People part of the wider atheist/skeptical ‘movement’, particularly conference goers will be aware of the misogyny inspired drama that’s been plaguing ‘the community’ for a while – maybe a year, I can’t remember and I can’t be bothered to check.
The incessant drama has finally worn me down.
I have several opinions, few facts, little physical interaction, possibly no clue. I have, however, had enough now.
Was (is, was, will be) Rebecca Watson harassed? Sure.
Were (will) other women be sexually harassed at conferences? Probably.
Did Rebecca Watson initially make a huge deal out of it? Perhaps not.
Was/is the harassment as bad as the brouhaha after some subsequent blog posts? Probably not.
Is sexual harassment as big an issue at skeptical/atheist conferences as some people have made it out to be? Probably not. I haven’t been to one so I can’t really say. I haven’t been to America – perhaps the country is packed to the brim with misogynistic assholes, I can’t say. Some people have certainly made it out to be like that.
Was (is) PZ Myers overly supportive of Rebecca Watson? Yes.
Was Richard Dawkins as wrong about the Rebecca Watson story as Rebecca Watson made out to be? No, I don’t think so any more.
Was Thunderf00t’s first take on the misogyny issue the way PZ Myers portrayed it? No.
Was Thunderfoot’s response to PZ’s posts ill-considered and sloppily done? For sure.
Was Thunderfoot’s response to the SkepchickCON harassment policy childish and silly? Yes.
Was Skepchick’s latest response childish and silly? Yes.
Are Rebecca Watson, PZ Myers and Thunderfoot and their legions of minions and supporters acting like a bunch of twats? Indeed.
I’ve never been to an atheist or skeptics conference. I used to want to go to them all pretty badly and came close to going to the one in Melbourne recently. Now, I’m not so sure. It’s clear that there is no ‘community’. It’s clear that there are a bunch of factions with different agendas and it is clear that ‘reason’ isn’t high up on any of those agendas.
Take this from here it comes: the huge freaking issue made about sexual harassment at conferences has put me off of going to them and I am a man. I used to want to go and now I do not. I am well aware that ‘the issue’ is probably not nearly as big as it’s been made out by some people to be but fuck it, I don’t need that shit in my life.
I’m over Freethought Blogs. I’m over the people commenting on Freethought Blogs. If that is what the atheist/skeptical ‘community’ is, I want no part of it.
Yes, I realise I have this very insignificant blog in an insignificant corner of the world and I might very well be alone in feeling that I want nothing to do with the massive amount of idiocy the ‘community’ is currently drowning in but that’s the way it is. It makes me sad to say – I too would like to feel like I belong to something bigger than myself – but I do not want anything to do with this shit.
The bottom line is that atheism and scepticism are not uniting forces and no amount of wishful thinking will change that. Atheism does not a ‘community’ or ‘movement’ make. PZ Myers posted some time ago that atheism is more than just the non-belief in god. I used to agree with him. The last 12 months worth of drama has done nothing other than show that a great many atheists are dicks and atheism does nothing to unite people and atheism is nothing more than a lack of belief in a deity.
The realisation that is sadly dawning to my very un-skeptical mind is that just because somebody is an atheist does not make them a nice or good person. Or a person I would want to associate with. Somebody being an atheist does not in fact imply a damn thing about that person other than they do not believe in a God.
I like to think the best of people and these people that I used to look up to have made that impossible.
I sort of realized this after being forced into association a rather unpleasant fellow a few years back who was an atheist as well. We could both appreciate jokes about god murdering kittens and that was about the level of our tolerance for one another, in fact we both grew to rather hate one another and I still have the angry emails to prove it. Dislike and hatred seem as unrelated to religious belief as like and love. Admittedly, someone’s religious preferences may help move your feeling towards them either way (e.g. I have no time for creationists) but I’ve met some sceptics I disliked and some ‘believers’ I liked immensely despite their one ‘flaw’.
Anyway the beginning of this Cracked article may cheer you up. According to it, the ichthys symbol is derived from a Pagan fertility symbol meant to represent the vagina (try turning it ‘face-down’), and it amuses me to think of lots of Christians driving around with ‘sideways vagina fish’ on their bumpers.
http://www.cracked.com/article_19909_6-famous-symbols-that-dont-mean-what-you-think.html
Haha awesome! Thanks bro. Still waiting for you to write one of them blog posts you’ve been meaning to for… what’s it, years now?
Yeah, I’m having difficulty thinking of things to write in all areas at the moment…
Pity, the Global Atheist Convention was great fun and it would have been nice to meet more locals. I hope you check out other groups like the Young Australian Skeptics.
I’m a member of the NZARH (being in Kiwi-land) and I know of the local Skeptics in the pub group – I haven’t managed to get to a meeting yet though.
Good post. I know we’ve clashed before, but credit where it’s due.
Edit: Sorry, I followed this link from Kylie Sturgess, and thought she wrote it (hence the ‘clash’ phrase).
Good post, and I’m sure we haven’t clashed!
Heh, no, we haven’t clashed. Thanks for your comment!
Great post and I agree with all of it. However, I have written something which offers a positive perspective on all this rubbish. Maybe it’ll help you reconsider your view of the skeptic community? http://www.simonclare.co.uk/site/?p=161 Sorry to plug, I hope it’s relevant enough
Hey, thanks for your comment and you wrote a really nice post at that link! I love the analogy.
Longest. Analogy. Ever.
Heh, was indeed a bit long.
Glad you liked it – I make no apology for its length
Haha, no need – I tend to write terribly long posts myself.
You are not alone. I have been ringing the alarm bells on the American Girlyban takeover since it started. PZ is probably creepy elevator guy and Watson is extorting his support in lieu of exposing him. Makes as much sense an EVERYTHING coming from the Girlyban Gasbaggers. Follow me back you Aussie turd!! I need a larger international following. LOL. Enjoy.
“Take this from here it comes: the huge freaking issue made about sexual harassment at conferences has put me off of going to them and I am a man. I used to want to go and now I do not. I am well aware that ‘the issue’ is probably not nearly as big as it’s been made out by some people to be but fuck it, I don’t need that shit in my life.”
Out of curiosity, is this because you don’t agree with having harassment policies? Or is it because you’re tired of seeing the discussion in general?
I myself am tired of seeing the discussion come up over and over with no resolution or forward momentum. I do, however, think that any group that wants to be welcoming to everyone should have harassment policies in place. Sex-positive spaces, geek conventions, hell even BDSM dungeons have harassment policies and for good reason. It’s not about harassment being prevalent, it’s about making it easy for anyone who is harassed to have help dealing with the problem if they can’t fix it on their own.
I have no problem with harassment policies as such. What I’ve had enough of is the incessant drama and discussion and what feels to me like overreaction on several fronts. But like I said, I’ve never been to America or a atheist/skeptics conference so I can’t actually say how big a problem it really is.
Without getting into the discussion that’s actually put me off: it seems like a pretty simple issue to solve from a conference organisers perspective and in my opinion it should have been done quietly and professionally. Changing society at large is obviously not so simple but to be blunt, the way people are going about it is doing nothing to advance their case. And that is my total outsider – the guy who they are marketing to – opinion.
This is pretty spot on I think.
Loving you a bit right now. I’m with you about the full length. As to the “community”, I’ve made some great friends in the online atheist “community”, but that’s because we share other interests or sense of humor or both. Atheism is certainly a part of it but it can’t be the whole of it.
Thanks for your comment! I agree, there has to be something other than atheism. I thought that possibly that would be scepticism and/or science. Perhaps it still is, I’m not sure.
Here’s a few thoughts responding to your post:
1: Don’t give up in these big meetings. Realistically the Melbourne convention is the one we look at here. I attended the 2010 one and was very impressed. Would have gone this year too but for family health issues. I have no doubt that I may have observed some bad behavior at 4:am after an evening on the booze by some attendees (these were probably ones that missed the next mornings talks). But as it was I sacrificed my afternoon power nap for the talks – no way was I going to loose my nightly beauty sleep. (Old age, and the reduced desire for the antics of youth, does have advantages).
The conventions are a unique opportunity to attend excellent talks, meet outstanding people, purchase great books and interact with others of (mostly) similar outlook. Just don’t be surprised to see some of the less savoury sides of people if you need to drink to 4:00 am.
2: Atheism as a belief is a pretty weak basis for a community – all other things being equal. That is to say that when the current discrimination dies out and we are accepted as equal humans one would not bother to build a community on such a weak basis. But at the moment, at this stage in our history, there are objective reasons for athests to come together on specific issues of concern.
3: Strong diffences between atheists over specific issues is only to be expected. We are human and we should avoid the wishful thinking of attributing beliefs to others when there may be no reason for them to hold them.
4: There are inevitable areas for division. One that strikes me is the amount of disagreement over the nature of human morality. But I am never surprised at the strongly divisive nature of gender differences. Our different roles and interests provide an objective basis for strongly emotional reactions in this area. Personally, while I have my views here I consider these sort of Internet debates to be fruitless and steer clear of them.
5: Two situations seem to bring out the worst in people. These are sitting behind the wheel of a car in traffic and sitting at a keyboard in front of a computer while indulging in an Internet discussion. Another reason for avoiding, and not taking to heart, the sort of debates you have mentioned. Those same people, taken away from their keyboard – say at a talk or discussion at an atheist convention – are probably very polite, respectful and warm people. Although that may not be true at 4:00 am after an evening on the booze.
Hey Ken,
I really appreciate your comment.
1: Fair enough
2: Agreed. It just seems to me that things are falling apart before the battle has been won and mostly because of what seems to be ego and narcissism – as Mike points out below – and that’s a damn shame.
Sometimes I think the religious have it a bit easier as they seem to overlook some inconsistencies in the name of community. Sometimes I think the other side has it easier. Then I remember there’s around 38,000 denominations of Christianity and I feel a bit better
3: True, I take your point.
4: I agree – you just can’t seem to go anywhere on-line without running into this idiocy and that’s what prompted this post.
5: You are right. The internet does seem to bring out the inner asshole in a lot of people. Perhaps because I have not met very many of these people I don’t have the first hand experience of them to temper their on-line personalities.
For me the atheist community if there is to be one should concern itself with and support people coming out of religion and be keeping an eye on where religion tries to encroach on civil liberties. Skepticism should remove itself from opinion driven blogs and move purely to educate the masses, I genuinely love being skeptical and could not have learnt how to properly apply skepticism without the aid of a few good sites and books, that said I want no part of the skeptic scene, It is far to ego driven and appears very narsasistic in its delivery.
Hey Mike, thanks for that. I think you’re definitly thinking in the right direction, in my opinion.
PZ claims to dungeonize posters for their ‘fuckwittery’ on his site – I suppose to many folk I’m one of them(!) Yet why is it that PZ doesn’t ban people with a long record of serial neo-nazi internet activity like Bernada who openly use Pharyngula to promote the irrational and extremely vile concept of holocaust denial? Please see the recent Bravo, Germany! thread.
Social justice isnt cheap. It requires personal integrity and intellectual honesty.
I think your post is a victim of oversimplification and bias. Where is the criticism of those who have been strawmanning against actual social justice work? With every issue you find those who cannot think objectively and who make a subject tedious to discuss with fallacious reasoning and empty objections. Look to the beacon of Godwins Law. Its not a perfect guide, but its a good test of whether an individual or group is arguing in good faith or not.
As for the community aspect… If you can find any community that doesnt include people who fight to change the world for the better and the people who are scared of change who try to stop them, then congratulations. You just discovered extraterrestrial life.
Indeed. Integrity and intellectual honesty.
Please will you take a moment and elaborate on the bias bit a little?
Who, in particular, did I miss?
Indeed. Entirely my mistake for expecting a little more from a ‘community’ who like to throw around words like ‘rational’ and ‘reason’ and ‘reasonable’.
I must apologise. After re-reading your last paragraph you appear to be saying that EVERYONE is acting like twats. This is not bias but aloofness, which is not fallacious.
Who did you miss? The list is so staggeringly long that neither of us can list them. I shall attempt to summarise:
-Those who object to harassment policies on the grounds that they object to anything PZ or Watson say because… AGENDA!11!!! DOGMA!!!1! etc
-Those who object to harassment policies because women should be grateful for any attention they get, and how would anyone get laid ever again?
Actually, there has been a tremendous amount of “rational” and “reasonable” discussion on this matter from anyone who is actually interested in change for the benefit of everyone. Those who are not interested in change for the benefit have been forcefully excluded when that has been made clear. Policies are now in place despite the army of naysayers (except in the instance of TAM, which is hilarious. I sat and gave the TAM issue the full force of my consideration. I checked the facts throughout and concluded that Grothe wouldn’t do what he eventually did because it would be exceptionally poor strategy. I could probably elaborate in detailed email if you are interested, but it sounds from your OP that you are not)
My last paragraph suggested that you have unreasonable expectations from the community. If you are only interested in armchair skepticism (and that is not meant in a derogative way by any means) then fine. If you are interested in the real world application of skepticism, then you must a) apply it and b) be willing to actively fight against those people who want to make it appear that you are being unreasonable.
Good talk. I gotta go for the time being, but I will check back.
It is very clear that there are pockets of irrationality in the atheist community with different agendas. This has been a source of frustration for me too. I do want the FtB crowd to keep sharing their views, but I am puzzled over why they need to elevate some of these views to the level of absolute truths about which anyone who disagrees is wrong. I welcome their opinions, but they are indeed only opinions.
Thanks for your comment vjack, it mirrors my sentiment exactly.
You do realize that FreeThoughtBlogs is itself only a small corner of what passes for an atheist/skeptic movement, right?
Both side are not equally wrong. You yourself are not opposed to anti-harassment policies. You’re just tired of hearing about it.
Fine. But why, then, do you focus your ire on those who are merely defending the position that AHPs are needed? There’s a small but vocal contingent of enthusiastic misogynists who have been harassing Skepchick and FTB for about a year now. It’s their continued insistence that feminism is a dogma, that AHPs will ruin everyone’s fun, that FTBers hate sex, and other assorted idiocies, that keep the conversation going.
But whatever. Obviously nobody is forcing you to read FTB. Insert obligatory reference to XKCD comic about “the important thing is that you managed to feel superior to both sides” comic here.
Thank you for taking the time to point that out.
Indeed.
I might take this opportunity to point out there are more than two ‘sides’ to this ‘issue’.
Perhaps it has something to do with me once liking and respecting some of those people? That I used to defend some of them, Rebecca Watson included? Perhaps it has something to do with feeling dissappointed with people I once thought to be better than what they actuall are?
Perhaps the rest don’t merit any attention from me?
Perhaps I feel they’ve gone a bit far, incessantly, over an issue that just doesn’t seem to warrant going that far?
Indeed. Insert something about feeding the trolls here.
And you are entitled to that opinion. My opinion is that while there are many misogynistic assholes out there, some people need the attention to make a living and are happily feeding trolls now to get that attention.
Indeed.
Snide, but I respect your xkcd knowledge. Congratulations on correcting somebody who was wrong on the internet.
This whole thing has only confirmed what I already knew. The loudest people in any group are usually the biggest wankers in that group. To me this is just a case of people with too much self importance throwing their weight around.
Yea, pretty much that. Loud people who make money out of being loud.