‘Statistics can prove anything’ (and other fictions used by New Atheists)

March 31, 2015March 31, 2015 / egquillen / 3 Comments

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been spending my time recently trying to find video clips that might represent a ‘New Atheist discourse.’ This week, I selected a few examples in order to demonstrate how one might do bad scholarship. In fact, this post is perhaps just a continuation of my previous one on locating New Atheism within a discursive boundary demarcated by an ‘asshole’ mentality. Does this mean I think ‘bad scholars’ are ‘assholes?’ Maybe. It varies from day to day, and from scholar to scholar.

Let’s begin with Richard Dawkins. In the following clip Professor Dawkins is listing off a number of ‘religious things’ that offend him. Or, rather, that should offend us. While we might all ‘generally agree’ that these are certainly things that we should be offended by, were we to specify them as actions outside our own contextual boundaries about ‘ethics’ and ‘morality,’ the way that he shapes his argument is what shines through for me.

In the clip, he displays horrible atrocity after horrible atrocity while deftly (or, as he says it, ‘logically’) associating these things with ‘religious thinking.’ Then, he casually moves his argument toward a quote from Martin Amis, a rhetorical question about what a ‘secularist’ would shout when ‘cutting off an infidel’s head.’ To answer this question, he cites a ‘critic’ of Amis’ book, who responds: “they shout ‘Heil Hitler.'” Now, his argument is about Hitler, focused on whether or not he was an ‘Atheist,’ to which he easily declares that he was a Catholic. Or, at least his soldiers were. Likewise, he adds, even if he was an Atheist, that shouldn’t matter. He was also a vegetarian. He asks: “Does that suggest that vegetarians have a special tendency to be murderous, bigoted racists?” To which the audiences giggles at such audacity.

From here, he easily slides into his conclusive point:

The point is, that there is a logical pathway leading from religion to the committing of atrocities. It’s perfectly logical, if you believe that your religion is the right one, you believe that your God is the only God, and you believe that your God has ordered you through a priest or through a Holy Book, to kill somebody, to blow somebody up, to fly a plane into a skyscraper, then you are doing a righteous act. You’re a good person. You’re following your religious morality. There is no such logical pathway leading from Atheism and secularism to any such atrocious act. It just doesn’t follow.

Based on the evidence he provides, his argument appears sound. Of course, were we to test his argument against historical facts, not only would much of what he says be logically unsound, it would also be questionable on a vast number of theoretical points. For these reasons, we might ask, why did he not supply more evidence? Or conflicting evidence? Why would he use Hitler as an example, if the association of Hitler to ‘secularism’ is a “truly outrageous thing to say?” As well, could we not simply take his argument about the ‘logical pathway’ leading from ‘religion’ to the committing of atrocities and relate it to another evidential example, such as the State Atheism (Communism) of Albania, China, and Cuba, or the ‘secular revolutions’ of France and Mexico? Of course, to do this, we might be forced to define, via discursive and lexical examples, how those ‘Atheisms’ might represent some sort of ‘Atheism’ that we could then relate to that found in Britain or the United States. Then again, this takes work, to which, for logical reasons, I doubt Professor Dawkins is willing to commit. When it comes to this subject, he is a bad scholar.

I would argue that this is another trait of the ‘New Atheism’ presented by Dawkins, Harris, and a few others, such as Bill Maher. While Maher has been an Atheist advocate for some time now, his discursive alignment with the Atheism representative of Dawkins, et al. is not only established but their shared argumentation, but by their bad scholarship as well.

Here’s a handy example.

In an interview with Charlie Rose in 2014, Maher presents his position on religion (‘they’re all stupid’), and then turns the conversation (with the help of Charlie) toward religious violence. The essential point I will be focusing on here is a citation he makes to support his statement that Muslims, in general, ‘condone violence.’ When asked by Charlie, “how do you know that,” he states:

There’s a Pew Poll of Egypt done a few years ago, 82 percent I think it was, said, uh, stoning was the appropriate punishment for adultery. Over 80 percent thought, uh, death was the appropriate punishment for leaving the Muslim religion.

This statement is made at the 2:23 mark.

This citation returns a bit later on his own show on HBO, Real Time with Bill Maher. His guests for this episode are Sam Harris, Ben Affleck, Michael Steele, and Nicholas Kristof. Again, the discussion is on religious violence, predominately about ISIS, and the way that ‘liberals’ are failing to control this sort of ‘fundamentalism.’ The section of this clip that I will focus on here comes toward the end of the debate after Ben Affleck attempts to convey his own argument that Maher and Harris are simply being racially insensitive, and stretching their ideologies beyond reasonable limits. In reaction, Maher states:

No it’s not. It’s based on facts. I can show you a Pew Poll of Egyptians–they are not outliers in the Muslim world–that say like 90 percent of them believe that death is the appropriate response to leaving the religion. If 90 percent of Brazilians thought that death was the appropriate response to leaving Catholicism, you would think it was a bigger deal.

The specific statement occurs at the 8:02 mark.

While many of the rejoinders to Maher’s and Harris’ statements here about their ‘caricatures’ of religious individuals, as well as connections of this sort of language to ‘white racism against blacks’ in the United States, are indeed poignant responses, it is the statistics that Maher is using to defend his position that I think stand out the most.

On two occasions, when arguing that Muslims (or ‘Islam,’ since he tends to refer to the religion, rather than to religious individuals) are inherently violent, he has done so based on ‘facts.’ This is, of course, a good means of argumentation. It gives credence to one’s position, and grounds the statements made in a foundation of ‘truth.’

Of course, this only tends to work when those ‘facts’ remain details without any further elucidation.

With this in mind, and in considering that he has based his argument that ‘Islam’ is violent because a Pew Poll stated that a vast majority felt a certain way about using violence, let’s turn now to those facts themselves.

The poll cited was a part of a Pew Forum report on The World’s Muslims: Religion Politics, and Society conducted in 2011. The section Maher is referencing is Chapter 1: Beliefs about Sharia. In the first clip, he references the results about stoning as a punishment for adultery. Here is an image of that data:

In the first and the second clip, he refers as well to the punishment that should be given for leaving the Muslim faith. Here is that data:

While he is incorrect about the exact percentage, he is still fairly close to the actual numbers. Nevertheless, here is quantitative data, ‘fact,’ that he can use to support his argument. From this, we might agree that, yes, it seems that up to 80 or 90 percent of Egyptians believe the death penalty is the appropriate punishment for adultery or leaving the faith. He would be correct, then, in saying that, as an example, this supports the idea that ‘Islam’ is violent.

However, his statement begins to turn into a ‘caricature’ when we look at the actual numbers polled. Here is an image taken of Appendix C: Survey Method that gives the specifics about the data itself:

Likewise, here is an image of the sample size that make up the data:

As we can see, the data itself is representative of a sample size, meaning it should not be used as a representation of all people in Egypt, let alone all Muslims. Furthermore, this is data based on face-to-face interactions over a single month. It would be impossible in that time to actually poll the roughly 79,000,000 people who lived in Egypt in 2011. As well, the two responses concerning the death penalty for adultery and leaving the faith are based on individuals who ‘say sharia should be the law of the land.’ These details do not support his argument in the way that he has made it.

I should add here that this is not meant as a critique of this sort of data, nor of the utility in gathering and using such quantitative information. Rather, I’d argue it provides a bit of a caveat about mis-using it. This is evinced best, I think, by how Maher does exactly that. That is, if he were to re-word his statement, the resulting conversation might be a bit more effective. Perhaps something like this:

Of the Egyptian people polled in 2011 who thought Sharia should be the law of the land, 80-90 percent of them stated the death penalty was an appropriate response to actions we here in America might find unethical because of our differing political context. While this is merely a sample size and should not be considered a representation of the 79 million people living in Egypt, let alone the billion Muslims worldwide, I still think it provides an interesting entry point to a discussion we could have on the way this sort of discourse might influence how Islam is perceived, both in and out of the context in which these answers are given.

Instead, he chose a different approach:

It’s the only religion that acts like the mafia, that will fucking kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write the wrong book (6:40 in the third clip).

Again, this is bad scholarship.

The caricatures created by both Dawkins and Maher in these examples reflect a certain type of discourse. This is, I’d argue, a result of the way they use ‘data’ and ‘facts’ to support their argument, rather than the other way around. Which, additionally, damages what they have to say. Instead, they come across as equally fundamentalist in their thinking as the people they are arguing against, using bad scholarship to support their opinions. In this same way they are telling a particular story about themselves, and about how they construct their discourse, much in the same way the individuals who responded to the Egyptian poll have provided a certain story that we might, were we so inclined, use to interpret them in an equally general (and incorrect) manner.

Comedic Criticism: A Discursive Source of Atheism

March 24, 2015March 24, 2015 / egquillen / 3 Comments

In our tutorials for Atheism in Debate this last week we discussed Feuerbach. The week before that was Strauss, and before that was Hegel. Understandably, its usually around this point where the energy of the course begins to wane. In order to try and remedy this, I tend to use video clips, usually of one of the four ‘New Atheists,’ to break up the monotony of just talking about the reading. For this round of clips I tried to find ways to connect the ‘anthropomorphism’ of Feuerbach’s deconstructive theory about religion being ‘human nature reflected, mirrored in itself,’ with the way Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens diminish religion to infantile self-creations. For those interested, these are the clips that I chose:

As I was searching for these I came across this interesting video:

Here was a listicle of ‘Generation Xero Film’s’ “Top Ten Anti-Religion Comedy Routines.” This got me thinking. What is the difference between these ‘comedy routines’ and the statements being made by the ‘New Atheists?’ Are they not equally ‘scripted’ critiques of religion? Do they not function the same way as the rhetorical use of the ‘Atheist discourse‘ being presented by Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens?

I thought I’d look into this a bit more.

I came across the work of Patrick McKearney at the University of Cambridge who, for a few years, was the ‘Atheist comedy guy.’ Aside from the four conference presentations he gave on the subject (“Public Belief and Civil Society: A Case-Study of Contemporary Anti-Religious Stand-Up Comedy;” “The Ridicule of Religion in Contemporary British and Irish Stand-Up Comedy;” “‘What are you laughing at?’ The Role of Ridicule in Non-religious Identity Formation;” “Methods for Investigating Non-religiosity in Stand-up Comedy”), he also participated in a BBC 4 discussion on Comedy and Religion, and published two articles on the subject in The Guardian (“Heard the One about the Pope?”) and Varsity, the independent student newspaper for the University of Cambridge (“Slap in the Faith“). The latter is focused on issues of comedic criticism and the reactions we might see in fundamentalist religion striking back (such as we saw with the attacks against Charlie Hebdo a few months back).

Likewise, my good friend Katie Aston deals with this a little bit in her Doctoral Thesis.

So how might these comedic criticisms present a useful example of an Atheist discourse? I believe the answer lies in some specificity. For pragmatic reasons, then, I will be using two methodological points made by Norman Fairclough in his Analysing Discourse (2003).

First, in consideration of the utility of discourse analysis in the study of texts, let’s broaden our conception of that term itself:

“written and printed texts such as shopping lists and newspaper articles are ‘texts’, but so also are transcripts of (spoken) conversations and interviews, as well as television programmes and web-pages” (Fairclough, 2003, 4).

In this way, these video clips, as edited versions of the stand-up comedian’s routine, are texts, filled with, and exemplary of, particular ‘language in use.’ In other words: ‘discourse.’

Second, let’s specify how we might more directly consider these texts via a three-part interpretation:

“the production of the text, the text itself, and the reception of the text” (Fairclough, 2003, 10)

In this way, we can be a bit more specific about the discourse being used, as well as establish a contextual boundary within which it emerged, was presented, and subsequently received.

These things established, let’s look at three examples, two of which were also on ‘Generation Xero Film’s’ “Top Ten Anti-Religion Comedy Routines.”

The first comes from Ricky Gervais, and focuses on a critical analysis of the Biblical story of Noah’s Ark:

The second comes from Bill Maher, and focuses on examples of religion ‘doing harm:’

The third, and perhaps most famous, comes from George Carlin, and focuses on religion as ‘bullshit:’

From out of a cursory analysis of these three clips as ‘texts,’ we can establish a number of discursive specifics:

Each are reactionary, and thus present a criticism directed at a particular subject.
- The first (Gervais) presents a critical assessment of the fictionality and inherent unbelievability of a Biblical myth through the lens of modernity.
- The second (Maher) is directed at issues of morality, and the fact, as he sees it, that ‘religion’ is harmful and immoral.
- The third (Carlin), like Maher, presents a critical assessment of the harmful and equally immoral dangers of religion/religious belief (though with the caveat that his ‘Sun Worship’ (not ‘prayer-to’) is still practical.
The ‘religion’ of their collective criticisms is somewhat vague, though we can presume via their language they are reacting against a particular monotheism, likely Christianity (though Maher intermixes this with critiques of Islam).
While seemingly problematic, these differences tell us a great deal about their contextual discursive language use. Gervais’ routine was given in 2010, the same year as Maher’s. Carlin’s routine comes from 1999. So, we might concede that Gervais’ and Maher’s routines stem from a ‘New Atheist,’ or post-September 11th discourse, though that might be presuming a bit much.
However, simply as ‘texts,’ they do not tell us much about their ‘Atheisms.’ Yes, we might assume (or presume) that they are being inherently ‘Atheist’ by means of their criticisms, it is not as specific as, say, an informant telling us about his or her ‘Atheist identity,’ and how he or she has constructed that identity in a specific way.

So how might we use them as textual discursive sources? By taking up Fairclough’s three-part interpretive method, we can begin to shift them from mere textual examples to more direct discursive ones.

Learning about how they were produced (written) we can learn a great deal about the individuals doing the writing, the context that writing took place, the type of Atheism they themselves identify with, and the influences that shaped their texts based on that type of Atheism.
Then, our cursory analysis (such as above) becomes a bit more nuanced.
Finally, we can look at how they are received by individuals (audience or viewers) who equally identify as ‘Atheist,’ while equally deciphering how these texts assist these individuals in their own identity constructions.

By weaving these together, we begin to form a much clearer (in my opinion, at least) conception of ‘Atheism,’ such as we might use to better understand the discursive elements that influence the New Atheist clips presented above. While this isn’t a better means of approach then conducting interviews and ethnographically shaping a textual representation, as a means of understanding the discourse that might underscore or influence the identities that make up such an ethnographic textual representation, this seems quite beneficial. Likewise, I believe this works much better than merely speculating or theoretically stipulating what we think these sorts of things (like Atheism) mean, and is therefore a much more useful (and, to be honest, more enjoyable) means of researching precarious concepts such as ‘religion’ or ‘Atheism.’

Norman Fairclough, Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research (London: Routledge, 2003).

*As an extra bonus, here is an animated version of Louis CK (who is not an Atheist) talking about ‘God as a shitty girlfriend,’ and the oddity of ‘saying Jesus Christ with a shitty attitude.’

Assholes: A Theory of New Atheism

January 20, 2015January 21, 2015 / egquillen / 7 Comments

Is New Atheism New?

This week we begin a new semester of tutoring, and for the third time I have the privilege to tutor on a course at New College called ‘Atheism in Debate: Dawkins and his Allies.’ While the last two versions of this course have found progressive successes, not only in bringing in students, but also in how the content is presented, there have been, as might be expected, a few complaints.[1] However, overall it would seem a marginal success.

Of all the discussion points that resurface each year, one has perhaps been brought up more often than any others: the question of comparison. How, we are often asked, are the New Atheists similar to the ‘old’ ones? Or, said otherwise, how is New Atheism in any way ‘new?’ These are indeed precarious questions. After all, when we look at the larger discourse that feeds into the definition of Atheism, we might argue that, in fact, New Atheism is not all that new. Rather, and as our course tends to conclude, New Atheism is merely the repetition of many of the facets of ‘old’ Atheism.

For instance, one might consider the philosophical positions of those who contribute to the discourse that forms this ‘old’ Atheism, such as Voltaire, Hume, Strauss, Marx, Feuerbach, Hegel, or Nietzsche, in comparison to the critiques made by the New Atheists. Many of these same thoughts are, presumably, ‘recycled.’

However, I might offer a discursive defence of New Atheism here. Yes, we might see similarities between these two Atheisms, or even almost identical critiques in Harris’ The End of Faith or Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Yet, I would argue this sort of criticism overlooks the much larger distinction of contextualization, so that, even though the criticisms made by these ‘New Atheists’ seem like recycled arguments from the ‘old Atheists,’ they are still being made in completely different contextual milieux. The time in which Strauss was writing his Life of Jesus, or Voltaire his Candide is not the same as the context that birthed Dennett’s Breaking the Spell or Hitchens’ God is not Great. That is, while I would agree that through comparison we might not find anything inherently ‘new’ about New Atheism, I would also concede that it arose out of an entirely different time and place, and thus offers us, if nothing else, an insight into that context so that we might locate why and how these particular critiques took shape.

In this way, the New Atheism is a discursive product. The language used is that of particular individuals in a particular time, and in particular places. For me, then, trying to compare or contrast the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ fundamentally overlooks the fact that comparisons are not necessary, and, what’s worse, can become abstractions, distracting us from finding value in each of these ‘types’ of Atheism as discursive or cultural data. Yet, New Atheism as a title still persists. Is that a wholly negative issue? Yes and no. On one end, giving even a nominal distinction to this discursive sample engenders a dichotomous perspective, demanding a comparison, and leading us back to those same abstractions where we might find ourselves lost amongst an apologetical argument that one is more ‘genuine’ or ‘original’ than the other. On the other end, we have the issue of too slack a distinction.

In this way, we might find ourselves, such as occurs in the larger discussion of the definitions of Atheism or ‘religion,’ with having to contend with the differentiation between ‘nominal’ and ‘virtual’ terminology: the former denoting a word that can be used in any number of iterations, and the latter denoting a use of that word in a more unique or specific way (see Jenkins 2008). This also brings us into discussions about the differences between real or essential definitions (terms that act to summarise the ‘essence’ of a thing) and lexical or historical ones (terms that have particular meaning to particular individuals at particular times [see Baird 1991]). While these are worthwhile discussions, and are quite pertinent to the issue at hand, this is neither the time nor place to truly devote our attention to such issues. Rather, I will from here on adopt a perspective that might be deemed more on the side of the virtual or lexical, and try to make some sense out of the persistent question concerning the ‘newness’ of New Atheism within the context of it as a discursive source.

Assholes: A Theory

The erudite and somewhat famous theorist of religion, Ninian Smart, was said to have a method of teaching that perfectly exemplified his notion of epoche. A practice employed by researchers and lecturers, ‘epoche’ essentially means the suspension of one’s disbelief, a pragmatic mindset utilised in order to remove the individual from either interpreting or presenting the concept religion with any sort of confessional bias. For Smart, this did not mean the complete abandonment of one’s personal beliefs, but rather was a means with which the researcher/lecturer might objectively approach a subject like religion without muddling the data with subjective opinions.

After all, we might remark, studying something is not the same as advocating it, just as studying that same thing is not the same as being without an opinion about it. It’s a fine line, indeed, but in the pursuit of objectivity it’s always useful to recognise and acknowledge the utility of these sorts of distinctions.

As the stories go, Smart would stand on one side of the lectern (let’s say the right) when lecturing, giving ‘just the facts.’ When asked, or when he felt inclined to do so, he would switch to the other side (the left) and give his opinion. This bipolarity would, one might imagine, be quite entertaining, especially when dealing with religious beliefs and practices that might seem ‘taboo’ or ‘provocative’ to a particular audience. For my intentions herein, this little anecdote is quite useful. While I (on the right side) approach Atheism as a discursive term, something that is imbued with meaning through the use of particular language by particular people in particular times and places, and thus approach it with a strict objectivity, that doesn’t mean that on the left side I do not have an opinion of my own. However, I also might acknowledge that a strict binary between these sides is not always the most useful. Thus, the following theoretical approach might be best understood as a sort of ‘tacking,’ a ‘back-and-forth’ approach that demonstrates both a right and left side perspective.

For me, what makes New Atheism new is that the New Atheists are assholes.

In his, Assholes: A Theory, the political philosopher Aaron James defines an asshole as someone not only immune to his or her own criticisms, but who, when criticised with the same sort of language, feels that he or she is, in fact, an unprovoked victim. In summary, his brief definition states:

Our theory is simply this: a person counts as an asshole when, and only when, he systematically allows himself to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that immunises him against the complaints of other people. (4-5)

More focused on a few ‘stereotypical’ examples, such as demonstrated by individuals like US General Stanley McChrystal, US General Douglas MacArthur, Silvio Berlusconi, Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Donald Trump, Simon Cowell, Mel Gibson, and Ann Coulter, an asshole is someone who, like these individuals, believes their opinion to not only be correct, but infallible via a sense of privilege. In three parts, this is as follows:

(1) allows himself to enjoy special advantages and does so systematically;

(2) does this out of an entrenched sense of entitlement; and

(3) is immunised by his sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people. (5)

To further define this individual, and in order to lead me toward my association of New Atheism and James’ theory itself, he offers a few more examples:

So, for example, the asshole is the person who habitually cuts in line. Or who frequently interrupts in a conversation. Or who weaves in and out of lanes in traffic. Or who persistently emphasises another person’s faults. Or who is extremely sensitive to perceived slights while being oblivious to his crustiness with others. (5)

Now, to differentiate the asshole from, say, a ‘jerk,’ the former is defined by inclinations or incentives:

What distinguishes the asshole is the way he acts, the reasons that motivate him to act in an abusive and arrogant way. the asshole acts out a firm sense that he is special, that the normal rules of conduct do not apply to him. (5-6)

Thus, because the asshole is immune to his or her own criticism, and because he or she sees him or herself as unique or different or special, he or she equally becomes incensed by the beliefs or opinions of others:

Because the asshole sets himself apart from others, he feels entirely comfortable flouting accepted social conventions, almost as a way of life. Most important, he lives this way more or less out in the open. He stands unmoved when people indignantly glare or complain. He is ‘immunised’ against anyone who speaks up, being quite confident that he has little need to respond to questions about whether the advantages he allows himself are acceptable and fair. Indeed, he will often himself feel indignant when questions about his conduct are raised. (6)

New Atheism and Assholes:

New Atheists are assholes because their language (discourse) is imbued with the sort of criticism James associates with the definition above. They are overly critical of a particular position, and yet they feel as if they are immune to counter criticism because their position is incapable of being incorrect.

This is partly shaped by the style of their arguments, the way they seem, with such ease and skill, to set up straw man positions, only to easily knock them down. Look at Harris’ opening characterisation in The End of Faith. After giving a short description of a young man who has detonated himself on a full public bus, he casually, with almost Dan Brown efficiency, refers to these as ‘the facts:’

These are the facts. This is all we know for certain about the young man. Is there anything else that we can infer about him on the basis of his behavior? Was he popular in school? Was he rich or was he poor? Was he of low or high intelligence? His actions leave no clue at all. Did he have a college education? Did he have a bright future as a mechanical engineer? His behavior is simply mute on questions of this sort, and hundreds like them. Why is it so easy, then, so trivially easy—you-could-almost-bet-your-life-on- it easy—to guess the young man’s religion? (11)

In a note at the end of this characterisation, he offers a description and some details about a Sri Lankan separatist movement known as the Liberations Tigers of Tamil Eelam. However, this does not mean that the description of the young man on the bus is in any way based in fact. We might ask, why? Why not just provide a detailed and cited description? Why make something up?

As an introductory statement about his treatment of ‘religion’ this fictionalisation perhaps best describes his asshole nature. Rather than engage with these sorts of atrocities in a manner that might be conducive to a rational or objective criticism, he instead creates a violent example that he then uses to demonstrate his larger criticism of religion as inherently violent. As he blithely states with the cited paragraph above, associating this sort of action with religion is a trivial connection, so easy, in fact, you could bet your life on it.

While each of the four New Atheists (which I would argue wholly embody the concept ‘New Atheism)’ use this same sort of argument in their own ways, they are not equal in their assholeness. In fact, Dennett, whose career as a philosopher has distinguished him as a rather erudite examiner of cognition and scientific philosophy seems somewhat out-of-place in this discourse. Aside from the fact that his argument in Breaking the Spell that religion could, and should, be scientifically examined, might be roughly dismissed if someone merely walked him across his campus to the Religious Studies department, the language he uses is not altogether that of an asshole. On the other hand, Dawkins is perhaps the larger asshole of the group. Though Hitchens comes in a close second, Dawkins’ vocal and vehement language, as well as his seemingly evangelical passion, easily characterises his asshole nature. In fact, as perhaps the predominant voice in shaping the New Atheist discourse, his being an asshole is what really shapes this discourse in this way.

There are a myriad of examples to cite here. Perhaps too many. Here are just a few.

One of the possible reasons Dawkins seems like such an asshole is the fact that in his obsession with arguing the inherent violence and uselessness of religion, he is betraying the objectivity of his position as a biologist. One might even ask why a biologist would be in any way interested in religion, which is all too obvious given his extremely poor, almost amateur level of criticism in The God Delusion. What’s interesting here, though, is that his need to point out the problems of religion seems to overpower his notion that there is, in fact, grandeur to be found in his scientific worldview. Look at the opening discussion in the trailer of his and Lawrence Krauss’ The Unbelievers:

When asked which is more important, teaching the beauty and majesty of science, or ‘destroying religion,’ his hesitation, and then later acceptance toward the latter, is quite telling. First off, why would anyone assume that he might actually be able to do so, even with the power of scientific discovery on his side? Second, rather than promoting something that he finds more useful or beneficial than religion, he would prefer the latter, to point out the negative aspects instead. A clear ‘asshole move.’

Interestingly, his asshole nature is even utilised by others. For example, in the first year of our course on Atheism in Debate, one of our guest lecturers played the following video clip, not just because it provides a useful sample of the sort of ‘asshole Atheism’ that Dawkins himself seems to promote, but because it equally demonstrates how his Atheism is used by others to facilitate debate.

The part of this clip discussed in that lecture begins around the 2:40 mark. Dawkins has joined the circle ‘on stage’ and immediately begins his all too expected attack on religion, particularly aimed at mormonism, embodied by another guest, Brandon Flowers (the lead singer of The Killers). Note the way he describes the Book of Mormon as a ‘modern fake,’ the product of a charlatan or crook, the way he vehemently attacks his opponent with no real provocation.

This not only demonstrates Dawkins’ asshole nature, it also exhibits the way he represents a discursive entity. Judging by the way this conversation goes, by the way it is directed by the host, by what Dawkins says, and the fact the Brandon is given really no time to defend himself, this clip provides for us an insight into how others view and use particular discourses to their benefit. As the signature asshole Atheist, Dawkins has become a useful example. He is placed across an adherent to a religious belief system that he would, presumably, disagree with, and is then prompted to respond about Mormonism as if the person across from him stands as an equal representative of his objections. One could even hypothesise that prior to his joining the group ‘on stage’ he was prepared ‘backstage’ with points about the discussion, yet not told, perhaps pragmatically, that his opponent in this debate would be whisked away without given the chance to respond. In fact, around the 4:46 and 5:00 minute mark it looks almost as if Dawkins is embarrassed by his actions, even apologising to Brandon, as if he was unaware that he would be leaving without the chance to defend himself.

This gives us a glimpse at the asshole realising he has been an asshole, and then regretting, even briefly, his asshole nature.

As a last example, we might look at his ever-entertaining comments on twitter, two of which should suffice for this analysis. The first, focused on his opinion about aborting a child discovered to have Down Syndrome, presents the sort of language inherent in James’ definitions above.

While the opening line is a somewhat benign representation of someone’s opinion, its the second part of the tweet that truly demonstrates his sense of immunised and entitled beliefs. Perhaps this is reading a bit too much into the ‘tone’ of the words here, but it nonetheless reads like a pre-emptive defence of what he might perceive as an attack on his equitable logic.

Next, we have his opinion on rape. While we could easily discuss the way he might be categorising different ‘types’ of rape here, its really his response that earns his language here true asshole status.

Again, the tone is pre-emptive. It even inspired a secondary rejoinder:

His tone here, his inability to accept that what he has said might be misconstrued or misunderstood outside of his initial intention, not only shows a lack of empathy, but also a type of arrogance, a refusal to acknowledge that his language might be understood in a malignant manner. In other words, it reads like the words of an asshole.

Are Atheists Assholes?

There is perhaps an easy comparison to be made between the asshole mentality of New Atheism and the criticism that shapes Atheism-in-general. Atheism is, if we define the term within the context of a modern world, a position built upon the rejection or denial of another person’s position. It is, in this modern manifestation, an ‘A-Theism,’ and is thus dependent upon Theism in order to exist. This, then, makes it a critical position. After all, to be simply ‘without God,’ an etymological reading of the term promoted by advocates of separating the concept between positive (explicit) and negative (implicit) notions, is not the same thing as shaping one’s identity on the belief that another’s belief is not true.

So are Atheists assholes? If so, is the asshole nature of New Atheism proof of this? That is, as New Atheism is a lexical example of Atheism-in-general, does it not depict the latter as having an inherent asshole nature?

No. Or maybe. That’s not really my point here.

Rather, my use of the theory of the asshole has not meant to impute this notion onto Atheists or Theists, or anyone in a ‘general’ sense. Instead, I have used it herein to dictate a particular discursive source, to create a border around a distinct lexical field, so that we might make better sense of a smaller part of the larger Atheist whole. As a discursive unit, the asshole nature of New Atheism does not necessarily mark it as ‘new’ in the sense that it is in any way different or unique from the ‘old’ Atheism. Nor should it be seen as a definitional assessment of Atheism in a general manner. Alternatively, its use as a boundary marker represents a type of utility, a pragmatic separation used not so much to acknowledge New Atheism as new, but as a distinct discourse in and of itself.