Flaccid lines for flaccid cocks: masculine self-pity amongst cartoonists

I’ve only just latched on to Scott Adams’ withdrawn-but-not-retracted, reposted-with-caveat, misogynist-rant story, most probably because I just don’t care about the Dilbert cartoons. Increasingly, I’m finding cartoonists a pretentious bunch who reduce life to corny sentiment and ignorant generalisation, before serving their work up with the utmost piety. Consider Leunig.

Leunig, who while using his trademark floppy lines to decry the culture of kids left in daycare centers, failed in a series of cartoons back in the day, to manage much anything other than blame mothers as a causal factor.

But it was his response to the outcry (being called a misogynist and having pointed out to him scenarios like the single mother who has to work while her child is in daycare because her husband is a deadbeat) that was laughable. Claiming of being called ‘a misogynist’…

‘It’s like saying a wife-beater, a racist, a paedophile. I think this type of accusation accounts for a lot of men being silenced about all sorts of things.’

(Bettina Arndt, ‘All Care…’, Sydney Morning Herald, 2000)

Yes. Poor Leunig, Australia’s most popular cartoonist. Nobody ever gets to read what he has to say, being so suppressed by the jack-booted forces of mere disagreement.

I never tire of saying about such self-pity, that you’ll know nanotechnology has matured as a field when it finally creates the violin small enough to play an appropriate lament.

Unless they have some kind of anxiety disorder or are considerably undereducated, the only things men are really worried about saying that could attract criticisms of misogyny, are misogynistic things. Which naturally they want to express without being called on it.

Things like claiming women have all the power nowadays (boo-hoo sniffle), that women in some way have to take responsibility for being raped, or fixating on the role of women in condemning children to day-care sans commentary on the role of deadbeat husbands; women being forced to stall careers; industrial relations realities like the rise of the two income family, and so on.

And what shameful apologetics Arndt was enabling, prefacing the above Leunig quote with…

‘Hence their attempt to silence him.’

(Bettina Arndt, ‘All Care…’, Sydney Morning Herald, 2000)

We’re talking about academic criticism, and letters to the editor, not privations by The Ministry of Truth.

‘Hey Bettina, someone down the street doesn’t like Leunig’s artwork!’

‘TYRANT!’

‘They used the word ‘misogynist!’

‘Sorry, you’ll have to repeat that last bit. The conversation was silenced.’

***

Now If you really want to appreciate just how over the top the poor response to criticism shown by Leunig and fans alike is, you need only consider Leunig’s use of moral equivalence between being called ‘misogynist’, and being called ‘pedophile’. If you accept Leunig’s equivalence, then you really can’t balk at something along the lines of…

‘Being called a paedophile is like being called a racist, a misogynist. I think this type of accusation accounts for a lot of friendly neighbourhood kiddie-fuckers being silenced about all sorts of things.’

Oh, the poor, brutally suppressed kiddie-fuckers… being compared to… misogynists of all things!

No. Not buying it.

This is absurd precisely because Leunig’s equivalence is false, and spurious, and downright pathetic. Yet Arndt gobbled down Leunig’s terms without so much as a hiccup.

Being called ‘misogynist’ is not the same as being called ‘paedophile’, and the criticism isn’t made to silence Leunig. Leunig’s work is criticised as misogynistic by critics because it’s misogynistic, and because this warrants criticism. Pretty straight-forward stuff, at least for grown-ups.

On occasion I’ve suspected that Legal Eagle over at SkepticLawyer may be just a little blind to subtle winks, nudges, veiled facetiousness and the like, which could just be the chief source of my disagreement with her about the old GrodsCorp crowd. But in the case of Leunig on Muftis, religion, sex, women’s freedom of expression and the threat of rape, Legal Eagle gets it exactly right. Leunig’s post hoc justifications only serve to verify what his critics are saying.

At least he spared us the spectacle of calling his oppression fascism; ‘gleichshaltung‘ is how Leunig describes his critics disagreeing with him – and you know we’ve got gleichshaltung in Australia when not everyone agrees with Leunig, the poor victim.

***

Now on to that other poor victim, Scott Adams.

Adams, a couple of weeks ago, as mentioned, managed to churn out a post that drew infuriated responses before being withdrawn back up the author’s own fundament.

After opening by telling us that he’d been in contact with readers concerned with Menz Rightz, Adams elaborated…

According to my readers, examples of unfair treatment of men include many elements of the legal system, the military draft in some cases, the lower life expectancies of men, the higher suicide rates for men, circumcision, and the growing number of government agencies that are primarily for women.

(Scott Adams via TinySprout, 2011)

I’m not so unsympathetic to fathers in custody battles that I’ll say there’s nothing in it, nor will I say that male circumcision is a non-issue, because it isn’t. But give me a break.

No, better still give Adams and his readers a sense of proportion (or history)!

The lower life expectancies of men are a very recent phenomena, pregnancy for the better part of human history being the cause of much lower life expectancy rates for women. The present difference (in the developed world) is an artefact of recent and abrupt medical/biological realities, not an imposition by a matriarchy hell-bent on immortality for women only.

As a guy, all else being equal, I’m probably going to die younger than most women in the developed world, historically/statistically due to the benefits of contraception. I’m not going to resent womens’ rights for this, or the subsequent, massive improvement in their quality of life! Good for them!

At some point in the future, when we’ve got over the discussion of the risks of reproduction to women (not just in terms of death rates, but in terms of economic and social inclusion), when the last penny has dropped for the last reproductive ignoramus, then the matter of male lifespan may be a whole lot more demanding (or given the likely timescale, the issue may rectify itself without any Adamsian advocacy).

As it stands, the matter of womens’ reproductive rights (bound intrinsically to, but not limited by, the reality of womens’ lifespans) is for most women far from being something able to be taken for granted. When you have laws being drafted in the US, that would potentially see women prosecuted for a miscarriage, or when you see serious political consideration given to ‘screening’ rape victims into categories of ‘forcible’ and ‘non-forcible’ rape (thanks John Boehner), it’s clear there’s still a long way to go.

Yet if you read further into Adams’ pathetic rant, the limited and flawed liberation of women in this respect, is somehow part of a monolithic feminist utopia, one which men are intimidated by, and should be resentful of.

Seriously, what do these guys want? A magical medical breakthrough in male longevity isn’t realistic, so the alternative is to coercively calibrate women’s reproductive rights so that on average, they die earlier at just the right age. Then perhaps Adams and his readers can dance through the streets in a ticker tape parade to celebrate The End of The Gender War.

(And what if they want equality of standard deviation in those stats? How coercive would that have to be?)

***

Having had to duck, what with a pack of Germaine Greer’s thugs probing my study with a spotlight beamed from armed patrol jeep, I almost missed the part where Scott Adams segued with…

‘Now I would like to speak directly to my male readers who feel unjustly treated by the widespread suppression of men’s rights…’

(Scott Adams via TinySprout, 2011)

Tell me about it brother! Oh wait…

Adams was being sarcastic?

‘…Get over it, you bunch of pussies.’

(Scott Adams via TinySprout, 2011)

It was a bait-and-switch all along? Well no, not really.

‘The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone… It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.‘

So parsing all this sarcasm, what we are left with here is the suggestion that matters of gender difference (less pay for the same job, longevity and health, and so on), are merely territories to be tactically ceded in a battle against women.

‘Being old sucks, so let them have it’, is an interesting, if interestingly stupid take on the cultural evolution of women’s longevity, when you consider the unavoidably associated reproductive rights. The criticism laid before the faked about-face, still applies afterwards – Adams still needs a sense of proportion and history if he doesn’t even recognise that he’s dismissing the tenuous but significant gains in reproductive rights, with simple, base ageism.

And besides this, what ‘battle’ are we talking about? I’m not at odds with women claiming that they earn less, nor demands for pay equality.

Maybe I’m not a part of the ‘team’ of man, Adams talks about; a fifth columnist! Maybe I’m one of these irrational ‘pussies’, too hung up on ‘fairness’.

‘Fairness is an illusion. It’s unobtainable in the real world. I’m happy that I can open jars with my bare hands.’

(Scott Adams via TinySprout, 2011)

What rubbish. Not all inequalities are as intractable as the difference in the capacity to open condiments with bare hands (roar). Many aren’t. Once women couldn’t vote, now as a result of political effort, they can. There’s nothing at all unobtainable about campaigning for ‘fairness’. Quite a lot is obtainable if you pay attention to history.

Imagine Scott Adams if he was a polemicist from the beginning of The Enlightenment.

‘Stop trying! It’s futile to invest effort in female emancipation! It’s unobtainable in the real world because I can open jars!’

A 21st Century perspective would make Enlightenment Adams seem the dunce, in much the way it makes him seem the dunce in the here and now.

Adams cod-philosophical, phony-stoicism, belies a need for convenience (and some pretty base standards) in order for him to be able to consider himself in any great esteem. I may not be as rich as Adams, and I don’t begrudge him his financial success, but I just couldn’t live if I had to judge myself so lightly.

***

Amidst all this bluster, there’s one especially telling piece of bullshit.

How many times do we men suppress our natural instincts for sex and aggression just to get something better in the long run? It’s called a strategy. Sometimes you sacrifice a pawn to nail the queen. If you’re still crying about your pawn when you’re having your way with the queen, there’s something wrong with you and it isn’t men’s rights.

(Scott Adams via TinySprout, 2011)

Oh dear. Honestly, I laughed. Nothing forced about it.

There are two types of guys who use this kind of adolescent bluster.

Guys who ‘get with the queen’, in which they’ve been selected, merely being allowed to consider it a conquest in order to keep them pacified; the guy usually suspecting something and therefore needing to reinforce the myth of his own prowess, just so his cock doesn’t shrivel up.

And then there’s the forty-year-old virgins who loudly fake confidence and a track record of sexual conquest, all the while secretly holding the faith that some day Neil Strauss will deliver, allowing them to unleash an angry, battered inch from Calvin Klein catacombs.

Outwardly confident, inwardly self-loathing and resentful. Chest puffed-up, balls ascended into abdomen. Smiles and winks with cock-skins more wrinkled than Leunig’s wobbliest lines.

That getting to ‘nail the queen’ is given as an example of natural instincts for sex and aggression, is probably a bit telling.

~ Bruce

Caveat: I’m not at all remorseful about using male sexual-imagery as pejorative. Protestations that talk of ascended balls, and flaccid penises, is like dismissing a women for the size of her breasts will not be well met. I’m using the schlong as metaphor, for one. Something that the penis is apt to do being a particularly expressive organ. The old cock and balls; balls risen in fear, dick shrunk in revulsion, relaxed and hanging about. How’s it hangin’?

Moreover, the sexual objectification of women is something historically imposed upon women. Cock talk hasn’t been foist upon men at all; much of the history of male sexuality is the history of guys talking about their gum-nut nestled in bush.

The Dinner Party Shaman

If you’re developed-world, middle-class enough, perhaps even cashed-up-bogan enough, you should know what I’m talking about.

You’ve gone to a dinner party or a barbeque or some similar gathering, and you’re trying to relax with a beer when someone starts talking about their health issues. There’s nothing wrong with this per se, but inevitably like ants at a picnic, this draws the attention of The Dinner Party Shaman.

They’ve traveled all the way from Nimbin, or some other realm of haute-hippie-culture, with the kids Starshine and Moonbeam, begrudgingly in tow, sullenly carrying the funky lettuce salad and the chimichurri-marinated guinea pig kebabs.

Spiralling into your lives like a tie-dyed dervish on acid cast in a David Lynch film, descending amidst an invisible cloud of jasmine and patchouli, The Dinner Party Shaman has arrived to regale you with just how roolly (née really) deep and culchooural (née cultural) they are. To show you how culchooural they are by taking control of the concerns of you suburban philistines.

You just wanted to relax, kick back, and maybe show a little empathy for your ailing or aging friend or family member. A chin wag over a drink about how you’re both getting on.

‘You need a coffee enema!’

‘I have this dong quai tincture that’ll really strengthen your yang!’

‘There’s this aromatherapeutic poultice I could apply…’

‘Hear, let me activate your chakra…’

‘Relax! Touch is a normal part of human communication. You need to lower your barriers and let me touch you where I want to touch you!’

Roughly a third of the audience, seeing spirichoooal (née spiritual) brownie points up for grabs, will nod in the affirmative, listening attentively and urging The Shaman onward with their exposition of supposedly sage advice.

The poor suffering sod you sat down with will listen patiently for the first few moments, nodding, nodding, subtly making anyone with actual empathy aware of their distress, while waiting for the first polite juncture to point out that they’re seeing a doctor, and that they’re really doing as best they can under the circumstances. All they want to do is relax.

But relaxation is not the prescription, especially if you’ve seen a doctor. The Dinner Party Shaman won’t have any of that!

‘Oh no, you don’t want to do that! Doctors will fill you up with poisons!’

‘That’s not nachooral [née natural]!’

‘Come here and let me…’

No ailment is so serious, no suffering so much, no agony so pervasive that they can’t trivialise it by showing everyone their super-psychic, hero-holistic, magical-imaginary, wonder powers. Be the problem big or small, The Shaman has what The Shaman thinks you need!

Irritable bowel syndrome? They know all there is to know about that! Just bend over!

Cancer? Why that’s just another word for opportunity! An opportunity to show everyone just how earnest they are!

When your friend who’s been a bit under the weather, after wearing of having their rest and personal space violated, points out that they’re confident in their doctor’s experience and education, that’s when the show really begins. You see, you mustn’t imply that The Shaman doesn’t have what you need. That would be disrespectful!

‘I studied aromatherapy for eight weeks at the WEA!’

‘I have a stall each year at the Body, Mind and Soul Fair where people come from miles around!’

‘Are you saying that my qualifications aren’t equal to a doctor’s, if not better? Reductionist! I treat the whole person!’

The uncritical parsing of anecdote and bare assertion is all the study that’s required of such deep, deep people. Gifted intuition does the rest.

By this point in the proceedings, you and your busted up friend have really gone and done it. You’ve offended The Shaman. How rude. You’re ruining the dinner party, with your scepticism, incredulity, self-respect and personal space.

Where do you get off thinking you can behave like that? Who died and made you Shaman?

It’s a bit like Benjamin Franklin was supposed to have said…

‘There are no greater liars in the world than quacks — except for their patients.’

Except again perhaps for shamans and their acolytes, and maybe the wording’s a little too harsh; not so much ‘liars’ as self-obsessed, bullshit artists.

There are no greater self-obsessed, bullshit artists in the world than first-world, middle-class, Dinner Party Shamans – except for their acolytes.

With your slight and that of your friend, the party takes a turn for the serious.

You’re in league with oppressive forces; Big Pharma; The Man; Western Imperialism; The Spanish Inquisition (who nobody expects); The Third Expeditionary Invasion Force of The Illuminati-Reptile-People.

Your facts you are told, conflict with and discriminate against their equally true ‘facts’. Something that they, Shamans and Acolytes, have suffered against since the first witch was burnt at the first stake; facts contra alternative facts.

The child who’s died of whooping-cough because their community is sufficiently anti-vaccination to have lost herd immunity, is both dead and living happily in an incense imbued laa-laa-land. Why can’t you see this.

Both can be true. Accept this and you’ll be well on the way to seeing how you’re wrong and they’re right!

You just need to be open-minded, and then you’ll learn. The acolytes are of many persuasions, the better to foster erudition.

The resident visual arts academic will school you on how scientists get more funding than basket weavers as part of a plot to destroy beauty in the world.

Elders in the group through the bare authority of their age, can tell you how modern medicine deliberately obscures the fact that before street lights, there was no such thing as hay fever. Such deliberate obfuscations as how the supposedly much, much older diagnosis of hay fever by Hippocrates around the start of the 4th Century B.C.E., is really a history fabricated into the textbooks by the corporations that fluoridate your water.

Learn how public schooling secretly plots against free-spirited students who would otherwise learn the evils of aspartame, vaccination and shadow government mind-control, by learning in the ideal Steiner school, or in home schooling.

Convincing? No? Then you must be a shallow, close-minded monster. No wonder you’ve upset The Dinner Party Shaman. You boor!

Perhaps you’ve had enough. Perhaps you’re sick of yourself and your friends being poked and prodded by egoists with no respect for other people’s boundaries. Perhaps your sick of the self-deception and banality of this veneer of the considered life. Perhaps you’re sick of the enablers who make it worse and worse every time.

The pretensions of The Dinner Party Shaman and their Dinner Party Acolytes are intrinsically self-absorbed to the point of absolute myopia and screw everyone else. It’s not just their social appendages that they don’t give a hoot about either.

Children avoidably dying of pertussis, or measles, as a result of a reduction in herd immunity and prompted by anti-vaccination disinformation is incredibly tragic. How does it happen? Disinformation. Who spreads it? New Age Shamans. The advocates of alternative(s to) medicine.

But this is just a shallow foray into the consequences of privileged spiritualism. The toll, shockingly, gets much, much worse.

A serious diversion from the sarcastic is in order.

***

Except perhaps for the most oblivious of the most provincial, it’s well-known that many African nations are suffering an AIDS epidemic, particularly in South Africa. What’s not so well-known, is the extent to which this suffering has been avoidable.

Between 2000 and 2005, in South Africa alone, it is estimated that 330,000 people painfully and unnecessarily died because of government obstruction of the availability of antiretroviral drugs even when freely donated, and of Global Fund grants (Chigwedere, et al., 2008). Why?

This tragedy occurs in a context where the South African President of the time, Thabo Mbeki, condemned antiviral medication as toxic and counterproductive, while adopting the position that only medications for opportunistic infections, rather than drugs preventing the advance of the HIV virus, were to be supported by public funding.

How did Thabo Mbeki come to such an appallingly stupid policy position?

I’ll let you glance across Ben Goldacre’s description of how barrister Anthony Brink, after reading alt-med ‘AIDS dissident’ material, was elevated to the status of an ‘AIDS expert’ by Mbeki. Brink would later become an employee of ‘AIDS dissident’ Matthias Rath, of Linus Pauling Institute fame; the same Matthias Rath that declared that the answer to the AIDS epidemic was not antireterovirals, but megadoses of vitamins, while taking his perverse circus of suffering, masquerading as research, on tour through South Africa.

AIDS denialism and the subsequent lethal obstruction of real medicine as policy in South Africa, has clearly and unambiguously been enabled by the developed world luxury known as ‘alternative medicine’, even egged on by parts of the industry. As Goldacre points out, Matthias Rath is still a darling of the alt-med revolution, even with some academics.

Over three-hundred-thousand is a large number of people to die unnecessarily, much, much worse than the number of deaths by pertussis brought about by anti-vaccination disinformation campaigns in the developed world. It’s no act of hyperbole to call this tragedy genocidal in scale.

The developed world exported this tragedy; exported it in the form of luxurious, lavender-scented ignorance.

When Naomi Campbell complained that her testimony concerning a gift of blood diamonds from former Liberian dictator and alleged war criminal, Charles Taylor, was ‘an inconvenience’, people were rightly concerned at her lack of perspective.

Campbell however can call on the defense of having been intimidated, having expressed concern for possible consequences for her family members should she talk.

When The Dinner Party Shaman starts to peddle their blood diamonds casually and without regard for the consequences of their denialist culture, their ginseng tablets, their homeopathic strength ‘cures’ and all the attendant cod-epistemology and conspiracy theory, they don’t have the ‘intimidation’ defense. They aren’t under pressure from the cronies of some warlord somewhere; the greatest threat to their families comes from their own negligence.

What vanity. What empty posturing, calling this self-important, self-absorbed quest for recognition, ‘spiritual’; a quest that through provinciality and in the fashion of the worst solipsism, cuts people off from mere human concerns like the health and well-being of hundreds of thousands of people.

If the word ‘spiritual’ can mean anything, this isn’t it.

Time to return to the party.

***

So there you and your sick chum sit, holding your beers or your Champaign, lectured by The Dinner Party Shaman and told off for your lack of deference by the acolytes, you rude, rude person. Your scepticism and incredulity cast as cynical, reductionist, scientific imperialism, or something approximating such things, you’ve been put in your place.

You’ve ruined the mood. Not the spirichoooal (née spiritual) types, who naturally by virtue of their well-meaning nature, rightly have access to every aspect and orifice of your being.

You’ve ruined the mood. Not the spirichoooal (née spiritual) types, their absorption in the roolly (née really) deep and culchooural (née cultural) too important to be distracted by consideration of human consequences on the mere material, mortal planes.

The Dinner Party Shaman, the person so privileged in their middle-class cocoon as to both be a victim of imperialism while at the same time having their cult’s toxic bilge conveniently exported out-of-sight-out-of-mind to the developing world, is beyond your attacks on their dignity. The acolytes are unimpressed with your reliance on facts, reasoning, and material concern. Bah! Materialism!

So comes the conclusion to the gathering, the obvious obligation; you have to apologise. Otherwise there’ll be no dessert, no second invites for you!

And we all know what’s right and decent at these events, right?

~ Bruce

(Picture Source: Allegory of Vanity, Trophime Bigot).

Book Review: The Australian Book of Atheism

The Australian Book of Atheism, edited by Warren Bonett.

Publisher: Scribe.

The answer isn’t self-evident; ‘what need is there for a book on atheism with a distinct Australian perspective?’

With this question in mind I made my purchase via the editor’s bookstore, Embiggen Books. Not because I was sure of an answer, but precisely because I wasn’t, the purchase was mandated.

With the various Otherings; the specter of the ‘New Atheist’ monolith; the fearful Easter sermons and the often boilerplate News Limited response, there’s clearly utility in compiling an anthology of varied atheist views, even down under in laid-back Australia.

But why Australian atheists? Being Australian doesn’t make you any more or less of an atheist, and vice versa.

***

Some way from the introduction, nestled away at the end of the discussion on politics, the editor makes his case proper; the inappropriateness of Australia’s apathy toward religion – particularly where sectarian interests are embrangled with tolerant secular politics – is what demands the expression of particularly Australian, godless perspectives.

But Australians are laid-back about these things, automatically providing us with tolerant, secular pluralism, right? Atheists elsewhere in the world look to Australia with envy!

If The Australian Book of Atheism has anything to teach you about this, the answer is ‘no’: Taking it easy, and taking ‘taking it easy’ for granted as far as religion is concerned, can permit if not precipitate sectarian politics.

Bonnet rightly highlights the absurdities opined by apologists like Prof. Tom Frame and Paul Kelly, who hysterically re-cast criticism made in good faith and fair humour, as catalysts for the erosion of religious rights and an eventual decline into secular moral nihilism, and even the bogey man of social Darwinism. This is truly Glenn Beck territory, yet a book from an atheist perspective pointing out how wrong it is to see this paranoia running mainstream, risks being marginal.

Anyone who pays serious attention to human rights will know that the affinity for outlawing blasphemy usually finds expression in the repressive treatment of minorities, often accompanied by a self-pitying assumption of victim status by the majority. The latter attitude, majoritarian self-pity, which Bonett identifies in Frame and Kelly and justly describes as the ‘endangered species fallacy’, is again, Glenn Beck territory. While the degree of this repression may not be as much in the developed world as elsewhere, particularly not Australia, Bonett’s book still manages to position itself on high moral ground against popular moral panic.

Many examples given elsewhere in the book are less abstract and are all the more confronting because of it.

While you may debate the emphasis, and question some of the facts given by Max Wallace, and similarly the interpretation of points of contention raised by Clarence Wright, early in the reading you’re palpably confronted with historical and social truths that must shake secular apathy to the core. Thanks to Wright, I’ll never look at S116 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution the same way again, nor take for granted its (flawed) capacity to grant rights equally. (Nor for that matter, the long grasp of Thomas Aquinas).

Of course, none of these facts occur in a contextual vacuum.

The role of religious apathy, and affirmative irreligion in shaping Australian history (not just the roles in our history that happen to have been filled by the godless) has been overlooked, according to Chrys Stevenson.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. Historically, serious academically-minded Australian religiosity has woven its way through much of the middle class; the section of society that’s penned much of the nation’s history. Rather than being a peccadillo of well-off naturalists as it’s often portrayed, Australian atheism has, according to Stevenson, a rich working-class tradition. Perhaps this could be why it doesn’t see due representation in the narrative.

Identifying more strongly on the grounds of class than religion, I like to think that all else being equal, I have more in common with working class Christians than, middle-class atheists. I find Stevenson’s contribution, and her call to further investigation, an invitation to have this self-identification refined, if not challenged.

Commendably, and giving hope for the future of her project, there doesn’t seem a hint of fudging for the sake of apologia, rather the opposite. The particular ugliness of much of Henry Rusden’s thought (specifically his actual social Darwinism), is brought to the fore as an example of the dark side of Australian atheist history. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

***

Tanya Levin and Hon. Lee Rhiannon would dominate the autobiographical entries, if not for the powerful way in which the powerful experiences of Dr Collette Livermore are communicated; the story of someone coming to terms with life after leaving the faith, and Mother Teresa’s order. No disrespect to Robyn Williams, David Horton or the always entertaining Tim Minchin (all well worth a read), but the competition in the personal accounts is just that good.

Indeed, the women find almost equal representation in this book, which is an improvement over many, many texts, and they certainly hold their own in the quality of their writing and argument; an appreciation of which is really mandated of the reader.

Education gets a good looking-over, with Hugh Wilson of the Australian Secular Lobby exposing the state of affairs in Queensland’s not-at-all-secular public education system. Moving along, Prof. Graham Oppy’s take on ‘Evolution vs Creationism’ in Australian Schools is a bit heavy on respect for Ian Plimer for my tastes, although yes, Plimer could amongst other things be called the ‘most spectacular opponent of creationism in Australia’ [emphasis mine].

This criticism not withstanding, Oppy’s contribution is illuminating even if you’re already relatively well-informed on the various attempts to squeeze creationism into Australian schools. Furthermore, Prof. Oppy’s analysis demonstrates true erudition on the politics of the matter as concerning the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), which is refreshing and much-needed given some of the recent moral panic surrounding the authority.

Kylie Sturgess writes of her experience as an atheist employee of a religious school; the dodging of awkward, tangential points because you’ve got other things you should be focusing on; the apathy about difference that kicks in when you just need a break; the anxiety that perhaps differences if unexamined will get in the way of what you’re supposed to be doing, and the hope that the force behind the lack of conflict will effectively put an end to the issue of difference.

To me, this is familiar territory because it also describes experiences I’ve had as an atheist volunteer in religious not-for-profit organisations. Yet the author expresses these difficult concerns with such clarity, I suspect most readers won’t need similar experiences to take something away her contribution.

Australian pluralism does rely largely on the logic of the law, but reform, better interpretation and application, all require insights into political realities as well. The kinds of experiences Sturgess illustrates are I think a necessary part of any serious consideration, both when generalised and in specific settings such as education. Often the perspectives of ‘the Other on the inside’ are overlooked by simple way of organisational reality, which makes a book that publishes them all the more important.

***

Topics progress to matters social, political and philosophical, which the general reader may find more familiar.

Dr Leslie Cannold is as anyone familiar with her writing would expect, educational on the matter of abortion in Australia, and the role of religion in shaping discussion of the topic and realisation of its politics.

Dr Philip Nitschke’s ‘Atheism and Euthanasia’ is a must read for anyone seriously supporting the right to die peacefully, Australian or not, atheist or not.

Rosslyn Ives continues the contemplation of living and dying, in a way that will be familiar to anyone who’s spent any significant amount of time looking after the disabled (Ives is a carer, in addition to being the President of the Council of Australian Humanist Societies). Her treatment of the philosophy of Peter Singer is informed and accurate, and given the context of the disabled (Ives is a carer), this is especially important; Singer’s views as they pertain to care for the disabled in particular have been routinely misrepresented by both religious and allied reactionaries.

The detail of Ives’ perspective fleshes out humane concerns for quality of life shared by many good Australians, but in ways seemingly not apt to reduction by pundits to cheap allusion. I think in this respect Ives may perform better as a spokesperson for quality of life than even Singer or Nitschke.

Dr Russell Blackford, in ‘Atheists for Free Speech’, convincingly and with an unflinchingly rational approach, deals with freedom of expression in Australia as it pertains to religious matters. This is undertaken with a welcome degree of sobriety that seems all-too-often absent from such public discussions; firm but fair, and sane.

Too often these matters are caught between hyperbolic, knee-jerk, credulous accusations of hate crime on one side, while on the other, syphilitic rhetoric is imported from foreign culture wars to frame the Australian situation as being as dire as it is in a supposedly sub-caliphate Europe. You’ll get none of this paranoia from Dr Blackford.

***

If there’s anything about the book that I can seriously object to, it’s that the implications of its perspective aren’t drawn out in sufficient detail in matters concerning Aboriginal Australia. An area of concern so substantial that any book with a broad Australian focus will be at odds to explain an absence of consideration.

According to stated and implied principles, what happens to land rights if they are challenged on the grounds of scepticism to Aboriginal religion? Does the rejection of Terra nullius as a legal fiction override this, with at least the establishment of a treaty required to grant standing to the sceptic or any other claimants?

Should, and how would, a separation between church and state coincide with a divide between Commonwealth and native title?

How would these matters have panned out in cases such as the Hindmarsh Island bridge dispute if said principles were applied?

What would a liberal, secular, Enlightenment-based treaty look like from an atheistic perspective?

According to principle, what is to be said about Christian imperialism and Enlightenment free-thought as they pertain historically to the treatment of Aboriginal Australians?

How does a non-indigenous atheist go about putting their secular hand forward in the spirit of reconciliation, with those who aren’t necessarily in all instances secular? What does a non-indigenous atheist do when such motions aren’t welcomed by the other party?

And what do Aboriginal atheists have to say about any of this (and more)?

The Australian Book of Atheism is a first-run of a new perspective, and it can be forgiven a lot for this reason. But even when not damning (I don’t think in this case that it is), recognition of the relative omission of the way this perspective views black politics warrants mention for the sake of future projects in the same vein.

***

The tone of the book is laid-back in a way one would expect of authors from a nation laid-back about religion, but the arguments and the concerns are anything but. The mode then is calm and seriously considered – an abundance of critique leveled with a quiet confidence that will have certain readers clutching at pearls. I suspect though, that its reception by the rest of us will be sober, as is fitting.

I’m left leaving Bonett’s book with a sense of its Australian qualities, but also with the realisation that it’s a first dip of the toes into new water. It gives a good kick in the complacency; a call for Australians with tolerant, secular values to wake and stop blithely assuming they know their country so well as to be so unconcerned.

It’s an excellent if not un-flawed starting point for a new discussion of an aspect of Australian identity and politics; a return to, and a clarification of, past issues unresolved that will be familiar to jaded political wonks and cultural critics alike. The Australian Book of Atheism justifies its perspective and its reason-to-be, all while heralding further debate.

I hope to see more books published along these lines.

Rating: 4/5

~ Bruce

(Photo Source: Warren Bonett).

Respect and how not to swing it

I’ve had quite a lot of email in response to the recent post I wrote about not being attracted to the ‘sceptic movement’. A ‘lot’ by the piddly standards of this piddly little blog, at any rate.

None of it is hate mail mind you, and there’s no hint of yet another groan-inducing flame war brewing in this quarter of the blogosphere. I take it as an in-road to meaningful discussion.

There does however seem to be an over-arching kind of confusion, one that ties into something else I’ve been subjectively observing of late; the creeping erosion of the concept of ‘respect’.

Before you go all Professor Crystal on me, and propound the reality of the changing nature of language; I already accept that as fact. This does not detract from my concern.

It’s not that ‘respect’ is changing, and that as some kind of conservative I’m digging my heels in and huffing, ‘it’s gone too far!’ Change per se, does not bother me. I’m not a conservative. There’s no nostalgia for old values here.

But…

There is a risk I think, in the careless use of the appearance of respect for short-term gain.

The risk not being that the term ‘respect’ is changing from denoting one kind of respect, to some newer, progressive, more articulate re-valuing of respect, so much as a change from denoting an important concept, to denoting little if anything other than cliché.

Continue reading “Respect and how not to swing it” →

Urrrrrrrrggh… More on people who can’t cope with your vegetarianism

It’s been almost half a year since I wrote a piece about how people, meat-eaters in particular, try to resolve dissonance brought on by vegetarians, by externalizing guilt, or feelings of insecurity, in typical passive aggressive fashion.*

Things haven’t changed. Indeed it seems more the case in the festive season than any other time, you’re the bringer of bad yule-tidings for not joining the meat-eating collective.

If you’re the vegetarian, it’s you who’s being the aggressive trouble maker.

It doesn’t matter that you avoid didacticism on the grounds of it being a poor means for the proliferation of an ethic. Never mind that you only discuss it where it’s raised as relevant; in public discussion, or where (surprise, surprise) you’ll be eating.

Never mind that you aren’t trying to force any given eating practice on any given person.

“There’s chicken in the fridge! Help yourself!”

“I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat meat.”

“Not even chicken?!?”

Forget for a moment the obvious taxonomic error that sees chicken as a vegetable, the worst part is this could be the squillionth time this kind of thing will happen with any given problematic person.

“What? Not even fish fingers?”

Not that it isn’t relevant (or funny) but the problem isn’t taxonomy. The problem isn’t memory either, even if the path is well trod.

The response is always obsessive, self-pitying and defensive;  the interest is too deeply riven to be something that just arrived in their mind on a whim. They aren’t so stupid so as to not be able to tell that a rabbit isn’t a fruit either.

The problem, their problem, is that your vegetarianism, your choice (not theirs), reflects upon their character and they aren’t comfortable with that. It’s not about memory.

Yet, you’re told when they are caught for the umpteenth time…

“Oh I forgot! You can’t expect me to consider these things if I forget.”

Just like they can’t expect you to believe that they forget such things, what with the great big deal they make out of you refusing meat. Every. Damn. Time!

Perhaps you think I’m over-reacting in my response to their supposed forgetfulness. Consider then that not only do they make a big deal out of it again and again, more than one of them has kicked up a stink about the last time I wrote here about them kicking up a stink about my vegetarianism.

Surely if it matters as much as they make out, my criticism of their carnivore-dissonance, if it matters so much they write to make editorial demands upon my blogging, they can’t also plausibly claim they forget I’m vegetarian.

Of course “forgetting” comes in convenient when giving “apologies” for offering meat for the 100th time, not realising that I don’t eat “vegetables” like chicken and fish fingers. It also comes in handy during those circumstances when my meal is “accidentally” contaminated.

“These chips have chicken salt on them”.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t think…”

“I asked you less than half an hour ago to get plain salt because I’m vegetarian.”

“I must have forgotten, I usually remember…”

“Yes, you usually do. You worked three years in a job selling hot chips to people who ordered them without chicken salt.”

It also seems more likely to occur when you’re more vulnerable as well; like when you haven’t eaten in a while, and are too worn out to prepair something. When you have less fight in you it’s easier to make you an honorary meat eater by slipping something into your food.

Of course food contamination isn’t the only “forgetful” passive-aggressive trick in the book the insecure meat-eater uses. Oh no.

You’re at a family occasion hosted by a family member you haven’t seen in a while, one who probably doesn’t know you are a vegetarian yet. It’s okay, or it should be okay because you’ve brought your own food.

If it inadvertently becomes an issue, if your host in perfectly good faith offers you some food with meat in it, you’ve done the necessary preparation to manage things without awkwardness. Problem solved, right?

Wrong.

Along comes one of those people who “forget” you’re vegetarian. They search the food prepared by your host for something with meat, then doing their best impersonation of a bad actor in-character as a thoughtful host, proffer the carcass in front of your host.

The moment you refuse, no matter what you say, they’re instantly offended on behalf of your host. They highlight how you’re insulting such fin cooking. And of course they give no hint of knowing you’re vegetarian, no matter how many times they’ve been told.

The opportunity to explain yourself, your choices, on your terms and with those who actually have any standing in the matter has been stolen by someone with an axe to grind.

Yet despite this, it’s usually you who’s created the awkward situation, allegedly.  And not acknowledging they knew you’re vegetarian goes a long way in your antagonist not having to admit they set things up; that they’ve attempted to recruit your host and family member into their pathetic little ego struggle.

It’s only when it starts to become obvious to others that they’ve been dragged into something pre-existing, something that’s become more acrimonious than it ever needed to be, that the old excuse comes out of the deck.

“He’s been pretending to forget I’m vegetarian, and trying to start arguments between me and family members for some time now, because he doesn’t have the cajones to confront me directly, by himself.”

“I did forget! It was an honest misunderstanding! It’s you who’s upsetting people!”

***

The crux of all of this, the reason why I bother writing about it, is because being vegetarian isn’t easy.

I don’t avoid eating meat because I don’t like the taste of it. I don’t do it for health reasons; the research doesn’t pan out.

I’m a vegetarian because I’m not okay with the suffering of those that can suffer; non-human animals included.

Meat is still tempting. Walking past Mc Donalds is more tempting now than it’s ever been.

Being offered meat, even innocently, is stressful. It’s worse when deliberate and repetative.

Then there’s the “self-denying” crap.

“If you want to eat it, then just eat it!”

Consider for the sake of argument, that I told you I had an urge to punch in the face, those people who laid unnecessary temptations in front of me. That this urge is just, if not more tempting, than eating the meat.

Would you have me, to avoid being self-denying, eating the meat and kicking their arse? (At least you’d be being consistent).

I mean, if the suffering of animals doesn’t matter, if it’s all about pure self-affirmation, then you can’t complain about me slicing off someone’s face and throwing it on the barbecue to make crackling, can you? Especially if they tempted me to do so.

I was first taken hunting at two years old. I’ve worked a shitty job in a meat factory. I’ve had attempts on my life. I’ve survived amongst some of the nastiest people in Australia. I’ll be screwed if I’m going to tolerate the gastronomic directives of human herd animals!

In light of this, the step from non-human to human in matters of survival and eating is probably less a graduation than you imagine. My vegetarianism not withstanding, there’s more of the predator inculcated into me than you’ll ever learn from browsing pre-slaughtered, plastic-wrapped, corpse-cuttings at market.

(And technically, I’ve already eaten human flesh – fun story).

I think the emphasis on the logical implications of harm-as-immoral could afford to be reversed for once. Reframed if you will.

Vegetarians often talk of extending the rights of persons to all beings capable of experiencing harm. I adopt the same logic, more or less. But rhetorically turned-on-its-head, morally, the criteria stopping me from eating non-human animals, is the same one stopping me from eating you.

It probably wouldn’t hurt for a few people to learn a thing or two about empathy for animals, and I dare say that if I put them through the experience of being hunted, they’d have such a learning experience. Or taste good trying and frying. Nom nom nom.

This is of course quasi-hypothetical, and I’m having a bit of a laugh. Honest. I’m not about to actually start slaughtering people; I believe I’ve explained why I’m a vegetarian.

But the moral absurdity from this half-reality-half-thought-experiment remains in the real world as well. It persists. It’s annoying and I believe I’ve conveyed adequately why.

Yet it goes on and on, because some people, quite unnecessarily, seeing someone else doing something different, are urged by their frail egos to defend their choice to remain amongst the herd, using disingenuous and universally cowardly means to do so. Nietzsche didn’t cast his net wide enough; you don’t have to be a predator to be an object of ressentiment.

If someone wants to take a shot at my vegetarianism, they should be direct in articulating something logically coherent, factually sound, argued in good faith and at an appropriate juncture. If someone wants to raise the matter, especially when they demand I don’t discuss their antics elsewhere, they should at least endeavour to provide a climate conducive to honest discussion.

It’s telling that instead they resort to stupid mind-games, lame high-school sophistry, pubescent politics, back-handed jabs, egocentric posturing, puerile food-tainting, mock politeness, victim-feigning and infallible fight-starting while I’m just trying to eat!

But hey, I’m the one who started it, right? I didn’t have to start a fight just by being vegetarian.

Merry Christmas!

~ Bruce

* I use the psychology terms more as literary device, than as actual, technical psychology.

(Photo source: Davide Vizzini)

Understanding science doesn’t guarantee an understanding of how science is taught…

Way back in 2005, Paul Willis of the ABC’s Catalyst presented a story considering the prospect of Intelligent Design being taught in science classes. The form the story took, as is seemingly the pro forma for Willis’ take on any similar issue, is to simply ask the question ‘is Intelligent Design science?’

It’s a question with an uncontroversial answer; ‘no’.

It’s also a problematic question, although for anyone who isn’t an Edu-wonk (0r a teacher or an education academic), this may not seem obvious. Let me elaborate.

***

Kids don’t rock up to classes in a state of intellectual vacuum. They have prior understandings and interests, some needing to be challenged, others that can facilitate learning. They aren’t empty vessels you just pour knowledge into – whatever they learn, good or bad, children are active in learning and this occurs in conjunction with what they already think and believe.

Any sound pedagogy needs to teach to this reality.

Take ecology for example. You could just teach it from a textbook, reciting it in the general direction of students.

Or you could take the kids out on field trips to their local area and get them monitoring parts of the ecosystem that impact upon their local culture or directly on their person. The livelihood of their families may depend on the local environment, or ecology could just be an obsession. It could equally flow from a love of the work of David Attenborough, as it could from a family eco-tourism business, as it could from a traditional cultural attachment to the land.

If you were teaching ecology at the mouth of the Murray River, you could (and I hope would in such a scenario) grant students access to resources detailing the historical Ngarrindjeri use of fire in shaping the landscape, and the related implications of introduced flora in the area (a trip to Camp Coorong would be good for this). This is of course in addition to matters such as the flow of water from upstream, the water quality in the lakes, subsequent effects upon invertebrates and bird life, and the impact upon traditional and modern uses of these natural resources.

In this scenario, you’d also want to explore what the students’ individual interests are. It may seem like a diversion from science, but really it’s the difference between meaningful learning and students sitting on their hands and absently nodding. It’s not time wasted.

Any good teacher can tell you which is better between culturally relevant field trips, or rote learning from a book, or disengaging abstraction.

Relating back to the question ‘is ID (or creationism in general) science?’, the problem this poses may now be apparent. What if you’re teaching students from a highly religious culture? What if you’re teaching to students who are enthralled with a recent, popular discussion about the latest creationist shenanigans?

‘It isn’t science’ isn’t at all informative because if you’re a science teacher, you already know that it’s not science, and it’s not exactly instructive in these types of situations.

What if you tied the study of evolution to the history of evolution as a theory, say against the backdrop of the Huxley-Wilberforce debate (with perhaps a re-enactment in Drama classes as well)? A lot of this isn’t science (it’s history), but it wouldn’t be at all a bad way to teach evolution to kids engrossed with a church-state controversy! ‘It isn’t science’ tells us nothing in this respect and the implication that non-science should be isolated is in fact counter-productive.

On the one hand you have an approach with learning areas compartmentalized, and hence abstracted beyond relevance, while on the other you have students being engaged.

Of relevance to the Bent Spoon Award is both the difference in pedagogical effectiveness between these two types of approaches, and the lack of difference in what science is being taught in either approach. Both being the kind of material detail overlooked in the recent issuing of the Australian Skeptics’ Bent Spoon Award.

***

Making science curriculum relevant and engaging doesn’t just involve linking science to students’ cultural backgrounds as mentioned above, but also to other forms of knowledge.

And NO!

This IS NOT the same thing as saying that these other disciplines are equally valid ways of knowing scientific facts either! It’s not like saying you can test a hypothesis with poetry, rather that it may just be that writing about the poetry of science in English may be the only way to get some students interested, active and participating in science.

Einstein becomes more relevant against a backdrop of the history of science (a humanities subject!) including Newton onward. Fire ecology becomes more relevant against a backdrop of Aboriginal fire stick farming – that’s Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE). Marsupial taxonomy and anatomy gets a lot more interesting and engaging with an Aboriginal backdrop as well!

The Arabic world provides a historical backdrop for an array of science topics, particularly those saved from oblivion during the Dark Ages – but this doesn’t involve reading science fact from the Qur’an.

There’s content in biology – skeptical content – that should be of interest to students obsessed with performance in a local sporting team (that’s Health and Physical Education). Are you catching on?

Unless you are willing in the face of this reality to say that ‘speaking-abstracted-facts-at-students’, or ‘just-read-the-state-approved-textbook’, or ‘follow-the-prac-instructions-and-fill-in-the-answers’ is as engaging as science-in-context, you’ve got problems defending ACARA’s Bent Spoon. If you’re willing to hold adopt this position in the face of this reality, you’ve got a problem calling yourself an advocate of quality science education.

The choice remains between chosing science education advocacy, or choosing to back the Australian Skeptics’ uninformed attack on ACARA.

***

Integrated curriculum is often derided  as a kind of relativistic-bogey-come-ideological-in-road (usually by people with a tragic combination of not-knowing-why-or-what-it-is and Dunning-Kruger effect.) Seriously though, how often does science operate in a vacuum? Anyone working with animals at a reputable University can tell you about their interactions with their ethics panel (philosophy in schools!)

In SOSE (Studies of Society and Environment) you can have students critically question the ethics of the introduction of a controversial drug, while also having them learn the relevant biology. You can have them studying a project-based-learning unit distributed across SOSE, General Science and English classes, adopting the roles of the court system, while engaging in self-directed research into forensics and writing prose to explain the venture to parents and public.

(Anyone have a budding science journalist as a rug-rat?)

This is what integrated curriculum looks like and it works better than learning science abstracted into administratively convenient, compartmentalized learning areas. It also more closely resembles what happens in “The Real Worldtm“*. Remember when people used to demand that from schooling?

In such an arrangement, SOSE and English don’t suffer from shared time with science, they benefit from it. The same is true for science. The sum of integrated learning areas is greater than their parts.

It’s not about relativism. It’s not about pandering to political pressures.  In science education it’s about relevance, engaging students and getting them to learn science by doing science with purpose.

Yet…

Recently, Paul Willis tells us in discussing the supposed “creeping relativism” that gained ACARA the Bent Spoon…

“As for the creeping relativism that students should learn from all sorts of people, including Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, Arabic and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures; may I be suggest something heretical here: How about we keep science in the science class and non-science out?”

and…

“If it is science if does get in regardless of who came up with it.”

(Paul Willis at Tribal Scientist, 2010)

Willis is being silly when he suggests he’s being heretical. Nobody’s persecuting him. They’re just pointing out that he’s wrong. Boo-bloody-hoo!

At the core of Willis’ misunderstanding is the dual notions that if it’s not science, then somehow it damages the teaching of science, and that curriculum documents produced by the likes of ACARA are only interested in what is taught, not how. This may be true if you measure your success in the quantity of material you direct at passive minds, but that’s not how a successful science class works, and it’s not how curriculum frameworks are geared.

It’s the same mistake made by former Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop, when she went after the “post-modern stew” and “political science” supposedly fouling-up history classes. The end result of her inquiry by her own hand-picked experts (with no education “ideologues” on board), were a series of recommendations much along the lines of what was already taking place in history classrooms.

Julie Bishop saw political-ideological pandering where there was none. An unnecessary process that could have been mitigated by a basic understanding of what she was criticising in the first place.

Of course if integrated curriculum (a particular bugbear of Bishop’s history classes non-controversy) was removed that would be giving in to political pressure. The same would be true of ACARA abandoning pedagogical frameworks just to appease the confected political anxieties of the likes of Willis, and the relevant portion of the Australian Skeptics.

Odd then that Willis makes the accusations that he does.

“That this was apparently done to appease religious and other non-scientific factions makes them the perfect recipients for the Bent Spoon.”

(Paul Willis at Tribal Scientist, 2010)

What’s the point of handing out a Bent Spoon if not political pressure? And what’s a (supposedly) skeptical organisation doing handing out such awards on the basis of what is “apparently done”, especially when there is a super-abundance of other potential recipients who are more than just “apparently” wooish?

***

What people need to get a handle on when dealing with curriculum frameworks**, is that they aren’t just a shopping list of things to pour into kid’s heads. If you read them as if they are, then you’re bound to arrive at error.

In addition to setting the underpinning content, they’re also a framework for how to teach it; to be adapted to particular student needs, in particular schooling contexts, over the entire diversity of students within the jurisdiction the document applies to.

For example, you can’t just look at the mention of an Aboriginal Australian perspective in such a document and rightly conclude that in science classes, Dreaming stories are being mainlined into students’ brains as alternate explanations, equivalent to science.

This is not, nor has it ever been, nor is it proposed to be, nor is anything like that, the purpose of any modern public school science curriculum in Australia. The Rainbow Serpent is not going to be taught as an alternative to geomorphology!

If this is what you’re reading out of the supposedly controversial ACARA (draft!) documentation, then you’re reading it wrong!

Perhaps governments are to be chastised for not producing a public-friendly, jargon-free version of curriculum documentation. But that’s a question of open governance, not a question of some “creeping relativism” conspiracy.

The problem is one of tilting at windmills. Which is of course systemic in the kind of woo skeptic organisations are supposed to be railing against.

The irony is palpable.

***

But back to 2005.

Not entirely satisfied with the coverage of Willis’ ID-in-schools story, having had no pedagogical content at all, I fired off a polite email to the folks at Catalyst asking if there was any content that hit the editing room floor that may be of interest; unused interview material and that kind of thing.

It took a long while for a reply, and the response was disappointing to say the least. It was a formulaic response that informed me that my complaint (I didn’t complain!) had been formally filed for processing (presumably with all the creationist whining the story was bound to generate – which as someone with a science degree steeped in evolution, is a pretty unpleasant insinuation!)

Again. Tilting at windmills. This time pretending that any critical inquiry is somehow able to be automatically categorised with the rabble. Paranoid even.

I responded that I wasn’t complaining, that I didn’t want to take part in any such formal process, and that I was just seeking more information. To this I got no response at all. A “no we don’t”, or we don’t reveal that kind of information would have better than a cold shoulder.

To say that the Catalyst household may have been hounded and rattled by creationist loons to the point of defensive paranoia, does nothing to detract from the fact that this is defensive paranoia. It does nothing to detract from the fact that it’s not my, nor any other viewer’s problem. It was a failure of process for Catalyst (a science program on a public broadcaster) to cater to cataloging vexatious creationist emails at the expense of genuine requests for newsworthy information relating to science! It’s a failure of their raison d’etre!

This is a siege mentality which rationalists need to abandon lest they become conspiracy theorists, much worse conspiracy theorists self-alienated from education professionals, even worse again, conspiracy theorists, self-alienated from education professionals yet somehow able in the fits of such marginal paranoia to be mistaken for people possessing an air of authoritative seriousness. This hinders science education, and enabling this wooish, hyper-suspicious hostility towards sound pedagogy is bad for organised skepticism as well for obvious reasons. 

***

So how can this problem be resolved or at least ameliorated?

I’ve already suggested better public-friendly information, so there’s that. But that’s not enough, obviously.

While I think from this exchange amongst others, Paul Willis has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that while he is obviously qualified to cover science as a journalist (something I have no wish to see him stop doing), he’s got bad form when it involves science education. I don’t want to make Willis out as some kind of litmus test, but his record stands out as typical of the essentials of the problem, even if not the worst case. (Paul Kelly at The Australian on history education and integrated curriculum during the reign of Julie Bishop is I think worse, albeit not about science education, and if you want to see something truly pathetic, let this be a starting point for inquiry.)

The problem remains that if the ABC wants to be informative on matters of science education, especially through its flagship science program, some attitudes and abilities, or even faces, need changing in-house. Not a political purging, just a dedication to a basic standard of competence.

The point is that science, science journalism and science education are different fields with different demands upon professionals. Being good at science doesn’t mean you’re good at teaching it, or even understanding how to teach it. Conflating serious discussion in these different fields of expertise for the sake of trends, fashion, administrative convenience or whatever, is to transform the otherwise professional into the over-glorified hobbyist.

Unless Willis and others in the same boat can’t learn to read educational jargon, they’d be better off – and we the general public would be better of – if they stuck to their respective “rocks, fossils and poo.”

Then there’s the skeptic organisations themselves.

It may go some way in fixing the breach of trust if the 2011 Bent Spoon Award were to be given to the Australian Skeptics for excellence in the field of pretending to know stuff. And if the organisation isn’t to be widely written off as quackish, which after this performance isn’t something it could rightly complain about, they could start by involving and empowering people who can at least read a curriculum document, rather than raising the profile of education’s peanut gallery.

Skeptical organisations have quite understandably taken efforts to distance themselves from climate change denialism – and it’s not just an exercise in othering. Denialism is precisely the epistemological approach that differentiates a climate change denialist from a genuine skeptical scientist. This is entirely reasonable, respectable and responsible.

Members of organisations like the Australian Skeptics need to get their heads around the fact that the same bull-headed, uncritical, chauvinistic approach to climate science, is the same attitude being taken by the Australian Skeptics towards sound pedagogy***. Seeing a relativist bogeyman behind every confirmatory, select quote, is in no way meaningfully different from seeing the Green Mafia behind every select quote in the ‘ClimateGate’ non-controversy.

It would seem that the responsible course of action in relation to ACARA for skeptical organisations to take, is much the same as with other woo-in-drag-as-skeptic.

Ultimately, the mistake wasn’t in the uninformed selection of ACARA for the Bent Spoon, it was the enabling of people who for whatever reason couldn’t put in the necessary legwork to make the Bent Spoon of 2010 worth paying attention to, other than as an icon of smug ignorance and inability. If the Australian Skeptics are to be taken seriously, this attitude needs to change.

~ Bruce

(Picture Source: Tilting at Windmills – Gustav Doré, 1863.)

* Although integrated curriculum tends to get phased out before the final two years of highschool where students begin to specialise for University entry . But by then more academic study has become personally relevant to students, so it’s not such an issue in getting them worked up about the content.

** ‘Curriculum framework’ is the technical term (or at least one of them); if you correct me by calling it a syllabus then you’re only highlighting that you don’t understand what the document is.

*** For anyone actually interested in the history and theory of, and empirical research into integrated curriculum, your best starting point is James A. Beane’s ‘Curriculum Integration‘. I say ‘starting point’ because there’s an awful lot of research on the issue, enough for there to be several different takes on the theory; far too much to summarize in this post. Given that criticisms of integrated democratic curriculum (and similar pedagogies) rarely manage to even define what integrated curriculum is, much less address the research behind it, I have for the purposes of this post assumed that the research isn’t in contention. Perhaps the critics could put down the lance and pick up a paper if they want to be serious about it?

DAoS: How to be a nice, helpful gadfly in eight steps

You’re a skeptic, or a counter-cultural revolutionary, or the member of a minority, a critic, a contrarian or whatnot. Whatever it is that you are, your deepest convictions as a result of this identity are such that you’re at odds with the rest of the world in your outlook.

Your imperatives may be frustrated by tyranny of the majority at every step. Most people don’t understand you, because they don’t have to walk a step in your shoes and they don’t want to!

Stripped of your social inclusion, and your political inclusion, all you have left is your voice and thankfully somehow you’ve managed to be noticed. Good for you!

What are you going to say and do? How are you going to spend this rare and precious chance to voice your dissidence, your difference?

Well, you’d better be nice about it. You get more ants with honey and all that. Besides, you’re nice. Why else would you have tolerated the empowered majority this long without climbing the nearest clock tower with high-powered rifle in hand, if you weren’t nice?

Besides, you’ve got nice white teeth. Shiny!

Here’s what you have to come to terms with in order to get your voice across.

1. Don’t get too attached to your dignity, this is hard work.

Now, now, now. Calm down. Most people in this world never get the chance to be heard, and frankly, does it do reality television stars any harm to swallow their pride just to be heard? No. No it doesn’t, and they get listened to!

You may be the greatest mind in your field, even if this hasn’t been realised yet. You don’t want to look like Gene Ray now do you?

Swallow that dignity. Swallow it down and shit it out so you can’t regurgitate it back up later! You’ll never need it and it only gets in the way.

Done? Good.

2. Don’t sacrifice your self-image.

What am I talking about? I just told you that dignity was worthless!

Rookie error! Dignity is not self-image! The latter is how you see yourself, the former is how you present yourself to the world.

I’d never ask you to look upon yourself as being garbage!

Now… Clearly you’re better than the majority, otherwise you’d think like they did. But the majority, if self-unaware about it thanks to the privilege of their majority status, look down upon people they see as being like you.

Look around at the people you’re surrounded by. Misfits!

If they don’t have the voice that you have now, they are to be pitied in a loving, parental manner. If they have more voice (and experience and expertise and book sales and so on), they just don’t understand. That’s your niche. You’re one of those amongst your type, maybe truly the only one, who understands.

What’s more, if you care to notice, all of the dismissals the majority direct at most of your kind, well none of them apply to you. And if you squint just right, you’ll also find that they apply to the misfits.

Good grief! You’re probably better than the majority, and you’re obviously better than the rest of your own kind.

3. Be helpful.

Look, getting the mainstream to come around to your way of thinking is hard. Damn hard. As much as you may be better than them, you’re not so good that you’ll be seen as The Way with your say so.

You need to ratchet your way up to that goal and you have to deal with the immediate concerns first of all.

Sooth their fears about you. Show that you aren’t what they think you are. Bring this into stark contrast.

Nothing provides as much contrast as standing next to someone who isn’t like you – one of your fellow gadflies that just didn’t make the cut for one reason or another. Either those that just don’t understand, or who are just so lumpen and pathetic that they need you to look after them. Misfits who need you to tell them how to engage with the majority.

Stand next to them, and pronounce your difference! I may be an X, but I’m not that kind of X.

You will be surprised just how well the majority can see the truth of this, and just how much opportunity and acceptance they’ll want to foist upon you. They may even want to… cooperate!

It is essential that you take every opportunity to differentiate yourself by voicing the majority’s objections to the misfits. Objections to crime, to too much polyester, to ignorance, to aggression, to anger, too selfishness and so on and so forth, these objections must issue from your lips with regularity!

Almost as if by magic, your voice will be elevated up above your peers and you may very well enjoy increased political and social inclusion as well (but don’t hold out on the latter, the majority can’t have their weekends monopolised).

If you manage to pull this off, you’re half way to achieving your goals!

4. Take the high road.

Don’t call people bigots! Don’t call them homophobes, atheophobes, xenophobes or racists! Don’t call them fundies, rednecks, white trash or sheep! Whatever you do, don’t call them a gobshite!

But most importantly when you’re taking the high road, don’t forget to point out that you’re taking the high road! The world needs holiday snaps of your trip to the pinnacle of respectful discourse.

You think that’s a bit too disingenuous? Remember rule 1! Dignity is overrated!

You deserve more, sure, but you’re lucky to be where you are as it is and you can’t afford a luxury like dignity. The moment you get airs and graces the majority will drop you back in with the misfits like they’d mistakenly picked up a turd.

Mind you, you can’t let out that you’re probably better than everyone else. Remember Gene Ray? What you can do is declare that you’re better than the misfits. This won’t stop you getting over with the majority.

At every point, where the majority would have possible cause to see you as different from the plebs, highlight it!

5. Patience is a virtue.

Be patient. Make sure people can see you being patient.

Right. Now that they aren’t looking and it’s just you and me – you need to patiently wait for that chance to spring your arguments upon the majority. You can do the big reveal before it’s time. The world isn’t ready otherwise there’d be more people like you.

Look at gay people. How many millenia did they wait for equal personhood? Now that’s patience!

If you notice the recent increases is gay acceptance, you can see that this patience has worn off. Win!

Being patient and making sure you’re seen as patient, serves the dual purpose of earning a place for your idea, as well as protecting you from being associated with others like you – these others being impatient by nature.

6. Smile.

Use those white teeth of yours. If you don’t have white teeth, get them!

Take a photo. Make sure the photo is taken when you’re inordinately happy; too happy to be discussing anything grave or so serious that people’s lives depend on the outcome.

But don’t tilt your head back in laughter. You want to ever so slightly, look down your nose – more dignity than condescension mind you. And no, this doesn’t break rule 1 – this is a mild parody of dignity, so subtle as to not be immediately discernible, and at all times ambiguous.

You photo should say “friendly with you, you and you, but maybe not you”.

Keep this photo with you. Rehearse this face.

Use this picture as you’re Twitter avatar. Use it as your Facebook profile photo. Put it on all your articles.

Juxtaposed against the mood of your writing, your face will express anything between love and a shit-eating smile, depending on the psychology of the reader. Naturally the poor misfits will gravitate to uncharitable interpretations, which when expressed (and these views will be expressed – sigh) will give you the opportunity to show the empowered majority just how different you are.

7. Be subtle, not crude and obvious.

You know how I’ve told you to make yourself stand out from your peers? Wherever possible, be subtle about this.

Nobody likes a braggart, and nobody likes someone who puts other people down to make themselves look good – even when it’s for a good cause like yours.

The easiest way of getting people to accept that you are different, without it being obvious that you’re playing guiding them, is to presuppose matters of difference in the way you behave or in the arguments that you make. That your interlocutor may be an ignorant fool, shouldn’t motivate you to call them an ignorant fool; simply lecture them on the topic of their ignorance. Even if the topic is for them a first year course from their alma mater, in a degree you don’t actually have; it doesn’t matter, they don’t understand.

Crude and obvious, while apparently clear, is simply crude and obvious. You’ve heard that majorities mistake clarity for shrillness, well sometimes members of minorities mistakenly feel a shrill voice is the only way to speak clearly. You are still a member of a minority. You don’t want to be shrill do you? Good.

8. Internalize! Internalize! Internalize!

If you’ve managed to obey rules 1 -7, you’ve probably managed to cosy up with the majority pretty well. All you have to do now is wait patiently and eventually you’ll be heard.

But you could still lose the chance!

Self-doubt is the killer here. You’re in a holding pattern maintaining 1-7, and if you falter you’ll be left having to start again or worse still, you could be entirely discredited!

The trick is to turn these rules into more than a checklist; you have to turn them into a repertoire of reflexes!

Say one of the misfits from your minority take a shot at you. They call you an Uncle Tom. They call you a sycophant, a toadie, an accommodationist or whatever hateful invective they can come up with.

Rule 2: Don’t sacrifice your self-image! Defend yourself!

Rule 3: Be helpful! You need to raise this kind of behaviour as a typical problem that stops your minority from being included by the majority.

Rule 4: Take the high road! Don’t use invective yourself, and make sure you highlight that you’ve made this decision.

Rule 7: Be subtle, not crude and obvious. Don’t just call them an ignorant philistine, or yourself a martyr.

“I’m not sure that this kind of discourse is helpful. I’ve found it much better to be gentle with people, and the majority does recognise this. I think you’d get your message across easier if you tried the same approach.”

Irrespective of the accusation, regardless of the specific facts of the matter or indeed the goal you’re trying to achieve, in the heated environments that the misfits create, this kind of response is appropriate.

This process should be fluid; no thinking out “rule 2, rule 3…”

Make it effortless. Don’t let it be the source of cognitive dissonance, but let rule 8 be the means by which you rid yourself of such confusion.

A final few words

If you’ve managed to follow these rules, you’ve probably suffered a lot of slings and arrows. It’ll be worth it.

You may not be the one who makes the breakthrough for your people, but you’ll be helping pave the way by showing a shining example. You’ll be remembered like other “accommodationists” (pfft!) after the dust finally settles and history is your judge.

Perhaps though, you will be the one to make the breakthrough. Then your people will find the promised land of equality and inclusion, and they’ll remember you as the one who led them there. Wouldn’t that be nice!

~ Bruce

Photo source: Martyrs

It seems I’ll have to make my own exceptions to Hart’s rules

On pg. 382 of my New Hart’s Rules, ‘20.10 Blasphemy, obscenity, racial hatred, and official secrets’ says…

Publishing a work which contains contemptuous, scandalous, or insulting material relating to the Christian religion is a criminal offense, punishable by a fine or imprisonment. Note that only the Christian religion is covered by this law and that merely attacking Christianity is not blasphemy: the attack would be blasphemous only if it were contemptuous or insulting.

(New Hart’s Rules, 2005)

Which is to say that any attack is at least tantamount to blasphemy, contempt or insult being as easy to conjure, and as hard to dismiss as an unfalsifiable Freudian diagnosis.

I also don’t like the fact that blasphemy is lumped in the same section as racial hatred. A smear by association – I don’t, as a blasphemer, think it fair to lump me or anyone else with the same tolerant disposition towards race, with bigots.

And at the very least, the discrimination inherent in making a special case for protecting Christianity alone demonstrates that the law isn’t interested in equality. By all means, report the law (actually abolished in the UK in 2008 – after this edition of Hart’s Rules was published), but the unnecessary value judgements are something I can do without.

Oh, and on that part of Western Christianity where you’ll find a long anti-Semitic streak, I’ve left a great big, fat, hot, steaming metaphorical turd. Of course the flies were already there before I metaphorically passed my bowels, being attracted to the scent of a thousand and one shitty Passion plays, Mel Gibson’s included.

I simply shat in what was already a latrine.

I hold the original charge of Deicide in contempt. I hold the concept of The Mark of Cain in contempt, and not just the Jew-hating interpretations.

Contempt!

~ Bruce

Groan… People who just can’t get over your vegetarianism

Way back in 1998, I made my first attempt at vegetarianism after being chewed out, rightly, by a young lady who thought I was better than that.

It wasn’t easy and like my many attempts, it only lasted a few weeks. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, eating meat is something that’s normalised in me.

The primary reason – always the primary reason – has been that of the suffering of animals.

I’ve been told a lot of dodgy-to-not-so-convincing reasons such as the claim that it will increase your lifespan.

The World Health Organisation is the source usually cited for the studies that saw higher mortality amongst meat eaters than vegetarians. But, what people citing this source – apparently not reading or not understanding it – don’t tell you is that the vegetarian groups in the earlier study had a lower incidence of smoking and once this was accounted for in further studies, the morbidity difference between lacto-ovo vegetarians and meat-eaters went away. In fact the vegans scored significantly worse.

Then there’s the water and fossil fuel usage. I’m not adverse to the idea that not eating meat in general may leave a smaller carbon footprint, or save water. But I’m yet to be shown a convincing study by the advocates. The problem with research I’ve been shown is usually that fuel/water usage between vegetarian and meat-sources are counted differently (e.g. double counting for meat produce, or omitting certain uses from vegetable produce while counting it for meat produce).

Although, I’m not prepared to go into great length looking into the veracity of either when even if true, it wouldn’t change my behaviour. My vegetarianism doesn’t hinge on the truth of  either of these kinds of arguments.

Now if it’s not hard enough for me just to check my food sources while at the same time resisting the urges that were inculcated into me as a child, people have to go and make it harder by being dicks.

There’s a phrase of Bertrand Russell’s that is apt, “conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.” Although to be more precise, I’d go with “roused to resolve cognitive dissonance through ego defence”.

I’m not talking about the likes of a friend that said “I’m going to give you so much shit from now on!” There’s no mental gymnastics there – just humour and an understated, implicit admission of moral failure.

It’s pretence and moral indignation that’s the problem.

People most often like to think of themselves as being good. The observation that I’m avoiding doing something bad, something that they’re themselves doing, causes dissonance with my meat-eating acquaintances’ self-image of goodness.

I’m not judgemental about it. I don’t jump down anyone’s throat. The only time I snap at anyone about the issue is when they’re already digging away at me.

It’s not jumping down someone’s throat if they started it.

1998 (I paraphrase).

Cousin: “Would you like a metwurst sandwich?”

Me: “Geez! I’m a vegetarian! I only told you again a couple of hours ago.”

Cousin: “I CAN EAT WHAT I WANT!”

Notice how I’m supposed to be oppressing my cousin?

I didn’t tell anyone what to eat in that conversation. I was newly vegetarian, committed but struggling, had communicated the fact already and was then thoughtlessly offered something that he knew I’d find tasty.

I’ve found it amazing the level of mental gymnastics some people will go to blame me for something because of my vegetarianism, even if it hasn’t happened yet.

Last Christmas (again, I paraphrase).

Mother: “I hope you’re not going to ruin Christmas for everyone else with this [vegetarianism].”

My not eating meat will ruin Christmas for everyone else? Even though I’d already pre-cooked my own Christmas lunch and tea to save any hassles.

And if it’s not a big enough pain in the arse that they’ve got these kind of issues, it’s the mental gymnastics they go through to convince themselves that they aren’t going through mental gymnastics.

“I’m just trying to be a good host!”

“I forgot you’re a vegetarian!” (An odd thing to forget given how obsessed and neurotic they can be about it, no?)

It’s the ones who are the “forgetful good hosts” that needle you about it the most. Needle, needle, needle.

They’ll serve something up with a big fat hot steak or piece of pork with crackling smacked on the plate, hover it in front of your face and then proceed to inquire as if to be considerate.

Of course they know this kind of thing is attractive to me, they know that I don’t want to be offered meat and rather than ask if I don’t want it, they’ll ask why I don’t want it and if I’m sure I don’t want it, all in the tone of the most conscientious host. All while hovering the plate in front of my face.

The context always shows they should know how to behave better. You’ve already talked to them about it within the past few hours. They spend time trying to “serve” you, all why others are waiting hungrily. And why ask why you don’t want it if they don’t already know you don’t want it?

Odd behaviour for the conscientious or for anyone who supposedly doesn’t realise that you don’t eat meat.

I mentioned some of the justifications I don’t use to inform my vegetarianism – health and environmental reasons.

Yet surprisingly after the umpteenth time I’ve told them “no”, they can still pull the straw man rejoinder like…

“It won’t kill you!”

…or…

“It won’t cause that much environmental damage. Just one.”

Of course, I don’t repeat my reasons for being a vegetarian ad infinitum to people who behave like this. What’s the point of expressing a moral justification if your interlocutor isn’t interested in listening.

But it’s not like I haven’t tried – it’s just that I’ve learned that it’s futile so I’ve stopped.

And oh, the sheer hypocrisy of asking why, when they don’t care why! The disingenuous questions aren’t much fun.

I no longer justify my choice if they ask me to explain. The dialogue is closed.

And why not? It is my body after all.

Why am I even having to have these discussions? Well, we know the answer of course – my choice through no intent on my part reflects on them in a way that they aren’t willing to admit to themselves.

But that’s their problem. I shouldn’t have to hear about it. I’m sick of hearing about it.

It makes being a vegetarian that much more difficult on top of everything else.

There’s only so much time before I grow so tired of this that I’ll stop being the passive party and I’ll actively use their own neurosis on the issue against them.

The discomfort they feel now at my being a vegetarian – the imagined persecution through imagined ruined public holidays and imagined chastisings – will seem insignificant when I play the double jeopardy card and actually do what I’ve been accused of doing. Namely chastise and ruin public holidays.

It’s either that or just walking away when it gets too much. Ultimately, I can afford to burn these bridges if my stock in these relationships falls so low.

I’ve been vegetarian for over half a year now and things are staying that way.

~ Bruce

(Photo source: Davide Vizzini)

DAoS: Skeptics who pretend they’re professional lobbyists

“We need you to stop doing that!”

“That’s politically naive. We won’t win hearts like that!”

“Don’t criticise religion! We may want some religious people to join our cause!”

“Whaa! Whaa! Whaa!”

Who the hell put these people in charge? How can these people be put in charge?

Answer me this – what is the skeptic equivalent of Pope?

So your skeptical organisation may have an appointed leader. So what? What makes any given skeptical organisation the authority on all skepticism? What makes a skeptical organisation the skeptic equivalent of The Vatican?

Excommunicate a skeptic from your ranks and they’ll still be a skeptic.

There’s no grand Poo-Bah of skepticism because there can’t be one.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with disagreement in good faith about tactics – it’s healthy and rather obviously necessary.

But… There’s a difference between simple disagreement, and authoritarian finger waving.

Continue reading “DAoS: Skeptics who pretend they’re professional lobbyists” →