The Richard Dawkins Facepalm Watch, Vol. III

[rug]

June 30, 2014
By Adam Lee

I used to admire and look up to Richard Dawkins; I really did. But it’s becoming harder for me to remember why. Over the last few years, my esteem for him has sunk lower and lower in response to a steady stream of callous, ill-thought-out or just plain ignorant remarks he’s made. And last week, he hit a new low:

Richard Dawkins ✔ @RichardDawkins

Learned a useful new phrase this week: Social Justice Warrior. SJWs can't forgive Shakespeare for having the temerity to be white and male.

3:04 AM - 28 Jun 2014

599 Retweets

This was in response to criticism he received for an earlier tweet, in which he proposed a list of names to go on a hypothetical memorial to humanity, and (surprise, surprise) they were all dead white men:

Richard Dawkins ✔ @RichardDawkins

Sun will engulf Earth. If we launch DVD as #CosmicTombstone, what would you put on it? Shakespeare Schubert Darwin Einstein for me. You?

2:39 AM - 25 Jun 2014

62 Retweets

In response to this, numerous people suggested that there might be some women and non-Westerners whose names would also be worth including. On the advice of some sexist harassers from the slimepit, whom he was only too happy to engage with, Dawkins decided that we “social justice warriors” must have meant that we blame Shakespeare for being white and male. This is as lazily ignorant a misconception as saying that atheists are just troublemakers who are angry at God.

If you were trying to assemble a lineup of the greatest figures in human history, and the result was exclusively composed of white men of European descent, that ought to be a sign that your selection process went badly astray somewhere. How can a group intended to represent all of humanity be limited to such a small and unrepresentative subset? If someone else proposed a list of the most influential humans who’ve ever lived, and all its members were, say, Chinese, I have no doubt that Dawkins or any other Westerner would recognize the incongruity. Why should this kind of provincialism be any more acceptable just because it’s one’s own ethnic group?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2014/06/the-richard-dawkins-facepalm-watch-vol-iii/

[cbayer]

1. He needs to stay away from Twitter

It may be ageist, but I think that Twitter is best suited for a younger crowd. They have grown up saying things with great brevity.

Those of us who are older are just not that good at it.

That he listed white, european men should surprise no one.

[rug]

5. A reflection of privilege.

[cbayer]

7. Absolutely and it's such a high level

of privilege that he doesn't even recognize it.

[Lordquinton]

2. Several people suggested there might be some women or non-white people

but failed to give any examples.

[cbayer]

3. Well clearly that's because there are no

women or non-white people that would make the grade!



Can you think of any?

[okasha]

6. My list of four:

Elizabeth Tudor, Artemesia Gentileschi, Nanyeha, and Golda Meir.

And it's my bet that Dawkins' homies will have to look up at least two of these.

[cbayer]

8. List like these should include

people that one has to look up. And they should include people that are very different than those that are doing the choosing.

Only picking people that you most clearly identify with is indicative of a problem.

[okasha]

9. My list is explicitly feminist.

But as another poster pointed out, there should be room for more than that on a DVD.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. I'm not sure which one, maybe Meir or Tudor, but I'd consider dropping one of them for

Voltairine De Cleyre.



In the name of Purity what lies are told! What queer morality it has engendered. For fear of it you dare not tell your own children the truth about their birth; the most sacred of all functions, the creation of a human being, is a subject for the most miserable falsehood. When they come to you with a simple, straightforward question, which they have a right to ask, you say, "Don't ask such questions," or tell some silly hollowlog story; or you explain the incomprehensibility by another — God! You say "God made you." You know you are lying when you say it. You know, or you ought to know, that the source of inquiry will not be dammed up so. You know that what you Could explain purely, reverently, rightly (if you have any purity in you), will be learned through many blind gropings, and that around it will be cast the shadow thought of wrong, embryo'd by your denial and nurtured by this social opinion everywhere prevalent. If you do not know this, then you are blind to facts and deaf to Experience.

You will never get right until you start right. Look how your children grow up. Taught from their earliest infancy to curb their love natures — restrained at every turn! Your blasting lies would even blacken a child's kiss. Little girls must not be tomboyish, must not go barefoot, must not climb trees, must not learn to swim, must not do anything they desire to do which Madame Grundy has decreed "improper." Little boys are laughed at as effeminate, silly girl-boys if they want to make patchwork or play with a doll. Then when they grow up, "Oh! Men dont care for home or children as women do!" Why should they, when the deliberate effort of your life has been to crush that nature out of them. "Women can't rough it like men." Train any animal, or any plant, as you train your girls, and it wont be able to rough it either.

[okasha]

15. I wouldn't.

Lizzie and Meir put their lives on the line for their people. De Cleyre is right in her argument that you've quoted, but that doesn't give her the stature of women whose actions ensured their people's freedom and survival.

[enlightenment]

4. Seems to me that a DVD

would have room for more names than that - did anymore ask if he had additional choices or just jump down his throat? While I might argue with Schubert, the remaining three dead white guys would make my list, too . . . but that doesn't mean they would be the only names on it.

The problem with Twitter is that it is like trying to read a novel written as bullet-points. It's arguing in incomplete sentences - and certainly in incomplete thoughts.

[MellowDem]

10. This is why it's so nice to be an atheist...

You never have to apologize for other's actions and beliefs, because being an atheist makes no inherent connection.

Now, people who identify with bigoted belief systems ran by bigoted leaders, they don't got it so easy. They often times try to portray atheism as a religion, and designate leaders within it, because they can't stand the cognitive dissonance otherwise.

[rug]

11. I'll remember that next time Dawkins is invoked.

It's good to know you disavow bigots.

[MellowDem]

12. I know, right?

So many on here identify with them and praise them. In fact, they then turn around and criticize Dawkins to try and make some sort of terrible equivalence argument. It's hilarious.

[MisterP]

14. can we put "Maleficent" on the DVD?