Breaking the Cycle

This is the best news I've heard in a while. The humanists are taking their campaign to Northern Ireland, where everyone knows that damage that sectarianism can do.

Naturally, religious leaders plead that it's not their fault. No, wait, none cited hear is denying that they are the problem, this is the more typical response:

It is none of their business how people bring up their children. It is the height of arrogance that the BHA would even assume to tell people not to instruct their children in their religion.

Oh, well. I'm sure that all the moderates sick and tired of violence will see the sense in this. The problem has been that for hundreds of years moderates have been forced to choose a side. If they are just given the option of staying out of it, maybe sectarian violence won't return to Ireland.

I mean, even if these kids do choose a religion when they grow up, everyone will know that it's a matter of choice. If that attitude of treating religious opinions like other preferences becomes ingrained enough, it's possible that the groups will be able to live together without feeling that it's a take-over by an alien race. Fingers crossed.

There's so many other places where this approach is needed but I doubt that many are ready for it. Clearly Israelis and Palestinians are not going to stop labelling their children any time soon. Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims in Iraq have more immediate concerns. In the Balkans, the difference between Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks is only religious (they speak different dialects of the same language) but they've already settled on a multi-state solution, so it's probably too late for them.

Update -- This is not the same as labelling your kids "atheist"
The Freethinker reports that this message went straight over the heads of many people, including the father of the kids in the ad and their vicar:

I think it is hilarious that the happy and liberated children on the atheist poster are in fact Christian.

Someone please sit these two down and explain to them what the message of the poster is!

Jingoism

It seems I underestimated the differences between Europe and the Anglosphere when it comes to nationalism. This is a little ironic given that the word chauvinism is due to a Frenchman. (My guess is that the Vichy Régime just exhausted any nationalist pride they might have had left. Now they stick to pride in their food and fashion, which is far less dangerous.)

Recently France's minister for immigration, Eric Besson, was chatting to a journalist about a range of issues and made this comment:

Je pense par exemple qu'il serait bon -- aux Etats-Unis c'est banal, en France ça reste parfois compliqué -- que tous les jeunes Français aient une fois dans l'année l'occasion de chanter la Marseillaise

Apparently this is true, their national anthem is almost never sung in school. They learn it once when they do the French Revolution but it's not sung every school assembly like in Australia. Once a year certainly doesn't sound like an overkill to me.

After I asked Cîndy about this, she went on to tell me about one time in high school when it seemed appropriate and a student requested that they sing "the Marseillaise" in class. Her teacher said, 'No, let's sing something else. How about "the Internationale"?' That put me in mind of Billy Bragg at first but then I remembered that it was originally a French song. So we sang the first verse through in French and English then I said to Cîndy, 'One time when we're with a group of Americans I'm going to ask you to tell them what song your teacher taught them. I'll be standing nearby to pick their jaws up off the floor for them!'

Teaching Utilitarianism

A memorable thought experiment from Peter Singer's famous paper, "Famine, Affluence and Morality":

if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing.

One of my students' recollection:

...let's say there is a small child drowning in a pile of mud, and you walk by and see this. It is very easy for you to save the child, just step in the mud and grab her. However, is it of moral significance for YOU to do so... your pants will probably get ruined and maybe you think that somebody else will do it, however you have to weigh your options. Singer was trying to show that you might think, "Of course you save the child's life, it's just a pair of pants," however, those pair of pants might be of equal or more significance to the man than saving the girl's life. The principle states that it is all about your opinion and what is significant to you.

What the hell am I doing wrong!?

At least when students badly misunderstood philosophy of science I could tell myself, "They just don't get it because it's a bit technical. They're not bad people!" I'm not looking forward to discussion of the death penalty later in the semester.

Religion vs Ethics

I've posted about this before but now something is finally happening - the St James Ethics Centre is running a pilot of their children's ethics classes.

However, there are some wowsers:

The pilot, developed by the St James Ethics Centre, is fully funded and was endorsed unanimously by the Federation of Parents and Citizens' Associations of NSW in July. But it must still be approved by the Minister for Education in consultation with a religious advisory panel.

''It doesn't have the support of the religious community, that's just a pragmatic reality,'' the acting chairman of the Inter-Church Commission on Religious Education in Schools, Reverend Mark Hillis, told the Herald. ''I don't see how having a small interest group coming into a school and ramping up things helps.''

Does the current scripture programme have the support of the atheist community? Better get rid of it then!

I notice that their argument is not that they're afraid that the religious kiddies will miss out, and that they need ethical instruction as much as the atheists. The only reasonable argument against ethics classes altogether would be if there weren't enough time. But that's precisely the point of this move, non-scripture kids are forced to waste time. The only way out of that is to make scripture classes meet at 2pm and let out the non-scripture kids early. Or for government schools to not assist parents to indoctrinate their children with their own supernatural beliefs (there's plenty of time for that on the weekend!).

Another Political Compass

This one is through Facebook.
My Political Views
I am a far-left moderate social libertarian
Left: 7.8, Libertarian: 1.21

Political Spectrum Quiz

Two dimensions are not enough:
My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -7.8

Political Spectrum Quiz

My Culture War Stance
Score: -8.09

Political Spectrum Quiz

Monroe County Fair '09

Just thought I'd mention a few of the things I saw at the Monroe County Fair last night:

* A stand for the Monroe County TEA Party
* The Republican party stand with a sign saying "Say no to socialized medicine"
* A "Christians for Life" stand with models of fœtuses at various stages
* A test your Bible knowledge electronic quiz
* The American Legion giving out stationary with the Pledge of Allegiance on it. Cindy took one that said "Proud to be an American". I opted for one with all the presidents on it (it was up to date).
* Overheard a kid making a (root)beer joke with his grandmother. Her reply was, "If your parents let you do that, they must be more liberal than Obama!"

Consistency

Do people's positions have to be consistent in order for you to take them seriously? Hilary Putnam famously said that that it's better to be right than to have been consistent. That sounds about right, so I guess all you need to do is fess up to the change in belief and explain how your new position is better that your old one.

That's not always easy to do when you are arguing against an opponent. Khadijah Ouararhni-Grech is a good example. In the first reports of her argument with the bus-driver, she responded with indignation at her mask being described as a mask. In her first interview with the Tele she insisted that it wasn't a mask that she was wearing. She stated that she was no different from all the other women on the bus. (To which, I assume the driver would have replied, "They're not wearing masks.")

I figure someone must have sat her down and explained that a niqab is a type of mask, because in her interview with ABC's PM she claims that what she said was, "What's the difference between me wearing this and anyone else wearing like a swine-flu mask or wearing what they chose to wear?" That's not such a bad argument. I doubt there were any wearers of surgical masks on the bus that day but it's quite plausible that the driver would have let them on (after chuckling at their stupidity).

But much worse is the way in which her melodramatic reaction devalues other people's suffering - 'It's almost being like raped of [sic.] your culture. It's like something has been taken away from you.' What exactly has been taken from her? If something were taken, wouldn't that be theft, not rape? Not only is that a ridiculous misuse of the word "rape", it doesn't even make sense of her experience. In the same interview the reporter explains, 'Khadijah Ouararhni-Grech says growing up as a Catholic before converting to Islam has given her a valuable insight into discrimination.' Which is it? She can't feel culturally insulted because it isn't her heritage. Islam is something she chose to embrace. This is a clear cut case of personal preference and any talk of culture only serves to muddy the waters.

Next time someone tells me they don't like my beret, I'm going to cry "rape"!

Differences of Degree vs Differences of Kind

I'm going to argue that a liberal society should generally ignore the motives of people's practices when deciding what to ban. In particular, when deciding what sort of attire to allow in public, the same sorts of standards should be applied whether the requirements are religious or aesthetic. This is in contrast to some places, e.g. France, where symbolism is the primary criterion. (Whether religious symbols should be allowed in government institutions is a different issue.)

The Tele is reporting that a Muslim woman was asked to remove her mask before getting on a bus. I'd like to point out that it is she who raises the issue of race by denying that she's an Arab (i.e. insisting that she's Maltese-Australian). The driver criticises her for something she chooses to do. This is different in kind from the "driving while black" phenomenon in the USA.

She insists that a niqab is not a mask. The Oxford Dictionary begs to differ:

mask, n. -
I. A covering for the face, and related senses.
1. a. A covering worn on or held in front of the face for disguise, esp. one made of velvet, silk, etc., and concealing the whole face or the upper part of it (except the eyes), worn at balls and masques.

My main point is simply that there's a significant difference of degree between a Muslim woman covering her hair and covering her face. We have normal social interactions with people who cover their hair for a wide range of reasons, e.g. hats, baldness. That sort of hijab should not be banned in public. On the other hand we don't like people walking into shops (or onto busses) in balaclavas or motorcycle helmets.

I think the basic principle of fairness dictates that if we require nudists to cover up, religious nudists should not be exempt. If we require people to show their faces, religious people should not be exempt from that either.

The only question that remains, then, is whether we really do/should impose these requirements on non-religious people. My guess is that if I tried to walk onto a bus wearing a balaclava, most drivers would react in a similar way to this one. Nor should I be allowed to go into a bank wearing a gorilla mask just because the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodly appendage) says I need to wear one the third Thursday of every 30-day month.

On the other hand
In France the debate has cooled down a bit. They're saying that making a law specifically against this sort of thing would be like breaking a butterfly upon the wheel. I normally wouldn't want to say that it's question of numbers but on this point I agree, that a specific law is not necessary (and thus Muslims would even be justified in feeling persecuted by a law specifically tageting them). Current rules about not concealing your identity should be quite sufficient.