Christina is talking about the atheist movement, not the set of all atheists (“atheist” is used there as a shorthand for “member of the movement;” maybe we need different words?).
Yes, I think it’s a very poor choice of words to conflate a philosophical position with a set of people publicly arguing for it (and for other things as well).
And I’m not even sure we can properly say that there is an atheist movement. There are a few prominent atheists (Dawkins, Harris, Myers, etc.), plus various bloggers, who speak at atheist conventions, but atheists as a whole are not organized, and they have a variety of positions on many relevant topics (religious tolerance, personal liberties, etc.)
In contrast, IIUC, the LGBT movement is more organized, and, while not universally representative, has more support among the queer people. I suppose that most queer people largely agree on issues such as sexual rights, adoption rights, family rights, etc.
After all, being queer refers to pattern of preferences and behaviors, while being an atheist refers to an epistemic state.
And if you’re talking about a movement, then a call to be more inclusive is not a non sequitur at all.
It’s not a non sequitur, but I don’t think it’s good advice. Intellectual honest discourse should be, IMHO, blind to gender, race, ethnicity, sexual preferences, and other group differences (unless these happen to be the topic of the discourse, of course). Affirmative action has no place in it.
I suppose that most queer people largely agree on issue such as sexual rights, adoption rights, famility rights, etc. After all, being queer refers to pattern of preferences and behaviors, while being an atheist refers to an epistemic state.
I’m not sure the situations are all that different, except that “movement atheism” is younger. (I speak here mostly of the U.S., since it’s what I know.)
Queers, for example, are significantly divided on questions of family rights. There are those of us who endorse the existing legal structure around families, for example, and want that structure expanded to include us. And there are those of us who reject the existing legal structure around families altogether, and want it eliminated.
That said, that division isn’t terribly visible from a mainstream perspective; there’s a relatively coherent political platform that gets treated as “the” queer rights movement, and most people go along with that.
I think a lot of the formalization of queer activism comes from its alliance with political parties. Because the major political parties in the U.S. have taken differentiable stances on queer rights, queer activists have de facto allied themselves with the Blues and opposed the Greens. (This causes some difficulties for queer people whose political or economic ideologies naturally incline Green. There is in fact a Green queer movement, although it doesn’t get a lot of respect from your typical queer-on-the-street.)
I suspect that if atheism becomes a differentiable Green/Blue issue we’ll see a similar pattern over the next thirty years. And it easily could… religious pluralism is increasingly becoming a differentiable Green/Blue issue in the US, which seems related.
I would tend to disagree, and if no one had ever argued about identity politics on the internet before, I would be very interested in continuing this discussion. But as it is… I’ll bow out here.
Yes, I think it’s a very poor choice of words to conflate a philosophical position with a set of people publicly arguing for it (and for other things as well).
And I’m not even sure we can properly say that there is an atheist movement. There are a few prominent atheists (Dawkins, Harris, Myers, etc.), plus various bloggers, who speak at atheist conventions, but atheists as a whole are not organized, and they have a variety of positions on many relevant topics (religious tolerance, personal liberties, etc.)
In contrast, IIUC, the LGBT movement is more organized, and, while not universally representative, has more support among the queer people. I suppose that most queer people largely agree on issues such as sexual rights, adoption rights, family rights, etc. After all, being queer refers to pattern of preferences and behaviors, while being an atheist refers to an epistemic state.
It’s not a non sequitur, but I don’t think it’s good advice. Intellectual honest discourse should be, IMHO, blind to gender, race, ethnicity, sexual preferences, and other group differences (unless these happen to be the topic of the discourse, of course). Affirmative action has no place in it.
I’m not sure the situations are all that different, except that “movement atheism” is younger. (I speak here mostly of the U.S., since it’s what I know.)
Queers, for example, are significantly divided on questions of family rights. There are those of us who endorse the existing legal structure around families, for example, and want that structure expanded to include us. And there are those of us who reject the existing legal structure around families altogether, and want it eliminated.
That said, that division isn’t terribly visible from a mainstream perspective; there’s a relatively coherent political platform that gets treated as “the” queer rights movement, and most people go along with that.
I think a lot of the formalization of queer activism comes from its alliance with political parties. Because the major political parties in the U.S. have taken differentiable stances on queer rights, queer activists have de facto allied themselves with the Blues and opposed the Greens. (This causes some difficulties for queer people whose political or economic ideologies naturally incline Green. There is in fact a Green queer movement, although it doesn’t get a lot of respect from your typical queer-on-the-street.)
I suspect that if atheism becomes a differentiable Green/Blue issue we’ll see a similar pattern over the next thirty years. And it easily could… religious pluralism is increasingly becoming a differentiable Green/Blue issue in the US, which seems related.
I would tend to disagree, and if no one had ever argued about identity politics on the internet before, I would be very interested in continuing this discussion. But as it is… I’ll bow out here.