I Am A Bright?
Jul. 28th, 2003 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coalescentRichard Dawkins is on another crusade:
Although at least this time, he's not the only one:
All I can think is, 'what a strange thing to get worked up about.'
I mean, in principle, I'm right there with them. Yay, rationality; yay, a naturalist worldview. Obviously, there's not enough of these things in contemporary culture. And equally obviously, conciousness-raising is a valid, even vital activity; Dawkins' example of the progression of 'gay' is sound. I just don't think that the two fit together in this instance. The construction 'I am a bright' does not sound, to my ears, 'puzzling, enigmatic and confusing,' it sounds clumsy and forced. The reason the progression of 'gay' has been so powerful is because it has been a reclamation - so let's reclaim atheist, rationalist, naturalist. Inventing a new terminology doesn't serve anyone well.
(A couple of weeks behind the times, via the always-teetering-on-the-brink-of-pretension Edge.)
Gay is succinct, uplifting, positive: an "up" word, where homosexual is a down word, and queer, faggot and pooftah are insults. 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").
[...]
Geisert and Futrell 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. It invites the question, "What on earth is a bright?" And then you're away: "A bright is a person whose world view is free of supernatural and mystical elements. The ethics and actions of a bright are based on a naturalistic world view."
Although at least this time, he's not the only one:
A 2002 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life suggests that 27 million Americans are atheist or agnostic or have no religious preference. That figure may well be too low, since many nonbelievers are reluctant to admit that their religious observance is more a civic or social duty than a religious one -- more a matter of protective coloration than conviction.
[...]
Let's get America's candidates thinking about how to respond to a swelling chorus of brights. With any luck, we'll soon hear some squirming politician trying to get off the hot seat with the feeble comment that "some of my best friends are brights..."
All I can think is, 'what a strange thing to get worked up about.'
I mean, in principle, I'm right there with them. Yay, rationality; yay, a naturalist worldview. Obviously, there's not enough of these things in contemporary culture. And equally obviously, conciousness-raising is a valid, even vital activity; Dawkins' example of the progression of 'gay' is sound. I just don't think that the two fit together in this instance. The construction 'I am a bright' does not sound, to my ears, 'puzzling, enigmatic and confusing,' it sounds clumsy and forced. The reason the progression of 'gay' has been so powerful is because it has been a reclamation - so let's reclaim atheist, rationalist, naturalist. Inventing a new terminology doesn't serve anyone well.
(A couple of weeks behind the times, via the always-teetering-on-the-brink-of-pretension Edge.)
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Bright?
Date: 2003-07-28 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-28 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-28 05:38 am (UTC)Atheists calling themselves 'brights' would be tremendously amusing, if it weren't for the implication that everone else is dull.
And what do we agnostics call ourselves? Flickerings?
no subject
Date: 2003-07-28 07:41 am (UTC)You're Bright too, because you're Rational. Bright is, apparently, a multi-denominational position.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-28 06:39 am (UTC)"I shall not be coming out as a Bright just yet. For a start, the term 'secular humanist' may be old-fashioned but it is still serviceable, and mercifully doesn't sound like something dreamed up as an advertising gimmick. It has the added advantage that the Religious Right in America already loathes it, so it must be just fine."
(Ben McIntyre, the Times)
no subject
Date: 2003-07-28 07:42 am (UTC)This test can be applied to many things in life. :-D
no subject
Date: 2003-07-28 07:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-28 07:47 am (UTC)Personally, I don't feel the need to rant so much as I feel bemused. As you say in your entry, memes do not propagate just because people really, really want them to be, so the enterprise feels a bit pointless. On the other hand, I can sympathise with the desire to make society a more rational entity.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-28 08:30 am (UTC)Hmm, interesting that you interpret what Dawkins and Dennett have to say as a desire to make society more rational. I would have said that their main argument was to allow rationalists an equal voice in society. I don't doubt that both of them would be happier campers if everyone everywhere was atheist, but I think that's quite a way from what they were proposing. [/pedant hat]
Also I suspect that trying to make society more rational is like trying to herd cats ;o)
no subject
Date: 2003-07-29 01:11 am (UTC)Yay indeed. Although with a word like that, it's always possible that we have entirely different definitions. :)
Hmm, interesting that you interpret what Dawkins and Dennett have to say as a desire to make society more rational. I would have said that their main argument was to allow rationalists an equal voice in society. I don't doubt that both of them would be happier campers if everyone everywhere was atheist, but I think that's quite a way from what they were proposing.
Well, yeah. Increasing the number of atheists to 100% of society would make society more rational, sure...but increasing the number of atheists to 50% of society would also make society more rational. And increasing the number of people who think rationally and intelligently by 5% - whether they be atheist or not (although I'm sure Dawkins would argue that a rational Christian is a contradiction in terms :) - would still make society more rational than it is currently. And that's what I think they were trying for.
In other words: Neener-neener, nobody out-pedants me!
('Cept maybe Tom. And Ian.)
Small point
Date: 2003-07-29 02:55 am (UTC)This argument assumes that theism is an inherently irrational position, while atheism is a rational position. Neither is exactly the case. It's possible to be a rational theist, or a thoroughly irrational atheist.
Re: Small point
Date: 2003-07-29 03:08 am (UTC)But that would have made the sentence even more convoluted than it already was. :)
Anyway, the articles aren't exactly calling for more atheism, they're calling for more rationality with the implicit (and, as you point out, incorrect[1]) assumption that atheism is inherently more rational than theism and that therefore if more people were rational, more people would be atheist.
[1] Although my personal prejudices being what the are, I would say atheists are more likely to be rational than theists. But that's clearly a crude generalisation. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-07-29 07:07 am (UTC)am I a bright?
Date: 2003-07-28 07:45 am (UTC)"Gay" isn't a reclaimed word; one possible etymology amongst many suggested is that in NYC in the 1920s a number of homosexual men tended to go to some hostelries at the corner of Fourth and Gay Streets. For that matter, homosexual or gay men used also to be called "so", as in "He's rather so.", a form very accepted between all social classes, and putting down nobody else by its use. Sadly, it didn't catch on, possibly because - understandably - queer people wanted to use a non-neutral word.
Be that as it may, Prof. Dawkins wants to be called a "bright" precisely because it does indeed make everyone else seem dull. His dictats need to be taken with large pinches of salt. "Secular humanist" actually means something and doesn't put other people down: a useful starting point, in my n-s-h opinion...
Re: am I a bright?
Date: 2003-07-28 07:51 am (UTC)On the contrary, I think a large part of his frustration is the fact that it's entirely natural. Dawkins sees religion as a throwback; something causes disproportionate amounts of trouble and that if everyone would only Grow Up, they'd see what a load of nonsense it is.
"Gay" isn't a reclaimed word
I think it is. Ten years ago, it was entirely pejorative; now it's not.
Prof. Dawkins wants to be called a "bright" precisely because it does indeed make everyone else seem dull. His dictats need to be taken with large pinches of salt.
Well, that goes without saying. :-)
Re: am I a bright?
Date: 2003-07-28 08:35 am (UTC)I think it is. Ten years ago, it was entirely pejorative; now it's not.
Well, you are half right there. Gay and Queer were reclaimed in the 70s - Gay is fairly neutral, Queer has a certain amount of radical conotations..... However - if you go to your average playground (or indeed workplace) Gay is still used, in the main, perjoratively: 'that is so gay'.....
Context is, as always, just as important as the actual words being used....
Re: am I a bright?
Date: 2003-07-28 10:35 am (UTC)Re: am I a bright?
Date: 2003-07-29 01:15 am (UTC)It's something like...'Gay' may still be used as an insult in some circumstances, but it's not an inherently offensive word. My perception is that ten or fifteen years ago, if you saw the word in an article in a broadsheet newspaper, it would have carried negative connotations. Today it doesn't. Or something. It's entirely possible I'm talking rubbish, here. :)
Re: am I a bright?
Date: 2003-07-29 04:37 am (UTC)As for Dawkins, he was raised in a fairly rigid Protestant sect, which accounts for part of his view - but the funny thing is that he couches his arguments in redemptionist terms veiled as biology. As you say, if we would but Grow Up :-), which means if we would but be saved. As we are told over and over again, it's our choice to be or not to be. Which gets us back to relion and morality and all that jazz. I wish Prof. D would attend the regular meeting of the Science and Religion lecture series held in his town of residence, but that would mean he would have to run into physicists and biologists who are also theologians, or theologians with serious research interests in biology, and developmental biologists with interests in theories of mind, and it would all be too dam' difficult.
Much easier to cliam to be a Bright. When it were trees all around 'ere there used to be them aliens, they 'uz bright, now. :-)
no subject
Date: 2003-07-28 07:58 am (UTC)Comments
2. The value of this is explicitly political - and this is all too American. In the US, it seems that it is no longer sufficient to have hobbies or lifestyles - even if they grow in size and scope to the point of organised national clubs ... they need to go political at one stage or another to secure its rights, recognition, and growth. This is quite unlike the UK where eccentricities and hobbies are fully permissible and ignored outside of the regular expectations of social conduct ... granted, this is changing a bit with Asian, Black, and homosexual politics.
Bullet time!
Date: 2003-07-29 10:00 am (UTC)Anyway, whether we're rational or irrational, or whether god's transcendental or not, or indeed real or imaginary, it all comes down to number theory in the end :).
-- Tom