It’s the Thought that Counts

Progressive Conservative from The Big Stick has tagged one of us to write six random things about ourselves. I’ll be a good sport and do it, since A is pretty swamped with work this term. Hopefully he’ll return to posting soon. (Feel free to leave encouraging comments for him! Maybe we can guilt him into writing more.) Anyway, because memes are a bit of a departure from our usual style, I’m going to say a few words on the nature of memes first.

As a child of the information age, I was actually surprised when I first learned that “meme” was not originally an internet-related term. (Amateur etymologist that I was, I assumed that it came from the repetition of the word “me,” almost like a desperate cry for attention, not entirely inconsistent with the LiveJournal culture in which I’d seen memes most often.) The word “meme” was actually coined in Richard Dawkins’ 1973 book, The Selfish Gene; he shortened the Greek mimeme, meaning “something imitated” and related to the English mimic. Building an analogy to the gene, Dawkins explained how society evolves through a sort of natural selection applied to memes, cultural practices and ideas that propagate throughout a population. So the term “meme” encompasses much more than one of these gimmicky chain letters in blog form. Also included are fashions and fads, slang words and commonly used phrases, and even scientific theories and technologies.

As is the case with genetics, with memetics it’s tempting to think of surviving memes as somehow better, having proven themselves fit through natural selection. After all, that’s sort of the idea behind the marketplace of ideas. What’s fascinating to me, though, is that “fit” doesn’t mean good for human society. It means good for the meme. Just like a disease epidemic, the widespread adoption of a meme could actually be harmful to society and simply a result of the meme’s propensity to reproduce and endure. (Perhaps it was set to a catchy tune, came with a free prize in every box, or dispensed along with the promise of eternal salvation.)

At the same time, some memes survive because the people who learn them survive. These are bits of information passed on from expert to apprentice, or from parent to child. They are cultural practices and beliefs that help society, or at least help individuals make it in society. The key, I think, is in determining which memes you want to acquire, and which memes are just contagious. Relying on a vaccime or a meme-allergy (see the Memetic Lexicon for definitions to these and more cool terms) to protect you from the “bad” or unuseful memes isn’t always going to work. That means we need to step back from the context of our everyday lives and reflect on what’s happening and why. Critical thinking once again saves the day. (Skepticism is a meme too, though. So what do I know?)

read the rest »

Tags: culture

Ever since PZ Myers’ tongue-in-cheek hosting of the last Carnival of the Elitist Bastards (as well as my post about reclaiming slurs, which followed soon after) I’ve been thinking that it’s time we at It’s the Thought that Counts write the essay that everyone else did back on CEB #1 and #2 — that is, to answer the question, “What does it mean to be an elitist bastard?”

I was a little bit distraught when I read PZ’s carnival post, basically because it wasn’t crystal clear whether he was joking, and I know plenty of readers wouldn’t get the joke. The idea was to take the term “elitist bastard” and run with it, to proclaim his superiority over all the contributors and to make fun of all of us for being insufficiently elitist or bastard-like… as a tool to sort of underhandedly point out that we had worthwhile and intelligent things to say and are actually a group of good people, deep down. It was an amusing and clever way to structure the post. Still I wonder if, given the cult of personality that’s grown around PZ Myers, if it didn’t come across as a little too believable in its on-face message.

I’m all for dispelling the myth that being knowledgeable and willing to use that knowledge makes you an “elitist bastard.” (There are ways for that term to be appropriately applied… about a person complaining that the Evian poured for them at a private golf club is a few degrees off the right temperature, or something… but most of the time it’s used with entirely the wrong sense.) It’s not “elitist” to make the observation that, in some quality such as general education level or expertise in a particular area, you are above average — assuming that you’re right. It’s no more elitist for an economist to share an opinion about economic policy than it is for a construction worker to build a sturdy wall, a janitor to wax the floors until they shine, or a figure skater to execute a triple axel. If someone feels bad about having less expertise about something than you, they should rectify it by improving themselves, not by calling you a “bastard.”

Now, I’m all for reclaiming words used as slurs. But there’s reclaiming, and then there’s prophecy fulfillment. Sometimes slur words are just sounds, and sometimes they’re descriptive terms. “Elitist bastard” is one of the latter. I don’t want to deal with this term by saying, “Oh yeah, I’ll show you an elitist bastard!” and being as much of an elitist and a bastard as I can be. It might seem funny to me at the time, but the joke is going to go right over the heads of the very people whose minds I’m trying to change. (Want another example? It’s one thing to pull the rug out from under the derogatory “hebe” and name a Jewish magazine “Heeb.” It’d be quite another thing to try to embrace the term “dirty Jew,” because embracing it would seem to require one to be extra dirty in whatever ways seemed most stereotypical. There’s a reason this doesn’t happen.)

I don’t believe the CEB philosophy is about embracing the term “elitist bastard” as such, so much as it is about pointing out its absurdity by juxtaposing it with ourselves. We’re proud and happy to be intelligent people with carefully thought-out opinions, and we believe we can improve the “marketplace of ideas” by sharing those opinions rather than being shamed into silence by people who equate education with evil. At least, that’s my interpretation, and based on the “What It’s About” section on the carnival blog I’m inclined to say that the rest of the crew would agree with me.

You can help raise the level of our public discourse from the subgutter of stupidity in which it currently resides. All you have to do is celebrate your own intelligence.

You don’t have to be erudite or loquacious. You don’t have to be particularly learned or expert. Just say what you think. What do you think about the dumbing down of the media? Education? Politics? Why do you suppose our cultures celebrate jocks, but not genius?

…Saving the world is a noble goal. Savoring it may be just as important. As Elitist Bastards, I think we can manage both.

To me, being part of the Carnival of the Elitist Bastards means saying, “If by ‘elitist bastard,’ you mean someone who isn’t embarrassed to enjoy learning new things… if by ‘elitist bastard,’ you mean someone who takes pride in making reasonable and logical decisions… if by ‘elitist bastard,’ you mean someone who seeks to use their skills to make the world a better place, then yes, I suppose I am an elitist bastard.”

It’s not about trying to be bastards. It’s about trying to do what we believe is good and right, while acknowledging that we’re probably going to be called bastards for it.

Tags: carnival, culture

Given all the comments on my post about people who readily admit to being bad at math, as well as the discussion occurring on various other blogs, I figured it was time to respond to some of what’s been said.

There were some people who expressed skepticism of the phenomenon I was complaining about.  These comments (both here and elsewhere) were things like “I always talk about how bad I am at writing” or “I’m an English major, but I know plenty of science.”  I have no doubt at all that the incidents cited in the comments really did happen, and they do go against the trend I talked about, but I think they are the exception rather than the rule.

Putting aside for a moment the question of how much knowledge someone should have about any particular field, I want to give some clear support for my assertion that math/science people do know more about the humanities than humanities people know about math and science.  I should first be clear about what I’m counting as what.  By “humanities” I mean not only literature and fine arts, but also history, social sciences and languages.  While there are some arguable cases (economics comes to mind), I think it’s pretty clear that that stuff clearly goes on the humanities side of the divide.  When I refer to “sciences,” I mean technical fields in general, including both theoretical and applied math, computer science, engineering, and applications like medicine.

It’s obviously impossible to compare levels of understanding in two different fields.  How much calculus do you need in order to equal the amount of knowledge that encompassed by fluency in a foreign language?  It doesn’t make any sense to compare these things directly.  Still, I believe that we can make the general claim that some incredibly basic, simple science is considered “equivalent” to much more advanced levels of humanities knowledge.  Z commented to this effect, using Jeopardy! questions as a proxy.  Something a little more quantitative (ha, ha) would of course be preferable.

The best metric I could come up with was simply to look at how much effort was being put into learning material on the other side of the divide, rather than how much material was actually being learned.  I decided to look up core curricula at some of the country’s most prestigious universities.  These curricula seem as good a proxy as any for what the intellectual class feels a well-educated person should know.  The humanities part of the core requirement generally determines how much time a science student has to spend on humanities, while the reverse is true of the science part of the requirement.  Of course, many on both sides choose to learn much more than is required, but I think the requirements are a good proxy of what is considered necessary in order to consider yourself well-educated.  I tried to vary the colleges I looked at.  I chose two schools with a technical focus (MIT and Caltech), three general top universities (Harvard, Princeton, and Yale), and two of the top liberal arts schools (Swarthmore and Williams).  Results below:  read the rest »

Tags: culture, education, math, science

I saw the below video today, thanks to the awesome and always fascinating blog Sociological Images. It’s a clip from the ABC’s The View, a coffee klatsch sort of show aimed generally towards women of whatever age range it is that doesn’t mind listening to Barbara Walters talk. You can read all the hosts’ bios here, but the two primarily involved in this conversation are Whoopi Goldberg and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

There are a couple things in this clip that stuck out to me. The first is the general topic of the power of language. I understand why it’s considered more acceptable for black people to use “the n-word” than for white people to do so. I have no problem making self-deprecating jokes about any number of my personal qualities, but if a friend of mine laughed and chimed in with agreement, I’d be a bit offended. When I say it, it’s a funny joke; when you say it, it’s rude. The question is, is that rational? Does the meaning of what’s said really depend that much on who says it? I find that hard to believe. It’s not offensive for me to use a slur referring to a group I’m a part of, because of course I didn’t mean it “that way” — but surely you are capable of not meaning it that way either. It seems more than a little unfair that, simply by virtue of your existing and your being born with certain qualities, a layer of meaning has been added to all your statements which you can never really escape. Your words will always be white-person-words or black-person-words or [fill in an adjective]-person-words, never really just words.

The position that’s argued in the video by Goldberg, and to a lesser degree by Sherri Shepherd, is that the word “nigger” has history which ought to be remembered and which is an important part of black culture. It’s “taking back” a slur, making it your own. It’s similar — though obviously different in magnitude — to a woman calling herself and other women “chicks” with a sense of female empowerment, or to LGBT folks saying “fag” or “dyke” with pride in their sexual orientation. The idea is that by embracing the term, you can make a once-derogatory word into a simple descriptive adjective, or even a positive quality.

That brings me to the second issue: to what extent do we create the society we live in simply by acting and imagining? Hasselbeck says, “We don’t live in different worlds. We live in the same world,” and the other hosts disagree. They’re right, of course — issues of “race” (whatever that means) and ethnic differences are not yet non-issues. There’s still discrimination and prejudice. Hasselbeck’s response to this is to acknowledge that there’s nothing fundamentally different about people with different skin pigmentation, and to try to live her life as though no differences exist. On the other hand, Goldberg’s response is to try to use a racial slur as though it were a friendly, endearing word. Both seem to have the ultimate goal of creating a society without prejudice. Who’s using more pretending and wishful thinking to try to get there? Whose approach is more likely to be successful?

It seems to me that both of them could be right, but at different times. Reclaiming a slur can encourage pride in one’s identity, and it can turn something deeply offensive into something hardly worth remarking upon. That’s worthwhile progress — it means moving past the worst parts of prejudice. However, I don’t think it’s a permanent solution. I said hardly worth remarking upon, not totally unremarkable, because keeping special terms that only “our people” are allowed to say, that continually remind everyone of past persecution of “our people” by everyone else, isn’t really going to eliminate boundaries. To create a society where we really all “live in the same world,” we need to give up language that serves only to exaggerate differences.

Tags: culture, discrimination, race

If you work or study in a technical field — particularly if you’re in math itself — you get used to a particular type of reaction when you tell someone what you do.  It’s far from universal, but frequently the response is something like, “I was never very good at math” or “Math just wasn’t my thing.”  You learn to get used to it, but really, I’m sick of it.

It’s not that it’s not true.  Probably these people really are bad at math.  Probably it was always their worst subject.  I’m just tired of no one feeling bad about it.  These kinds of sentiments are very common, but imagine how weird it would be if you replaced “math” with “English” or “reading.”  Do you think authors, when they tell people they write for a living, ever get told “I was just never very good with words” or “I’m just not a reading person”?  They obviously don’t, because it’s not acceptable to be lacking in reading skills.  Some people are, but they would never go around saying so, and they usually work very hard to get better.  Somehow it’s become dishonorable to admit English is a bad subject for you, but perfectly fine to say the same for math.

It’s really sad that in a technical age, where more and more people are engineers, scientists and computer programmers, we don’t have this deep societal appreciation for math and science.  The same thing that makes people freely admit their math skills also affects college curricula.  Look at the required curricula at most liberal arts colleges, which proudly proclaim the value of the “well-rounded” education that they give.  There are very few math/science/computer/engineering classes, and extremely few math classes in particular.  What requirements there are can always be filled by worthless classes.  Then look at the curricula for technical, math/science-focused schools.  They always have a substantial humanities requirement, and a totally unscientific survey of people I know has found that there tend to be few joke courses to fill those requirements, and that most students don’t take them.  Which schools really give the most well-rounded education?

In this day and age, there is no excuse for brushing off math.  It’s tough if you’re bad at it, especially since faking competency is a lot harder in math than in the humanities.  Nevertheless, brushing it off and not caring is not an acceptable defense mechanism.  There’s a part of me that really wants, next time I hear someone say “I was always bad at math” to respond with “Well, I guess you’re just stupid.”  It’s obviously not the correct response, but at least it’d move the average in the right direction.

Update: some follow-up comments here.

Tags: culture, education, math

PZ Myers recently called on atheists to steal communion wafers from Catholic churches so that they can be descrated/abused/whatever.  This is the result of an incident in Florida where a college student stole one and got in trouble for it.  Now, I consider myself an atheist and have a lot of sympathy for PZ’s general position, but this request is idiotic.

If you want to convince people that religion is irrational and they should question the beliefs they were raised with, the first thing you have to do is convince people that it’s not necessary to be religious to be a good person.  If people think atheists are evil, they won’t ever give the message a chance.  This is counterproductive in the extreme.  Ames at Submitted to Candid World has an excellent post on this.

I think there’s a larger point here.  Yes, the reactions to the original wafer-stealing were more extreme than can possibly be justified, and it’s tragic when people start getting death threats for things they have every right to do.  That said, taking the wafer is wrong.  It’s offensive and disrespectful on several different levels.

I first of all think it’s important to have respect for religious beliefs, even if they’re dumb and irrational.  In a society that is pluralistic and accepting of various beliefs, there is room for dialogue.  People talk about ideas, hear about what others think, and over time the better beliefs tend to win out.  This is the rationale for free speech, freedom of religion, and democracy in general.  In a society where everyone is hostile and combative towards each other, no dialogue happens.  The beliefs that win out are those with the most numerous/powerful supporters.  Which situation do you think is better for atheism?  It’s not just about the legal rights of free speech.  It’s also about the general level of dialogue in society, and actions like this seriously undermine what dialogue exists.

It’s also just offensive because any time a symbol of some faith/group/country is denigrated, it’s offensive.  I really don’t think most Catholics, especially in the US, think the wafer really becomes the body of Jesus.  I think they just take it as a religious ceremony.  Sure, Catholic dogma says it transforms, but Catholic dogma also says the Bible is the literal word of God, which only 23% of US Catholics believe.  The thing is, whatever you believe, it’s a religious object.  It represents the religion that uses it, and it has meaning to followers of that religion.  It has meaning the same way that a US flag has meaning to Americans.  (Even those who fight to keep it legal to burn it are generally offended when it’s burnt.)  You wouldn’t cover the walls of a synagogue in antisemitic graffiti just because you (correctly) believe that taking all Jewish beliefs literally is irrational.

Think of it this way.  Sticking up your middle finger at someone is offensive, but sticking up your pointer finger is just fine.  There’s nothing inherent in one finger that makes it more offensive than the other.  Noting that believing one to be offensive and the other not is an irrational belief is not reason enough to go outside, stick up your middle finger at someone, and be upset when they’re offended.  You know it’s something that they would be bothered by and you did it for no reason other than to bother them.  The same goes for stealing the wafer.  For whatever irrational reason, lots of people are offended by it.  Simple human decency says that if something you consider doing would deeply upset tons of people, and you don’t have some important reason behind doing it, you shouldn’t.

It’s one thing to think that religion is irrational and argue against it.  It’s another thing to think that religious people deserve to be harassed because of their beliefs.  PZ Myers usually does the former, and I’m all for it, but this is a clear instance of the latter.

What I find at least as upsetting as the post, though, is the comments below it.  If you read through the comments you will see several people, Z included, who commented expressing similar reservations.  They were called dicks, trolls, and all manner of other names, but were almost never responded to intelligently.  For a movement that claims to be based on the willingness to debate logical ideas and rationally defend what they have to say, this whole episode is a pretty embarrassing showing.

Tags: atheism, culture, religion, religious freedom

Ralph Nader made a fool of himself today in a not-so-well-thought-out attempt to look like a halfway reasonable presidential candidate. Just look at this:

“There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He’s half African-American,” Nader said. “Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn’t want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We’ll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards.”

(Hat tips to Ben Smith of Politico.com and Reason: Hit & Run for pointing out the story.) When I read this, I knew I wanted to write something here, but I was too sickened to think clearly about it. After a few hours my mind has cleared a bit. Let’s make a list of the outrageous things in this episode:

1. Nader thinks that African-Americans should put “ghetto” issues above all.
2. Nader thinks that if a black man doesn’t talk about poverty all the time, he’s “talking white.”
3. Nader thinks that the public would like Obama more if he acted more stereotypically black.
4. Nader really wants Obama to spend a lot of time talking specifically about … asbestos?
5. Nader believes there is no meaningful difference between the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

#3 is just silly. Even Nader couldn’t honestly believe that Obama is losing votes because he’s not black enough. A few choice moments with West Virginia voters should be enough to convince anyone the opposite is true. Even if there are some voters who think that Obama’s not “black enough” (whatever that means) and who make their political decisions solely by where candidates fall on some weird racial spectrum, they’re not going to favor McCain (or Nader, for that matter) over Obama. They surely aren’t blacker than him.

#4 is, I suppose, just a special case of #1, so I’ll deal with them together. In order to truly respect every person as a complete individual, we have to be able to deal with the fact that sometimes people don’t identify primarily by whatever characteristic we as society isolate and stereotype them with. The example that comes immediately to mind is the Log Cabin Republicans. While it surprises me that there are GLBT folks willing to join the party of politicians who believe their sexual orientation to be entirely sinful and deserving of scorn, I realize that there are of course some people who place a higher priority on having more agressive foreign policy and less agressive taxation than on having the most tolerant laws regarding their sexuality. It’s inappropriate to assume that if someone is a member of a minority group, their primary political concerns ought to be the issues that define that minority. So yes, it’s true that there’s a disproportionately large number of homes in low-income neighborhoods that still have asbestos ceilings and shingles. It’s also true that median income levels are lower in black households than white households. But it’s insulting to imply that Obama ought to, by virtue of his ethnic background, spend so much time campaigning on “ghetto”-related issues that his stance on asbestos in particular is well-known.

Incidentally, Obama has worked and campaigned against all these problems Nader tries to call him out on: predatory lending practices, asbestos, lead, and so on. But who cares about facts when you can be ignorant and racist?

That brings me to #2 on my list. I cannot stand phrases like “acting black” or “talking white.” When someone characterizes behavior in those terms, they are making a sweeping generalization that is both socially damaging and flat-out wrong. I understand that when a white teenager wears sagging pants, listens to hip-hop, and uses street slang, he’s becoming (or attempting to become) part of a culture that is largely populated by black teenagers. However, that does not mean that all black teenagers are part of that culture, and it certainly does not mean that all black people are. It’s impossible to accurately describe someone as “acting black” when different black people act in every possible different way, and when white people are just as capable of acting in those same ways. Similarly, it makes no sense for Nader to claim that Obama is “talking white.” In what way — perhaps by discussing the Federal Reserve, climate change, and public health policy rather than simply what it’s like to live in the ghetto? It appears that Nader thinks black people are not allowed to talk about these things; these topics are for white people to discuss, and he won’t tolerate any black people pretending to be white by discussing them. This is beyond absurd!

Finally, I’m baffled by Nader’s intention to run for president in the first place, and his insistence that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can do right by the country because they are both too involved with corporate interests and thus equally bad (#5 on the list). You can make the case that two political parties are not enough to accommodate the range of political perspectives Americans hold. You can certainly make the case that there are flaws common to both major political parties. However, it’s simply ludicrous for Nader to pick out one aspect he identifies as a flaw and ignore all other facets of the party platforms.

Nader already has no chance of winning the election, and it’s stupid to cast a vote for him even if you think he’s the best candidate. Your vote will make much more of an impact in deciding which of the mainstream candidates wins the presidency. The fact that Nader dismisses both major parties so flippantly shows that he couldn’t be a good president — one of the most important job requirements is an ability to compromise and form coalitions among the extreme variety of views in this huge country. But more importantly, this incident illustrates that Nader is completely out of touch with American society. Maybe, deep down, he’s running not to win but to set the agenda for national debate. If he was a very skilled campaigner he might be able to pique the public’s interest and at least achieve that goal, but if this is any indication of his abilities, he’s not going to manage even that.

Tags: barack obama, culture, politics, race, ralph nader

I spent a while today thinking about this recent post from Hemant Mehta’s Friendly Atheist blog. It summarizes the story of a college student who felt she was discriminated against by her philosophy professor, who had asked her to critically examine her religious beliefs. Hemant quotes press releases from the American Center of Law and Justice, which acted on behalf of the student, and from the Center for Inquiry, which is on the side of the professor but doesn’t seem to have been directly involved. Each side tells a pretty different story of what happened, and I don’t claim to know who’s right, but the incident raises some interesting issues about the status of religion in American society.

In the interest of full (yet unsurprising) disclosure, I should say up front that I am an atheist myself. One of the reasons I don’t personally buy into religious doctrines is that, when viewed with a critical lens, I find they come out looking pretty unbelievable. That doesn’t mean I hate religion — just that I haven’t seen any compelling reason to ascribe to one at this time. I think the religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment are of extreme importance, I support the idea of separation of church and state, and I generally try to live out these principles of religious tolerance in my everyday life. Just as the government shouldn’t get to tell me what to believe, I don’t think we should discriminate against each other because of religion.

That sort of platitude about tolerance sounds intuitively right and moral (to the extent that you aren’t caught up in ideas about heathens and/or eternal damnation). Yet the more I think about it, I wonder why exactly we tend to believe in this sort of tolerance in the first place. I mean, as a society we do also generally believe that education, knowledge, and critical thinking are virtuous things — it’s perceived as better to go to college than it is to drop out of high school, to vote based on informed political opinions rather than on the attractiveness of the candidates, and so on. If someone you were casually chatting with in a coffee shop happened to confess to you her belief in a host of invisible fairies who sprinkled fairy dust on her while she slept to make sure she remembered to pay her utility bills on time, you would presumably think less of her for this exact reason. She can’t possibly have her wits about her, you might think to yourself. Anyone who was the least bit rational would realize that idea was absurd. Change the line to one about bread and wine changing into a man’s (or a god’s) flesh and blood, though, and all of a sudden you have a religious belief that must be respected.

We shouldn’t discriminate against people on the basis of things they can’t change about themselves, like ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. It’s my understanding that that’s the basis for the immorality of discrimination like that — if the person can’t help having that characteristic, it’s unfair to treat them differently because of it. This isn’t true about what you believe about the world, though, and we as a society embrace the fact that it isn’t true. If you believe that aliens are bombarding your house with mind control rays and the only way to stop them is to cover everything in aluminum foil, your friends and family will intervene and get you at the very least some therapy, and the conventional wisdom will be that they did a good thing. Most of the time, if you think crazy, irrational things, we don’t have any problem treating you differently.

We also shouldn’t discriminate on the basis of personal decisions that have no bearing on others and no reflection on the merits of an individual. It would be silly if I refused to be friends with anyone who wore flip-flops, for example. That would be arbitrary and unfair. Let’s say I was conducting a job interview, though, and the applicant came in wearing flip-flops. Assuming I’m not trying to hire a lifeguard, flip-flops are generally considered too casual for business attire, so I might fairly make the assumption that the applicant didn’t have a serious enough attitude about the job and weigh this against her when making my hiring decision. Similarly, if the applicant came to my job interview with a fresh roll of aluminum foil for my office to protect me from the aliens, I’d weigh that against her as well.

How is it appropriate to respond, then, when your new friend in the coffeeshop — or your prospective hire, or your neighbor, or whoever — happens to believe that evil exists in the world because a woman ate a magic fruit given to her by a talking snake? I’m not talking about having some vague deist beliefs or a general sense of a benevolent spirit watching over us; I mean adhering literally to religious dogma that directly contradicts, or at least seems wholly absurd in the face of, observations we can make today. If you share my opinion that it’s best to approach life from a rational and logical viewpoint, you’ll probably also reach the conclusion that an atheist or agnostic perspective is the most sensible one. Given that, should I really respect someone who tells me he’s a young-earth creationist, even in the face of all the evidence astrophysicists have accumulated about our universe since the Big Bang and all the evidence biologists have found for evolution by natural selection?

It seems to me that the answer is no, at least in contexts where those specific beliefs are relevant. It’s still unfair to always choose the creationist last when you’re picking kickball teams. But I think it’s perfectly fine to pass over the creationist when you’re looking for a biology teacher (an opinion I’ve already made clear in an earlier post). What about cases where the specific belief isn’t relevant but, say, logical thinking is? We wouldn’t hire our aluminum-foil-crazed friend to be a lawyer or a hedge fund manager, because those occupations require the capability for rational, analytical thinking, and that whole alien issue seems like good evidence that she’s not the most rational, analytical person we can find. Is it unreasonable, then, to treat a dogmatically religious person in the same way? I’m not sure of the answer to this question, but I do think it’s much less obvious than we as a society generally assume.

Tags: culture, ethics, religion

The New York Times recently published an article on hymenoplasty, a surgery done to create the physical illusion of virginity in women. It has become increasingly common in Europe. Muslim women who have adopted a European attitude towards sex find when they move towards marriage that their intended husband or his family wants to see proof of virginity, and the only way to fake that in a sufficiently believable way is to get this surgery. This of course says a ton about Muslim populations in Europe and the assimilation (or lack thereof) that is occurring. That’s all very interesting to contemplate, and there is much to say about it, but what’s I’ve been thinking about more since reading the article is the decision the doctor faces. Is this a surgery doctors should be willing to perform? It’s clearly a controversial issue — as the article mentions, the French College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians thinks no, for “moral, cultural, and health” reasons. Nevertheless, I’m inclined to say it should be something doctors are willing to do.

I will assume, first of all, that the surgery has some risks, like any other surgery, but that it is not abnormally risky as far as cosmetic surgery goes. Maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt it, and I am frankly just more interested in the moral issues.

It seems to me like the default response should be to perform the surgery, for basically libertarian reasons. These women want the surgery, it doesn’t do any direct harm to others, and it doesn’t seem so idiotic that wanting it is proof of irrationality, so they have a right to get it. Why should the doctor stand in the way? I don’t consider myself a libertarian, but I do have sympathy for the philosophy, and I feel like at the very least the burden of proof should be on those wanting to restrict individual choice.

What reasons might someone give for not performing the surgery? One is that the decision to have this done is coerced, rather than freely made. I agree that it is coerced in some sense, in that a substantial penalty is being attached to the alternative choice. However, we are usually upset in these sorts of circumstances at the coercive act, rather than the victim’s decision to give in. (This is why we punish muggers, but not people who give up their wallets when threatened with a gun.) In this case, the coercive act, while it seems dumb (or worse), is obviously not something that can be regulated. People can choose to marry or not marry someone else for whatever reason they want, even if idiotic. Extended family can choose not to talk to someone, to disinherit them, etc., for whatever stupid reason they want.

So let’s grant that the cultural practice is unfairly coercive. (I believe it’s reasonable for someone to want their spouse to have refrained from premarital sex, but I’d like to see that limited to an issue of trust and understanding between the couple. Extended family demanding the right to inspect the woman’s genitals seems a step too far.) I’m sure one of the common objections to the surgery is that it “cooperates with” or “condones” the underlying cultural expectation. Maybe we should ban people from giving their wallets to muggers — it might reduce the incentive to threaten people. A similar point can be made here. If within European Muslim communities, substantial portions of the female population became ineligible to wed, there would be a serious shortage of potential brides. It seems inevitable that in such a circumstance, in the long-term, more and more men (and their families) would become willing to accept non-virgin brides.

This is not an unreasonable argument, but it’s not an effect that will be incredibly quick. Banning the surgery means the ability to “get away with” premarital sex will be reduced, and so women will be more careful about maintaining virginity. If what you want is to undermine these cultural expectations, this is counterproductive. Even if you care less about the premarital sex prohibition, and just about the extreme inspection/punishment aspect, it will slow down cultural change. It is also a huge sacrifice to ask of the women in question in the name of longer-term progress. More importantly, if this surgery is widely available, women will no longer suffer from what is essentially a double standard with regard to premarital sex and will instead suffer from the need to have a minor cosmetic surgery done before marriage. I for one, think that smaller injustice is substantially better, even if it will take more time to completely get rid of than the larger injustice would.

At the very least, the case on moral/cultural grounds is inconclusive. Given that, I’d say this is a decision that women should make on their own. I don’t see why doctors (or their professional organizations) should be hesitant about performing it when it’s asked for.

Tags: culture, ethics, gender, religion

With all the recent gay marriage controversy in California and New York, I’ve been thinking about an idea I’ve actually had for quite a while. I think that every state should offer civil unions — but not just for same-sex couples. In fact, I think civil unions should completely replace marriages, at least legally.

Now, of course, this will probably seem extreme. End marriage? But the really important thing here is that such a move would in no way end marriage. Churches would still perform marriages. There would still be weddings, and rings, and vows, and everything else. None of that is remotely related to the legal institution of marriage. Legally, marriage is a contract of sorts between two people where they agree to a standardized set of promises towards each other. As a society we formally recognize this for two reasons. First, we think it’s beneficial socially as a structure for families. Second, it’s easier to keep track of things that way, since so many decisions/transactions are made at the family level. (For example, if we want to see if a child is poor enough to qualify for free school lunches, we need the combined income of both parents, not just one.)

I’m all for giving those legal protections to married couples. I do think it’s a good social structure to encourage, and it provides for a lot of expediency throughout society. Civil unions would also do this. (The civil unions I have in mind, very similar to those that actually exist, would be complete replications of the legal status of marriage, but with a different name.) In a way, it’s a meaningless change. However, I think it would have an important effect. There’s a reason that civil unions, despite being essentially equivalent, are meaningfully more acceptable to many people than gay marriage. To say gay couples deserve marriage is to make a strong statement about the cultural and religious institution of marriage, not just the legal one. Now, I fully support social as well as legal equality, and I believe churches should be willing to perform marriages for gay couples. Some already do. However, it seems better to me if the government stays out of that decision. The government already does, technically — even if gay marriage were legalized, a church could easily refuse to perform marriages for gay couples — but it doesn’t feel like that to most people. I think changing the name to “civil union” would clearly distinguish the legal institution from the cultural/religious one. Very few people actually oppose hospital visitation rights for gay couples. Making it clear that that kind of stuff is what we’re talking about would allow for a much more intelligent debate, and probably a better outcome for everyone.

Tags: civil liberties, culture, gay marriage, law, sexual orientation