Sexism: Not what The Rock is cookin’

Full disclosure: I am a fan of the pro wrestling craft and have been since the 1980s, but I think I present a fairer and more comprehensive assessment of the WWE than the articles critiqued below. The idea for this post came from Don Tony, with the Don Tony and Kevin Castle Show. Go check them out here: http://wrestling-news.com.

***

I know the good folks over at the Bleacher Report and Vocativ just need something to keep themselves busy, and in the fully-pajamaed, dweeb-in-the-basement-industry of Internet prognostication, any old fodder will do, but no serious writer who looks at the WWE today can conclude that the wrestling promotion, or wrestling in general, is any more or less sexist in its presentation and objectification of women than other products in the entertainment industry.

But as writers on the Internet are wont to do, Alex Goot, with Vocativ, and Ryan Dilbert, with the Bleacher Report, took great pains to shed all remnants of logic and type up critiques of what they deem is WWE’s glaring problem with sexism, particular in light of The Rock’s recent return to RAW on Jan. 25, as seen here:

The two articles actually read like mirror-pieces because they more or less cover the same ground on the Rock’s seemingly unscripted (I doubt it) conversation backstage with C.J. Perry, aka Lana, about their sexual proclivities, which partly took place in the presence of Perry’s real-life fiancé, Miroslav Barnyashev, aka Rusev.

During the segment, The Rock recalled how Lana met him in a hotel room at some point in the past, and the pair performed various positions in bed, one of which included the “one-legged Russian vacuum.”

According to Dilbert:

The Rock congratulated him on having a wife who was so flexible.

Lana offered no response. She mostly just stood there blushing. She wasn’t a player in this bit of minitheater; she was a prop.

At her height, Lana was both alluring and powerful. She was vicious, power-hungry, a blindly passionate patriot and real wrestling character. Over time, she’s been reduced to the subject of sex-centered storylines. She went from being the smiling, silent woman on Dolph Ziggler’s arm to the smiling, silent woman hanging around Rusev.

On Monday night, WWE pulled her back into the spotlight just to make a cheap joke about her promiscuity.

Dilbert and Goot miss, or purposefully exclude, some rather obvious, yet important details in this, and almost all, segments on WWE programming that anyone with an IQ over 50 would understand. First, these are all fictional characters talking to each other about fictional events. The Rock is not Dewayne Johnson the movie star; he is the “larger than life” character created by the WWE to entertain audience members and people watching at home. He is a little tamped down from the Attitude Era days, but he still says things that would be inappropriate in real life, as do many characters in all facets of the entertain industry.

Second, in order for The Rock, the character, to talk about Lana’s promiscuity, he must also talk about his own. If we want to pretend to tread the moral high ground in breaking down this segment, we might also ask what The Rock was doing getting drunk and messing around with someone else’s girlfriend. Yet, in the criticism against WWE, we are led to believe that only Lana could have been complicit in these fictional hotel acrobatics, as if Lana was the ultimate seducer, and The Rock was just along for the proverbial ride. Could we not call that assessment sexist as well?

Third, Lana was not suddenly downgraded from a “vicious, power-hungry, a blindly passionate patriot” to the coy, fawning female on RAW the other night just so The Rock could air their — again, fictional — exploits in front of millions of people. Lana has had “heat,” as they call it in the wrestling business, because she allegedly leaked news of her and Rusev’s real-life engagement on social media at a time when the couple were involved in a storyline dispute on TV. She also apparently had some kind of spat on social media with Paige, which also got her some heat. As a result, and this is the usual trend in WWE, she is being afforded less time on TV at the moment.

Fourth, are characters, who represent exaggerated version of real life figures, supposed to simply ignore the topic of human relationships and sex purely because WWE may run the risk of objectifying people? Drunken sex in hotels and promiscuous horseplay are still things people do, right? So, why does WWE run afoul for suggesting that an explicit and fictional encounter occurred between two consenting adults? Cheating on your boyfriend may be unethical, but it’s not illegal.

In any case, over-analyzing dialogue between fictional characters about fictional events in this way amounts to borderline insanity.

While WWE does have its fair share of boorish characters, both male and female, not all male characters in the company dredge up the sexual histories of female wrestlers, and not all female wrestlers are depicted as shallow, one-dimensional Barbies. Examples of the latter include A.J. Lee, who, until recently, was the longest running women’s champion in history, Lita, Jacqueline, Alundra Blayze, Charlotte, Sasha Banks, Natalya, etc.

I will say that when the opportunity presents itself, WWE does tend to go for the relationship storylines too often, in which female characters often get pigeonholed as side-kick figures, and people like John Cena and Ryback, who are supposed to be good guys, as Goot pointed out, sometimes make crude jokes about heel characters, as Lana was at one time. I would chalk these up less to sexism and more to laziness on the part of the writers.

Goot also took issue with Ric Flair kissing Becky Lynch during a match with Charlotte at the Royal Rumble in order to cause a distraction and help Charlotte regain the upper hand.

According to Goot:

Rather than adding anything of value to the contest, Flair’s actions took the audience out of it, forcing viewers to contemplate the strange display they just witnessed, rather than focusing on the action in the ring.

Flair’s kiss becomes even more maddening given how utterly unnecessary it was, with the finish of the match coming after some additional, far less lecherous interference. Bringing sexual harassment into the storyline added little, if anything, to Flair’s villainy.

What Goot failed to mention is that Flair’s character, which he has played on and off for 30 years, actually is an immoral and flamboyant ladies man, and the words, “kiss stealing” are part of his DNA as a character, as in the well-worn mantra that he is a “kiss stealing, wheeling dealing, limousine riding, jet flying, son of a gun.” Goot also failed to mention that Becky Lynch gave Flair a stiff slap in the face in return for his antics.

So, yes, Flair is a bad guy who would not and should not suddenly change to fit in with our modern sensibilities. Would a 2016 remake of “Scarface” show Tony Montana finally getting clean, going into rehab for his cocaine addiction and starting a new life in The Hamptons as a real estate agent? Would we, as consumers, even want to see a reformed Tony Montana? Of course not.

Low brow humor is easy pickings for overworked writers who are under immense pressure to produce five hours of television every week and 12-13 PPVs per year, but WWE is a publicly traded company now and has to answer to advertisers, so while the company clearly still has some outstanding issues related to gender, race and stereotypes, it is worlds removed from the WWE of the Attitude Era or the 1980s in the current PG era of political correctness.

If we want to have a conversation on sexism and the objectification of women in the entertainment industry, we could certainly find plenty to talk about, but we should have some perspective about judging wrestling against other television shows, movies and even music. Where is the outcry against television shows like Game of Thrones, which routinely depicts violence against women, misogyny and sexual abuse? Where is the outcry against shows like Real Housewives of (insert city) and The Bachelor? What about the sexism depicted in Mad Men, 2 Broke Girls and Modern Family? Hell, if we’re so concerned about objectification, why don’t we call for a boycott of Sports illustrated for producing a swimsuit edition?

I agree with Goot that WWE can and should do more to promote strong, confident women who should have more time on the mic and in the ring and be given more complex storylines, but the truth is that WWE does present strong-willed, ass-kicking females every week, 52 weeks out of the year. Perhaps strongest of all, despite her villainy on TV, is Stephanie McMahon, who is helping to run the company, all the while raising three daughters.

To suggest that WWE in the year 2016 is a hotbed of sexism, when one of its principle owners is a powerful female, all the while ignoring the rest of the entertainment industry, which features nearly ubiquitous examples of overt sexism and objectification that trump anything on WWE programming in recent memory, all the while ignoring the fact that WWE is, itself, a form of entertainment, is a dubious claim to make about a company that routinely trips over itself, almost to a fault, to toe the PG line and kowtow to the PC culture.

Proliferating the stupid

Maybe someone can help me understand the logic in this: P.Z. Myers disagrees with the message conveyed by a stupid meme on Reddit, and instead of ignoring or down-voting the post — or whatever it is people do on Reddit — he brings attention to it and even publishes the offending picture.

If you are offended by something posted on the Internet, why not just move on? Rather, Myers has effectively ensured that this piece of Internet trash will be further proliferated and cached online for years to come from his own site. That’s what I call a good feminist hard at work.

***

Postscript

To save people who may come here from Myers’ site or elsewhere the trouble of wading through the comments below, let me clarify a few points. This particular post was a clusterfuck of unintended inconsistencies. I’ve already admitted that, and hell, if I had a do-over, I would have approached it differently. When you blog five years with no filter but your own mind, you might whiff a time or two, and I think it’s important when people call me out if something I write is beyond the pale in some way.

First, let me say that I appreciated Myers’ tone and the way he handled his response to this. Obviously, I routinely publish content with which I disagree for the expressed purpose of outlining what I feel is wrong with it. The intention of the post was, from my perspective as someone who does not adopt the feminist label, to highlight the fact that here was a feminist, Myers, dredging up an image that is probably best left in the bowels of Reddit. He could have just linked to it as I did or simply described it without the link.

The only thing that I question about what he said in response was the distinction he made between something that he views as merely “wrong” versus an offensive image. This, it seems to me, is splitting hairs. If he didn’t find that viewing the image caused a certain amount of displeasure, which is the definition of “offensive,” presumably he wouldn’t have written about it and used it as an example of how Reddit’s reputation is falling “deeper in the slime.” Folks often like to avoid the word “offensive,” claiming that they have thick skin and that little truly offends them, and while that may sound good on paper, that’s not always the case, even if we don’t like to admit it. I’m willing to concede that perhaps all this was erroneous thinking on my part in hindsight — and many of you have made your case — but this is why I bothered to mention Myers’ post in the first place. The delivery, as I’ve said before, left something to be desired.

As for my views on equal rights and feminism in general, I’ve written about this at length, and it most closely resembles John Stuart Mill (Read “The Subjection of Women“), and more recently, Noel Plum 99, although if Mill was alive today, I have my doubts that he would adopt the modern manifestation of feminism because it seems to embrace women’s rights, which is all well and good, but it often does so at the expense of the other half of the population, whereas Mill called for “perfect equality” with no favoritism one way or the other. Noel Plum described a view that I think is perfectly reasonable, that we should be working toward, not necessarily “equality of outcome,” but “equality of opportunity” between the sexes, wherein everyone has the same chance at success in life and everyone is treated as individuals.

Enhanced by Zemanta

The faces of feminism

Deacon Duncan over at Free Thought Blogs made an interesting post today about feminism and what he calls, “counterfeminism.” Duncan grappled with the question of why some women are vehemently against feminism when, indeed, it has been the feminists who “are fighting to win them equal rights. It boggles my mind.”

OK, so when approaching questions like this, especially when referencing writers at FtB, it becomes necessary to determine whether said writer is referring to the type of hypersensitive, reactionary and every-male-is-a-potential-misogynist-or-rapist brand of feminism of the Rebecca Watson, Jen McCreight, or the run-of-the-mill hypersensitive feminism that has been with us for decades. Since Duncan has voiced his support for Atheism Plus, I suggest that it’s the former.

Duncan provides his definition of feminism and counterfeminism:

The feminist is working to establish women as autonomous and respected individuals who are equal in status, opportunity, and financial compensation, as compared to their male counterparts. The feminist assumption is that the ideal condition for women is equality. But that’s not necessarily an assumption shared by all, not even by all women.

It’s possible that there’s a counterfeminist assumption that the ideal condition for women is one of dependency and entitlement …

I prefaced this with a brief mention of Atheism Plus because Duncan’s post seems to suggest that in characterizing those who oppose feminism, he seems to be referring to the women who are against the A+ brand of feminism. It’s not believable that he would be referring to any other group since he’s writing at a place called Free Thought Blogs. But at the same time, I have never met, for instance, a female atheist, online or in person, who thinks that the ideal condition for women is dependence and entitlement, other than the aforementioned jaded individuals who think the male world is out to get them. So, I can only conclude that he is talking about some type of mid-20th century housewife, or perhaps, a 19th century Southern belle, neither of whom could in any sense be described as feminist in the modern sense. Or, as he describes it:

… that in a perfect world, a woman would live by forming an attachment to a man, who would then provide her with food, clothes, a home, and some spending money in return for a bit of light housework and some sexual gratification now and then.

This seems to me to be an outdated characterization that isn’t anything like feminism at all. Thus, I don’t know from where this theory of a type of “counterfeminism” comes.

I have already identified two types:

  • Feminism 1: reactionary and every-male-is-a-potential-misogynist-or-rapist brand of feminism
  • Feminism 2: run-of-the-mill hypersensitive feminism

and here is a third type:

  • Feminism 3: non-reactionary brand that fully supports equality, rights, critical thinking, rationality and female emotional and mental strength that is not necessarily comfortable with the “feminist” label.

I wouldn’t dare speak for them, but I have a small hunch that the women who do not support the Atheism Plus brand of feminism, and further, if the word “feminist” weren’t so damaged by overemotional, reactionary whiners of the current stripe, they may be willing to consider adopting the title if it truly signaled a characteristically strong form of female-ness with all the aforementioned rights in tact. That word, however, may now be damaged beyond repair at this point.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Free Thought Bloggers: where they stand on Atheism+

This post is in response to a comment I received from Giovanni Rilasciato regarding a previous article of mine titled, “On Atheism+ and humanism: part 2.”

Rilasciato writes:

FYI, there are 36 bloggers at FtB, and most of them haven’t even commented on A+. There’ve been a few who have even written about why they do not support it, such as Al Stefanelli. It seems that there are about half a dozen there behind this.

I presume that Rilasciato was referring to two parts of that previous post. This passage:

It seems to suggest that this very small group of people (Free Thought Blogs and their supporters) are preparing to carry the banner of social justice for the rest of us, and for a group of people that inherently eschew cliques and in-groups and chafe at being told how they should think or act, this is contemptible.

and

On a final note, I think it’s telling that nearly all of the Free Thought Bloggers, from Miller, Christina, McCreight to P.Z. Myers and others are all supporting each other, which to the rest of us, smacks of provincialism if nothing else and speaks to me personally that not one of them are capable of independent thought.

I have waded through all 36 35 Free Thought Blogs and have attempted, as best as I can, to surmise which bloggers support Atheism+ and which have either made no public statement about it or have voiced their opposition. I will admit here that saying that “nearly all of the Free Thought Bloggers” may have been an exaggeration, but I think what I’m about to show indicates that a significant number of FtB’s (more than a dozen) have publicly hopped on the bandwagon. The number could very well be more if they had written anything about it. Two have spoken against it and a couple more were either vague or seemed to be on the fence.

For brevity’s sake, I did not attempt to sift through any comments that may have been left by the bloggers in response to readers that may assert support or opposition. I just stuck with their posts. For each individual page, I went back through the archives from Aug. 18, the date of McCreight’s original post (“How I Unwittingly Infiltrated the Boy’s Club & Why It’s Time for a New Wave of Atheism“) to today.

Someone may ask: isn’t this a waste of time? Why bother? Sure, but so is playing video games or watching movies. I put some effort into this because:

  • I did make a serious claim that Free Thought Blogs was filled with people who hopped on the bandwagon, and I actually found that the figure appears to be more than one-third of the all bloggers at FtB. Again, the figure could be greater, but some either have remained mum or post so infrequently that it’s hard to gauge where they stand.
  • Rather than speculate, I thought it would be instructive to throw out a more concrete figure.
  • Since Atheism+ has become such a divisive issue the last few weeks, I thought readers would be interested to see a rundown on where the bloggers stand. Personally, I would like to see where all the Free Thought Bloggers stand on the issue because hell if the blowback from this thing can compel McCreight to quit blogging altogether, the public obviously has some strong feelings about it, even if some idiots who can’t tell the difference between blasting a person’s arguments versus demeaning the person.

That said, here is the format that I used. Again, this is a best effort on my part. Any corrections or additional information is welcome.

Name — Stance on Atheism+ with link showing support or dissent

Ed Brayton — Has made no statement that I am aware.

P.Z. Myersa supporter but says he’s not an official “member.”

Chris Rodda — No comment that I am aware.

Stephen Andrew — No comment that I am aware.

Cuttlefish — Seems generally supportive even if not willing to adopt the label.

Reasonable Doubts — An infrequent podcast show; has made no comment.

Comradde PhysioProffe — Seems to be a supporter since he reposted part of McCreight’s original post from Aug. 18 with the title of his own post, “Skeptical D00ds Are Not Skeptical About Their Own Gross Misogyny,” included in the title is an apparent reference to Thunderf00t.

Assassin Actual — Hasn’t posted since Aug. 2.

Daniel Fincke — Supporter.

Deacon DuncanSupporter.

Greta ChristinaSupporter.

Hank FoxPossibly a passive supporter. He speaks on the perceived motivations behind the “movement” and about a “Beta Culture,” which seems to be a similar alternative.

Stephanie ZvanSupporter.

Ophelia BensonSupporter.

Jason ThibeaultSupporter.

Jen McCreight — Inventor in chief.

Dana HunterSupporter.

Al StefanelliNot a supporter.

Martin WagnerSupporter.

Brian Lynchehaun — Supporter.

Justin Griffith — No statement.

Kylie Sturgess — Not a supporter.

Maryam Namazie — No statement.

Blackskeptics — No statement.

Richard Carrier — Alientating, overly enthusiastic supporter.

Edwin Kagin — Seems skeptical about Atheism+.

Mano Singham — No statement.

Natalie Reed — Not a supporter.

Chris Hallquist —No statement, moved to Patheos.

Brianne Bilyeu — No statement.

Taslima Nasreen — No statement.

Zinnia Jones — No statement.

Ashley F. Miller — Supporter.

Cristina Rad — No statement. Only two posts since McCreight’s Aug. 18 introduction to Atheism+.

AronRa — No statement. Only three posts since Aug 18.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Atheism+ reax from female FTB readers

I never really thought this would be the case in the first place, but as it turns out, not all females are buying into this whole Atheism+, hyper-sensitive, reactionary brand of "social justice" that folks like Jen McCreight, Rebecca Watson, P.Z. Myers and others are peddling over at Free Thought Blogs.

This is refreshing for many reasons, not the least of which is because it shows that quite a few members of the atheist community do indeed think for themselves and don’t just dive in head over feet into a “movement” because some influential atheists, and females at that, say they should. Further, this speaks to the fact that McCreight, Watson and Co., don’t speak for all women in the community nor should they. I’m sure there are many others, but I’ll quickly highlight three women who have provided a intelligent arguments against this “movement” for social justice, which is really just a repackaged version of humanism (See: On Atheism+ and humanism: part 2).

Here is Renee from over at Belief Blower, who seems to have a particularly sharp grasp of reality that seems to be woefully lacking in Atheism+ circles:

… What is more distressing and pertininent (sic) to women is that there are 3 women beind (sic) the "movement": Jen McCreight, Ophelia Benson, and Rebecca Watson.

Normally, I wouldn’t give 2 shits about these women or the movement. But they are actively and divisively stripping apart atheism and attempting to bring together a happy little club of women and sycophantic men under the guise of being more socially responsible. Nothing could be further from the truth. These women are simply angry that they’ve been slighted/harassed/sexed in some way, shape, or form and feel their best course of action is to create a "special snowflake" clique.

Ladies, I’m here to tell you that your tiny fucking "slights" or sexist remarks are part of the real world. Each and every one of you spend an astronomical amount of time on the Internet and when you aren’t chatting it up on your computer, you’re off talking to groups that have organizations *begging* you to be there and willing to pay for your constant mini-vacations. I would be happy to swap my childhood and early adulthood with *any* of you. I know what real sexism and misogyny is. All three of you are so quick to throw around the word "misogyny" and yet not one single one of you can correctly identify the true meaning of the word.

Let me clue you in – it means "hatred of women". Do you understand this phrase? HATRED of women. Not bullying, not chiding, not sexist and/or inappropriate remarks. It is the hatred of women.

Here are two YouTubers, BionicDance:

 

And jpkeitt:

On Atheism+ and humanism: part 2

At the expense of repeating myself, I’ll take some time here to explore some of the other components, criticisms and responses to Atheism+ that were not covered in this post. I have wanted to write a follow up post on this for quite a few days, but it has taken awhile to gather my thoughts.

Here I will show in fuller detail why Atheism+ is not only redundant but why it’s actually corrosive to the legacies of atheists and freethinkers who have done important social work under the old banners and who did so bravely and under conditions that were far from friendly or accepting.

First, Greta Christina (“Humanism Is Great — But It’s Not Atheism Plus“) and Ashley F. Miller (“The difference between “atheism+” and humanism“) have suggested with all the fervor they could muster that Atheism+ is not secular humanism. In Miller’s case, she appears to be on board with Atheism+ because she feels the old label, atheism, suffers from an irreparable stigma. As she describes it:

There is a difference between a self-defined humanist doing something good for mankind and a self-defined atheist doing it, simply because of the massive amount of stigma associated with atheism. Proving that atheists care about other people and making the world a better place is important.  I think that “atheism+” is a way to bring the philosophy of humanism more strongly to the fight for atheist equality, and vice versa.

Calling myself part of the atheist — +, humanist, or otherwise — movement is a meaningful political act, and one not worth dropping to join something incredibly similar, but different.

To make one point abundantly clear: atheism is not a movement, and it is emphatically not political. In the wake of Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris and the like, one may easily come to think of atheism as a movement, and at one point, Hitchens even said he wrote his book as part of a “pushback” against religion, but it’s not as if the so-called new atheists met prior to writing their books and made some collaborative effort to produce a string of publications on the perils of a religion as a deliberate exercise. After Sam Harris published “The End of Faith” in 2004, these books and the subject matter just caught fire and the works began flying off the shelves. While the new atheism label may have been an unfortunate consequence of the new attention paid to atheism and freethought, “there is nothing new under the sun,” to borrow a line from Ecclesiastes.

Indeed, Tom Flynn traces the genesis of the “movement” that was never really a movement to begin with because, as I previously noted, atheism has hundreds of years, if not millennia, of thought and free inquiry behind it. Susan Jacoby’s excellent work, “Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism,” explores some of the heroes of American freethought, including Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, Robert Ingersoll, Elizabeth Stanton and many others.

Flynn said that after the release of Harris’ book, “something new was afoot:”

… but it was only this: for the first time, uncompromising atheist writing was coming from big-name publishers and hitting best-seller lists. You could buy it at the airport. In consequence, people who had never before experienced atheist rhetoric got their first exposure to arguments that had formerly been published only by movement presses. One of these newcomers was Wired’s Gary Wolf. Encountering sledgehammer assaults upon religion that he had never seen before, knowing nothing of freethought’s rich, enclaved history, he thought he was seeing something genuinely new. And the New Atheism was born—out of ignorance, ironically enough.

But it was nothing new.

Flynn’s conclusion is so important to my point that it deserves a full mention:

The triumph of Harris, Dennett, Dawkins, and Hitchens was to take arguments against religion that were long familiar to insiders, brilliantly repackage them, and expose them to millions who would never otherwise pick up an atheist book. That’s no small achievement. But too many commentators lacking the requisite historical background have treated them as though the horsemen invented atheism. Not so!

That’s why I think it is important to recognize that there is no New Atheism. There are no New Atheists. There is atheism, and there are atheists. A spectrum of national atheist, freethought, secular humanist, and religious humanist organizaztions already stands prepared to serve unbelievers of many inclinations, without the need for any New Atheist group to hang out its shingle. Atheism and its companion life stances can be proud of roots that extend far, far deeper than (snicker) 2004.

The so-called Four Horsemen deserve admiration for exposing millions of contemporary readers to refutations of traditional religion that our movement has been burnishing for decades, sometimes centuries. We need to do a better job of sharing the rich literary and organizational history out of which these ideas sprang. At the same time, secular humanists need to do all they can to encourage people newly drawn to atheism to make the added journey to the fully rounded, exuberant lifestance we call secular humanism. (italics mine)

So, while the new atheist label was bestowed on Dawkins and Co., unwittingly, and while they, perhaps, adopted it to some degree, nothing new has actually occurred between 2004 and now. Atheism is just atheism, a disbelief in the existence of a god. It has no new definition and entails no new set of morals or principles, and indeed, no set of principles at all. For that, we need humanism, but more on that later.

The second point inherent in Miller’s argument is that “atheism” has become such a stigmatic and disgraced word in modern society (Or, maybe just in America; it’s not quite clear) that its image needs to somehow be repaired. Again, I don’t sense much of a grasp of history here. Atheists and freethinkers have been marginalized, persecuted, and in some extreme cases, killed for hundreds of years, and so long as religion persists, they will continue to be treated with a certain level of contempt and as subhuman in some circles, when, in reality, unbelievers are more alive than the most pious among us. They and we see the world without blinders and without walls. They and we see the world as it is and as it should be: no heaven and certainly no hell at the end of the tunnel; we see a marvelously wide and interconnected universe. We have no lights to guide our path but our own mind, our own consciences, our own sense of empathy for others and our human solidarity. No light; just life.

If others can’t accept that for what it is, it’s their loss. But for nonbelievers to now suggest that we need to change, or perhaps, evolve atheism into a “third wave” called Atheism+ that will address such things like feminism, ableism, racism,  misogyny, etc., and “prove” that atheists “care about making the world a better place” not only does a disservice to the past freethinkers, like Ingersoll and Stanton, who did indeed prove it with the testimony of their lives that atheists can stand up for important causes and move society forward under the banner of humanism, it also kowtows to critics. Essentially, it is the pitiable admission that the very words “atheism” and “humanism” have become so defiled by dissent that there is no choice but to start again by making atheism seem more positive and socially acceptable to the layperson. This is an admission, in other worse, that we have lost.

This is also the part about Atheism+ that, I think, rubs many nonbelievers the wrong way. It seems to suggest that this very small group of people (Free Thought Blogs and their supporters) are preparing to carry the banner of social justice for the rest of us, and for a group of people that inherently eschew cliques and in-groups and chafe at being told how they should think or act, this is contemptible.

As for Christina, she attempts in her post to answer the question:

 Isn’t ‘Atheism plus social justice’ just another term for humanism?”

She then explains:

Humanism is also more engaged with creating secular replacements for the rituals and structures of religious communities… and while many atheists are cool with this idea and are even engaged with it themselves, there are many other atheists who are profoundly turned off by it. And many humanists are actively hostile to the word “atheist.” It’s not just that they don’t choose to use the word themselves. They don’t want anyone else to use it, either. So that puts another damper on the whole “Atheism Plus is just humanism re-branded” thing.

She goes on to say that, in effect, atheism is a more “in your face” brand of nonbelief, while humanism is more subtle and that many people don’t even know what the term means. Later in the post, she discusses the necessity of keeping the word “atheism” alongside the “plus:”

We see value in it (atheism), and we don’t want to abandon it. We want to form a subset of it that makes it better: a subset that is specifically devoted to making atheism more welcoming to women, people of color, poor people, working class people, trans people, and other marginalized groups, and that is specifically devoted to doing work in the places where atheism and other social justice issues intersect.

Again, atheism needs no improvements or additions to make it better, and attempts to do so actually blacken the legacy of atheists who did work and are working to make the world a better place because of their love of humanity. A disbelief in a god does not include a moral or social stance whatsoever. Atheists are free to be kind and loving toward their brothers or they are free to be assholes and suffer the legal and social disadvantages of ridicule, isolation and chastisement. They are free to be Democrats or Republicans, prolife or prochoice, misogynistic or not, as long as they are willing to live with the consequences of their choices.

In all this, Christina never quite gets around the explaining the clear difference between Atheism+ and humanism. The best she can apparently do is this conclusion:

… And I can’t tell you how many humanists I’ve talked with who have been total douchebags about feminism: insisting that humanism is superior to and more important than feminism, that feminism is exclusionary and anti-male, that they “don’t see gender” and anyone who does is the real sexist, and that the best way to make sexism disappear is to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Humanism in theory is on board with social justice — but the practice can be very different indeed. If every atheist who’s sick of sexism and misogyny in the atheist movement picked up their stakes and moved to humanism, it wouldn’t make these problems magically disappear.

There is a great deal of overlap between humanism and Atheism Plus. They are very similar ideas, very similar visions. There is great value in both. I suspect that many people will call themselves both, and I look forward to the two movements working in alliance for many years to come. But I don’t think they’re the same. And I think it’s reasonable for some people to identify primarily as one, and some primarily as the other.

So here again, like Jen McCreight, we have a Free Thought Blogger relying on anecdotal evidence (“total douchebags about feminism”) to describe what is wrong with the humanists she has met and why Atheist+ is going to be so much different and better. She is, apparently, judge and jury.

If I have to point this out 10 more times for it to stick, I will happily do so. If a humanist is not concerned and committed to stamping out hate, racism, bigotry, misogyny, anti-gay sentiment and other social ills, he or she is not a humanist. Plain and simple. I consult the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s entry on humanism about active virtue:

The emphasis on virtuous action as the goal of learning was a founding principle of humanism and (though sometimes sharply challenged) continued to exert a strong influence throughout the course of the movement.

Here is Leon Battista Alberti from “Della famiglia:”

As I have said, happiness cannot be gained without good works and just and righteous deeds. . . . The best works are those that benefit many people. Those are most virtuous, perhaps, that cannot be pursued without strength and nobility. We must give ourselves to manly effort, then, and follow the noblest pursuits.

And Florentine humanist Matteo di Marco Palmieri:

… the true merit of virtue lies in effective action, and effective action is impossible without the faculties that are necessary for it. He who has nothing to give cannot be generous. And he who loves solitude can be neither just, nor strong, nor experienced in those things that are of importance in government and in the affairs of the majority.

And the last sentence from Britannica:

Endorsements of active virtue, as will be shown, would also characterize the work of English humanists from Sir Thomas Elyot to John Milton. They typify the sense of social responsibility—the instinctive association of learning with politics and morality—that stood at the heart of the movement. As Salutati put it, “One must stand in the line of battle, engage in close combat, struggle for justice, for truth, for honour.” (italics mine)

The idea of social justice, then, is built into the word humanism at the core. Regardless of who knows what humanism means or not is inconsequential. The word, the idea, the philosophy has existed for hundreds of years, and it contains within it everything, and in better and less provincial form, I might add, than what has been presented as Atheism+ thus far.

On a final note, I think it’s telling that nearly all of the Free Thought Bloggers, from Miller, Christina, McCreight to P.Z. Myers and others are all supporting each other, which to the rest of us, smacks of provincialism if nothing else and speaks to me personally that not one of them are capable of independent thought. McCreight, Watson and others have some bad experiences with some brutish individuals, so McCreight decides to invent a new “movement.” And no one had the balls to say, “You know what, guys? This sounds really similar, if not the same, as humanism. It seems too similar to justify any kind of  ‘new wave’ of atheism. Maybe we can work within the framework of humanism to discuss our concerns.” But no. That’s not what happened is it? After McCreight’s original post, every single one of them cooed in agreement and passively followed like lemmings off a cliff. That’s not the moral courage, and that’s not intellectual courage.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Freethinker Tweets of the day: Atheism+ edition

Well, since Atheism+ is eating a shit sandwich over on Twitter, I thought a special edition was in order. So, without further adieu, here are some of the many Tweets from today:

Atheism++ ‏@AtheismPlusPlus We have created the website and the forums. And we see they are good. Now, #atheismplus followers, go forth and divide.

skeptical joe ‏@skepticaljoe I used to believe in racial and gender equality, then I found the truth of #atheismplus, & learned that WHITE MEN are subhuman animals.

AIDS VENTURA ‏@SUICIDEBOMBS #atheismplus Do you want fries with that unending sense of smugness?

human rights gal ‏@bexxbissell #atheismPlus …kill it, before it lays eggs

skeptical joe ‏@skepticaljoe I walked through the produce aisle when suddenly, a woman smiled and SAID HELLO! Oh, I feel so violated! Help me #skepchick!#atheismplus

The Honest Atheist ‏@AtheismHonestly I just bought a homeless person dinner. Not because I’m an Atheist, but because I could. Fuck you, #AtheismPlus.

Яune ‏@sp00x It doesn’t take a plus after your lack of belief in a god or gods to conclude that misogyny is wrong. (Ok, I’m done for now :P)#AtheismPlus

Яune ‏@sp00x What happened to just being good because it’s good? When did atheism have anything to do with random people being döüchëbägs?#AtheismPlus

skeptical joe ‏@skepticaljoe @AtheismHonestly Don’t you understand? It DOESN’T MATTER that you walk and donate. Only joining #atheismplus will cleanse you of sin!

Steve Zara ‏@sjzara Due to quantum conservation laws #atheismplus is equivalent to a group of sensible atheists going backwards in time.

Hans C. Schellenberg ‏@hanscs The #AtheismPlus crowd is beginning to remind me of Religion’s#Puritans. Anyone else?

Nephilim ‏@TeRetwitteoNJ 2,000 years of Christianity should’ve taught us the lesson that divisions don’t improve anything, but #Atheismplus seems to think otherwise.

Renee Hendricks ‏@reneehendricks #AtheismPlus “…it’s fabulous marketing-wise…” Ah. Now we see the true purpose of this silliness 🙂

Atheism++ ‏@AtheismPlusPlus Do u want “social justice warrior” on your resume, but find real world too messy? Then join #atheismplus. All u need is Internet connection.

Renee Hendricks ‏@reneehendricks *That’s* the term I was looking for that, to me, accurately describes#AtheismPlus – a big, ol’ circle jerk.