Politics
Taking the Camels With Hammers Civility Pledge
I would like it if all of my readers read this pledge- and if those that were in agreement that civility is the key to productive discourse would sign it. I worked with Dan Finke and several other bloggers to help craft this pledge (though admittedly I didn’t contribute a fraction of the time or energy that Dan and others did). I think that the rules laid out here are important; I believe that if we wish to have constructive dialogue that focuses on ideas and doesn’t devolve into nasty epithets and hard feelings- then we ought to all support this effort.
I normally would link to the original post and let my readers read the full text there, but since I was
Artwork by Steve Greenberg- Click for link
part of the group that worked on the pledge and Dan has generously offered to allow it reprinted verbatim- I have decided to print it in its entirety here (including all links that reference Dan’s fantastic posts on these subjects at CWH). I would like to have it handy so that I can link to it when people commenting here step out of line and also so that I have a standard to be personally accountable to.
I hope you read the pledge, sign it here or at CWH, and share it if you agree.
-George-
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“THE CAMELS WITH HAMMERS CIVILITY PLEDGE”
by Daniel Fincke
Reasons for the Pledge:
I want to be able to engage in vigorous, rigorous, constructive, and truth-conducive public discussions about both the most philosophically fundamental and the most vitally urgent questions related to beliefs and values.
For truth’s sake and for freedom’s sake, I want no controversial topics to be made taboo in all discussion forums and I want no disputable propositions whatsoever to be shielded from all sincere and thorough rational interrogation. I accept that either my beliefs and values, including those I that myself cherish the most, can prove themselves against vigorous, sincere, rational skepticism and challenge, or that they need to be modified or abandoned.
I want to argue for what I think is true and good without hesitating over concerns that my views are too unpopular or unpleasant, and I want others to feel free to do the same.
I want periodically to publicly reexamine my own beliefs and values for any possible errors they may contain, and to critically examine others’ ideas until I am adequately satisfied with them before feeling like I have to endorse or adopt them.
I even may want the latitude of intellectual honesty to test ugly ideas that neither I nor most others even want to believe. I may want to do this so that we can thoroughly understand exactly why, or whether, such ideas are indeed as false as we would hope, or are as pernicious as we presume. It is important that rational people of good will have well-developed reasons, rather than just dogmatic moral condemnation, with which to answer the false and pernicious ideas of irrational, ill-willed, and bigoted people. This means rational people of good will should at least sometimes open-mindedly explore hypotheses that they or others may find morally or intellectually upsetting, and that they have the room to do this without being demonized.
I realize that a huge obstacle to honest, thoroughgoing, and challenging public inquiries into the rightness of beliefs and values of the most fundamental importance and urgency is our shared natural tendencies to take abstract criticisms personally. I realize another huge obstacle is that most people naturally are tempted to become more dogmatically committed to their existing positions precisely when presented with potentially unsettling counter-arguments. I realize that in most cases these and related problematic tendencies are only exacerbated, rather than alleviated, when we explicitly or implicitly turn abstract intellectual inquiries into interpersonally hostile confrontations.
I also realize that attempts to bully people into agreement with me by taking recourse to interpersonally aggressive treatment are antithetical to a principled commitment to respecting other people’s rationality and freedoms of intellectual conscience. Even where such appeals are successful, they come at a moral cost that should be seen as unacceptable to people committed to reason. I should want to persuade others into genuinely justified agreement with the best arguments and the most fair and relevant emotional appeals, rather than socially, emotionally, politically, or physically coerce them into acquiescence. Outside of the most extreme life and death circumstances, I should not consider the cause of winning people to my side philosophically or politically to be so important that I am willing to treat others abusively.
It is, in the vast majority of cases, unethical to verbally abuse or otherwise attempt to emotionally bully others, no matter how right I might feel myself to be or how cathartic I might find the experience. Self-righteousness is a dangerous, blinding temptation. It leads to hypocritical double-standards, remorseless cruelty, smugness, authoritarianism, and false beliefs held with self-satisfaction. Worst of all, self-righteousness tempts us to become like the hateful people we start out opposing. So I should foreswear and guard against self-righteousness as conscientiously and with as much regular self-examination as possible. I should never consider myself to be so much better or righter than others that I see them as worthy of maltreatment and myself as morally pure enough to mete out their punishments of my own initiative.
found at demotivationalposters.net
I understand also that I am not perfect. I may not have always lived up to the highest standards of civility, compassion, or rationality in the past. I may struggle as much as anyone else to do so in the future. Nonetheless, I resolve to the best of my ability to make the commitments in the pledge below in order to ensure that I am as constructive and ethical a participant in public discussions as possible, and to live as consistently according to my professed belief in the intellectual and moral worth of reason, freedom, and compassion as possible.
The Pledge:
1. I commit that I will engage in all public arguments with a sincere aim of mutual understanding, rather than only persuasion.
I will make being honest, rationally scrupulous, and compassionate my highest priorities. I will conscientiously remain open to new ideas. I will consider the well being and growth of my interlocutors more important than whether they simply agree with me at the end of our exchanges. I am under no obligation to respect false or harmful beliefs or to hold back from expressing my own views or reservations forthrightly. I may even express them with passion and conviction where such are justifiable. Compatible with this, I will always respect my interlocutors as people and their rights to express their own views without personal abuse, even when I find myself riled up by them. I will cut off communications that are counter-productive to others’ well being or my own. I will respect others’ attempts to bow out of debates on particular topics or with me in particular. If I feel that I am in a position where my anger and frustration at the behavior of others, even entirely legitimate anger and frustration, is making the conversation less capable of constructive progress, I will remove myself and come back only at such time as I can be constructive again.
2. I commit that I will tolerate the existence of people with dissenting ethical, religious, or political views.
I will focus on understanding and appreciating what actual goods my philosophical or political enemies may be mistakenly trying to achieve and what genuinely occurring features of their experience they are inadequately trying to do justice to in their false beliefs. I will try to discern and appreciate what genuinely valuable moral and intellectual principles they intend to stand up for, no matter how wrong I think their ultimate ethical or factual conclusions might be. Wherever possible, I will try to find and affirm their good will, reasonableness, and any other potential sources of common ground, and work from there in order to persuade them of what I take to be their errors. If this proves impossible, I will simply stop engaging them directly and attack their ideas in the abstract, rather than make things acrimoniously personal.
3. I commit that I will always focus first on the merits of other people’s arguments and not disparage them personally for asking unpleasant questions, taking unpleasant positions, or simply disagreeing with me.
I will not assume the worst of all possible motives when people advance theses that I find false, morally repugnant, and/or potentially harmful. I will refute their arguments on their merits. I will discuss with them any harmful real world implications that I think would come from the promulgation or implementation of their ideas. I will not accuse them of wanting to perpetuate evils unless there is specific evidence that their ends are actually so malicious. I will try not to personalize intellectual disputes any more than is absolutely necessary. I will keep any personal fights that erupt limited to as few people as possible rather than incorporate more and more people into them.
When I am having a personality conflict that is making progress in understanding seem impossible, I will drop communications with that person–with or without explanation as seems most potentially constructive. I will not escalate unproductive arguments that are becoming interpersonally acrimonious. I will not participate in ongoing interpersonal feuds between other people but only participate in discussions that stay focused on what is true, what the best principles are, and how such principles may be most fairly and efficiently implemented in the world. I will correct injustices, bad principles, and bad ideas in ways that are maximally productive for changing minds and real world policies while also minimally likely to create or escalate distracting counter-productive interpersonal feuds.
4. When I feel it necessary to call out what I perceive to be the immoral behaviors or harmful attitudes of my interlocutors, I commit that I will do so only using specific charges, capable of substantiation, which they can contest with evidence and argumentation, at least in principle. I will not resort to merely abusive epithets and insult words (like “asshole” or “douchebag”) that hatefully convey fundamental disrespect, rather than criticize with moral precision.
I will refrain from hurling hateful generalized abusive epithets and insults at people. I will refrain from leveling vague, unsubstantiated charges of terribleness at people. I will give them fair opportunities to explain themselves. I will challenge the wrongness of their specific actions or apparent attitudes rather than hastily cast aspersions on their entire character. Before ever making moral accusations, I will civilly warn them that something they do or say strikes me as morally wrong and offensive, and explain to them why. I will give them a chance to retract, restate, and/or apologize before taking moral offense. I will analyze with self-directed skepticism whether my offense is rooted in a morally justifiable anger at provably unjust treatment, or whether it is just my discomfort with being disagreed with.
I will always seek to maintain positive rapport with those who disagree with me as much as they enable. I will focus my criticisms on people’s ideas first and only if necessary criticize their attitudes, behaviors, or apparent character. I will not demean them fundamentally as a person. I will not uncharitably and hastily leap from specific bad thoughts, attitudes, or actions to wholesale disparagements of their entire character until there is overwhelming evidence that I am dealing with a fundamentally immoral person. And if I am dealing with such a person, I will use any of a wide array of highly specific available words
to make moral charges soberly, constructively, descriptively accurately, and succinctly as possible before cutting off communications with them. And I will not take unnecessary recourse to abusive terms when plenty of civil and accurate words carrying heavy moral force are available to me.
5. I commit that I will go out of my way, if necessary, to remember that members of traditionally marginalized groups and victims of abuse have experiences that I may not have and which I may have to strain to properly weigh and appreciate.
People who have been personally abused or systemically discriminated against in ways that I have not may also be acutely aware of a social power differential with respect to me of which I may be unaware. This may make them feel frustrated and intimidated from speaking frankly, as well as more sensitized to potentially silencing and Othering implications of my language and ideas. I will be as sensitive to this reality as possible and as careful as possible with my language to reduce rather than exacerbate their feelings of social disempowerment. I also will take into account and accommodate the reality that people with high personal stakes in the outcomes of certain debates about values are, quite understandably, more prone to emotional intensity in their arguments and especially likely to bring unique insights that are indispensible to understanding the issue adequately.
Of course none of this means I should feel compelled to surrender my own rational right and need to independently and rigorously assess what anyone says for its truth or goodness. I should not feel compelled to always and unconditionally agree with someone who has an experience or life situation different from my own. And I should not pretend to already fully accept beliefs or values of which I have not yet been satisfyingly convinced. I should also not tolerate normalization of emotional appeals of the kind that cross the line into bullying. But nonetheless, I will be extra cautious to learn from traditionally marginalized people about what disparately affects them in negative ways and about how to make discourses and other environments more inclusive to them. I will pay close attention to how hostile environments are implicitly created that exclude, silence, or otherwise adversely affect traditionally marginalized people, especially under the aegis of a perniciously false neutrality.
On the other side, I will also be sensitive to preempt counter-productively defensive feelings and reactions of people in traditionally advantaged groups by carefully avoiding even the appearance of prejudicially disparaging them all as malicious oppressors. I will distinguish carefully between those motivated by animus and those who are in the main only passive beneficiaries and unwitting perpetuators of injustices, or biased in unintentional and unexamined ways. When rightly calling out such injustices and prejudices I will frame my criticisms and calibrate my level of antagonism with respect to how generally good or ill willed my interlocutor actually is. I will scrupulously distinguish criticisms of harmful systems from criticisms of individuals. I will criticize harmful behaviors without hastily assuming people have malicious intentions or morally repugnant character. I will always respect others’ rights to disagree with me, regardless of their race, color, creed, sexual orientation, gender identity, abilities, disabilities, sex, and unearned privileges (or lack thereof). I will avoid all disparagement of people based on such core identity-forming traits, whether it be disparagement aimed at members of groups with lesser or greater social power. I will neither flippantly nor seriously disparage people based on such kinds of traits or try to invalidate their experiences, even should I think that they are misinterpreting the significance of their experiences, or even should I believe they are more advantaged than most people and should be able to take harsher treatment on that account.
6. I commit that I will not use any language that I know is offensive to either a subset of a marginalized group or to members of that group at large, for whatever reason.
I will not use racial or ethnic slurs (like “nigger” or “kike”), gendered insults (like “bitch”, “dick”, “cunt”, “slut”), homophobic slurs (like “fag”), or transphobic slurs (like “tranny”). Regardless of my private standards or understandings I have with my friends or customs within my local culture, in public forums I will respect that such terms make at least a noticeable number of members of marginalized groups feel hated and unwelcome. This risks silencing them in unjust ways. I will err on the side of caution and maximum inclusion by removing such words from my public discourse as superfluous, potentially harmful, exclusionary, and counter-productive to my goals of rational persuasion. The English language is huge; I can find countless better words to use.
7. I commit that I will not use any ableist language that disparages people over physical or mental limitations or illnesses.
I will not falsely imply that people are in the main uneducable or incapable of rationality simply because they either disagree with me, have major intellectual blindspots, make huge intellectual errors, or prove generally unlearned in some specific area. This means that I will not call my interlocutors “retarded”, “stupid”, “idiotic”, “deranged”, or similar terms that convey with contemptuous hostility that I believe them beneath reasoning with and beneath treating as an equal, simply on account of what I take to be some major errors or areas of ignorance. All people can learn. All people can teach. Specific intellectual limitations, errors, and/or ignorance of a particular area of knowledge do not amount to “stupidity”.
Calling people stupid is not only usually false and woefully imprecise, but it threatens to hatefully discourage people from learning and to destroy the hope for dialogue with them. It also disrespects the undereducated (many of whom are financially disadvantaged or otherwise socially disadvantaged and disempowered) and makes them justifiably resentful. For some it continues a pattern of abuse suffered from parents, peers, partners, and others in their lives who damaged them during childhood and have harmfully misled them to underestimate their actual intellectual potential. It also irrationally ignores the reality that all of us are regularly victims of cognitive biases and institutionally inculcated deceptionsthat to a large extent account for their errors. They deserve education, not derision.
My interlocutors and I will both learn more if I try to understand the rationally explicable reasons for their errors and figure out how to most effectively correct them. I will also learn more if I conscientiously try to think up and refute the best arguments for my opponents’ views rather than seize on their arguments’ weaknesses and dismiss them categorically as “stupid”. I can point out the nature of mistakes more precisely, and with better hope of correcting them, if I engage in thinking together with people rather than disparaging and bullying them.
8. I commit that I will always argue in good faith and never “troll” other people. I will respect both safe spaces and debate spaces and the distinctly valuable functions each can potentially serve. I will not disrupt the functioning of either kind of forum.
I will respect that some venues are designed to be safe places for members of marginalized groups or abused people to seek refuge from abuse and certain forms of disagreement that they are, for good reason, not emotionally able to deal with. I will respect that these, and other venues designed for people with a shared ideological or philosophical disposition, are valuable. It is constructive to have some spaces where likeminded people can work out their views amongst themselves without always having to be distracted by calls for them to defend themselves on fundamental points.
I will not deliberately troll or otherwise attempt to disrupt forums that exclude me on such grounds. If they refuse debates with people of my philosophical views, then I will not try to participate in their venue. On the flipside, if I desire to make a certain conversation or forum, even a public one, into a safe space where some types of arguments are not permitted, I will make that clear as early as possible. And if I am engaged in a debate in a public forum not designated as a safe space, I will accept that not everyone present is going to share my basic beliefs, knowledge base, values, or concerns, and I will not treat them with hostility on account of their disagreement with me about fundamental matters.
Regardless of forum, if I decide to play devil’s advocate in hopes that it will help make a position’s merits clearer to me, I will be upfront about what I am doing so that I do not come off as obstinate or excessively antagonistic or in any other way a disingenuous “troll”. I will desist if others do not want me to play devil’s advocate to them whether because they find it badgering or trivializing of something important to them or for any other reason.
9. I commit that I will apologize when I hurt others’ feelings, even when I do so unintentionally and even when I do not think their hurt feelings are justified.
If I want to defend my actions or contest the moral justifiability of an outraged person’s feelings of offense, I will do so respectfully and always with an aim of mutual understanding. I commit to not treating those who accidentally upset or offend me as though they intentionally did so. I will accept sincere apologies that take adequate responsibility without requiring groveling and total surrender on all points of contention (especially if some matters at stake are distinctly separable from the offense and are rationally disputable). I will foster environments in which people feel comfortable expressing when their feelings are hurt because everyone regularly offers, and receptively takes, constructive criticisms. This happens where criticism is regularly free of hatred, demonization, and implicit or explicit purity tests and threats of ostracism. So I will oppose all such things.
10. I commit that I will hold my allies and myself to the highest standards of civil, good-willed, compassionate, and reason-based argumentation and ethical conduct, regardless of whether our enemies do the same, and regardless of the rectitude of our cause.
I will not defensively interpret sincere criticism from my allies as personal betrayal. I will be as above reproach as possible with respect to all charges of bullying, feuding, escalation, bad faith argumentation, ad hominem tactics, well-poisoning, trolling, marginalization, strawmanning, sock puppetry, tribalism, purity testing, sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, classism, ableism, goading, micro-aggressiveness, passive aggressiveness, and personalization of disputes. While not compromising my intellectual conscience for the sake of politeness, I will manage to model a conciliatory and reasonable spirit. While I may advocate forthrightly for ethical debate and treatment of others generally, I will spend as much or more of my energies scrutinizing my own public contributions for ways I can make them more rational, civil, compassionate, and persuasive than I will policing the behaviors of others I encounter.
11. I commit that I will not make accusations of guilt by association.
I will neither assume that one’s association with another person implies agreement with any specific belief, action, or behavior of that person, and nor will I assume that someone’s agreement with another person on a specific point implies agreements on any other specific points. I will hold people accountable only for their own expressed views and not for the views of everyone with whom they associate. I also will not assume total agreement and endorsement of all the ideas in books, thinkers, or links that someone recommends as interesting.
12. I commit that I will not use mockery and sarcasm in ways that try to belittle other people.
I recognize funny and perceptive satire’s indispensible and unique abilities to illumine truths and rationally persuade people. And I feel free to humorously point out apparent absurdities in others’ arguments or beliefs during discussions. But I will draw the line at using humor to personally attack, harass, or silence individuals with whom I am engaged. I will be cautious that my ridicule during discussions is aimed squarely at beliefs and does not have the likely effect of making my interlocutors feel like I am flippantly contemptuous of their reasoning abilities en toto or of their worth as people. In short, I will use humor to challenge and persuade others, rather than to abuse and alienate them.
13. I commit that I will empathetically, impartially, and with reasonable mercy enforce the standards of civility and compassion laid out in this pledge in any venues (including but not limited to: blogs, Facebook pages, subreddits, and discussion forums) where I have moderation powers with sufficient latitude to set and enforce standards.
Even in safe spaces where debates on certain kinds of topics are understandably restricted for people’s well being, I will still adhere to all the rest of the principles of compassion, charity, and civility in arguments here laid out.
Signed,
Daniel Fincke
George Waye
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )Civic Responsibility Rebooted: Why I think we are a community and we ought to start acting like it.
This post is my contribution to the Forward Thinking project, an amazing online community project started by Libby Anne of Love, Joy, Feminism and Daniel Finke of Camels With Hammers. For more information or how you can contribute click on the links above.
When we hear the term “Civic Responsibility”, several things come immediately to mind. Perhaps most of us will say that voting is a civic responsibility; maybe some of us would say that engagement in local and regional issues is a civic responsibility.
Though I think those are both good examples of ways in which we can show civic responsibility, I think that they merely brush the surface of what civic responsibility means.
In the last couple decades- maybe even in the last few years- technology has made new communities. Though the definition of “civic” seems rooted in our towns and cities, I feel it needs to be expanded to include these new communities- communities that were not even possible 40 years ago, communities that were the realm of specialized hobbyists a mere 20 years ago, communities that today are an almost assumed and necessary part of life for the “connected generation”. We are living in a world of virtual civics- where our identity, community, and real life successes are increasingly shaped by our connections to people who live hundreds or thousands of kilometres from our doorstep. If the reason we call local engagement “civic” is because these are the people we are most likely to interact or have the greatest sense of closeness and community, then I would argue that “civic” is a word that must be increasingly inclusive of those communities where we have “virtual citizenship“. It used to be the case that community was beholden to the practical limitations of geography; yet yesterday, for example, I had as much (and much more robust) interaction with friends in Florida as I had with the people who live on my street.
It seems to me that if the word “civic” can’t transcend your mailing address- the word is of little use to us at all.
What, then, does it mean to be responsible to your community? When we are talking about traditional civic responsibility the answer seems much more obvious- you are tied to others in your community by the shared experiences of geography and locality. Roughly speaking- you experience the same events, you interact with the same people, you use the same basic services. You want to give back to your community because the state of your community directly affects your own success and your own enjoyment; your community is responsible for your success and fulfilment and an investment is both paid back and in some sense owed. I would argue that these same transactions occur in virtual communities- and that in some sense we ought to be more cognizant of our responsibilities to these new communities because we are the pioneers and founding fathers of a community in its infancy. Just as those who took the initiative to plot the street and sewer layouts, build town squares and community services charted the course that made the future easy or difficult for future citizens- so too are we now making the choices that will make access to enjoyment of our virtual communities easy or difficult for ourselves and others.
In this sense it is not enough for us to be merely engaged in our communities, but we must be looking at the ways in which our own investments are going to make things better or worse for the enjoyment of everyone. Just like the man who runs for town council because he wants to avoid higher taxes or reduced services if the town deficit is not addressed- as a community I think we owe it to each other to invest in good habits today to avoid bigger hurdles in the future.
I feel a great amount of affinity for my online community. Some of my online relationships rival those I have cultivated for years in person. There are people I talk to almost daily, some that I interact with several times a week, others who I speak to from time to time when something of mutual interest comes up. There are those who I know through friends and those who I choose to avoid. There are issues in my community for which I am passionate and issues that are of only passing interest.
In every sense of the word I am part of a community, and that community impacts me for better or worse.
My responsibility to that community is both an investment in my future enjoyment and a way to give back to a community that gives me much. I think I owe more to this community than simply being engaged. I owe it to them to make my contribution as meaningful and beneficial as I am capable; I ought to offer my expertise and resources in ways that forward the best possible goals for the larger group.
Responsibility to your community is not just grand gestures; it is true that for many of us grand gestures and huge commitments are impractical or impossible. Not every person in a town will run for office, or give large donations to local charities; those are noble contributions, but they are practically impossible for many of us. There are those of us in the online community whose voices are bigger- who have the platform or the means to make the grand gestures. Some people in the town donate blood or volunteer a few hours a week to charities; some of us online give to a struggling blogger or join together for small scale projects. Some in the town vote or picket or speak up when they witness injustice; some of us online post or petition or comment. Whatever we can give, however big or small our contribution, we must remember that our actions (and inaction) are contributing to a community.
Each of us is making the community that we live in by our choices, big and small. We are building and contributing to the community- a community that is going to give back to us and be part of our future fulfillment. I think that we have a responsibility to that community both as an investment in our future and to pay forward the good that it does for us.
Our communities are there for us, and we ought to be there for them.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )Maryland State Delegate gets a smackdown for trying to silence NFL player who supports SSM
This story is totally funny.
Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo has come out in public support of same sex marriage. He even donated two tickets to a Ravens game for a fundraiser to support the group Marylanders for Marriage Equality. This 
obviously ruffled the feathers of State Delegate Emmett Burns Jr. (D- Baltimore County).
Burns decided that the best way to handle the “situation” was to write a letter to Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, telling the owner to keep his players in line. The letter can be found in it’s entirety here- an excerpt:
I am requesting that you take the necessary action, as a National Football Franchise Owner, to inhibit such expressions from your employee and that he be ordered to cease and desist such injurious actions. I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing.
Please give me your immediate response.
Since the Constitution is a federal document and not a state document, perhaps Mr. Burns could be forgiven for not bothering to familiarize himself with the First Amendment. Perhaps, if he were not an African American preacher, he could be forgiven for not understanding the intersection of sport and civil rights.
It is alright though, because Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe wrote a letter to Burns that explains those parts that seem so woefully opaque to the State Delegate. Kluwe’s totally awesome letter can be read at this link. A highlight:
As I suspect you have not read the Constitution, I would like to remind you that the very first, the VERY FIRST Amendment in this founding document deals with the freedom of speech, particularly the abridgment of said freedom. By using your position as an elected official (when referring to your constituents so as to implicitly threaten the Ravens organization) to state that the Ravens should “inhibit such expressions from your employees,” more specifically Brendon Ayanbadejo, not only are you clearly violating the First Amendment, you also come across as a narcissistic fromunda stain. What on earth would possess you to be so mind-boggingly stupid? It baffles me that a man such as yourself, a man who relies on that same First Amendment to pursue your own religious studies without fear of persecution from the state, could somehow justify stifling another person’s right to speech. To call that hypocritical would be to do a disservice to the word. Mindfucking obscenely hypocritical starts to approach it a little bit.
I’ll admit that the letter has a bit too much rhetorical flourish, but I think it expresses how I feel as well.
Sports are not just for “pride, entertainment and excitement”. They are very much a reflection of the societies they entertain and mirrors to our culture. The politics of sport have been the politics of our world. Think of Jackie Robinson. Think of Jesse Owens. Tommy Smith and John Carlos. Think of the IOC and their use of the Olympics as a political tool for change. Hell, think of Tim Tebow.
Athletes have a right to speak their minds. Athletes, as role models, would be wise to use their influence to change the world in which they live, the world that they will exit into once their star has dimmed, the world that they will leave to their children and fellow countrymen. What kind of “role model” stays silent in the face of what needs changing- who just shuts up and knows his place?
It all ended up working out in the end. Burns has since thought the better of his letter. Let’s hope that Brendon Ayanbadejo makes people think better in November.
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Satire, Sarcasm, and Irony- Why can’t the Conservative Right do it intentionally?
Or….
Meta-Irony and my Infinite Gladness
So this graphic popped up on my Facebook feed today:
I commented on the irony of it all, which prompted one of my conservative friends to ask me if I couldn’t recognize satire. Oh, I recognize satire alright. Only, this isn’t it.
See, satire is supposed to be ridiculing an opposing position. It is supposed to make the plain reading of the text absurd. I don’t get that here. I get that it is supposed to be sarcastic (clue: a reference to “gay ideology”)- I also think it misses the mark. There is nothing particularly absurd about telling Christian kids that their bible based views are not sacrosanct.
In this case the author of this graphic attempted to use sarcasm as a tool to ridicule people who refuse to give special privilege to ideas because they stem from fundamental Christianity. They attempted to use satire by mocking the It Gets Better campaign launched by Dan Savage. It may seem to be sarcastic (and satire) to a fundamentalist Christian, but it strikes me as a form of meta-irony, where the sarcasm actually paints a relatively positive spin on the very issue (s)he was trying to skewer. So if it is satire, it is horribly ineffective. Even as sarcasm it misses the mark to a non-myopic audience.
It is ironic because the author meant to use sarcasm and instead ended up coming up with a pretty good idea. It is probably in the interests of everyone to educate young Christians that once they exit the bubble of a public school system that walks on egg shells and a social circle their parents have some control over- they will be mocked, vilified, marginalized and ridiculed. It would be positive for all of us if they went into the world understanding that religion is no excuse for sloppy logic, gross generalizations, and Bronze-Age morality.
“But I only said ‘God doesn’t suffer a woman to teach’!- I’m just following the bible“- is not going to cut it in the real world. “Any man who lies with a man as he does with a woman is an abomination and should be put to death” – is totes fine if you happen to be with your fellow Christian brothers, but it won’t win you brownie points in the office staff room. The real world is waiting. The rational world is waiting…..
Maybe we ought to think about telling them that “It Gets Worse”
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I Had Hope For The World- Then This Happened……
The Catholic Church wants to party like it’s 1399. Seriously.
There is a new ad campaign launched by a Catholic blogger that wants to make birth control “like,
Yes, HYSTERICAL- and by “hysterical” I mean an attitude causing a disturbance of the uterus
so lame” to the hip, impressionable young Catholics (and your kids, too!) out there.
Speaking as a parent, this is infuriating. Speaking as a humanist, it is disappointing. Speaking as a skeptic, it is indefensibly dishonest.
Here’s the scoop, from Claudia at Friendly Atheist:
Fellow Patheos blogger Marc Barnes over at Bad Catholic has realized why the Catholic mandate against contraception enjoys such pitiful support amongst American women.
It’s not because it’s an archaic, unrealistic standard that turns couples — and particularly women — into slaves of their own biology despite the existence of readily available alternatives. The actual problem is that it hasn’t been sold in a sufficiently attractive package.
Enter the new website 1Flesh, which seeks to sell 19th century ideas (12th? 1st?) in a 21st century package, Facebook page and all. According to Barnes, its purpose is “documenting the silliness that is artificial contraception, a grassroots movement promoting great, natural sex to the entire universe.” He then cites a list of “facts” that range from outright false to outrageously misleading.
I am a Misogynist. (or, The Lengths I Will Go To In Order To Protect You From My Bad Behavior)
I have a confession to make. I am the reason we need to keep harping on about gendered insults. I am the reason we need to keep reminding people not to use words like “Honey,” or “Dearie” (unless, of course, someone posts under the pseudonym Honey or Dearie- which would be awkward). I’m the reason we need to keep reminding people that women are more than just a pretty face- that we should be attentive to measurements of them that can’t be expressed in either Metric or Imperial quantities.
I am a misogynist.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to be quoted on Man boobz any time soon. I’m not going to start droning on about how feminists have fucked up our entire society, or how all women are soiled by an overblown sense of entitlement, or why they can’t just shut up and make a damn sandwich for me. Those are things we traditionally think of as being misogyny. We all agree (well…fine, most of us agree) that these attitudes are not welcome in our society at large.
So why do I think I’m a misogynist?
I am generally ignorant of what it feels like to be a woman in my society. I sometimes blind to the ways I treat women different from men. Sometimes there are things that make the women in my life angry or uncomfortable that I just 
cannot relate to. I’ve called a woman a “bitch”, or used “bitchy” as a way to describe behavior that I would not necessarily have felt was “bitchy” of a guy. I can be less hard on a woman and her ideas than I would if they came from a man. I could go on confessing for hours, but I think you see the pattern.
I’m just not that good at consistently treating women with the respect that they deserve- the respect that I sometimes give all to easily to people who are men.
The fact that I notice these things gives me the tools to change my attitudes. Yet they are attitudes that are engrained in our language and culture- attitudes that inform our socialization. These attitudes take time and effort to overcome. They are part of my psyche, and minds are slow to discard even the most worthless of heuristics. I need to be reminded when preconceptions betray me.
I am a reluctant misogynist, and I’m trying to be a better man.
I am a homophobe.
I pass unfair judgements based on something as simple as who someone loves. I make jokes that perpetuate ridiculous stereotypes. I overcompensate at times.
I am transphobic.
Hell, I don’t even really know anyone who isn’t cisgendered. Virtually everything I know about what it means to be transgendered comes from a single blogger (H/T Natalie). I’m unbelievably ignorant.
I’m a racist.
I cannot really share the experiences of what it is like to be Black, Asian, Hispanic, East Indian, etc. I live in a town where I turn my head when I see a visible minority, because they are so obviously from “away”. I say certain things, at times, that cannot help but “other” my fellow man.
So what?
So when I hear people throw around these words at people like me, and my compatriots get entirely bent out of shape about how unfair it is to point out the ways they could improve- I get concerned that we aren’t really being internally skeptical. A misogynist is not just some guy harping on about Feminazis- he’s also the guy who thinks that harassment policies are a priori designed to prevent them from expressing sexuality in healthy and constructive ways. A homophobe is not just some guy who thinks that gays are morally depraved, he’s also the guy that tells us that he knows how they feel because he was bullied in school. A transphobic person isn’t just the person who assumes that they are all depraved, confused perverts- but also the person who refuses to acknowledge their preference in pronouns.
Fighting these attitudes means accepting responsibility for the ways we perpetuate bad behaviors. Racist jokes perpetuate attitudes that allow for systematic and overt racism- even when we think we are just being “funny”. The intent to harm or marginalize may not be there- but the repetition and perpetuation of lazy heuristics does the dirty 
work. We need to be conscious of those times when we let shorthand give an unintended narrative. One turn of phrase might take us 1000 words to set right.
I like being called a racist (well, not really- or at all, honestly. I appreciate the opportunity for self-correction). I like knowing that others are looking out for those times when I’m being lazy. I value being reproved when I’m approaching things from the wrong vantage point. Don’t get me wrong, I can be defensive. I can be skeptical of the degree to which I’m culpable. Those are human reactions.
We can’t stop calling out misogyny just because it is sub-contextual or unintended. We can’t stop calling out homophobia, transphobia and racism because it is harmless ignorant privilege and not crafted hateful attacks. We need to consciously decide to point out not just Man boobz level misogyny, but those innocent-enough moments when we parrot the ideas that are the mortar of institutionalized mistreatment of our fellow human beings.
If you won’t call me a misogynist- a racist, homophobe, transphobe- whatever, then we have a problem. We have a problem because you evidently don’t understand what those concepts mean. They mean that I am someone who needs to pay attention- I need to check my privilege. They are descriptive words for people who are not just blinded- but also shortsighted- by regressive patterns of thought.
So now that I’ve come clean about my faults, here is what I intend to do about it: I’m going to listen when you tell me I’m being insensitive. I’m going to gladly support you when you try to make common sense codes of conduct institutional- so that I’m reminded of what ought to be self evident. I’m going to use my skepticism as a tool of understanding as opposed to one for dismissing.
I’m going to go to great lengths to protect you from my bad ideas- and I hope you’ll do the same.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 11 so far )JC Penney: More Than Just Ignoring “One Million Moms”
A few months back One Million Moms, a group whose members number in the thousands, launched a campaign to boycott retail giant JC Penney if the company refused to dump spokesperson and openly gay celebrity (also, one of my favorite people) Ellen DeGeneres. This came just a few months after a group had succeeded in pressuring Lowes Home Improvement Centers to end their sponsorship of the show All American Muslim.
The difference this time is that JC Penney didn’t dump Ellen as their spokesperson. No, this time, they did something epic. Instead of crack under pressure, JC Penney decided to make a concerted effort to do the opposite.
Check out their Father’s Day ad ………
Ad Copy reads: first pals- What makes Dad so cool? He’s the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver — all rolled into one. Or two. Real-life dads, Todd Koch and Cooper Smith with their children Claire and Mason.
Bill 13: Ontario Picks A Fight With Bullies. The Bullies Fight Back.
Ontario will sometime today have a final reading for some of the most comprehensive anti-bully legislation in
Is this supposed to be insulting?
history. Bill 13, known as the Accepting Schools Act, aims to amend the Education Act in our province to define and address bullying in schools.
Bill 13 does an admirable job of defining the concept of bullying. Section 1(1)(ii)(b) even explicitly addresses the concept of power imbalance.
1. (1) Subsection 1 (1) of the Education Act is amended by adding the following definition:
“bullying” means aggressive and typically repeated behaviour by a pupil where,
(a) the behaviour is intended by the pupil to have the effect of, or the pupil ought to know that the behaviour would be likely to have the effect of,
(i) causing harm, fear or distress to another individual, including physical, psychological, social or academic harm, harm to the individual’s reputation or harm to the individual’s property, or
(ii) creating a negative environment at a school for another individual, and
(b) the behaviour occurs in a context where there is a real or perceived power imbalance between the pupil and the individual based on factors such as size, strength, age, intelligence, peer group power, economic status, social status, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, family circumstances, gender, gender identity, gender expression, race, disability or the receipt of special education; (“intimidation”)
This definition goes a long way toward explaining how privilege plays a part in bullying- the difference between “punching up” and “punching down”.
Ontario may be the first jurisdiction in North America to enshrine programs to address equity and inclusiveness in education that explicitly includes a comprehensive spectrum of sexual identity- including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, two-spirited, intersex, queer and questioning. In those exact words.
During the public consultation process, it was brought to the attention of the government that extra-curricular and social groups helped to foster an environment of tolerance, understanding and inclusiveness for marginalized groups- and that students have had problems at their schools attempting to organize clubs and social groups that include LGBTTIQ issues. To this end the government included in the legislation provisions to give interested students the right to start Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) within their school. It also closed a loophole in previous drafts that would have allowed schools to refuse to allow students to name these groups “”gay-straight alliances”.
Bullies To Province: “Only We Get To Define A Group By Narrow Criteria”
So by now I have given away the punchline- you already know who stands opposed to the new anti-bullying legislation. Just to give a little more context though, let me tell you a little more about education in Ontario….
Ontario has a Constitutionally protected publicly funded Catholic school board. This protection is, funny enough, the result of an agreement at the time of Confederation that was designed to acknowledge the privilege of being a Protestant in the province and to give some bit of cultural real estate to a marginalized group. It was enshrined in Section 93 of the British North America Act in 1867- it was protected by section 29 of the Charter in 1982. Since 1867, of course, the naturally privileged Protestant schools in Ontario have all disappeared in favor of secular education while the Constitutionally protected Catholic minority has been allowed to keep their schools religious
Poor, poor, parents. This new law completely infinges on their right to create second-generation ignorance.
focus. Now, the minority that has benefited so greatly by laws designed to level the privilege playing field is shouting at the top of their lungs to avoid giving another minority protection under the law. “This is not something that needs to be protected under the law”, they say. “There is no good that will come from laws focusing on protecting one minority more than all the other disadvantaged groups”, they argue.
Perhaps they are right. There is reason to believe that well-intentioned laws have unintended negative consequences- we have precedent. One need look no further than the protections we afforded to the Catholic church regarding denominational education back in 1867.
The problem with this argument, of course, is that Bill 13 doesn’t focus solely on LGBTTIQ bullying. It points to them by name- as a group that has struggled most with acceptance within the school system. Bill 13 addresses a problem unique to this group when looking to organize extra-curricular groups sanctioned by the school board. It does these things, for sure, yet it still addresses the power of privilege and the roadmap to making headway in the fight against bullying. Why does it focus on LGBTTIQ rights when so many other underprivileged groups also suffer at the hands of bullies? Because the rot of ignorance and ambivalence extends beyond the hormone-swelled students and into the faculty and administration. It is necessary to spell this out for even the adults in the system.
When I went to high school, I was not at the bottom of the pecking order- but I certainly wasn’t near the top. I was called a “fag” for two whole school years because I stood up to a homophobic asshat of a teacher. Oh, and I was in Drama. Also, the Tennis Team-so I was pretty much “asking for it”.
You know what though? I was an “artsy geek”, and I wasn’t entirely alone. I had teachers who befriended me- and helped to make a difference in my life. So did the “MtG geeks”, who had a Staff Advisor who was into D&D as a teen. So did the “Mathletics/Chess Club/Brainer geeks”, who had staff who had been there themselves. Who did the gay kids have? Sure, they fit into other groups. Groups that probably still marginalized them, and staff who probably didn’t feel comfortable reaching out to them. Hell, I was in the Drama Club- that seeming safe haven for homosexuality. We had (that I know of) two closeted gay guys, one bi-curious (at least openly) guy, another who was lifestyle-queer(but swore he was totally straight) and a bunch of girls who made out with each other at parties. Pretty gay, right? Well the one guy who was closeted got called “Princess” by many of the members, and the other one quit after one year when it was apparent that we were just as hostile as the sports clubs. The bi-curious guy was one of my best friends- and I am ashamed to say that I occasionally chastised him for being a bit too “homo” in public. The other guy prided himself on being called gay- at least outwardly. I will tell you that our group was probably the most “gay friendly” you could get in high school. I will also tell you that I wouldn’t trade my hetero-privileged life for theirs. It was still a shitty time for them.
So to me, Bill 13 is very important legislation. Will it end bullying? Nope. Will it make high school easy? No. Will it give bullied kids a real avenue to address the daily torture they face? Yes. Will it give some much needed shelter to the queer community from the privilege of a hetero-centered and homophobic school system? Yes…and it should.
The public hearings on Bill 13 were a three-ring circus. There were accusations that Gay-Straight Alliances were “sex clubs”. People testified that schools would have forced GSA’s even if no students were interested- it was mandated.
Why would people be so ridiculously misinformed about this legislation? I’ll give you a guess…..
O.K., still not sure? Here’s a hint.
It’s a group. A group who has the word “Family” in their name. Are you surprised?
Go check out their site. It’s a real prize.
You Know How To Terrorize A Kid? Make Up Shit That Could Plausibly Be True- Tell Everyone, Repeat. How Do You Attack Anti-Bully Legislation? Do The Same…..
Here is a couple of tips for those who want to kill this bill.
- If you are going to write to your Liberal or NDP MPP to tell them how unbelievably horrible this legislation is, you might start by not using the epically ridiculous form e-mail offered by the Family Coalition Party.
You know that MPP that you are writing? Yeah. About that. He/She has read the bill. She knows what it does and doesn’t say and do. Why does she know this? Because she read the fucking bill! Hell, she might have actually assisted in drafting it. Don’t piss on someone’s leg and tell them it’s raining. - If you are going to testify before committee-and I’m dead serious here- read the bill! Know what it says. Know what it doesn’t say. Point out something clever, like the fact that a Staff Advisor may be required to oversee a GSA against their religious principles. Don’t make shit up. Don’t tell them that it is a sex club. Or that kids are going to be forced to join GSAs. Or that “gay kids don’t get bullied any more than other groups”. That’s patently false.
- If you are an opposition MPP, don’t write a letter telling people a whole gaggle of bald-faced lies and logically disjointed arguments in an effort to sway opinion. It makes you look even more ignorant when you are expected to know better.
- If you are the opposition Conservatives- for the love of all that is sacred in this universe- do not introduce a competing bill that has multiple clauses stating “this legislation means absolutely fuck all”. The point of legislation is to legislate something. As near as I can tell, Bill 14 only actually legislates “Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week”. Everything else is just polite suggestions. For those who have better things to do with their lives than read Conservative toothless platitudes, let me sum it up in my revised preamble, then just click the link above and scroll to sections 303.1 (2), 303.2(5), and 303.2(7).
Preamble
Bullying, particularly in schools, has become an increasing problem in Canada. Victims of bullying have suffered mental anguish, bodily injury and even death at the hands of their tormentors. We as a society must at least feign concern, or else people might say we are heartless.
Bullying is a problem we don’t really want to solve. It can leave children with painful emotional and mental scarring and a lifelong struggle with self-esteem- but it also teaches some good life lessons. Like what to expect under a Conservative Government.
Bullies suffer as well, since bullying may be indicative of deeper psychological and emotional problems. Children who bully more frequently experience psychological problems later in life, such as aggressive tendencies and occasional symptoms of depression. Childhood bullies often display the same types of behaviour as adults and are found to be more likely to harass co-workers or commit spousal, child or senior abuse. So why are you picking on the poor bullies? They are only carrying out the natural social order. It is in this spirit that we introduce this anti-bully legislation. As a Government, we must send an ambiguous but public message that bullying can go on as usual, but we kind of don’t really like it. School officials must have tools in place, other than themselves, that they can use to consider, then disregard if they find cumbersome or inconvenient.
We need anti-bullying legislation that is going to take steps to fix a problem that has been- and will continue to be- with us since we came down from the trees. No one is saying that Bill 13 is going to end bullying. It is going to put the burden on teachers and administrators to act and intervene. It is going to make it illegal to brush it aside as the natural order. It is going to allow students to be proactive in reaching out to fellow students who need a safety net. It is going to allow students to do something about the ignorance and misinformation that exists around a certain flavour of being different.
Bill 13 may be the warning shot in the battle to remove public funding of the Catholic School Board in Ontario- but it won’t be the Province that does them in. It will be themselves. It will be a group that benefited from a gift of synthetic privilege that can’t see the reason for helping their own marginalized students. It will be a Church that wants to be the piglet that insists on being fed well without ever having to walk to the trough.
In Ontario, from now on at least, schools will be places that aren’t endemically homophobic, transphobic, or biphobic. It will be there, for sure, but the ignorance and hatred will be swimming against a current of tolerance. I couldn’t be happier.
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