Category: Blogmeta

0 Signal boost: Maryam and Black Skeptics

November 8, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta

So technically the content of the e-mails sent back and forth between my fellow FTBorgs is confidential. This is as much for your protection as it is for ours – Jason’s posts are essentially nothing but profanity, punctuated with enough bestiality porn to make 4chan blush. However, I will tell you that, behind the scenes, the phrase “impostor syndrome” is getting thrown around a lot, as we have just picked up a new slew of really impressive bloggers.

Everyone go say hi to Black Skeptics and Maryam Namazie.

Black Skeptics: I’m not going to lie here – feeling a little insecure at having these powerhouses blogging right next to me, but at the same time I am super-pumped that I am on their team. I’m particularly excited that we’re going to have more discussions of race and race issues, because (obviously) I think it’s the next big component we need to add to our skeptical lexicon. While I’m tempted to say it’s nice to have backup, it’s far more likely that I’ll be the one providing playing Goose to their Maverick (huh?).

Maryam Namazie: What is there to say about Maryam Namazie that hasn’t already been said about The Grand Canyon? She’s deep, she’s impressive, and everyone should check her out before they die. It’s great that we’re picking up an international flavour (which is to say, outside North America), and Maryam is, more than anyone else here, highly qualified to speak about Islamism with authority and proper nuance.

The Freethought Blogs brand is gaining credibility by leaps and bounds. It’s forcing me to up my game (an arms race for which I have coined the phrase “mutually assured construction”). For you, dear reader, this means naught but good stuff coming your way.

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6 So apparently bribes are in order

October 19, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta

I didn’t get the memo. This is odd, because there are a good 20-odd memos that the authors at FTB send back and forth each day (for example, yesterday’s involved a discussion of cruel childhood nicknames, and which type of porn pays more money – very crucial stuff). I didn’t realize that blog ~~arch-rivals~~ colleagues and valued friends Dana Hunter over at In Tequila es Verdad and the ~~dastardly and conniving~~ forthright and plain-spoken JT Eberhard at WWJTD would begin BRIBING their readers to shell out cash to their ~~illegal money-laundering outfits~~ Donors Choose campaigns.

Dana shamelessly promises the following:

So. Incentives. I shall give thee incentives, because this is something we should all do together.

1. I’ll write a short story for the highest donor. You can even choose the subject, if you like, and you’ll get a paper copy complete with autograph, if you wish. You’ll have to give me until the end of the year, because I’m stupid enough to try NaNo this November, but I’ll have it written and sent to you in January. Yes, I will haul my arse to the hated post office just for you.

2. The second-highest donor will get a personally-collected hand sample. That’s right! I’ll post a list of places I’m going this summer (once I know what they are!), and you tell me what hunk o’ beautiful geology you want me to package up and mail to you.

3. I’ll match 4 (count them, 4) donations of $50. So you $50 folk get to double your money! Don’t let that stop you from donating more, of course! And if you guys manage to fund these projects before I can whip my credit card out, you can each pick a project of your own for me to donate to.

4. Starving Students Offer: Those of you too strapped for cash to manage more than small donations can still get a little something! Send me an email telling me what you’re studying, why you chose your major, and why you donated, and I’ll showcase you guys on the site. Plus, I’ll write a poem for the person whose note makes me punch the air and shout, “Yes! Science can haz future!” Same caveats apply as the short story deal.

5. I’ve also got some super-snazzy Mount St. Helens posters, so all who have donated to any of our projects and want their names in for that have a chance at winning one of Mother Earth’s great works of art. Yahoo knows me as dhunterauthor.

While the cunning JT vows to bestow his own gifts:

I’ll also give some incentives above and beyond general altruism (and the fact that you probably want non-crappy music to put on your ipods in the future). If we hit $2,000, I will produce a karaoke video of singing nothing but Nsync songs all night. I’ll even learn some of the dances.

If you donate $50, I’ll let you pick a song for me to record (if I don’t know it, I’ll learn it).

If you donate $500, I will write a song about you and record it.

Well, the gauntlet has been thrown down! I know that my readers are above such petty attempts at bribery, because you are moral and altruistic people (did I forget to mention really good-looking?). However, I also know that if a bribe is offered, you wouldn’t be so rude as to turn it down. After all, you might hurt the briber’s feelings. So here’s the deal. I don’t have a lot of stuff to give you, but I can do this. The three highest donors will receive signed copies of the CROWN EP record, as well as some pretty fancy CROWN swag. The top donor will also receive an advance copy of our debut full-length record (recording starts in January). If that top donor pledges more than $75, I will harangue the other guys into learning and performing a song of that Donor’s Choice (see what I did there)?

Dig deep, Cromrades! You wouldn’t want to get beaten by ~~a flippin’ geologist and a musician~~ two worthy and respectable adversaries, would you?

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2 I still want your moneys

October 12, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta

I have been remiss in plugging my DonorsChoose widget and project selection. Aside from a cutesy announcement last week, I haven’t done a very good job in explaining why I chose humanities over science. It’s not simply because I am vociferously staking out my position within the FTB network as a contrarian, although that is probably part of it. It’s because I am a passionate believer in the value of the humanities.

We, as a society, keep expending precious energy and human capital fighting old battles. When I read the newspapers, particularly the politics sections, George Santayana’s maxim “the one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again” repeatedly pops into my head (although apparently that isn’t what it means). Our pathetic knowledge of where we have been as a society and as a species leads us to run down the same blind alleys again and again. Our lack of knowledge about how human beings behave leads us to pie-in-the-sky policies that only work if human beings adhere to a rigid narrative of either decency/rationality/vice/whatever. Our inability to learn from our past mistakes puts us in the dangerous position of repeating them, often with disastrous result.

Science is a wonderful tool – possibly the most important discovery humanity has ever made. Science is, however, only one aspect of an underlying process of relying on evidence, reason and rigour when deciding what is true and what is false. Taught properly, the humanities incorporate this process and help us tie together disparate narratives of what has happened, and what is happening. When applied to literature, it helps us understand the context of great works in order to further our understanding of the subjective realities of our fellow creatures. When applied to philosophy, it allows us to critique ideas based on their utility and how closely they reflect the observed world. When applied to history, it allows us to construct a cohesive picture of how things came to be the way they are, based on all the evidence rather than just some.

Training in the humanities, most importantly, helps nurture our ability to construct rational arguments. To take several facts or pieces of evidence and synthesize them in such a way as to allow others to understand a position that may be foreign to them. In a time when the barrier between the average (first-world) person and new ideas is nearly non-existent, and when these ideas often conflict with each other, it is more crucial than ever to defend those aspects of inquiry which foster critical thinking, and allow us to present ideas coherently. This is a job for the humanities.

So please consider donating a few dollars (if you can) to the worthy causes indexed within the DonorsChoose project.

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10 Hangin’ with Hitchens

October 9, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta

I don’t have a lot of ‘favourites’ – I usually find such rankings to be overly reductive. I like many different kinds of things for different reasons, and any single one that I rank as #1 will be an inaccurate label. From the list of writers that I most admire and try to emulate, however, Christopher Hitchens sits among the upper echelon (so too, incidentally, does Greta Christina). He has a talent for wielding the English language the way an artist does a paintbrush – making the rendering of ideas into words beautiful and evocative far beyond mere semantics. He is the kind of writer who could use his words to so utterly excoriate you that you undergo an existential crisis, but to whom you would be grateful afterward for the experience. So, it was with great joy that I picked up my latest treasure from the framing store today:

I purchased this brilliant portrait from a San Francisco artist called Adrian Covert. Here is the description of the piece:

Hitchens is depicted making a point, while toasting his Johnny Walker Black & Perrier. He has what appears to be a halo behind his head, but that’s just superstition. His suit is designed using collage from the writings of Albert Einstein, Richard Dawkins, Salman Rushdie, David Hume, Mark Twain, and John Updike. The background is designed using collage from the King James Bible and the Holy Koran. For reasons both ethical and artistic, no books were harmed in the creation of this painting, or of these prints.

Hitch now proof-reads all my posts as I sit in my living room chair, looking over my shoulder and exhorting me to find ever-better ways of putting my thoughts into the language he loves so dear. Here’s a version without me in it:

Hitch on the Wall — “Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.” - Christopher Hitchens

h/t – Hemant Mehta, Friendly Atheist

28 Mixed feelings about my new home – a follow-up

October 3, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta · critical thinking · race · racism

I was reading over this morning’s post and I realized there’s one last thing that I’m not looking forward to, and it deserves it own post. Readers who have followed me here from the old blog will have heard me discuss this issue a million times, but new readers may not have thought about it.

I am not all black people.

I realize this statement is so obvious as to be nearly ridiculous, but I will explain what I mean. My experience has been that people are really shy when it comes to discussing race, regardless of their background. This is understandable – racism has left a psychological scar on our society for generations and is an ongoing source of strife. When someone is willing to talk about it, people are uncomfortable at first. Once the initial reluctance wears off, people then launch into a long list of questions that they didn’t realize they’d always had.

I’m sure you are familiar with this phenomenon if you are the only atheist in your social circle. Making your faithlessness plain to your friends shocked them a bit at first, but eventually you had to start fielding questions. Some of them were out of genuine, benign curiosity (“so are you at least spiritual?”), while others were a bit more hostile (“so what, you think I’m just a piece of soulless meat?”). If you were the only atheist they knew, you started getting confessions about how they had doubts, or attempts to proselytize to draw you back in, or unsolicited opinions about how much they hate Richard Dawkins, or whatever. You became the one-stop shop for questions about atheism.

In the same way, the first person to poke their head out and talk about the taboo of race gets that kind of attention. … Continue Reading

7 GIVE ME YOUR MONEYS

October 3, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta

Hello readers.

Look to the right of your screen. Now back here. Now back to the right. What do you see? It’s a DonorsChoose widget, where you can donate money to a worthy cause.

Look back to me. What’s in my hand? It’s educational opportunities for children. Look again – the opportunities are in the humanities.

I’m on a blog.

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29 Mixed feelings about my new home

October 3, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta · crommunism · hate · race · racism

I started this blog less than 2 years ago, partially in a misguided attempt to impress a girl (how could that possibly have failed to work?), but also because I had some encouragement from friends who liked the kinds of topics I would talk about in periodic Facebook notes. I had also just moved and had started a new chapter in my life – I thought it was worthwhile to write some things down. In that short time my writings have attracted a small but loyal following, and I’ve been lucky enough to place them on a variety of platforms aside from my lowly former home at WordPress. Most recently, this includes a regular gig here at FreeThoughtBlogs.

When I was first invited to write here, I was delirious with happiness. Who would have thought that a pup like me would get a chance to run with the big dogs? How amazing it would be to get a big of splashover traffic from Pharyngula or from Dispatches? What a great chance for me to rub shoulders with people who I’d previously only been able to quietly admire from afar! And hey, maybe I’ll get a couple of bucks out of the deal too! Because I’m not an idiot, I said yes almost immediately.

But as the date for the launch grew closer and closer, I began to feel my anxiety grow. Blogging is not a game for the thin-skinned, to be sure. When you put your ideas out into the world, provided you actually care about your ideas, opening them up to the scrutiny of anyone who happens to pass by is a pretty daunting prospect. Imagine literally living in a glass house, where every move you make could be scrutinized by your neighbours or just people strolling down the street – people who feel entitled to spraypaint their opinions of you on your walls. Now, if you live out in the boondocks (as I have up until now), this kind of exposure might not be a big deal. After all, it’s the same few people passing by, and they’ve seen your man-boobs before – whatevs. Now I was being offered a similarly-transparent accommodation, but this time in a bustling metropolis.

Anyway, I thought I would take this opportunity to share with you some of the thoughts that have been cropping up in the ol’ noodle over the past few weeks. … Continue Reading

25 Welcome to the Crommunist Manifesto

October 1, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta

Hello everyone. Words really cannot express how flattered and excited I am to be included with some of my favourite bloggers here at FreeThoughtBlogs. This is a problem, because as a blogger, it’s sort of my job to express things in words. Despite this disappointing shortcoming on my part, I am overwhelmingly grateful to have you cast your eyes on this humble page. You probably have questions, and I will do my best to anticipate and answer them.

Who the hell are you?

I go by the handle ‘Crommunist’, not as a poorly-veiled allusion to any particular political philosophy (besides the one of my own devising), but because my last name (Cromwell) was shorted in youth to ‘Crommie’. When a friend astutely pointed out how this made me sound like ‘Commie’, I seized upon the opportunity to re-brand myself online as Crommunist. I am a health services researcher living and working in Vancouver, Canada. When I am not working, I am also a part-time musician and member of the Vancouver branch of the Centre for Inquiry.

What makes you think you deserve to be here?

I’ve been blogging steadily since March, 2010, but my intermittant blog career stretches back nearly a decade. The Manifesto originally began as an opportunity to clarify some thoughts and ongoing questions that I’d been having with issues I felt were important, and quickly morphed into a platform for me to discuss issues of race, religion, politics, law, sex, and a whole host of other topics. Since my humble beginnings, I’ve had my skeptical activity and arguments featured on Pharyngula, been a guest feature on Friendly Atheist and Skeptic Money, as well as anti-racist blog Racialicious. I’m also a regular author on Canadian Atheist.

The FTB powers that be first extended me an invitation back in July to contribute here. I have been a fly on the wall of many of the blogs here at the FTB collective both before and after launch, but I strongly suspect that I had a patron who lobbied for my inclusion. I will not name who I suspect this party to be, but I will say that I will make it my business not to disappoint her/him.

Why should I read/what are your qualifications?

I have been derided on the occasions where my work has been featured outside of my personal site as an ‘unqualified blogger’. I will be the first to admit (in fact, I had admitted long before I received any such attention) that my academic qualifications are modest and ancillary to most of my blog topics. I am aware that this makes my work completely unpalatable to the upper crust of those who read blogs. If you are one of those, I apologize for being a person who has ideas without the credentials to back up such conceit. If you are someone who is able to evaluate ideas based on their content and not their speaker, then I invite your critical eye.

As for why you should read this blog, the main bread and butter of the Crommunist Manifesto has to do with race, racism, and race issues. While I cannot claim a degree in these topics, I have spent a lifetime agonizing over these realities and what they’ve meant for me personally. I would never dream of claiming that my personal experience can be abstracted to every black person on the planet (in fact it’s probably fairly atypical). However, while there are lots of blogs about race, and lots of blogs about skepticism, I seem to have tapped in to a small niche crossover market where there isn’t a lot of representation. If you are interested in discussions of how race, like religion, shapes the world in which we live – often in ways we don’t discern right away – this might be a place worth spending some time.

Why is race worth talking about? Isn’t it all socially constructed anyway?

If theology has taught us anything (and that’s a big ‘if’), it’s that something does not have to be real (in an empirical sense) to exert major influence, or do major harm. However, a few people simply embracing the fact that the emperor is naked does not negate the thousands more that gape at his resplendent finery. I want us, as a community of freethinkers, as a society, as a species, to apply the principles of skepticism to the topic of race. We should note the effect it has, while pointing out as loudly and often as possible that we are labouring under a falsehood – that people can be meaningfully sorted by superficial physical characteristics. Waiting for racism to go away on its own is not an option. Well, not a good one, anyway.

One thing that I’ve learned from reading Blag Hag is that there is a world of similarities between feminist thought and anti-racist thought. Many of the issues are transferrable, and align quite well with the humanist principles that most freethinkers espouse. If you think that feminism and the treatment of women are within the scope and compass of FreeThoughtBlogs, then I’m sure you’ll have no trouble accepting the need for discussing anti-racism. If you don’t think these issues are important, then please stick around and allow me to try and change your mind.

Why not blog about your scientific background?

I do occasionally dip my pen in the ink of the stuff of my day job. I try to do this sparingly, mostly because I would like to do my best to stave off the equation of my online persona with my professional identity. I do not work as a professional blogger, I do not blog at work, and my opinions as expressed here are in no way affiliated with my employer. However, I chose to devote my time to studying the equitable and affordable delivery of health care for a reason – and it sure weren’t the big paycheque. I am passionately interested in health care, so I will occasionally discuss those issues if I feel they’re relevant.

I am sure there are more questions, and I am happy to answer as many of them as I can (although many of them may be answered in my helpful FAQ). Please feel free to drop a comment on this, or any other post. Until then, I bid you welcome, and hope that you will keep on reading.

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5 Crommunist’s FAQ

January 1, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed at The Crommunist Manifesto are solely those of the author named in the title of the post (which is most often Crommunist). Crommunist specifically disavows any association between any content appearing on this site and any other person or group, including (but not limited to) employers, political organizations, academic institutions or non-governmental charity organizations unless specifically stated otherwise. At no time should anything appearing here be construed to reflect the position or opinion of anyone other than the author. The author is not responsible for any remarks taken out of context or misinterpreted.

To avoid having to re-hash a number of topics that I’ve already explored, I am setting this page up as a general destination for some of the questions or comments I get most commonly, grouped by category for your convenience. If I have referred you here, it’s because you asked one of these questions or some permutation thereof. Please take the time to read and understand before re-stating your question.

Why are you called ‘Crommunist’? What is ‘Crommunism’?

When I was 12, my classmates used to refer to each other in diminutive forms of our various last names. In such a fashion, I became “Crommie”. An astute classmate pointed out the similarity between that nickname and “Commie”, and began calling me a “Crommunist”.

Since that time, I have developed a set of political and philosophical principles that borrow from Enlightenment philosophy, methodological skepticism, anti-racist and feminist thought, and various other tidbits borrowed from books, movies, plays, what-have-you. While they bear little or no resemblance to actual communism, it is useful for me to bundle them together as “Crommunism”.

Interestingly, I do define “Crommunism” in contrast to “crapitalism”, which is the exchange of valuable goods and energy for meaningless crap. Under the umbrella of ‘crap’ I place religion, pseudoscience, most of modern conservatism, arch-liberalism, cultural relativism, and a variety of other topics that I take great pleasure in skewering at every available opportunity.

General stuff

We’ve gotten much better about ______. Can’t we just leave it alone already?
What is your position on free speech? On hate speech?
Isn’t everyone entitled to their opinion? Who are you to say I’m wrong?
Criticizing ideas rather than the people who hold them.
Why are you/atheists so angry? (Really, tone trolling of any kind)
A different tack on this argument: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Religion

Why don’t you believe in a god/gods? What is your deconversion story?
(Part 2)
(Part 3)
(Part 4)
You have to believe in science, just like I believe in religion.
Why can’t you just let religious people/alt-med subscribers/other non-rational group believe what they want?
(Part 2)
(Part 3)
Why do you want to take religion away from people?
(Part 2)
You should try not to offend religious people!

Race/Racism/Anti-racism (many of these questions are answered in video form)

What is ‘race’?
(part 2)
(part 3)
What is ‘racism’?
What is ‘white privilege’?
What makes you qualified to talk about race?
You’re not really black.
I don’t notice race/why not just treat everyone equally?
I’m not a racist.
Racism is just what liberals say when a conservative speaks/I can’t be racist – I’m a liberal!
Why should I feel guilty just because I’m white?
I’m not a white supremacist – I’m a racial realist.
How do we get more black people to identify as atheists?
Why do we want more black people in the freethought movement?
(Part 2)
Why do you need to call yourself a ‘black atheist’? Why can’t you just be an atheist?
“The N word” is just a word! By choosing to be offended, you grant it power.

I don’t hold out any great hope that this will be sufficient to forestall these questions being asked again and again, but hopefully it will help stem the tide a little.

68 Packing it in

July 22, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta

Just over 3 years ago, I started a blog. I have always loved writing, and I had a lot of stuff on my mind that I thought needed to be puzzled out and written down. As is sometimes the way with these things, people started noticing and reading my blog, and talking about what I wrote. Thanks to the notice of a few prominent members of the freethinking community, I found myself invited to join the Freethought Blogs network, which was a huge honour for me. I have been happy and productive at FtB, and met some truly incredible people who have helped improve the way I think about a lot of issues.

The time has come, however, to close down the blog and move on to new endeavours.

I am immensely proud of The Crommunist Manifesto. For three years it has provided regular, thought-provoking, and consistently high quality posts about topics that are relevant and interesting. I do not begrudge the number of hours and the level of effort required to create The Manifesto in that form, but I can no longer maintain that level of output. You may have noticed that over the past couple of months the frequency of posting has decreased dramatically, with nothing new going up in several weeks. That is not a product that I am proud of, and it does my previous work a disservice, but I honestly don’t see that changing any time soon. Writing has become a job, not a joy, and that’s not a sustainable way of being for me.

My plan is to move the content from this site back to its former home on WordPress (crommunist.wordpress.com) and leave this space on the FtB roster to someone who is willing to put in the necessary effort to make it succeed. On the old (new) site, I may periodically post new essays, but I imagine the site will sit relatively quiet for the most part.

As far my plan of what to do with myself, I am really excited for a new musical project I’ve been working on, and I will be devoting much of my newly-freed time to that. I’m also going to be working on my job and my PhD, and trying to find new ways to enjoy life.

And as far as what is happening to ‘the Crommunist’, I’m not retreating from the world, just closing this particular outlet. I hope you will heed my perennial exhortation and follow me on Twitter. If not there, you can always contact me by e-mail if you have something you urgently need addressed. I may pick up new projects (or potentially revive old ones like Seriously!?), so hopefully you will be interested enough to check those out when they appear.

In this farewell, there are some people I need to acknowledge.

First, I want to thank my co-bloggers at FtB, particularly Ed Brayton and PZ Myers for plucking me out of relative obscurity. I could not ask for a more positive and supportive environment to have conducted this experiment. I have met some truly fantastic people in the freethinking movement, and the hands-down best of them have shared the first part of a URL with me for the past 20 months. With the possible exception of the howling herd of insolent nincompoops who crowd the hallways like belligerent hyenas around a fresh kill, cackling about ‘FTBullies’ and ‘misandry’ and ‘feminazis’, blogging at FtB has been a nearly flawless experience. I will miss the backchannel irreverence and the mutual support and camaraderie.

Second, I want to thank my co-bloggers Brian, Jamie, and Edwin. You helped shoulder part of the load when things were at a fever pitch, and you wrote some incredibly insightful and useful posts. I’m proud to call you friends, and will probably have more time to see you in meatspace now that I don’t have daily looming deadlines. Thank you for your contributions and your grace at being launched into a bigger spotlight than you were probably used to.

Finally, I want to thank you. For reading, for commenting, for sending me links, for sharing my posts on your Facebook or on Reddit, for challenging me when I was wrong, and for opening your minds enough to be challenged by some of the more provocative stuff I’ve thrown at you over the past couple of years. Knowing that I had to answer to a crowd of smart and inquisitive people has kept me honest and forced me to work hard to make each post something I can be proud of. I am eternally grateful to anyone and everyone who has felt that this place was worth coming back to, and that these ideas were worth considering and spreading.

In my mind’s eye I had pictured this post ending with something pithy and profound, but I’m not that guy. I’m this guy.

An otter waving goodbye — So long, and thanks for all the fish

– Ian

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