Prominent atheist A.C. Grayling and some other well-known academics (including Richard Dawkins) have recently announced plans to set up a private college in London called the New College of the Humanities, which will charge students £18,000 a year in tuition fees. I would like to propose that the coincidence between this privatized (read: classist) model of university and the hegemonic and exclusionary ‘humanism’ of Grayling and friends is not merely incidental. Rather, I would argue, they are intimately intertwined.
What the New College of the Humanities amounts to is little more than the shameless use of wealth and privilege to insulate a dominant ideology from critique. Secured in the comfortable bubble of a homogeneous faculty and student base, comprised of a wealthy and (it can be assumed) predominantly white, secular, European population, a particular worldview and reading of history can be propagated without contest by those who are marginalized by it. This is precisely the intent of Grayling in establishing this new ideological platform; the exclusion is built into it by design.
The intersection of class and liberal secularism present in Grayling’s college should not be taken lightly. The exclusion of religious voices (and certain political voices) goes hand in hand with the exclusion of the persons who utter them, persons who happen to come from the marginalized communities that make up the majority of the world’s population, and who will not be justly represented in this institution. We can reasonably expect that Britain’s largest minority group, South Asians who are predominantly Muslim, to be conspicuously absent at Grayling’s college, doubly excluded on the basis of ideology and social class. Is this double exclusion coincidental? I don’t think so. Grayling and friends would like the rest of the world to keep quiet while they comfortably dictate a narrowminded secularism to an already converted elite. They are not interested in dialogue, pluralism, or ‘states of formation’. Their understanding of the world is formed, and they seek only to armor and insulate it against the outside. The model of privatized pedagogy ensures that a moat of privilege will protect this sterilized fortress of Reason, keeping barbarian Others at bay.
This issue does not just concern ideas. The establishment of a private, atheist college is a thoroughly political issue, and I am interested in how it highlights the shared struggle of religious communities and the secular Left, two demographics being excluded by one totalizing liberal ideology. To elucidate this shared struggle, the attitude of the Left toward religion must be reexamined.
Despite the oft-cited statement from Marx on religion as opium (which, I might add, is always taken out of context), the relationship between the academic Left and religion is in actuality much more complex. Only a shallow reading of Marx, or no reading at all, can sustain the common stereotype of the Leftist as crusading secularist. Unfortunately, this shallowness is not limited to critics of Marxism:
“Indeed it can be said that a deficient, mechanical or one-sided understanding of the Marxist analysis of religion has been a substantial contributing factor to a number of left individuals and groups completely losing their former political bearings and ending up as left apologists for imperialism.” (Molyneux, John. “More than Opium: Marxism and Religion”, from International Socialism Issue 119)
This particular misreading of Marxism as virulently anti-religious, embodied by numerous faux-Leftists, serves explicit political purposes. It can be utilized by the ruling establishment to generate a reaction against radical politics, particularly among white American Christians – in other words, the “value voters” crowd that consistently elects those catering to the desires of the global elite. The latter group, while often ridiculed by the existing secular power structure, are gladly co-opted by it when this serves the interests of power, whether it be mobilizing support for disastrous economic measures that favor the rich, or advancing an imperialist foreign policy. When the time arrives, frightening images of Godless, relativistic Marxists conspiring to erode the spiritual fabric of Western civilization can be conjured up to stir the Christian right into a frenzy. Now that anti-communist paranoia has lost some of its traction, the same tactic is being played out with a new Eastern Other.
It is not surprising then, that nowadays many of the same people from this camp also squawk about the convergence of Marxist theory with militant Islamism; some even seem to predict the possible establishment of some sort of worldwide Marxist caliphate if Western values are not defended. The blatant contradiction in this paranoid narrative is simply cast aside and buried through sensationalist fearmongering. Alberto Toscano’s excellent book Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea explores the parallels between anti-Marxist and anti-Islamic narratives, showing how both traditions are dismissed in liberal discourse for their perceived endorsement of a ‘fantatical’ universalism. The overwhelming hypocrisy of such accounts, which are themselves decisively opposed to philosophical pluralism and impose a totalizing monocultural narrative over all of history, needs little elaboration here.
The fact is, just like those from religious backgrounds, the Left has long been engaged in opposing the type of exclusionary ‘we’ve got the Truth’ secularism that is pushed by the likes of Grayling, Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins, who proffer a conception of the world mirroring the sensationalist ‘civilization under siege’ narratives outlined above. Representatives of this ideology view our secular Leftist tradition in the same way they view religion: atavistic, fanatical, something to be relegated to the dustbin of history (a history which has in fact ended, conveniently with them on top). The assumptions and objectives of the New Atheist movement are unequivocally at odds with our values and commitment to social change, both political and ethical. We are opposed to the Eurocentric and aristocratic ethos of this movement, its complicity with the status quo, and its unrelenting condescension toward differences of opinion. We also feel that these intellectuals are spreading their tentacles into disciplines in which they have no competence, resulting in regressive readings of Western philosophy and bastardized conceptions of world history that prop up neocolonial ambitions.
Literary critic Terry Eagleton, with his typical wit, recently ridiculed this practice in an article on Grayling’s college that inspired my own:
“Dawkins touts a simple-minded, off-the-peg version of Enlightenment in which people in the west have all been getting nicer and nicer, and would have ended up as civilised as an Oxford high table were it not for a nasty bunch of religious fundamentalists. Who would pay £18,000 a year to listen to this outdated Victorian rationalism when they could buy themselves a second-hand copy of John Stuart Mill?”
Dawkins and friends have long been producing such deeply flawed and ethnocentric accounts of philosophy and history, while treating their own favored intellectual terrain, that of the natural sciences, as immune to the influence of politics. In doing so, they can conveniently dismiss all critiques of the bourgeois assumptions underpinning what Leftist intellectuals and heretical scientists refer to as ‘Ultra-Darwinism’ (for an interesting discussion of the debate over conflicting accounts of evolution and the influence of politics in the natural sciences, see the recent article on Stephen Jay Gould entitled ‘This View of Life is Dialectical’). Is this the kind of scholarship the world needs? At a time when education desperately needs to be more democratic, more open to contestation of old assumptions, more heavily infiltrated with diverse cultural narratives, the establishment of the ideologically charged and elitist New College of the Humanities marks a step in the wrong direction.
For these reasons, those of us on the Left oppose the establishment of privatized academic institutions (whether they be secular or non-secular in orientation) that use tuition fees as a barrier to entry for dissenting voices. This model of university is intrinsically opposed to academic integrity, economic justice, and the flourishing of pluralist ideas. As Eagleton notes, this model, if not countered, will evolve into a type of academic apartheid. So, like many others on the Left, I feel obligated to subject such an institution to critique, and hope it will increasingly expose itself for what it is: a class-driven parody of scholarship and free thought.
Excellent post. Agree entirely.
Ian-
Interesting post, although I do not think the New Atheism necessarily entails eurocentrism (and especially atheism writ large). About the cost: Almost every private higher education institution has outrages fees, whether they are liberal, conservative, religious, or atheist. As private religious schools are free to establish themselves, so are private atheist schools. Similarly, most work done on religious pluralism comes from elitist schools with high tuition like Harvard and others. You may not like their ideology, but the simple fact is that they have a right to establish this school, as any religious denomination does.
Best,
Kile,
Thanks for your comment. I certainly agree with you that atheism writ large does not necessarily entail Eurocentrism, as obviously the intent of my article is to show that other types of atheism exist (such as Marxism), and that the ideology of New Atheism not only fails to represent the views of these other atheisms, but is in many ways directly antagonistic to them in the same way it is toward the religious (who other atheists, such as Marxists, are by definition not antagonistic toward, despite their rejection of theism). The purpose of my article is to show that the atheist movement is split along lines of political orientation and class, and that deeply interconnected with this split is a divergence in attitudes toward the religious other.
I disagree with you strongly that the New Atheism does not necessarily entail Eurocentrism. The discourse of every one of its figureheads is riddled with explicitly Eurocentric and Islamophobic statements, all of which are well documented and can be downplayed only through apologetic dishonesty. Their entire paradigm of human history consists of a simplistic teleological narrative built on ethnocentric assumptions about the superiority of Western liberal values and rationality. It is at best a soft version of social Darwinism, and at worst an apology for all manner of violent exercise of cultural hegemony, which we see explicitly advocated in the discourse of Christopher Hitchens. To avoid being Eurocentric and Islamophobic, it is imperative to reject the narrative of history being promoted here. How can one adhere to the ideas of someone like Richard Dawkins who says “I think it is well arguable that Islam is the greatest man-made force for evil in the world today” and yet claim to not be Islamophobic or Eurocentric? Now we must ask, can someone still claim to be an adherent of New Atheism while diverging from the sociopolitical positions of Dawkins, Grayling, Harris, Hitchens, et al? What would be the point of even calling oneself a New Atheist in this case? This seems to me like nothing more than a huge exercise of cognitive dissonance. If you are breaking ranks with the ideology’s leadership, why not just break ranks with the ideology entirely, the way I and many others have, due to our political divergence? It is unintelligible to me why a Left atheist would align themselves with an unambiguously Right-wing political ideology if they were not themselves harboring ethnocentric attitudes. If this is true, then they must sacrifice any claim to represent the political Left.
Next, I certainly agree that private atheist schools are ‘free to establish themselves’ in the sense of a legal right. But unfortunately, this legal right can also encourage the establishment of institutions that represent the marriage of a uniform ideology with class power. To make my position very clear: as a Leftist, I am opposed to any institutionalized concentration of a minority of wealthy people representing and advocating a homogeneous worldview to the exclusion of others. While Grayling has the legal right to establish his college, that does not render it immune from political criticism, and I would make the same type of criticism against, say, private Christian colleges that charge exorbitant fees and practice similar ideological exclusion. This is in no way denying that any ideological group has an equal right to set up a pedagogical institution. But the critical point here is, to quote Marx, “between equal rights, force decides”. The force Marx refers to is primarily exerted through forms of economic, racial, and ethnic privilege. Grayling and friends have all of these working in their favor, and they are using them to further consolidate and institutionalize their power by establishing an elitist college. In contrast, while a small group of, let’s say, British South Asian Muslims would have an equal right to set up a low-tuition, private college in London serving low-income students with an Islamic orientation, this institution would not exercise equal force behind them. I imagine many New Atheists would celebrate this fact. To the extent that they do, they are bigots. Regardless of how we feel about this issue, we should at least acknowledge that the voice of a working class Muslim does not carry the same force as that of a white, European-born New Atheist, and this has nothing to do with the intrinsic rationality of the New Atheist’s voice. Power is what determines an ideology’s purchase, and by concentrating more wealth behind a particular ideology, Grayling is bolstering the power of a worldview that is already overpowered and deeply elitist.
Marxism as a discipline works to unveil these forces of power and privilege at work behind the facade of what we call “rights talk”, which serves as a tool of ruling ideology to depoliticize class conflict and project an image of egalitarianism in society that exists only on paper. This is the substance of my article – to show that the opposition to the New College of the Humanities has nothing to do with a question of rights, but rather, it has to do with the disturbing fusion of economic and political power with an exclusionary ideology. Isn’t this the very thing that atheists claim to be fighting against in the first place? Isn’t this why we have traditionally opposed the Catholic Church? Isn’t this why we dislike the American Religious Right? Yet when the exclusionary ruling ideology in question is secular, certain atheists seem content to abandon this principle entirely and accommodate themselves to inegalitarian structures of power, now that they are comfortably behind the wheel. Marxists and other Left atheists refuse to abandon this principle. This is why we oppose New Atheism, and why we seek to provide greater force to voices that are currently being excluded from the discussion (the ‘voice of the voiceless’), even if those voices are religious and ours are not. Our commitment to creating an egalitarian and truly democratic society trumps the question of whether or not there is someone looking down on us from the heavens. With the New Atheists, it is the other way around.
Finally, on the issue of the interfaith movement being spearheaded by elite academic institutions…I think this is overstated, and overlooks the commendable efforts of more modest academic institutions as well as religious institutions and non-academic grassroots initiatives. Also, I think the fact that the interfaith movement is currently heavily concentrated in academia (whether elite academia or not) and following a top-down model is problematic in itself, since this excludes those are separated from higher education due to class barriers. The interfaith movement as a whole I think should be doing more to engage religious communities that fit this demographic. I would like to see interfaith efforts of a more bottom-up nature – a robust working class interfaith movement would represent the polar opposite to something like Grayling’s college.
I’m afraid this post is nothing more than a series of unsupported assertions. There’s nothing resembling an actual argument here. Not one piece of evidence to support any of the claims. Why should I believe you?
OK – Ian has requested a fuller response from me on this and I am happy to provide it. I stand by my initial feeling that there is mainly assertion here, and little in terms of reasoned, well-supported argument, but I will at least seek to demonstrate how this is the case. I’m simply going to go through each bit and say what I think about it. I’ll start with the stuff directly about the College, then move on to the broader issues.
“Prominent atheist A.C. Grayling and some other well-known academics (including Richard Dawkins) have recently announced plans to set up a private college in London called the New College of the Humanities, which will charge students £18,000 a year in tuition fees.”
Missing Crucial Information:
20%, and ultimately 30% of the students will apparently pay less or nothing, at least part of their fees paid by a charitable foundation. This is an important point in a post regarding the social role and impact of this college, and it deserves a mention.
“I would like to propose that the coincidence between this privatized (read: classist) model of university and the hegemonic and exclusionary ‘humanism’ of Grayling and friends is not merely incidental. Rather, I would argue, they are intimately intertwined.”
Unsupported Assertion:
I don’t think that private need “read: classist”. At the very least, no argument has been made by the author that “private” and “classist” are coterminous.
“What the New College of the Humanities amounts to is little more than the shameless use of wealth and privilege to insulate a dominant ideology from critique.”
So-far Unsupported Assertion:
This is the case to be made. I’ll review at the end to see if any convincing arguments have been made in favor of this position.
“Secured in the comfortable bubble of a homogeneous faculty and student base, comprised of a wealthy and (it can be assumed) predominantly white, secular, European population, a particular worldview and reading of history can be propagated without contest by those who are marginalized by it. This is precisely the intent of Grayling in establishing this new ideological platform; the exclusion is built into it by design.”
Unwarranted Assumptions:
1) Homogeneous faculty – the full list of faculty has yet to be released. This point cannot yet be supported by evidence.
2) Homogeneous student base – there has been no student body as of yet. This point cannot yet be supported by evidence.
3) Wealthy student base – given the level of the fees, this is a more reasonable assumption. But it is still an assumption. It is not outside the realm of possibility that families that are not considered “wealthy” could save or take out loans to attend should they wish. This is still an unsupported assumption at this point.
4) Predominantly white, secular, European population – again, there’s no way this assertion can be evidenced. It could be the college will impose ethnic and racial quotas or use other mechanisms to ensure diversity of the student body. We simply do not know at this point.
5) A particular worldview and reading of history will be propagated without contest – Again, this is an un-evidenced assumption. Although some early course documents have been posted, no one knows yet precisely what will be taught. Given the commitment of Grayling and other high-profile associated faculty I find it profoundly unlikely that the criticism and intellectual challenge wouldn’t be on the menu, but who knows at this point?
6) The intent of the College is exclusion of particular groups and ideologies – I see no evidence that this is the case, and you do not provide any.
“The exclusion of religious voices (and certain political voices) goes hand in hand with the exclusion of the persons who utter them, persons who happen to come from the marginalized communities that make up the majority of the world’s population, and who will not be justly represented in this institution.”
Unsupported Assertion:
There is no evidence I can find (and you provide none) that suggests that religious individuals will be excluded from attending the college, or that religious professors will be prevented from teaching there. This, incidentally, would fall foul of UK anti-discrimination law as I understand it.
“We can reasonably expect that Britain’s largest minority group, South Asians who are predominantly Muslim, to be conspicuously absent at Grayling’s college, doubly excluded on the basis of ideology and social class.”
Unsupported Assertion:
While it is reasonable to assume that people from a particular social group might be under-represented at the College (although, as I have shown, it is not a foregone conclusion) it is not reasonable to assert, again without evidence, that anyone will be excluded on ideological grounds.
“Grayling and friends would like the rest of the world to keep quiet while they comfortably dictate a narrowminded secularism to an already converted elite. They are not interested in dialogue, pluralism, or ‘states of formation’. Their understanding of the world is formed, and they seek only to armor and insulate it against the outside.”
Unsupported Assertion:
You offer no evidence to support your characterization of Grayling here. The fact that Grayling has repeatedly offered to meet with student and other protesters regarding the College speaks against the idea he is against dialogue.
Do you perhaps now understand why I was dismissive of your post? You substantiate not one of your main points regarding the College. Not ONE! You provide literally ZERO evidence to support your claim. You don’t even provide an argument – it’s pure assertion! It’s extremely disappointing, and I’m surprised you don’t see the problem yourself.
What you are dismissing as mere assertion (yes, they are assertions) are reasonable predictions based on the ideology of Grayling and the structure of the institution. Is it really so difficult to grasp the correlation between wealth and exclusion?
“It is not outside the realm of possibility that families that are not considered “wealthy” could save or take out loans to attend should they wish. This is still an unsupported assumption at this point.”
Really, James? Are you serious? So everyone gets an equal shot at attending NCH…the 18,000 pricetag means nothing.
“There is no evidence I can find (and you provide none) that suggests that religious individuals will be excluded from attending the college, or that religious professors will be prevented from teaching there. This, incidentally, would fall foul of UK anti-discrimination law as I understand it.”
Well of course they are not going to be prohibited from attending, James! What I mean by exclusion is that when an individual spends their entire career dismissing religious people as backward, superstitious morons, if you were a religious person, would you feel welcome at that person’s institution? Especially if the curriculum is going to be built on leveling that same narrative against them? This last statement is a highly reasonable assertion, even if we do not know the curriculum for certain. Look at the faculty. Look what they have published. Look at the record of what they have said about religious people, both in general, and targeting specific people like Christians and Muslims. This is how ideological exclusion works James – by exerting symbolic violence on the other and dehumanizing them so that they reject any claim to intellectual parity.
“Predominantly white, secular, European population – again, there’s no way this assertion can be evidenced. It could be the college will impose ethnic and racial quotas or use other mechanisms to ensure diversity of the student body. We simply do not know at this point.”
This assertion about the demographics can be reasonably supported based on the ethnic composition of those who are able to afford attending such a school. Of course there will be a paltry sum of minorities brought in on scholarship, but these individuals will be marginalized by being subjected to a Eurocentric curriculum (again, a reasonable assertion giving the record of Grayling, Dawkins, etc.). If some South Asian Muslim students do end up attending this school, for example, they will be taught that they are backward and ignorant and that their culture is an obstacle to Western progress. That is the narrative that the school’s founders have been promoting in their previous endeavors. These students will be in a very limited position to contest this narrative, as they will be at a power disadvantage with respect to the faculty, and as they will be vastly outnumbered by white, privileged students who endorse the ethnocentric curriculum because it corresponds to their class interests to do so.
As someone with a background in education, I would think you would have a greater comprehension of the challenges faced by subaltern groups in higher education contexts, let alone the challenges of a university with this kind of steep tuition and a curriculum that is explicitly condemnatory of their heritage, history, and culture.
I feel the assertions I have made are reasonable predictions, despite not being able to provide the concrete evidence you are looking for, because they will appear commonsensical to anyone who is not completely blinded by white privilege, and who thus recognizes that academia is not a pristine level playing field untouched by relations of ethnic and class power, as you are assuming.
Hallelujah! He starts making actual ARGUMENTS!
“So everyone gets an equal shot at attending NCH…the 18,000 pricetag means nothing.”
I didn’t say that everyone would get an equal shot.
“What I mean by exclusion is that when an individual spends their entire career dismissing religious people as backward, superstitious morons, if you were a religious person, would you feel welcome at that person’s institution?”
This is an important clarification which did not appear in the original post.following this logic, a Master should not express strong political or religious opinions because by expressing them they will be “excluding” those with different convictions from attending. What a bland educational sphere we would have. It would mean the death of academic freedom, at least for college presidents. I have frequently taken classes with professors with whom I disagree strongly and I currently attend an institution whose dean I disagree with on many points. None of this makes me “excluded” from that institution as long as I am free to express contrary opinions in class and in my work.
I also question your characterization of Grayling’s work: substantiate it.
“This last statement is a highly reasonable assertion, even if we do not know the curriculum for certain. Look at the faculty. Look what they have published. Look at the record of what they have said about religious people, both in general, and targeting specific people like Christians and Muslims.”
As others have noted, the big names will not be lecturing very much and they will certainly not be lecturing on the topic of religion. Dawkins will be doing evolutionary biology while Ferguson will be doing History, for example. I find the idea that they will send their lectures doing “symbolic violence” on Christians and Muslims utterly risible. They are academic professionals who have worked with people of all faiths and none for decades. And if having an opinion and expressing it is “symbolic violence”, then we should both be in a symbolic cell. Crap.
“Of course there will be a paltry sum of minorities brought in on scholarship, but these individuals will be marginalized by being subjected to a Eurocentric curriculum (again, a reasonable assertion giving the record of Grayling, Dawkins, etc.)”
30% scholarships is not a “paltry sum” – it’s a third of the whole student body. It would be wrong to assume all these would go to minorities, but as I say it is equally wrong to assume not. Give the place a chance, for goodness sake!
As for a “Eurocentric Curriculum”, I’m still not willing to assume on the basis of your crystal ball that this will be the case. What past curricula have Grayling et al produced that you consider “Eurocentric”?
“If some South Asian Muslim students do end up attending this school, for example, they will be taught that they are backward and ignorant and that their culture is an obstacle to Western progress.”
You simply do not and cannot know this. I find it astonishingly offensive that you frankly assert this is going to happen. It’s a truly vile accusation. What support can you give it?
“I feel the assertions I have made are reasonable predictions, despite not being able to provide the concrete evidence you are looking for, because they will appear commonsensical to anyone who is not completely blinded by white privilege, and who thus recognizes that academia is not a pristine level playing field untouched by relations of ethnic and class power, as you are assuming.”
And now you stoop to ad hominem, without the guts to do it directly. It is the last refuge of the defeated to call their arguments “commonsensical”. It’s highly disingenuous and demonstrates a lack of intellectual integrity. I call you out on it. I expect better in this community.
I do not assume what you suggest regarding academia – often academic spaces are spaces which mindlessly perpetuate existing structures of oppression. I’ve sought to challenge that in my own institution and elsewhere. But you cannot say with the certainty you do, on the basis of the limited-to-none knowledge you actually have regarding the NCH, that it is going to be the sort of racist, white-supremacist, Islamophobic institution you portray here. To make such accusations on the basis of very questionable assumptions (and I’ve shown you they’re questionable by raising objections to each) is simply wrong.
I will not stand for such prejudice. Neither should you.
A classic twist at the end of your argument: you are trying to destabilize the moral and ethical base from which Ian argues; however, you have spent a great deal of space and time defending an institution that has hired Richard Dawkins. If we are going to argue about the morality of this–which ignores the important socioeconomic and political issues that are more pressingly at stake–then you have already lost. Defending an institution that hires Dawkins, a man who said that “it is well arguable that Islam is the greatest man-made force for evil in the world today,” is unethical. Or, if we don’t want to take it that far, it at least contradicts your final point about not standing for prejudice, which thus means you have lost the ground on which you yourself presumed to stand.
James, I am only going to make a few quick points because you have been consistently rude and sarcastic to me, and frankly I am not interested in carrying the discussion with you any further.
“I have frequently taken classes with professors with whom I disagree strongly and I currently attend an institution whose dean I disagree with on many points. None of this makes me “excluded” from that institution as long as I am free to express contrary opinions in class and in my work.”
This is the type of statement that vindicates me in leveling the charge of you being blinded by white privilege. Of course you, James, are not excluded for having a difference of opinion in a university setting, because you come from an ethnic and class position (white, European, affluent, male) that invests anything you say in academia with an authority that is denied to others (for the most stark example let’s say, South Asian, Muslim, low-income, female). There is a significant difference between mere disagreement and symbolic violence. I will explain the latter term to you in more detail, as you do not seem to have any exposure to Critical Theory, postcolonial/subaltern studies, etc. I mean no offense in pointing this out; we obviously come from very different academic traditions and I do not expect you to have read the things I have.
Disagreement, or difference of opinion, is what we call it when two people who stand on equal footing in terms of class position and cultural capital, disagree on something. Cultural capital can be defined as “non-financial social assets; educational or intellectual, which might promote social mobility beyond economic means”. When there is a dramatic disparity in class power and cultural capital between two adversaries in a disagreement, this is where the issue of symbolic violence comes in. Symbolic violence “includes actions that have discriminatory or injurious meaning or implications, such as gender dominance and racism. Symbolic violence maintains its effect through the mis-recognition of power relations situated in the social matrix of a given field”. I am quoting from Wikipedia for sake of convenience. The author to read on this subject is Pierre Bourdieu, whose work has greatly influenced me and who I highly recommend.
Regardless of the content of an argument, when the two adversaries are invested with vastly unequal amounts of social power, one person’s argument will be treated as more authoritative than the other’s. In the hypothetical case of someone like you involved in an academic disagreement with a hypothetical Muslim woman, we would have a social situation that is by no means a level playing field, and as such carries high potential for symbolic violence to occur. There will be a tendency in this situation for the authority you possess due to material privilege and symbolic capital to be mistaken as an intrinsic ‘rationality’, and for the entire disagreement to be viewed in a political vacuum without regard for the social forces that really determine the outcome of academic debates. I do not wish to attack you or insult you personally, but I have to point out that you seem completely oblivious on this issue. If you honestly think that your disagreement with a faculty member, as a white affluent male, carries equal weight to a Muslim woman’s disagreement with a faculty member, then I really cannot think of another word besides “oblivious”.
No James, of course in my disagreement with you on this comment thread, there is no symbolic violence taking place. That is because you and I occupy equal class positions, and neither of us will ever know what symbolic violence feels like the way a Muslim does in Western academia. We do not have to suffer the experience of being made to feel inferior or unintelligent on the basis of our cultural background. Others do, and the New Atheist mouthpieces are some of the principal agents committing this violence. That is what my article is about.
” I am only going to make a few quick points because you have been consistently rude and sarcastic to me, and frankly I am not interested in carrying the discussion with you any further.”
I admit I have not been entirely polite, but I’d argue that neither have you! If you accuse someone of being “blinded by white privilege” then I think you can expect a firm response. Further, you have consistently misrepresented my position in a way I have found very offensive, and when given the opportunity to remedy your mistake you seem not to have taken it.
You’ll notice that here, despite my sharpness, I have confined myself to responding to you on this particular issue, rather than making sweeping claims about your worldview and even your psychological state. This is not a kindness you offered me when we were discussing this on Facebook.
It would be a shame if you stopped now, too, because you are becoming far more convincing the more you seek to defend your position with evidence and reasons. One of the reasons I have pushed so hard on this is to see if there is really anything there, and your most recent response to Kile is far more impressive than the original post. I can’t help but think if you had posted something like that to begin with we would be having a very different discussion!
“This is the type of statement that vindicates me in leveling the charge of you being blinded by white privilege. Of course you, James, are not excluded for having a difference of opinion in a university setting, because you come from an ethnic and class position (white, European, affluent, male) that invests anything you say in academia with an authority that is denied to others (for the most stark example let’s say, South Asian, Muslim, low-income, female). ”
This is a very good point, and reminds me why I should not respond to these issues by using my personal experience in isolation. Certainly my position at my school (you should probably add “British” to the list of privileged groups, because for some reason my accent carries a certain authority here) is very different to the position of many others. We actually had a very powerful discussion in our Multicultural Advisory Board about this very issue the other day, and strategies to rectify it.
I did not mean to suggest in my post that since I had not experience difficulties articulating a point of view that no one would experience such difficulties – this is clearly wrong, and you are right in pointing it out. What I meant was that my experience demonstrates that in principle it is possible to go to an institution with a reigning ideology very different to yours and still maintain a certain ability to dissent. I.e. it is not NECESSARILY the case (although it may still be the case) that an institution headed by someone with ideology X will be an unfriendly place for someone with ideology Y.
“you do not seem to have any exposure to Critical Theory, postcolonial/subaltern studies, etc.”
Would it help if I tell you that for the last 3 years I have been on the teaching team for a class which seeks to enact Freirian pedagogy? And that I’ve studied Bourdieu consistently from my undergraduate work in sociology up until my graduate level work at Harvard? If I may say so, you have displayed on this thread a habit of making uncharitable assumptions. I don’t AGREE with the analysis such authors offer, sometimes, but I am aware of their existence. It’s not the case that everyone who reads Bourdieu is going to be impressed by him, after all (although in many ways I am)!
“Regardless of the content of an argument, when the two adversaries are invested with vastly unequal amounts of social power, one person’s argument will be treated as more authoritative than the other’s. In the hypothetical case of someone like you involved in an academic disagreement with a hypothetical Muslim woman, we would have a social situation that is by no means a level playing field, and as such carries high potential for symbolic violence to occur. There will be a tendency in this situation for the authority you possess due to material privilege and symbolic capital to be mistaken as an intrinsic ‘rationality’, and for the entire disagreement to be viewed in a political vacuum without regard for the social forces that really determine the outcome of academic debates.”
This is a very significant issue and one which any academy needs to seek to overcome. You are quite right to raise it. In my view there are at least two central components to this:
1) You make explicit the power relations and systems of oppression in your classroom, and make sure one is always able to discuss them, surface them, question them etc.
2) You try to ensure that rationality really is the standard, by submitting all arguments to a rigorous rational scrutiny whatever the source. I hope you see that this is precisely what I’ve been doing on this thread – I put aside whatever I may think about you as a person (I have huge affection for anyone who can rock a hat as well as you, and for your excellent Descartes quote on your Facebook page) and make as dispassionate an analysis of the argument presented as possible. I also (although this happens behind the scenes – I can post it if you like) perform a similar exercise on my own responses. In this way I hope to ensure a fair standard regardless of who is responding. I also always try to be open to honest critique, which is why I’m taking the time to tell you that this is a very good point and one I should have addressed better.
But I think the main point of my post stands – the potential for symbolic violence does not mean to actuality of symbolic violence, and we have yet to see how the NCH will play out. It’s good to be cautious, in my view, but not prejudicial.
“If you honestly think that your disagreement with a faculty member, as a white affluent male, carries equal weight to a Muslim woman’s disagreement with a faculty member, then I really cannot think of another word besides “oblivious”.”
This is not the point I was trying to make – again, I was trying to point out (in a very poor way, granted) that it is theoretically possible to exist in such an institution without there being symbolic violence. I still believe this to be the case.
“the New Atheist mouthpieces are some of the principal agents committing this [symbolic] violence. That is what my article is about.”
I think if your article were more about this specific point I would be more inclined to agree with you – you’re making me think again abut some of the rhetoric used by these figures and its potential effects. I thank you for that. At the same time, looking at your post as you made it, I do not think it is really about those issues. Perhaps there’s another post in this?
Hi David. I don’t agree that defending an institution which has hired Richard Dawkins makes me guilty of prejudice. I find that claim utterly absurd, in fact, for the following reasons:
1) I defend the freedom of any academic whatsoever to hold appalling views, including those who demonstrate sexual prejudice (like some of the faculty at Harvard Divinity School), racism, sexism and other viewpoints. That is the nature of academic freedom. You could find in any large university, especially ones like Oxford and Cambridge, people who have all sorts of views you or I might consider objectionable. To advocate that these universities have a right to exist is not to support these views but to recognize that academic freedom is a central pillar of a free society and a sine qua non of a university. Do you think he should have been fired from his Oxford job before he retired for such comments?
2) I personally do not find Dawkins’ comments as appalling as you seem to. I’m not certain that he is right, but I don’t see that sentence on its own is enough to damn him as a grotesque Islamophobe of such magnitude that we should oppose any institution with the slightest connection to him. Note that he couches it with “it is well arguable”, which is a certain sort of disclaimer, and that it isn’t directly pointed at Muslims themselves, and more against what he considers “Islam” to be. I think this makes a difference. I don’t agree with him, but I don’t think saying so makes one a hater necessarily.
3) In this instance, as I hope should be clear in the context, I use “prejudice” in the technical sense of pre-judging the NCH before having any evidence. I am not advocating a position of supporting the College (and I’m not prejudging the outcome) – I simply want to give the man a chance to make something good, and recognize his right to try. If it turns out that Ian’s worst fears are realized then I will be right up there arguing that changes should be made.
In short, I think that to make an argument that supporting the existence of the NCH is itself unethical and prejudiced, you have to do a lot more than simply provide one quote of something objectionable Dawkins said. My argument, as you will see if you read it carefully, is not that the College is going to be a good thing. It is simply that he has every right to start it and that he shouldn’t be pilloried and mercilessly annihilated before any of it comes to fruition, especially on the very flimsy grounds Ian presents, which are basically just supposition at this point.
Ian- I have to agree with James here, but I do recognize your position as a valid criticism of ideological homogeny. It is simply a fact that all private schools are free (within law) to establish themselves and promote certain ideas, end of story. It does not mean they are immune to political critique, as I have many problems with the wealthy elite in liberal religious schools who praise themselves for being so “culturally understanding.” The problem of wealth and privilege should be recognized in most, if not all, private educational colleges in the West, whether religiously pluralist, or atheist and humanist. To pick on this college is like picking on Harvard Divinity School, both have their ideologies and both have their right to promote them. So why be so hostile to this college?
Kile – I suppose the reason I am not picking on HDS is that the faculty of that school have not built a career on systematically vilifying a group of people based on their beliefs, whereas a leading faculty member of NCH, Richard Dawkins, writes such things as the following on his blog:
“Given that Islam is such an unmitigated evil, and looking at the map supplied by this Christian site, should we be supporting Christian missions in Africa? My answer is still no, but I thought it was worth raising the question. Given that atheism hasn’t any chance in Africa for the foreseeable future, could our enemy’s enemy be our friend?”
It is the combination of this kind of explicitly right-wing narrative (Islam as unmitigated evil, Muslims as our enemy) with wealth and power that so troubles me. If you bring to my attention any other such bigots who are promoting hatespeech behind a wall of privilege at an exclusive academic institution, I would be happy to criticize them as well, be they religious or non-religious. My focus on Grayling and Dawkins stems from my feeling that they are not being criticized enough, and that they are promoting a deeply ethnocentric worldview while being lauded by the right-wing of the atheist community as ‘humanists’. If the National Front were to announce plans to start a college in London, I doubt many people would be defending their initiative, despite acknowledging their full right to do so under the law. Yet when members of the New Atheist movement make statements indistinguishable from the rhetoric of far right nationalists, and then a plan by leaders of this movement to create an academic institution where it can be safely assumed this same kind of discourse will be promoted comes under fire, it is a different story completely, and all kinds of apologia for the faculty and their noble intentions are made. My biggest question is, “why do we insist on defending some right-wing nutjobs and not others?”. What is it makes Dawkins a praiseworthy humanist and Geert Wilders a neo-fascist, when the ideological difference between them seems to be one of degree rather than a difference in kind? While I am not suggesting we collapse all distinctions here, as the people behind NCH are certainly far from fascists, the fact is that they promote a right-wing, essentialist conception of Islam that I think is deeply harmful to establishing peaceful coexistence among ethnic groups. A concrete example of this is this Guardian piece by Grayling, in which Grayling repeatedly speaks of ‘Islam’ as a monolithic entity divorced from all cultural and historic context, and repeatedly contrasts this fictional entity he has created with “our relatively peaceful and tolerant western dispensations”. The article is a prime example of an oversimplified us vs. them narrative that contrasts a barbaric other to the benevolent West, conveniently making no mention of the ugly history of Western imperialism that produced modern Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism, and instead treating these radical elements as intrinsic to Islam itself and its backwardness. This narrative ignores the fact that Afghanistan, for instance, was a peaceful Muslim country with a secular system of governance until a combination of American and Soviet imperialist machinations resulted in the breakdown of civil society and the descent into Taliban rule, as well as the rise of Al Qaeda (a direct creation of U.S. imperialism). Afghanistan is but one example. The rise of militant Islamic political ideologies is everywhere a thoroughly modern phenomenon, and has nothing to do with the content of Islamic belief. Everywhere you see these militant ideologies active today, you can trace their history back to the impact of Western imperialism in eroding the fabric of Muslim civil society in the interest of profit. But to someone like Grayling, the problem is Islam itself:
“It was interesting to compare the accounts there given with those in Louise Anthony’s book Philosophers Without Gods, which collects similar accounts by ex-Christians and ex-Jews. The personal cost in family and community terms of rejecting the doctrines of any of these religions is very similar; only in Islam does the danger of being murdered for doing so remain.”
Only in Islam? Which Islam is he referring to, exactly? Muslim apostates who enjoy the same class privileges and inhabit similar sociopolitical contexts as Westerners certainly are not being murdered for renouncing their beliefs. Why does Grayling insist on lumping all Muslims together and ignoring the historical and political factors that are behind the kind of ideologically motivated violence he condemns? It is because he is a right-wing Islamophobe, and a vocal apologist for Western imperialism. Now he has his own college, where wealthy Britons can receive this same distorted worldview, being treated as history. Is it really so hard to see the problem here?
“I suppose the reason I am not picking on HDS is that the faculty of that school have not built a career on systematically vilifying a group of people based on their beliefs”
I’m still not convinced this is a fair analysis of the work of people like Grayling and Dawkins. I think you’ve done enough to demonstrate that on occasion they have said profoundly concerning things (I can provide you with lots more examples, actually, if you like! I’ve been following these folks for years), but I don’t think it’s fair to say that therefore they have “built a career on systematically vilifying a group of people”. This is simply false – they were all well-known before their New Atheist days for work in their area of academic expertise, except for Harris.
“My focus on Grayling and Dawkins stems from my feeling that they are not being criticized enough, and that they are promoting a deeply ethnocentric worldview while being lauded by the right-wing of the atheist community as ‘humanists’.”
I think here you’ve made a good case – I’m going to have to rethink how Humanistic I think these sorts of statements really present Dawkins to be. I haven’t seen such objectionable statements from Grayling – I think more generous analyses of the Guardian piece you linked could be offered which exculpate him (for example the fact that he seems to be arguing against a homogenized view of Islam by writing about those who have left the faith).
” If the National Front were to announce plans to start a college in London, I doubt many people would be defending their initiative, despite acknowledging their full right to do so under the law. Yet when members of the New Atheist movement make statements indistinguishable from the rhetoric of far right nationalists, and then a plan by leaders of this movement to create an academic institution where it can be safely assumed this same kind of discourse will be promoted comes under fire, it is a different story completely, and all kinds of apologia for the faculty and their noble intentions are made. ”
There is a very simple logical fallacy here, a form of guilt by ideological association. Because person A shares view X with objectionable person B it does not make view X necessarily objectionable or person A as objectionable as person B, or objectionable at all. We need to judge the idea in and of itself, regardless of who holds it and why (as I type this I am thinking of some good counter-responses, like expressing view X, however well-intentioned you might be, in a climate in which view X is also expressed by person B, reinforces certain attitudes which may be prejudicial of group C, and hence you should exercise caution in expressing view X. I think there are good reasons to oppose this view, but I wanted to give you a little window into my mind as I write this so you can see that, yes, I really do do this constant questioning…).
“My biggest question is, “why do we insist on defending some right-wing nutjobs and not others?”. What is it makes Dawkins a praiseworthy humanist and Geert Wilders a neo-fascist, when the ideological difference between them seems to be one of degree rather than a difference in kind?”
Well, you first have to demonstrate that they are both in fact “right-wing nutjobs”. I haven’t seen you do that. It may seem so blindingly obvious to you that it goes without saying, but not everyone already agrees with you on this point. It’s worth substantiating.
“Why does Grayling insist on lumping all Muslims together and ignoring the historical and political factors that are behind the kind of ideologically motivated violence he condemns? It is because he is a right-wing Islamophobe, and a vocal apologist for Western imperialism. ”
So you say, but again I don’t see how you have substantiated your claim. He could subscribe to a different model of history to you, on well-reasoned epistemological grounds, for example. Not everyone who does not accept the view of history you propose is a “right-wing Islamophobe”, and I find it shocking that people feel quite content in throwing around such accusations without feeling the need to demonstrate their validity. It sounds a bit to me like those people on Fox News who excoriate Obama for being a “socialist fascist communist” (I heard that once) for some attempt to redistribute a bit of wealth – I don’t find the case to have been well made!
James,
Someone who has left the Islamic faith is by definition, not a Muslim. Surely you realize the error in definition that you’ve made? Grayling is merely perpetuating the familiar Western “good Muslim”/”bad Muslim” dichotomy, only in an even more extreme form, because for him the “good Muslim” category only includes people from an Islamic cultural background who have renounced their faith. I think the argument you have made in defense of Grayling’s Guardian piece is deeply flawed, and it is frustrating for me that you have such a deep allegiance to Grayling that you jump dismiss to dismiss any evidence I am providing (which I gave at your request), as not evidence enough, or use some convoluted reasoning to make it appear that he is saying the opposite of what he is. The piece stands as a very unambiguous example of anti-Islamic discourse. How many times does someone need to make Islamophobic statements before we can consider them Islamophobic? Apparently with these guys, the sky is the limit, since you seem determined to exculpate them of any legitimate criticism.
Yes, this was one of the points Grayling was making, actually – that people who leave the faith are still claimed as “Muslim” by cultural and other institutions:
“A source of frustration for many is that they are lumped into “the Muslim community” whose self-elected spokespeople are more representative of the Islamic states that many in their “Muslim community” have fled: which is why the Council of Ex-Muslims makes a point of calling itself this, to reinforce the point that not everyone who was born into a Muslim community has to be permanently forced into homogenised membership of it. ”
I was merely echoing his point and suggesting that it could be seen as a form of complexifying our understanding of what constitutes “Muslim”.
“I think the argument you have made in defense of Grayling’s Guardian piece is deeply flawed, and it is frustrating for me that you have such a deep allegiance to Grayling that you jump dismiss to dismiss any evidence I am providing (which I gave at your request), as not evidence enough, or use some convoluted reasoning to make it appear that he is saying the opposite of what he is.”
I haven’t actually made an argument in defense of the piece – I’ve merely offered another way of looking at it which I think is worthy of consideration. Nor do I seek to dismiss your criticism – I have twice now stated it is making me think again. You give me very little credit for what I actually say, which I suppose is probably my own fault, because I have been so sharp on here. I do actually think about these things, you know. I am not a leonine Grayling automaton.
“The piece stands as a very unambiguous example of anti-Islamic discourse.”
I simply do not accept your characterization of the piece. I think it embeds some dubious cultural assumptions, and I think he should be more clear about the plurality of views and practices within Muslim communities, but I don’t think this failure is enough to call it anti-Islamic. What it is clearly “anti” is the idea of apostasy and death for heretics. I think we should all be anti that. In short I think your prior assumptions regarding Grayling are just as likely to make you read this piece uncharitably as they are to make me read the piece charitably. The difference is you want to call him a right-wing Islamophobe who is supportive of colonialism, and I am merely saying “hold off that judgment until you get better evidence”. Since my claim is far more limited I feel more comfortable standing by it that I would yours.
“How many times does someone need to make Islamophobic statements before we can consider them Islamophobic? Apparently with these guys, the sky is the limit, since you seem determined to exculpate them of any legitimate criticism.”
Yes, I do want more than a single piece of evidence before making a judgment like this. Was that a serious question? It seems very strange that you are effectively accusing me of being blinded by bias when as far as I can tell all I’m doing is asking for more evidence and you are the one making very quick judgments based on very little…
You might start with browsing these search results…
http://www.islamophobia-watch.com/display/Search?searchQuery=dawkins&moduleId=5533211
http://www.islamophobia-watch.com/display/Search?searchQuery=grayling&moduleId=5533211
I’m not sure how much evidence you need, but as someone who has spent years working to oppose Islamophobia, I know the tell-tale signs of right-wing demagoguery when I see them. One clear instance of hatespeech is sufficient evidence for me. Of course, I would readily forgive someone for past offenses were they to repudiate their past views and demonstrate that sufficient ethical growth had taken place. But the post I cited from Dawkins where he calls Islam evil and Muslims our enemies went up on his blog just last month! It seems that in taking this “innocent until proven guilty” approach, yet when clear evidence of guilt is presented, discarding it as circumstantial or not enough, that you are disguising a deep, visceral allegiance to the New Atheists as a kind of neutral objectivity on the issue.
I think we have a real disagreement over standards of evidence and what constitutes “hate speech”. If the Guardian article is in your eyes “hate speech” then I think we need to have a parallel discussion about freedom of speech, because of course hate speech is liable for prosecution in the UK, and your seeming definition would eviscerate public discourse.
I’m out for a couple of hours now but when I return I will look at the evidence you’ve provided and see what I think. I think your assumptions about me are again very uncharitable, and I find it frankly bizarre that people are always accusing me on this site of being “rude” while at the same time denigrating my commitment to real honest discussion.
I’d just want to point out it would have been extremely easy at any point in this discussion, including in the original post, for you to provide the evidence you’ve just provided. That it’s taken me a few hours of responding to get you to do so is quite amazing.
My word choice may have been hyperbolic, yes. I certainly don’t think the kind of statements made by these people should be illegal or censored, simply challenged. That being said, the latest statement from Dawkins is grotesque (“is the enemy of my enemy my friend?”), and I think this could easily be used as a justification for ethnic violence between Christians and Muslims, which is a huge problem in Africa, as you are well aware, and something I do not think should be discussed so nonchalantly using terms like “enemy” and “unmitigated evil”. I would consider that to be hatespeech, although I would not support any legal action taken on it…it certainly does not constitute a “hate crime”, and should be protected under free speech law, certainly.
I think I agree with your characterization of Dawkins’ little map. I find it extremely worrisome. Did it get any push-back that you know of? I’d like to see criticism of that particular piece if you know of any.
James, I have not seen any substantial opposition to Dawkins and his map, although I admit I have not searched very thoroughly. It might be nice if someone such as yourself, who is coming from a similar philosophical position as Dawkins (even though you do not identify as a New Atheist), were to write such a critique. I think it would carry more weight than if someone like me were to write it, as I am completely outside of this stream of atheism.
Hey Ian,
Yes, if I’m convinced you are right I will write such an article myself.
I’ve started by reading each of the articles on Islamophobia Watch which refer to AC Grayling. There are seven of them (5 of the ones you linked made reference to Chris Grayling, UK’s Minister for Work and Pensions).
Here is my judgment on each:
“Terry Eagleton on the liberal supremacists”
The only reference to Grayling in this piece by Terry Eagleton is this: “The philosopher AC Grayling has an equally starry-eyed view of the stately march of Western Progress. ”
No evidence is offered to support this assertion, and even if it were true it would not, I think, amount to Islamophobia.
“Left-Right anti-Muslim alliance in the Netherlands”
This one asserts that Grayling has some connection with the “Committee for former Muslims” in the Netherlands, which is chaired by Ehsan Jami, because Jami’s Committee received some form of support from the Council of ex-Muslims and Grayling wrote that article praising them. This is, in my mind, is a very tenuous link indeed and does not constitute Islamophobia.
“Hijab-wearing women complicit in their own oppression – A.C. Grayling”
This one is much more pointed as it references an article that AC Grayling himself wrote in the Guardian in 2008. The extract provided refers to the idea that some women who wear the Hijab may be complicit in their own oppression.
I read the whole piece, and noticed the context – he was writing after 7 girls’ schools were burnt down in Pakistan, making 70 in the two months prior to the publication of the article. He refers to honnor killings, female circumcision etc, and makes it very clear that he is speaking of “different parts and traditions of Islam”, a more pluralistic notion of the faith than you might ascribe to him.
He links this with the oppression of women in “Roman Catholicism, puritanical forms of Protestantism, and orthodox Judaism”, so this is not simply an anti-Islamic screed, but a wide-ranging critique of the treatment of women by many of the world’s religious denominations and groups.
The offending paragraph is couched explicitly in the context of consciousness raising, suggesting that he has quite a sophisticated idea of what he is and is not saying. He is indeed saying that some women are complicit in their own repression when defending the Hijab, but this is an entirely legitimate point to seek to make given analyses of how power can shape desire (see Lukes on the third face of power, for example), and is a point that has been made by many feminists and others in other movements to analyze the seeming inconsistencies in people’s behavior.
In my judgment, although one might disagree with Grayling’s conclusions re: the Hijab, it is not remotely Islamophobic. It is a broad critique of the ways in which tradition and religion have sought to undermine the status of women. I think this should be praised.
“Death for apostasy?”
This one refers to a rebuttal of the Guardian article about apostasy you linked by Nesrine Malik. I again read the whole rebuttal, but let me begin with the bit quoted by the site itself, because it is quite shocking to me:
“Reading AC Grayling’s latest article and listening to the protestations of the Council of Ex-Muslims, you would think that the death penalty is being gratuitously and frequently applied to those who renounce Islam or harbour thoughts of apostasy. As a Muslim who has lived most of my life in Muslim countries, this picture is hard to recognise.”
This seems to suggest, on the face of it, that the death penalty for apostasy is being applied non-gratuitously and infrequently, and therefore we shouldn’t complain. This is a very low standard in my view.
The whole article presents a patchwork of anecdote and irrelevance: my friend sent me a letter saying they aren’t a Muslim anymore and didn’t mention fearing for their life (this is good enough evidence?); Muslim scholars disagree over whether apostasy should be punishable by death (which means so do think so); “the death threat is invoked only rarely and more for political reasons rather than religion [sic] ones” (which means it is sometimes applied – and we should celebrate this? Further, no evidence is given to support this argument).
She makes a good case about the use of the term “Islamic states” being problematic, in that it overlooks non-religious causes of these phenomena. One point for her. But she does seem very eager to exculpate potential religious factors herself.
She makes the point that one individual seems to have called themselves under a fatwa when in fact they were only accused of heresy and blasphemy on television. Well, this person is not mentioned in Grayling’s article, so it’s irrelevant to the case against him.
There’s nothing much here that even touches Grayling’s much better reasoned argument and certainly nothing that substantiates a claim of “Islamophobia”. What you have at most is a fair point that Grayling overlooks some of the other factors at play in these situations. Not hugely impressive.
“Ignore Islam, ‘ex-Muslims’ urge”
This article simply dismisses Grayling’s Guardian piece by calling it “ridiculous”. No substantive critique is given.
“Shari’a law called ‘racist, backward’ at meeting of ex-Muslims”
This again mentions Grayling’s article, but only a link at the bottom. It calls the Council of Ex-Muslims a “fraud”, but does nothing to substantiate that claim except assert that it was formed by “members of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran” (so what if it was?). This website seems more disreputable to me by the second, Ian…
“Let Muslim women speak”
This one has quotes from a piece by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed in response to Grayling’s post on women and tradition and religion. Again I read the whole piece.
The only piece of this article which refer to Grayling is the following:
“AC Grayling started us off by equating the headscarf with an iron shackle and stating that Muslim women are complicit in their own oppression. In the process of attacking the abhorrent denial of freedom that Muslim women can wrongly suffer, Grayling (in)advertently takes away the very same freedom of choice to decide to wear the hijab if we choose.”
I think it’s fair to say he equates a headscarf with an iron shackle (metaphorically of course). He also equates a lack of education because your school is burnt down with one. But I don’t think Grayling goes as far as saying that people shouldn’t be able to wear a headscarf if they choose. He certainly doesn’t say this in the article. He expresses concern that sometimes people who defend the headscarf might need their consciousness raised, but he does not go as far as saying it can never be an informed and free choice to wear one.
I think you’ll agree that I’ve done my due-diligence here regarding Grayling. All these pieces refer to one of two articles posted in the Guardian, neither of them I find sufficiently objectionable to substantiate a claim of Islamophobia.
Since this has taken me more than an hour to do and has been so fruitless I am wary to begin on Dawkins, because I doubt the level of care with which you’ve provided your sources. 5 of those linked referred to a whole different Grayling for goodness sake!
Would you mind finding particularly good critiques before asking me to wade through numerous unconvincing responses?
I’m sorry if the search results did not provide anything of value, James. I obviously didn’t look through any of the posts myself, which is why I simply provided the links to the search results (rather than specific articles), and suggested that you might start by looking through them, since they were posted on a site that archives things pertaining to Islamophobia. I am sorry if looking through them was a waste of your time, but I didn’t force you to read through them all! It was only a suggestion, and honestly I couldn’t care less whether you do your ‘due diligence’ or not. As I mentioned already, the example of Grayling’s depoliticized and essentializing narrative of Islam in the Guardian is enough to demonstrate to me that he knows nothing about the issue, yet is using his clout to spout off on it anyway in order to advance an overtly anti-Islamic agenda. I consider that Islamophobic, you don’t. But the case is closed for me. You wanted to look into it further, so I provided a link to a site that I figured might have some more examples. Turns out it didn’t – oh well!
The evidence of Islamophobia from Dawkins is much more abundant, and much more repulsive, in my opinion. While we shouldn’t denounce Grayling on the basis of guilt by association, the fact is he is super chummy with this bigot, they routinely defend one another against criticism, and he is giving him a platform for his views at NCH that will elevate his public profile and facilitate the propagation of more caustic rhetoric against Muslims. This is abhorrent. I would not call Grayling himself a bigot, as that would be I think too extreme, but I definitely feel comfortable using that label for Richard Dawkins, particularly after he posted his little Africa map. The man is clearly not a humanist – let’s stop pretending he is one in order to defend a questionable ideology. What is the point?
Please tell me this is a joke – you feel no responsibility to adequately defend your major premise, and offer evidence to support it which you hadn’t even read yourself? This is quite appalling, and completely dismissive of my time and energy in engaging you on this subject.
If you would prefer to make unwarranted assertions without the need to support them then please do not do so on a community blog dedicated to the discussion and evaluation of ideas. It is a waste of all our time to provoke a discussion over a matter and then to entirely disavow any responsibility to provide evidence to support your claims or to even do us the courtesy of READING YOURSELF the evidence you finally present to support them.
This is, quite simply, profoundly disrespectful of my time and my intellectual energy, and I am shocked by the cavalier attitude with which you dismiss any intellectual responsibility you might have with an airy “Oh well!”
For someone making extremely serious claims of racism and bias not only against Grayling but also against me, it is outrageous to end the discussion in this way, after I have provided such careful analysis of every single argument and piece of evidence you have presented. You have shown, to my mind, no willingness to entertain a different point of view, no interest in supporting your ideas with evidence and good reasons, and no hesitation in flinging around insults, while at the same time pompously challenging others about their inherent biases.
This stinks of hypocrisy, and is the very definition of bias and prejudice. If you had made the same claims, equally poorly supported, with an equally condescending attitude towards those who disagree with you, of anyone other than a prominent Humanist author, others on this site would be all over you.
I’m done with this.
As usual I, and others sharing this thread, find James extraordinarily rude (eg Hallelujah! He starts making actual ARGUMENTS!), and I feel disinclined to comment because of his aggressive inability to foster the spirit of genuine dialogue. Grayling is not a ‘champion of humanism’ and promoting the institution as humanist, is hypocrisy. His ideology writes off a large proportion of this population as stupid, and many of these people it writes off, are humanists themselves. It’s the first American style educational import of this sort as far as I know in Great Britain, and as a foreign student, I earned an overseas research scholarship for my Ph.D which paid my fees (half Graylings) and provided a living allowance.
As we’ve discussed before, we clearly have a different idea as to what constitutes “genuine dialogue”. In my view, and I think many readers will agree, my forceful intervention here has very significantly raised the quality of the arguments presented. I consider that a significant success.
Perhaps people who agree with your opinions James. The fact that you are so extraordinarily rude cannot fail to be missed and is not by my colleagues here in England. You do seem very pleased with yourself and proud to be “huffy” in your response. The quality of the post was excellent and I think it extremely obnoxious and conceited to suggest that your intervention improved anything at all.
In case you fail to realise “As we’ve discussed before, we clearly have a different idea as to what constitutes “genuine dialogue”.” is extraordinary patronising and demonstrates that you have not improved. Many readers find you rude and that is the reason that they would not comment here. Emeritus Professor Maurice Casey, a friend and colleague of the late Professor Michael Goulder (BHA, but who distinguished himself from the rest, specifically as a “non-aggressive” atheist), also a humanist and “non-aggressive” atheist who would prefer not to define himself at atheist at all but as a “critical scholar” instead, was very grateful for and impressed with this post. Having seen the ‘quality’ of James’ intervention, he will not however comment himself and get involved in any way at all. It’s appalling.
Well that’s a great shame. It is not my intention to stifle discourse but rather to promote it. I don’t see the quote you pick of mine as being at all patronizing, no. Perhaps this is indeed a failure in me. We have been having a discussion on how to improve dialogue at this site on the email list which has generated some useful proposals. Would you consider contributing to it?
James and Steph and Ian,
Hope you all are doing well. I haven’t read through the whole thread; a little too much nonsense for me. But a couple of notes:
1) James, you are most definitely being rude, and that remains true even if you have different ideas about what being rude is (we tend to have no choice but to take our cues on such matters from the community, as I am sure you well know). But that is who you are. Lately it seems, however, you keep at it even after others point this out to you. Pf course, it’s up to you, but I don’t think you will make the progress you want to make and be as open to others’ ideas (as I truly believe you want to be) if you don’t rein in your spirited attacks a bit more than you are right now. You could have more effect and be more influential if you let yourself be “a” voice in the proceedings, rather than trying to be “the” voice. But, I know you, you’ll do what you want. And, for what it’s worth I still regard you as a friend, even when you are acting as contankerous as all hell.
2) Ian, you are not writing a scientific paper. When James asks you for the data, tell him to sod off. Rationalism is not limited to James’s very peculiar and very limited notions of empiricism (these neo-positivists have such reductive notions of rationalism). In a rhetorical piece such as this, you need only establish probability, not actuality. I don’t think James will ever understand that, but you should. James tends to derail perfectly good arguments, because others don’t simply dismiss him when he comes forward with his own irrelevant arguments. And he has perpetrated some very bad arguments here.
3) Getting back to the point of the argument. Ian, very good article. You make some excellent points — but you drag them down with terms like hegemonic and eurocentric. These are the easy words of post-modernist criticism — they are not arguments (in that respect James was right). Post-modernism is not in a healthy state right now, but it has given us some valuable fruit. And those fruits do, indeed, suggest that Grayling is likely to be quite far off target in his proposed university (but to the fantastical extreme you suggest? probably not).
Studying the classics is not the wretched, elitist thing that its detractors have suggested it is, but it is also not a sufficient educative tool (i.e that means it should be used, but not used in exclusion to all other aspects of a good cultural and multicultural education). Even Arnold came close to agreeing on that point back in the middle of the nineteenth century when he first suggested what later became the great books movement, etc.
Multiculturalism is still young and immature. But it is founded on a point that Grayling seems at odds with — the very real multiplicity of converging cultures in a modern, global world. He seems to have set himself at odds with the necessities of that condition. Post-modernism, as I have said, may be fading out, but there is no wisdom in ignoring, as I have said, its best fruits. In any event, in a university setting how long could Grayling indeminify the institution against such thoughts? Frankly, not very long at all. Baylor and other universities wishing to maintain the legitimacy of their position find this a very difficult task.
4) One final recommendation, Ian. You have come close to suggesting that neither the left nor the right are really coherent positions. Then why argue “from” one position or the other? If one finds fanatical elements on the right, would one not expect to find fanatical elelments on the left? Just as an example, are all things European inherently bad (Eurocentrism at its extreme does suggest this — ethnocentrism is generally a bad thing, but we often tolerate it in marginalized cultures when they are seeking to immunize themselves against a larger, more dominant culture — inevitably such positions must be nuanced to have any vitality at all — this why throwing these words around as simple pejoratives is extremely counter productive)?
No idea carried to its extreme is ever fully valid. We found this with Marxism and, those who were watching, saw the death of pure capitalism in the current foreclosure crisis. But the left still (romantically) wants to be the left; and the right still (steadfastly) wants to be the right. If there is a reasonable argument against Grayling, it is that he is holding on to too many extremes and aping bad ideas out of some misguided sense of resentment or vindication or ratioanlism (but probably not ethnocentrism — the “left” this past half century has become increasingly bad at understanding intentionality). The notion that a secular university ought to be as valid as a religious university is rather vacuous — bearing as it does the suggestion that secular be read as a kind of teleology comparable to religious teleology — a point you made above quite well, I think. But then again Grayling does not really say that he is trying to create a secular univeristy, does he?
In any event, go at again if you wish, James and Ian. Steph, thanks for the wise words, but I don’t think James was listening.
All the best, Mark
Thank you Mark for taking the time to read this article I sent to you. I appreciated the post very much and I agree with every word of it, but like you and in the same way, found the comment thread tiring, frustrating and fruitless.
English state universities are secular Mark. It is Grayling’s proposed adventure that is branding itself as supposedly ‘humanist’. The flaw of Grayling’s proposed adventure, is not what it includes but what it excludes. In state universities, I have worked alongside non believers, and people of all religions. My degrees were broad, from music and sciences, philosophy, psychology – and several other ‘ologies’, to interdisciplinary approaches to the critical study of religions, their evolution and history. Grayling’s star studded new atheist staff are not qualified to teach several of these, including religion, yet he is charging twice the price.
Multiculturalism is not immature, certainly not in Antipodean universities or in the UK and I’m not sure what the fantastical extreme is that you suggest Ian has described. Grayling’s adventure is elitist and exclusive. He is charging 18000 pounds a year which is twice state university fees, and that will exclude all but the very wealthiest in English society. He is also excluding, by design, religious students and non Europeans.
However I do not think this will be successful in the UK, if indeed it gets off the ground. All the support seems to be coming from American ‘humanists’ and ‘atheists’ and I suggest it might have success in America, but certainly not here.
Forgive me my sloppy comment – I’m very very sleepy!! 😉
James,
Well I just reread my comment above and came to the conclusion that it sounds altogether too cantankerous and not nearly so civil as it seemed when I was writing it. Perhaps you were a bit rude, but I know you well enough, I think, to know you did not intend to be rude. So please accept my apologies.
Thinking it over, I wonder if it might be better to make a few unsolicited suggestions and then try to bow out of a long dead conversation with whatever grace I can belatedly muster.
Suggestion #1: you often seem to make very specific demands of others. In this kind of discourse I think that is rightfully frowned upon. Your demands for data or evidence often seem to fit into this category. These demands seem to me to suggest a desire to be more directive of others than is normally accepted in this kind of discourse.
Suggestion #2: you seldom seem to give others the benefit of the doubt. As a result you come down hard on a particular issue, receive an explanation, and then come across sounding a little sarcastic when you suggest that you have finally elicited a reasonable argument. Even if that is true, it’s better to put the onus on yourself with a simple little, “ah, now I understand.”. At least, I find that to be the case.
Suggestion #3: David suggested here somewhere that you may not be seeing the forest for the trees. What I would suggest is that you ask yourself “why am I making this argument on this particular point?”. You often so crowd your comment with detailed arguments that either you really are losing the primary issue or you have hidden it in the details.
I’m probably off base on some of this, but at least it feels more constructive than what I wrote above.
All my best, Mark
Hi Mark! I thought I’d left this thread behind me, but I would like to clarify some things.
It’s kind of lucky that I am typing this just after having helped run the introductory session for the philosophy of art course I have helped teach for the past three years to Harvard graduate students (yes, I’m establishing a certain authority here – bear with me 😉 ). In it, the Professor (Kate Elgin, a respected epistemologist) talks about the attitude expected of philosophers in this class. This is some of what she said:
“The central question philosophers ask are ‘Right or wrong? What should believe about this matter? And what are the arguments for why we should believe one thing or another?’
You want to approach these questions with a judicious skepticism. Ask, as an obnoxious teenager might ask, “Why should I believe a thing like that?”, with the same snarl in the voice as a teenager might have. And then you actually try to find out the answer. You want to subject the positions you hold to serious critical scrutiny. Because sometimes the answer might be that you SHOULD believe this crazy thing.”
Perhaps you’ll recognize this as the approach I try to take. Certainly, I am irreverent. I accept that sometimes irreverence comes across as rude. I, personally, would rather be irreverent and perceived as rude than reverent (in the sense of credulous toward another opinion) and perceived as perpetually polite. While I put a premium on gentilesse in my personal encounters with others, I do not do so in academic discussions, where I feel the rules are different, and for good reasons.
I am aware of the dangers of this approach. I am conscious, for example, that not everyone takes the same view regarding the value of judicious skepticism, nor toward the value of the “teenager’s snarl”. Also, what seems playful and testing when spoken by a voice can seem harsher and less forgiving when written online. Nonetheless, I see few other epostemolgocially responsible options, so I persist. Generally I hope people will give me the benefit of the doubt and see irreverence rather than rudeness.
On the question of evidence, I do not agree that someone presenting an argument can disavow all responsibility to provide good reasons (some of which might be pieces of evidence) as to why they are correct in their argument. The question with which I began my contribution to this thread – “Why should I believe you?” – is very much the central question of any responsible epistemology. Repeatedly posing this question (in the form of a request for evidence or better reasons) does not make me a “neo-positivist”. For your information, I am in fact trained in the analytical pragmatist tradition, following the work of Nelson Goodman (who was a mentor of and collaborator with Kate Elgin), and consider myself to be reasonably convinced by his essentially coherentist epistemology.
This fact also, in my mind, serves to counter your perception that I have a “reductive notion of rationality”. Goodman, Elgin and I (following them) have actually very broad and rich understandings of rationality. If you are interested in some of my epistemological writing, you can find a piece in a recent volume of “Mind, Brain and Education” which explores (and challenges) epistemological reductionism in the emerging interdisciplinary field of neuroaesthetics. This should give you a clearer idea of my views on epistemology, rationalism etc. Suffice to say here that your critique misses the mark (as so many do) due to incorrect assumptions on your part regarding my position.
You go on to suggest that requesting that people provide evidence for their points of view is too directive for this sort of discussion. I must admit I don’t see myself as being directive. I am actually trying to be helpful: I’m trying to say, essentially, “My argument is founded on these facts and reasons. If you want to convince me, here’s where you should seek to deconstruct my position, and this is the sort of evidence you will need.” Sure, if I think someone is simply making assertions, I will pointedly request that They support their arguments. This, as I’ve said above, I consider a fundamental requirement of any persuasive or I tells tusk discourse whatsoever. It is a sine qua non. So I don’t find the request unreasonable.
I am happy to consider your other suggestions. Suggestion #2 intrigues me, because I often feel commenters on this site in particular do not give ME the benefit of the doubt! But hey – we all have to have something to complain about!
James,
Interesting, but not very convincing. However, I’m going to give you an opportunity to convince me. I’m going to ask you to prove what you just said. I won’t demand it, because despite what you say that is rude — and I do hold out some hope that you will start hearing that.
Politeness is not a form of epistemology — it is a social process into whiich we place all of our actions. It is larger than epistemology — I hope you will understand that. Epistemology is not an individual practice, but a social practice and so must fit INTO the social arena, or it will fail. This is what your professors are not teaching you. Or more likely they are trying to get it across to you, but you are not hearing them.
Nonetheless, the proof. Plenty of space left on this thread. Can you provide me with a thoroughly skeptical and evidence-driven argument for why A. C. Grayling university will not work. If you tell me you cannot argue that because you think it will work, I will say thank you very much. But why then are you posing as irreverent and skeptical.
Here is the question you yourself have proposed: “Why should I believe you?” If you cannot ask that of Grayling and provide a solidly skeptical reason for not believing him, then you are neither a true skeptic, nor as thoroughly irrevent as you romantically imagine yourself to be.
All my best, Mark
James,
I am going to post here at the bottom because it is becoming increasingly difficult to work with this thread (I see now why so many SoF contributors have been complaining about the limitations of this medium to discussion).
Thank you for your kind and reasonable response.
“I think if your article were more about this specific point I would be more inclined to agree with you – you’re making me think again abut some of the rhetoric used by these figures and its potential effects. I thank you for that. At the same time, looking at your post as you made it, I do not think it is really about those issues. Perhaps there’s another post in this?”
My post intended to be about these issues, although I did not provide concrete evidence of the exlusionary rhetoric from Grayling and Dawkins that I consider to constitute symbolic violence. I, perhaps naively, assumed that readers would be familiar with the long record of Islamophobic statements coming from within the New Atheist movement. In my most recent reply to Kile, I provided two concrete examples of discourse (one from Dawkins, one from Grayling) that illustrate this point. One has Dawkins calling Islam evil and Muslims our ‘enemy’. The other has Grayling de-contextualizing and essentializing Islam so as to paint a portrait of inherent violence in the tradition. These are both clear instances of symbolic violence, by the definition of the term I gave you.
I hope this serves as sufficient evidence to substantiate the claims I’ve been making about their ideology.
Regards,
Ian
Yes, I saw those quotes and I think they make your argument much stronger. I don’t think it.s wise, myself, to ever assume your audience is going to take your word for it when making any claim – always better to back it up, in my view.
This is especially the case because of the context of this discussion – the New Atheist voices (I don’t count myself among them, incidentally) are frequently labelled as “intolerant” and “bigoted” without people providing concrete evidence to support their claim as an attempt by those holding religious privilege to silence their critique of religion, and atheist positions are frequently denigrated. You can see examples of this frequently on Huffington Post’s religion site, for example these: http://goo.gl/I21RB http://goo.gl/MIbU4 http://goo.gl/8Xj6S
I’m not sure that one quote from an author is at all enough to substantiate a very strong claim of racial and religious prejudice, no. I think you’d have to do significantly more work than that to convince me of that. If I found one quote that seemed to suggest you were prejudiced against some group, and presented it on here, I expect you might disavow the quote but I doubt you’d consider it enough reason to decry you as a racist or something.
I think what we are having is genuine discourse. This is what real life disagreement is all about. James is not offensive in my opinion, he has just been getting to the heart of the disagreement. We should not be so easily offended. Ian, I also recognize your points and think they are informed and well put, even if they are not presenting an evidential argument. Lets just all realize that if we were sharing a pint at a pub over discussion we would realize that we are not all that different. But maybe I am too optimistic!
James, of course you don’t agree, and that is precisely because you mistake the condemnation of bigotry (what Ian and I are doing) for the attempt to repress or prevent people from being bigots. You consistently miss the forest for the trees here, the structure for the individual cogs: the issue with Dawkins is not simply that I disagree with him, just as the issues one has with Ayn Rand are more involved than disagreement.
1) Before I can continue, we have to get something straight: “racism” and “sexism” are not personal prejudices. We are lazy in our language use, so we treat these words as descriptors of an individual viewpoint rather than as the structural issues they truly are. One is more aptly a bigot or a misogynist than a racist or sexist; so, that said, allow me to apologize for being lazy as well last night in my response. But I think it is safe to say you are neglecting the ways extant institutions such as those you mention generally seek to foster conversation about issues such as sexism and racism, about which we have no clear answer. The issue I have with this institution is that, from all the evidence I have at my disposal, it appears to insulate itself from the sort of debate that could go on in any of those other mentioned places. I’m not saying the conversation DOES go on at these schools, nor do I think that Harvard need escape critique. It deserves it, just as when deconstruction became more or less an institution at Yale, it needed to be taken down a few pegs (though people went too far with the whole de Man/Nazi), to have its ubiquity questioned (and to have the misreadings of Derrida by his own philosophical progeny poked in the eye, which is always nice). But I digress again: what I am saying is that there is NO indication that such an environment of critical discourse will exist or even be cultivated by this new institution.
2) You are giving Dawkins too much credit here. I read the aforementioned quote I gave in the context of this further quote: “Given that Islam is such an unmitigated evil, and looking at the map supplied by this Christian site, should we be supporting Christian missions in Africa? My answer is still no, but I thought it was worth raising the question. Given that atheism hasn’t any chance in Africa for the foreseeable future, could our enemy’s enemy be our friend?” (source: http://richarddawkins.net/discussions/624093-support-christian-missions-in-africa-no-but) Dawkins is not interested in critiquing the obviously fallible institutions of religion, which definitely deserve to be scrutinized regularly and rigorously; he is interested in throwing them out and supplanting spirituality with his own ideology, some bastardized version of “humanism” that pats itself on the back for being enlightened while presuming that the majority of the world’s people are idiots. This is textbook ethnocentrism and textbook Eurocentrism with overt colonial overtures. Dawkins remains in an Imperialist mindset and is only interested in dismissing those who do not agree with him, rather than focusing on the real issues at hand in the world, the material problems that are ravaging most of the world–human and otherwise!–that he hardly seems to think about.
3) I think you are missing the point here, though by mentioning Grayling’s “right to try” you are invoking an interesting element of the privilege and classism that grounds this entire endeavor (your argument, Grayling’s school). I will openly admit my prejudice against a school like this because I am a priori opposed to private institutions like this that are founded on privilege, that encourage and perpetuate privilege and that consider “rights” to be synonymous with “privileges.” Grayling does not have a RIGHT to do this; he has the PRIVILEGE. I can’t stand how you use these terms interchangeably, and it’s part of the problem with this particular “discourse”: there is this assumption that having the means to do something constitutes having the right to do something, that the division between Grayling and the starving denizens of other countries is something that is not structural. Bear in mind I am not saying you are making the Randian/libertarian argument; what I am saying is that you are complicit with an ideology that supports aggrandizing the individual at the expense of countless others. Of course Grayling has the privilege to make the school, but why not offer free education somehow? Seek to improve literacy? Buy a copy of Pedagogy of the Oppressed before opening another private school?
Of course at this point I’m being glib, but let me return briefly to my earlier Dawkins-Rand connection. The problem here is that the ways in which arguments are made is incredibly obtuse, unselfconscious, and reactionary. One merely need seize on a particular straw man, caricature it further, and then refute the caricature as though it were ubiquitous. This is how Dawkins works; this is how Ayn Rand works, too. I have a problem with this even outside of the (more pressing) socioeconomic perfidy of founding a private institution to perpetuate what amounts to a caricature of “humanism” for the sake of monetary gain (and why else might one found a school as such, instead of using the money to increase access to education, which would be done with little personal material gain but would be entirely praiseworthy?).
And I guess that is my final issue with your point and all your points: what if, instead of objecting to all the things Ian objects to in his piece (and I am in firm agreement with him, for the record), I simply ask you why it is defensible for someone to open such a pricey institution when he might instead use his resources to widen the availability of education?
(I know now the argument has taken a completely different turn from where it was when I started working on this, so forgive me for being so late to return fire)
This is actually a very good critique of some of the issues here, and is worthy of a full response when I have more time to make it. I will do so later.
Hi David! I’ve spent many hours today on this thread so this is going to be my last for a little while. I’m going to try to do your response justice by responding specifically to the very things you have said.
“you mistake the condemnation of bigotry (what Ian and I are doing) for the attempt to repress or prevent people from being bigots.”
Unless I misunderstand you, I do not do so. I am questioning whether the people you say are bigots are indeed bigots, and I am simply asking Ian to provide evidence to support this assertion. As you’ll see in my full rebuttal above, Ian has so far not been able to substantiate claims of Islamophobia against Grayling, providing 5 whole articles for me to read that were about the wrong Grayling, for a start!So you mistake my critique here. I’m not sure where you got the idea that I was talking about “the attempt to repress or prevent people from being bigots” – I don’t mention it anywhere that I can see.
I am willing to accept your definitions of “racism” and “sexism” as structural conditions. No argument from me.
“The issue I have with this institution is that, from all the evidence I have at my disposal, it appears to insulate itself from the sort of debate that could go on in any of those other mentioned places…there is NO indication that such an environment of critical discourse will exist or even be cultivated by this new institution.”
Then present your evidence and make you case. That’s all I’m asking, and it’s not much.
“Dawkins is not interested in critiquing the obviously fallible institutions of religion, which definitely deserve to be scrutinized regularly and rigorously; he is interested in throwing them out and supplanting spirituality with his own ideology, some bastardized version of “humanism” that pats itself on the back for being enlightened while presuming that the majority of the world’s people are idiots.”
Given the map and the quote there, as I’ve said to Ian, I am now thoroughly reexamining the statements of Dawkins on this front. I’m appalled by the map. I hadn’t seen it before, and I’m glad it was brought to my attention.
“by mentioning Grayling’s “right to try” you are invoking an interesting element of the privilege and classism that grounds this entire endeavor (your argument, Grayling’s school).”
Could you say how so?
” I will openly admit my prejudice against a school like this because I am a priori opposed to private institutions like this that are founded on privilege, that encourage and perpetuate privilege and that consider “rights” to be synonymous with “privileges.””
It’s good that you acknowledge this up front. I recognize the position but am not convinced by it and you have given no reasons why you hold it.
“Grayling does not have a RIGHT to do this; he has the PRIVILEGE. I can’t stand how you use these terms interchangeably, and it’s part of the problem with this particular “discourse”: there is this assumption that having the means to do something constitutes having the right to do something, that the division between Grayling and the starving denizens of other countries is something that is not structural.”
I simply disagree here. I am not eliding the words “privilege” and “right” but consciously choosing the word “right”. I think it is a fundamental human right to offer your services to others and to enter into voluntary contracts with them. I also believe it is a fundamental human right to get together with others and do the same. Numerous philosophers have classed this as a right, most notably Mill, and I refer you to Articles 17, 20 and 23 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. I mean very specifically and unequivocally that Grayling has a human right to establish this university and that the attempt to abridge this right through stigmatization, the silencing of his speech in a public place, through demagoguery and threat is morally wrong.
I do not deny that being a well-known philosopher he is in a privileged position by which he can exercise these rights to an extent others cannot. This does produce certain very real problems we should discuss. But it does not mean his right to do this should be abridged in any way, shape or form.
“Of course Grayling has the privilege to make the school, but why not offer free education somehow? Seek to improve literacy? Buy a copy of Pedagogy of the Oppressed before opening another private school?”
He is seeking to offer free education to up to 30% of the class. He is seeking to improve literacy in the Humanities by opening such a College. As for Pedagogy of the Oppressed, I teach it every year and think it, frankly, almost total garbage. But I see you recognize the glibness of these questions.
“The problem here is that the ways in which arguments are made is incredibly obtuse, unselfconscious, and reactionary. One merely need seize on a particular straw man, caricature it further, and then refute the caricature as though it were ubiquitous. ”
Can you give an example please? I have no idea what you are talking about.
“And I guess that is my final issue with your point and all your points: what if, instead of objecting to all the things Ian objects to in his piece (and I am in firm agreement with him, for the record), I simply ask you why it is defensible for someone to open such a pricey institution when he might instead use his resources to widen the availability of education?”
What do you see my point as being, by the way? You haven;t said and I feel a lot of this is not well-targeted at me, who has simply asked repeatedly for MORE EVIDENCE to support Ian’s claims.
Nonetheless, I’m happy to try to answer this:
1) By offering a large number of free scholarships Grayling is widening the availability of education.
2) There’s no indication the same resources would be available if Grayling were to seek to widen the availability of education in the way you mean.
3) Offering this option does not infringe meaningfully on the public funding of education, so does not prevent the government taking steps to improve it (a move I’ve campaigned for for many years).
4) No cogent argument has been presented as to why it is indefensible.
Providing education the destitute in a manner that is democratic and self-empowering, rather than subjecting them to our cultural hegemony. Having the audacity to believe the marginalized might be in a better position to understand their own situation than we are – total garbage indeed, James! Why aren’t we teaching them more about John Stuart Mill and the unwavering benevolence of the Invisible Hand? Or better yet, simply denying them access to education entirely by privatizing the entire global pedagogical system (Oh, but there will be scholarships! Don’t worry! A few of you will still get in, as long as you sufficiently kowtow to our liberal agenda! We need a few docile brown people to profess our views, too, so we can lift them up as shining examples of what the “good ones” are like). This would in fact be the best way to make obedient market subjects out of all of them so they will continue producing our commodities cheap cheap cheap without complaining or striking or any of the other pesky things they tend to do to impede the steady advance of Civilization. Ignorance is bliss; everyone wins in the meritocracy!
Well this just says it all – so much for interfaith dialogue!
I’m sorry you did not appreciate my lighthearted satire, James. I’m awful fond of Freire, is all. I think his career demonstrated tremendous courage and compassion. The way he stuck to his vision despite political persecution, and the way he infused his Christianity with a relentless dedication to social justice I think are immensely inspiring. Pedagogy of the Oppressed is one of the most influential works of the 20th century. To just discard it as ‘total garbage’…I am baffled by this. I decided to make a joke about it. I apologize if it fell flat!
Yeah, I was very amused by the clear implication that I am a complete racist and have no concern for anyone but those making money off the backs of others. On second thoughts, it made my sides split with laughter!
I think Freire was indeed a very courageous man and an inspiring educational figure who has indeed been very influential. I also think he can’t write for shit and that his work display astonishing arrogance, hypocrisy and other forms of inconsistency which blight the message his life should have given. If only people emulated him instead of his books education would be in a much better place. I have a lot more time for Illich, who can at least compose a coherent argument to go along with his radical critique.
There are many better books on critical pedagogy than those by Freire, and in my view it’s sad that those studying education are baffled by him instead of enlightened by someone like Illich, Holt (who is at least readable if not sophisticated), Rogers, Duckworth etc.
First of all, it was not a ‘clear implication’ of any of those things. It was a lighthearted caricature of what, I think, is the very awkward position you are putting yourself in by rejecting Freire’s book while simultaneously defending Grayling’s elitist approach to pedagogy. I certainly do not think the views in my caricature are your actual views! I do not think you are racist or have no concern for anyone but those making money off the backs of others. But the positions you are defending lead to structural racism and bloodthirsty economic exploitation in reality. What I think is that you do not fully understand the social implications of what you defending in this exchange. I think if you did, you would turn away from these views in disgust, the same way that I do. That is because I think you are a decent person, and I think you want there to be equality in this world as much as I do. I just think you have an extremely misguided understanding as to how that would be accomplished. Maybe that is an act of intellectual arrogance on my part, but the consequences of neoliberalism on global income disparity are pretty unambiguous at this point. I would suggest reading A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey, for a very thorough treatment of this issue. Neoliberal policy is deeply rooted in the assumptions of classical liberalism, and neoliberal assumptions are present in the New Atheist worldview as well as within your discourse in this exchange. David Harvey’s book shows how neoliberalism is an ideological facade for a very cruel project of consolidating wealth and class power.
It’s true that Freire’s book is not splendidly written, but that doesn’t make the ideas in it any less potent. Yes, Illich’s Deschooling Society is a much better read, I definitely agree. I like Ivan Illich a lot. But his ideas and general approach to pedagogy are not very different from Freire’s at all. Is it really only the quality of writing that you dislike? I’ve read a lot of stylistically inferior books that still present very strong arguments. You don’t have to be a poet to be a bright thinker.
I appreciate your clarification, but given the other things you have said directly about my positions on this thread I don’t find it very convincing. But I will take what I can get at this point!
The difficulty that I have with critiques of “neoliberalism” by folks like Harvey is the question “what do you propose instead” is often answered unsatisfactorily, to my mind. I think we may be in a situation of promoting the lesser of many evils when it comes to economic decision-making and that we may have to bite some very unpleasant bullets. But that’s a very long discussion to be had at a different time when I am in a more receptive mood. Suffice to say here that it isn’t as if I’ve never encountered the criticism – it’s that I don’t actually always find it all that convincing.
In my view there are very significant differences between the pedagogical approaches and societal analyses of Freire and Illich, and Illich is by far the more sophisticated thinker. Even given that, there are numerous deficiencies in Freire’s pedagogical model which are not stylistic, not the least of which is that the book is not really that much about pedagogy (in the sense of the critical interactions between teacher and student, teacher and teacher, and student and student, all terms which he problematizes to varying degrees of effectiveness) at all – very little of the book actually advances a pedagogy.
Another problem is that modern developmental science does not support his prescriptions very well, and I think we should be open to the science wherever it leads us. There’s very good evidence that positive child development requires strong authority figures and even methods which might be considered somewhat authoritarian, which speaks against the radical egalitarian classroom model Freire proposes.
I think the most widely-used chapter in educational circles, that on the “banking model of education” (I think it’s chapter 2, my copy escapes me at the moment), completely straw-mans the opposing argument and presents a “solution” which is really very similar to what good educators have always done.
I’ve also always taken offence at his writing on behalf of the illiterate and uneducated while liberally quoting from various languages without offering translations in the text. It’s a minor point, but always grated because it struck me as entirely inconsistent with the central message of the work.
Finally, I actually think the opaque nature of the book, it’s forbidding unreadability, itself speaks against its professed revolutionary aims. Take for example this sentence I took from Wikipedia: “there neither is, nor has ever been, an educational practice in zero space-time—neutral in the sense of being committed only to preponderantly abstract, intangible ideas.”
I can make no sense in that, and while it may be a weakness in me, since I’ve now spent a decade or so studying and practicing education and reading very widely about it, and since I’m very convinced of my own intellectual capabilities, I’m more inclined to say that it is him. And it’s like that all the way through pretty much!
So yeah, I dislike the book. But don’t mistake that for a lack of sympathy with some of its goals. I am almost more angry about the failures of the book because I think it has held back truly emancipatory education for decades. A crisp, clear enunciation of a truly revolutionary pedagogy would do wonders for educators everywhere, and PotO is not it.
James,
Have you actually read the book by Harvey, or are you just dismissing it outright on the basis of an a priori assumption that neoliberalism (why do you put the word in scare quotes? this is a universally accepted term in political science) is the best of all possible worlds? That seems to be what you are doing. I highly doubt you have read it. But I can provide you a high quality pdf of the book if you would like to take the time to actually read a text that is recommended to you before casually dismissing it.
“I think we may be in a situation of promoting the lesser of many evils when it comes to economic decision-making and that we may have to bite some very unpleasant bullets.”
I’m sorry, but uttering this statement positions you very far to the right on the political spectrum. I am not going to ridicule you for holding the views that you do, but you should at least recognize that they are right-wing views. You insist on taking it as a personal insult each time I attach the term “right-wing” to the things you say, but I am merely pointing out that these statements are typical of right-wing discourse. You may (and probably do) hold many contradictory views and your values and career may very well not align with the things you have been saying. But the things you’ve been saying are extremely conservative, in the sense that they are apologetic to the status quo.
When it comes to Freire’s book, I don’t think the criticisms you make of it are valid, seeing as how the intended audience of the book is not the illiterate peasants who are going to be receiving the education, but the educators themselves. Would you rather the book be written for an elementary school reading level, so that the recipients can read the book as easily as the educators?
I think the main reason you find many of the ideas in the book so opaque is that you lack a sufficient comprehension of Marxist theory, from which many of the concepts in the book derive. I personally wasn’t fond of his generous quoting of Lenin and Mao, and stylistically the book didn’t appeal to me very much, but I certainly didn’t find it difficult to understand. To expect a Marxist text to be easily accessible to you without a solid grounding in Marxist theory is like me rejecting the value of a work of molecular biology on the basis that the specialized terminology is too confusing for me to grasp.