Dan Arel, trying to show that New Atheists are white supremacists, lies about New Atheists

July 14, 2017 • 11:00 am

A while back, Dan Arel, who labels himself an “author, journalist, and activist” was a rational man—and an atheist. Then somehow he jumped the rails, following C. J. W*rl*m*n in his misguided and vicious misrepresentation of New Atheism.  Now Arel’s lost not just his cool, but his rationality, flailing about at his enemies like a bull pricked by a picador. Arel’s new schtick is that New Atheists are all a bunch of bigots, Islamophobes and white supremacists—morally and tactically in the same league as Nazis and right-wing Trumpites.

The Dissolution of Arel is on view in at (appropriately), The New Arab, in a smear piece called “New atheism’s move from Islamophobia to white racism” (I hate linking to this, but feel obligated to). Read it for yourself: he paints not only Sam Harris and Dave Rubin as “white supremacists,” but can’t resist putting me in that camp:

Rubin, like Harris, doesn’t bring these guests on to challenge their views, but instead to give credibility to their previously held biases. Both hosts claim to defend the “free market of ideas”, yet only support one side of those ideas – and that side is chalk [sic] full of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the like.

The rest of the movement is full of defenders of this practice – such as retired biology professor Jerry Coyne, who recently attacked Mother Jones for calling Rubin part of the “right’s independent media personalities”.

Yeah, I’m a huge defender of white supremacists and neo-Nazis. (I note that Rubin, Harris, and I are all secular Jews, which doesn’t give us a lot of cred for being white supremacists!) But put that aside, for I want to note that Arel, in this nasty hit piece, has repeated the recent and widespread slander about Sam Harris, misrepresenting words Sam said on his podcast with Maajid Nawaz.

Arel:

Harris even more recently went as far as to ask: “What is the [expletive] point of having more Muslims in your society? It seems perfectly rational to say, we don’t want any more. We have enough. And certainly increasing the percentage is not a help to anyone who loves freedom of speech and anything else, any of the other liberal values.”

This came during a discussion on his podcast with Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz. During the show Harris argued that US immigration policy would need to figure “out some way to keep the number of Muslims down in any society, whether we’re honest about this or whether we do this covertly. Clearly it’s rational to want to do this.”

While this still reeks of Harris’ previous anti-Muslim rhetoric, it is also a prominent white nationalist talking point. He even went on to say he knows someone like neo-Nazi Richard Spencer would agree.

Arel’s link is to an Alternet piece, but if you went to Harris’s podcast itself, and listened to the discussion starting at 1:10:50, you’ll see that Harris is posing a hypothetical question to Nawaz, espousing sentiments that Harris doesn’t believe. He’s trying to see how Nawaz would react to the hypothetical. This quote by Sam has been used all over the Internet as evidence of Harris’s Islamophobia and bigotry, but it’s taken completely out of context by many, including Reza Aslan and now Arel.  I posted on this egregious cherry-picking not long ago.

Arel fancies himself a journalist, but he’s guilty of either not doing his homework, or (my guess) deliberate distortion. And really, “New Atheism” is full of white nationalists? What a crock!

I’ve responded at that site to Arel’s lies:

And another commenter reminds us of what Arel said less than eight months ago:

I found this one, too:

Sounds like extremist New Atheism! And Islamophobia! Even I wouldn’t say “Fuck Islam”!

Poor Dan.

For more on the pervasive misrepresentation of Sam Harris, see the Areo Magazine article by Malhar Mali, “The Sam Harris Outrage Industry“. One quote:

Until very recently, it was utterly perplexing to witness supposedly rational people reveling in the fanatical joys of degrading someone who has defied any accepted norms of thought or speech regarding the issue of Islamism, but now it’s commonplace enough to be something nearer to sadly boring. Harris’ mistreatment is but one good example of the fate awaiting those who wish even to approach the periphery of this debate. I have watched with growing trepidation: Douglas Murray called a “hate preacher” by Massoud Shadjareh on the BBC; Maajid Nawaz (astoundingly) labelled a “Porch Monkey” by Murtaza Hussain; the late Christopher Hitchens considered a bigot for his strong stance against Islam and the ludicrous notion of “Islamophobia.” These are only the most well known instances. Ex-Muslims and liberal Muslims are constantly defamed for questioning Islam or seeking to implement some type of change.

(By the way, they’re doing a Patreon to support Areo, so check out Areo, and if you like it, you might consider kicking in a few bucks.)

Harvard proposes banning student membership in disfavored off-campus groups

July 14, 2017 • 9:50 am

by Greg Mayer

Harvard Magazine reports that a university committee has proposed that, starting with next year’s class, Harvard students be banned from joining certain off-campus groups. The policy recommended by the committee states (full report here):

Harvard students may neither join nor participate in final clubs, fraternities or sororities, or other similar private, exclusionary social organizations that are exclusively or predominantly made up of Harvard students, whether they have any local or national affiliation, during their time in the College. The College will take disciplinary action against students who are found to be participating in such organizations. Violations will be adjudicated by the Administrative Board.

The intent of the policy is to eliminate membership by Harvard students in single-sex and other clubs disapproved by Harvard administrators. Jerry commented here (1, 2, 3) at WEIT on an earlier Harvard policy, enacted last year, that banned members of such social organizations from student leadership positions and from getting Harvard’s support for post-graduate fellowships. Here’s part of what Jerry wrote at the time:

This [the earlier sanctions policy] is ludicrous. While I’ve never belonged to a single-sex organization (I didn’t try to join a fraternity at William and Mary), they exist, and a student has the right to join one without University action if the group is not part of Harvard. To formally penalize students by withholding leadership positions and those crucial letters of support is a reprehensible and unconscionable act, although one driven by good motives.

Jerry also noted the irony of Harvard railing against “privilege” and “exclusion”: “Harvard thrives on privilege and exclusion,” he wrote.

The new proposal goes considerably further than the current policy, banning (rather than merely punishing) membership. It also extends to groups not previously thought to be problematic, including the Hasty Pudding Club (which is coed). The report notes that an unspecified minority of the committee opposed its recommendations, and one member of this minority, professor and evolutionary biologist David Haig, wrote a dissent appended to the report. He criticized the report’s recommendation for being a poor balance between students’ rights and the need to be non-discriminatory:

The report proposes an escalation of the conflict between unrecognized social organizations and Harvard College. Rather than certain benefits being withheld, the recommendation is that membership in these organizations be considered incompatible with being a Harvard undergraduate. Moreover, the scope of the policy has been expanded to include groups that admit both men and women but are considered socially exclusionary.

The sanctions policies have involved a conflict between competing goods: on the one hand, respect for student autonomy and freedom of association; on the other hand, non-discrimination and inclusivity. The report strongly favors the latter over the former goods. I continue to favor a balance more on the side of student autonomy because I am unconvinced that the policy, when implemented, will solve the latter problems.

He also noted that the report took a rather selective view of student input on the issue of outside club membership:

There is a disconnect between these numbers on student opinion [60 % of students opposed the sanctions in a 2017 student referendum that had an over 40% participation rate by the students] and the general tone of this committee’s report which emphasizes deep unhappiness among students with the social environment created by the clubs  … The various committees on USGSO policy, including this one, have never sought quantitative unbiased data on student opinions but have relied on selected comments of students opposed to the clubs. … There is no doubt that some students, faculty, and deans find the clubs deeply offensive but well-informed social policy requires knowledge of the full-range of student opinions. Harvard College can do better in reasoning with data.

Last year, when the earlier sanctions policy was announced, both Jerry and I wrote to Drew Faust, the President of Harvard, to protest. Here’s what I wrote to her (June 4, 2016):

Dear President Faust–

I was appalled to learn that the University intends to monitor students’ participation in non-Harvard affiliated organizations, and to penalize those students who associate with groups that Harvard disapproves. This is a frankly shocking development. That you could even contemplate such illiberal, authoritarian, and coercive measures confounds me. The objections to the policy are several:

It is a gross abrogation of students’ freedom of association.

It proposes guilt by association. Most sexual assaults occur in the houses– are we to judge all students who live on campus guilty, and penalize them?

It forces Harvard to make what seem to be arbitrary, or perhaps even unprincipled, distinctions. Why are some single-sex organizations exempted, while others are subject to sanctions? Many religions enforce sex segregation to a greater or lesser degree– are these also candidates for disapproval?

It forces Harvard to become the arbiter of a potentially unlimited number of organizations’ worthiness. Although this round of sanctions is designed to address the very worthy goal of eliminating sexual assault, what next goal will require Harvard to further scrutinize the associations of its students to insure conformity?

It will require an Orwellian scheme of surveillance, because the organizations penalized are private, off campus groups, whose membership is not public knowledge.

The way to promote Harvard’s ideals of equality, opportunity, non-violence, and civility is by exemplifying these values in its campus life, University policies, and pedagogy, not by instituting illiberal policies that would require monitoring of unprecedented scope. I urge you to reconsider your decisions with regard to these matters.

Jerry got a pro-forma email response to his note, but I actually got a phone call from Rakesh Khurana, Dean of Harvard College (who had initiated the earlier sanctions policy, and chaired the committee now proposing a ban), to discuss my concerns. We had a civil and respectful conversation, but neither of us succeeded in convincing the other. I still stand by what I wrote last year. If anything, the new proposal expands, just as I feared, the scope of what Harvard might choose to sanction. To enforce the policy, the committee even considered requiring a sort of ‘loyalty oath’ affirmation (“Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Hasty Pudding Club?”), similar to what some other colleges have instituted, but decided not to recommend one, though adding, ominously, “at present”.

The policy is in the lap of Harvard’s president, Drew Faust. The reporter for Harvard Magazine seemed taken aback by this, having expected formal faculty participation:

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the report is that it seems to make clear that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences [the dean of FAS appointed the committee] will not be given an opportunity to vote on any of the committee’s recommendations. Instead, the report invites faculty feedback through a website, email, or during “open faculty discussions” that will take place at the beginning of the academic year. Such feedback, the report says, “will be taken into account” when the recommendation is presented in the fall to President Faust, who “will make the final decision.”

Based on a quick perusal of the comments section at Harvard Magazine, the proposal, is a taking quite a shellacking, with a number of commenters noting that President Faust belongs to and/or supports a number of all-female organizations and institutions. However, commenters at Harvard Magazine will probably be dismissed as ‘cranky alumni’.

_________

JAC: I’ve added one comment about Faust’s membership in a women-only organization (the graduate school does admit men):

Readers wildlife photos

July 14, 2017 • 7:45 am

Keep those photos coming in, folks, or we’ll never get to 50,000 subscribers (see next post).  Reader Ed Croc has sent us some gulls:

This has been an insanely busy summer for me so far and I have a large backlog of photos that I would like to send your way. It’s difficult for me to just send pictures without jawing about them a bit, which takes some time, but I’ll try to start sending photos more regularly even if they come with only basic information.

Here are a few Glaucous-winged Gull (Larus glaucescens) shots to fortify your emergency photo reserves. These were taken the last week of June, when most of our resident gulls were just hatching their young. The gull babies are about 3 days old here.

This is the second year this pair has nested at this location, atop a two storey residential building on False Creek in Vancouver, right next to the constantly busy Cambie Street Bridge (that’s where I took the shots from). It’s been well documented that gulls tend to mate for life, and I can confirm that this pair is the same as the previous year, as both partners have rather distinctive eye-rings that allow for individual identification. Their nest is located in the exact same location as last year, rebuilt from scratch, as the winter storms washed last year’s nest away. The pair hatched (and fledged) three chicks last year, but the third egg never hatched this year – you can see it in the foreground of one of the shots.
Out in Idaho, the brood of eleven gadwall ducklings (Anas strepera) monitored by Stephen Barnard has dwindled to nine, but appears to have stabilized for the time being:

We’ll be right back after this brief announcement about soccer and North Korea

July 14, 2017 • 7:30 am

If you’re a soccer fan, you’ll know that FIFA has awarded the World Cup venue for 2022 to the nation of Qatar. (It’ll be held in November and December because of Quatar’s dire summer weather.) Sadly, much of the work on building the stadiums (stadia?) is being done by North Korean slave laborers, who must turn over much of their earnings to their government when they return to the DPRK. Over at Heather’s Homilies, Heather Hastie has an informative post about this situation, about Qatar’s bribing FIFA and others with £117 million, and about the sad situation of women’s rights in Quatar. Go read her new post “Soccer fans are funding the North Korean nuclear programme.”

Here’s one of the several “be modest” posters in Qatar that Heather highlights. No stars on your tee-shirts!

Friday: Hili dialogue

July 14, 2017 • 6:50 am
Miaou!

It’s Friday already? Indeed it is: on this 14th day of July, 2014 2017, we’re another week closer to crossing the Rainbow Bridge. That means that in France, it’s Bastille Day (I was in Paris on this day in 1989, the 200th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, and boy was that a party!) In the US it is, appropriately, Grand Marnier Day, the best French cordial besides Chartreuse, and the ideal libation to accompany a robust Cuban cigar.

Yesterday in Oregon, a truck full of live “slime eels” (hagfish), overturned, spilling 4 tons of the creatures on Highway 101, covering the road and vehicles with slime and dead eels. Why so many eels? They were being shipped to Korea, where they’re eaten and the slime actually prized for cooking. Here, have a look (trigger warning: don’t watch if you haven’t had breakfast):

On this day in 1865, Edward Whymper’s party made the first ascent of the Matterhorn with a party of six others, four of whom died on the descent when one slipped. Here’s a depiction of the disaster by Gustav Doré:

On this day in 1881, the outlaw Billy the Kid (real name William McCarty) was killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett outside Fort Sumner, New Mexico. On July 14, 1933, the Nazi eugenics program began with the proclamation of the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, which mandated the sterilization of any citizen showing signs of genetic disorders. It was on this day in 1960 that Jane Goodall arrived at the Gombe Stream Reserve to embark on her pathbreaking studies of wild chimpanzees.  Exactly 16 year later, capital punishment was abolished in Canada. And it was exactly a year ago that the terrorist van attack in Nice France killed 86 people and injured more than 400 others. It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago, does it?

Notables born on this day include artist Gustav Klimt (1862), Woody Guthrie (1912), Gerald Ford (1913), and Ingmar Bergman (1918). Here’s Klimt, a cat lover (all good artists are, for cats are living sculptures), as well as one of his most famous paintings:

Not many notables died on this day; two include the Czech illustrator Alphonse Mucha, whose posters now fetch very high prices, and Adlai Stevenson II. Here’s a genuine Mucha poster:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the beasts are worried about their noms. But they needn’t, for Andrzej and Malgorzata would never let them go hungry.

Hili: They are talking about shopping.
Cyrus: So what?
Hili: You wonder why? We have to check whether they remember about our needs.
In Polish:
Hili: Rozmawiają o zakupach.
Cyrus: No to co?
Hili: Jak to co? Trzeba uważać, czy pamiętają o naszych potrzebach.

Out in Winnipeg, where Jimmy Carter collapsed from dehydration yesterday while building a house for Habitat for Humanity (he’s 92–can you imagine?—but he’s ok now), Gus is taking a break. His staff reports:

Gus’s favourite scratching post. Can you tell how well used it is?

And reader Cameron sent a photo of his cat:

I thought you might enjoy this. I think this is a young fox squirrel in our backyard. It was awfully brave and curious about Peanut. Peanut did eventually chase it back up the tree.