{"id":509,"date":"2011-08-16T12:52:20","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T19:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/northgare.net\/blog\/?p=509"},"modified":"2011-08-16T15:48:46","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T22:48:46","slug":"feet-of-clay-and-bathwater-and-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/northgare.net\/blog\/2011\/08\/feet-of-clay-and-bathwater-and-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"Feet of Clay and Bathwater and Stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

[A comment made elsewhere<\/a>, turned into a rough-and-ready post here, because it mostly stands on its own.]<\/p>\n

IMO one of the best things about approaching the world from a rational\/sceptical perspective is the ability\/willingness\/whatever to avoid either ad hominem attacks or argument by authority: arguments are supported and agreed with, or otherwise, because of their intrinsic strength, and not because of who makes them, or \u2014 and this is kind of the point \u2014 what their other beliefs are.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always found it both infuriating and admirable about Dawkins, for example \u2014 not that this is solely about him, obviously \u2014 that he seems able to value arguments made by others that he agrees with on that matter, and to not let other disagreements \u2014 even significant ones \u2014 get in the way of that. I\u2019m thinking specifically here of Hitchins\u2019 position on the invasion of Iraq, but there are other examples.<\/p>\n

I do think this ability is admirable \u2014 because it means we don\u2019t throw the baby out with the bathwater, and we don\u2019t feel that we need to agree with everything<\/em> someone says to champion anything<\/em> they say. It feels like a very intellectually grown-up attitude. But it is also infuriating, because \u2014 whether it\u2019s meant or not \u2014 it\u2019s hard to avoid an implied support for all the other crap that someone might spout. It\u2019s also infuriating because of how hard it is to do. It\u2019s very very easy \u2014 perhaps even natural<\/em> \u2014 to want to agree with everything someone says, or nothing.<\/p>\n

This tendency is, I\u2019d say, one of the causes of the magnitude of the genuine distress over what Dawkins said. When someone has been as prominent as he\u2019s been over the past twenty years, and as much of a standard-bearer of sorts, we want them to be perfect. We want to agree with everything they say. We don\u2019t want them to show feet of clay, as Dawkins seems to have done. That situation is, perhaps unfortunately, far more common than the opposite, though. Bill Maher is indeed a dick about many things. Penn Jillette has political views that to me are a bit revolting (and which seem to be largely unmentioned in the sceptical community). Hitchins\u2019 position on Iraq is a long way from mine. And so on.<\/p>\n

It does seem to show a maturity in a community that it\u2019s possible to go beyond circling the wagons when an insider is an idiot, and trying to defend them against criticism specifically because they\u2019re an insider. There\u2019s a obvious, and understandable, tendency to do that when a community is small and feels threatened from outside. But if it\u2019s going to grow, and especially<\/em> if it\u2019s going to grow in a way that\u2019s consistent with principles of intellectual honesty and rigour, it\u2019s entirely right and good to criticise that which deserves it, no matter where it comes from. But it\u2019s every bit as intellectually honest and rigorous to support that which deserves it, no matter where it comes from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[A comment made elsewhere, turned into a rough-and-ready post here, because it mostly stands on its own.] IMO one of the best things about approaching the world from a rational\/sceptical perspective is the ability\/willingness\/whatever to avoid either ad hominem attacks or argument by authority: arguments are supported and agreed with, or otherwise, because of their … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/northgare.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/northgare.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/northgare.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/northgare.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/northgare.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/northgare.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":512,"href":"http:\/\/northgare.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions\/512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/northgare.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/northgare.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/northgare.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}