I used to have atheist heroes.
I don’t anymore, and I don’t encourage it.
I have found that when we engage in hero-worship, there is the possibility of taking what someone says for granted. If they think someone is good, we believe them. If they say that someone is bad, we believe them.
I was watching a recent documentary on Lance Armstrong that followed this dynamic. Armstrong was well-spoken, seemed to genuinely care, was passionate, and seemed to carry all the exemplary qualities of a good cyclist. This sterling moral reputation gave him power. Due to it, he was able to say that people were bad, or that people were good, and people would unquestionably believe him. And you better not cross him, lest your own reputation wind up in the dirt.
If someone accused Armstrong, they were the ones being immature and disrespectful. Armstrong had center stage.
Not just for others, but for me, too. He was a Hero.
I did not pay attention to how many people were accusing him. I did not pay attention to the reputation he seemed cast on those most insistent on getting to the truth of where he was coming from. And he engaged in ad hominem attacks over and over and over again. He kept talking about how you just can’t trust these people, ruining their lives, getting them fired from jobs, burying them in debt, their reputations in shambles, and him coming out squeaky-clean free. They were “immature” he was “mature.” They were “bad” and he was “good.” They were “jerks” and he was “protecting the sport of cycling.” And his moral authority drove those points home so well that everyone — from the pauper to the President — believed him.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7NRvMM-JTE[/youtube]
I did, too. Lock, stock, barrel — I paid attention to Armstrong and admired him.
His exposure taught me an important lesson: no heroes.
I haven’t learned that lesson fully, but I’ve learned it in some places more than others. I’ve kept a sharp eye out for people who seem to have undue authority to — with or without evidence — say some people are good people and some people are bad people.
It’s part of why I left religion. I found preachers were leaders too often driven on having a powerful stranglehold on morality — people who could say who was bad and who was good without being questioned by the congregation. Later I found out that, in many cases, those who exerted tremendous moral authority over large groups of people were, behind closed doors (and often openly), clearly not following their own rules.
The key to controlling the morality of a group — to saying who is “good” and who is “bad” — is vague words and moral frameworks that could be used to raise up anyone or condemn anyone. I think it’s important to be cognizant of when someone uses this language, and I’m saying that because I think I saw this in a post by Neil Carter recently entitled “It’s Past Time for Atheism to Grow Up.”
Let’s stop at the title. When I was a kid, “growing up” meant following those in authority, not talking back to your elders, and “maturing” in following Christ. “Grow up” was shorthand for that. Other people say that “grow up” means standing up to those in authority, being assertive with your elders, and rejecting superstition. And there are a lot of definitions of “grow up” in between. Telling someone to “grow up” is something that I’ve learned can be used in a wide variety of situations to control behavior in a wide variety of ways.
And when it comes from a “hero” or someone we look up to, that definition of “growing up” can be accepted without question. That’s what happened with Bill Gothard. And that’s what can happen in any organization, including ones centered around a lack of belief in God or gods, when we sign up to follow heroes who have authority over definitions of those words.
One of the things that Neil Carter said is that, “As a group, the still-fledgeling atheist community has not always done a good job of discerning which voices deserve our trust and which ones don’t.” This was in bold in the article, and it struck me as strange. How do we know a voice “deserves” our trust? Who is in charge of saying that a voice deserves our trust?
I think it’s better to look at arguments logically, for whether or not they are right, not whether or not they are “deserving,” whatever that means.
As someone who grew up in churches discussing what we did or did not “deserve” — this kind of language makes me apprehensive. In the past, I’ve seen it give someone undue authority to hire and fire those it wants to from a group of friends in a community. It gives someone the authority to control people by controlling words.
This is also what made me apprehensive about the Atheism+ movement. Yes, I could sign up for social justice. But what bothered me is that the group was led by a small group of people who had control over who was a good person, and who wasn’t.
What bothers me about Carter’s article is that it sets a groundwork for ad hominem attacks about who “deserves” trust, using a definition of “maturity” that he controls, that can invalidate and validate opinions at will.
I can see this when he bolds more vague words:
“I suspect that the atheist movement owes so much of its development to the internet that it has internalized those flaws inherent in the medium itself which make it a place unable to discern the good from the bad, the right from the wrong, the mature from the immature.”
What is “right” and “wrong”? What is “good” and “bad”? These are words that don’t really seem clearly defined. And because they aren’t clearly defined, they’re immune from criticism — but they also leave the door open for Carter to define them as he wishes. It leaves the door open for him to say someone is “good” or “bad” regardless of who they are. And my concern about this is embodied in what comes next:
“It’s not enough that a person is good at dismantling religious beliefs. It’s not enough that a person can set up a camera with good sound and lighting and amass an internet following just because they know what their audiences want to hear. It’s not even enough that a person can type out a persuasive arrangement of words on a screen—none of that guarantees that you should really allow yourself to be greatly influenced by this person, whom you may hardly know at all.”
This is groundwork to invalidate the platforms of many atheists. Now, I have my issues with some atheists, like Dusty Smith, Thunderf00t, and others. But I will discuss them with people on an individual basis, and if they make a strong point, they make a strong point. Regardless of, in Carter’s words, whether they are a “creep or a jerk.”
Those are strong words, by the way. And they’re amorphous. Like, at any given time, you can accuse someone of being a “creep” or a “jerk,” and if you have strong enough clout, most will believe you.
I just want to set that caution up. If someone says that someone is a “creep or a jerk,” look at the evidence. Try to be unbiased and fair.
If someone has a good argument, don’t let someone saying that the person is a “creep or a jerk” alone invalidate the argument. The person doesn’t have to be a hero to be right, and I’ve never met a perfect person, but I’ve met a lot of imperfect people with decent opinions.
So, I won’t let someone’s “hero” status decide for me who is worth reading and listening to and who isn’t. And I tend to notice it when the very people who often paint others as “immature” for speaking up and being rude often are heralded for speaking up and are rude themselves — “heroes” or not.
On the last line:
“I hate to see their virtual spaces ruined by jerks and creeps and bullies who think that being right is more important than being kind. I will not support such people, and I will do whatever I can to counter their thrashing and whining because whether they want to or not, the rest of us would like to move forward and grow up.”
Let me point out the obvious. Labeling someone a “jerk,” a “creep,” or a “bully” because of a disagreement is not being nice to them.
I’m not saying that it’s wrong. Sometimes it might be the right thing to do. But it troubles me when someone sets up guidelines that they clearly seem not to follow themselves. I saw it in churches — these powerful preachers who had the authority to tell people that they were critical while he was being critical himself — ruining the names of people he didn’t like merely by mentioning them to his followers. I really hope we don’t become that. And the way we don’t become that, I think, is by holding would-be “heroes” to the same standards they try to hold us to.
I have more I could say about this, but that’s the gist of it. I think it’s important to be cautious when someone, or a small group of people, seems to be trying to gain a stranglehold over the morality of a group, is all. And also to insist on specifics, and examine whether an attack is ad hominem, when it appears that one person is muddying the name of another.
Thanks for reading.