Thanks to Arts & Letters Daily for this reference to Richard Dawkins' latest piece of endarkenment, 'The future looks bright'. Dawkins is a very fine writer who is consistently right, right, right about matters of evolutionary science (well, that's my opinion and it's worth every penny you paid for it) and a brave leader against obscurantists of all stripes. But his opinion pieces in the Guardian seem to be stunted by the poor intellectual nutrition of their environment.
First, a good idea in this piece (not every writer can produce a column that contains two noteworthy ideas):
My favourite consciousness-raising effort is one I have mentioned many times before (and I make no apology, for consciousness- raising is all about repetition). A phrase like "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should clang furious bells of protest in the mind, just as we flinch when we hear "one man one vote". Children are too young to know their religious opinions. … We'd be aghast to be told of a Leninist child or a neo-conservative child or a Hayekian monetarist child. So isn't it a kind of child abuse to speak of a Catholic child or a Protestant child? Especially in Northern Ireland and Glasgow where such labels, handed down over generations, have divided neighbourhoods for centuries and can even amount to a death warrant?
OK. I can't remember when I last had occasion to refer to a 'Buddhist child' or a 'Jain child', but I'll be extra-careful in future.
Now we come to Dawkins' unwise modest proposal. I'm going to jump straight to his carefully crafted conclusion, so if you're bothered about his article being spoiled for you, read it in full first.
Those of us who subscribe to no religion; those of us whose view of the universe is natural rather than supernatural; those of us who rejoice in the real and scorn the false comfort of the unreal, we need a word of our own, a word like "gay". You can say "I am an atheist" but at best it sounds stuffy (like "I am a homosexual") and at worst it inflames prejudice (like "I am a homosexual").
… Bright is the word, the new noun. I am a bright. You are a bright. She is a bright. We are the brights. Isn't it about time you came out as a bright? Is he a bright? I can't imagine falling for a woman who was not a bright.
… As with gays, the more brights come out, the easier it will be for yet more brights to do so. People reluctant to use the word atheist might be happy to come out as a bright.
I suppose this is the reason for my objection:
Geisert and Futrell [the perpetrators of this idea] are very insistent that their word is a noun and must not be an adjective. "I am bright" sounds arrogant. "I am a bright" sounds too unfamiliar to be arrogant: it is puzzling, enigmatic, tantalising.
I'm afraid not, Richard. Puzzling or not, it manages to sound just as arrogant – as shown when elsewhere he describes 'bright' as 'like gay, [having] its original meaning changed but not too much'.
So, for Dawkins, 'atheist' = 'clever'.
By the end of his column, Dawkins has sidled over to a position where he can write this:
Of course, even though we brights will scrupulously insist that our word is a noun, if it catches on it is likely to follow gay and eventually re-emerge as a new adjective. And when that happens, who knows, we may finally get a bright president.
The context makes clear that in this feeble joke he means 'president of the United States', and this is a hobby-horse that he's ridden before – his belief that George W Bush is unintelligent. Which shows that Guardian-style left-wingers – even when they're able thinkers who pride themselves on their respect for reason and evidence – can have their consciousness lowered to the point where they swallow any ludicrous myths if they're recited often enough by American left-wing comics and critics.
I've just gone and looked at the-brights.net (see the preceding entry). Buried among their pages I found this astonishing verbal haemorrhage:
* By adopting and using the new noun term, we collectively surmount a diverse "philosophical lexicon" which blurs and disguises what is actually a critical cultural commonality.
The umbrella term makes more visible in society our mutual life stance and garners greater capacity for all our fellow citizens who share a naturalistic worldview to translate their outlook into positive social and political action.
* Having this term in the lexicon and using it in the public sphere lets us break free from the "comparative terminology" of the dominant culture, which so capably casts a dark shadow over those who do state publicly their naturalistic beliefs, tying up their identity and social standing with negative labels in such a way that they all too commonly avoid disapproval by way of civic silence.
I'm not going anywhere near 'em. Never entrust your brain to people who can't write.
I haven't been out today – no farther, anyway, than into my back garden to hang out washing that should dry well in the fine day that seems likely. A little later I shall walk the dog. Then I might discover whether there have been any attacks overnight.
The attacks have begun within the last three weeks. Paint is thrown over the low walls of front gardens, or over cars, or over the front walls of houses. The first I was aware of was against our Asian next-door neighbours, when paint was thrown over their car in the small hours of the morning.
Yesterday morning, Sunday, I was commiserating with the latest victims: the parents of my neighbours, who live a few doors down. They'd just discovered the incident. A small quantity of white paint had been splashed on and over their low front wall. It was thick, and still tacky when I saw it. Last time the paint was red. The stains can still be seen alongside their front door.
The assaults are repeatedly made against certain families. They are mostly, but not all, Asian. Asians have lived along our street for many years, without anything like this happening. The most prominent Asian in the area, the keeper of the corner shop, hasn't suffered in these attacks, so they don't seem to be racially motivated.
(By the way, for readers outside the UK: 'Asian', as applied to British citizens and other residents, invariably means people with antecedents in the Indian subcontinent – not 'Orientals'.)
We've not suffered any of this – I went to bed last night without the thought of it crossing my mind. (In the past, however, we've had a few eggs thrown at the house by some of my wife's less affectionate students.)
The attacks are a puzzle. One thing is clear to all of us, though: the police will be no help. But one night, I hope, the vandals will run into some of the men of the wronged families lying in wait and get the kicking they deserve. Then the problem will be how to defend the good guys from the police and politicians who will try to victimize them for presuming to defend themselves.
The philosopher A. C. Grayling suggests (T2, May 28) that rather than turning to drugs, religion or therapy to gain greater fulfilment from life, we might more usefully turn to the rich and fascinating tradition of philosophy. Poppycock.
Of course there are those who turn to drugs such as Prozac for a recreational fix. But there are many thousands more who do so simply to be able to function normally. They are unlikely to be in a mental state to gain much from Plato.
Sounds like a false dichotomy to me. It's obviously true that many need drugs for a time, as some need plaster casts and crutches for a time, to let healing take place. But not all do. According to the claims of Julian Simon, which I reported below (February 28), the overall success rate of cognitive therapy for depression in particular - I don't know about other mental disorders - is comparable with that of drugs.
And cognitive therapy involves identifying thoughts and disputing them with reason and evidence; and going further, if need be, by sifting through one's own values - activities continuous with critical and philosophical thinking.
Grayling further contends that those who turn to therapy are doomed to disappointment because, like all the other solutions to modern man’s discontentment, no personal effort is involved and responsibility is yielded to someone else.
No decent therapist ever takes responsibility away from a client. Clients have to work enormously hard, often with great courage, through terrible emotional pain to find greater fulfilment.
There can be no greater responsibility than to take charge of your own thinking in the manner counselled by cognitive therapists.
Why pitch these alternatives against each other, as if they're mutually exclusive? It can be fully responsible to seek the help of drugs; and frutiful to try the path of critical reflection.
I don't know whether Grayling was guilty of setting up this opposition in his article - I haven't seen it yet.
