Steven Pinker on the Myth of Violence

Knee-jerk policies

Obsolete is well worth reading today. As he is everyday, really.

The best policies on crime and punishment, or indeed on everything are however reached in the cold light of day, not motivated by vengeance or to buy off campaigning newspapers or individuals. The very last thing that should be indulged is knee-jerk reactions that aim towards ever harsher penalties, but rather focus on what works; outrage and apoplexy, along with the momentum that a tragedy provides a person with, have worked to huge disadvantage in the past. You only have to examine the dangerous dogs legislation or the video nasties farce to see what moral panics bring about.

Presumed consent - the least worst option?

While I have some sympathy with the opponents of "presumed consent" when it comes to organ donation, it's hard not to agree with Justin McKeating's argument that it's a case of "putting your principles before the lives of dying people."

In an ideal world, the matter of organ donation would be left to individuals or their next of kin to decide. But the problem in leaving this to the free market is that the incentives to donate just aren't strong enough - we all agree that people dying from organ failure is a Bad Thing that should be prevented where possible, but as it generally happens to people we don't know there's little pressure on us to do anything about it.

So while "presumed consent" may not be ideal, it might well be the least worst option.

"Down with this sort of thing!"

From About.com:

The misnamed Catholic League for "Religious and Civil Rights" is protesting the film version of Philip Pullman's award-winning book "The Golden Compass." Apparently, they are very concerned about the existence of an entertaining, engaging film which is critical of Christian institutions and was written by an atheist. It's possible, they think, that parents might be lured into buying the books for their children, thus further indoctrinating them into the pernicious agenda of questioning Christianity and Catholicism.

I've nothing really to add, I just thought it was the perfect excuse for showing this clip:



Via chooseDoubt

More Usmanov

This is what happens when you try to bully people into silence:



More over at The Wardman Wire.

Are we being a little unfair on dictatorships?

Brian Eno (former keyboard player in Roxy Music) defends dictatorships on the Guardian's 'Comment is Free':

"Dictator" is an automatically pejorative word. "Autocrat" is more neutral. There are many sorts of autocrats: from those who seek to control everything entirely in their personal interests to those who seriously care about those under their charge. Those latter can have the interests of the whole community in mind, and they can be "democratic" in the sense that they pay attention to the feedback they get from their people: indeed many tribal and clan systems of government are like this. Leaders are considered "wise" or "good" when they are able to synthesise what they hear about the state of the world and arrive at a decision which works well for most people.

The biggest objection to autocrats is not that they're automatically bad but that you can't get rid of them easily if they turn out to be. However, since the outcomes of our "democratic" elections are increasingly shaped by lobbyists, conditional campaign contributions and partisan media, it could be argued that we also aren't able to get rid of the real powers behind the throne, but just to occasionally change its occupant.

"Democratic" dictatorships?

The worst thing is that some of the comments beneath the piece actually agree with him!

More censorship

Another worrying attempt to bully people into silence:

Little did I know that days later I would be facing legal action from a large company for comments other people had made on my blog, and that it would go so far to infringe on freedom of speech.

It all started on Thursday the 5th of April, it was about 19:30 and my treat of pizza had just arrived at the door when the phone rang. We were confused at first who it was, but when I took the phone the caller announced that they were the head of a large Scottish based corporation which I had reviewed on my website.

Via Westminster Wisdom

Just as with the Usmanov situation, the company in question have relied on the fact that their target is unlikely to be able to afford an expensive court case - even if they're in the right.

Rather than tackle the criticisms made head-on, they've used their financial clout to silence them.

Viewing Faith Through an Atheist's Eyes

This is the third in what I like to think of as the unholy trinity of books on religion which I've been reading. 'I Sold My Soul on eBay: Viewing Faith Through an Atheist's Eyes' by Hemant Mehta is perhaps the most interesting of the three.

I've often wondered (well... maybe not “often”) which book I'd choose if I could recommend only one to religious believers. This is perhaps it. I'd probably recommend it to a lot of atheists as well.

It's a personal account by Mehta, an atheist, of his upbringing (as a Jainist) and his experiment of visiting a number of Christian churches in order to gain a better understanding of America's main religion. Mehta became an atheist at fourteen and went on to be heavily involved in organising secular groups at university. His daily contact with Christian groups stoked his curiosity about the religion, leading to the idea of – as it quickly became know – putting his “soul” on eBay. What this meant in reality was agreeing to attend one church service for every $10 of the winning bid, with the bidder picking the church.

As he explains it:

But at the age of twenty-two, while I was still confident in my nonbelief, I realised that I had never been to a Christian worship service... or a Muslim service... or any other non-Jain religious service for that matter. In the interest of seeing what else was out there I felt compelled to attend religious services. I didn't want others to question the basis of my nonbelief: “You're an atheist only because you don't know what Christianity is all about!”

Some national press coverage later, the winning bid was $504 by Jim Henderson a former minister and author of Christian books. He decided that it would be best if Mehta attended a range of Christian churches across the country, writing up a review of each for Henderson's website – thereby giving Christians the chance to see how they were perceived by outsiders. These reviews have been expanded, and alongside Mehta's description of his atheism form the bulk of the book.

As such, 'How I Sold My Soul on eBay' is really targeted at theists – specially mainstream American Christians, but I think that anyone interested in religion (from a secular or believer perspective) will find something useful in it. His account of growing up in a Jainist household, becoming an atheist and his subsequent activities in what I'd call the “secular community” show not only what it means to be an atheist but also how the relationship between the religious and non-religious need not be an antagonistic one. As he points out a number of times in the book, while there may be a number of disagreements (some of them perhaps unsolvable) there are also a large number of commonalities: most of us want to make the world a better place, and we tend to agree on the basics of what that involves. Expanding democracy and eliminating poverty, to take just two examples, are issues on which many theists and atheists agree.

All co-operation requires is respect for each other – no more dismissing the “other side” as stupid or evil.

Throughout, Mehta lives up to the name of his current blog: The Friendly Atheist. In a stark contrast to the likes of Hitchens, he remains respectful towards those around him, though this doesn't mean he spares them from criticism and questioning. His goal is to understand the world better, keeping an open mind at all times and refusing to dismiss beliefs and ideas out of hand. As he explains in the book, if Christianity provided the answers to the questions he has then he'd gladly become a Christian. (I hope I'm not spoiling the ending of the book if I point out that it doesn't).

For me, this book provided a thought-provoking glimpse of Christianity in the US. It also left me feeling a little more optimistic about the state of the world than when I picked it up.

Mess with me, you mess with my whole family

It's always nice to see the power of the blogosphere in action.

For those of you who haven't been following the Usmanov story, the best summaries are here and here.

Basically, a number of blogs have been taken down and others threatened with legal action by an Uzbek millionaire after they repeated allegations made against him by Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan.

As Obsolete notes, this has been a pyrrhic victory at best: the news of Usmanov's heavy-handed tactics have spread like wildfire - bringing him and the allegations against him to the attention of most of the political blogosphere. Such has been the extent of this response that it's warranted mention in the Times, Slate, More4 News and The New Statesman website.

Not just the language which separates us

The Friendly Atheist is normally a pretty interesting read, but a couple of recent posts, showing the difference in attitudes between here and the US, have really stood out:

How Long Does the Deconversion Take?
Sowing the Seeds of Faith by Cutting Down the Neighbors' Plant

Kinda makes me glad I live in a country where people generally don't care what your religious views are.

Remember kids: too much ideology is bad for you!

Respecting someone's opinion vs. respecting someone's right to an opinion

I'm sure this will come as a relief to most people who read my blog, but you're under absolutely no requirement to respect anything that I write, say or believe.

Contrary to some opinion, such a right is not required by democratic society or freedom of speech.

What is required is respect for my right to express my thoughts, opinions and beliefs – but that's quite a different thing.

For example, while I'd argue for the right of a bigot to express his or her opinions I'd also argue for the right of others to criticise, even ridicule, those opinions in the strongest terms possible. The marketplace of ideas is a keystone of democracy, and such a marketplace can't thrive as long as there are calls for censorship because someone's feelings might be hurt. If I find an opinion repulsive then the onus is on me to expose its ugliness through argument and evidence.

Censorship often merely drives controversial opinions underground, where they fester and grow in the absence of any direct challenges. Preventing someone from saying that group X are vermin does nothing to stop them thinking it, whereas presenting counter-arguments can.

I know all this is blindingly obvious, but I feel it deserves repeating.

Abolish the national curriculum?

From the Libertarian Alliance blog:

Libertarians are all more or less agreed that the very idea of a “National Curriculum” - that is to say, where the content of State-imposed education, and by inference, leakage and force, the content of most of that provided privately also - is inimical to human liberty and quite possibly dangerous to the proper and truthful spread of real knowledge also.

While I'm broadly sympathetic to libertarian ideals, I can't agree with this.

Although I believe that schools should have a greater say in how they teach subjects (allowing it to be tailored to the specific strength and weaknesses of the students and teachers), the idea of giving them complete freedom seems a recipe for disaster - further breakdown of social cohesion and a decline in critical thinking being two of the more serious consequences of such a move, neither of them particularly desirable.

Allowing schools to decide what and how they teach would most likely give rise to a fragmented system, with children placed in schools which best reflect the prejudices (political, social, religious) of their parents, thus merely entrenching existing prejudices rather than exposing them to different ideas and providing them with the means to decide between them. It’d be the current Faith Schools issue ratcheted up to 11: socialist schools, conservative schools, Scientology schools - we'd have them all!

It's bad enough that some schools already present Creationism as proper science, do we really want children encouraged to take Body Thetans seriously as well?

While the "invisible hand" would probably weed out the more extreme edges pretty effectively - you'd need basic maths/english to get anywhere in life, no matter how well you could sing the Internationale - I don't see how it would cope with the more long-term social problems that could arise. A national framework - ensuring that children are exposed differing viewpoints and develop the necessary critical faculties - seems a basic requirement for a democratic system.

Of course, I‘m open to counter-arguments.

Dealing with the BNP

While I was on blogging hiatus, the members of Blogpower – following months of discusssion – voted to (temporarily) expel BNP blogs from the group.

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about this.

The case for expulsion is hard to argue against: Blogpower was set-up to promote smaller blogs, and by darkening the image of the group in many eyes the presence of the BNP was hurting its central aim. Getting rid of the BNP blogs encourages more people to join – which is an extremely good thing.

However, I also believe that all voices should be heard – no matter who idiotic or repulsive we find them. Bringing the ideas of the BNP to a wider audience is probably the best way to expose just how outdated and inadequate they are. It’s through discussion that ideas should be defeated, not censorship.

Not that the Blogpower decision was censorship – the BNP blogs still publish. But I can’t help feeling that for some the decision was based on the idea that certain viewpoints are unacceptable and need to be stamped out.

The explicitly tribalist ideas of the BNP should be given an airing, as – to varying degrees – they’re shared by a number of people. Holding them up to the light, showing that individual character is more important than superficialities such as skin colour, is the best way to deal with them. As long as people want to pretend they don’t exist, that can’t be done.

Tribalism

[A]n enthusiastic Tory backbencher like me can hardly wait to switch on the Today programme every morning in order to listen to all the bad news. The health crisis has deepened, the rail network has gone pear-shaped and Tony Blair's mania for world tourism has made him a laughing stock.
- David Cameron, 2002

Via Freemania

In wake of the recent Foot and Mouth issue, both Stephan Newton and Tom Freeman have commented on the eagerness of some Conservative commentators to focus on how bad this could be for the Labour Party, as opposed to how bad it could be for the farming industry or country. As Tom notes, this tendency, by all parties, to turn important issues into political point-scoring is hardly new.

Nor is it confined to politics. Tribalism – viewing the world largely through the prism of Us and Them – is everywhere. Tribalism replaces open and honest discussion with an infantile attempt to prove that my country/political group/religious belief/football team/etc. is better than yours. It replaces the discussion of ideas and issues with simplistic point-scoring.

You can see tribalism in action across the Internet: Anytime a discussion of politics starts to revolve around whether the Nazis or BNP are left- or rightwing, or whether atheists or religious believers have killed the most people. These aren’t serious discussions, but merely attempts to prove that ‘our’ beliefs are better than ‘their’ beliefs – as though groups such as leftwing, Christian, etc. were almost completely homogenous, without important rifts and divisions. Once the discussion enters this stage, it becomes utterly pointless.

I suppose that’s why I’m attracted to explicitly non-tribalist projects such as ‘Blogpower’ and ‘In Search of High Places’, which are concerned with individuals more than ideologies.

Lies about the Human Rights Act

Anytime someone complains about the Human Rights Act, point them towards this post.

(Via Stumbling and Mumbling)

Sarkosy and old people

Gracchi, over at 'Bits':

Take a look at the poll breakdown by demographics, published on the European Tribune site- we can see that for all the age groups save the retired (18-24, 25-34, 35-49 and 50-64) Royal the defeated candidate got over 50% of the vote, amongst those aged over 65 Sarkozy got 75% of the vote and therefore the victory.

Hardly looks like he had popular support. If the bulk of Sarkosy's supporters are retired, does that bode well for his proposed reforms of the French system? Most of the people affected will have voted for Royal.

Also, could it be that the Lib Dems here in the UK have a secret plan?

The necessity of human rights

Unity, over at 'The Ministry of Truth':

If the history of the twentieth century should teach us anything at all, it is that the scapegoating of migrants and individuals of foreign descent as the enemy within, coupled with demands for arbitrary state authority to preserve the safety of the citizenry is one of the clearest and most obvious steps on the road to totalitarianism.

Read the rest...

Dawkins, Hitchens... and me.

The Times religious correspondent, Ruth Gledhill, has an interview with Richard Dawkins, which shows a rather more engaging side of his personality. Well worth reading.

With his book, ‘God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, due out soon, Christopher Hitchens seems to be popping up all over the place. This interview for BeliefNet is one of the more interesting.

I'm sort of resigned to this--an argument that has no conclusion. I'll give you an example. My dear wife has, I would say, probably never opened a religious book, and seems to be one of those people to whom the whole idea is utterly remote and absurd. I ought to wish, oughtn't I, as an atheist, an anti-theist, in fact, that everyone was like her. But somehow, and this may be an irony at my expense, I don't wish that. I rather enjoy the argument. All I'm doing is contributing my little bit to what is humanity's oldest disagreement.

Extracts from the book can be found here. It promises to be an entertaining read, at least if you’re an atheist fan of Hitchens.

However, like so many of the recent criticisms of religion, Hitchens’ arguments on the subject tend to conflate a handful of linked but separate issues which can (and often do) blight any ideological system. In doing so they not only risk missing the target with religious belief, but they also fail to show how widespread these problems are – which I think is far more dangerous.

There seems to be me to be three apparent issues:

(1) Dogmatism

I mean dogmatism in the sense of refusing to question our beliefs, whether we do so because we see them as beyond argument (as in the case of religious faith) or simply because we fail to see the possibility that we could be wrong (as in the case of a lot of us). Dogmatists can range from the hardcore to the merely stubborn, but all share the common failing of too much certainty, which ultimately leads to arrogance and obstinance.

(2) Tribalism

It’s only human nature that we’ll be attracted to like-minded people. If you like hang-gliding, you’ll probably get on well with hang-gliders. The same applies to philosophical, religious or political stances. Forming groups around ideas or activities can be extremely beneficial, allowing our ideas to develop through conversation and the pooling of resources to pursue these activities further, however when it becomes elitist or exclusionary it can become quite damaging. Tribalism is the adoption of a strong “Us and Them” attitude in which those who disagree with you (and your group) are viewed with extreme suspicion and in some cases demonised. Anyone who’s spent any amount of time checking out political blogs will see tribalism in action, with “left-wingers” viewed as utopian authoritarians and “right-wingers” as backward-looking bigots. The same polarisation is seen with many theist/atheist debates. The main consequence of this is to shut-down debate and replace discussion with ad hominem and tu quoque attacks.

(3) Authoritarianism

Once a core set of beliefs and like-minded group has been established there are two directions the group can take: The first is to become extremely insular, shutting themselves away from the rest of the world (which is often viewed as corrupt or degenerate). The second is to seek to impose their views on the disbeliveers, often “for their own good”. The diverse nature of humanity means that establishing a wide-ranging conformity requires an extremely authoritarian approach – establishing repressive laws and using brutal violence to enforce them. The Nazis, Soviet Union and Taliban regime all had this in common.

The problem is not so much with specific systems (though criticism of religious, philosophical and political viewpoints are still vital) but with the way these views are held. If individuals like Hitchens and Dawkins really want to deal with the problems posed by religious beliefs they might find their efforts more productive if they look up and see how wide-ranging these problems are from time to time.

How best to deal with Internet trolls?

I’ve had to enable comment moderation for the time being.

The reason for this is that an individual known as ‘Billy_Coconut’ persists in leaving anonymous* and abusive comments.

(*I recognise his tone and his IP address)

On its own, that’s not necessarily a problem. However, in the past few days this individual has indulged in some large-scale vandalism of the openDemocracy forums – bombarding them with hundreds (yes hundreds) of empty comments in an attempt to disrupt the activity of other users and shut down any debate there. When the moderators attempted to ban him he simply re-registered under a different IP and user name and continued his wrecking activities.

The image below shows what he achieved in a matter of minutes – some of his attempts went on for about half an hour or longer.

(Click for larger image)
As Billy is known to comment here I’ve decided not to take the risk. Hopefully he’ll get bored soon and bugger off.

The events of the last few days have shown how easy it is for deranged individuals to cause havoc on the Internet, to the detriment of genuine debate and discussion. With IP addresses easily changeable, is there any real way to deal with such people?

Angry atheists: doing more harm than good

Atheists have got something of a bad rep at the moment.

Before I launch into why I think that is, I want to make one thing clear: When I talk about being an atheist, or even a humanist, I carefully and purposely deal only in the lower case. The reason for this is simply that I consider these views to be attributes of who I am rather than defining characteristics. I’m an atheist in the sense that my view of life requires no divine presence, and a humanist in the sense that I believe individual compassion and reason to be the best guides to how to live.

While atheists have never been overly popular, there’s an increasing tendency to characterise them as intolerant, bigoted, ignorant and “fundamentalist” – with the likes of Richard Dawkins at the forefront of an attempt to wipe religion from the face of the planet, through any means necessary.

I want to quickly deal with the “fundamentalist” tag first. The attempt to suggest some kind of equivalence between the likes of Dawkins and religious fundamentalists – those who adhere rigidly to central dogma - is profoundly flawed. Evolutionary theory, or “Darwinism” as some like to call it, is – as with all scientific theories – is under a constant process of revision and alteration in light of increasing evidence. To see this you need only compare the version of evolution presented in Darwin’s work with that presented in that of Dawkins. The attempt by some to suggest an equivalence between the likes of Dawkins and religious extremists – such as the Taliban – is even more preposterous, as though oppression and violence can be compared to writing angry books. The term “Atheist Fundamentalist” cannot be defended on any real grounds.

On the question of intolerance, people may have a point.

The attempts by religious organisations to restrict the freedom of others must be resisted. Groups such as the National Secular Society do an invaluable job in opposing unfair and undemocratic religious privileges, such as compulsory worship in education, faith schools funded with tax payer’s money, state support for the Church of England, etc. The entwining of church of state is an anachronism that should be unpicked – if religion is to flourish in this country, then it must stand on its own feet and not rely on the support of those who don’t share its views. This is not intolerance, it’s standing up for the principles of liberal democracy.

Secularism, however, has itself become entwined with crude anti-theism. Instead of viewing it as synonymous with religious freedom, the right of every individual to determine their religious views freely, many – including those at the head of organisations such as the NSS – use it as an opportunity to insult and attack religious belief simply for its own sake. We’re told that it’s a virus, a dangerous remnant of our primitive past, a matter only of indoctrination and oppression that only the gullible could believe in and that should be eradicated from society.

What worries me about this are two things:

First, that by adopting this anti-theistic tone secular movements are alienating a considerable number of vital allies: Liberal religious believers – those who regard faith as something which is personal and which must be arrived at freely. These people, by advocating that belief and tolerance sit side-by-side can do far more to stem the tide of extremism than we atheists can do.

Second, that the hostile tone adopted considerably weakens the arguments being made. Whatever you believe, starting off by telling those you want to convince that they’re dangerous idiots is not the way to go about things. It simply hardens people against you – as can be seen by the responses to columns written by the likes of Terry Sanderson or A. C. Grayling in the Guardian and elsewhere. They’re merely preaching to the choir, and are unlikely to have changed any minds by it. Instead, they merely reinforce the negative stereotype of atheism which dominates in the media and public mind.

What I want to see is a more positive take on atheism presented by these highly intelligent and erudite people. Arguably, far more people are likely to be won over through reading ‘The Selfish Gene’ than ‘The God Delusion’, as it puts forward an explanation of naturalism free from tirades against other belief systems. When dealing with the subject of religion itself, my own experiences have shown that showing a degree of respect for other people's heart-felt beliefs ultimately leads to far more productive debate than insults.

Reasoned, measured and polite debate is the best way forward. Once the likes of Dawkins realise that the future will be a lot brighter for us atheists.