Over at Religion News Service there’s a report by some Kimberly Wiston about how Richard Dawkins stands by his remarks.
It’s the latest piece of Dawkins-bashing and has no news in it (people who take back what they said is news, not the other way around). Anyway, it has been picked up by the pseudo-skeptics who hate Dawkins who are having a bullying orgy over it. So I want to set the record straight.
From the very beginning, Winston’s piece states that Richard Dawkins stands by his remarks about sexual harassment (the title says sexism). I was puzzled about what it meant, so I had to click to the link to find out it was a reference to Elevatorgate.
Quick recap: a Spoiled Entitled Brat got into an elevator, a —probably visually impaired— guy asked her for a cup of coffee, she said no, he took that no for an answer, so then our Spoiled Entitled Brat got into her room and made a video whining about how awful, creepy (?), sexist (?), harassment-ish (?) and misogynistic (?) was such an encounter. If you think this is nuts, you’re probably being polite, because it is batshit crazy, and it gets even worse.
The topic was mentioned in the blog of a guy who claims to be against objectification of women but keeps referring to his significant other as “Trophy Wife”. Then, rational thinking champion Richard Dawkins made a simple comment on the aforementioned blog, that comment would be known as Dear Muslima. Dear Muslima is a reality check: Third world problems are far worse than this fake First World problem, grow a pair, and stop being such a crybaby: you didn’t like being asked for coffee? Good for you, Spoiled Entitled Brat — you’re the only one to be held accountable for your feelings, there’s nothing to be done here, no one wronged you!
So that’s the ‘sexual harassment’/’sexism’ account. I’m calling bullshit on that one. What should Richard Dawkins apologize for? For asking a Spoiled Entitled Brat on a douchebag’s blog to grow up? I guess he hurt her teeny-tiny prone to be broken feelings but like I have just stated: you’re the only one to be held accountable for your feelings.
The second account is the Down syndrome canard. Given only 140 characters, Dawkins tweeted what he thought was the best course of action for someone pregnant with a kid with Down Syndrome. Once again, hell broke loose. I should have mentioned there’s a trend among the previously mentioned pseudo-skeptics who willfully misinterpret anything Richard Dawkins says. Basic rules of engagement state you should read as charitably as possible anything other people say that you happen to disagree about.
Even though these Dawkins enemies had shown no interest in an honest exchange of ideas, professor Dawkins was kind enough to clarify his opinion, making crystal clear his thoughts. Let’s quote him, once again:
Obviously the choice would be yours. For what it’s worth, my own choice would be to abort the Down fetus and, assuming you want a baby at all, try again. Given a free choice of having an early abortion or deliberately bringing a Down child into the world, I think the moral and sensible choice would be to abort. And, indeed, that is what the great majority of women, in America and especially in Europe, actually do. I personally would go further and say that, if your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child’s own welfare. I agree that that personal opinion is contentious and needs to be argued further, possibly to be withdrawn. In any case, you would probably be condemning yourself as a mother (or yourselves as a couple) to a lifetime of caring for an adult with the needs of a child. Your child would probably have a short life expectancy but, if she did outlive you, you would have the worry of who would care for her after you are gone. No wonder most people choose abortion when offered the choice. Having said that, the choice would be entirely yours and I would never dream of trying to impose my views on you or anyone else. – See more at: https://skepticink.com/avant-garde/2014/08/23/richard-dawkins-down-abortion/#sthash.K49gEfIQ.dpuf
Dear Kimberly Winston, what do you find in there that warrants an apology from Richard Dawkins? I’m eager to find out!
The third account from the RNS article are the July tweets. I know SJWs and the likes only know Postmodernism and cultural marxism, but there’s more to Philosophy than that (my friend Jonathan MS Pearce can tell you a great deal about it). For example, there’s the lesser evil principle: when given two bad choices, the one which is less bad should be chosen over the one that is the greater threat.
So, Dawkins compared hypothetical scenarios and said which one he thought was worse. Date rape is bad and stranger rape at knifepoint is worse (guilty as charged: I agree). Same goes for mild pederasty and and violent pederasty. These thought experiments were accused of —wait for it— you guessed it: misogyny (?). Why? Well, it’s Richard Dawkins, they’ll strawman anything he says, just because.
The worst part of it all is that this libelous trend against Dawkins has poisoned supposedly objective venues such as Friendly Atheist and Religion News Service. (As a matter of fact, if you check Winston’s page, you will notice she links to all the anti-Dawkins sites, those are her only sources when it comes to Dawkins [!] and when talking about the joint statement he and Ophelia Benson issued, Winston said: “Before the virtual ink was dry, Dawkins had stepped in it again” — conveniently, she kept silent when Benson defended the use of “fuckwit”, only hours after the joint statement had been made public.)
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* Please excuse me, but I have misled you. I do think there are a couple of things I’d love Dawkins would apologize for: First, for issuing a joint statement with a pathological liar and bully. Secondly, for talking about ‘pedophilia’ when he meant ‘pederasty’ (they’re different).
(Image: Shane Pope via photopin cc)
