Is this the new order of the day – pick any group and slap phobia on as a suffix? Its progress by linguistic train wreck.

The people involved, have been a source of amusement for me for pretty much a year. I will caution anyone who is tempted to click on the link that there is a potential if you have any sort of addictive personality, for you to become hooked on this ongoing drama.

In my case, the resulting addiction has severely curtailed the amount of time I spend playing WOW and EQ2, and reading science blogs such as this one. Every time I think I have kicked the habit, I find myself sucked back in.

You have been warned.

http://freethoughtkampala.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/elevatorgate/

During the months of July and August 2011, the atheist-skeptic blogosphere was ablaze with accusations, counter-accusations, verbal fights, moral declarations and insults as hundreds of bloggers and millions thousands of their readers tried to determine whose assessment of the events narrated by Watson best represented the facts at hand.

What also came under much discussion, and perhaps the crux of Elevatorgate, was Watson’s conduct after posting the initial video, particularly her treatment of a female student called Stef McGraw – and the manner in which dissenting opinions were dismissed as being products of misogyny and sexism.

“the problem is that when you spend time with people who agree with you on most things it is not easy to avoid mixing is/ought positive/normative. ”

is itself an explicit conflation of is and ought?

There’s nothing wrong with this, and I’d go out on a limb and agree that its better (normative!) to avoid unconsciously confusing is and ought. But to condemn any domain of thought that doesn’t magically keep them entirely separate is muddle headed! I’d like to see someone seriously defend the proposition that science, for example, is entirely devoid of normativity. Why, for instance, should we attempt to make our models consistent with those in other well established domains? Or why should we try so hard to fit our models to the data? (because if we don’t our gizmos wont work… but why care about that? You see the regress)

I agree with some of the criticism of atheism+, although I broadly share its values, and I particularly value these rare political posts as a good forum to do exactly what Razib counsels: familiarize myself with the actual arguments of the other side. But the condescension on this normativity point seriously puts me off.

you think people don’t know?

I’ve noticed that writers often tend towards particular stylistic choices or tones depending on whether they’re male or female. It’s not definitive (and rather difficult to clearly define), but it does seem to be there.

i didn’t say it was. i’m only suggesting that people can agree it is a major problem without making recourse to feminism as the only solution. i.e., B does not follow from A necessarily. social conservatives for example, to name one, have a solution to the way women are harassed. it’s just very different.

but it’s an affiliation often claimed by sexists, racists and anti-environmentalists, and some variations serve as quasi-religious alternatives to economics. It’s certainly not synonymous with gold-buggery, but few of its loudest contemporary advocates are willing to disavow it.

the conditional here is not symmetric. most libertarians are not sexists or racists. though most self-avowed sexists and racists may be (the issue here is that libertarian attracts a type of personality which WOULD espouse these; normal social conservatives wouldn’t admit to being these things even if you assert that they, because they’re more psychologically normal). the same token, the majority of american white supremacists are not christian. but most christians are not white supremacists.

As for sex and race, note that, while male and female brains are physically distinct, adults are difficult to distinguish sexually when clues are obscured, for example when musicians perform behind a screen or when writers publish under a pseudonym. On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog. It’s an ongoing Turing test. The point, of course, is that we have now become used to enjoying social intercourse with other people without first knowing their race or sex.

you think people don’t know? my personal experience is that people want to drag personal details out of you. in general i try not to, but sometimes it gets tiresome when people make assumptions.

“It’s a short step from feminism to rejecting racism. As for selfishness, much of libertarianism is sheer ignorance of economics (the gold standard? gold currency?) Environmentalism is nothing but a comprehensive embrace of reality, with a fairly wide reach and a longing look into the future.”

This is written with exactly the sort of implied assumption that Razib and I were discussing in posts #29, 39, & 41.

These assertions, though brief assume so much that to actually examine them in a point by point way would require one to deconstruct all of feminism, racism, libertarianism, economics, and environmentalism. A task alone requiring many books and many authors.

Had I’ve not spent the last decade in academics, I would simply look at this and say WTF, this makes no sense. But this is exactly the sort of statement I have become all to familiar with. Someone makes a broad, assumed, and meaningless assertion with the expectation that everyone else will simply nod their heads in agreement as they have all themselves bought into it and no real defense, argument, or reason is needed to to proclaim it as true. It would be like me proclaiming amongst the Tea Party “government is the problem”. There is a lot of inherent assumptions in that statement and its filled with qualifications, being nothing more than a generalization. Its also something I would never expect to pass as valid except amongst those I assume to already understand and agree with me.

If you’re knowledge of Libertarianism extends to the assumption that they all believe in the Gold Standard, then to anyone who has does not already think exactly like you, this comes across as simply ignorant. This is further evidenced in comparisons to it being “quasi-religious” or the implication that its a hideout for bigots, without any bother to address the actual arguments of Libertarianism. When someone makes arguments like this assuming that nothing further or more substantive need be said, it is obvious that, that individual probably doesn’t have much experience actual Libertarians or the intellectual background of Libertarianism.

Like the assumption of Environmentalism being an embrace of reality…..what reality? Much of what is considered “environmentalism” is hog wash. Anti-GMO movements and organic farming being two examples that come to mind. I come from 3 generations of working farmers. I have studied organic farming and its practices in depth. Time and again I am amazed by liberals, even scientists, who spend 2 or more times the price on organic products because they believe it to be more environmentally friendly. Meanwhile I am thinking about the increased erosion due to increased tillage, lower yields requiring more acreage to produce the same amount of food, increased fuel usage and overall lower efficiency, the host of far more toxic chemicals (like copper sulfates) that are allowed because they “natural” rather than “synthetic”. This is just barely scraping the bottom of the absurdities found in Environmentalism. I do not want to rape and pillage the Earth, I believe sustainable solutions are needed, but I do not buy into the fanciful and quasi-religious solutions that passes as modern day Environmentalism. But this just goes to show the degree of group think that exists even in groups supposedly dedicated to critical thinking and skepticism, that one can make blanket statements about how Environmentalism is an embrace of reality without qualification.

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/genealogyofmorals/section3.rhtml

Until science identifies and isolates the asshole gene, we’re stuck with ‘em. The best we can hope for is to channel these unfortunates into avenues where their strengths become valued assets for society, like stand up comedians, reality show judges and mall cops.

I apologize for bringing up environmentalism, which might not actually be part of this tendency. The science is clear, though widely denied by self-described skeptics, but policy is of course a political issue, and at best we’ll wander through a series of approximations to the right thing to do. I expect we will actually do much worse.

I’m one of your daily readers, and should have known to avoid mentioning libertarianism, but it’s an affiliation often claimed by sexists, racists and anti-environmentalists, and some variations serve as quasi-religious alternatives to economics. It’s certainly not synonymous with gold-buggery, but few of its loudest contemporary advocates are willing to disavow it.

As for sex and race, note that, while male and female brains are physically distinct, adults are difficult to distinguish sexually when clues are obscured, for example when musicians perform behind a screen or when writers publish under a pseudonym. On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog. It’s an ongoing Turing test. The point, of course, is that we have now become used to enjoying social intercourse with other people without first knowing their race or sex.

This is kind of a big deal.

how? since it’s short you can be succinct on a side note:

Forgive me for not digging up links, but there was a discussion about ICANN at Crooked Timber and another about DefCon at Schneier’s, and nearly every woman in an academic position has at least one horrifying anecdote, it seems. Unfortunately for some, women are now part of what used to be boy’s clubs, and behavior that used to draw an indulgent chuckle is now acknowledged as abuse.

this is not a problem for bloggers and academic women. it’s a general problem for women, especially where there is anonymity for the harassers. i don’t grant that feminism is necessarily the only answer. not too interested in arguing about this, just want to enter into the record that people can be horrified by the way women are harassed by trolls online without accepting all the propositions of feminists.

As for selfishness, much of libertarianism is sheer ignorance of economics (the gold standard? gold currency?) Environmentalism is nothing but a comprehensive embrace of reality, with a fairly wide reach and a longing look into the future

since you are a big fan of facts, gold-buggery is a minority position within libertarianism (e.g., milton friedman and libertarian economists invariably oppose it). it’s VERY vocal though. second, environmentalism is a normative framework. you admit that in the second section, where you assert that it looks into the future, implying low time preference. valuing low time preference over high time preference is a judgment of norms. not a statement of fact.

good luck on atheism+ i don’t begrudge you whatever movement you or anyone happens to espouse for whatever reason. but your comment kind of struck me as the same superior ignorance on display which kind of irritates me about ‘movements’ (sorry, but you didn’t really accurately characterize the positions of those whom you disagree with, though you were pretty accurate about yourself. that’s a tell)

The initial impetus for the drawing of this distinction was the disturbing lack of interest in women’s concerns at conventions and in commentary, an issue so deeply rooted in tradition that until recently it typically escaped notice: boys will be boys.

Forgive me for not digging up links, but there was a discussion about ICANN at Crooked Timber and another about DefCon at Schneier’s, and nearly every woman in an academic position has at least one horrifying anecdote, it seems. Unfortunately for some, women are now part of what used to be boy’s clubs, and behavior that used to draw an indulgent chuckle is now acknowledged as abuse.

It’s a short step from feminism to rejecting racism. As for selfishness, much of libertarianism is sheer ignorance of economics (the gold standard? gold currency?) Environmentalism is nothing but a comprehensive embrace of reality, with a fairly wide reach and a longing look into the future.

The difference between Atheism Plus and Humanism seems to be a matter of emphasis: atheism is edgier. It’s silly to suppose that religion is the only source of sexism, racism or selfishness when we’re confronting the same tendencies within our own ranks, but it’s still true that religion remains a stalwart buttress of the traditions that block human progress.

i’m with you.

it is the unique product of christian-emergent cultures. the question is: is christianity necessary or sufficient, or either? a materialist narrative might be that the necessary condition is economic growth, which was particular in western europe in the late 18th century. the arrows of causality are all mixed up.

in any case, reading the founders confidence in nature’s god, the christian antecedents are clear. but, so is the voice of the ancient confucians, or the calm pronouncements within the gita, or the logic of the islamic rationalists. ethical monotheism is not singularly special, it is one of a variety of fusions of pre-axial religion, philosophy, and politics. to a great extent i also think this ‘stage’ is inevitable, and may be terminal, insofar as secular replacements seem to be relatively temporary.

my main gripe with people who claim the specialness of their own tradition is that upon further exploration they don’t know much with any depth of other traditions. if you think you have a particular revelation or intuition about the truth of your tradition, that’s fine, i’m not going to argue with you because i think that’s frankly bullshit on an priori basis. but most people are trying to convince on reasoned grounds.

Couldn’t agree more. I am an Christian, Republican, combat vet in Academic Science……sometimes it feels like I am a spy or an anthropologist studying a new culture, but I see exactly this mixture of “is/ought positive/normative”. They often forget or do not know my true opinions, so its fun to throw a wrench into their group think every now and then and watch the shock.

But perhaps you are right, and the historical etiology of humanism merits a mere shrug. I am not so certain, however, as I do wonder (with many others) about the fate of modern ideologies which drew and draw from the wellspring of Christian theology, after the theology has all but dried up; especially since we are still fairly early in this process.

yes. there’s a reason why some people are making fun of the splintering of new atheism/atheism+/gnu atheism.

some separate issues

- christian thought is pretty impossible to comprehend without non-christian (i.e., hellenistic) thought. this is one reason that some heretical christians have exhibited skepticism toward orthodox christianity, because they see it is ‘contaminated’ by greek ideas. newton was one of these, and some mormons and radical protestants have expressed these same views. that being said, i think it is true but trivial to point this out. so what? if you presume the truth of christianity, and if jesus was born an aboriginal in australia, one assumes that some of the exoteric language of the religion would be very different. similarly, it stands to reason that atheism in christian societies will partake of the same general stream of culture as christianity, which preceded it as a universal monopoly. so what? this is like saying that carvaka materialism is incomprehensible without hinduism. yes. but it is still carvaka materialism in the fundamental.

- a major problem is that most people who are well versed in western cultural history are totally ignorant of non-western cultural history.* nietzsche lived at a time when there was some interest in eastern religion, but that interpretation was still highly inflected by western presuppositions (schopenhauer funnily enough has actually influenced, indirectly, many forms of elite revivalist buddhism!). to speak of the christian influence on atheist materialism one must have some understanding of different cultures, and how materialism intersects with its own substrate. almost no one who has posted on this weblog on this topic EVER has impressed me in this domain (i.e., you know more than me in the aggregate across the cultural domains). and i’m frankly fucking sick of it. if i wanted opinions about the singularness of christianity/hinduism/judaism you better show some knowledge across these knowledge areas, because otherwise you opinion doesn’t mean shit to me. but as it is, people don’t feel they need to do this. i would ban people, but literally no one is held to a high standard in this area. sad situation.

* and by interest, i’m not talking about the post-colonial crap. i’m talking about reading sankara if you want to get some sense of the philosophical gibberish that is elite hinduism. you can get a free copy and put it on your kindle and waste your time so that you at least know firsthand. i do.

But even after seeing and actually absorbing the quote, I suspect that only a small proportion of those who think of themselves as “socially progressive atheists” imagine any logical link from the latter to the former.

I’ve always heard tell of “the Atheist Community” tending toward ideological thought, but I suppose if it marries itself to various notoriously dogmatic egalitarian philosophies, it’s bound to become *extremely* ideological. And boy oh boy, does Carrier exemplify this! His rhetoric almost seems like a parody of the consummate Party True Believer.

I’m honestly a little shocked that a hardheaded Hate-Watcher such as he could have a reputation as being a “freethinker” and a “skeptic”. Numerous comments point out that he’s being a bullying, fanatical ideologue, and they’d rather not associate with bullying ideological fanaticism, even though they generally agree with his values. And he comes along to reply to each one with a version of “He who says A, must say B”, i.e., anyone who disagrees with him must not actually care about compassion and justice and rationality and is thus the sort of [insert utterly non-compassionate invective] he has denounced in the first place. He doesn’t grasp that people are turned off not by his “values”, but by the fact that he’s so *damn unreasonable*. But, being neither an atheist nor an egalitarian, I can’t say I have much stock in the outcome of this particular Glorious Struggle.

As to the question of the Christian roots of “social justice” and human rights (throwaway thoughts here), I think Nietzsche is largely correct. Obviously the conceptual roots of so much dear to secular humanism are a product of Christian theology, particularly of the Christian-derived idea of “the person”, but it seems more of a framework without which the discussion couldn’t take place rather than a direct causal link. Divorced from a secure theological ground, the ideals derived from Christianity seem to me to lead to either egalitarian totalitarianism (see: inklings in Carrier), or spiritually and culturally stultifying worship of “niceness”.

.02$