Year: 2014

Religion without a church? Humanism almost qualifies – writes Andrew Brown in the Grauniad. After comparing WHC2104 to a religious event, which is not difficult, and the likely reaction to such labelling, he concludes with:

… there are some humanists who take dialogue seriously. I talked to Babu Goginieni, now the international director of the movement, who was relaxed about theology: “The enemies of humanism are not only on the religious side,” he said. “I think the government has no business taking up any side. Atheism is not important. I happen to be an atheist, but that’s not the point — what is important is freedom and human values, and a way of living with others and with nature. Once we have concluded there is no God, we move on.”

I actually believe it’s a good piece that should lead BHA and international humanism generally to think about its real constitution. I made my comments in the thread:

The Babu Goginieni quote is well chosen. As a humanist I’m atheist too, but I’m not defined by my atheism, just am non-theist.

One correction – humanism is not defined by humanity being sacred – it’s reality that’s sacred. We humanists recognise human responsibilities to the whole alongside our rights and freedoms.

On the “being a religion” angle – sure any group develops social cohesion, through shared behaviours, but I think a key aspect of humanism (besides its inevitable universalism) is that its prefers to couch its “lore” as values supporting action, rather than as specific rules. But we’re really only having this discussion as you say, because the “religion” brand has become toxic to all “rationalists”.

[Typically – and meta – the comment thread is full of ad-hominem and “aggressive” comments denying and ridiculing Brown and his piece. Humanism needs to get a grip on this kind of twisted conception of freedom of speech even appearing to be done in its name. It’s been said before but unmediated comment threads are on their way out.]

[I made my own summary of WHC2014 here.]

[Post Note : Brown’s point in quoting  Babu Goginieni is specifically “humanists who take dialogue seriously”. One comment in the thread that arrived after mine became favourited on twitter as “nailing” the argument.

Read this article on #WHC2014 – http://t.co/n1Y1WMoKaO and then read this comment: http://t.co/2o6UbhQtjD Nails it.

— Andrew Copson (@andrewcopson) August 13, 2014

But I still beg to differ – made my own comment:

Hmm, witty rhetoric about calling a spade a shovel when it comes to suggesting humanism is (like) a religion. But Babu Goginieni’s point was about theism. Brown is not suggesting humanists are theists, he’s simply suggesting humanism is (like) a religion (not necessarily one that believes in god).

Bit disingenuous to imply theism and religion are the same.

The Brown piece is an offer of dialogue at the interface between humanism and religion(s) of which BHA should take note. Benjamin O’Donnell’s comment aligns with mine (and includes interesting rant against Rod Liddle – another story).]

I Wasn’t There – Earlier this year I attended the IAI’s How the Light Gets In festival and The Rationalist Association’s AGM to mention a couple of events, but I didn’t make plans to attend the WHC2014 organised in Oxford this weekend by the BHA. You see, I’ve had a bit of a mixed relationship with the BHA, a little bit “who’s more humanist than who” and, following the God vs Science wars, BHA and their “mob” of social media commenters seemed to have become fixated on the entirely negative anti-religion agenda, typified by recent campaigns (and victories) in religious control and curricula in UK schools, but also by a very narrow “scientistic” critical take on what passes for rational argument.

A Theme In Our Time? – When they announced the “Freedom of Speech” theme for WHC2014 this weekend, whilst the real world is facing Israel vs Gaza (again), and the spectre of IS(IS) in Iraq and more, they appeared to have dropped the ball of any serious discussion on the fit between religion, rationality and humanism and gone for the ubiquitous underpinnings of any-old-libertarian agenda. Freedom of speech and thought? We agree already. Some people are never happy, not even me. I even said so on Friday as the WHC2014 agenda started to appear on social media.

Twitter Take-Aways – Anyway, having got myself hooked into a fair selection of the relevant #hashtags and @tweeters on the Friday, and with the “Biblical” rains of Bertha confining us indoors, I spent almost the entire weekend glued to #WHC2014 and associated sub-tags on twitter until close of business on Sunday. I’m glad I did, in fact I’m massively disappointed I wasn’t there. There was a huge range of international participation, and a wide selection of topics in the plenary and parallel sessions. Suffice to say the tweeting from the event by BHA volunteers was excellent. The take-aways for me are:

Fighting Talk (and Action) – In parts of the world where religion is oppressive, particularly of women and liberal education, as well as socially sectarian, militant and/or brutal in its enforcement, then surely a firm stand needs to be taken against it, vocally and where necessary physically. And furthermore, the courage of those making the stand locally needs to be recognised and supported by those who find ourselves safely remote from the front lines. Many more eloquent and courageous than I spoke and have written on these aspects of the WHC2014 event. Examples like Gulalai Ismail and Wole Soyinka honoured with awards and Taslima Nasreen honoured with a keynote speaking slot and the ovation to close any congress. All I can add is – Absolutely!

Feminism, really! – A corollary of the above proved to be recognising the true place and value of women. A bit like Dawkins own “Doh!” moment, I’ve personally not felt the need to express “feminism” for several decades. Like, obviously! This is news? In fact a large part of my own agenda – under the banner Vive la Difference – is not so much being gender-blind in treating women as fully-paid-up humans (that really is a given within humanism, surely), but in fact recognising special feminine strengths in many team and governance contexts. We human individuals are all different, and fortunately at least half of us are females of the species.

Tactical Aggression – A further corollary of the aggressive response to brutal and oppressive religion was the recognition that this is tactical aggression suited to the particular battle. Quite a bit of chatter about the old misguided idea that benign expressions of religion are merely cover for militant and inhuman kinds and therefore to be challenged as aggressively as any. To be aggressive – even vocally – is not a value or strategy of humanism. It’s a necessary tool we mustn’t shy away from using – but speak softly and carry a big stick would seem to be the ready-made default adage.

Freedom of Speech – On the freedom of speech agenda, the conclusions were in the end-of-conference declaration. For me the key statement had been tweeted several times over the course of the weekend, and I have no knowledge of the drafting process of the statement. I’m guessing a statement already existed, and probably had conference-theme-specific amendments drafted in advance, to be finalised during the congress? I have a long-standing caveat to the idea that freedom of speech includes the right to offend – infamously, to “blaspheme” in a religious context – the caveat being that this is not a humanist license to gratuitously insult those you don’t respect enough to understand. (I pointed to Dennett’s espousal of Rappaport’s rules for criticism for those who asked. Second block-quote.)  In these days of social media and comment-threads-with-everything, attack and criticism are the norm, and a side order of rhetorical insult – casual or vindictive – comes as standard. The key concluding statement is:

“There is no right not to be offended.”

The double negative from the side of the receiver is not entirely novel, but as a choice is about as good an expression of this value as any I’ve heard. Progress. Any statement is part of a conversation, a conversation which, if there is any point to it, leads to better working outcomes over some practical time-scales. Sure, I may expect that I may be offended, after all any change of mind hurts, but I can also expect that offence is not the point or intention of the dialogue.

[Post Note : The “final” version of the declaration is here. It was drafted and open for comment in advance, and comments are therefore now (technically) closed. Pity the clause on restraint ends with “only” rather than indicate positive value of restraint.]

Humour – In the same vein much humour evident in the congress as well as the twitter exchanges, including several messages that needing a sense of humour was absolutely essential. As with offence generally, “No-one has a right not to be ridiculed or be offended by a joke at their expense” is not the same as carte-blanche for everyone to ridicule anyone at any time. If you’re not the court jester (or the house cartoonist) humour should only be aimed at another in circumstances where the mutual respect and intentions are clear – social-media tongue-in-cheek straw-men wise-crackers take note. Anyone can do it, but the “right to offend” is a non-existent defence; it’s not how the value is framed.

Working Together – perhaps unsurprisingly the political thread converged on the idea that more working together with each other and with the prevailing political machinery is to be encouraged. Given topical news I was surprised not to hear any mention of say, either Baroness Warsi or Michael Cashman as supporters and collaborators from distinct perspectives. Quite a few comparing sizes of humanist organisations to religious and other lobby groups. Anyway, reassuringly, the idea that if so many disparate groups are going to work together in different political systems on myriad specific agenda priorities in the name of humanism, we’re going to need some overarching manifesto or constitution in which to capture the values we so far share only implicitly. Good news is that the BHA and other international humanist organisations clearly have drafting such a constitution on their agenda(s), and no doubt the declaration on Freedom of Speech (and Thought) is one piece of that jigsaw. I’m looking forward to hearing from and contributing to that development.

The Dawkins Backlash – One encouraging sign of the maturing humanist agenda was the recognition that those combative and “shrill” spokespeople, we’ve come to associate with the “science vs religion” voice of humanism, and indeed who have been instrumental in promoting humanism, may no longer be the figureheads we need to make progress, if they ever were. Richard Dawkins was the unfortunate representative of “the four horseman” whose feet were held to the fire in a keynote interview by Samira Ahmed. The applause for Dawkins was decidedly divided, and there were strong statements elsewhere that the dominant western scientific conception of rationality were part of the problem facing humanism; something that some of us have been warning for some time. Doubly significant that fellow spaghetti westerner PZ Myers felt moved to blog that his friend Dawkins was still missing the point – digging himself a bigger hole – in continuing to defend his recent logical argument using the relative merits of date-rape as his example.

Imperfect Makes Progress – my reflections reflect what I picked up from the twitter traffic and the interactions I chose to engage with, so no doubt my biased view missed other important points. Much has already been blogged elsewhere. However I came a away, like so many others reported, with a tremendous positive vibe and optimism for the future of humanism, and hence the future of humanity. I must repeat; well done to the organisers, the participants and the tweeters. Much appreciated. Roll on Sao Paolo WHC2017.

[END]

[12 links and counting. With acknowledgements to the many other humanists whose tweets I absorbed by osmosis and so far failed to link explicitly – ping me and I’m happy to amend @psybertron.]

[Post Note : Another collection of highlights at Blackwells Broad Conversation.]

[And here : Kenan Malik’s summary of his own talk – one I didn’t catch on twitter.]

[And here a retweeted tweet I noted during the conference, but in response to PZ Myers own posting of his link – mentioned in The Dawkins Backlash above – I was moved to ask where the #irony tag had gone. Still not sure of the context of this remark – on face value I agree with it:

‘If you have open, unregulated freedom of speech, you are going to drown in noise’, says @pzmyers now at the #WHCnonsense. #whc2014

— Eliza Goroya (@ElizaGoroya) August 8, 2014

And here another view from ex-pastor Catherine Dunphy:

… the privilege of seeing the values that I aspired to being lived and communicated, all the while staying cognizant of ideological baggage and being open to hearing divergent opinions.

– That’s all for now.]

Sad thing given the World Humanist Congress 2014 kicking off today is their chosen theme “Freedom of Speech”.

After a decade of humanists hammering (exercising their own freedom of speech against) the religious in the science vs religion wars, we find ourselves at a point where religious wars are recognised for what they are. “Wars of Religion” proclaims The Times front page banner headline – in response to US authorising strikes against IS(IS)(IL) in Iraq. (A good move.)

Yes freedom of speech is wonderful, like motherhood and apple pie, even if the practical subtleties of its responsibilities escape many of its adherents. The same day BHA hails “we win” in the other headline about the withdrawal of state funding from nurseries with extremist religious agendas (like creationism). The BHA appears to support batlles, so long as it wins them. Even A C Grayling, philosopher following in the footsteps of J S Mill, kicks off his own introduction to WNC2014 with “No one is born with religion”. No-one is born with science, or with speech either for that matter, so the anti-religion slogan is pretty fatuous. All education and development is based on the values of the cultural environment of the child. British values says the (British) minister, but human values in a free society for sure – sod all to do with science or religion – but all to do with a philosophical belief system called humanism.

I do wish WHC2014 every success, but ho hum. What a missed opportunity to major specifically on religion and war in terms of human values from the ground up. Timing is everything. Freedom (of speech) is the ubiquitous value in a free society.

Piece by Alice Bell in her Grauniad blog. I agree that engagement must be more than, even different to, PR communication, but not sure that we need to separate the authority of wisdom from other technical resources. We need both, as well as an understanding of the interfaces between science and non-science.

When Hamas started its volley of rockets at Israel 3 weeks ago or so, it was already too late for anyone outside Israel or Gaza to have much effect beyond hand-wringing and expressions of outrage over the armed tit for tat.

There are several interested parties here, dozens of them, all distinct and different …

• Palestinians, Gazans, Hamas, Fatah and other assorted Islamist factions in and out of Gaza.
• Israel, Israelis, Israeli Jews, Jews generally and various whackier factions of Jewry in and out of Israel.
• Wider Arab & “Western” nations and interests. Western here needs to include Russia (see other local difficulty)
• Current interests, plus historical & cultural interests, responsibilities, claims, offers and rejections.

The immediate conflict is between Israel and Hamas. Gazans and Israelis are collateral damage.

Having decided to rocket Israel Hamas has chosen to be the aggressor in the current armed conflict (*1). (Gazan’s specifically(*2), plus Palestinians and Arabs more generally, let the world know your affiliation with Hamas …. Hamas’ own aims are clear and public.)

Having decided to respond to the attacks defensively, and then by pre-emptive attacks, Israel is within its rights. Its responsibilities are then “proportionality” and humanitarian care for the collateral damage on both sides.

Once in the mess of the current armed exchanges with sporadic cease-fires, broken several times by Hamas and ignored (“for operational reasons”) occasionally by Israel, it’s still the same mess we’re in.

Collateral damage of innocents(*) is part of the mess, attributing whose direct and indirect responsibility for whose ordnance hits which “accidental” targets and who located the targets, once we’re in the mess, is the fog of war and blame-game rhetoric. Shit happens because shit is happening when we’re in this kinda mess.

It was too late to avoid the mess 3 weeks ago, other than pleas to humanity. Only the US has forces to match Israel anyway, and whilst US and Russia are miles apart in the world right now, there is little chance of external intervention of genuinely neutral force. This conflagration needs to burn itself out.

Same is true now for both Hamas and Israel, in the sense that the current mess is unavoidable, it’s the current reality; (it wasn’t 3 weeks ago, but now it is). Now we’re in this mess “we” might as well finish the job – the damage is already done, it’s not really about numbers. Having kicked-off the mess originally against Hamas rockets, and their sources, the threat of invasion tunnels became not only real (actual physical assaults) but more extensive, as more were unearthed on the Gazan side – it makes perfect military operational sense to complete their “destruction” with the (human) forces you’ve already put at risk.

The belligerents need to cease any new operations, and cease fire, and withdraw to at-peace dispositions. Fast. Then they need to talk, with mediators clearly.

• That talk needs to address the whole of the real problem, not the unfortunate recent mess.
• The talking to solve the problem also needs parallel ongoing strategies for responding to provocations to any new mess arising.
• The talk must not stop. And the talking shop needs sustained and continuous world effort and variety to maintain its credibility.

That real underlying problem is complicated. What we mustn’t do is wait for the next mess before we fix it, because if it’s not fixed we all share responsibilities for the next mess, just as we do for this and previous examples.

(*1) Hostilities are ongoing, so the precise start of the current armed conflict is a matter of perspective. Before the rocket strikes on Israel per se – ie civilian targets – there had of course been tit for tat kidnappings and killings of individuals on both sides, and Israeli strikes against specific Hamas targets. Hamas themselves confirmed the victims were their own military leaders.

(*2) The parents of Gazan children, and their local leaders are NOT innocent when it comes to Hamas launching rockets and building attack tunnels “in their name”.

[Post Notes :

This started as a riff – some short sharp statements, without explicit arguments and connected paragraphs. Only response so far has been personal twitter abuse, but I’m gradually adding referenced facts. and subtly modifying details as I do. One suggestion was I was ignorant of facts in this Henry Siegman piece at Democracy Now. Good news is that Siegman agrees with my first point and indeed it’s his first point – in the shorter term now this mess has erupted there is nothing to do but hope the disaster is short-lived. All strategy, planning and action concerns what next, based on deeper understanding of the parties and real issues, current and historical. Reading on, I don’t find anything of which I’m not generally aware, that’s not covered by my “it’s complicated” above. But feel free to point out and ask any specific, anyone. Immediate interest for me is current Gazan “governance” and where Hamas fits in. The fact current Palestinian Gazan’s find themselves “blockaded” into their current narrow strip is a long and sorry tale of missed opportunity in itself – the idea that they are forced to live this way simply being “Israel’s fault” is laughably simplistic. That is one point I depart from Siegman.

Anyway for now – the riff stands. (Fixed the Fatah reference). Sure “provocation” is part of what leads to outbreak of armed exchanges, given the tense conflict of the status quo. No-one is blameless, and sure, I do think Israeli response has been disproportionate and inhumane – I add my voice to that outrage, but I believe other Israelis and Jews saying “not in our name” says that much more eloquently and forcefully than the rest of us hand-wringing bystanders. But both sides have a longer agenda here. Beyond the immediate ending of hostilities but before the “full solution” the short-to-medium term issue has to be Hamas. It won a Palestinian-wide election back in 2006, but had to impose its own Islamic rule of force in 2007 to take control over Gaza from shared secular responsibility with Fatah … since then it’s declared aim of the destruction of Israel, and it’s alignment with other Islamic movements since the Arab spring, Egypt and Syria crises means several things. (1) we need to know where Palestinians and Gazan’s (and wider Arabs) stand on Hamas aims and actions in 2014, and (2), if the supported aims are Islamic militant, against tolerance of other cultures and beliefs, internal or neighbouring – we have a much larger issue to work on whilst “peace-keeping” in and around Gaza.

And here’s a good piece from Brian Eno on the immediate humanist issues.

And (5 Aug) another strong action from Baroness Warsi.

And (5 Aug) the HuffPo interview with Warsi – very explicit on the loss of William Hague, and the internal FO unrest. How much more evidence needed for long-life meritocratic second house, and “wisdom” rather than vote-catching fads manning important ministries – like the FO – that have tough ethical decisions to make over long and short time-scales.

From both Eric (Pickles) and William (Hauge) I learnt the art of reconciling passion and idealism with pragmatism and realism …

Art not science, notice.

Meanwhile (1 Aug) ISIS in Syria and Iraq and …. where next. There is still one complicated problem here called “the middle east” and Israel/Hamas are the bull & red-rag in the china shop.

The belief that Isis is interested only in ‘Muslim against Muslim’ struggles is another instance of wishful thinking: Isis has shown it will fight anybody who doesn’t adhere to its bigoted, puritanical and violent variant of Islam. Where Isis differs from al-Qaida is that it’s a well-run military organisation that is very careful in choosing its targets and the optimum moment to attack them …. A new and terrifying state has been born.

Disappointing to see the myth that Sykes-Picot was “implemented” after WW1? Hopefully just short-hand. After all that’s what myths are for.]

Put my comment in the thread already : “Richard Dawkins, what on earth happened to you?” by Eleanor Robertson in The Grauniad. Stick to the science, Dick.

Don’t know enough about Ms Robertson as to why she gets to publish a personal tirade against the individual, but the point is real (of all the 4, 5, 6 horsemen, not just Dawkins).

To say x is bad, y is worse, presumes bad and worse are some objective measures that lie logically related along some common scale. x and y are different sure, but they’re not to be reduced to objects.The value judgments depends on whose perspective and a lot more than are found in your philosophy (of science) Mr Dawkins.

The Eagleton quote is spot on. The horsemen should stick to their science, and show a little humility – given their public profiles – when launching beyond science, pushing scientism where its contribution is doubtful, even laughable.

His logical point that a statement about B says nothing about a previous statement about A – is true enough. His (scientistic) error is to pick an example topic where simple logical objective points are least relevant, and to be ignorant of the error or its significance. That’s the recurring error of all the “horsemen”, and the reason it brings the anti-personal reactions it does, rather than well-reasoned arguments. That argument is about what a well-reasoned argument is, and their capital error is the arrogant belief that science holds a monopoly on rationality – scientism.

[Followed-up by Dawkins here. Where, to be fair, he does emphasise his logical point about the X and Y statements. Rather than apologise, after all it’s OK to cause offense in his world, he does acknowledge that the subjective personal violation examples he chose as illustrations, could have been reversed without invalidating his original logical point. Which shows PRECISELY that these non-scientific examples cannot be decided / ranked / valued by his scientific logic – merely expressed as vacuous logical examples of no real world value – opposite statements having equal value, logically, scientistically, in the real world beyond science. THIS is what his detractors (me included) are railing against. Stick to the science Dick, or wake up to the real world. ]