The far-right and the new Atheists

Igotadose

Saw this on Salon. It names and shames a number of once prominent atheists as simply whacked-out grifters. Particularly disappointed to see Dawkins name in this group.

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/

ThunbergsAreGo

Igotadose wrote: »

Saw this on Salon. It names and shames a number of once prominent atheists as simply whacked-out grifters. Particularly disappointed to see Dawkins name in this group.

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/

Its an opinion based article, I wouldn't get disappointed over it. Everyone is too happy to put far against thing they disagree with

Dawkins doesn't like Islam, therefore he's a Nazi.

That's the student left for ya.

robindch

Igotadose wrote: »

Saw this on Salon. It names and shames a number of once prominent atheists as simply whacked-out grifters. Particularly disappointed to see Dawkins name in this group.

It's related to similar strands of political commentary suggested by this thread

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058179583

...which I've been meaning to go back to as the whole thing has become much clearer over the last while, particularly with respect to a formerly-fringe belief called "Critical Race Theory" and some of its founding principles, which has gained considerable traction in the last decade with people who self-identify as left-wing, or far left-wing.

smacl

Igotadose wrote: »

Saw this on Salon. It names and shames a number of once prominent atheists as simply whacked-out grifters. Particularly disappointed to see Dawkins name in this group.

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/

As per a point I made in the post that Robin linked, this illustrates the problem of associating more with the word 'atheist' than a simple lack of belief in a god or gods. 'New Atheist' is a far more narrow term for a shared ideology that is not typical of atheism in general. For example, the vast majority of atheists on boards would appear to be left-leaning liberals, which probably says more about boardsies as a demographic than atheists. I would imagine atheists in other countries and coming form other demographics would be different again. I'd something of a barney on this forum with Michael Nugent a few years back on this topic, where he asserted that atheism included an element of shared ideology or worldview. I stand by my position that it really doesn't.

I'm not disappointed in Dawkins because I never much liked the man and wouldn't expect anything different from him. That said, I do like some of his work and have no difficulty in appreciating and enjoying the work of someone that I'd have no time for on a personal level. Many ground breakers and creatives out there are not exactly paragons of virtue nor even particularly likeable people. As per a recent conversation on here about William Burroughs, some are downright obnoxious. Whether you consider this detracts from their work is a matter of personal preference, I just tend to accept it as par for the course.

magicbastarder

it's a pity about pinker if what is claimed about him re epstein etc is true. 'the blank slate' is an excellent read.

robindch

smacl wrote: »

I'd something of a barney on this forum with Michael Nugent a few years back on this topic, where he asserted that atheism included an element of shared ideology or worldview. I stand by my position that it really doesn't.

I'm with you on that - atheism is an absence of belief in deities, and while that does require atheists to acquire elsewhere ethical (and other) beliefs which, in religious people, come from religion, there's no requirement for that to happen and I think the linkage is neither useful nor accurate.

As regards the post on salon.com, reaction on twitter suggests that it's successfully playing to a certain audience, but it does so at the expense of even the pretence of treating the people involved with any degree of fairness or respect for what their views probably are. It's also exceedingly spiteful which is unusual since the writer finds fault with allegations of spiteful behaviour in others. Not unexpectedly, the article fails to mention of PZ Myers who is more belligerent than any of the writers covered.

biko

The article could also be called "How it's ok to attack religion unless it's Islam".

robindch

magicbastarder wrote: »

it's a pity about pinker if what is claimed about him re epstein etc is true.

The allegations appear to be those listed here from which I'm having a hard time figuring out what Pinker's alleged offences are - beyond that he was an acquaintance of Jeffrey Epstein, was once photographed sitting beside him, and that Pinker offered an opinion on language to Alan Dershowitz without being aware that this opinion would later form part of Epstein's defence - page nine here:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6192383-Dershowitz-Letter.html

Buzzfeed quotes him as repudiating this assistance:

Stephen Pinker wrote:

Though I did this as a favor to a friend and colleague, and not as either a paid expert witness or as a part of a defense team, knowing what I know now I do regret writing the letter [...] I don’t recall his telling me that the question pertained to the Epstein defense [...] I was not aware of the charges against Epstein at the time. And no, I was not paid for the letter — it’s something that Alan and I do regularly, as colleagues.

Stephen Pinker, on Jeffrey Epstein wrote:

I could never stand the guy and always tried to keep my distance.”

If what Pinker says is true, and I don't see why we shouldn't take his account as broadly accurate, then the salon article is seriously misrepresenting Pinker's connection to Epstein.

smacl

biko wrote: »

The article could also be called "How it's ok to attack religion unless it's Islam".

Not really seeing it, although this is a sentiment that I do often see expressed by conservatives and Christians on this forum. The sum total of reference to Islam in the article is below;

As Harris once put it, with many of us naively agreeing, "We are at war with Islam." (Note: This was a dangerous and xenophobic lie that helped get Donald Trump elected. As Harris said in 2006, anticipating how his brand of Islamophobia would enable Trump's rise, "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.")

The thrust of the article seems to be attacking the New Atheists and by implication those who attack religion in general. As such it is pandering both to the conservative Christian and conservative Islam audiences.

Where atheists are deeply critical of religion, it tends to be directed initially at those religions who's hand they've suffered at directly, followed by those religions they consider a broader threat to society. In Ireland that puts the Catholic church first in the firing line, followed by radical Islam and fundamental Christianity. You see little negative sentiment towards the like of Hinduism for example, not because their beliefs are credible or moral credentials are superior so much as that Hinduism has close to zero direct impact on our Irish society.

Hotblack Desiato

robindch wrote: »

and while that does require atheists to acquire elsewhere ethical (and other) beliefs which, in religious people, come from religion

But in reality religious people are not really any different from the non-religious in this regard. They embrace ideas they agree with and reject those they do not.

Anne Lamott wrote:

You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

In the Irish context, there are vast numbers of self-described catholics who object to major doctrines of the church, up to and including belief in god at all. In the US, christians are rather more labile and will migrate towards a more or less liberal church, in accordance with their own views.

As regards the post on salon.com, reaction on twitter suggests that it's successfully playing to a certain audience, but it does so at the expense of even the pretence of treating the people involved with any degree of fairness or respect for what their views probably are. It's also exceedingly spiteful which is unusual since the writer finds fault with allegations of spiteful behaviour in others. Not unexpectedly, the article fails to mention of PZ Myers who is more belligerent than any of the writers covered.

I agree, the article is a load of bollocks tbh and it's not the first time I've observed salon.com pushing an agenda regardless of facts.

nozzferrahhtoo

robindch wrote: »

the article fails to mention of PZ Myers who is more belligerent than any of the writers covered.

Is he even still going? He has fallen so far off my radar he could be dead for all I know. Though I would bet any money his blog, if still going, has not changed a bit. I would even be willing to bet money that if you log into it right now it will have.... just like it did 5 years ago.... at least one recently active post doing nothing but attacking Sam Harris for something Sam Harris did not actually say, or for holding a belief Sam Harris does not actually hold.

When his entire blog turned into him putting forward click bait attacks on other atheists I got very bored very quickly. Especially as the quality of his attacks were either misreprentation, directy meaningless insult (his favorite was something about a person being slyme in the slymepit if I recall, but I never found out what that actually means), or a mix of the two.

But once he started he showed no sign of stopping and his quality content just fell apart and I have not checked his articles for years.

nozzferrahhtoo

Just went and checked myself. Yes he is still alive.

And Yes, as predicted, right there on the front page there is an attack on Sam Harris Calling his "deluded" saying his content is "mental".

Then he quotes some nutjobs on Reddit and uses it to justify an attack on, of all things, Harris' tone of voice.

Does he actually address and rebut a single thing Harris actually said? No. Not a bit of it. Does he even KNOW what he has said? I deeply deeply doubt it.

5 Years pass and nothing has changed. He has turned into the kind of person that 15 years ago he would have hated. A look over the rest of the front page, his content is that of an enraged teenager. Wonder how his readership figures have changed over the past 15 years.

smacl

smacl wrote: »

the problem of associating more with the word 'atheist' than a simple lack of belief in a god or gods.

Nicely put. Atheism is a broad church, as it were :pac:

Also, I immediately recognized your avatar from one of my favourite books and humbly report that I intend to start reading it again as soon as those provisions arrive from Austria, so thanks for the reminder.

smacl

MeepMeep2021 wrote: »

Nicely put. Atheism is a broad church, as it were :pac:

Also, I immediately recognized your avatar from one of my favourite books and humbly report that I intend to start reading it again as soon as those provisions arrive from Austria, so thanks for the reminder.

A huge favourite of mine too and deserving of another read very soon. Might even go for a ramble around Bohemia myself once things start opening up again

I looked at the article, searched for pinker, see he was on a plane with Epstein on his way to a Ted talk. This is equated with the pedo express. But Epstein was a physicist by education and was interested in this stuff. He’s says it’s not an ad hominem but we should judge people by who they associate with, but that is a specific ad hominem called guilt by association.

I just read one paragraph but in there mentions that Bari Weiss is a NYT columnist but she was fired or left two years ago, which was pretty big news.

They just throw interns at this don’t they.

bnt

You have to be pretty far "out there" to think Sam Harris is right-wing. AFAIK he's on the left on all the major socio-economic issues of today, and was very anti-Trump. His major "sin" against wokeness is that he's strongly against "no-platform-ing" and has had people on his podcast who trigger strong reactions. Such as Charles Murray on the subject of racial differences in intelligence - a "third rail" topic if there ever was one. Harris didn't agree with Murray on most of that, but if you believe in "guilt by association", it was a "sin" to give Murray any platform at all.

Peregrinus

To be fair, Harris seems to advocate a number of positions that are generally considered to be right-wing - he has written in favour of ethnic profiling, for example; many people consider his attitude to Islam to be basically islamophobic; he considers the right to silence of a person accused of a crime to be religiously-grounded and therefore a Bad Thing; he has argued that Jews are responsible for their own persecution. A lot of his positions look to be pretty authoritarian and pretty nativist.

nozzferrahhtoo

I think if one summarises the views of ANY person in half sentences they will always seem a lot worse than they actually are. Especially if in the middle of doing so one includes a vicarious evaluation of that persons views too as if it is part of the rest of the list. There is a lot of nuance and specifics simply entirely left out of the above summary. Though I admit the "right to silence" one is new to me and not something I ever recall hearing him speak on. To what specifically are we referring to there?

Yellow_Fern

Igotadose wrote: »

Saw this on Salon. It names and shames a number of once prominent atheists as simply whacked-out grifters. Particularly disappointed to see Dawkins name in this group.

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/

Salon is a poor quality tabloid outlet.

Peregrinus

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I think if one summarises the views of ANY person in half sentences they will always seem a lot worse than they actually are. Especially if in the middle of doing so one includes a vicarious evaluation of that persons views too as if it is part of the rest of the list. There is a lot of nuance and specifics simply entirely left out of the above summary. Though I admit the "right to silence" one is new to me and not something I ever recall hearing him speak on. To what specifically are we referring to there?

There's a passage in The Moral Landscape (which I don't have in front of me, so I'm going on memory here) where Harris talks about the implications of hypothetical future technology that can evaluate truthfulness perfectly - infallible lie detectors, if you like. He sees that legal types would be concerned about the implications this would have for the Fifth Amendment - the right not to incriminate yourself - but argues that those concerns should be dismissed, since the right to silence is basically grounded in religious superstition. He asserts that we came to recognise this as a right because of a belief that perjury would lead to damnation, and a feeling that it was unjust to put someone in a situation in which he must choose between damning himself before God or condemning himself before the law.

FWIW I think that, historically speaking, his views on the origin of the right to silence are balls, but that's not the point. The point is that for whatever reason he doesn't seem to regard it as an important right, worth defending. He doesn't see its erosion as something that should bother us.

This isn't a believer/atheist thing; a lot of people who are just as atheist as Harris are critical of views that he holds, or that they consider him to hold, and conversely many of those views can be and are held by believers.

nozzferrahhtoo

I guess I would need some citation to look for before I could speak any more to that. I do have the book on my shelf so if there was some indication on where to look I could say more. Given the other summaries of his positions you offered I know to be misleading or at least very much far from complete, I would feel therefore the need to be cautious that the summary of THIS one is accurate too.

Nothing wrong with being critical of his views though, atheist or not. I am critical of a few of them myself But all too often the views people are critical of are not actually views he holds.

nozzferrahhtoo

Actually I found it. And as I feared the summary of his position above is misleading. He does not argue at all that the Right to Silence is a "bad thing". He does not argue for OR against it at all except to note that it "appears" to be a relic of a "more superstitious age". He also notes that this "fifth amendment" has already "succumbed to advances in technology".

So to be honest I have no idea what his views on that right are, or are not. He does not discuss any arguments for or against people having such a right. He merely notes that the right itself has been assailed by technology before..... and the right itself may originally have had routes in superstition. Nothing more.

Certainly though, like the other summaries of his positions in the original paragraph above, claiming he argued against it as a "bad thing" is not at all representative of what he has done or said. In fact I struggle to find anything in the summary of his positions above that are actually representative or informative of the positions he actually holds.

Peregrinus

Through the wonderful magic that is the internet today, I have found this .pdf of the book. The passage concerned is on p. 65.

On edit: what concerns people is not what Harris says; it's what he doesn't say. He notes concerns about the erosion of the right to silence, and responds to this by suggesting that the right to silence is religiously-grounded which, even if correct, would hardly be rational argument against the right to silence, or a rational response to concerns about its erosion. Yet Harris's further silence suggests that he doesn't feel those concerns need any more response that this. He then veers off into the case of Todd Willingham, who was executed for murders which he very probably did not commit. But Willingham did not invoke the right to silence; his problem was that his denials were not believed. Most people would regard that case as supportive of an argument against the death penalty, rather than against the right to silence. Harris's juxtaposition give the impression that his feeling is that, if we are to retain the death penalty, we need to dispense with the right to silence. The alternative approach of dispensing with the death penalty doesn't seem to have occurred to him. I don't really think he can really complain if people get the sense that he holds authoritarian view.

Harris's position here has been widely commented on, including in reviews of the book - googling "Sam Harris" "Moral Landscape" "Fifth Amendment" will yield lots of hits. But the same search yields no hits in which Harris says no, his position has been misunderstood, or the inferences peole have drawn are wrong.

nozzferrahhtoo

And as I said, nowhere on page 65 does he actually argue the right itself is a "Bad Thing". Just that it has been assailed by technology before.... and that he believes it's original origins might have come from a superstitious age. The summary therefore that he has argued it is a "bad thing" just like the rest of the summary..... is quite misleading and not really representative at all of what he has actually said.

I am sure there are a lot of ideas I hold dear today, that originally had their roots in superstition or ignorance. Pointing out that the reasoning for a good position might originally have been nonsense.... is a point against the original reasoning and NOT against the position itself.

I am all for keeping him in check and confronting his bad ideas when and where he has them. But let's confront the ideas he actually holds and has espoused For example someone reading "he has written in favour of ethnic profiling" could go off and write 10 A4 pages on what they think Harris might actually have said and STILL not get remotely near what he actually did say. Maybe I am a pedant but for me a summary of someone's positions should be something that leaves the reader with at least SOME impression of what the person in question actually said. And your summary seems not to do that on any of the subjects you touched on.

Peregrinus

We're saying a lot of the same things, Nozz. I agree with you that pointing out that a particular position had its origins in religion is not an argument against the position. But, as I say, what matters here is not only what Harris says, but what he doesn't say. He asserts that the right to silence is religiously-derived, which you and I agree is irrelevant in this context. But presumably he thinks it is relevant, since why else is he mentioning it? And then he fails to go on and offer any actually relevant reasons for dismissing concerns about the erosion of the right to silence, which is hard to explain if he actually thinks those concerns have any traction.

Harris acknowledges that their are concerns about the right to silence, but either he responds to them with an argument that you and I agree would be completely bogus, or he doesn't respond to them at all; just accepts the erosion of the right as something we have to do if we are to continue practicing the death penalty. He doesn't at any point say anything that suggests he thinks the right to silence has any affirmative value at all, and the inclusion of the "religiously-grounded" argument, if it has any relevance at all, can only be intended to suggest that, no, it has no value. So what are we supposed to think his views about the right to silence are?

nozzferrahhtoo

I can certainly agree with the critique that he could have said more. But that still does not justify the summary of claiming that he argues the right to silence is a "Bad Thing". He certainly did no such thing in the passage you refer to.

As I said, a summary of someone's position is never going to encompass the person's entire position. Obviously. But the pedant in me still thinks that a summary should be such that it gives the reader SOME genuine idea as to what the person actually did say. And your summary does exactly the opposite in pretty much all the points you mentioned.

If I were to summarise the same points you summarised in a way that is fair, representative, and would give the reader some chance of actually guessing what the person really did espouse.......... I would rewrite your entire posts here:

Peregrinus wrote: »

To be fair, Harris seems to advocate a number of positions that are generally considered to be right-wing - he has written in favour of ethnic profiling, for example; many people consider his attitude to Islam to be basically islamophobic; he considers the right to silence of a person accused of a crime to be religiously-grounded and therefore a Bad Thing; he has argued that Jews are responsible for their own persecution. A lot of his positions look to be pretty authoritarian and pretty nativist.

Like this:

To be fair, Harris seems to advocate a number of positions that are difficult to label right-wing - he has written about a form of negative profiling solely in the context of airports which would put him himself in the spotlight of security rather than 90 year old grannies from Kansas, for example; he has said nothing islamophobic short of pointing out that suggesting some religions are more dangerous or toxic than others is justified; he considers the idea of mind reading technologies to be interesting but not as much of a concern to the right to silence of a person accused of a crime as many might rush to argue; and he has argued that Jews being responsible for their own persecution is only true in a "narrow sense" but the horror of their past should not make considering such a position imossible. Few of his positions are authoritarian or nativist really. But he is also not one to let horror or context prevent entering into discourse on divisive or emotive subjects

Now my summary too would leave someone guessing what Harris actually said on those topics STILL missing most of the content and nuance of Harris' positions and arguments. For sure. Summaries will always do that. But the potential for simply getting his entire position massively wrong is severely curtailed compared to what you wrote.

Peregrinus

In my defence, I was writing from memory.

And, also in my defence, I don't think my memory was all that inaccurate. The only thing Harris affirmatively says about the right to silence is that it's religiously-grounded, which he would certainly see as a negative, and I don't think it's an unreasonable inference that this may be the reason why he doesn't have anything positive to say about it. It is at least undeniably true that he has nothing positive to say about it. Nor it is unfair to say that he seems to think it's appropriate to give up on the right to silence in order to continue practising the death penalty.

It may be unfair to characterise all this as him saying that the right to silence is a "Bad Thing", but it certainly leave me with the impression that he sees no value in it. And I don't think it's unfair to suggest that all this supports the overall view that his moral positions can be pretty authoritarian.

As you have said yourself, you are critical of a few of his views. I think this is one you probably could allow yourself the luxury of being a little bit critical about.

nozzferrahhtoo

Peregrinus wrote: »

The only thing Harris affirmatively says about the right to silence is that it's religiously-grounded, which he would certainly see as a negative, and I don't think it's an unreasonable inference that this may be the reason why he doesn't have anything positive to say about it.

But then you are inferring something he has not ever said. And when Harris is ACTUALLY against something, he is known for being quite verbose about what he is against, and the reasons for being against it. So I think you would be on safer ground to infer that WERE he against it.... he would likely let people know quite clearly that he is. And the fact he did no such thing, is just as likely to infer that he holds no such negative impressions of it.

So if you are insisting, as it seems you are, on summarising the positions based as you put it on not "what Harris says, but what he doesn't say" then I think you would be safer inferring his not having said it as being his not having anything TO say.

Certainly safer than assuming that what he did not say, but thinks, is automatically negative. As you appear to be doing.

Peregrinus wrote: »

It is at least undeniably true that he has nothing positive to say about it.

Well no. In that ONE passage which was not even about it, he said nothing particularly positive about it. That does not mean he HAS nothing positive to say about it. Just in THAT passage in THAT context on THAT subject he saw no reason to.

The single and only way to know if he has anything positive or negative to say about it..... would be to ask him. Neither of us is psychic. So let's neither of us pretend to be, shall we?

But this is deflecting from the point. That regardless of what his position is on it.... summarising what he did say in the passage you offered as his having argued that it was a "Bad Thing" is not a summary that is at all going to give the reader of that summary any impression of the actual content of the thing being summarised.

I simply repeat: Summaries are never going to be complete and are always going to be misleading. That is a given. But summarising something in such a way as to infer content that was not even remotely there is.... AT BEST..... a very misleading summary and at worst a contrived misrepresentation and straw man.

I will make no value judgement as to which it was from you, as I simply do not know. I will simply stop at pointing out that the summary is not representative of what he actually said.

And I extend the same critique to his position on profiling, the jews, and Islam. The summary there again being ones that in fact give no actual clue to what he has actually said on those topics.

Peregrinus wrote: »

As you have said yourself, you are critical of a few of his views. I think this is one you probably could allow yourself the luxury of being a little bit critical about.

Not without further information. I simply would withhold any comment or critique until I hear more from him on the subject. As I said when he actually does speak out against an idea or policy or concept..... he tends to be quite verbose and explicit about it.

So just in context of knowing his public character and Modus Operandi I simply see no way to read that passage as a critique of the Right To Silence or the "fifth".

At best, and even then only at a stretch, I see the passage as an attempt to pre-empt arguments against future technologies on the basis of the fifth. Which is speculative at best until such technology comes about and we see exactly what it can and can not do.

robindch

Peregrinus wrote: »

On edit: what concerns people is not what Harris says; it's what he doesn't say.

Well, that's really the issue I have with much of the commentary from certain quarters about Harris and the others - that their views are being criticized, and frequently, their characters assassinated, not according to what they are saying, but according to what they're not saying - with the gaps being filled in by biased and/or uncharitable interpretations from people with axes to grind.

I can't say that I see too much to disagree with Harris' view, so far as it goes and so far as I can understand it, on the fifth amendment. But honestly, anything that he doesn't say, well, he doesn't say it and in the absence of a position, it seems to remain in the "could be one way or the other" zone.

Peregrinus

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

But then you are inferring something he has not ever said.

That's what "infer" means, Nozz. And you're too much of a rationalist to argue against the validity of argument from inference.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Well no. In that ONE passage which was not even about it, he said nothing particularly positive about it. That does not mean he HAS nothing positive to say about it. Just in THAT passage in THAT context on THAT subject he saw no reason to.

He raises the matter of the Fifth Amendment himself, Nozz. He acknowledges the concerns about its erosion. He observes (I think falsely, and we agree at best irrelevantly) that the Fifth Amendment is religiously-grounded, and that it must be eroded if we are to continue executing people. And he doesn't think it worth while to say anything else; nothing positive about the value of the Fifth amendment; no hint of a suggesting that there might be any downside at all to its erosion, and apparently no hint of dawning awareness that the merits of continuing to execute people might not be universally recognised.

So he chooses to bring the Fifth up, mischaracterises it in a way that he would consider pejorative, and then does not defend it in any way. Worse, he justifies an illiberal trend - the erosion of the right to silence - with an appeal to another illiberal notion - the value of the death penalty.

I'm happy with the inferences I've drawn. YMMV, of course.