the Christian right are similar in that they believe that evil is external and can be quelled. The Christian right proposes that we follow God’s word (although they pervert it) and the atheists believe in progress through science and reason. The main difference is what they call their supernatural being. One calls it God and the other reason/logic. But they forget that humans do not progress morally with time. Humans may evolve with new technologies but they do not advance ethically. In this sense they believe in utopias. They believe that we can create a society that has exiled evil. Mr. Hedges correctly points out that “evil is in the human heart”.
Yeah, no progression ethically. We still have slavery, people who disobey their parents are stoned to death, and a woman’s place is in the kitchen… no advancement at all.
“The “new atheists” … believe that evil is external and can be quelled.”
I’m smelling straw.
“The Christian right proposes that we follow God’s word (although they pervert it)”
Says you.
“and the atheists believe in progress through science and reason.”
It’s worked better than faith has.
“In this sense they believe in utopias.”
Ah, there’s the straw man I was smelling. Did you, by any chance, actually read PZ’s post?
“Mr. Hedges correctly points out that “evil is in the human heart”. ”
So is Groove. So what?
The wisdom of original sin? So blaming our behaviour on eating from a tree on the advice of a snake is wisdom? Surely wisdom would like in studying animal behaviour, studying our genes, and studying our behavioural patterns when exposed to certain stimulous. But no, we ignore the idea that we were once perfect but fell from grace because a snake told the truth where God lied and we are the ones who are being ignorant…
Chris Hedges is an idiot.
Hedges is simply another example of an ideologue trying to deal with the real world through the lens of his ideology.
It doesn’t work because reality is far more complicated than the ideological mind can possibly appreciate.
Black and white. That’s all that ideologues of whatever stripe can discern of the gray world that we really inhabit.
They are suffering from severe mental color- blindness, not to mention a debilitating astigmatism compounded by myopia. They have difficulty discerning anything that doesn’t exist behind their noses.
They are nearly blind, yet demand that we see them as visionaries.
If they weren’t so dangerous, they’d actually be funny.