Category: skepticism

Shuffling feet: a black man’s view on Schroedinger’s Rapist

January 16, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · crommunism · feminism · personal · race · racism · skepticism

This morning I made a reference to the fact that men are often assumed to be potential rapists as an example of how sexism negatively affects men as well as women. The argument, commonly referred to as “Schroedinger’s Rapist”, goes something like this: because you can’t know for sure if the stranger approaching you in a dark alley or other unsafe place is a rapist or not, it is generally a good idea to be on your guard. Men can enhance their interactions with women by being aware of this mindset, and adjusting their own behaviour accordingly.

I have often heard from people making an anti-feminist argument that Schroedinger’s Rapist is profoundly sexist and unfair. After all, most men do not rape – why should every man be treated like a rapist? Isn’t that discrimination? How can you claim to be opposed to sexism, yet promote a fundamentally sexually prejudicial idea? The next step is often to draw parallels to racism – is it fair to treat all black people as potential criminals simply because, statistically speaking, there are more black criminals than white ones? Isn’t that racist?

As much as I hate it when white people use anti-black racism as a cudgel with which to beat other people, I can understand the conundrum as it is expressed. The problem with it (and the reason why it’s so bothersome to hear white people talk about anti-black racism) is that it fails to address the question in a meaningful way. To demonstrate what I mean, I’d like to share a couple of personal anecdotes from my own life. I’ve never shared these stories with anyone before, and I’m not sure why because there’s nothing particularly embarrassing about them, and they’re extremely useful in this context. … Continue Reading

6 Whose revolution is it, anyway?

January 12, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · Occupy · politics · race · racism · skepticism

Anyone who has been paying close attention to the Occupy movement knows that “the 99%” is, in fact, several different groups. While it might make for good news reporting, #OWS is not a group with a unified message about corporate greed and income inequality. There is some truth to this narrative, but it is most certainly not the whole story. #OWS can more accurately be described as a collaboration between several different protest movements who have, for the moment, agreed to focus their attention on the overlap between politics and finance, because eliminating the problem will benefit all groups in some way.

There is an easily-drawn parallel between the affiliated causes of #OWS and the atheist/skeptic/freethought movement. They (we) are not a monolithic group with a singular goal – we are better described as a voluntary association of a number of disparate causes. There are freethinkers who wish to see the eventual disappearance of religion; there are others who simply wish religion was out of the public square. There are freethinkers who are activists because of the way religion treats women; there are others who fear for the security of the planet if fundamentalists control nuclear weapons. We do not have a single common goal, but we focus on religion (or, more generally, pseudoscience) because it is a common enemy.

The similarity does not end there, however. Just like religion does not harm all freethinkers equally – think of what an Iranian atheist faces compared to a Norwegian one – rising income inequality may be a universal problem, but there are some fractions within the 99% that, to put it bluntly, have more cause for concern: … Continue Reading

2 ‘Couv team… ASSEMBLE! (Jan 3rd, 2012)

January 3, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · CFI Vancouver · skepticism · Vancouver Events

Tomorrow night, we are once again having our monthly gathering of skeptic folks in Kitsilano. I’m looking forward to the evening, which is always a lot of fun. I should point out that Vancouver Skeptics in the Pub hosts other events – one downtown Vancouver and another in Richmond. Check out the schedule for more info, and if you can make it to Kitilsano tomorrow, come by and say hi!

I am also excited to help promote the new Vancouver Skeptics page. Vancouver has a very active skeptical community, including associations with the UBC and SFU skeptic/atheist groups, and a number of other affiliated groups like CFI Vancouver. If you live in the Vancouver area and want to know what your fellow freethinkers are up to, check out the page!

See you tomorrow night.

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11 Love letters to the status quo

January 3, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · feminism · forces of stupid · skepticism

“If your jokes or teasing manner offend some people, so the fuck what? Someone will always be offended by jokes, never let them make you believe that you are guilty of something worse simply because of your gender. If you want to make boob jokes thats fine by me, you have after all been making dick jokes since you were old enough to make jokes.”

“With all of my heart I beg you: Do not change. Do not change for me, do not change for someone else. You’re wonderful, just the way you are.”

These excerpts from an insipid, fulsome love letter to the skeptic/atheist community were enough to inspire a bout of epic eye-rolling when I read them last night. They were enough to motivate me to wrangle with Penn Jillette via Twitter for his promotion and support of the message contained therein. They were enough to push me to forward the letter along to the rest of the FTBorg, as a sort of “hey take a look at this dummy” thing. They were not enough to spark an entire blog post. After all, if I swung at every pitch, I’d burn out too quickly to fight the battles where I thought my participation could make a positive difference. I was happy to let those with stronger feminist street cred take the lead on this particular one.

It’s distressing, obviously, to see someone completely dismiss the experiences of others simply because that person has had a nice experience. The argument from myopia is a common one in discussions of privilege – “I haven’t seen it, therefore it’s not a problem”. Considering the sheer number and variety of examples of the marginalization of women in skeptical communities, it seems particularly tone-deaf to simply wave it away because you like dick jokes. I like dick jokes too. But there’s a way to craft sexual humour without being sexist, and this line is often crossed at the continued expense of female skeptics. We’re getting better, but work still has to be done. But again, I figured I could rely on my confreres at FTB to make the necessary arguments, and I could focus on getting my stride back after vacation.

Then I received this: … Continue Reading

5 Movie Friday: How to debate an atheist child

December 30, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · movie · religion · science · skepticism

Here’s a movie from the exact opposite of my upbringing:

For too many children, the idea of the gods is not one that can be treated like any other idea. It cannot be debated, it cannot be rejected, it cannot be tested using evidence; it must simply be believed. In the video above, this belief is enforced by violence.

My childhood was not like this in any way. Despite growing up in a practicing Catholic household, I was always encouraged to challenge authority figures and ask questions (I’m sure dad regrets giving me that advice). Sure, dad was a former priest, and we attended church every Sunday and I sang in the choir and was valedictorian of my confirmation class and taught Sunday school… but no idea was ever too taboo to discuss. I remember a long car ride wherein the merit of group practice was debated, and where I first encountered the argument from popularity as a justification for faith.

To my credit, I was a skeptic even when I was a believer. I simply made the mistake of assuming that there were good answers that I just hadn’t found yet.

I have a younger cousin who is reaching the age I was when I first began to question religion. Instead of the usual toy or game that I usually buy him, this year I bought him an illustrated anniversary edition of Bill Bryson’s excellent science book A Short History of Nearly Everything. I received this book as a gift in my teenage years, and it was probably the best “how do we know this” book I’ve ever read. Bryson walks the reader through what was known, and how that story developed into what we know now. As a skeptic “how do you know that” is now my bread and butter. I have Bryson’s book to thank for that, at least in part.

I wrote this inside the cover:

To N_____: Your mind is the most powerful weapon you have, and questions are its most potent ammunition. No question is more powerful than this: ‘how do you know that?’

Be always wary of the easy answer, and never be afraid to challenge authority. The truth is usually found after digging it out from among many falsehoods, and science is the best tool we have for that task.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did, and I hope it fills you with many questions.

If he’s not an atheist by the time he’s 20, I will consider myself a failure.

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12 Skepticism and faith: architecture vs. sculpture

December 19, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · crommunism · skepticism

In my younger days I was a voracious reader of fiction. Since then, a combination of school and work have more or less completely robbed me of the inclination to read anything that isn’t grounded in reality (don’t cry for me – I still find lots of ways to have fun), but once upon a time I could truly describe myself as ‘a reader’. One of my favourite series of fantasy novels was the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. In retrospect, it’s a bit overwritten and the last three books were pretty terrible, but I loved it in my heyday.

The sixth book of that series, entitled Faith of the Fallen was my favourite. It’s simultaneously an exploration of the primacy of human dignity and the harsh criticism of the debasing effect that religion has on it. It’s also a not-so-thinly-veiled retelling of objectivism, but I tried not to let that get in the way of my enjoyment. Moral lessons aside, a great deal of it is about sculpting because, y’know… why not?

The book’s protagonist, an uber-wizard named Richard, gets kidnapped and, for reasons that are really not relevant to anything important outside the context of the story itself, is forced to be a sculptor whose job it is to make a statue that shows humanity from the point-of-view of their religion – debased and cowering in the face of the almighty. He, of course, creates a masterpiece glorifying the power of the will and the resilience of humanity. In so doing, he changes everyone’s mind about religion and starts a riot (because, y’know… why not?). You should be thinking “Howard Roark” right about now.

24 They took ‘ur jaaaeerrrbs!

December 15, 2011
by Crommunist
· anti-racism · blog · critical thinking · education · race · racism · skepticism

An all-too common complaint about assertive anti-racism; that is, taking steps to correct for injustices borne of systemic racism – like affirmative action programs or race-based scholarships – is that it ends up putting white people at a disadvantage. After all, if there are two people going for the same spot, whether it be a job or a university admission slot, and one of them is a visible minority, affirmative action policies discriminate against someone whose only crime was being born white.

Everyone and her brother has a story of a cousin’s friend or aunt’s next-door neighbour who lost out on a job ze was qualified before because it instead went to a less-qualified person of colour (PoC). If we are trying to do away with racism, why is it that it’s okay for the system to be racist against whites? Aren’t we sacrificing the future of white people on the altar of correcting historical injustice? When do we stop over-correcting?

7 Okay, now drop what you’re doing and go read THIS

December 14, 2011
by Crommunist
· anti-racism · blog · critical thinking · privilege · race · racism

Maybe I should give up the blogging game and just re-direct everyone’s attention to what other, better writers are doing. Ta-Nehisi Coates, a brilliant writer on matters racial and historical gives us a different grasp on the same story as last night’s ridiculousness. In this piece, which is definitely worth reading in its entirety, he implores us to employ what he calls a “muscular empathy”:

This basic extension of empathy is one of the great barriers in understanding race in this country. I do not mean a soft, flattering, hand-holding empathy. I mean a muscular empathy rooted in curiosity. If you really want to understand slaves, slave masters, poor black kids, poor white kids, rich people of colors, whoever, it is essential that you first come to grips with the disturbing facts of your own mediocrity. The first rule is this–You are not extraordinary. It’s all fine and good to declare that you would have freed your slaves. But it’s much more interesting to assume that you wouldn’t and then ask “Why?”

A few years ago there was a murder on a Greyhound bus. A severely deranged man took a knife to the throat of one of his fellow passengers and severed the man’s head. The rest of the passengers fled and trapped the assailant inside the bus until police could arrive.

I cannot count the number of people who declared themselves to be the reincarnation of John Rambo, and the many ways in which they would have stepped in and stopped the murder rather than fleeing the grisly scene. To all of them I replied “unless you are specifically trained to run TOWARD someone with a knife, you would have done exactly what everyone else on that bus did – tried to save yourself.” The trick is not to simply assert that we are better people, and therefore racism is beneath us – it’s to train ourselves to run toward problems rather than away from them. It’s to reprogram the way we think about not only ourselves, but the situations that produced us.

It’s to build our empathy muscles.

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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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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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