aracism October 3, 2007
Posted by ocmpoma in : atheism , trackbackNewsweek’s site has an edited* transcript of the talk given by Sam Harris at the recent Atheist Alliance conference.
I found it a rather interesting read — I’m sure the speech was even more interesting, although Friendly Atheist (via The Bad Idea Blog) notes that it didn’t go over terribly well — and I’m not surprised about it, given some of the things he said — especially three key points.
Mr Harris talks, of course, about how absurd religions are, and points out that some are more absurd than others. He also points out that some are more destructive than others: “The usual approach is to say that they have their jihadists, and we have people who kill abortion doctors.” He also notes that
“To be even-handed when talking about the problem of Islam is to misconstrue the problem. The refrain, “all religions have their extremists,†is bullshit—and it is putting the West to sleep. All religions don’t have these extremists. Some religions have never had these extremists. And in the Muslim world, support for extremism is not extreme in the sense of being rare… These people don’t have a clue about what constitutes a civil society. Reports of this kind coming out of the Muslim communities living in the West should worry us, before anything else about religion worries us.”
I think that this misses a crucial point — it’s not the religion per se, it’s the culture itself — or, perhaps, it is various facets of the culture, of which religion is just part. Of course, the religion plays an undeniably huge role in that culture, and certainly helps to create and also reinforces tendencies to extremism and violence. And while, as Mr Harris also points out, these tendencies occur even among Muslims who are “living in the West”, it is the culture and not the religion that we should be looking at — as some polls indicate, Muslims who are more likely to favor extremism are also more likely to feel that they are Muslim first, and members of whatever Western society they live in second. In other words, citing Muslim extremism even among Western populations is not an example of extremism due to Islam, but rather extremism stemming from the culture.
Again, I’m not denying that Islam plays a role in fostering extremism, nor that it may have more doctrinal niches for extremists to hide in. However, when a religion (or any philosophy, for that matter) is as widespread and nebulous as the Abrahamic faiths, and the population of those holding to the philosophy numbers in the hundreds of millions, I think it’s too much of a stretch to place the blame solely on the religion. We should instead critically examine all the features of the cultures which so commonly give rise to extremist behavior.
The second thing that Mr Harris talks about that I’d like to address is the one that resulted in the less than enthusiastic reception of his speech: “…I think this whole conversation about the conflict between faith and reason, and religion and science, has been, and will continue to be, successfully marginalized under the banner of atheism.”
I must say that I agree with Mr Harris’s point here: the terms ‘atheist’ and ‘atheism’ are almost always misused and misconstrued, both by theists (deliberately or not) when attacking atheism, and by atheists (also deliberately or not) when defending it. Mr Harris’s point that we don’t have a term for non-astrologers should be taken under consideration, I think. Now, I’ve got this post up in the atheism category, because it falls under that category; and I obviously am not going to recommend that groups with ‘atheists’ in the name (*cough*) undergo alteration. But I do think that when Mr Harris says we shouldn’t try to use the label of atheist as the battering ram of our position, he has a very valid point, and not just for the reasons he cites.
Atheism, as I’ve written before, implies only one thing: that the existence of deities is not accepted. It does not imply anything else: it is not a world-view so much as a foundational view; it is not a philosophy; it is not anything other than that short description above. As such, being an atheist most certainly does not imply that one is rational, secular, scientific, or sane. Therefore, in addition to Mr Harris’s points that our use of the term weakens our position in two ways, I think that a third point can be added: atheism is not, in and of itself, a rationalist position. And, as for using labels, I think I’m going to go with that one: rationalist.
The last point I’d like to address is one that made me quite happy: Mr Harris’s comparison of the struggle against supernaturalism to the struggle against racism. I’ve made that point before as well, and am very happy to see such a prominent figure adopt what I feel is one of the best analogies out there for what the ‘mean atheist community’ is trying to accomplish. And, just as we don’t call those who don’t accept the idea that certain ethnic groups are better than others ‘aracists’, we don’t treat racism or racists with kid gloves in order to avoid alienating them. Since the struggles against racism and supernaturalism are both ideological ones, I strongly feel that they should both be pursued in the same manner: on a broad front, with both hard-nosed and somewhat more conciliatory voices, but above all without compromise.
*I’m not sure what they edited, or why… If anyone knows where I could find an unedited transcript, I’d appreciate it.
UPDATE: The Prof started a forum thread, I’ve posted some further thoughts on the atheist label there, as well.
Tags for this article: atheism , deep thoughts , society
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Comments»
So what’s your take on his suggestion that we “fly under the radar”?
That’s the part of his analysis that sticks in my craw. “Aracists” didn’t bring about change as part of a quiet revolution. They vocally and actively encouraged better desires, to paraphrase Alonzy Fyfe.
What’s the equivalent of the civil rights movement for rationalists? It seems like its starting to coalesce around the so-called “New Atheists”.
I think the forum post I wrote (linked to in the ‘update’ at the end of my blog entry) expands upon that.
I think most people, like PZ, have misconstrued this statement. He’s not in the least saying saying “shut up and go hide in the closet” he’s saying “let’s sucker punch them by not letting them spend time nattering about atheism: let’s get right to the specific criticisms and goals we have.”