25/03: Back in your boxes
Reposted here ‘cos I slightly borked it at Ophelia’s place:
—
It’s been bashed around these spaces before, but I feel again moved to repeat: the notion that it is inappropriate to be disparaging of religions even if you have thrown them over the side on your own behalf is, well, interesting.
Thoughts I’ve had about the phenomenon, in no particular order:
1) The general meme could generally be seen as an essential part of religions’ outer defensive layers. It may be impossible to keep everyone believing all the time, but keeping them silent (or at least mostly quiet and keeping to themselves) about their unbelief is achievable, so there are social mechanisms for encouraging this. It’s quite possible to stop believing in the god and hang onto this conditioning, and people regularly do.
2) It could likewise be something of an extension of internal mechanisms in play all the time in religious communities. Doubt is a common feature of ‘the religious experience’ and ‘managing’ it is a necessary skill within the religion, and telling wavering believers hush, don’t worry about it, the doubts will fade if you just keep singing the hymns with sufficient enthusiasm is probably a pretty standard technique (and probably works, to a large degree: one does tend to start to believe what they’re saying, so if you can just get people to say they do believe, they’re likely to start to do so—and see also ‘fake it until you make it’). Seeing the same mechanism, pushed outward beyond the religious community, isn’t really surprising. Again, the general notion that you’re supposed to suppress doubt or incredulity, just go along, let people sing their hosannahs and try to look happy about it should be expected to be pretty ubiquitous, given this social aspect of the whole deal.
3) Whether or not the above phrasings really capture the essence of what’s going on, I do also suspect that to a degree, there’s a sort of post hoc rationalization going on in calling vocal expression of unbelief ‘antisocial’. Someone choosing not to express such unbelief is probably also considering the potential social costs of vocal disagreement as among their reasons; saying this is simply the ‘right’ way of behaving justifies this choice, which they may also fear might be perceived, naturally enough, as cowardly.
4) I’m often impressed by what I think are class-based aspects of it. I think I often see this attitude that look, not believing is fine if you’re powerful and wealthy and educated, but the weak and downtrodden and elderly and frightened, they need their illusions to get by. Don’t tell Grandma on her deathbed or the miserable in Cairo’s or Delhi’s slums or the guys who sweep the streets; let’s this just be our little secret, my fellow mover and shaker. Which isn’t so surprising either, given the social roles religion has played, and you just have to wonder how consistently and confidently the royals in the royal cults would have tended to believe they themselves were genuinely descended from gods when they also saw each regularly before their morning toilet; a little loose talk about how the Sun of Ra looks rather less godly before he’s had his facial would probably have been tolerated among those with sufficiently imposing titles.
5) This odd thought above extended: it does seem to me a big part of the recent furor over the Gnus has overtones of this. As in: hey, if the philosophers in their academies want to give lectures or a small elect want to sell each other books published by Prometheus Press, no worries; that’s a smart people thing; they’re allowed; let them have their fun. But if the unwashed start buying stuff by Dawkins by the millions at the chain bookstores, nuh uh, back in your boxes, ye with doctorates and big mouths. That’s not the deal. You’re allowed to talk to each other about it, but such knowledge is not to leak out too far beyond the grad student lounges, thank you kindly.
—
It’s been bashed around these spaces before, but I feel again moved to repeat: the notion that it is inappropriate to be disparaging of religions even if you have thrown them over the side on your own behalf is, well, interesting.
Thoughts I’ve had about the phenomenon, in no particular order:
1) The general meme could generally be seen as an essential part of religions’ outer defensive layers. It may be impossible to keep everyone believing all the time, but keeping them silent (or at least mostly quiet and keeping to themselves) about their unbelief is achievable, so there are social mechanisms for encouraging this. It’s quite possible to stop believing in the god and hang onto this conditioning, and people regularly do.
2) It could likewise be something of an extension of internal mechanisms in play all the time in religious communities. Doubt is a common feature of ‘the religious experience’ and ‘managing’ it is a necessary skill within the religion, and telling wavering believers hush, don’t worry about it, the doubts will fade if you just keep singing the hymns with sufficient enthusiasm is probably a pretty standard technique (and probably works, to a large degree: one does tend to start to believe what they’re saying, so if you can just get people to say they do believe, they’re likely to start to do so—and see also ‘fake it until you make it’). Seeing the same mechanism, pushed outward beyond the religious community, isn’t really surprising. Again, the general notion that you’re supposed to suppress doubt or incredulity, just go along, let people sing their hosannahs and try to look happy about it should be expected to be pretty ubiquitous, given this social aspect of the whole deal.
3) Whether or not the above phrasings really capture the essence of what’s going on, I do also suspect that to a degree, there’s a sort of post hoc rationalization going on in calling vocal expression of unbelief ‘antisocial’. Someone choosing not to express such unbelief is probably also considering the potential social costs of vocal disagreement as among their reasons; saying this is simply the ‘right’ way of behaving justifies this choice, which they may also fear might be perceived, naturally enough, as cowardly.
4) I’m often impressed by what I think are class-based aspects of it. I think I often see this attitude that look, not believing is fine if you’re powerful and wealthy and educated, but the weak and downtrodden and elderly and frightened, they need their illusions to get by. Don’t tell Grandma on her deathbed or the miserable in Cairo’s or Delhi’s slums or the guys who sweep the streets; let’s this just be our little secret, my fellow mover and shaker. Which isn’t so surprising either, given the social roles religion has played, and you just have to wonder how consistently and confidently the royals in the royal cults would have tended to believe they themselves were genuinely descended from gods when they also saw each regularly before their morning toilet; a little loose talk about how the Sun of Ra looks rather less godly before he’s had his facial would probably have been tolerated among those with sufficiently imposing titles.
5) This odd thought above extended: it does seem to me a big part of the recent furor over the Gnus has overtones of this. As in: hey, if the philosophers in their academies want to give lectures or a small elect want to sell each other books published by Prometheus Press, no worries; that’s a smart people thing; they’re allowed; let them have their fun. But if the unwashed start buying stuff by Dawkins by the millions at the chain bookstores, nuh uh, back in your boxes, ye with doctorates and big mouths. That’s not the deal. You’re allowed to talk to each other about it, but such knowledge is not to leak out too far beyond the grad student lounges, thank you kindly.
Yeah, been quiet. Busy March. Something about March, and just around the kids’ break: it usually is.
I’m in Tremblant, mostly coaching and working. Working because, well, March, and such is the rhythm of the business, I guess…
Coaching: yeah, well, my daughter asked if I could teach her to snowboard.
She’s doing really well. Managed some four blue runs down the mountain today, the last group from peak to base, no falls. Which is saying something for someone who’s been on the board some four days total, and it’s one of those hard-pack days, bits of ice. Not easy when you’ve only two edges, and can only ever use one (and the correct one, at any given time, if you wish to continue to live), and you’re new at this. So: I’m impressed..
Anyway. And then this evening rolled around and in the adjacent place there were partying college-age types. Not really obnoxious, but there was dance music, playing quiet but just loud enough—at that low, subsonic thumpa thumpa—that Yours Insomniac Truly really couldn’t practically sleep, and never mind everyone else seemed to be managing. Guess I can’t so much blame them, it being Saint Drinking Weekend and all, but y’know: if you can’t sleep, you can’t…
And hey. It had been a long week, and me with little me time over its course. So I figured, hell, let’s give up on the lying here trying not to notice the bass for a bit, go out, just have a brew at my favourite place, see if when I come back in an hour or two if it’s still thumpa thumpa next door. So I put a few logs on the fire, do the dishes quietly enough to avoid waking those sleeping, slip out into the minus fifteen…
Yes, minus fifteen. Weird March break it’s been, up and down, but at least less downright bizarre than last year’s plus twenty, and now, at least, it’s back down to something approaching seasonal…
So I get through that kinda welcomely, familiarly frigid air, get to the place, sit at the bar, have an ale, read some Ingersoll for a bit…
Good for the sanity, Ingersoll, I find, especially with papal conclaves all over the news and the usual froth of silliness from the usual suspects making headlines with sporadic outbursts of what the hell is that anyway. Was Chavez the twelfth imam? Or did they merely have one another’s business cards? It isn’t quite clear (or no more so than is most theology) but still, we are… amused. I think the word is amused, here. Other words are less fit to print. Not, I suppose, that this ever really stopped me.
Good for the sanity indeed…
Tell it, brother. That’s from Ghosts, for the record. Happened to be on my phone, at the time…
Bar was a weird scene, tho’. Turns out there’s this Ultimate Fighting thing on this eve, and the heavier than usual Y-chromosome dominance in the place is probably due this event. It’s up on all the flatscreens: two guys pounding the hell out of each other. Or more the one, pounding the hell out of the other… As I left, the local favourite (thing was in Montréal, apparently, and it was a US and Canadian fighter behind the chain link mesh that apparently marks the ring in these things) was dominating… And in the place, this is no sideshow: they turn up the volume, and everyone’s watching, intently.
And it’s a bit… Bizarre, watching this. Not so much the bout as the audience…
They’re into it. Intensely. With focus. With passion. At one point the local boy’s got the hated enemy on the mat, gets a knee into the poor bastard’s abdomen and all this crowd natty in high-end alpine outerwear are nothing short of wild with a delight that seems heavily underscored with an almost celebratory viciousness. There’s this tint of something pheromonal in the air. And hell, I can feel my own nostrils flaring… Even getting slightly edgy about the flavour of all this… Like geez, sure, this is a pretty well-heeled crowd, and sure, I guess I get this is all sublimation and living vicariously, in this company… Pretty damned unlikely anyone here is gonna throw a punch of their own.
But still, man, that bloodlust, you can practically taste it. It’s like it smells like a brawl in here.
It’s not so much a revelation or nothing. I mean, I guess it’s something I always knew about us slightly more hairless-than-other-chimps: we’re never that far from the edge of claws and teeth and blows, and these are ubiquitous human passions. Watch any crowd at a hockey game, you see the same undisguised hunger for bruising and pain…
Still. A mite alarming, when it’s a room full of that stuff.
I went home. Gonna have to get to sleep, now. Aerials to attempt in the morning…
I’m guessing from the noises the neighbours were making when I returned, however, the local boy prevailed.
I’m in Tremblant, mostly coaching and working. Working because, well, March, and such is the rhythm of the business, I guess…
Coaching: yeah, well, my daughter asked if I could teach her to snowboard.
She’s doing really well. Managed some four blue runs down the mountain today, the last group from peak to base, no falls. Which is saying something for someone who’s been on the board some four days total, and it’s one of those hard-pack days, bits of ice. Not easy when you’ve only two edges, and can only ever use one (and the correct one, at any given time, if you wish to continue to live), and you’re new at this. So: I’m impressed..
Anyway. And then this evening rolled around and in the adjacent place there were partying college-age types. Not really obnoxious, but there was dance music, playing quiet but just loud enough—at that low, subsonic thumpa thumpa—that Yours Insomniac Truly really couldn’t practically sleep, and never mind everyone else seemed to be managing. Guess I can’t so much blame them, it being Saint Drinking Weekend and all, but y’know: if you can’t sleep, you can’t…
And hey. It had been a long week, and me with little me time over its course. So I figured, hell, let’s give up on the lying here trying not to notice the bass for a bit, go out, just have a brew at my favourite place, see if when I come back in an hour or two if it’s still thumpa thumpa next door. So I put a few logs on the fire, do the dishes quietly enough to avoid waking those sleeping, slip out into the minus fifteen…
Yes, minus fifteen. Weird March break it’s been, up and down, but at least less downright bizarre than last year’s plus twenty, and now, at least, it’s back down to something approaching seasonal…
So I get through that kinda welcomely, familiarly frigid air, get to the place, sit at the bar, have an ale, read some Ingersoll for a bit…
Good for the sanity, Ingersoll, I find, especially with papal conclaves all over the news and the usual froth of silliness from the usual suspects making headlines with sporadic outbursts of what the hell is that anyway. Was Chavez the twelfth imam? Or did they merely have one another’s business cards? It isn’t quite clear (or no more so than is most theology) but still, we are… amused. I think the word is amused, here. Other words are less fit to print. Not, I suppose, that this ever really stopped me.
Good for the sanity indeed…
They found that the ghosts knew nothing of benefit to man; that they were utterly ignorant of geology—of astronomy—of geography;—that they knew nothing of history;—that they were poor doctors and worse surgeons;—that they knew nothing of law and less of justice; that they were without brains, and utterly destitute of hearts; that they knew nothing of the rights of men; that they were despisers of women, the haters of progress, the enemies of science, and the destroyers of liberty.
Tell it, brother. That’s from Ghosts, for the record. Happened to be on my phone, at the time…
Bar was a weird scene, tho’. Turns out there’s this Ultimate Fighting thing on this eve, and the heavier than usual Y-chromosome dominance in the place is probably due this event. It’s up on all the flatscreens: two guys pounding the hell out of each other. Or more the one, pounding the hell out of the other… As I left, the local favourite (thing was in Montréal, apparently, and it was a US and Canadian fighter behind the chain link mesh that apparently marks the ring in these things) was dominating… And in the place, this is no sideshow: they turn up the volume, and everyone’s watching, intently.
And it’s a bit… Bizarre, watching this. Not so much the bout as the audience…
They’re into it. Intensely. With focus. With passion. At one point the local boy’s got the hated enemy on the mat, gets a knee into the poor bastard’s abdomen and all this crowd natty in high-end alpine outerwear are nothing short of wild with a delight that seems heavily underscored with an almost celebratory viciousness. There’s this tint of something pheromonal in the air. And hell, I can feel my own nostrils flaring… Even getting slightly edgy about the flavour of all this… Like geez, sure, this is a pretty well-heeled crowd, and sure, I guess I get this is all sublimation and living vicariously, in this company… Pretty damned unlikely anyone here is gonna throw a punch of their own.
But still, man, that bloodlust, you can practically taste it. It’s like it smells like a brawl in here.
It’s not so much a revelation or nothing. I mean, I guess it’s something I always knew about us slightly more hairless-than-other-chimps: we’re never that far from the edge of claws and teeth and blows, and these are ubiquitous human passions. Watch any crowd at a hockey game, you see the same undisguised hunger for bruising and pain…
Still. A mite alarming, when it’s a room full of that stuff.
I went home. Gonna have to get to sleep, now. Aerials to attempt in the morning…
I’m guessing from the noises the neighbours were making when I returned, however, the local boy prevailed.
Doug Saunders has a piece on the IHEU’s report on discrimination against unbelievers.
I’ll call out one bit:
My take on this is roughly as follows:
Religions are not universally believed, certainly not of late, and quite probably never were. They function to varying degrees—-and certainly, recently, at least, to a very high degree—through the suppression of the expression of unbelief—convincing those who disbelieve to remain silent, convincing others to silence them actively, if they won’t do it themselves, and, of course, attempting to convince those who don’t believe, that, simply put, they should talk themselves into it, primarily through rather heavy handed social pressure. A great deal of the human footprint of religion is in this effort, and this is much of the misery religions generate.
I’ll add: this is a practical necessity, now. Religions are not, by and large, intellectually defensible positions. You can’t really reason someone into following one without the weight of social sanction, so this is a primary lever for protecting them. Religions don’t generally say: believe because our cosmology makes sense. What they’re mostly saying is: believe—or at least do not express your disbelief publicly—because if you openly call our claims the nonsense they so clearly are, we’ll attempt to isolate you, and make your life properly miserable.
The rapid growth and proliferation of digital networks and social media, however created new virtual communities religions had not, as yet, learned rigorously to police. The techniques they have evolved and used for centuries to suppress disbelief—various methods of shunning, ostracism, marginalization, and so on—were not as yet directed to this space.
And thus in this space, unbelief had begun to flourish. People suppressed everywhere else began to hope: here, I can say what I believe, say what I think, call out this nonsense for what it is. I may be forced to be a liar everywhere else by the constant drumbeat of demands I silence myself or pass for a believer—at work, at home—but here I can say what I think.
What you’re seeing now is, in part, the ‘civilizing’ of this space by religions: the techniques will be brought to bear online, too, to again attempt to silence such dissent. They will attempt to make it impossible to call prophets the shameless cons they’ve always been. Lacking arguments for their various dogmas, they’ll go back to their old standards to attempt to enforce conformity: the bludgeon where they can get away with it, as heavy handed social pressures as they can manage where they can’t.
It’s also, in fairness, I’d expect, part and parcel of and an unlooked-for side effect of the growth and relative maturity of the space: as it becomes more and more integral to the ‘real’ world, the notion of a separate ‘virtual/online’ world will begin to make less sense. Our digital footprints will be more intimately associated with the rest of our lives, more a part of us. So the same social mechanisms that had silenced unbelief all through history will start to be felt more keenly online, as well.
My hope is: they’ll still work less well there. The space itself, is different. The nature of the media does influence what messages survive.
Either way, I expect it’s going to be a very interesting decade.
I’ll call out one bit:
… the report, titled “Freedom of Thought 2012: A Global Report on Discrimination Against Humanists, Atheists and the Nonreligious,” notes that the majority of criminal charges for blasphemy around the world in 2012 involved “social media or other user-generated content platforms like YouTube.” This year has seen more than a dozen blasphemy prosecutions for social-media statements, up from only three over the previous five years.
My take on this is roughly as follows:
Religions are not universally believed, certainly not of late, and quite probably never were. They function to varying degrees—-and certainly, recently, at least, to a very high degree—through the suppression of the expression of unbelief—convincing those who disbelieve to remain silent, convincing others to silence them actively, if they won’t do it themselves, and, of course, attempting to convince those who don’t believe, that, simply put, they should talk themselves into it, primarily through rather heavy handed social pressure. A great deal of the human footprint of religion is in this effort, and this is much of the misery religions generate.
I’ll add: this is a practical necessity, now. Religions are not, by and large, intellectually defensible positions. You can’t really reason someone into following one without the weight of social sanction, so this is a primary lever for protecting them. Religions don’t generally say: believe because our cosmology makes sense. What they’re mostly saying is: believe—or at least do not express your disbelief publicly—because if you openly call our claims the nonsense they so clearly are, we’ll attempt to isolate you, and make your life properly miserable.
The rapid growth and proliferation of digital networks and social media, however created new virtual communities religions had not, as yet, learned rigorously to police. The techniques they have evolved and used for centuries to suppress disbelief—various methods of shunning, ostracism, marginalization, and so on—were not as yet directed to this space.
And thus in this space, unbelief had begun to flourish. People suppressed everywhere else began to hope: here, I can say what I believe, say what I think, call out this nonsense for what it is. I may be forced to be a liar everywhere else by the constant drumbeat of demands I silence myself or pass for a believer—at work, at home—but here I can say what I think.
What you’re seeing now is, in part, the ‘civilizing’ of this space by religions: the techniques will be brought to bear online, too, to again attempt to silence such dissent. They will attempt to make it impossible to call prophets the shameless cons they’ve always been. Lacking arguments for their various dogmas, they’ll go back to their old standards to attempt to enforce conformity: the bludgeon where they can get away with it, as heavy handed social pressures as they can manage where they can’t.
It’s also, in fairness, I’d expect, part and parcel of and an unlooked-for side effect of the growth and relative maturity of the space: as it becomes more and more integral to the ‘real’ world, the notion of a separate ‘virtual/online’ world will begin to make less sense. Our digital footprints will be more intimately associated with the rest of our lives, more a part of us. So the same social mechanisms that had silenced unbelief all through history will start to be felt more keenly online, as well.
My hope is: they’ll still work less well there. The space itself, is different. The nature of the media does influence what messages survive.
Either way, I expect it’s going to be a very interesting decade.
13/12: Hey, is this a Godwin?
‘Kay. I’m not seriously asking. Anyway, there was this thing over at this blog here about something I’ve previously complained about, about this way people have of treating Hitler as some kind of alien, inexplicable ‘ultimate evil’, and I answered.
(… oh, and geez, but I’m sick, right now, by the way. Don’t even ask. Why am I writing this stuff, you ask? Because I’m stupid, that’s why. Anyway… My answer, slightly cleaned up, edited, below…)
ETA: Eamon notes in the comments he’s had much the same thought.
(… oh, and geez, but I’m sick, right now, by the way. Don’t even ask. Why am I writing this stuff, you ask? Because I’m stupid, that’s why. Anyway… My answer, slightly cleaned up, edited, below…)
I think I’ve had roughly the same thought.
My phrasing of it would be: there’s a tendency to treat Hitler like some kind of alien, essential evil, a dark force from beyond somehow apart from the human species, like that cloud of evil in the old Star Trek series that the script claimed was somehow responsible for (or was) Jack the Ripper… free floating, a thing apart, came from nowhere…
And nothing could be further from the truth.
First, antisemitism had a long history prior to National Socialism’s use of the Jews as a scapegoat. Google ‘marranos’ and ‘inquisition’, if it’s even necessary, for previous, well-documented examples, and just the beginnings of a glimpse at the whole, long tapestry. The Nazis are properly understood in context as a continuation of this same phenomenon. They did not come from nowhere, not at all.
Second, the general themes the Nazis used, fusing nationalism and notions of racial purity and superiority and ruling the world as a divinely-ordained/fatalistically inevitable necessity that must be brought to fruition, these, too, existed before and after. The general concept of making nationalism itself a sort of cult and/or welding it to a sort of romantic religious sentiment, again, is probably almost as old as are nation states themselves. Go back to ancient Egypt, one of the first, even, and you find the pharaohs wrapping themselves in a similar mystique. And countless empires have insisted it’s their right, their obligation, their duty to rule their racial ‘lessers’ in the hinterland.
Third, charismatic demagogues are likewise a dime a dozen over the long stretches of history, and their finding their way to positions of power, finding a scapegoat with which to drive their popularity, is nothing new, nor is the general phenomena at all retired, as yet.
Fourth: the general sociological and psychological means by which the Nazis rose to power and acquired assistants in the bloodletting they performed are likewise not unprecedented, not some unique vulnerability of the Germans of the 30s and 40s. We know the ‘just following orders’ effect is replicable, and there are torturers working for governments around the world, today.
Note also that: WWII is, in numerical terms, generally taken to be the largest bloodletting in human history, but this is in part probably due to the combination of the relative density of the populations among which it occurred being larger, and the technological means of warfare and mass murder within the civilian population reaching the point where it became possible. There are other conflicts that do start to give some competition, when you take them as a proportion of the population, at least.
… that last is really just a ‘by the way’, however. The real danger in treating Hitler as some kind of alien outlier is in forgetting these essential facts above it, those numbered one through four (among others).
And we forget them at our peril, because, yes, all of this can happen again. Understanding in real, human terms how it did, recognizing in ourselves the same tendencies is vital, for this reason. It doesn’t necessarily prevent it. But it gives us the best shot at doing so we have.
My phrasing of it would be: there’s a tendency to treat Hitler like some kind of alien, essential evil, a dark force from beyond somehow apart from the human species, like that cloud of evil in the old Star Trek series that the script claimed was somehow responsible for (or was) Jack the Ripper… free floating, a thing apart, came from nowhere…
And nothing could be further from the truth.
First, antisemitism had a long history prior to National Socialism’s use of the Jews as a scapegoat. Google ‘marranos’ and ‘inquisition’, if it’s even necessary, for previous, well-documented examples, and just the beginnings of a glimpse at the whole, long tapestry. The Nazis are properly understood in context as a continuation of this same phenomenon. They did not come from nowhere, not at all.
Second, the general themes the Nazis used, fusing nationalism and notions of racial purity and superiority and ruling the world as a divinely-ordained/fatalistically inevitable necessity that must be brought to fruition, these, too, existed before and after. The general concept of making nationalism itself a sort of cult and/or welding it to a sort of romantic religious sentiment, again, is probably almost as old as are nation states themselves. Go back to ancient Egypt, one of the first, even, and you find the pharaohs wrapping themselves in a similar mystique. And countless empires have insisted it’s their right, their obligation, their duty to rule their racial ‘lessers’ in the hinterland.
Third, charismatic demagogues are likewise a dime a dozen over the long stretches of history, and their finding their way to positions of power, finding a scapegoat with which to drive their popularity, is nothing new, nor is the general phenomena at all retired, as yet.
Fourth: the general sociological and psychological means by which the Nazis rose to power and acquired assistants in the bloodletting they performed are likewise not unprecedented, not some unique vulnerability of the Germans of the 30s and 40s. We know the ‘just following orders’ effect is replicable, and there are torturers working for governments around the world, today.
Note also that: WWII is, in numerical terms, generally taken to be the largest bloodletting in human history, but this is in part probably due to the combination of the relative density of the populations among which it occurred being larger, and the technological means of warfare and mass murder within the civilian population reaching the point where it became possible. There are other conflicts that do start to give some competition, when you take them as a proportion of the population, at least.
… that last is really just a ‘by the way’, however. The real danger in treating Hitler as some kind of alien outlier is in forgetting these essential facts above it, those numbered one through four (among others).
And we forget them at our peril, because, yes, all of this can happen again. Understanding in real, human terms how it did, recognizing in ourselves the same tendencies is vital, for this reason. It doesn’t necessarily prevent it. But it gives us the best shot at doing so we have.
ETA: Eamon notes in the comments he’s had much the same thought.
08/12: As ever
… so if you read that thing by Bareebe and House I noted yesterday, you may have noticed their mention without naming of other nations of the Commonwealth (beyond this recent way-over-the-top example in Uganda) that have nasty, regressive laws generally making life unpleasant for LGBT types.
I got curious about that. So I cross-referenced the Wikipedia pages on states of the Commonwealth and LGBT rights by country or territory. Spreadsheeted it, y’know. Nothing fancy. Just tried to focus on: do they have laws against (picking the one that seemed to stand out) same sex sexual activity and do they enforce them…
Result, from my quick count: of the 54 member nations of the Commonwealth, 38 have laws against same-sex sexual activity. Generally these are prison sentences, some to life, some involving hard labour, corporal punishment, so on. In seven of these, the laws aren’t generally enforced, leaving 31 in which they are. There are an additional seven (beyond the 38) with less clearcut situations—the laws aren’t clear, or are in transition, it’s being legalized or proposed legalized, or just somewhat discriminatory. Including Canada, in which consenting same sex sexual activity is legal, but the age of consent laws are different for same-sex sex.
Also of interest, several (I counted five) of the nations that made it onto this list as having issues (and note that a list of nations without the same would be shorter by half) were, in fact, signatories to the UN declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity, and, so far as I can see, still enforce laws against consensual same sex sexual behaviour.
… so, okay, that checks out. And yes, in fact, this is the kind of thing I sometimes do with a bit of time to kill in the middle of the night, in case anyone were wondering.
As a pattern, it appears also the laws are in part a legacy of British colonialism, which I guess isn’t surprising, given that generally common element in the history of these nations. In fairness, I don’t know how in general and did not research how the cultures in each locale actually treated same sex sexual behaviour prior to the coming of the British, so whether that’s entirely about the onetime empire’s attitudes is harder to quantify, at least through a quick exercise like this.
Anyway: it’s fair enough to say, I guess, if anyone’s looking for a few more high commissions to picket (or otherwise address), this could prove a project with some duration.
I got curious about that. So I cross-referenced the Wikipedia pages on states of the Commonwealth and LGBT rights by country or territory. Spreadsheeted it, y’know. Nothing fancy. Just tried to focus on: do they have laws against (picking the one that seemed to stand out) same sex sexual activity and do they enforce them…
Result, from my quick count: of the 54 member nations of the Commonwealth, 38 have laws against same-sex sexual activity. Generally these are prison sentences, some to life, some involving hard labour, corporal punishment, so on. In seven of these, the laws aren’t generally enforced, leaving 31 in which they are. There are an additional seven (beyond the 38) with less clearcut situations—the laws aren’t clear, or are in transition, it’s being legalized or proposed legalized, or just somewhat discriminatory. Including Canada, in which consenting same sex sexual activity is legal, but the age of consent laws are different for same-sex sex.
Also of interest, several (I counted five) of the nations that made it onto this list as having issues (and note that a list of nations without the same would be shorter by half) were, in fact, signatories to the UN declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity, and, so far as I can see, still enforce laws against consensual same sex sexual behaviour.
… so, okay, that checks out. And yes, in fact, this is the kind of thing I sometimes do with a bit of time to kill in the middle of the night, in case anyone were wondering.
As a pattern, it appears also the laws are in part a legacy of British colonialism, which I guess isn’t surprising, given that generally common element in the history of these nations. In fairness, I don’t know how in general and did not research how the cultures in each locale actually treated same sex sexual behaviour prior to the coming of the British, so whether that’s entirely about the onetime empire’s attitudes is harder to quantify, at least through a quick exercise like this.
Anyway: it’s fair enough to say, I guess, if anyone’s looking for a few more high commissions to picket (or otherwise address), this could prove a project with some duration.
… besides the US evangelical assholes you’ve already heard about, are 1) a war, 2) an autocratic president, and 3) a mob of other Commonwealth nations that also criminalize homosexuality, and who coast by as Uganda’s extremism grabs the headlines. Or so say Gerald Bareebe and Brett House.
There’s a protest today at the Ugandan High Commission. I may try to make it…
It’s like so many things. Start somewhere, anyway.
There’s a protest today at the Ugandan High Commission. I may try to make it…
It’s like so many things. Start somewhere, anyway.
(ETA: Did do a bit of time at the protest, but now must get back to work. Scuttlebutt seems to be the bill will pass, so I dunno about that analysis up there. Is it still really that functional as a distraction when people are actually trying to repeal it, cutting off aid, and adding the misery such a law will cause to your larger litany of appalling acts? Anyway. Guess we’ll see very shortly. What I can find out about Bareebe makes me think he’d both be in a position to know and would deliver, so, well… Distraction that goes all the way to enacted law, maybe.)
20/11: Cute
Shannon Rupp has a modest proposal.
It popped up in a mailing list. I was amused. But also had to respond. So, said response is repurposed* below:
—
Awesome. And a fascinating new spin on ‘Jihad vs. McWorld’.
… mind, getting briefly serious, and stepping outside the ‘modest proposal’ vibe, it kinda gives me a cold shiver even to imagine the megachurch types and televangelists who’ve already developed a certain facility with mass communication being given a chance to bid for this audience…
… but still well worth it just for the ‘Coke vs. Christianity’ line.
That larger topic: children and conditioning and education, that is an incredibly big one. The day we get the world to respect the notion that you can’t just stick your god in a child’s head at the age of five just because it happens to be a lot easier then, well, honestly, that’s probably well after the day we’ve already convinced people of an awful lot besides. But it’d be damned lovely, all the same.
The sorta funny thing about this also is: I’ve long nursed this half-baked notion that one of the reasons the US is such an outlier among developed nations in the prominence of religion is actually the state of development of mass media and the science of PR…
… as in, people are susceptible to religion there in part because they’re already bathed in an environment in which emotive, deliberately irrational persuasion is the norm, anyway. Coke commercials don’t say ‘drink Coke because this many calories and this much caffeine will somehow be useful to you’; they show you a picture of a bikini-clad supermodel and a musclebound hunk enjoying one, with pulsing music, or possibly a nice homey midwinter Christmas scene, do all this and say everyone else is doing it, and count on your brain making the associations without your ever much consciously thinking about the fact that actually you’re drinking something that tastes a lot like sweetened battery acid, and will rot your teeth and increase your susceptibility to diabetes, at any regular rate of consumption…
(… oh, and remember also that commercial propaganda isn’t the only player in the field, either: there’s also the whole structure even of the ‘serious’ mass media: TV news especially is done in small bits, little room for discussion and exposition—it’s ‘here’s someone rioting/scary huh?’ and on we go to should we invade. Talking up a war or a candidate, it’s much of the same—ominous music, sound bites, and emotive appeals. Longer discussion of implications and costs and longer term strategies, let’s not be jejune—these, if they happen anywhere, are far beyond the commercial dimensions of the format, and not for the grubby paws of Joe Sixpack. So again, it’s the same take home message: think with your gut, do what you feel…)
… so, my wild conjecture goes: given this background of endless PR, supermodels and music and associations implied not benefits argued, you’re already used to this pattern: stuff isn’t supposed to make sense; you make decisions on what you feel anyway, so when someone comes up and says accept Jesus into your heart and we’ll be nice to you and everything will be lovely and homey and just like a midwinter Coke commercial, hey, that’s how we decide everything anyway already, right?
So sorta more seriously: I dunno… Take Rupp’s proposal as other than satire (for argument, because I had five minutes), and do this even with a proper plurality of conflicting messages actually showing up in each classroom, I’m still not sure it would be particularly useful; all it would teach is that ‘you think with your gut but your gut has this many more options’. What would really make a difference might be getting critical thinking courses in earlier, and pointing at religion and commercial PR and even political PR and the persuasion used therein real early…
… hrm… So maybe that’s how you do it: adopt Rupp’s proposal, here, and use the money for the critical thinking courses… Which come on just after the paid commercial slot, and use it as material…
… but then, as long as I’m asking for critical thinking classes that actually honestly address religious indoctrination, I’d also like a pony.
It popped up in a mailing list. I was amused. But also had to respond. So, said response is repurposed* below:
—
Awesome. And a fascinating new spin on ‘Jihad vs. McWorld’.
… mind, getting briefly serious, and stepping outside the ‘modest proposal’ vibe, it kinda gives me a cold shiver even to imagine the megachurch types and televangelists who’ve already developed a certain facility with mass communication being given a chance to bid for this audience…
… but still well worth it just for the ‘Coke vs. Christianity’ line.
That larger topic: children and conditioning and education, that is an incredibly big one. The day we get the world to respect the notion that you can’t just stick your god in a child’s head at the age of five just because it happens to be a lot easier then, well, honestly, that’s probably well after the day we’ve already convinced people of an awful lot besides. But it’d be damned lovely, all the same.
The sorta funny thing about this also is: I’ve long nursed this half-baked notion that one of the reasons the US is such an outlier among developed nations in the prominence of religion is actually the state of development of mass media and the science of PR…
… as in, people are susceptible to religion there in part because they’re already bathed in an environment in which emotive, deliberately irrational persuasion is the norm, anyway. Coke commercials don’t say ‘drink Coke because this many calories and this much caffeine will somehow be useful to you’; they show you a picture of a bikini-clad supermodel and a musclebound hunk enjoying one, with pulsing music, or possibly a nice homey midwinter Christmas scene, do all this and say everyone else is doing it, and count on your brain making the associations without your ever much consciously thinking about the fact that actually you’re drinking something that tastes a lot like sweetened battery acid, and will rot your teeth and increase your susceptibility to diabetes, at any regular rate of consumption…
(… oh, and remember also that commercial propaganda isn’t the only player in the field, either: there’s also the whole structure even of the ‘serious’ mass media: TV news especially is done in small bits, little room for discussion and exposition—it’s ‘here’s someone rioting/scary huh?’ and on we go to should we invade. Talking up a war or a candidate, it’s much of the same—ominous music, sound bites, and emotive appeals. Longer discussion of implications and costs and longer term strategies, let’s not be jejune—these, if they happen anywhere, are far beyond the commercial dimensions of the format, and not for the grubby paws of Joe Sixpack. So again, it’s the same take home message: think with your gut, do what you feel…)
… so, my wild conjecture goes: given this background of endless PR, supermodels and music and associations implied not benefits argued, you’re already used to this pattern: stuff isn’t supposed to make sense; you make decisions on what you feel anyway, so when someone comes up and says accept Jesus into your heart and we’ll be nice to you and everything will be lovely and homey and just like a midwinter Coke commercial, hey, that’s how we decide everything anyway already, right?
So sorta more seriously: I dunno… Take Rupp’s proposal as other than satire (for argument, because I had five minutes), and do this even with a proper plurality of conflicting messages actually showing up in each classroom, I’m still not sure it would be particularly useful; all it would teach is that ‘you think with your gut but your gut has this many more options’. What would really make a difference might be getting critical thinking courses in earlier, and pointing at religion and commercial PR and even political PR and the persuasion used therein real early…
… hrm… So maybe that’s how you do it: adopt Rupp’s proposal, here, and use the money for the critical thinking courses… Which come on just after the paid commercial slot, and use it as material…
… but then, as long as I’m asking for critical thinking classes that actually honestly address religious indoctrination, I’d also like a pony.
*And, as always, slightly edited from there, because I’m obsessive that way.
20/11: On a lighter note
… Mark Twain’s Christian Science—while, sure, yet again dealing with some occasionally thoroughly ruinously (and up to and including fatally so) unpleasant flim flam produced by yet another self-described prophet—is also, in fact, every bit as hilarious as you’d expect from the old master. I hereby declare it highly recommended.
(/Also, of course, as it’s the sort of thing you can now snag in seconds in free ebook form, what have you got to lose?)
(/Also, of course, as it’s the sort of thing you can now snag in seconds in free ebook form, what have you got to lose?)
