Monday, June 11, 2007
Back From Outer Space
After 8 months I've managed to get a little time to get back to blogging. Several things happened that conspired to keep me from the keyboard. We got a new baby last fall, who is thankfully now sleeping through the night, and I got a Nintendo Wii for my birthday :) Okay, so maybe I could have come back to blogging a bit earlier. Oh, well.
In other exciting news, I was selected to appear on the TV game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" I taped the episode last November (2 weeks after our new baby arrived), and it will air next week over 2 days, Wednesday 6/20, and Thursday 6/21. I'll see if I can get a video up on YouTube after it's on TV. It was an amazing experience. Maybe I'll get to providing more details in a future post after the show airs.
Finally, I'm going to expand the focus of my humble space on the blogosphere a little. I've recently been reading a lot of blogs by people of color (POC) that touch on many important issues. I realized that here on my space I haven't said much of anything about important issues like racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry and oppression that are all too common to our society. As a person of color myself (specifically an African-American man), in future posts I'd like to rectify that. As a start, I'll just point to some great voices in the blogosphere who can say things much more eloquently than I ever could (in no particular order):
- Zuky by Kai
- The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum by Sylvia
- The Angry Black Woman
- Having Read The Fine Print by BlackAmazon
- The Unapologetic Mexican by nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez
- Women of Color Blog by brownfemipower (BFP)
- The Silence of Our Friends by Donna
- AfroSpear: A Think-Tank for People of African Descent
- The Field Negro
- Francis L. Holland Blog
I'm not going to make any promises about posting frequency, since I could never keep them, but hopefully I'll post more regularly than once every 8 months!
Labels: blogging, liberty, people of color
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Ed Brayton is Reading My Mind
There's no other explanation. How else could he have written a post on his blog that so clearly echoes my own thoughts? He knew I was ruminating on the recent brouhaha going on at The Panda's Thumb regarding Ken Miller and PZ Myers (see his relevant blog posts here, here, here, here, and here), and that I was planning to comment on the whole thing. He just had to put his well-written post up before I got a chance to type those thoughts out on my own blog. What a jerk!
Or, it's all just a coincidence and we just reached the same conclusions from similar viewpoints about the futility of ideological battles. OK, so I was wrong about there being no other explanation, but I like my theory better (which probably means it's wrong).
Ed's post has generated a large amount of comments, and it seems some folks are misunderstanding Ed's arguments, at least as I see them. A few points that I would focus on had I actually gotten to write my essay on this topic:
You don't have to respect someone's religious beliefs, the religion they subscribe to, or even them as a person. You do have to (at least under the 1st Amendment in the US Constitution, but I think it's a good general rule for non-Americans as well) tolerate their right to hold a religious view (or any other view or opinion) and express it freely, just as they have to tolerate your right to call their belief ludicrous.
It's counterproductive to label people who may have differing religious views/opinions than yours, but the same views/opinions on liberty, freedom of thought and expression, science, and separation of church and state, as enemies that should be excluded, ostracized and ridiculed. Unfortunately creationists, theocrats, and neo-conservatives have largely learned this lesson and put it into action with their "big tent" strategy. Of course their goal is not to encourage freedom of thought but rather to limit everyone's civil liberties and force us all to adhere to their particular moral code and religious viewpoint. They frame their struggle as one of good religious folk versus the evil atheists/secularists to somewhat successful political and cultural gain, despite the fact that all those different religious sects disagree on lots of points. As long as you subscribe to any religion, you're with us, and you're against those bad atheists. When over 80% of the US population claims to be religious, this strategy can create real political power.
We need to reframe the struggle as one of those who believe in freedom, liberty, and fairness, regardless of religious views, versus those who seek to impose the authoritarian hierarchy of their particular doctrine on everyone else. I'd be willing to wager that if the battle lines were drawn this way, the folks on the side of liberty and freedom would be the vast majority.
So I think it's unhelpful when some atheists don't distinguish between making fun of religion or the religous, and painting all people with religious beliefs as the enemies of reason, or at best, stooges or patsies of the theocrats. So it's perfectly reasonable for PZ Myers to criticize Ken Miller's views on how he blends his religious beliefs with science and rationality, even to mock it and call it ridiculous. But I think it's a mistake for Myers to label Ken Miller as a creationist and a stooge of the religious right (Myers has since backed off from his original characterization of Miller's views; good for him!).
Conversely, it is also unhelpful for some liberals to admonish their liberal atheist allies to stop attacking religion on the grounds that it hurts their efforts to get other Christians to the accept liberal values and join our own version of the "big tent". Freedom of expression is a fundamental principal, not just a liberal talking point that can be expediently discarded for short-term political gain. Atheists (and everyone else) have a right to criticize, mock, and insult any idea or person they choose. And it's hardly atheists' penchant for pointing out the absurdity, contradictions, and harmful effects of religious belief that makes them the most reviled minority group in America. Unscrupulous religious and political leaders have been demonizing atheists, and the media has been dutifully echoing their attacks, for years. Atheists and "secularists" are evil, selfish people who want to destroy your religion, steal Christmas, and remove all restrictions of morality on human behavior. This false and dishonest rhetoric is the major cause of people's distrust of atheists, not the actual views of atheists themselves.
I realize people might read the two paragraphs above and conclude that I have just made a glaring self-contradiction. How can I simultaneously complain about atheists demonizing religious people and then turn around and chastize liberal Christians for complaining about the same thing? Well, here's where I see the fundamental difference:
My position is that atheists (and anyone else) have a right to freely express their criticisms and dislike for religious views and to call out religious people on the contradictions in their religious views, even to the point of outright mockery. However, it is counterproductive for some atheists to label religious people who agree with you on issues of freedom of thought and expression, liberty, and fairness as either enemies of reason, rationality, and liberty or the unwilling patsies of those enemies. To build a "big tent" we should focus on the common ground we share. We do not ignore the places where we have fundamental disagreements, nor do we shy away from expressing those disagreements. However, we recognize that those disagreements about religion are less important than our agreements on freedom and liberty.
The position I perceive some liberal Christians taking is that we should tell our liberal atheist colleagues to shut up about their dislike of religion, and stop attacking religious views and people, so we can molify the religious folk who may have some liberal views but are wary of joining us in the "big tent." Atheists merely expressing their opinions about religion is toxic, and they should be "seen but not heard" until the Democrats win the next few elections.
I think my position is a reasonable request for a modicum of civility (that applies equally towards atheists who demonize all religious believers as well as religious people who demonize all atheists) towards building a broad coalition, while the second position is an unreasonable demand on limiting one group's freedom of expression. The goal of building a coalition is the same, but the strategy is based on a faulty premise.
Having said all that, let be me clear in stating that the problem of a very few atheists demonizing reasonable people with religious views is infinitesimal compared to the widespread demonization of atheists by religious and political leaders and the general negative attitude towards atheists in the United States. Claiming that this negative view is derived from atheists being too "militant" in stating their views seems to me like blaming the victim.
Everyone who believes in liberty and freedom, regardless of whether you are religious or not, should be willing to avow that most atheists, like most any other group of human beings, are decent, honest, moral people who contribute to society like everyone else. Liberals who want to hide atheists away as their "dirty little secret," by showing how they are "ashamed" of the atheists who support them, tacitly accept the way the Religious Right has framed the struggle of religious (good) versus secular (bad).
We need to reject this framework entirely, and form our own "big tent" around the ideas of freedom of expression, liberty, fairness, and scietific integrity. The real struggle is between those who believe in these ideas, and those who would pay lip service to those ideas but would replace them with their authoritarian doctrine as soon as they gained enough power.
Labels: freedom of expression, liberty, values
Monday, September 11, 2006
Remembering 9/11
Today is the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Like many Americans, this was a defining moment for me and I can clearly remember exactly where I was and what I was doing as those horrible events unfolded that day. Orac has a post up that echos some of my own feelings and expresses them better than I could. Ed Brayton also recalls the reaction of such esteemed religious leaders as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (blame the liberals, what else?).
It's ironic that the politicians spouting rhetoric about "not letting the terrorists win" are the ones most guilty of using the fear of more terrorist attacks to goad Americans into voting for and re-electing them, and are also guilty of using 9/11 as a justification for reducing our civil liberties. Don't the terrorists "hate us for our freedom?" Isn't reducing that freedom letting the terrorists win? Why has dissent of the policies and actions of our current administration morphed into the strawman of wanting to "appease" the terrorists?
I think Benjamin Franklin said it best:
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."Remember and honor the victims of 9/11. Stand up against terrorism and extremism. But also stand up for liberty and freedom. Stand up for accountability not only for the extremists, but for our political leaders as well. Shouldn't we beware that we don't sacrifice the very freedoms we stand for, nor that we become like the terrorists themselves in fighting them?
Monday, May 08, 2006
Party Like It's Nineteen Eighty-Four!
I just read George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four last week. If you haven't read it before, I strongly recommend it (there's a free online version here). Orwell's cautionary tale of a dystopian future still resonates today as it did in 1948. I now fully understand what it means to call something "Orwellian" and how his ideas have influenced us today (However, I still have no idea how the Apple MacIntosh was supposed to save us from Orwell's future in that Super Bowl commercial).
When I got to the end of the story, it struck me how utterly deranged the members of The Party (the political organization that controlled the government of the fictional superstate of Oceania) were. The only goal of The Party was to attain and keep power over everyone else. All of their actions were focused on this goal, regardless even of the effects on the members of The Party themselves. Orwell's insight was that absolute power not only corrupts absolutely, the pursuit of that power drives you insane. Here are couple of passages from near the end of the book. Winston, the main character, is a low-level member of the Party and has secretly developed a hatred of the Party's oppression. He's been caught by The Party as a traitor, and O'Brien, a higher-up Party member, is torturing him. Here is O'Brien's explanation for The Party's motives:
"Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?"And here is one of the more famous passages in which O'Brien describes the future of humanity under the dominion of The Party:
[O'Brien asks Winston] "How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?"Pretty scary stuff, huh? After reading the book, I felt like Scrooge when he was pleading with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol:
Winston thought. "By making him suffer", he said.
"Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy - everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always - do not forget this, Winston - always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever."
"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?"Scrooge learned the True Meaning of Christmas and changed his life. Have we learned from Orwell's warning? I hope so. Even today I see disturbing trends in our political and economic systems. The insanity of The Party and its dedication to power also ties into David Brin's ideas about satiability (see this series on his blog: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV). Satiability, he argues, is the difference between those who gain wealth and power and can use them wisely, and those who become slaves to the power they covet. It's an interresting parallel to Orwell's narrative.
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.
"Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!"
As I said above, if you haven't read 1984, read it. And see if you can see some of the tactics of The Party being applied, albeit in much weaker forms, by modern-day politicians and media pundits. Scary stuff, indeed.
Labels: culture wars, freedom of expression, liberty, the future, values
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Those Huddled Masses Still Yearn To Breathe Free
I recently discovered (via PZ Myers' Pharyngula) Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's blog, La Queen Sucia, and this post about facts vs. myths regarding illegal immigration. I can't confirm all the details and statistics she cites, but it is certainly worth a read to put the issue into perspective.
Reading her post reminded me of a Simpsons episode that addressed this very issue (that originally aired almost 10 years ago, on May 5, 1996). In the episode, Much Apu About Nothing, Springfield's Mayor Quimby needs as issue to distract the voters from his administration's financial mismanagement. He picks, rather arbitrarily, illegal immigration:
[An angry crowd has gathered outside Mayor Quimby's office to complain about the recent tax hike. Quimby and his aides are discussing the problem behind closed doors.]
Quimby: Are these morons getting dumber or just louder?
Assistant: [checks his clipboard] Dumber, sir. They won't give up the bear patrol, but they won't pay taxes for it either.
Quimby: [thoughtfully] Ducking this issue calls for real leadership.
[The mayor exits his office to address the angry crowd of citizens.]
Quimby: People! Your taxes are high because of illegal immigrants! That's right, illegal immigrants! We need to get rid of them!
[The angry crowd calms a bit and starts muttering.]
Moe the Bartender: Immigants! [sic] I knew it was them! Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them!
Helen Lovejoy, wife of the pastor: [hysterically] Ohhh, won't somebody *please* think of the children!
Quimby: In one week the town will vote on a special referendum whether or not to deport all illegal immigrants from Springfield. It shall be known as Proposition 24.
[The crowd (including Mayor Quimby) erupts into cheers]
Now, I'm not trying to claim that illegal immigration is a non-problem, or that we don't have problems with the current immigration laws in the US. But what I do see as pretty blatant is that we have some politicians using illegal immigration as a wedge issue to distract voters from the bigger problems in our government (coincidentally caused by the policies of those same politicians). Additionally, I see the immigration issue being used as a scapegoat for all US economic problems. That Simpsons episode demonstrates and satirizes these tactics quite nicely.
I think it's pretty unrealistic to think that we can build a magic wall around the US to keep "undesirables" out, or that immigrants (legal or illegal) of today are somehow of a different breed than those of previous generations, and that they don't contribute to America like previous waves of immigrants did.
I don't claim to be very knowledgeable about this issue, so I'll point you to journalist David Neiwert's blog and a recent post about proposed solutions to US illegal immigration problems. I think he provides a more reasonable approach than what is being offered by our politicians. Also, check out a short comment that Andrew Sullivan recently made on the topic.
As a nation that is mostly composed of the descendants of immigrants, we should be smarter about welcoming and incorporating new arrivals and helping to put them on the path towards citizenship.
Labels: immigration, liberty, simpsons, values
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
MLK and Ben Franklin: American Heroes
On Monday, January 16, in the US we observed the holiday commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. Yesterday, January 17, was the 300th birthday of Benjamin Franklin, one of America's founding fathers. Okay, I know I'm a little late, but these are two Americans who contributed so much to the ideals of liberty, justice, and knowledge, that I think they still deserve a belated shout-out.
Ben Franklin is perhaps best known for his slightly foolish experiments with static electricity, but he accomplished quite a bit in helping foster the ideals of what would become the United States of America. He was a distinguished scientist, inventor, diplomat, and statesman. It's hard to imagine how one guy could do so much in one lifetime. Check out this website commemorating Ben's big 3-0-0. It's got lots of links to info on his life and achievements.
King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech is an inspiration that still resonates today. He fought not only for the rights of Black people, but for the rights of all Americans. The Civil Rights Movement changed so much in such a short time. I can't comprehend the things my parents went through, a mere generation ago, and the opportunities that have been available to me because of the sacrifice of so many. King is largely responsible for moving America so much closer to living up to the grand statements set forth in the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
There's a show on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim late night programming called "The Boondocks." It's based on a controversial comic strip by Aaron Mcgruder that deals quite bluntly with race and politics in America. I never read the comic strip before, but I like the show. The satire is very funny, and if you can stand excessive use of the N word, I recommend checking it out. What does this have to do with Martin Luther King Jr.? Read on.
This week's episode dealt with an "alternate history" in which Dr. King was not killed when he was shot in Memphis in 1968. He went into a coma for 30 years and reawoke in the year 2000. Thus, he was alive to witness the events of September 11 and the dramatic change in America that has taken place since. Shortly after 9/11 he participates in a TV interview in which he is asked about what he thinks America's response to the terror attacks should be. The show has the King character respond in the way I think King, as a minister and an advocate of non-violence would; he talks about Jesus and turning the other cheek to our enemies rather than responding with escalating violence. These comments are not well received. The 21st century media brands him a traitor and anti-American. He is attacked and denegrated by the media and the American people turn their backs on him.
What really struck me as I watched this show was that this scenario, as weird as it sounds, seems quite plausible. If King were alive today, what would he say about the direction America is headed in? Somehow I doubt he would approve. And would his opinions be carefully considered as the words of an American icon and champion of civil rights, or would they be ignored and dismissed, with King branded as a liberal (when did that word become an insult?) un-American traitor? Given the degeneration of public discourse in American politics and the climate of demagoguery and mudslinging from both the left and the right, I don't think it's an unreasonable speculation. It got me thinking, which prompted me to write this post.
Labels: freedom of expression, liberty, values
