Rhetorics of progress (V): First aid during debates

Whichever way you turn it, tone is just as important in a message as the medium if you want to reach an audience. You'll speak differently with a minister than with your friends, for instance. To convince someone, it's always best to speak or write the way that will make that person most receptive.

However, tone has been used for decades to silence progressive movements, and feminism in particular. Opponents would allegedly listen if feminists were more 'reasonable' or 'didn't use such strong language'. These are usually excuses not to have to listen, or a one way street to the infamous 'smarm'. Put bluntly, someone who is smarmy will focus only on formalities and not content, and will often keep coming back back to useless non-statements.

This brings me to five defence mechanisms that I've come to identify a couple of years back in a big presentation on progressive thought. I think it might be useful to run down that list again to help people arm themselves against those mechanisms.

1. Denial

"I don't see the problem."
"You're making this up."
"It's not as bad as you think it is."

Knowledge and facts are the perfect antidote against denial. Thanks to the Internet, there are hundreds of sources available to prove feminist theses and clearly point out the issues. The plural of anecdote isn't data, but it may also help to refer to examples of everyday life for people who have trouble accepting feminism.

2. Shift

"Women's empowerment is bad for men."
"Muslim women have got it so much worse, though?"
"Workers' rights trump women's rights."

Some people seem to think that one group's success will always be to the detriment of another - which is not necessarily the case. Female suffrage didn't render men powerless. It's useful here to point to intersectionality and lead the discussion back to a common theme instead of falling for 'divide and conquer'-rhetoric, that today have resulted, for instance, in the fact that the white Flemish underclasses see the Muslim underclass as its opponent, while they in fact face a shared predicament.

3. Appropriation

"We are being oppressed, not you."
"But what about our problems?"
"When is it going to be International Men's Day?"

It's always useful to check whether the person who says this, may be making sense, but similar to the shift strategy, it's important to keep the discussion on topic. It may be rewarding to speak about proportionality here (e.g. relationship violence proportionally damages women more often and more severely). As a last point, it's useful to consider whether this isn't an argument in bad faith to legitimise certain forms of oppression, such as the victim role that religious extremists or MRAs often resort to.

4. Vilification

"The status quo is fine and those who challenge it are evil."
"You are màking this into a problem."
"Feminism has a sinistre agenda."

The backlash against feminism is sometimes rooted in the fear that a now oppressed class will behave like today's priviliged class. Be on your watch for straw men (like individual examples of extremists that have appropriated the feminist label), and don't shy away from a debate on good and bad moral values. It's also helpful to acknowledge anger without pouring oil on the fire, and lead the discussion back to a calmer place.

5. Violence

"Stupid cunt."
"You need to be put in your place."
"I'll beat you up."

Leave the discussion if possible, or remove the person from the debate. To lash out in equal measure is usually a bad idea and will often lead to escalation, unless you're left with no other option. It's not a bad idea to name and shame people who do this - if they are using their real name, for instance.

Atheist? Good, just don't be an asshole about it

As far as religion is concerned, I'm lucky to live in Belgium, a nominally Catholic country where being agnostic or atheist is nothing out of the ordinary. In a broader sense, Europe - with some notable exceptions - is spectacularly different from the rest of the world, where not believing that there is any god can still get you in serious trouble, and religion is a dominant force in politics and socio-cultural life.

So, I can sympathise with American atheists and their frustration at the constant poisoning of public debates by religiosuly inspired anti-gay, anti-abortion or anti-science advocates. I also agree with some radical atheist positions that we still give to much deference to organised religion where none is warranted.

However.

I severely dislike the way that atheists on the Internet want to rally around the idea of being atheist, as if this is a morally superior road. Atheism is a very simple thing: not believing in any god. Internet Atheists' weird reverence for scientists such as Richard Dawkins or Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the way in which logic is celebrated by them and they celebrate ideologically bankrupt philosophies such as libertarianism or pseudosciences such as evopsych, is just a straight-up replacement for worship. It's nothing more than another justification for a worldview without the necessary self-criticism.

I don't like the contempt and condescension of Internet Atheists. Yes, I suppose that if I was to live in an area surrounded by people who actually believed dinosaurs and humans co-existed and the world is only 6,000 years old, it would inspire me to ridicule as well. But the pervasive sense of smugness of Internet Atheists has already succeeded to turn potential allies against them. I happen to believe in treating people well and not mock what they choose to believe in if it isn't forced upon me. Most people who are religious to an extent can be pretty tolerant, and most people believe things that are logically at odds with one another.

It speaks volumes for the movement that Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens are held in such high regard. While the former is a brilliant scientist and an eloquent speaker, he is also overly dismissive of the plight of any sort of people who are not white and male, and Hitchens was an all-round boorish individual who was needlessly antagonising. Lastly, a YouTube troll like the self-styled 'Amazing' Atheist still has droves of followers, despite being violently misogynist and clearly out of his depth with any subject that pertains to anything else than 'not believing in God'.

Listen, it's cool that you discovered, through reasoning, intuition, a flash of insight or whatever, that there are no gods (or, that it's almost certain there are no gods). That does not make you a superior person, it doesn't validate any other opinions you might hold, and it certainly doesn't make your positions exempt from criticism. Be a little nicer. If you truly want to stop religious fundamentalism, lead by example.