Let me start by saying
I really admire Lindy West. She is an excellent writer and has put
out some great articles on feminism over at jezebel.com (I featured
one in a previous blog post). Well it turns out she is also an
atheist! *my heart swells*. She wrote an article here on “how to be
an atheist without being a dick about it”.
It's an interesting
read, I thought, with some good points. I certainly don't agree with everything she says,
and I thought she got a bit carried away at the end, but overall I
thought it was a valid opinion and I wouldn't have complained or
commented on it especially myself.
Matt Dillahunty thought
otherwise. I also admire Matt for his clear logical thinking and
ability to get the better of many a theist, as host of The Atheist
Experience TV show, where he regularly takes calls from deluded
believers and atheists alike. He shows some good patience and dogged
determination to argue through the same points over and over, until
often the theist callers leave much the wiser than before they rang
in. Matt's blog is also based on the Freethought Blogs webspace where
feminism is taken seriously and women (as well as feminist-friendly
men) get a chance to air their views in a reasonable environment, and
support and backup if and when they are harassed.
So I initially thought
it slightly strange when Matt took a bit of an exception to Lindy's
article and wrote a response that can at least be described as
“robust”. Maybe he thought she was referring to him as the hyped
“dickish atheist”? Anyway, it contains many good points as well.
Let's have a look at
some of the arguments!
General comments on
problems with Matt's article:
Although I accept that
there were elements of condescension and mild hypocrisy
in Lindy's article, it's very harsh to keep calling her a dick for
it. Matt uses the word dick way more than necessary and it gets a bit
grating to be honest. Matt's article is also a little condescending
itself.
When Lindy says she
wants to call out religious institutions for the harm they cause,
Matt takes it too far: “Be
careful, you’re sounding just about as dickish as movement
atheists, here.” Not really.
And
when Lindy writes that really nice line about expressing disagreement
with theists proportional to the absurdity of their beliefs, Matt
bashes this as the word of someone who's never debated theists. Maybe
true, but it's a nice ideal, and seeing as we atheists need to
portray ourselves as fairer, one that should not necessarily be
abandoned. When Lindy talks about punching up rather than down, I'm
not sure she means superior/inferior, which Matt infers. Calling her
a dick here is harsh because we're not all in an equal situation, and
just because Lindy could rise above theism it doesn't mean it is just
as easy for anyone else. I understood the up/down analogy as low/high
privilege, not superiority. This seems to be a lack of empathy from
Matt.
One
major problem he has, is not knowing what Lindy means when she gives
specific examples of atheists being misogynists. It is a bit more
than “internet comments” as he says, rather sustained multimedia
campaigns from a number of individuals and their assorted followers
which could well be called a movement: Thunderf00t, The Amazing
Atheist, Justin Vacula (and his absurdly-named slymepit goons),
Richard Reed and others. Checking the twitter and youtube activity of
these people bears this out – there are many posts criticising
women, feminism, Freethought Blogs, CFI people, PZ Myers, the FtBCon
online conference etc. This is more than healthy challenge of ideas,
it is bordering on obsession. I
wish they would just stop.
To claim you have never seen this and don't know what's going on,
whilst your other FtB colleagues like Ophelia Benson are being
harassed, is pretty strange. And whilst I agree that these atheists
did not get their behaviour from atheism, they are still acting as
agents on our behalf, and as such, are sending out the wrong message.
Overall Matt's article was a strong critique, with many good points,
but not without a few problems itself.
General comments on
problems with Lindy's article:
Lindy needs more
citations and examples of atheists generally being dickish. There are
generalisations in there “so many people insist on being such
condescending dicks in the name of atheism”. Well, I can't
think of too many. Certainly way less than religious examples!
And to quote a Glen
Greenwald groupie in that link trying to lay racism at the feet of
the new atheists, was an own-goal for her. And the statement about
atheist evangelism was smug, and wrong. I disagree with the line
about some people needing religion and we shouldn't take it away.
The ending is
problematic – whilst I totally agree it would be awful to beat down
on that poor woman, Lindy doesn't show any evidence that atheists
have actually done anything like this. The issue of whether we could
dissuade the religious “solution” is a different problem, and I
think she's wrong on that, too. Overall, it's clear that although
Lindy has the best intentions, she is coming at this from the
perspective of someone who's never had to fight against religious
dogma in her own life. Ideally of course, all atheists would share
her situation- if parents stopped inculcating their kids into
Christianity, for instance. To try and put this out “writ-large”
as it were, shows a surprising lack of empathy for a feminist. I hope
I didn't mansplain too much there (*cowers*)! The rest of the article
is OK. At least I didn't call her a dick.
Final scores are in:
Matt 7 Lindy 7
IT'S A SCORE DRAW!
I can't wait for the
rematch, lol.
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