Polyamory conferences past and future

So, I spent the weekend at Loving More’s conference in Philadelphia. It was, perhaps surprisingly to some, my first polyamory conference. I have participated in local events over the years, but my conference experience has been so far limited to a few atheist/skeptic conferences, one time at an animation conference, and that one time I hung out in the lobby with some furries at anthrocon when it was in Philadelphia some years back (probably 2005).

I met some pretty awesome people over the weekend, and I hope to see them all again. I got a chance to meet a couple of people from the Showtime series, Polyamory: Married and Dating as well as many other people who I found to be friendly, affectionate, and a lot of fun. To all of you I met over the weekend (And there are too many to list), I enjoyed meeting you all very much and hope to see you again. It’s strange how just a couple of days with people in compressed space and time can make you feel like you have known them a long time, and then they are gone….

Preconceptions and reality

I will admit that before arriving there, I had some preconceptions and expectations, being the cynic that I am. Loving More is run mostly by people who lean towards the new age/pagan side of things, and there was a significant element of that at the conference, but there is also a significant presence of people interested in science, who are a little (or a lot) geeky, and who are just extremely sex-positive, intelligent, friendly, and who know how to have a good time.

I got a chance to meet some people IRL who I have known online, even some people who read (or at least have read) this blog. And some of those people I will have a chance to meet again in Atlanta for the Atlanta Poly Weekend conference starting March 15th (that’s less than 5 weeks away!) This brings us to the future.

I am now very much looking forward to the conference in Atlanta, because not only did I have a great time, but I even had a chance to have a conversation about the relationship between skepticism and polyamory with a bunch of people. I even got to lead a discussion at one of the workshops, which gave me some insight on how to have such a discussion among poly people.

One thing is showed me was that there are quite a few people who are already skeptics, as I am, or who at least understand the issue (even if only somewhat) and who are interested in talking about or listening to discussions about it. But what I also learned (and this was what I was concerned about) was that there are some people there who have no experience with skepticism at all, and who have no concept of what it is about at all. Their experience with skepticism, atheism, and rational thinking in the sense that I use it here, and how it is used in the atheist/skeptical world, is almost null. Not only do they have new age and pagan beliefs, but they are almost completely unaware that there are communities of people who not only see their worldview as fundamentally wrong (and potentially dangerous), but that their worldview might not be unscientific in the slightest.

They are not stupid people, they are just living within a bubble of a worldview which, as far as I can tell, is completely delusional but largely internally coherent (which I knew). What I was not sure about was that some of them just didn’t know that we skeptics exist, or at least never think about us our the implications of our worldview upon their own. I am not sure how true this will be at the conference in Atlanta, but I will have to think about how to communicate the fundamental worldview conflict in case it is a reality there.

So, as I get closer to participating in a panel discussion with two other skeptically-oriented polyamorous people, I have more to think about. I am less anxious about it now (I’m sure that will chage in about 4 weeks), and will now focus on having more fun, talking with more people, and hopefully starting to define not only the nature of the questions, but perhaps finding a way to better include skepticism in the polyamorous world in such a way as to make us all better people.

Improving life through skepticism, or someshit.

Relationship Agnosticism: process over teleology

In conversations with people over the years, I have been asked, in a myriad of ways, if I think that polyamory is better than monoamory. Do I think that being polyamorous is better (necessarily or generally) than monoamory?

I’ve dealt with the question before, but I want to take a different approach–a different perspective–on the question today. I don’t think that polyamory, per se, is better. I do think many of the skills and lessons that being polyamorous has taught me are superior, but those same lessons could, potentially, be learned while being monoamorous. What I have come to see as superior is not the ends–not how many romantic, sexual, etc partners one has–but the process of how we get to those ends.

Process over teleology, in short. Let me explain.

I’ve talked a fair bit about my annoyance that being with one person, even if that monoamory is not the short-term goal, is the mainstream default ultimate goal. While young and dating, many people will date two or more people within the same time-frame, but the ultimate goal in our culture is to find one person to either settle with or to convince yourself that this one person is all that you need romantically and sexually. And sometimes it ends up being true, whether for several years or a lifetime, but this model of relationships is not universally ideal.

The problem here is that this approach to relationships is teleological, which means it’s concerned with the ends, rather than the means or the process. It views the purpose of relationships as being concerned with a set goal (or set of goals) which all current relationships should aspire to. We should be tying to find a single life-partner, because that’s what real love is or something. If you are not interested in that, then you might not find happiness, or you may even be doing something wrong.

Let’s take a couple of basic examples; Let’s say that you have been with someone for 5 years and are not married yet, and not considering marriage. For many people you are doing something wrong, the relationship is a dead end, and you may need to find someone else you are ready to be serious with. Marriage, monogamy really, is the goal for many people, and if that ring doesn’t present itself, then move on (that’s the wisdom, anyway). Or maybe you don’t have a single partner for very long, whether serially monogamous or you keep dating more than one person simultaneously. In this case, the common wisdom says that you might have commitment issues (which may be true), because if you were ready to commit you would stop playing the field and finally become an adult, or something. In short, if you are not in a monogamous marriage, in a relationship moving towards monogamy, or even looking for that, then you are doing it wrong.

The problem here is not that finding one person to spend your life with is bad per se. The issue is not about where you end up, the issue is how you were thinking about your desires, emotional and physical needs, and whether you were getting what you actually want from relationships rather than thinking about a default and expected end.

If you have read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, you will see this default set of relationship expectations turned on it’s head. Here’s a snippet from chapter 3:

Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. But there were also husbands, wives, lovers. There were also monogamy and romance.

“Though you probably don’t know what those are,” said Mustapha Mond.

They shook their heads.

Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy.

“But every one belongs to every one else,” he concluded, citing the hypnopædic proverb.

The students nodded, emphatically agreeing with a statement which upwards of sixty-two thousand repetitions in the dark had made them accept, not merely as true, but as axiomatic, self-evident, utterly indisputable.

“But after all,” Lenina was protesting, “it’s only about four months now since I’ve been having Henry.”

“Only four months! I like that. And what’s more,” Fanny went on, pointing an accusing finger, “there’s been nobody else except Henry all that time. Has there?”

Lenina blushed scarlet; but her eyes, the tone of her voice remained defiant. “No, there hasn’t been any one else,” she answered almost truculently. “And I jolly well don’t see why there should have been.”

“Oh, she jolly well doesn’t see why there should have been,” Fanny repeated, as though to an invisible listener behind Lenina’s left shoulder. Then, with a sudden change of tone, “But seriously,” she said, “I really do think you ought to be careful. It’s such horribly bad form to go on and on like this with one man. At forty, or thirty-five, it wouldn’t be so bad. But at your age, Lenina! No, it really won’t do. And you know how strongly the D.H.C. objects to anything intense or long-drawn. Four months of Henry Foster, without having another man–why, he’d be furious if he knew …”

Some may think that this is the polyamorous ideal (and for some it may be), but this, as a societal norm, is equally problematic because it discounts the possibility that some people, few or many as they are, may not want more than one person (or anyone at all, for that matter). This commits the same error as our current culture as being more concerned with the goal than how one gets to where we get.

Process-oriented relationships

What do you want?

I mean, what do you desire?

This may not be as easy a question as you think it is. The reason is that many of our wants are a result of the acculturation we receive as we grow up. We are guided towards the social and cultural ideals of the world we live in, if not out-right trained or programmed (in some extreme cases), which informs the kinds of answers that come to mind when asked what we want. When I ask you what you want, here, I’m not asking you what your long term goals are, what you hope to achieve, and especially not what you think you should want. No, in this case I’m asking what you desire, generally and right now, from people around you.

What types of interactions do you desire with people?

What we actually desire may conflict with the cultural norms around us, and when those things conflict we may find that we automatically, or possibly feel compelled to, lean towards the norm rather than the desire (and for many the opposite is true as well, but that’s an error I’ll not address right now). People who find themselves attracted to their own gender may pretend otherwise, especially if they are bisexual, due to religious or cultural expectations which devalue homosexuality and bisexuality (especially for men).

If you find yourself desiring two or more people, in our culture the appropriate thing to do is to spend time with all of them, in order to determine which one you will pick, or to simply decide which to pursue so as to avoid conflicts or jealousy. But this is absurd from a point of view where one is agnostic concerning where one ends up.

If you are not very concerned about what is expected of you from your culture, and you rather follow what you actually desire, then there is no reason to openly, un-apologetically, and unabashedly pursue all of the people whom interest you. And you should then stay with the people with whom you share some mutually-pleasurable relationship, whether it be purely physical, purely romantic, purely friendly, or any combination thereof. You should not be concerned about what expectations there are whether from your culture, society, religion, or family. You should pursue what you want with concern only for the people with whom you have relationships.

In short, love each person as you actually love them, no more and no less.

And wherever that takes you, whether monoamoryy, polyamory, or some other non-monoamorous option, that’s fine. If you end up being with one person for the rest of your life, then fine (that’s what I call “Accidental monoamory/ monogamy“) and if you end up being with 25 people (to varying degrees or not), that’s fine too. The point is not to be perpetually strategizing what type of lifestyle you will have, but to simply allow your relationships to go where they naturally lead according to the desires that everyone involved has.

Of course, you should be transparent about this; you should not claim to be exclusive while not being exclusive, for example. You need to pursue your desires with care and consideration for the people with whom you have relationships.

To sum up, polyamory is not better per se, although I think that what people can learn from polyamory might raise our cultural consciousness about the nature of desire and relationship possibilities which most people don’t consider. I don’t necessarily want everyone to be polyamorous, but I think everyone should be aware that monoamory is not the only healthy option. If we allow our actual desires to fuel our pursuit of love and sex, I think many more people will find options more like polyamory, rather than automatically and unthinkingly choose monoamory out of cultural habit.

Poly Living Conference this weekend and thoughts on atheist blogging

I really should be getting to sleep, considering I have work in the morning (11AM, but that’s still morning!), but before I do I wanted to post a few thoughts.

Thought #1: I’m going to my first poly conference this weekend, the Poly Living Conference which is in Philadelphia this year.

I’m planning on taking ample notes, talking to many people, and trying to get a sense of the state of skepticism within the polyamorous community, you know because I’ll be speaking about that in about 5-and-a-half weeks at the Atlanta Poly Weekend Conference.

Centered around this upcoming weekend is some amount of anxiety, because despite a recent comment on this blog, I don’t see a lot of overlap of skepticism and polyamory (especially among those at Loving More, who are running this weekend’s conference). Now, I know some of the people at the Atlanta conference next month are skeptics and atheists, but I am not sure about the people at the conference this weekend, the keynote speaker of which is Kamala Devi (from the recent Showtime series), a person who seems to be pretty into the woo side of things [Feb 10 2013 edit: my preconceptions here ended up not being fair or true. I hold Kamala in high regard after having met her this past weekend, and apologize for the prejudice], including tantra. (information about the speakers can be found here).

I’m anxious because I am interested in the conversation about skepticism in light of sexuality, relationships, etc and want to talk with people about it, but in my experience those on the liberal side of religion, who call themselves spiritual, or who are pagan, tend to be pretty sensitive about criticism in general, and I don’t wish to make the conversation impossible by, well, being myself.

I’m anxious because I really don’t want to dislike the polyamorous community, and in some of my experience I have been rather disappointed in polyamorous people when it comes to skeptical thinking.

Though#2: I’m not sure about atheist blogging, sometimes.

There are some wonderful blogs which are primarily about atheism and skepticism, despite the various splits and interpersonal issues that have surfaced in the last few years. But there are some atheist writers who are still plugging away at the atheism 101 topics, addressing the same old topics that we were all plugging away at back in 2005 or so when this new atheist thing became all the rage.

And there many still be a reason for them to be doing so, because so many still don’t understand this basic stuff, but as a long-experienced atheist activist, writer, etc I find it pretty boring. Those blogs are not for me anymore and I am less interested in addressing the same issues as I did like 8-10 years ago. I think that we should still have those resources available for those interested in those basic questions, but I think that we all need to keep our eyes on the larger prize: an intelligent, informed, skeptical world that tries to address injustice wherever it lives.

Others have moved on to try and not only grow the community, but make it better. By trying to broaden the scope of skepticism and atheist activism, many writers and activists have started to realize that’s it’s not just about being an atheist (which is great, don’t get me wrong), but about helping create better skeptics all around. I will continue to write about atheism in this sense (and possibly, occasionally, in the other sense), and try to make a world where tehre are mature, aware, and quality atheists; not merely atheists.

Those are my thoughts for the night.

Naked Skepticism and the new polynormativity

One of my motivations for writing this blog is a general sense that there is an important issue which needs to be addressed by, well, all of us. Our culture does not have a healthy view about sex and relationships. The mainstream view is not ideal, even where aspects of non-mnogamy and kink enter into it. 50 Shades of Grey; need I say more? And where polyamory gets introduced to the mainstream (and I will be writing more about that in the next week or so), it is portrayed in the light least offensive to that mainstream, much like how accommodationists present atheism to the mainstream.

Atheists tends not to be polyamorous, poly people tend not to be atheists, and skeptics just aren’t implementing their tools at all they should be. Philosophically, I primarily identify as a skeptic. But for similar reasons as PZ Myers (link above) and Jen McCreight have trouble with the skeptic community, I identify first as an atheist because I prefer the way that the new atheists have addressed religion in our culture. I think something similar needs to be done for polyamory. Let’s called it the new polyamory, or perhaps something less awkward.

In essence, we need to talk about sex. Oh, and relationships, desires, social expectations, etc. We need, in short, to apply skepticism to how we think about such things, and I think if we do so then polyamory will be much more prevalent, because I think that polyamory (or at least accidental monogamy through polyamory) will be the result if we do apply skepticism to our sexual and romantic lives.

I have said that skepticism, properly applied, necessarily leads to atheism. With polyamory, I am willing to say something similar. Skepticism, properly applied, leads to a new paradigm of relationships, including sex-positivity and the non-default status of monoamory. If we think critically, as a culture, about relationships, we should arrive at a place very much like the polyamorous world (only better, because their skeptics too).

Naked Skepticism

A good skeptic learns to strip away, as much as cognitively possible, the assumptions and biases which lead us towards irrational conclusions. Nobody can do it completely, but it should be a goal for all of us to aspire to; deconstructing the worldviews we hold about all of the important aspects of our lives. Skepticism implies that we require sufficient* evidence in order to believe something. Something which is merely logically possible cannot be said, reasonably, to be true on those merits alone. Rather, there should be some empirical evidence in order to lend weight to a proposition. The proposition that a “god” exists, for example, does not survive this test and so any skeptic worth their salt should not accept the proposition that a god exists until good evidence presents itself (I know of none), and therefore a skeptic should be an atheist.

But more than that, a skeptic should be willing to strip away their assumptions, the foundations to their worldview, as much as they can. Why do we seek one romantic partner? Why is monogamy the goal? Why is sex often considered dirty, or at least somehow less than pure? Why don’t we start with the bare facts of our desires?

Part of the reason is related to religion, especially when it is tied to traditional gender roles and such, but that is only part of the answer. Religion is a symptom of this problem, in most cases, and the fundamental problem is the tendency towards jealousy, sex negativity, and perhaps some evolutionary psychological reasons having to do with things such as men wanting to make sure that our children are really theirs, and not those of the mailman (but evolutionary psychology is less reliable, in many cases). Traditional family values, conservatism, and patriarchy, in other words, are at fault.

So, what can we do about it? We can start by asking ourselves questions like

1) what do we really want sexually and in terms of relationships in general?

2) what are we afraid of, jealous of, and why?

3) what do the people in our lives want?

But in order to get there, we need to strip away the layers of moral, cultural, and often religious thinking about these issues. We need to be able to apply the best that skepticism, science, and soul searching has to offer us. We need to challenge assumptions and apply skepticism to our relationships with people, but first we need to apply them to our own worldview so that we can be sure that the answers we give are actually true answers.

Towards a new polynormativity

Recently, the Sex Geek wrote an interesting post called the problem with polynormativity, which is well worth the read. And while I thought that the post was good and made some excellent points, I think it missed an opportunity; one I wish to tackle here. The post in question addresses how polyamory is depicted in the media and to the mainstream in general. The Sex Geek says this:

The problem—and it’s hardly surprising—is that the form of poly that’s getting by far the most airtime is the one that’s as similar to traditional monogamy as possible, because that’s the least threatening to the dominant social order.

This is undoubtedly true. In my experience with the media, I have noticed that the questions, framing, etc seem to imply a couple-centered view which misses much of the point. The Sex Geek addresses this and more quite well, so I will encourage you to read the whole post. So, after that brief thesis, the post continues and eventually goes on to list four norms that make up “polynormativity,” which I will simply list and hope that you will read the full post for the full effect.

1. Polyamory starts with a couple.

2. Polyamory is hierarchical.

3. Polyamory requires a lot of rules.

4. Polyamory is heterosexual(-ish). Also, cute and young and white. Also new and exciting and sexy!

The observations therein are good, and I am in general agreement, but where I think Sex Geek dropped the ball was the opportunity to define what polynormativity could be, rather than what it is. Because what we are faced with in our Western culture is a hetero-monamorous-normality which is not particularly healthy for many of us, although many manage to tweak it enough to work for them. And that’s part of the problem. We are often forced to tweak a set of values about sex and relationships which do not match up with our desires, but which seem ubiquitous, rather than throw out the framework altogether.

So, if we were to claim the term polynormativity to mean something other than a tweaked hetero-normativity, what would it look like? Well, allow me the boldness to try and sketch out a few pieces of that potential puzzle.

1. Polynormativity would be sex positive. Sex would be what we wanted it to be. It would be fun, it would be recreational, and it would not be restricted to just our serious partners (hell, if we wanted we could be non-sexual with our serious partners and slut up the rest of the town!). We would not be ashamed about our desires, we would seek to satisfy them consensually (and hopefully enthusiastically), and we would be transparent about it. It wouldn’t quite be Brave New World (which was refreshing to read because it turned our current model on it’s head, even if that is not our goal here), but it would erase the idea that sex is reserved for just one person, or one person at a time, and even that it’s not OK to have with friends.

2. Relationships would be agreed upon. All relationships structures should occur through overt agreement, or possibly organic growth from actual needs, and not by default or assumption. Currently, for mainstream society relationships may not start as exclusive, but they tend to assume the default ideal goal of monoamory, often monogamy. Dating is not assumed, at least in cosmopolitan culture, to be exclusive by many of us young people (especially those even younger than I am). But the goal for most people is to find one person to make a “commitment,” as if commitment ever necessarily implied exclusivity. The idea currently is that real love, a relationship of real depth and meaning, must be an exclusive club. You may be able to have two lovers, but you can’t truly be serious with more than one at a time, because we rationalize our jealousy into a culture of possessiveness through the Disney-esque romanticism of the princess and her prince.

*barf*

3) We would start with our desires, and build up our relationships upon them. All too often, we fit our desires into the mold of our relationships, rather than the other way around. We may really like that person we met at the party, but we have a relationship already so that desire either gets suppressed or we act on it surreptitiously. We decide that a desire, whether it be homosexual, non-monogamous, or kinky in nature, is not acceptable to our lifestyle, so we grin and go along with the status quo. How many people are in the closet, either as homosexual or bisexual? How many people repress desires for people they care about because they are in a relationship? How many people have fantasies they never explore because they think it is wrong, dirty, or it might make people judge them as a ‘pervert’?

What the hell is wrong with being a pervert? So what if someone gets of on being tickled? Who cares if what Bob really wants is to get peed on? Why do you care if what I want for my birthday is to have hot sex with two or three beautiful women after drinking some fine Belgian ale? (I’m really not that kinky, am I?) We need to have the strength to admit what we really want, and try and find ways to have it if it’s possible (and moral. If your kink is to murder people, well you might be out of luck).

If we were to follow basic guidelines such as those three above (and the list is not intended to be comprehensive or exhaustive), then I think that most people would land on something like polyamory, assuming they are willing to do the work it takes to maintain the relationships they want. And the more people that do it the less weird it becomes, and people can stop using the excuse that they don’t want people to find out because it’s weird and they might lose their job or someshit. If everyone’s doing it, it become the new normal—hence the new polynormativity!

Love each person as you actually love them. No less and no more.

I’m ready for it. Are you?

—-

*And what is sufficient will depend on many factors, which go beyond the scope of this post. But I’ve always liked the maxim that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That is, the strength of your evidence should be proportional to the audacity of your claim. Of course, what is audacious to one may not be so audacious to another, leading to a spiral which I choose not to follow at present, mostly to maintain my sanity.

Anti-Abortion = Anti-Sex

Editorial Note: This post was written by Wes Fenza, long before the falling out of our previous quint household and the subsequent illumination of his abusive behavior, sexual assault of several women, and removal from the Polyamory Leadership Network and banning from at least one conference. I have left Wes’ posts here because I don’t believe it’s meaningful to simply remove them. You cannot remove the truth by hiding it; Wes and I used to collaborate, and his thoughts will remain here, with this notice attached.

—–

Ross Douthat, one of the more thoughtful conservatives out there (weak praise, I know posted today about the relationship between abortion and single parenthood. In an effort to rebut the conclusion that abortion restrictions lead to more single parents, he wrote:

in a post-Roe world, social conservatives often find themselves accepting single parenthood as the lesser (by far) of two potential evils. But there’s good reason to think Roe itself was instrumental in creating the kind of sexual culture that makes the Bristol Palin dilemma as commonplace as it’s become. While the frequent use of abortion can limit out-of-wedlock births, that is, the sudden mass availability of abortion almost certainly had the opposite effect — mostly by changing the obligations associated with pregnancy, and by legitimating male irresponsibility where sex and its consequences are concerned.

For all I know, this may be accurate. However, its efficacy as an argument in favor of abortion restrictions rests on some terrible premises. Namely, it relies on the standard conservative “sex is bad” attitude. How horrible it is that access to abortion has allowed people to have recreational sex! If only people were more terrified of pregnancy, then everything would be fine!

And this continues a familiar pattern, where every single person I’ve ever heard argue for abortion restrictions also takes an extremely sex-negative attitude toward recreational sex, some going so far as to argue that an unwanted pregnancy is some kind of divine justice for being irresponsible, where of course “being irresponsible” means “having recreational sex.”

The sad fact is that Douthat’s claim that “since the 1970s, social conservatives have had more success encouraging doubts about the moral acceptability of abortion than they have had on almost any other cultural front” is true. Douthat would have us believe that people are supporting abortion restrictions due to respect for the sanctity of life. I have my doubts. It seems much more likely to me that support for abortion restrictions stems from the fundamental sexnegativity of our culture.

The Crommunist’s myth metaphor for the culture wars

I have been thinking about the philosophical, emotional, and historical underpinnings of the culture wars in recent months. I have been try to come up with a way to categorize it in such a way that will make sense to people who don’t understand that it is a matter of different values, and I have not been particularly successful at it. I did write this post last month, but it felt like an incomplete attempt to articulate my thoughts.

In the last few days, Ian Cromwell, over at The Crommunist (one of my favorite FtB blogs) has been writing a series of posts utilizing the concept of myth (which he defines here) in a quite interesting, and I think useful, way. He continues with his next post to define, for this conversation, the concept of fairness and justice–but in a way I have a subtle, but perhaps important disagreement with. Briefly, I think that fairness is a concept which is objectively (or inter-subjectively) definable, but we don’t have access to all the relevant information at any given time, so what appears to be fair may not actually be fair. Because we don’t have sufficient information, or we are under a delusion about the facts, we will not recognize the unfairness of the circumstance until we understand more. I’ll leave that aside for now.

I also appreciated the disclaimer that Ian gave to who his intended audience is. I have come to write for a similar audience recently, realizing that I don’t really care what the others think most of the time. There does come a time when you simply have to ignore some potential readers as being irrelevant to what you are saying, although the irony here is that we are writing about how to think and talk about fundamental mythological and value differences.

On his fourth post in the series, he comes to the meat of his thought, which he calls The dueling myth postulate. here is the gist:

I wish to postulate that it is useful to think of many disagreements as the collision of two opposing myths. The first myth, what I call the ‘fairness myth’ (and will heretofore refer to as f-myth) is very simply stated: the world is a fair place. You will undoubtedly have heard this described as the ‘just world theory’, ‘just world hypothesis’, or ‘just world fallacy’. I prefer the term ‘myth’ for the reasons I spelled out in yesterday’s post – it is a story that we tell about ourselves, the world, and our place in it. Those things we have were obtained fairly, and our position is justified according to our understanding of moral axioms.

The countervailing myth is, of course, the ‘unfairness myth’ (u-myth) – that our position in the world is not in accordance with moral axioms, and that we (or others – more on that later) are being arbitrarily deprived of access to a state of harmonious existence.

In the past, I have described this as a clash of values, and while I still think that is true, I think that this approach has merit, and I will gladly steal it in the future, where I find it useful. I don’t think he’ll mind, especially since I will credit him for the idea.

He then goes onto flesh out the idea some more, and comes up with the Ethical dimensions of the dueling myth postulate, which looks like this:

Morality within the Fair Myth framework

If one starts from a position that the world is fair, then any attempt to change the world would bring it into a state of unfairness. It is morally reprehensible, for example, to arbitrarily deprive someone of something that ze deserves. Indeed, it is highly morally reprehensible to take goods or status from one who has earned them and give those goods to someone who has not.

We saw an example of this when people believed that tax money was being used to bail out large banks and give bonuses to wealthy executives whose risky practices had caused a financial collapse. The taxpaying public (largely blameless for the economic troubles) were having their goods and services curtailed in order to reward a class of people who a) didn’t need the bonuses to live, and b) did not face any criminal charges for their malfeasance. It was monstrously unfair to redistribute wealth in a way that rewards irresponsibility and excess.

Indeed, in many cases it is morally laudable to fight to protect a fair system. In the last American election, when new laws were brought in that would disenfranchise voters, a public outcry went up to preserve the existing system (whatever its flaws might have been). The belief that the current system was fair, insofar as it allowed people to vote regardless of their skin colour or age (with the caveat that there is a legal voting age), motivated a strong resistance to change, fueled by a general agreement among proponents that people deserved to vote, and were threatened with having that status taken away from them for reasons that were seen as arbitrary.

Morality within the Unfair Myth framework

Conversely, there is a similar moral dimension to the u-myth. If one has the ability to intervene, it is morally reprehensible to allow an unfair system to persist. The u-myth invokes the image of the ‘Good Samaritan’ parable, where it is morally laudable to take action to either prevent an unfair thing from occurring, or to stop an unfair thing while it is happening.

For example, there are a number of people who believe that the state has a moral obligation to provide health care to its citizens. A state, with its wealth and power, is in a ready position to construct, administrate, and fund a system wherein all citizens receive at least some rudimentary level of care. Most industrialized nations, and many with different economic circumstances, recognize the duty of the state to ensure a level of basic health, and consider it a moral failing when a state does not. The fact that it also makes financial sense for the state is worthwhile including in a discussion of policy, but I wish to focus solely on the moral dimension.

As above, it is morally reprehensible to defend an unfair system. We have precious few people today who would jump to the defence of South Africa’s apartheid system (though there are many alive today who have defended it). We recognize the unfairness of a system that stratifies human beings by an arbitrary characteristic such as skin colour, and would roundly condemn anyone who argues that such a system was fair and/or necessary.

I think this is a pretty good set of frameworks to start with. I am not sure that any one person will fit cleanly into either, and I’m sure we use both of these to some extent depending on the issue, but I think this a is a fair categorization of how many of these issues are, in fact, rhetorically spun. In his four consecutive posts, Ian addresses this framework in terms of the issues of welfare, #IdleNoMore (a movement concerned with First Nation rights in Canada), religious persecution (or privilege), and then feminism. I’ll quote a snippet from the post about religious persecution.

So let’s see if we can break down Mr. French’s [of WND] argument within a competing myth framework. I would identify it as springing from a f-myth belief, and will analyze it thus:

The world is fundamentally fair when it comes to the place of religion in public life (or at least has been up until recently). Overt displays of religiosity are protected free speech under the Constitution. The use of religious invocations, symbols, and practices are part of American history – a tradition that stretches back for generations.

Because the world is fundamentally fair, the attempts to change such a system are morally reprehensible. Conversely, it is morally laudable to resist the changes that threaten to remove religion from public life. Religious people should not have their rights taken from them in order to appease the growing chorus of anti-religious voices.

By opposing these changes to tradition and to American identity, the FRC’s actions/positions are morally laudable. By fighting to change a fundamentally fair system by abridging religious freedom, the actions of the ACLU and the U.S. government are morally reprehensible. By opposing the core of the American identity and long-standing tradition, the beliefs of the ACLU and the U.S. government are morally reprehensible.

For fun, we can also parse Ms. Feinberg’s argument in a u-myth framework:

The world is fundamentally unfair when it comes to the place of religion in public life. Overt displays of religiosity on behalf of state actors is specifically precluded by the Constitution. The use of religious symbols, while popular, is a reflection of an unfair system of religious hegemony and preference – a tradition that stretches back for generations.

Because the world is fundamentally unfair, the state has a duty to intervene and increase the amount of fairness. Fairness, in this context, looks like no religious preference for any group. Public schools are state entities, and as a result they must not be used for religious promotion. Any history of such promotion does not abrogate the duty of the state to ensure that it lives up to its obligation to be fair to all groups.

By acting to ensure that the Constitution is upheld, the actions of the NYCDE are morally laudable. By attempting to uphold or restore a fundamentally unfair system of religious privilege, the actions of the FRC are morally reprehensible. By asserting a right to preferential treatment that would propagate an unfair system, the beliefs of the FRC are morally reprehensible.

So we can see from the above analysis of the example that the specific statements of ‘both sides’ of the argument can be expressed as a function of an underlying myth about the fairness of the system in which the dispute is happening.

I have seen this type of argument between people on one side or the other concerning church/state separation over the last decade, and I think that this, in conjunction with Jon Haidt’s recent work (which I am not in complete agreement with, but I find his Moral Foundations Theory extremely helpful) is a very good way to approach thinking about the culture wars, values, and the myths (or worldviews, as I might call them) we use to construct our concepts of the world.

So, in summary, I think this postulate of the dueling myth postulate, described in the recent series of posts by Ian Cromwell, is at least a useful, if not powerful, tool to use in talking about these types of issues.

In the future I will be thinking more about the relationship that this tool, this dueling myth postulate, has on the conversation about privilege. For example, is privilege the circumstance of being stuck within the perspective of a “air myth framework,” at least in most cases? Do people who argue against shifting our behavior and views about what normal is, what is expected, and what efforts we should make to fix such things a function of feeling like the world is fundamentally fair, and by pointing out the effects of privilege we are trying to upset the apple cart?

In any case, a nod and a thanks to Ian Cromwell for thinking about this and sharing.

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I’ll add that Ian added, a few hours ago, a follow-up post entitled The usefulness of the dueling myth postulate, which I am about to read now.

Where philosophical differences turn into meta-debates about personalities

This, ladies and gentlemen, will be a rant of sorts. I’m not happy with humanity today, and it’s my own damned fault for reading blogs!

So, I’m a feminist of a specific kind. I have evolving but ideologically-leaning views about the relationship between gender, history, and culture. I think there are things that we should be focused on as a society to improve the world related to those feminist ideas. I think that we need to become familiar with concepts which will be consciousness-raising and will shift our perspectives on how to behave.

The details of what specific kind of feminist I am, what ideologies I prefer, and what changes in perspectives we should work towards are almost not worth explaining, because all I have to say is that I read Freethought Blogs and Skepchick and I agree with them more often than not. I think Greta Christina is an excellent advocate for both atheism and feminism. I think Rebecca Watson had something to teach me in talking about a guy in an elevator. I miss Jen McCreight’s contributions to the conversation. I have learned lots about race and privilege from Ian Cromwell. I think PZ Myers is witty, intelligent, and sometimes wrong (actually, he’s mostly right there).

So, now you know where I stand right?

Here’s the thing. If you read any blogs who have a dog in this fight (you know, the fight about the role of feminism, if any, in the atheist/skeptic community) then you will either think that Rebecca Watson, PZ Myers, etc are generally right and are fighting for a worthy cause within the community or you will think they are bullies (FtBullies, if you would) who have a view based upon “garbage feminist scholarship” and who are creating a division in the community with their, well, bullying and such. Some, such as my good friend Staks, have given up reading any FtB posts at all. I think he’s missing out on a lot by doing so, and I’m not sure if he will change his mind.

It has gotten so bad that I am not even sure what the philosophical differences are, most of the time. Most of the posts I see now are not substantive philosophical critiques of a point of view, they are an attack on the other side. This has become a polarized, party-line division, much like what exists in politics.

And this is no surprise to me. Tribal mentalities exist in all communities, so the fact that this happens in the atheist community is to be expected. I would like skeptics to be better, but I’m too cynical to really believe that will happen even among those who should, ideally, know better. Humans are emotional and irrational (which they then rationalize, in most cases), so all I can do is be both frustrated and amused at it all.

Take this post by Maria Maltseva called A World Without Dogma. it starts off OK, but then you immediately see that PZ Myers, Rebecca Watson, and Richard Carrier are all Marxist feminists who may endanger us with their terrible Marxist ways. I really thought I had run into a Republican blog by accident, for a moment there.

The arguments there are straw men. There is no attempt to take seriously the problem of how to address feminism as a skeptic (and yes, I know there are people who do take this issue seriously from some of them I also read), but rather the point is to show how untrustworthy, unskeptical, and how bad the other side is.

And yes, some at Freethought Blogs do the same thing, and I will admit that I am less annoyed when I agree with the one doing the mocking than when I disagree, even though I also do get annoyed, occasionally, by some I agree with (especially Amanda Marcotte, who I agree with more often than not but I find her writing to be abrasive, so I don’t generally read her stuff anymore, except in rare cases).

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So, let’s spell it out; there are people on both sides of this issue being snarky, using mockery, and who dislike each other greatly. I want to see people who are able to see that snark and let it roll off of them. I don’t want the emotion, passion, and even humor to go away, I want it to be waved off and for us to be able to actually have a substantive discussion about things like feminism without it turning into politics as usual. I want people to be able to hear mockery, snark, etc and let it roll off them and pay attention to the message, but often there is little actual message to sink one’s teeth into.

Yes, some people I will talk to will be wrong (painfully wrong), but can’t we drop the meta-debate? Can’t we stop talking about elevatorgate and talk about the philosophical disagreements which underlie why elevatorgate was such a big deal? Can’t we address privilege, safe spaces, and the concerns that men have all while we recognize that understanding the perspective of others is part of the process of making it all better for all of us?

I know I’m biased, but I think that is precisely what people such as Greta Christina have been doing. I want a world where the complaints that men have with our culture are solved. I want a world where the complaints that women have about our culture are solved. I want a world where tribalism and petty interpersonal squabbling don’t dominate philosophical debate. Mostly what I see now is that PZ Myers and Thunderf00t don’t like each other anymore, Rebecca Watson is (supposedly) an ugly bitch, and my view of feminism is a totalitarian dictatorship in the making.

I want to put aside petty interpersonal squabbles, platitudes, and deal with real issues. But I won’t get what I want; the battle-lines will be drawn more vividly and I will be forced to be a combatant even if I try and avoid perpetuating the divisions. And the effect of this is that I will inevitably become further removed from any real dialogue between people on different sides of this issue. I will have less exposure to views different from mine, despite my desire to understand their point of view, because the conversation will become meta-, rather than substantive.

I can try to keep it away from here, but the simple fact is that I do think that one side of this debate is mostly right. It’s just like PZ Myers said some time back, compromise with crazy is half-way to crazy town. I think that FtB, despite some of their poor behavior from time to time, is mostly right, and I find Maria Maltseva mostly wrong, but still worth listening to in case something good comes through.

Not saying so would be inauthentic, so I will be placed on one side of the battle lines, and when I take a step across to try and understand, I will be shot at because I’m perceived to be wearing the uniform of the person seen as the leader on my “side.”

It’s absurd. I’m interested in the truth, if such a thing exists, and I will hope that these stupid squabbles evaporate into a truly skeptical conversation.

Less than 2 months until the Atlanta Poly Weekend, so get your tickets now!

I wrote up a preview and details here, but in case you forgot or you missed it, I will be in Atlanta in the middle of march to participate in a convention of polyamorous people, in part to talk about the relationship between skepticism and polyamory (atheism itself may come up as well, we’ll see!).

So, again:

So, get your tickets now! We at PolySkeptic.com will be there, and we will look forward to seeing you.

The What: Atlanta Poly Weekend 2013

The Who (no, not the band!): you, and all your awesome friends (who will be permitted to listen to The Who, if that is your kink. The Kinks will also be acceptable).

The When: March 15-17, 2013

The Where:

Holiday Inn Select Atlanta- Perimeter/Dunwoody
4386 Chamblee Dunwoody Road

Atlanta, GA 30341

(770) 457-6363

(770) 458-5282 (Fax)

The Why: Because it will be awesome!

The How: That is for you to figure out, because I don’t know who you are or where you are coming from. If teleportation doesn’t work, try a car, train, plane, or penny-farthing.

On Feminism… Are We Talking Past Each Other?

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Thanks to Shaun’s latest post (and a couple links he posted on Facebook), I’ve spent the past two days reading feminist articles, critiques of those feminist articles, and critiques of the critiques. I’ve been reading Skepchick, Greta Christina, PZ Myers, Jen McCreight (when she was blogging), and other feminist-friendly atheists for years. What I haven’t been reading are the people at Skeptic Ink or any other major criticism of the Skepchick/FTB-style feminism. The blog that Shaun linked on FB (not approvingly) was Skeptically Left, written by a woman who, to put it mildly, takes some issue with the kind of feminism that is practiced at FTB & Skepchick. One of the first posts I noticed was this one, where Maria Maltseva, the author, takes a collection of words, and gives them the definitions that are used in “certain darker parts of the internet.” A sample:

Feminism — A dogmatic stance on women’s issues promulgated by the likes of PZ Myers, who is notably not a woman.
Misogynist — Someone who disagrees with a feminist. See definition of feminism above. A vile human being.
Rape Enabler — Someone who disagrees with a feminist. See definition of feminism above. A vile human being.
Rape — Consensual sex with a woman after she’s been drinking. Also, actual rape.
Patriarchy — A nebulous conspiracy-like entity responsible for oppression of women in Western society.
Oppression — Being born with a vagina, even if you’re treated like a queen and allowed all the same opportunities as men.
Victim Blaming — The suggestion that women have some degree of control over their own behavior.
Slut Shaming — Pointing out that suggestive attire, inappropriate nudity, and sexual behavior are likely to get attention.
Rapist — Any man who’s had sex. Also any man who hasn’t. Synonym: man.
Rape Culture — A culture that glorifies rape. The one we live in. The same one that makes (actual) rape a criminal act.
Privilege — Something you say to get another party to shut up when you have no real argument, because clearly human beings are incapable of empathy. Existence of actual or even group privilege is irrelevant.

(sigh). I have some sympathy for the victims of unfair attacks at the hands of quick-to-anger feminists, especially at FTB & Skepchick. I too have had the word “privilege” used as a bludgeon to suggest that any opinion I have on a topic that concerns a marginalized group is completely worthless and irrelevant. I have been labeled a misogynist for having the audacity to voice a minor disagreement with a popular feminist. I’ve been decried as a troll and been accused of “JAQ-ing off” for asking sincere questions about a feminist position that I don’t understand. And in none of those situations did anyone come to my defense, so I understand how someone can be upset with the community. But come on, this crap is ridiculous. These definitions are ridiculous caricatures of complicated and nuanced issues, and surrender the moral high ground before the discussion is even started. I think contemporary feminism could use some strong criticism in certain circumstances, but juvenile bullshit like this is just flame warring.

Yesterday, Shaun described a post by Libby Anne at Patheos as “recommended reading.” Libby Anne’s post is a critique of a post by vjack at Atheist Revolution. I was not as happy as Shaun with Libby Anne’s post. The whole post was one big straw man.

vjack’s post was about some people’s hesitancy to identify as feminists, and posited that it was because “feminist” means different things to different people. While many people may be feminists under one interpretation, they may not be under another interpretation, and people don’t want to be associated with the more extreme factions. So far so good. Most of the feminists I know (including me) specifically disavow radical feminism, and specifically its shameful treatment of trans* people. vjack offers the following definitions:

In a nutshell, equity feminism refers to a focus on the goal of social and legal equality. That is, equity feminists believe that women and men should have the same rights, be paid the same for the same work, have access to the same opportunities, etc. They are advocates of equality, and I wholeheartedly embrace this form of feminism. Women deserve equality, and none of us should settle for anything less.

Gender feminism is very different. It looks far less egalitarian, involves sharp criticism of gender roles, and seems to emphasize victimhood. There are aspects of gender feminism with which I agree (e.g., the manner in which patriarchy can be harmful to both women and men, the critique of traditional gender roles), but I do not support the entirety of gender feminism.

So, clearly, those definitions are crap. Aside from the obvious bias of the author, I’ve read them several times now and I still have no idea what “gender feminism” is. As Libby Anne note, vjack did not invent the terms, and followed one of the links vjack provided to this post by Barry X. Kuhle, an evolutionary psychologist. Libby Anne provided the following quote:

What is feminism other than the belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes? Regrettably to feminists like myself, far too many other feminists believe that being one means believing in far more than equality for women. These “gender feminists” cling to an ideologically driven, theoretically unsound, and empirically unsupported perspective on the origin and development of sex differences (Kuhle, 2012). To paraphrase New Jersey philosopher J. B. Jovi, they give feminism a bad name. In so doing, they have discouraged women and men who support sexual equality from self-identifying as feminists. … The reluctance most women and men have to embrace the feminist label in the absence of a definitional nudge is due in no small part to gender feminists’ untenable position on sex differences.

As an evolutionary psychologist, I believe that much light can be shed on psychology by considering how the information-processing mechanisms underlying our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors affected our ancestors’ abilities to survive and reproduce. As an “equity feminist” (Sommers, 1994), I believe that women should have the full civil and social equalities that are afforded men. Equity feminism has no a priori stance on the origin or existence of differences between the sexes; it is solely a sociopolitical desire for men’s and women’s legal and social equality. Defined in these ways, there is no rational reason why one cannot be both an evolutionary psychologist and a feminist.

Gender feminism is an alternative version of feminism and is the dominant feminist voice in academia (Sommers, 1994) and online (e.g., Jezebel.com). And boy (er, I mean girl, er, I mean womyn) do they take issue with feminism being compatible with evolutionary psychology. They ardently argue that psychological differences between the sexes have little or nothing to do with evolution, but instead are largely or solely socially constructed (Pinker, 2002; Sommers, 1994). Whereas equity feminism “makes no commitment regarding open empirical issues in psychology or biology… gender feminism is an empirical doctrine” committed to several unsubstantiated claims about human nature, especially that of the psychological blank slate where sex differences are concerned (Pinker, 2002, p. 341).

Now, Kuhle seems like kind of a windbag, but I can’t point to anything factually inaccurate with his statements, other than that he seems to be doing an awful lot of generalizing based on relatively few citations. Libby Anne, however, finds a lot more of an issue:

In other words, Kuhle argues that there are significant natural and inherent differences between men and women, so while we should support equality of opportunity, we shouldn’t wonder when men and women make different life choices, pursue different careers paths, act in different ways, or value different things. Thus Kuhle appears to be arguing that men and women can be equal even if they, as a result of their evolutionary background, carry out vastly different roles in life.

Excuse me? Did we read the same quote? Kuhle never says “there are significant natural and inherent differences between men and women.” Kuhle merely says that it’s an “open empirical issue.” Kuhle doesn’t say that the idea that the sexes are psychologically identical is incorrect, he just says that it’s unsubstantiated, which is true. The psychological community has reached no consensus on the topic, and there is substantial evidence to suggest that the sexes have genetic psychological differences. Furthermore, Kuhle most certainly does not extrapolate from this that “we shouldn’t wonder when men and women make different life choices, pursue different careers paths, act in different ways, or value different things.” Later in his post (and not quoted by Libby Anne), Kuhle says the opposite:

The first misunderstanding, the myth of immutability, is evidenced when one erroneously concludes that “if it’s evolutionary, then we can’t change it.” As has been discussed at length elsewhere, evolutionary psychology does not view human behavior as impervious to change. In fact, evolutionary psychologists have cogently argued that knowledge of the informational inputs to evolved psychological mechanisms is a crucial first step toward changing the behavioral output of these mechanisms (Buss, 1996; Buss, 2012; Confer et al., 2010; DeKay & Buss, 1992; Geher, 2006).

The second pervasive misunderstanding is the naturalistic fallacy, which rears its illogical head when one concludes that “if it’s evolutionary and hence natural, then it’s okay and hence good.” Numerous evolutionary psychologists have unpacked the mistaken inference that if something is the case then it ought to be the case (Buss, 2003; Geher, 2006; Pinker, 2002).

Evolutionary psychology does not excuse, justify, or rationalize any human’s thoughts, feelings, or actions (Buss, 1996; Geher, 2006). It merely seeks to discover and detail the design of the information-processing mechanisms that underlie our psychology. If some women have been subjugated because they were regarded as different than and inferior to men and some men have excused their misogynistic behavior as being an inevitable consequence of their genes, then a reluctance to embrace a discipline which viewed such pernicious behavior as immutable and excusable would be understandable. But evolutionary psychology is not that discipline (Buss, 1996).

Kuhle may be an asshole, and by the tone of his post, he probably is, but he’s not arguing that women belong in the kitchen. Later in her post, Libby Anne quotes Harriet Hall as saying:

I think it is unreasonable to expect that equal numbers of men and women will be attracted to every sphere of human endeavor. Science has shown that real differences exist. We should level the playing field and ensure there are no preventable obstacles, then let the chips fall where they may.

Libby Anne’s followup:

Kuhle made this same argument in his article when he argued that there are natural differences between men and women and derided the idea that gender roles are socially constructed. Kuhle’s line of reasoning is why some people argue that it’s only natural that the vast majority of engineers are men and that the the fast majority of stay at home parents are women. Men are just better at spacial reasoning, after all, and women are perfectly evolved to care for children!

Again, nobody said that! Kuhle never “derided the idea that gender roles are socially constructed.” And he certainly never suggested that men evolved to be better engineers and women evolved to care for children. It is not “Kuhle’s line of reasoning” that leads to this attitude – it’s unscientific sexism. Kuhle never makes any such suggestion anywhere in his article, and to say that it’s his “line of reasoning” is ridiculous. It’s the laziest kind of slippery slope argument.

Libby Anne spends the rest of her post listing the various evils of assuming that our current gender roles are natural. It’s a good rundown, and would be a good argument against anyone who actually argues the opposite. However, the remainder of the post continuously implies that it is an argument against people like vjack and Kuhle. Libby Anne ironically closes with the following:

it’s critically important to find ways to communicate with those who may not fully agree with us, and listening to each other and trying to understand each other’s perspectives is crucial.

I agree. I hope Libby Anne will make more of an effort to do so next time, before putting words in people’s mouths. Chris Hallquist, of The Uncredible Hallq commented, echoing my concerns:

I’ve read the Kuhle article, and you seem to be reading a lot into it that isn’t there. In particular, [it] can be true that there are some innate psychological differences between men and women and at the same time think the male domination of many fields might be cultural.

Ed Clint, for example, has defended evolutionary psychology (including claims of innate psychological differences between men and women) against its detractors, but has also argued for having 50% women among speakers at skeptic conferences, for the sake of breaking the (possibly? very likely?) self-perpetuating maleness of skepticism.

No response from the OP. Both writers, Libby Anne and Maria Malseva, seem to be ignoring the actual words of the people that they are criticizing. While Libby Anne’s writing is seemingly from a much more conciliatory place, both posts unfairly lampoon their subjects and ignore what they are actually saying. It’s no way to start a dialogue, and it’s certainly no way to reconcile.

We can do better.

Category: Skepticism and atheism