Notes

Chris Hedges has written a book called I Don’t Believe in Atheists. AlterNet has posted an article adapted from the book. It’s painful to read, not because it is insightfully correct, but because it is staggeringly wrong.

Here is where Hedges started to lose me:

The New Atheists embrace a belief system as intolerant, chauvinistic and bigoted as that of religious fundamentalists. They propose a route to collective salvation and the moral advancement of the human species through science and reason.

Um, okay. I have never once met, heard of, or read books or articles by any “New Atheist” who fits that description. By the way, almost everyone, including Hedges, “defines” the “New Atheists” by listing Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris—and, apparently, by implication, anyone who has a favorable response to their books. If you are looking for an example of “gross oversimplification” or “misrepresentation,” that’s a good one. It gets worse.

Next, Hedges has a bit about one of Sam Harris’ books (he doesn’t say, but I think he’s talking about The End of Faith):

His facile attack on a form of religious belief I detest, his childish simplicity and ignorance of world affairs, as well as his demonization of Muslims, made the book tedious, at its best, and often idiotic and racist.

I cannot take seriously anyone who writes a sentence like that. The boldface I added to emphasize how thickly populated with epithets that single sentence is. “Facile” means without depth, but that could also describe Hedges’ article. “Childish,” “simplicity” (as used here), “tedious,” and “idiotic” are all subjective value judgments—also known as opinions, which cannot be supported with facts. “Demonization” and “racist” are politically charged accusations that depend not just on factual support for validity, but also on agreement as to what it means to “demonize” or to be “racist.” Good luck finding people who will make it over the hurdle of agreeing on the meaning of the terms before you ever get to the question of whether they are applicable to the given facts.

Someone who agrees with Hedges is most likely to respond to my objection by citing Dawkins’ famous sentence in a 1989 review of a book about evolution:

It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).

The problem with that response is that Dawkins presented a general opinion that did not purport to be an indictment of any particular person, while Hedges not only appears to believe that Sam Harris, individually, is a childish, simplistic, racist, idiot, but he presents his opinion in a tone so blisteringly malicious (that even lacks the wit and elegance of Dawkins’ remark) that it reads more like an attack than an opinion or a position.

Worse, Hedges seems not to notice either, one, his logically impermissible leap from such a specific personal attack to the generalization that all “New Atheists” are the same childish, simplistic, racist, idiots he thinks Harris is, or two, that his response to Harris is not objectively factual research, but his own personal and anecdotal opinion.Hedges then says that:

Many of these atheists, like the Christian fundamentalists, support the imperialist projects and preemptive wars of the United States as a necessity in the battle against terrorism and irrational religion.

He doesn’t even bother to push his luck by saying “most,” but sticks with “many,” and even that is probably not accurate. Even among the four big names by whom the “New Atheists” are defined, I am pretty sure that Dennett and Dawkins (who are probably the far more influential of the group) oppose “imperialist projects and preemptive wars.”

Furthermore, Hedges is working from the assumption that “imperialist projects and preemptive wars” are inherently wrong. His position may be correct, but he fails to explain (at least in this article) why he holds it or what it is based on, so his complaint sounds particularly shrill, like we’re all supposed to just automatically agree with him, so it should be obvious that “many of these atheists” are childish, simplistic, racist, idiots. The problem with that kind of argument is that it fails to take seriously the fact that people do hold differing opinions. When your argument amounts to pointing at the people who disagree with you, complaining how stupid they are, and expecting it to be obvious why you are right, you have no argument. (Even if you are right, you still look foolish.)

Hedges continues:

They [the "New Atheists"] divide the world into superior and inferior races, those who are enlightened by reason and knowledge and those who are governed by irrational and dangerous religious beliefs.

That statement is just sheer projection and imagination by Hedges. Have you ever heard a modern atheist talk about reason and knowledge in terms of race? I haven’t. No one seriously contends that the irrational people in this world are irrational because of their race. Hedges is just making this stuff up. (If I had to guess why he is making this stuff up, I would speculate that he misunderstands and fears these “New Atheists,” but he is clever enough to know that alleging “racism” is an easy way inflame people quickly and completely enough that they will fail to see the factual defects in his arguments.)

I had a hard time getting through the rest of the article after those parts, but I made it. Here is another bizarre misrepresentation:

We live in an age of faith. We are assured we are advancing as a species towards a world that will be made perfect by reason, technology, science or the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Where, exactly, does he get the idea that atheists think reason, technology, and science will make our species—or anything else—perfect? Christians who believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ do believe in some future perfection, but I have never heard of any atheists who have a similar belief. Atheists tend to see the world from an evolutionary perspective, that there can be incremental adaptations over time, but not toward perfection. The advocates of reason and science recognize that these things are open to change via dissent, without terrible adverse consequences, while religion changes far more slowly and bloodily.

If some people advocate the quick destruction of those religious fundamentalists who openly threaten the violent overthrow of modern society (in which Hedges lives and seems to enjoy its tolerance), it is not because they want to stifle dissent—threatening to kill us all if we don’t convert to Islam is not “dissent.” It is because they believe, as did the U.S. government before it dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, that killing a few people to end a longer, bloodier conflict, is an acceptable tradeoff. Anyone is certainly free to disagree with that position, but it is hardly an irrational or insupportable position. It is simply a distasteful or offensive one for many people. But distasteful and offensive do not amount to “wrong.”

Hedges calls that tradeoff rationale “dehumanization.” That argument carries a lot less weight when one asks what exactly it means to “dehumanize” someone, and whether “dehumanization” is a cause of violence, a rationalization for violence, or a psychological construction imposed on the perpetrators of violence by those who disagree with their methods. The argument becomes even more problematic if one sees “dehumanization” as a continuum upon which nearly all human activity falls, rather than a binary state, where people are either “humanized” or “dehumanized.” For instance, couldn’t it be a mild form of “dehumanization” to call a thinking adult with whom one disagrees simplistic, ignorant, and childish?

Hedges says he rejects “simplistic and utopian visions.” So does every atheist I have ever met or read.