Category: critical thinking

3 ‘Couv team… ASSEMBLE! (Dec 7th, 2011)

December 7, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · skepticism · Vancouver Events

For all my Cromrades in the Vancouver area, tonight we are having our monthly meetup at Vancouver’s Skeptics in the Pub in Kitsilano’s Billy Bishop Legion. More details are available here. It’s always a fun time hanging with the Vancouver group, and while I can’t make it every month I am pumped to be able to make it today. Not just because it’s fun, but because I’ve heard a rumour that SkepChick’s very own Natalie Reed may be in attendance for the first time. She has threatened to hug me when we meet. I should probably warn her that I may LOOK cuddly, but in real life I am extremely… fuck it I can’t keep up the pretense – I’m a champion-level hugger.

I should warn anyone planning to attend that this is a Canadian Legion, which means no hats. You’ll have to find another way to hide your atheist devil horns.

See you tonight!

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9 Nation will rise against Nations

December 6, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · civil rights · First Nations · forces of stupid · news

It is difficult to be Canadian sometimes. We pride ourselves (well, most of us at least) on being tolerant, forward-thinking people. Part of our national neurotic need to be seen as distinct from our American cousins pushes us to be more collective, more restrained, more self-effacing; a contrast to the stereotype of our indvidualistic, brash and assertive southern neighbours.

The reason this stance is difficult is because of the cognitive dissonance present in seeing ourselves as progressive and inclusive, and yet becoming increasingly aware of the abhorrent way we have treated our most-maligned minority group: First Nations and other aboriginal people. Whereas slavery is America’s admitted national shame, Canada has not yet donned the sackcloth and ash required to atone for our past (and current) sins. We saw a dramatic manifestation of those sins this morning.

It is not enough to simply allocate increased funding to First Nations communities, or to issue public apologies for past mistakes (although both of those are helpful in their own way). We need to instead change the narrative we have about the relationship between the nation of Canada and its First Nations across the country. High-profile discussions like this may yield some hope: … Continue Reading

19 Canada doesn’t have a race problem – Attawapiskat edition

December 6, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · crapitalism · First Nations · health care · news · politics · racism

Canadians have a reputation as being polite and rather passive. I am not sure what in our history has given us this docile stereotype, or if it is even actually true that Canadians are more well-mannered than our American cousins. What I do know is that there is no faster way to completely invalidate the myth of Canadian civility or progressiveness more quickly than bringing up the fraught relationship between the government of Canada and our First Nations people.

Immediately upon bringing up reserves, or federal cash transfers, or treaty rights, or ceded lands, even the most self-effacing and convivial Canuck is likely to start frothing at the mouth and denouncing the “culture of poverty” or the “laziness” and “corruption” that apparently runs rampant through every single First Nations community in the country. It’s amazing how quick my fellow countrymen are to lay all blame for the problems affecting our indigenous peoples at the feet of the victims.

A commenter last week remarked how much better the relationship seemed between Canadians and our First Nations, compared to Americans and their aboriginal populations. I decided not to step on the point too hard, because I knew that this week I’d be talking about this story: … Continue Reading

31 Blowing away the smokescreen

December 5, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · crommunism · religion · science · Uncategorized

Apologists for religion, when confronted with the ugliness that has been justified by adherence to scripture, will often retreat into a stance that goes something like “people will always do harmful things, regardless of their religion.” The argument, I suppose, is that human beings will find ways to commit atrocious acts, and that criticizing religion is therefore a red herring argument. “After all,” they’ll say “the kind of people who would do evil in the name of religion will still do evil even if you atheists do away with faith altogether!”

First of all, anyone who has ever made this statement has just admitted to losing the argument. Religion is chock full of morality claims, and by admitting that people who follow religion are not more moral than those who do not, you’ve admitted that your particular religious philosophy is entirely orthogonal to being a good person. It would be just as valid for me to say “don’t do bad things” and call that a moral system. Considering the number of people who use the argument from morality as what they think is a “slam dunk” proof of a deity, this kind of “well people will be bad regardless of religion” statement should be particularly troubling.

Some atheists are willing, however, to cede this point. In a world without religion, they say, people would probably do bad things at roughly the same rate. Some people are just opportunistic, or unthinking, or cruel, and will find some other way of justifying their actions even in the absence of a god to blame it on. This argument has bothered me for a while, and I have finally figured out why.

8 Movie Friday: Jay Smooth

December 2, 2011
by Crommunist
· anti-racism · blog · movie · race · racism

It’s always a happy coincidence when I find out there’s someone else out there who I hadn’t heard of, but who’s saying the same stuff I am. It brings me great joy.

Jay Smooth is doing exactly what I think everyone should be doing – talking about race – and perhaps more importantly, talking about how to talk about race. My experience running this blog for the past 20 months and the impetus for starting it in the first place is that I think people want to talk about this stuff, they just feel uncomfortable. Learning the language is part of starting the discussion.

Anyway, this video pretty much states exactly what I was trying to get across with my “You’re not ‘a racist’, you’re just racist” post, but with far more class. Enjoy the clip!

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21 History debunks myths about Occupy

November 28, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · civil rights · critical thinking · crommunism · history · Occupy

One of the things that has struck me most about the opposition to the Occupy movement is the ease with which people approach repeating the trite truisms about the occupiers. No matter how many professionals stand up in support of the protest, everyone reaches for the “unemployed bums” canard. Regardless of the number of specific problems highlighted by protests at each site, nobody seems to have any problem expressing their bewilderment at the lack of a cohesive message. Despite the amount of energy and time put into making the occupied sites more than just an urban camping trip, people throw around the term “lazy” like rice at a wedding.

The other aspect that particularly fascinates me is the tin ear for the lessons of history that these criticisms showcase. Every revolutionary protest movement looks like this, even the ones that we would otherwise support. It doesn’t take an encyclopedic knowledge of history to see the parallels between the occupation of public space and the non-violent resistance of Indians to British rule. Nor does one have to have a degree in the humanities to see the attempted demonization of Occupy’s “hippies” echoing the same condemnations from a generation ago in the person of the actual hippies of the Vietnam resistance movement.

But even if one isn’t well-attuned to those particular stories, it’s hard for me to look at the Occupiers and not see links to the civil rights movement of African-Americans in the mid-20th century. Now this is not to say that the problems of centuries of racism and the fight for human decency is on equivalent footing to corruption in financial and political institutions (which have become two sides of the same ill-gained coin); however, it is worth noting that many of the common bromides hurled at the Occupy movement are shown to be quite hollow by even a cursory examination of history. … Continue Reading

34 I won’t “agree to disagree”

November 28, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · crommunism

Last Sunday my friend “Sharon” came over to play some music. She is, in addition to being an excellent singer, a law student who is about to complete her studies. Resultantly, I enjoy her company because she is exceptionally witty, enjoys discussing things in depth, and knows her way around the finer points of a good argument. We hadn’t talked in a while, so before we started playing music we sat down to chat for a bit, and as I was telling her what was going on in my life, I mentioned this blog. She interrupted the conversation to ask what my definition of atheism was.

A few months ago, Sharon and I went out with some of her other friends to a bar, and she and I ended up getting in a very drunken debate over whether or not it was possible to know something to be true or not. My argument was that while absolute, unchanging truth may not be achievable, we could rely pretty well on provisional truth gleaned from examining evidence, and that while scientific truths were by definition mutable, it does not mean that some day all of science will be thrown out. … Continue Reading

3 And sometimes it’s just stupid

November 22, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · news · racism

Racism is one of those tricky things. When we’re accustomed to the vision of racism as overt violent hatred, we’re beginning to wake up to the realization that racism has more wide-spread roots than lynch mobs and white hoods. It’s not an easy transition to make, especially if you don’t spend your life immersed in it. Those of us for whom it is a major contributing factor to our outlook on the world live in it every day – most others don’t give it a lot of thought unless we have to.

And when you grow up with that ‘classic’ vision of racism, sometimes you end up saying stupid things:

England and Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand says he is stunned by Sepp Blatter’s claim that football does not have on-field problems with racism.

(snip)

Asked whether he thought racism on the pitch was a problem in modern-day football, Blatter told CNN World Sport: “I would deny it. There is no racism. There is maybe one of the players towards another – he has a word or a gesture which is not the correct one. But the one who is affected by that, he should say that this is a game. We are in a game, and at the end of the game, we shake hands, and this can happen, because we have worked so hard against racism and discrimination.”

And the palms hit the face. … Continue Reading

25 Africentric school approved in Toronto

November 22, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · culture · education · news · privilege · race

There are periodically – not often, mind you, but occasionally – points in race conversation when I am tempted to throw up my hands and say “you’re white, and you don’t get it! Just accept that I am right!” Oftentimes race issues require so much unpacking – privilege, history, demographics, sociology, the list goes on – that a seemingly innocuous topic or opinion actually takes a monumental effort to resolve.

Of course my “job”, as someone who blogs explicitly about race as I do, is to do such unpacking so that anyone can walk their way through the argument. Most of the time I am game for this, particularly if I can refer the person back to some article or another that I’ve written in the past. I recognize that the conversation doesn’t get completely explored in the span of a single blog post, and I get e-mails from people telling me that my work here has helped them change their minds about some race issue or other (those are really appreciated, by the way).

But there are periodically points in this conversation where I just want to cop out and say “because I’m black and I’m right, dammit!” One of those times has just reared its nuanced and complex head: … Continue Reading

14 Counting down from infinity

November 21, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · crommunism · forces of stupid · religion

I had an… interesting visit from what I assume was a creationist about a week ago. I like it when theists show up here. It gives me a chance to practice diplomacy as opposed to my usual unrestrained polemic, which I like to alternate with dismissive mockery when the occasion requires. At first he showed up in the comments of a post that had absolutely nothing to do with anything, so I redirected him to a more appropriate post.

When I was offered the chance to “go first” (a really really bad idea) as to why I thought there were no gods, I expressed my conclusion that, given the available evidence, I could not see anything in the universe that looked like design only explainable through an intelligent agent. Since any theistic belief is predicated on supernatural intervention, I can’t accept any of the downstream conclusions of theism.

I also asked him to agree to abide by some simple rules: don’t skip off when your arguments are refuted, don’t expect me to accept scripture as a reliable source of information, and finally don’t use articles of faith in place of reasoned argument. He agreed to abide by those rules (and I have the folks at The Atheist Experience to thank for that list), which was probably another tactical mistake for him, but he does get kudos from me for being plucky. … Continue Reading

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