While I have written about religious atheism and offered hugs for atheists I sure didn’t expect the recent spike in readership that Trinifar experienced due to this:
Free Inquiry magazine published Atheism Is Not a Civil Rights Issue by DJ Grothe and Austin Dacey, then Matt Nisbet echoed their sentiments in all caps ATHEISM IS NOT A CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE and linked to my post Saving Pharyngula. Melinda Barton had much to say in the comments following Nisbet’s piece and at her blog Liberals In Exile with a post called Atheism and Civil Rights. (Don’t miss the updates at the end.) Of course, PZ Myers of Pharyngula jumped into the fray (and by this time it was a fray) with a post of his own on which DJ Grothe comments and gets this response. (Read Grothe and Dacey’s short article here, PDF.) Jason Rosenhouse adds his thoughts, Is Atheism a Civil Rights Issue? and Mecha adds a trenchant comment or two or three and JJ Ramsey contributes some sharp remarks.
The long and short of it is a whole bunch of ardent atheists are taking Dacey, Grothe, and Nisbet to task for suggesting atheists might learn some new strategies. (Summary: atheists are bad at influencing society, some religious organizations are very good. See the index under framing science.)
Most people ardent about their religion or atheism are selling metaphysics which, as anyone with a degree in philosophy can tell you, isn’t a very profitable business. Metaphysics doesn’t address the serious problems of poverty, greed, human rights, or global warming. It is not relevant to our everyday concerns. For example, when we talk about the need for accessible health care for all, we don’t mean that everyone should be able to see a metaphysician.
Yet from the recent loud and often nasty discussion among atheists you’d think metaphysics had suddenly become a vital subject. Sadly for the philosophy departments in our universities, it’s no more vital, interesting, or useful than it ever was — and I say that as a holder of a degree in philosophy. However, there is one part of metaphysics that is generally important, that’s the part we all share.
Writing in the Humanist, Tom Clark says,
In a pluralistic society such as the United States, only secular claims are allowed, or should be allowed, as direct justifications for laws and policies. Our civic loyalty stems largely from knowing that in policy matters we reach consensus on non-sectarian grounds, so that no particular opinion about ultimate reality rules in matters affecting everybody. It might of course happen that policy lines up with a particular worldview, but in a democratic society the justifications for policy must have an independent secular basis stemming from concerns related to the physical and social reality shared by all. [emphasis mine]
It’s this shared reality that’s important and precisely because that’s the bit we use in pluralistic societies to create our laws and policies. Neither the religious nor the atheist has, nor should have, the upper hand when it comes to weighing in on public policy.
Atheists and moderates of all persuasion are rightly perturbed by the rise in influence of the religious right, but rather than grousing about it we should be taking a page from the right’s quite successful playbook, grow our own grassroots movement, and learn to frame the discussion in the public square in ways that are effective. That’s what Grothe and Dacey said and Nisbet echoed that started this whole brouhaha.
Yet Mark Hoofnagle writes,
To sum up, I find Nisbet and DJ Grothe and Austin Dacey’s arguments to be morally repugnant and ignorant garbage.
which demonstrates to me the nature of the problem: Even among skeptics, free thinkers, atheists, rationalists, and scientists — the very people whose defining characteristic is rational, evidence-based discourse — the urge to resort to inflamatory and insulting langage can’t be resisted. Worse, while differing with him at the boundaries, Mark’s targets share his own naturalist view. Nisbet is one of his Sciblings so I assume Mark and many of the others involved in the recent exchange know something about him, but who are Grothe and Dacey?
DJ Grothe and Austin Dacey work for the Center for Inquiry which Grothe calls “a think-tank collaborating with the State University of New York on the new Science and the Public program” and Dacey “a think tank concerned with the secular, scientific outlook.” It was founded by Paul Kurtz “to promote and defend science, reason, and free inquiry in all aspects of human interest.”
For a taste of this, listen to Grothe interview Tom Clark, founder and director of the Center For Naturalism, about
the differences between methodological naturalism and scientific / philosophical / metaphysical naturalism. He also talks about some of the implications of naturalism for society’s beliefs about religion, the paranormal, and concepts like free-will. He also explores how naturalism can help foster a sense of secular spirituality among those who adopt its worldview.
Nisbet, Grothe, Dacey, and people like them are interested in affecting public policy around serious, public issues in a pragmatic way. Not that the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Myers don’t want to, it’s just that they place more emphasis in their writing on what metaphysics a person signs up for and where that choice places them on the scale of intelligence. They often seem more interested in that incredibly abstract philosophical choice than in anything else. Meanwhile the Nisbets et al. are pushing hard on changing public policy right now and dare to suggest there are issues on which atheists and the religious can join forces.
In a book review for The Humanist Bruce Boydston writes,
If you are dismayed by the stark divisions in our society, you can gain some satisfaction in the growing unity between some conservative Christians and the environmental movement for the purpose of saving the planet from humanity’s unholy actions. More and more, religious leaders are discussing Christians’ responsibility to protect “the creation,” arguing that our stewardship of the earth is a biblical imperative.
…
Some Christians now go so far as to openly criticize the administration of George W. Bush for favoring big business to the detriment of the environment and the average citizen. This trend is likely to continue with the recent disclosure by former White House aide David Kuo that evangelical leaders were often ridiculed by the president’s staffers. For their part, environmentalists are excited about the prospect of well-organized, highly-motivated, and well-financed religious groups joining the movement.
Now is the time for good science and clear thinking, not metaphysical debate.
[See follow-up post.]
Wow. I started reading that mess, and see your summary of the argument…
…and realize that there is no point in reading further. Could you have possibly have done a crazier job of mischaracterizing the argument?
My objection is not that I will not learn new strategies, but that Nisbet in particular was not proposing any new strategies, and in fact was misrepresenting the case presented by the people he is rebuking. Dawkins and Hitchens simply do not say anything about fighting for civil rights. I’ve said that while I think there are real civil rights abuses, they are not the most important issue, and even agreed with Grothe that improving our public image was paramount.
If you’re going to get the basic premises so damned wrong, what exactly do you think you have to add to the discussion? Distraction?
PZ,
Perhaps you’ve seen this:
I don’t think anyone will be looking to the author of that to judge the accuracy of my characterization. (If you don’t recognize the quote see this link. It’s from a popular blog.)
I wish you well and if you see value in pushing your brand of metaphysics, go for it. But why do you feel the need to lash out at everyone who doesn’t toe your line even when they pulling in the same general direction?
Trinifar, I think you are mis-characterizing the arguments used by PZ et al. And I personally find it puzzling that you go at such length to criticize Mark Hoofnagle’s language as inflamatory and insulting, yet at no stage ever criticize Nisbet for using similar or worse language about Dawkins et al.
What many people criticize Niebet for doing is to use the general theme of framing to try to say that vocal atheists should shut up, instead of trying to tell people how to use it to communicate science better. He and Mooney might have the best ideas in the world (I personally don’t think so, but I can see the merits of some of their ideas), but Nisbet’s anti-atheism gets in the way of it.
He is in other words extremely bad at framing framing in a way that is useful for many of us.
Now, for the posts that your post is a response to, they were a response to a post that had little to do with framing, and I would have wished that PZ would have kept framing out of it. However, PZ actually expressed the taint that Nisbet’s behavior has given framing.
As for the points made in the post by Nisbet, they have been addressed by many of the commenters at his blog, and by several of the blogposts made in response to them, including PZ’s post.
However, you seem to not have understood what points it was that people addressed. People didn’t address the idea that “atheists might learn some new strategies“, instead they addressed the whole premise that idea was based upon (that atheist didn’t face any civil rights issues). To this, Nisbet did what can only be described as “blaming the victims”, saying that any discrimination was due to the fact that the atheists were so vocal (paraphrased) – this is what Hoofnagle called morally repugnant and ignorant garbage, which becomes absolutely clear when you read he said afterwards
Hoofnagle also makes clear that he doesn’t think this has anything to do with framing.
Kristjan, PZ, see http://trinifar.wordpress.com/2007/07/03/diabolical-winter-raspberries-and-nonviolence/ where I’ve tried to provide some more context for my views.
Kristjan,
You’re correct that’s what some people think Nisbet is doing, but, if they’d take the time to read what he’s been writing, I can’t seem them clinging to that view.
Actually I don’t see that which is why I wrote the another post on this topic. I don’t see how anyone can claim Nisbet is “blaming the victims.”
PZ Myers: “Nisbet in particular was not proposing any new strategies, and in fact was misrepresenting the case presented by the people he is rebuking. Dawkins and Hitchens simply do not say anything about fighting for civil rights.”
Actually, Nisbet had said that it was the atheist netroots trumpeting the civil rights stuff, and what Dawkins and Hitchens had been doing had amplified the trumpeting. Generally, while Dawkins and Hitchens do not bring up civil rights themselves, they encourage nasty rhetoric–like, say, the nonsense about appeasers–and those employing the rhetoric use comparisons to civil rights movements to justify their actions. Both you and Moran are prime examples of this.
Ah, it’s good to see you’ve joined this conversation again. I’m getting sick and tired of the “vocal” atheists (as if those of us who think they’re misguided weren’t vocal) saying that we’re telling them to shut up.
Well, I suppose I have told them to shut up, but not about being atheists or about the ills of theism in its various guises (though they tend to lump them all into one guise), but about things they know nothing about. Like metaphysics.
Trinifar, I an not going to go further into this debate, but I will make one general comment about communication. If someone says something that is generally misunderstood, or even just misunderstood by a large minority, then it’s generally considered bad communication, and the fault of the communicator.
I make a living as a consultant – if I had ever said something that was as widely misunderstood as what Nisbet has said (here I am taking your word for us misunderstanding him), then I would work on how to improve my communication skills. Not blame my readers/listeners for misunderstanding it.
Both you and Nisbet are saying, implicit if not explicit, that we are to blame for misunderstanding what Nisbet said.
Well, I read it, and I understood it as “blaming the victim” – if that’s not what Nisbet meant, then he should rephrase what he said, in a way that doesn’t leave a large group of people reaching that conclusion.
And I can claim that Nisbet is “blaming the victims” because that’s how his arguments reads to me – even on re-reads – no matter that you can’t see how we can understand it that way. Hoofnagle quite explicitly summed up why he, and I, read it that way.
Kristjan:
Well, you don’t want to go into the debate, but I have a few points to make about communication as negotiated medium (which I do agree with) and since this is one of the few places anyone’s bothered to bring it up (besides me), I’ll make them to the void.
Yes, Nisbet really needs to work on his phrasing at times. Oy. Sometimes, I wonder how he can do it so badly. Then again, sometimes I wonder how I can do it so badly. (It’s worth noting that Hoofnagle’s entire post took it down mainly on the denialism grounds, which Nisbet clearly took a stupid position on in trying to get to his point. No discrimination against atheists in our white judeo-christian heteronormative country? What? Without defining exactly what he meant by civil rights, he screwed that one right the hell up.)
But I’m fairly sure the exact same advice could go for the radical/activist/ornery atheists, and that’s the advice that Nisbet is trying (and failing) to give. The ones who say that their phrasing is perfectly fine? The ones who say that framing (which has a wikipedia entry! You can look it up in a manner that anyone can read through, not just have to sort through papers!) is evil, and lying, and giving up as an attack tactic, the ones who are so, so ready to appropriate the idea that everyone just wants them to shut up without considering their implications or what they mean, the ones who insist that Nisbet is a “scientist” who is as bad as any religious, the ones who call for violence (metaphoricall) and then go, ‘But you’re _misinterpreting_ me!” Yeah.
It isn’t surprising that anyone is reading it as blame the victim: That’s the only frame that it’s allowed to exist in. Look at PZ, others, what they say, how they treat the opinions. You, the reader, have almost no choice but to believe it’s blaming the victim. Because it’s framing the communicator right out of the negotiation, and into a box where he’s against freedom of speech and atheism. Communication is indeed a negotiated medium, and in this medium (Scienceblogs and such), PZ and the others hold all the cards, and do all the negotiating. That’s why their frame, the attack frame, the ‘us vs them’ frame lives in the activist atheism world.
The concept of framing as shut up, as appeasement, as whatever, is false on its face, as even a cursory examination of the meaning of framing (wikipedia!) would point out. Nisbet’s to blame for some of the misunderstanding in the overall discussion, especially with starting from the apparent belief that there’s no such thing as anti-atheist discrimination, which a number of people took down. But negotiation means that it’s got to be a two way street. And it sure doesn’t seem two-way to me.
-Mecha
Actually, Nisbet didn’t start out with claiming that there was no anti-atheist descrimination – that came at a rather late point. Instead he started out by saying that Dawkins was doing bad framing, and was harming science. This he did in the explicit content of framing, without providing any evidence of any of his claims. This is why many people understand framing to be about shutting up, rather than to be about communcation.
I, and several others (including Greg Laden) took him to task for this, but took his (and Mooney’s) ideas serious, and debated the merits of the ideas openly. As I’ve said, I disagree with the framing being the solution to the problem they are trying to address (I think education is the right solution), but I think the ideas have merit, within the correct content (e.g. the political landscape of the US).
However, in Nisbet’s later posts he is just straight out atheist-bashing, and doesn’t provide anything. Instead he is making himself irrelevant, and make some of us think that his agenda is more about dismissing atheists, rather than addressing the real communcation problems of scientists.
About PZ et al holding all the cards. Well, it wasn’t PZ who got an opinion piece into Science, nor him who attacked other ScienceBlog bloggers from a Washington Post op-ed. Seems to me that this is a two-way discussion, where one part is communicating their ideas pretty badly – rather ironically, considering that the people on that side are the ones who are supposed to be the communcation experts.
For people to take framing seriously, Mooney and especially Nisbet have to present it as a tool for communication, instead of telling people what they should communicate. They are of course free to disagree with the opinions of others, but they should keep that out of the framing context – something that Nisbet in particular has been bad at. They should also present real strategies, rather than examples of what not to do. So far, I haven’t seen any good examples of how to frame – instead they just address the problems of the current way of communcation. That’s the same problem I have with the movie The Flock of Dodos, which they regularly refer to.
Kristjan,
How to frame depends on what your goal is. E.O. Wilson is a great “framer” with a goal of preserving as much Earth’s biodiversity as possible, so among his many works you find The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth which is a direct appeal to evangelical Southern Baptists to join him, a nontheist, in that effort. See also this quote from another of his books.
Nisbet has clarified his views on a number of occasions. See the quotes in the follow up to this post for a few examples.
Sometimes I think PZ just enjoys his rhetorical florishes and the attention they bring, not realizing that to people like me they are far too similar to what’s coming from the very people he is attacking and about as far from rational and good reason as one can get. And a lot of people prefer that sort of “entertainment” so he has a large following.
As Chris says on the other thread, some of his posts taken together with the comment section have the feeling an old fashion Christian revival meeting.
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