Post-Christian Britain
Yay for the ex-Archbish! Rowan Williams talks some sense about the Church of the Tories!
Yes, former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams is telling it like it is. His comments seem to be significantly more sensible than Cameron's or Grieve's. And he would be in a much better position than them to comment on such matters.
Of course Britain appears to be a post-Christian nation. That's not to say we don't have a small but vocal religious right. A dangerous group, who would have us regress back to a time of yesteryear when God was more important, and women's rights less so. Because God exists, but women, apparently, don't. Riiiight.
"What we need to do is start using the Bible more, you know that book which tells you not to make "graven images" but seems to think rape is OK. The book where you can't wear mixed fabrics, but having slaves is just fine, as long as when you beat them they don't die straight away."
We don't have an exact equivalent of the dreaded Tea Party in the US. Although quite a few politicians with, you guessed it, UKIP connections seem to be trying to correct that recently.
So, the religious right may be somewhat more diffuse in the UK, but that doesn’t make their core message any less dumb.
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Eating on Tubes
Tilly Jean has an excellent blog if you're interested in intersectional feminism. Which you should be. Thought I'd plug it.
Here's a comment I put on a post regarding the debacle that is the "Women Who Eat on Trains" (WWEOT) Facebook page, and and my response to those man-warriors who like to complain about people complaining about it. Because of course, and I'm letting you in on a secret here, a REAL man has to flex his intellectual muscles picking on girls.
Here's my comment:
"There's something very worrying going on here. Here's my take.
Welcome to WWEOT, or as I call it "unsolicited anonymous sexist voyeur stalker food-porn" masking itself as "an observational celebration of women eating on tube trains". Yeah right.
From the comments posted it quickly becomes clear that the users are willing to go the minimum possible effort to present a veneer of respectability to their unwanted attentions. They use pretentious pseudo-poetry ("the glorious beams of sunlight cascading through the windows and casting a multitude of coloured reflections off her crisp packet!" they swoon) that makes even my writing look half decent. It's all fake. But you can't polish a turd. There are clear signs of misogyny here lurking under the surface. The users sure all look like "real men", whatever the hell that means.
There are a few women users there to be fair, but what I took away from it was that these people seem utterly unaware of their own slavish adherence to cultural and gender norms. So I guess they think why the hell should these poor women get a break either?
The answer to "why they get to take and post unsolicited pictures" is basically "well other people do! We're not the only ones!" As if that matters. To them, a hint of anyone else's "hypocrisy" in taking photos without a signed affidavit from the subject is the only justification they need.
To cap it all off, this page is a budding stalker's dream. I was shocked to see that the time, location and even trainline are all clearly stated, and all your average loony stalker needs to do is take note and turn up there the next day, and he's already on the line to...well you know. Apologies but this just makes me so mad! The posting of these details is utterly unacceptable.
Remind me again why we need MI5 and the NSA keeping tabs on people when the folks over at WWEOT seem to be doing a pretty good job of it, and all for free! If all they were doing was reading emails, that would be bad, but somehow I wouldn't care so much.
What a disgusting page."
--
And my response to commenter Stephen:
It's pretty clear after those comments, that some people have made exactly zero effort to understand the issue, or the way other people think. Setting up strawmen is a rewarding exercise for people who like to try and pick holes in easy targets. The problem is that I don't think there are many people who think that misogyny is the ONLY thing wrong in society, or that WWEOT is anything special compared to what we've previously seen. You'd have to be very insulated to think that.
Some people apparently come loaded with cynicism, sarcasm and sweary pre-suppositions of "hysterical feminists", and like to use all the cliched old tropes, as if they help at all. Such labels only serve to divide us.
It's churlish to compare regular advertising to the invasive exposure of WWEOT- I don't have an eating disorder myself but I'd imagine that it's the act of broadcasting the *study* of normal people - not just models or actors - eating that is the main problem. That and the thought that you could get snapped whenever you eat on the tube . Otherwise you'd be triggered every time you saw someone else eating.
Ultimately, it's irrelevant whether WWEOT is just a bunch of bad apples misbehaving, as Stephen would have us believe, or if it's indicative of a larger trend of misogyny. I don't know for sure. It's still unacceptable, and still worth calling it out for the bullshit that it is, in either case.
People like Stephen like to call themselves logical and think they have all the answers, but the truth is often a bit more complex.
I wonder what other issues are important to him? Because he never elucidated. Presumably not social justice, judging by the way he cast around all those SJW labels. Maybe all those nasty immigrants stealing our British jobs? (Because jobs have nationalities now).
"Don't worry, UKIP will sort it all out, and all those Pesky Feminists! Because they care about really unimportant things, things which only affect women like them, and that's why I like to spend the time to argue with them about those things, which I say again, no-one cares about! Onwards and upwards!"
Wednesday 30 April 2014
Wednesday 23 April 2014
Dominic Grieve, you cannot be serious
So we have the return of the atheists' nightmare...the "General Grieve-ous" of religion, the Attorney General Dominic Grieve. He is now calling atheists and humanists "deluded".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10781259/Attorney-General-Rise-of-fundamentalism-is-damaging-Christianity.html
Note the bias present in the sub-headline:
"The rise of religious fundamentalists with a 'deep intolerance' to other people's views has made Christians reluctant to express their beliefs, Dominic Grieve warns"
Religious fundamentalists are here separated from Christians, as if fundamentalism could never include Christianity. However, one look at Right Wing Watch http://www.rightwingwatch.org/ disproves this little false dichotomy of a rhetorical device. You may argue that this is not the case in the UK, that we don't have the same problem with the religious right, but that is frankly irrelevant. The US situation is a window into what we would inevitably expect to see here if we go down the path of "expounding our Christian faith" as Cameron, Grieve et al propose. OK, so later on he admits there are Christian fundies too, but really this is just an inevitable result of religious thought.
“(Religious fundamentalism...) It encourages people to say I'm not interested, [it encourages] an unwillingness to express commitment."
Um, what is religious fundamentalism if not "expressing commitment"? To say that this is what is stopping "softer" religious people speaking out is ridiculous. It's like saying thin people are scared of declaring their thinness because of the existence of fat people.
"Dominic Grieve said that atheists who claim that Britain is no longer a Christian nation are “deluding themselves” and must accept that faith has shaped this country’s laws and ethics"
Grieve obviously has some very strange and frankly irrational opinions about atheism and has here set up a clear straw man argument. Our position is not that faith has not shaped UK laws and ethics. Think how stupid a position that would be. Over the past 1000 years, Christianity was always the prevalent religion, believed by most people, so I'd like to know how it could not have influenced almost everything, seeing as it was everywhere.
Instead, our position is merely that Christianity is on the decline and becoming more irrelevant to people in their everyday lives. We now have other, better and more refined methods for determining what is right, moral or ethical than the Bible. We can be good people without needing to be Christians. Thinking otherwise seems pretty intolerant to me. Explain to me exactly what is wrong with taking the "good" bits of our "laws and ethics" from Christianity's heritage and abandoning the bad ones?
The problem of course is that many bad things like slavery, imperialism and oppression of women are also very much part of our cultural heritage. Grieve doesn't see fit to point out that teasing these things away from the pervasive grasp of Christianity is also a seemingly impossible task. Seeing as the Bible was used at one time or another to justify them.
Iain Duncan Smith, another budding religious apologist then goes on: “It is arguably our Christian heritage, with its innate tolerance and inclusivity, that has ensured the freedom of all voices – religious or non-religious – to be heard and to be valued.”
Firstly, the fact that he uses the word "arguably" gives away his own doubt in his assertion. As I discussed in my previous post, the idea that tolerance is innate to Christianity is absurd, and in fact it's exposure to secular ideas that gives Christianity most of the tolerance it may exhibit. Additionally, inclusivity is an attribute more relevant to Anglicanism rather than other Christian offshoots like Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses, and so is not applicable to Christianity as a whole.
Grieve continues: "The evidence in this country is overwhelming that most people in this country by a very substantial margin have religious belief in the supernatural or a deity."
This is just an argument ad-populum and, as such, is pretty irrelevant. Since when did a committee of non-experts determine the truth by non-scientific means? I could have just as well said, several hundred years ago:
"The evidence in this country is overwhelming that most people in this country by a very substantial margin have belief in a flat and not a round Earth."
As Matt Dillahunty likes to say, "So what?"
Grieve then claims: “To that extent atheism doesn't appear to have made much progress in this country at all, which is probably why the people that wrote this letter are so exercised about it.”
Seriously? We've made loads of progress, seeing as we don't know for sure that atheism is the correct conclusion, and that the idea is to raise doubt in fervent religious beliefs, thus liberalising populations rather than "converting" them. People have to "convert" themselves, if and when they want to. Grieve is setting up another straw man for atheist "progress" when the truth is, he really doesn't understand atheism at all.
We wrote the letter because, bold and unqualified statements like "this is a Christian country" are misleading. If all we cared about was what-once-long-ago formed the basis of our laws and ethics, then this would always be a Christian country, even if the entire population was atheist. Therefore, we've got a problem, seeing that the statement has no bearing in current evolving reality, or relevance to it.
The Very Rev Dr John Hall, the Dean of Westminster, is likewise confused. He claims humanist campaigners are guilty of a “shameful” and even “dishonest” attempt to “eradicate” recognition of faith in shaping British culture.
He's a fine one to talk, seeing as secularism is one of the main things differentiating today from back when the Founding Fathers of the US left these shores. Why on Earth would we try and re-write the history books? Such a folly is the territory of religion. Of course faith shaped British culture. It gave it good things and bad things. And it wasn't the only influence, so stop pretending it was.
---
IDS is nicely satirised here:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/atheists-are-delusional-says-conservative-partys-chief-satanist-2014042385916
---
The BHA responded to Greive's inane comments, pretty well:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/humanists-christian-country-debate-dominic-grieve-deluded?CMP=twt_gu
---
Might I point out at this juncture the problems with some of the core tenets of Christianity, like the afterlife?
Just see here and here and here for an outline of the issues with it, from some prominent faces. Scratching the surface, the issues seem to include that there's no good reason to think that consciousness would continue after death; and that supposed NDEs are very parochial to the subject's culture and virtually impossible to "timestamp" against the state of the body at the time of the NDE. Proponents of the soul have long tried to research the afterlife, and yet, no credible studies have so far supported it. And make no mistake - if there's no afterlife, there's no intellectually honest reason to be a Christian, or in fact religious, at all.
So it's us atheists who are intolerant. OK. Discriminated against for thousands of years, under threat of death in many places even today, and it's OK to tell us that we must believe in God, and if not we must leave the country. All religions do this to some extent. Sure, Christians are persecuted too, and note who by: other religions.
But it's us who are showing the really damaging kind of intolerance, you know, the kind where we don't cause physical harm but point out facts to people who appear to be blissfully unaware of their own ignorance. Because having your own faith exposed for being not-so-rational-after-all is something which can never be entertained.
Since when did the right of religious people to feel 100% comfortable with their own seemingly ridiculous beliefs, trump anyone else's right to point out facts? And yet Grieve insists it's us who are deluded.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10781259/Attorney-General-Rise-of-fundamentalism-is-damaging-Christianity.html
Note the bias present in the sub-headline:
"The rise of religious fundamentalists with a 'deep intolerance' to other people's views has made Christians reluctant to express their beliefs, Dominic Grieve warns"
Religious fundamentalists are here separated from Christians, as if fundamentalism could never include Christianity. However, one look at Right Wing Watch http://www.rightwingwatch.org/ disproves this little false dichotomy of a rhetorical device. You may argue that this is not the case in the UK, that we don't have the same problem with the religious right, but that is frankly irrelevant. The US situation is a window into what we would inevitably expect to see here if we go down the path of "expounding our Christian faith" as Cameron, Grieve et al propose. OK, so later on he admits there are Christian fundies too, but really this is just an inevitable result of religious thought.
“(Religious fundamentalism...) It encourages people to say I'm not interested, [it encourages] an unwillingness to express commitment."
Um, what is religious fundamentalism if not "expressing commitment"? To say that this is what is stopping "softer" religious people speaking out is ridiculous. It's like saying thin people are scared of declaring their thinness because of the existence of fat people.
"Dominic Grieve said that atheists who claim that Britain is no longer a Christian nation are “deluding themselves” and must accept that faith has shaped this country’s laws and ethics"
Grieve obviously has some very strange and frankly irrational opinions about atheism and has here set up a clear straw man argument. Our position is not that faith has not shaped UK laws and ethics. Think how stupid a position that would be. Over the past 1000 years, Christianity was always the prevalent religion, believed by most people, so I'd like to know how it could not have influenced almost everything, seeing as it was everywhere.
Instead, our position is merely that Christianity is on the decline and becoming more irrelevant to people in their everyday lives. We now have other, better and more refined methods for determining what is right, moral or ethical than the Bible. We can be good people without needing to be Christians. Thinking otherwise seems pretty intolerant to me. Explain to me exactly what is wrong with taking the "good" bits of our "laws and ethics" from Christianity's heritage and abandoning the bad ones?
The problem of course is that many bad things like slavery, imperialism and oppression of women are also very much part of our cultural heritage. Grieve doesn't see fit to point out that teasing these things away from the pervasive grasp of Christianity is also a seemingly impossible task. Seeing as the Bible was used at one time or another to justify them.
Iain Duncan Smith, another budding religious apologist then goes on: “It is arguably our Christian heritage, with its innate tolerance and inclusivity, that has ensured the freedom of all voices – religious or non-religious – to be heard and to be valued.”
Firstly, the fact that he uses the word "arguably" gives away his own doubt in his assertion. As I discussed in my previous post, the idea that tolerance is innate to Christianity is absurd, and in fact it's exposure to secular ideas that gives Christianity most of the tolerance it may exhibit. Additionally, inclusivity is an attribute more relevant to Anglicanism rather than other Christian offshoots like Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses, and so is not applicable to Christianity as a whole.
Grieve continues: "The evidence in this country is overwhelming that most people in this country by a very substantial margin have religious belief in the supernatural or a deity."
This is just an argument ad-populum and, as such, is pretty irrelevant. Since when did a committee of non-experts determine the truth by non-scientific means? I could have just as well said, several hundred years ago:
"The evidence in this country is overwhelming that most people in this country by a very substantial margin have belief in a flat and not a round Earth."
As Matt Dillahunty likes to say, "So what?"
Grieve then claims: “To that extent atheism doesn't appear to have made much progress in this country at all, which is probably why the people that wrote this letter are so exercised about it.”
Seriously? We've made loads of progress, seeing as we don't know for sure that atheism is the correct conclusion, and that the idea is to raise doubt in fervent religious beliefs, thus liberalising populations rather than "converting" them. People have to "convert" themselves, if and when they want to. Grieve is setting up another straw man for atheist "progress" when the truth is, he really doesn't understand atheism at all.
We wrote the letter because, bold and unqualified statements like "this is a Christian country" are misleading. If all we cared about was what-once-long-ago formed the basis of our laws and ethics, then this would always be a Christian country, even if the entire population was atheist. Therefore, we've got a problem, seeing that the statement has no bearing in current evolving reality, or relevance to it.
The Very Rev Dr John Hall, the Dean of Westminster, is likewise confused. He claims humanist campaigners are guilty of a “shameful” and even “dishonest” attempt to “eradicate” recognition of faith in shaping British culture.
He's a fine one to talk, seeing as secularism is one of the main things differentiating today from back when the Founding Fathers of the US left these shores. Why on Earth would we try and re-write the history books? Such a folly is the territory of religion. Of course faith shaped British culture. It gave it good things and bad things. And it wasn't the only influence, so stop pretending it was.
---
IDS is nicely satirised here:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/atheists-are-delusional-says-conservative-partys-chief-satanist-2014042385916
---
The BHA responded to Greive's inane comments, pretty well:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/humanists-christian-country-debate-dominic-grieve-deluded?CMP=twt_gu
---
Might I point out at this juncture the problems with some of the core tenets of Christianity, like the afterlife?
Just see here and here and here for an outline of the issues with it, from some prominent faces. Scratching the surface, the issues seem to include that there's no good reason to think that consciousness would continue after death; and that supposed NDEs are very parochial to the subject's culture and virtually impossible to "timestamp" against the state of the body at the time of the NDE. Proponents of the soul have long tried to research the afterlife, and yet, no credible studies have so far supported it. And make no mistake - if there's no afterlife, there's no intellectually honest reason to be a Christian, or in fact religious, at all.
So it's us atheists who are intolerant. OK. Discriminated against for thousands of years, under threat of death in many places even today, and it's OK to tell us that we must believe in God, and if not we must leave the country. All religions do this to some extent. Sure, Christians are persecuted too, and note who by: other religions.
But it's us who are showing the really damaging kind of intolerance, you know, the kind where we don't cause physical harm but point out facts to people who appear to be blissfully unaware of their own ignorance. Because having your own faith exposed for being not-so-rational-after-all is something which can never be entertained.
Since when did the right of religious people to feel 100% comfortable with their own seemingly ridiculous beliefs, trump anyone else's right to point out facts? And yet Grieve insists it's us who are deluded.
Wednesday 16 April 2014
My lack of faith in Cameron and the Church of the Tories
I must admit to being a little dumbfounded by the PM's latest obsequious brown-nosing to the Church of England. He's penned an appalling, one-sided refutation of secular values in a stunning regression to religious apology. Such a thing issued by a British PM is almost unheard of. Luckily, his article is about as logical as a solar-powered torch, and about as coherent as a boiling chocolate kettle. Of course, the Anglicans are lapping it up.
This is part of a wider narrative of religion-friendly ministers openly discriminating against atheism and secularism. We have Michael Gove and his faith schools getting preferences and privileges; the mere existence of Baroness Warsi as a "Faith Minister" of all things; and Eric Pickles proclaiming (despite data throwing doubt on this, as the BHA would affirm) that "this is a Christian nation" where it's OK to mandate prayer before council meetings.
Cameron seems to value the integration of Church and State. Bishops in the House of Lords, Faith Schools, mandated prayers, it's all good to him. Shame this doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Interestingly, our pet integration of Church and State was once so "tolerant" that about 240 years ago, a whole group of great and radical thinkers broke away from it and its oppressive little regime to forge a country you may have heard of, it's called the USA.
According to Cameron's logic of course, in the meantime, all the progress that was made which means we no longer have this sort of thing happening, comes from the internal reform of the Church itself and not from the firm and fair external hand of the enlightenment values of secularism.
No. It has only been constant exposure to secular ideas, that will not accept metaphysical answers, that the Church has been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world. Any chance it gets, it tries to re-establish its dominant position and start oppressing people. This brute fact is so blindingly obvious to anyone not lulled into religious frivolity like Cameron. Just about the only benefit of having a state religion is that you have a monopoly on the native belief system and don't have a marketplace of Churches springing up, with 1000's of denominations abounding like in the US. With more denominations comes more out-groups and more exclusion and sectarianism.
As I've said before, this happens because religious thought is not based in evidence, so anything goes as far as interpretation is concerned. If a group takes a passage to mean this, and another takes it to mean that, how do we tell who's right? We can't, because, there's no way to prove it in objective reality. One metaphysical opinion is as good as any other. There are as many interpretations as there are Christians, or Theologians. So I'm afraid, Mr. Cameron, that education and secularism are absolutely vital to keep the base desires of religious thought at bay.
People like Archbishops and Mullahs may make nice with each other, but the reality of their group's intentions is less benevolent. Many of their believing followers want to convert the other side to their own belief, because they have it right and the other side are wrong of course. The thing is, many of these people are so indoctrinated into their faiths that they'll never convert. When you can't see reason, it's all too easy to start exacting vengeance on people who won't see your particular God as the one-and-only. Crusades, Jihads anyone?
Cameron himself admits to not being a fervently religious man, thus not following the Church's doctrines according to their own wishes. If he was not Prime Minister, a few hundred years ago there would have been severe consequences for that. But thanks to secularism and enlightenment values, we're OK to distance ourselves from the state religion. Cameron admits that people of no faith can still have a moral code, and yet puzzlingly still makes the claim that religion can help with people's moral codes. This makes the clear corollary that atheists are less moral than believers, a claim frankly not borne out by these little things called FACTS.
Cameron's arrogance and hypocrisy are breathtaking. It almost sounds as if he's pulling a Mother Teresa stunt. Just celebrate in and actively sustain others' suffering, so you can ride in on your white horse and look like the hero. How does Cameron know that it's the Anglican Church that have it right, and not Muslims for example? Oh I know, he doesn't, but it's OK to be a Muslim, but not an atheist, because whatever you do, you MUST believe.
All we need to motivate ourselves into helping with the plight of disadvantaged people is a little compassion and awareness for others' suffering. These things simply do not require belief in a deity. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that we need to stop poverty, exploitation and harm of vulnerable groups. Atheist, humanist, skeptic and freethought communities do a lot for others given their comparatively tiny numbers. When you don't waste time praying, you can spend more time acting. Britain has seen a sharp rise in poverty since Mr.Cameron took power, so he's a fine one to talk about seeing the need to improve things.
Various factors can cause these problems to be worse. Things like seeing others as less than yourself because they're from another country. Or seeing women as less, because they earn less, because you make them earn less, so they can stay less. Things like wanting to isolate yourself from the rest of the world because it's in your own "interest" (and not regressive at all). Things like treating people who don't have a job as thieves and spongers.
You know, the little things like having a Tory-led government for four years. Who's in charge of that again?
This is part of a wider narrative of religion-friendly ministers openly discriminating against atheism and secularism. We have Michael Gove and his faith schools getting preferences and privileges; the mere existence of Baroness Warsi as a "Faith Minister" of all things; and Eric Pickles proclaiming (despite data throwing doubt on this, as the BHA would affirm) that "this is a Christian nation" where it's OK to mandate prayer before council meetings.
Cameron seems to value the integration of Church and State. Bishops in the House of Lords, Faith Schools, mandated prayers, it's all good to him. Shame this doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Interestingly, our pet integration of Church and State was once so "tolerant" that about 240 years ago, a whole group of great and radical thinkers broke away from it and its oppressive little regime to forge a country you may have heard of, it's called the USA.
According to Cameron's logic of course, in the meantime, all the progress that was made which means we no longer have this sort of thing happening, comes from the internal reform of the Church itself and not from the firm and fair external hand of the enlightenment values of secularism.
No. It has only been constant exposure to secular ideas, that will not accept metaphysical answers, that the Church has been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world. Any chance it gets, it tries to re-establish its dominant position and start oppressing people. This brute fact is so blindingly obvious to anyone not lulled into religious frivolity like Cameron. Just about the only benefit of having a state religion is that you have a monopoly on the native belief system and don't have a marketplace of Churches springing up, with 1000's of denominations abounding like in the US. With more denominations comes more out-groups and more exclusion and sectarianism.
As I've said before, this happens because religious thought is not based in evidence, so anything goes as far as interpretation is concerned. If a group takes a passage to mean this, and another takes it to mean that, how do we tell who's right? We can't, because, there's no way to prove it in objective reality. One metaphysical opinion is as good as any other. There are as many interpretations as there are Christians, or Theologians. So I'm afraid, Mr. Cameron, that education and secularism are absolutely vital to keep the base desires of religious thought at bay.
"This Country's Interests"
People like Archbishops and Mullahs may make nice with each other, but the reality of their group's intentions is less benevolent. Many of their believing followers want to convert the other side to their own belief, because they have it right and the other side are wrong of course. The thing is, many of these people are so indoctrinated into their faiths that they'll never convert. When you can't see reason, it's all too easy to start exacting vengeance on people who won't see your particular God as the one-and-only. Crusades, Jihads anyone?
Cameron himself admits to not being a fervently religious man, thus not following the Church's doctrines according to their own wishes. If he was not Prime Minister, a few hundred years ago there would have been severe consequences for that. But thanks to secularism and enlightenment values, we're OK to distance ourselves from the state religion. Cameron admits that people of no faith can still have a moral code, and yet puzzlingly still makes the claim that religion can help with people's moral codes. This makes the clear corollary that atheists are less moral than believers, a claim frankly not borne out by these little things called FACTS.
Cameron's arrogance and hypocrisy are breathtaking. It almost sounds as if he's pulling a Mother Teresa stunt. Just celebrate in and actively sustain others' suffering, so you can ride in on your white horse and look like the hero. How does Cameron know that it's the Anglican Church that have it right, and not Muslims for example? Oh I know, he doesn't, but it's OK to be a Muslim, but not an atheist, because whatever you do, you MUST believe.
"Calm down, dear!"
All we need to motivate ourselves into helping with the plight of disadvantaged people is a little compassion and awareness for others' suffering. These things simply do not require belief in a deity. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that we need to stop poverty, exploitation and harm of vulnerable groups. Atheist, humanist, skeptic and freethought communities do a lot for others given their comparatively tiny numbers. When you don't waste time praying, you can spend more time acting. Britain has seen a sharp rise in poverty since Mr.Cameron took power, so he's a fine one to talk about seeing the need to improve things.
Various factors can cause these problems to be worse. Things like seeing others as less than yourself because they're from another country. Or seeing women as less, because they earn less, because you make them earn less, so they can stay less. Things like wanting to isolate yourself from the rest of the world because it's in your own "interest" (and not regressive at all). Things like treating people who don't have a job as thieves and spongers.
You know, the little things like having a Tory-led government for four years. Who's in charge of that again?
Tuesday 15 April 2014
Are 7-a-day calls tantamount to a Vegan manifesto?
You've probably heard of the calls from various official health advisors to eat 5 portions a day of fruit and vegetables. As part of a balanced diet including plenty of exercise, we're led to believe this is the best way to achieve a generally healthy lifestyle, which is backed by proper data.
I've no problem with this. Now, there are calls from some quarters to take the 5-a-day axiom even further and turn it into a 7-a-day rule.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I have no doubt that it would result in an overall healthier populace if adopted and mean we lived longer and suffered fewer diet related maladies such as diabetes. I for one feel much better after just a couple of days of eating much more fruit and veg. My, well, I'm not really sure it's an issue as such, but well my point is that with this high level of "mandated legume consumption", I'm not sure it would even be possible to eat much more than just fruit and vegetables. Seven portions seems pretty filling to me. It would seem to comprise at least 2 if not 3 meals a day. It would not be possible to eat a meal without basing it around veg. Gone would be the days of sausage, bacon and the full English breakfast would breathe its last. The phrase "no more room" springs to mind.
Given this, I think adopting such a practice on any reasonable scale in the population, would lead to the fairly rapid decline in demand for meat products. And thus a concomitantly massive need for improved sources of vegetable types that were quick, easy and ready-made to consume.
It's a huge change in a lot of our habits. I don't think everyone is ready though. I was in Subway the other day buying a Veggie Delite on wheat with everything salad and mayo (as is my wont these days), and there were 2 big families next to me in the queue, all of whom had ham, egg, bacon or sausage on white bread and no salad to speak of. It was the discount breakfast time, so you can't judge much by that, but even so, it made me think. Can we really go on doing this?
Vegetarianism
After listening to a few debates between archetypal carnivores and vegetarians / anti-meat advocates, I feel that the latter very much own the moral high ground. Ethically, consuming another animal's flesh when you don't have to, seems to be somewhat indefensible to me.
The inhumane treatment of factory-farmed animals, not just in farms but in slaughterhouses, is quite shocking whenever I happen to scratch the surface of what goes on in these places. The whole idea of a building specifically made for killing, stringing up carcasses, and people actually having the job of wringing chicken's necks, it's almost unthinkable.
It makes me never want to eat meat again. I almost certainly will end up doing it, but I've been keeping my consumption very low for years now. I only have a meal with meat about 1-2 times a week, certainly not even every other day. I am now just starting to deliberately avoid meat entirely, and choose meat free alternatives and finding them quite attractive in terms of price and also very tasty.
Of course, the counterpoint to vegetarianism, that is sometimes raised is "speciesism". This was well debated in a recent episode of the fine podcast "Skeptics with a K".
Who's to say that it is animals whose suffering should be prevented any more than plants? After all, not eating meat would result in a massive increase in the amount of plant harvesting which would need to occur to compensate. However, I find it hard to view this objection as much more than a barrier to progress. It seems to be a desperate attempt to try and slow down any efforts to cut meat consumption, by shrouding the whole enterprise in a moral smog. I think it's more important to cut our reliance on farmed animal meat right now than worry at this stage what other species of plants we may be putting in their stead.
After all, we have to eat something, and it seems the best way of doing this is to minimise the suffering of conscious creatures whilst in the act. Maybe later, when meat has become a rare delicacy rather than a staple food, we can look at the plight of vegetables and plants. However, this is an interesting philosophical point, which I will return to ponder in a later post. I think the real difference is one of mindset. We should be open to potential course corrections.
Another argument against the moral superiority of vegetarianism is the "suffering vs. killing" argument, which posits that it is really suffering we should try and prevent, so if animals can be killed for meat humanely, it is preferable. Whilst I admit that being as humane as possible is an advantage, killing in any fashion is ultimately going to be less humane than not killing, in almost all conceivable circumstances. For me the priority in encouraging humane slaughter practices should be fighting back against the resurgence of Kosher and Halal foods, which are produced in a very inhumane way.
In fact I think this 7-a-day approach may be the most effective way of eliminating eating far too much meat, and reliance on intensive and cruel factory farming. Even 5-a-day can be hard to achieve without basing at least 2 meals a day around 1-2 portions of vegetables.
An interesting aside on how capitalism, yes that thing, can actually help and is in fact necessary in solving the food problems we face. From the Population Matters Facebook page:
"Demand for meat alternatives is growing, fuelled by trends as varied as increased vegetarianism, consumer demand for healthier sources of protein, and concerns over the impact of industrial-scale animal husbandry on the environment. The unsustainability of rising meat consumption in a world of 7 billion is also on many people's minds - including venture capitalists.
“Frankly, we’ve never said we’re interested in food,” said Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers, a venture capital firm that has backed Google, Facebook and Beyond Meat. “What we’re interested in is big problems needing solutions, because they represent big potential markets and strong opportunities for building great returns.” Among the problems he listed that his firm’s investment in Beyond Meat are intended to address are land and water use, stress on global supply chains and the world’s growing population."
We should not ignore the role the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in helping both solve the meat problem and the general world food provision problem. The common misconceptions of GM foods being "unnatural" or "unsafe" are far from the truth and highly damaging to sustainability. In my view we need GM technology to meet the needs of a growing worldwide population, and to meet our land use targets. It's no good covering the whole continents with crops (which would be required to feed everyone with vegetarian organic foodstuffs) as this has been shown to be detrimental to wildlife compared to a smaller area of more intense farming combined with other areas of completely untouched countryside. (I'll return to this later).
So the constant anti-GM blathering which goes on in Europe, and which is expounded by otherwise well intentioned social media campaign groups like Change.org and Avaaz, is dangerously misplaced. Monsanto may bot be perfect but they are far from our worst enemy. Please do not support these anti-scientific campaigns of Change and Avaaz. Most of the other ones appear to be on the level though!
I've no problem with this. Now, there are calls from some quarters to take the 5-a-day axiom even further and turn it into a 7-a-day rule.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I have no doubt that it would result in an overall healthier populace if adopted and mean we lived longer and suffered fewer diet related maladies such as diabetes. I for one feel much better after just a couple of days of eating much more fruit and veg. My, well, I'm not really sure it's an issue as such, but well my point is that with this high level of "mandated legume consumption", I'm not sure it would even be possible to eat much more than just fruit and vegetables. Seven portions seems pretty filling to me. It would seem to comprise at least 2 if not 3 meals a day. It would not be possible to eat a meal without basing it around veg. Gone would be the days of sausage, bacon and the full English breakfast would breathe its last. The phrase "no more room" springs to mind.
Given this, I think adopting such a practice on any reasonable scale in the population, would lead to the fairly rapid decline in demand for meat products. And thus a concomitantly massive need for improved sources of vegetable types that were quick, easy and ready-made to consume.
It's a huge change in a lot of our habits. I don't think everyone is ready though. I was in Subway the other day buying a Veggie Delite on wheat with everything salad and mayo (as is my wont these days), and there were 2 big families next to me in the queue, all of whom had ham, egg, bacon or sausage on white bread and no salad to speak of. It was the discount breakfast time, so you can't judge much by that, but even so, it made me think. Can we really go on doing this?
Vegetarianism
After listening to a few debates between archetypal carnivores and vegetarians / anti-meat advocates, I feel that the latter very much own the moral high ground. Ethically, consuming another animal's flesh when you don't have to, seems to be somewhat indefensible to me.
The inhumane treatment of factory-farmed animals, not just in farms but in slaughterhouses, is quite shocking whenever I happen to scratch the surface of what goes on in these places. The whole idea of a building specifically made for killing, stringing up carcasses, and people actually having the job of wringing chicken's necks, it's almost unthinkable.
It makes me never want to eat meat again. I almost certainly will end up doing it, but I've been keeping my consumption very low for years now. I only have a meal with meat about 1-2 times a week, certainly not even every other day. I am now just starting to deliberately avoid meat entirely, and choose meat free alternatives and finding them quite attractive in terms of price and also very tasty.
Of course, the counterpoint to vegetarianism, that is sometimes raised is "speciesism". This was well debated in a recent episode of the fine podcast "Skeptics with a K".
Who's to say that it is animals whose suffering should be prevented any more than plants? After all, not eating meat would result in a massive increase in the amount of plant harvesting which would need to occur to compensate. However, I find it hard to view this objection as much more than a barrier to progress. It seems to be a desperate attempt to try and slow down any efforts to cut meat consumption, by shrouding the whole enterprise in a moral smog. I think it's more important to cut our reliance on farmed animal meat right now than worry at this stage what other species of plants we may be putting in their stead.
After all, we have to eat something, and it seems the best way of doing this is to minimise the suffering of conscious creatures whilst in the act. Maybe later, when meat has become a rare delicacy rather than a staple food, we can look at the plight of vegetables and plants. However, this is an interesting philosophical point, which I will return to ponder in a later post. I think the real difference is one of mindset. We should be open to potential course corrections.
Another argument against the moral superiority of vegetarianism is the "suffering vs. killing" argument, which posits that it is really suffering we should try and prevent, so if animals can be killed for meat humanely, it is preferable. Whilst I admit that being as humane as possible is an advantage, killing in any fashion is ultimately going to be less humane than not killing, in almost all conceivable circumstances. For me the priority in encouraging humane slaughter practices should be fighting back against the resurgence of Kosher and Halal foods, which are produced in a very inhumane way.
In fact I think this 7-a-day approach may be the most effective way of eliminating eating far too much meat, and reliance on intensive and cruel factory farming. Even 5-a-day can be hard to achieve without basing at least 2 meals a day around 1-2 portions of vegetables.
An interesting aside on how capitalism, yes that thing, can actually help and is in fact necessary in solving the food problems we face. From the Population Matters Facebook page:
"Demand for meat alternatives is growing, fuelled by trends as varied as increased vegetarianism, consumer demand for healthier sources of protein, and concerns over the impact of industrial-scale animal husbandry on the environment. The unsustainability of rising meat consumption in a world of 7 billion is also on many people's minds - including venture capitalists.
“Frankly, we’ve never said we’re interested in food,” said Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers, a venture capital firm that has backed Google, Facebook and Beyond Meat. “What we’re interested in is big problems needing solutions, because they represent big potential markets and strong opportunities for building great returns.” Among the problems he listed that his firm’s investment in Beyond Meat are intended to address are land and water use, stress on global supply chains and the world’s growing population."
We should not ignore the role the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in helping both solve the meat problem and the general world food provision problem. The common misconceptions of GM foods being "unnatural" or "unsafe" are far from the truth and highly damaging to sustainability. In my view we need GM technology to meet the needs of a growing worldwide population, and to meet our land use targets. It's no good covering the whole continents with crops (which would be required to feed everyone with vegetarian organic foodstuffs) as this has been shown to be detrimental to wildlife compared to a smaller area of more intense farming combined with other areas of completely untouched countryside. (I'll return to this later).
So the constant anti-GM blathering which goes on in Europe, and which is expounded by otherwise well intentioned social media campaign groups like Change.org and Avaaz, is dangerously misplaced. Monsanto may bot be perfect but they are far from our worst enemy. Please do not support these anti-scientific campaigns of Change and Avaaz. Most of the other ones appear to be on the level though!
Saturday 5 April 2014
Challenging academic leftist dogma, or how I stopped seeing "The West" as a homologous whole, and started to love questioning
Challenging academic leftist dogma, or how I stopped seeing "The West" as a homologous whole, and started to love questioning*
Generalising about "The West" is not helpful. Generalising about atheists is not helpful.
You may say "Well maybe to people who want to wipe us out"!
But you can't wipe out ideas. This may be a good thing or bad, depending on the idea. But we need to have a mechanism for criticising ideas that are demonstrably false, and cause great harm.
You may consider me to be overly politically correct in the various stances I have taken in this blog - however, I would point out that there is nothing politically correct about criticising religion. In fact, it is very politically incorrect to do so, and this in itself is a massive problem.
Take for example the religion section of The Guardian Online. Here in the Christian and Muslim pages you'll usually find positive stories about the religion and its array of characters and their activities. And yet in the non-believers or atheists pages, we're constantly told how atheists are sad, mean or rich outcasts desperately trying to take away everyone's freedom or knock the comforting holy books from desperate poor believers' hands; or how Richard Dawkins is the most misogynistic racist in existence. Yeah right. I've criticised him, sure, but he's not THAT bad.
Around the world, even today, saying nothing about days of yore, atheists are subjected to abuse, censure, torture and calls for execution for the simple "crime" of suggesting that the locally supported Sky Daddy might not be quite as real as everyone seems to think.
"Whatever else you do, you MUST believe in a God!" we're constantly told. In the US, raving loonies who write into newspapers demanding that all atheists are immediately deported are described as having "strong views". Seriously, if someone says that about Muslims, they would (quite rightly) be taken down pretty quickly for the bigots they are.
(By the way, don't get me started on how incredibly skull-numbingly dumb that letter is).
That's as may be. I've come to expect it.
The people I am really criticising in this blog are the left-leaning academics, journalists and personalities who regularly conflate criticism of ideas with criticism of people. According to them, even talking about religions' role in conflicts, humanitarian disasters, and human rights issues like FGM around the world is taboo. Verboten. To them the poorly-defined and gestalt entity known as "The West" is the root of almost all problems.
--
Aside 1 - Faith
Prof. Peter Boghossian, a US philosopher and critical thinking teacher, calls these people "Contemporary Academic Leftists" in his book A Manual For Creating Atheists, which I highly recommend.
Forget the title - he wanted to call it Street Epistemology, but that would never fly with the publishers - the main purpose is using the "Socratic Method" to question the assertions of the religious believer. This is done by finding counterexamples to their claims, questioning their systems of knowledge, and helping them to realise that they are in no position to be as certain as they claim to be, about the truth-value of their claims.
Doubt is key.
Of course, the decision to believe or not can only be made by a person themselves. The aim is to promote questioning, not to deconvert. That is left to the believer. Faith is, as many atheists see it, a pretty bad thing, universally speaking - there seems to be very little of merit to it. One definition of "faith" is "belief that is not based on proof"
and this is the one that most closely relates to religion. Indeed, Boghossian considers faith an implacable foe, deeming it "Pretending to know what you don't know" and using this definition as a synonym. Taken in these terms, what may have previously been seen as a compliment, for example "He is a man of deep faith" is exposed for what it really means - "He is a man who deeply pretends to know what he does not know".
The problem really does go back to epistemology - how you know what you claim to know. As a major proxy for bad epistemology, religion will remain in my sights until more believers start rightfully doubting that they may be on entirely the right course.
--
Here's the thing. Many people in "The West" don't agree with what "The West" is doing with its foreign (or internal) policies, and are trying to resist them. The tide is turning away from those policies. How many people seriously still regard the imperial age as anything other than a disastrously bad and regrettable episode for which we'll probably never be able to make up for? I don't think it's as many as you might suppose. I'm of the opinion that we should hand Ireland back to the Irish, and even the matter of the Falklands and Argentina isn't out of the question.
Such views are gradually filtering into culture. Thinking of "the sins of our fathers" is not disrespect or anarchy, but understanding that they did what they thought was best for their own interests while under the thumb of questionable epistemology. It was predictable, and understandable in a way, but not acceptable. This is being crystallised in some modern music.
In their hit single "Sons of Apathy", from their album, the appropriately titled "All Our Kings Are Dead", popular High Wycombe rock band Young Guns sing a verse which goes
"We are the heirs to empty dawns and promises unkept
I'll sit and watch The Empire burn with mild disinterest
But we are not forsaken, we have a gift worth more than gold
We've been shown how NOT to live by "gracious" kings of old".
The whole track espouses self-determination, and is a refutation of nationalist values on the international stage, lamenting how they have led to internal neglect. So up yours UKIP.
Internationally, recent legal claims made by Caribbean countries, calling for reparations for the salve trade years, would have been given short shrift a few years ago, but now may (and should) be seriously considered, and in my opinion should be met as closely as possible.
The only people continuing to be "imperialist" are either power mongering sabre-rattlers (hello Putin) or those just reverting to type when being goaded by unhelpful foreign countries touting the "imperialist" line. They are hardly representative of the nation of a whole. I ask those continually making the accusations of imperialism against "The West", what actions could "The West" take which would NOT be regarded as "imperialist"? The list of helpful options is probably unrealistically short.
--
Aside 2 - "Islamophobia"
The book "Does God hate Women?" (Benson / Stangroom, 2009 Continuum) deals with this issue well. I'll include a few ideas from it as I really like them. They touch on the idea of the latent "inferiority complex" exhibited by some less wealthy middle eastern countries and how religion helps to unite the people against who they see as the oppressor - "The West" of course. But the general citizenry of "The West" have nothing to do with any position of power it may occupy.
Likewise, a person from any less wealthy country is capable of being an intellectual giant in any field.
You wouldn't think this from listening to leftist dogma though. The best answer to this conundrum, of course, is to beat "The West" at their own game by scientific and technological advancement. Start by giving women a voice and see how GDP could double almost overnight. Furthermore, the book refutes accusations of "Islamophobia" - "It has become a lazy habit to equate criticsm of Islam with racism or general antipathy toward the unfamilar other." The term "Islamophobia" is nebulous, and largely rhetorical. In it, Islam is seen as "...irrational and sexist" and "supportive of terrorism".
The problem is that the term "pahologises a number of beliefs that are almost certainly true". I would agree with this statement. The case is made that Islam as a theology does appear to be irrational, sexist, and countenance violence through jihad by any reasonable definition. Even Muslims in their native countries are concerned about the risks of Islamic extremism. But if it's all right for them...no, I submit that "Islamophobia" is primarily used to shut down debate and control what can and can't be said.
Of course, where I differ from more right-wing commentators in this regard is that I don't think that Christianity (or any other religion for that matter) is any better. There appears to be a connection between users of the term and religious apology, going back to the old chestnut that "a threat to one faith is a threat to them all", and indeed certain Christian commentators have made sure to collaborate with the wider theistic community in decrying "Islamophobes".
All of this goes back to "imperialism" of course. The irony is that many leftist commentators seem to regard "the West" as a monolithic bloc, whilst decrying the same attitude from "The West" which is not as widely held as they think. The link between only right-wing thinking and criticism of Islam is not a universal constant.
--
The dogmatic and unreasonable views of contemporary academic leftists are a poison to the most useful forms of free speech. Free Speech that rises above the right to harassment of equality advocates, and actually address some important taboo subjects like how sensible fervent religious belief really is. Religions hold massive power over whole populations, particularly in some countries when they are basically mandated by the state, and when this results in undeniable suffering to millions of people, trust me, we need to talk about it.
This is not least because many of the good people from these countries actually want us to help them. They want some form of democracy (see the recent elections in Afghanistan). Women want rights like men, and a voice to be heard. If we're not allowed to do anything about this, "because well that would just be imperialist", then we are condemning millions of people to a life without hope of improvement of their standard of living. The richness in any country is not to be found in its oil gas fields, mines or crops but in the strength of its people. We need to see past manipulative leftist logic, see through the imperialism of the past, and help these people help themselves.
*Thanks to Dr. Strangelove...
Generalising about "The West" is not helpful. Generalising about atheists is not helpful.
You may say "Well maybe to people who want to wipe us out"!
But you can't wipe out ideas. This may be a good thing or bad, depending on the idea. But we need to have a mechanism for criticising ideas that are demonstrably false, and cause great harm.
You may consider me to be overly politically correct in the various stances I have taken in this blog - however, I would point out that there is nothing politically correct about criticising religion. In fact, it is very politically incorrect to do so, and this in itself is a massive problem.
Take for example the religion section of The Guardian Online. Here in the Christian and Muslim pages you'll usually find positive stories about the religion and its array of characters and their activities. And yet in the non-believers or atheists pages, we're constantly told how atheists are sad, mean or rich outcasts desperately trying to take away everyone's freedom or knock the comforting holy books from desperate poor believers' hands; or how Richard Dawkins is the most misogynistic racist in existence. Yeah right. I've criticised him, sure, but he's not THAT bad.
Around the world, even today, saying nothing about days of yore, atheists are subjected to abuse, censure, torture and calls for execution for the simple "crime" of suggesting that the locally supported Sky Daddy might not be quite as real as everyone seems to think.
"Whatever else you do, you MUST believe in a God!" we're constantly told. In the US, raving loonies who write into newspapers demanding that all atheists are immediately deported are described as having "strong views". Seriously, if someone says that about Muslims, they would (quite rightly) be taken down pretty quickly for the bigots they are.
(By the way, don't get me started on how incredibly skull-numbingly dumb that letter is).
That's as may be. I've come to expect it.
The people I am really criticising in this blog are the left-leaning academics, journalists and personalities who regularly conflate criticism of ideas with criticism of people. According to them, even talking about religions' role in conflicts, humanitarian disasters, and human rights issues like FGM around the world is taboo. Verboten. To them the poorly-defined and gestalt entity known as "The West" is the root of almost all problems.
--
Aside 1 - Faith
Prof. Peter Boghossian, a US philosopher and critical thinking teacher, calls these people "Contemporary Academic Leftists" in his book A Manual For Creating Atheists, which I highly recommend.
Forget the title - he wanted to call it Street Epistemology, but that would never fly with the publishers - the main purpose is using the "Socratic Method" to question the assertions of the religious believer. This is done by finding counterexamples to their claims, questioning their systems of knowledge, and helping them to realise that they are in no position to be as certain as they claim to be, about the truth-value of their claims.
Doubt is key.
Of course, the decision to believe or not can only be made by a person themselves. The aim is to promote questioning, not to deconvert. That is left to the believer. Faith is, as many atheists see it, a pretty bad thing, universally speaking - there seems to be very little of merit to it. One definition of "faith" is "belief that is not based on proof"
and this is the one that most closely relates to religion. Indeed, Boghossian considers faith an implacable foe, deeming it "Pretending to know what you don't know" and using this definition as a synonym. Taken in these terms, what may have previously been seen as a compliment, for example "He is a man of deep faith" is exposed for what it really means - "He is a man who deeply pretends to know what he does not know".
The problem really does go back to epistemology - how you know what you claim to know. As a major proxy for bad epistemology, religion will remain in my sights until more believers start rightfully doubting that they may be on entirely the right course.
--
Here's the thing. Many people in "The West" don't agree with what "The West" is doing with its foreign (or internal) policies, and are trying to resist them. The tide is turning away from those policies. How many people seriously still regard the imperial age as anything other than a disastrously bad and regrettable episode for which we'll probably never be able to make up for? I don't think it's as many as you might suppose. I'm of the opinion that we should hand Ireland back to the Irish, and even the matter of the Falklands and Argentina isn't out of the question.
Such views are gradually filtering into culture. Thinking of "the sins of our fathers" is not disrespect or anarchy, but understanding that they did what they thought was best for their own interests while under the thumb of questionable epistemology. It was predictable, and understandable in a way, but not acceptable. This is being crystallised in some modern music.
In their hit single "Sons of Apathy", from their album, the appropriately titled "All Our Kings Are Dead", popular High Wycombe rock band Young Guns sing a verse which goes
"We are the heirs to empty dawns and promises unkept
I'll sit and watch The Empire burn with mild disinterest
But we are not forsaken, we have a gift worth more than gold
We've been shown how NOT to live by "gracious" kings of old".
The whole track espouses self-determination, and is a refutation of nationalist values on the international stage, lamenting how they have led to internal neglect. So up yours UKIP.
Internationally, recent legal claims made by Caribbean countries, calling for reparations for the salve trade years, would have been given short shrift a few years ago, but now may (and should) be seriously considered, and in my opinion should be met as closely as possible.
The only people continuing to be "imperialist" are either power mongering sabre-rattlers (hello Putin) or those just reverting to type when being goaded by unhelpful foreign countries touting the "imperialist" line. They are hardly representative of the nation of a whole. I ask those continually making the accusations of imperialism against "The West", what actions could "The West" take which would NOT be regarded as "imperialist"? The list of helpful options is probably unrealistically short.
--
Aside 2 - "Islamophobia"
The book "Does God hate Women?" (Benson / Stangroom, 2009 Continuum) deals with this issue well. I'll include a few ideas from it as I really like them. They touch on the idea of the latent "inferiority complex" exhibited by some less wealthy middle eastern countries and how religion helps to unite the people against who they see as the oppressor - "The West" of course. But the general citizenry of "The West" have nothing to do with any position of power it may occupy.
Likewise, a person from any less wealthy country is capable of being an intellectual giant in any field.
You wouldn't think this from listening to leftist dogma though. The best answer to this conundrum, of course, is to beat "The West" at their own game by scientific and technological advancement. Start by giving women a voice and see how GDP could double almost overnight. Furthermore, the book refutes accusations of "Islamophobia" - "It has become a lazy habit to equate criticsm of Islam with racism or general antipathy toward the unfamilar other." The term "Islamophobia" is nebulous, and largely rhetorical. In it, Islam is seen as "...irrational and sexist" and "supportive of terrorism".
The problem is that the term "pahologises a number of beliefs that are almost certainly true". I would agree with this statement. The case is made that Islam as a theology does appear to be irrational, sexist, and countenance violence through jihad by any reasonable definition. Even Muslims in their native countries are concerned about the risks of Islamic extremism. But if it's all right for them...no, I submit that "Islamophobia" is primarily used to shut down debate and control what can and can't be said.
Of course, where I differ from more right-wing commentators in this regard is that I don't think that Christianity (or any other religion for that matter) is any better. There appears to be a connection between users of the term and religious apology, going back to the old chestnut that "a threat to one faith is a threat to them all", and indeed certain Christian commentators have made sure to collaborate with the wider theistic community in decrying "Islamophobes".
All of this goes back to "imperialism" of course. The irony is that many leftist commentators seem to regard "the West" as a monolithic bloc, whilst decrying the same attitude from "The West" which is not as widely held as they think. The link between only right-wing thinking and criticism of Islam is not a universal constant.
--
The dogmatic and unreasonable views of contemporary academic leftists are a poison to the most useful forms of free speech. Free Speech that rises above the right to harassment of equality advocates, and actually address some important taboo subjects like how sensible fervent religious belief really is. Religions hold massive power over whole populations, particularly in some countries when they are basically mandated by the state, and when this results in undeniable suffering to millions of people, trust me, we need to talk about it.
This is not least because many of the good people from these countries actually want us to help them. They want some form of democracy (see the recent elections in Afghanistan). Women want rights like men, and a voice to be heard. If we're not allowed to do anything about this, "because well that would just be imperialist", then we are condemning millions of people to a life without hope of improvement of their standard of living. The richness in any country is not to be found in its oil gas fields, mines or crops but in the strength of its people. We need to see past manipulative leftist logic, see through the imperialism of the past, and help these people help themselves.
*Thanks to Dr. Strangelove...
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