Living up to humanism
I’m speaking to Edmonds UU just north of Seattle tomorrow morning. They asked that I talk about humanism, with special attention to the discomfort many humanists feel with ritual and other trappings often associated with theism. I’ll post the talk later.
91 percent of Unitarian Universalists claim humanism as one of their self-identifiers. There are essentially three types:
The last group redefines the word “religion” to mean “devotion to certain values and principles and coming together in the service of those values and principles.”
I understand the strategy there. If humans in general are too skittish to call themselves nonreligious, let’s broaden the definition of “religious” to include a less toxic, more positive expression. Gives folks a place to go.
But that also creates headaches for those of us who are trying to address the toxic form. It’s like being a cancer researcher, only to have someone redefine “cancer” to mean “courage.” At which point the redefiners turn around and point an angry finger at those working for a cure, saying, “How can you be opposed to courage?”
But again, I get it. I’m even coming to see the value in creating that space to be “religious” and nontheistic.
At one point in the talk, I say
When I first discovered the label for what I had essentially always been — secular humanist — I considered the first word to be the most important. I had renounced not just theism but all of the institutional accretions that have built up around theism these many centuries, doing untold harm to the very world and people I care so much about. But as I’ve grown in my secular humanism, I’ve begun to value the second word more strongly than the first.
It’s true. For a long time I was proudest of my secularity, my atheism. I figured out this really hard thing that most people get wrong. And it’s the biggest thing there is! Woohoo! [Ape beats chest, peels banana.]
It’s still important to me, but I think we spend too much time congratulating ourselves about it. Yes yes, little boy, you figured out the tricky thing. Good show. But NOW what?
Humanism, of course. That’s what.
Being an atheist in a theistic society is challenging, but atheism itself is easy. It’s a simple renunciation, a toggle switch. Humanism — taking care of each other and the world in the absence of divine help — takes effort.
Humanism is something I can be held to and hold others to, something I can succeed or fail at, get better at by degrees. Some days I’m a better humanist than other days, but I’m always the same kind of atheist. Though I’m still every bit an atheist, my atheism doesn’t separate me from Joseph Stalin. But it’s pretty hard to argue that Stalin was a humanist.
This isn’t meant to be another tired discursion on labels. As I said, I claim them both, as do most nontheists. But preparing this talk for tomorrow has reimmersed me in what humanism means and how important and energizing it can be.
On the About page at the elegantly-named Humanity by Starlight, blogger and high-schooler Perpetual Dissent put it this way:
I’m an atheist and I try to live up to being a humanist.
Search ye in vain for a better nutshell.
Not that it’s a competition, but…
|
…we have a winner.
In the past seven years or so, I’ve seen quite a few humanistic organizations from the inside — freethought groups, Ethical Societies, Congregations for Humanistic Judaism, UUs, etc. Met a lot of wonderful people working hard to make their groups succeed. All of the groups have different strengths, and all are struggling with One Big Problem: creating a genuine sense of community.
I’ve written before about community and the difficulty freethought groups generally have creating it. Some get closer than others, but it always seems to fall a bit short of the sense of community that churches so often create. And I don’t think it has a thing to do with God.
The question I hear more and more from freethought groups is, “How can we bring people in the door and keep them coming back?” The answer is to make our groups more humanistic — something churches, ironically, often do better than we do.
Now I’ve met an organization founded on freethought principles that seems to get humanistic community precisely right. It’s the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (above), host of my seminar and talk last weekend, and the single most effective humanistic community I have ever seen.
So what do they have going for them? My top ten list:
10. A great space. Not every group can meet in a neo-Jacobean mansion with lions guarding the stairs, dark woodwork, high ceilings and art-glass windows—but too many groups meet in sterile, fluorescent-lit common rooms full of metal folding chairs and free of even a scrap of inspiration or warmth. Budgets are tight, but every group should do whatever it can to warm up the spaces in which they meet—curtains, wood, carpet, tablecloths, art, etc.
9. Music. When I walked into the Brooklyn Society, a member was playing showtunes on an old upright piano as people stood around chatting and laughing. Twenty minutes before the gathering began, they switched on a CD of jazz standards. Think of what music does for a dinner party, filling in gaps in conversation and casting a glow around the room. EVERY GROUP should have music playing 20 minutes before the meeting begins.
8. Food. Everybody loves to eat. All meetings should start with yummy food. Not a box of pink frosted cookies. Food, glorious food.
7. A call to action. Have a prominent display calling members to collective social action—a donation box, a chart tracking funds raised, a signup sheet for the next Habitat for Humanity day. Keep social action as prominent as any intellectual content. And make sure to include human-centered social action, like soup kitchens, food pantries, battered women’s shelters, etc. — not just trash pickup and book sales.
6. Ritual. (Uh oh, I lost half the audience.) Ritual doesn’t have to mean fuzzy-wuzzy woowoo. In the case of the BSEC, leader Greg Tewksbury started the gathering by yanking on a tubular wind chime that hung at the side of the lectern. He tugged it again at each dividing point in the gathering. Gives a nice sense of rhythm and structure.
5. Emotion. Freethought groups naturally like their intellectual content, but it frequently happens to the complete exclusion of emotional and inspirational elements. BSEC managed to include a constant feeling of emotional warmth without the slightest theistic feel. Since my talk was on parenting, Greg opened by asking those present to turn to the person next to them and share a time they nurtured someone or were nurtured by someone. Five minutes of discussion followed, centered not on debunking this or that but on human emotion.
4. Symbolism. Like the UU chalice, the two candles on the lectern were a clear reference to light, warmth, knowledge, and life. Adds a very nice touch.
3. Diversity. Most groups I’ve visited are 80 percent white male. They don’t want to be, but they don’t know what to do about it. It helps to live in a place like Brooklyn, which made for the most diverse crowd I’ve addressed in years. If you are elsewhere, do some outreach and networking to invite folks from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds to a meeting.
2. Multiple generations. I know, chicken and egg. But I cannot begin to tell you what a fabulous sense of community the Brooklyn Society gets from 20 kids running in and out among the legs of the adult members in the half-hour beforehand. And with kids come parents—people in their 20s-40s, another demographic missing from many freethought groups. Attract families by building community. Build community by doing what’s on this list.
Especially the next one.
1. A warm welcome. This is #1 on the list for a reason. It’s no surprise that we rational freethinking types aren’t generally good at sticking our hands out to welcome strangers into a room. I’m terrible at it. But there is no less welcoming feeling than entering a new space full of strangers without anyone saying word one to you.
This happens to me alllll the time as I travel around. I show up, walk in, and am promptly ignored. Ten minutes of awkward pamphlet reading later, someone finally walks up and asks if I’m new to the group.
Not at the Brooklyn Society. No fewer than five warm and pleasant people welcomed me in the first five minutes and chatted me up BEFORE they even knew I was the speaker.
The difference this makes is enormous. Every freethought group should find the person most comfortable with greeting fellow mammals and assign him/her to watch the door and enthusiastically usher newcomers in, show them around, introduce them to others.
And it needs to go well beyond one greeter. EVERY MEMBER of EVERY GROUP should make it a point to chat up new folks—and each other, for that matter. And not just about the latest debunky book. Ask where he’s from, what she does for a living, whether he follows the Mets or the Yankees. You know, mammal talk. (Now now…I joke because I love!)
Can’t manage everything on the list? No problem. Start with #1, then add what you can when and how you can. Before you know it, you’ll have a thriving, warm, humanistic community where people visit and then return, bringing their spouses and children and friends and neighbors. If I lived in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture would get my sorry butt out of bed every single Sunday.
And that’s saying something.
Bringing in the sheaths
On March 17, while on the way to Africa, Joseph Ratzinger (a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI) said that HIV/AIDS was “a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem.”
The first two clauses are sensible. The third was a dumb and ignorant thing to say. It contradicts very solid empirical evidence to the contrary. Worse yet, it is dangerously ignorant—and certain to cost lives, precisely because Mr. Ratzinger’s word—especially when spoken under his pseudonym—is held to be unquestionable. (Which is why I refer to him by his human name.)
The problem is not that he said it. I’m a fierce advocate of the inalienable human right to say dumb and ignorant things. I like to claim that right myself once in a while, thank you very much. The best way to find out whether an idea of mine is dumb and ignorant is to let it get past my lips. My fellow humans aren’t shy about setting me straight. And that’s good.
The problem with Mr. Ratzinger’s statement is that no matter how self-evidently dumb, millions will not only refuse to set him straight, but try their best to prevent others from doing so.
This wasn’t the first time a member of the highest Catholic ranks has made a disastrously ignorant remark about condoms in Africa. In 2007, the Archbishop of Mozambique claimed that many condoms were intentionally infected with the AIDS virus by European manufacturers.
Forward two years and up one rank—now it’s the Pope.
For the most part, the reactions were predictable—outrage from non-Catholics and a closing of ranks among Catholics — including the claim that you simply may not criticize the Pope.
In response to an editorial cartoon in the Times of London related to Mr. Ratzinger’s comments, Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Murphy O’Connor sounded the predictable note of outrage: “No newspaper should show such disrespect to a person who is held in high esteem by a large proportion of Christians in the world. To pillory the Pope in this way is totally unacceptable.”
So because he is held in high esteem by large numbers, his statements must be respected by the rest of us. I think not—in fact, I seem to recall a whole fallacy devoted to that idea.
The same hollow claim of immunity is captured in this editorial headline in a major Tanzanian daily: Politicians have no moral authority to question Pope’s stand on condoms. (Cue derisive laughter.)
Papal spokesman Federico Lombardi noted that Mr. Ratzinger was merely continuing the line taken by his predecessors, as if this is relevant. In 1990, Karol Józef Wojtyła (aka Pope John Paul II) unhelpfully opined that using condoms is a sin in any circumstance.
Before we even assess the sense or the consequences of that, enjoy a good snort at the idea that a statement is more legitimate only because someone else—anyone else—said it. (Secularists do this, too. I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard some form of “Yuh huh, Richard Dawkins says so” offered in full defense of a position.)
The most encouraging part of this whole fece-fling is the voice of Catholic dissent. There are good folks living inside the belly of the beast who have the cojones to ignore repeated orders to switch off their frontal lobes until the Captain says it’s OK to use them again—those with the willingness to think about and openly criticize the statements of a religious leader on merit, regardless of the shape of his hat.
Jon O’Brien of Catholics for Choice said, “It took the church hierarchy 359 years to stop continuing the line taken by their predecessors on Galileo. We hope that this error does not take so long to change.”
The health ministry of Spain (81% Catholic) said, “Condoms have been demonstrated to be a necessary element in prevention policies and an efficient barrier against the virus.” The statement was issued in the course of announcing a shipment of 1 million condoms to Africa—on the same day as the Pope’s remarks.
Now that’s cojones from the country that invented the very word.
But the Academy Award for Outstanding Scrotal Fortitude has to go to Robert McElvaine, professor of Arts & Letters at Millsap College and self-identified Catholic, who wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog titled “Impeach the Pope” :
Benedict XVI opens a visit to Africa by telling the people of a continent decimated by AIDS that the distribution of condoms “increases the problem” of the spread of AIDS. I am a Catholic and the idea that such a man is God’s spokesperson on earth is absurd to me.
There are, of course, no provisions in the hierarchical institution set up, not by Jesus but by men who hijacked his name and in many cases perverted his teachings, for impeaching a pope and removing him from office. But there ought to be.
It didn’t take long for the holy knives of umbrage to come out for McElvaine. Edward Peters, author of Excommunication and the Catholic Church: Straight Answers to Tough Questions, said that “A canonical penal process should be undertaken against Robert McElvaine” for criticizing the Pope’s statement. And he’s not talking out of his hat—he points to the elements of canon law that support this position.
If there’s a clearer indictment of religion at its most ignorant and counterproductive than that sentence and the article in which it appears, I haven’t seen it.
Many Catholics can and do think for themselves. Many, many more, though, will take Mr. Ratzinger’s opinion as gospel. Think of all the good the Vatican could do with its influence—and of the murderous damage it so often chooses to do instead.
_______________________________
(For a glimpse of what a Catholic hornet’s nest looks like when whacked with a dissenting thought, read the comments on the McElvaine piece.)
Isn’t this enough?
An homage to the unconditional love of reality. One of the wittiest and best-done bits I’ve seen in ages and ages. (Caution: Rated R for language. Deep breath, you’ll be okay.)
Petition: Thank Politicians Who Say “No” to Creationists
I am occasionally asked by religious friends why I make such a fuss over evolution. Some have suggested that secular types beat the drum for evolution only because it sticks such a sharp object in the eye of theism. One went so far as to suggest that “If you guys would just let that one go,” we’d have a lot better luck building bridges with the religious.
The question is a good one. Fortunately the answer is even better. And it’s nothing so trivial as making Churchy Eyeball Kebobs, nor nothing so grand and simple as “I champion evolution just because it’s true.” It’s also true that George Washington had no middle name, but I’m unlikely to devote much of my life force opposing someone who insists that yes he did, and it was Steve, and that only Martha called him George, and only when she was drunk. Even if this hypothetical Stevist insisted on teaching the middle name in American History classes, I might think it daft, but I’ve other fish to fry.
Evolution is a fish I choose to fry. It’s an idea that I want my children and as many others as possible to know and care about.
A list of reasons to champion evolution education, each building on the last:
First, it is an everything-changer. If knowing about evolution by natural selection hasn’t changed almost everything about the way you see almost everything, dig in deeper with the help of the great explicators and know that I envy you the journey.
Second, it inspires immense, transcendent awe and wonder to grasp that you are a cousin not just to apes, but to sponges and sequoias and butterflies and blue whales.
Third, it annihilates the artificial boundaries between us and the rest of life on Earth.
Fourth, it puts racial difference in proper perspective as utter trivia.
Fifth, when taken as directed, it constitutes one of the four grandest-ever swats of humility to the pompous human tookus.*
Sixth, it contributes enormously to our understanding of how and why things work the way they do.
Seventh, that understanding has led in turn to incredible advances in medical science, agriculture, environmental stewardship, and more.
The list goes on.
I’ll turn it over to Clay Burell, education editor at Change.org, for the call to action. Hit it, Clay.
Petition: Thank Politicians Who Say “No” to Creationists
by Clay Burell
First appeared 18 February at Change.org
WE COUNT OUR INJURIES far more closely than our blessings, the old saying goes. That might be especially true in our dealings with politicians. They surely hear far more complaints than thank yous. Let’s change that for once.
Let’s say thanks to these two in Texas:
It takes courage for a politician in Texas to speak out against religious fundamentalism. Texas state Senator Rodney Ellis and Representative Patrick Rose deserve the thanks of all Americans – or those who value real science, anyway – for showing that courage.
Whether you’re a Texan or not, if you want creationism out of high school science textbooks – and evolution in them – please take a moment to thank Sen. Ellis and Rep. Rose for fighting the Discovery Institute/creationist-dominated Texas State Board of Education (SBOE).
As I reported last week, Rose and Ellis proposed legislation “to place the board under periodic review by the Sunset Advisory Commission and hold them accountable for their performance, just as we do the Texas Education Agency and other state agencies.”
Why? In their own words:
The decisions of the SBOE not only impact millions of young lives on a daily basis, but impact the economic progress of our state as well.
For these reasons and many others, the public has a right to full disclosure and oversight.
The board has escaped such scrutiny for far too long. The disregard for educators, instructional experts and scientists can’t continue. It’s time to take a closer look at the operations and policies of the State Board of Education.
Our state, and especially our kids, deserve better.
Again, please take a moment to send them your thanks in this petition. It will also be cc’d to your own state and federal representatives, asking they show the same courage in your state.
_______________
CLAY BURELL is an American high school Humanities teacher, technology coach, and Apple Distinguished Educator who has taught for the last eight years in Asian international schools. According to law, he’s married to his wife. According to his wife, he’s married to his Mac.
When you’re done signing the petition, it’s time to support our troops at the National Center for Science Education. These are the heroic and seemingly tireless folks who do the heavy lifting for the rest of us.
*Copernicus, Lyell, Darwin, Hubble.
Jesus on the jury
I’m sitting in the jury pool in downtown Atlanta, trying not to splash too much. Eavesdropping on conversations around me, mostly devoted to what we have to say to be disqualified.
(Commies.)
Favorite overheard conversation:
GUY 1: I was here two years ago. Got on an assault case. Got all the way to the questioning part. The “voy dear,” something like that, where the lawyers figure out who they want on the jury.
GUY 2: Huh. Wha’d they ask?
GUY 1: They asked if there’s any reason you couldn’t hear the evidence and pass judgment on somebody if they broke the law.
GUY 2: Huh.
GUY 1: This one lady said, “I follow Jesus, who said, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.'”
GUY 2: Really.
GUY 1: Yeah.
Pause.
GUY 2: They booted her?
GUY 1: Hell yeah. Gone.
The question of peremptory challenges based on a prospective juror’s religious views is a lively topic in the legal community.
The Supreme Court outlawed peremptory challenges based on race in 1986 and on gender in 1994. Some argue that the same protection should be extended to religion.
In the wonderfully-named case United States v. DeJesus, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals created an interesting distinction: “Assuming that the exercise of a peremptory strike on the basis of religious affiliation is unconstitutional, the exercise of a strike based on religious beliefs is not.”
So you can’t be dismissed for belonging to (say) a Baptist church, but you can be dismissed for holding Baptist beliefs.
Anthony Foti, author of Could Jesus Serve on a Jury?, explains — and objects:
Attorneys fear deeply religious people. Defense lawyers worry that deep religious beliefs signal a conservative, law-and-order orientation, while prosecutors are concerned that intensely religious jurors will be overly compassionate and hesitant to sit in judgment of others.
So defense attorneys worry about the Old Testament, while prosecutors worry about the New.
“Heightened religiosity” has become a proxy to allow lawyers to exclude jurors based on their religious affiliation. For example, few lawyers would challenge a non-practicing Catholic or Protestant on a jury, but issues will often arise with Orthodox Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims. By definition, these groups exhibit “heightened religious involvement,” and now, according to DeJesus, a lawyer may exercise a peremptory challenge against nearly any member of these groups on the basis of heightened religious belief.
This effectively destroys any protection for religious affiliation because the groups most in need of protection are the same groups that can be excluded [on the basis of] “heightened religious involvement.”
I’m sure my atheism would also be considered a “heightened” thing. It’s a Goldilocks situation, then: In God We Trust, but only if you’re not too serious about it.
As for Jesus — who Foti calls “a definitive example of ‘heightened religiosity'” — he would almost certainly be headed home in time for Oprah. In that way, I’m hoping to be Christlike today.
(Commie.)
Our show of shows
Six months ago, our family got cable TV for the first time. In addition to learning that it actually wasn’t always snowing on every channel, my kids quickly discovered a favorite show.
The show is Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel. Just in case you aren’t familiar, in each episode, two former special effects guys named Jamie and Adam set out to test several of “those” stories. You know the ones: Can a person who is buried alive punch out and dig up to the surface? Can a glass be shattered by singing? Is it easy to shoot fish in a barrel? Does a bull charge at the color red? If you sneeze with your eyes open, will they pop out? Is it possible to survive an elevator freefall by jumping up at the last second? Are the moon landing conspiracy theories legit?
The answers to these, by the way, are no, yes (the shattered glass), no, no, no, no, and no. But even more interesting to me than the answers themselves is the unstated assumption of the show: that knowing the truth is always better than believing even a really cool but untrue thing.
It helps that they test these things in the most entertaining way possible, and that they seem to find a way to blow something up in every show. But that basic assumption that knowing the truth is always better—that, I think, is the most powerful thing in the show.
Also interesting is the fact that the vast majority of the myths are busted, debunked. And the show’s popularity is still huge. Part of that, of course, is the fact that once in awhile, they confirm rather than bust a claim. And because they’ve willingly busted so many others, those confirmations are cool and meaningful.
So the whole show can be seen as the systematic attempt to get the right answer–which, by the way, is my favorite definition of critical thinking.
These are the same premises that energize science. It’s hard to think of a better motto for the scientific enterprise than “Knowing the truth is always better than believing a fiction.” It gets at what I see as the essential difference between traditional religion and science. The religious point of view is often premised on what I have called the conditional love of reality. Science is premised on the unconditional love of reality.
I’m thrilled if there is a god, for example, and I’m thrilled if there isn’t. Same with charging bulls and shattering glasses and popping eyeballs. The truth is automatically more attractive to me than either possibility by itself. And I’m thrilled that there’s a show, and a popular one to boot, that embraces the same love of reality.
So when an argument among my 7, 11, and 13-year-olds about what to watch is settled (as it almost always is) by Mythbusters, I pull up a chair myself and chalk up another point for the real world.
Blue me away
Just an embedded video today — three years old and no doubt known to everyone else already, but new to me yesterday. I’m a sucker for this kind of combination of wit, originality, and message:
Share with the kids. Mine loved it.
Mama don’t take my heike crabs awaaaay
Ohhh, the pain. The pain. One of my cherished beliefs is under attack, and I’m doing what we monkeys do when that’s the case. Resisting. Bargaining. Denying.
There are two illustrations of selection — one natural, the other artificial — that I’ve always adored for their explanatory power and elegance.
One is the peppered moth. Peppered moths are light grey with dots of black and brown all over–perfect camouflage for the local light-colored tree bark in 18th century England. A few were completely black, but only a few, because they were easy for birds to spot and eat.
In the 19th century, factory smoke blackened the tree bark in the moths’ range. The black moths were now perfectly camouflaged and quickly became the favored phenotype, while the light grey became visibly delicious. The proportions switched — almost all of the moths in the forest were now black and only a few light grey.
Experiments were conducted to confirm the hypothesis in the mid 20th century. Errors subsequently discovered in those experiments led creationists to trumpet the supposed dethroning of the peppered moth as an illustration of natural selection. But subsequent, better-designed experiments have re-confirmed the original hypothesis to the satisfaction of the relevant experts.
In the book Moths (2002), Cambridge biologist Michael Majerus sums up the consensus in the field: “I believe that, without exception, it is our view that the case of melanism in the Peppered moth still stands as one of the best examples of evolution, by natural selection, in action.”
Sure enough, several other experts in both moths and industrial melanism have also written to reaffirm the peppered moth story as a robust exemplar of natural selection writ small.
Whew.
But there’s another selection story I adore — and that turn of phrase tells you all you need to know about my vulnerability on this one. It’s the story of the heikegani, a crab found in the waters of the Inland Sea in Japan near Dan-no-ura.
The sea was the site of a major battle in 1185 between Heike and Genji warriors. The Heike were trounced, and the survivors are said to have thrown themselves into the sea in disgrace.
In telling the story of the struggle, an epic called the Heike Monogatari refers to a species of crab in the Inland Sea as reincarnations of the Heike warriors defeated at the Battle of Dan-no-ura. And no wonder — the shell of the crab includes markings that evoke a scowling samurai warrior. And I don’t mean “evoke” like Ursa Major evokes a bear (psst, it doesn’t). I mean the crab looks like a scowling samurai warrior.
In the original Cosmos series, Carl Sagan offered the heike face as an example of artificial selection.1 Fisherman in the area have known the legend for eight centuries. During that time, if the nets pulled up a crab with markings resembling a human face, even mildly so, the fisherman — understandably loathe to disturb the spirit of the samurai — would throw it back. Crabs with less facelike markings would end up dipped in butter. The more facelike, the more likely it would be tossed back in with a girlish scream, free once more to fornicate with others of its uncanny ilk.
Eight hundred years of this and you’ll find yourself looking at some pretty scream-worthy samurai crabs.
What’s most awe-striking about this is the fact that unlike other examples of artificial selection — dog breeding for example — the selective pressure exerted by the fisherfolk is wholly unintentional, but still works. It combines random variation and decidedly nonrandom selection in a way that mimics natural selection incredibly well.
I happen at the moment to be putting the finishing touches on a new seminar (this one based on Raising Freethinkers) to be offered for the first time at UUC Atlanta on January 11. While polishing a section on helping kids understand evolution, I remembered that I didn’t just have moths to work with, I also had crabs. Ahem.
But in Googling for images, I came across the last thing I ever wanted to see: a sturdy, possibly even convincing attempt by a reputable scientist to debunk the hypothesis, claiming that the crabs are seldom kept and eaten regardless of markings, and that nearly identical markings are found on fossil crabs. And some other stuff.
Now the only worthy response to this news is Oooo, truth beckons, let’s follow this lively gent wherever and to whatever abysses he shall lead, lest we miss the chance to glimpse our precious reality more clearly!
Instead, I recoiled. Nooooooo, I thought. Bad man. Stranger danger.
I may have mentioned that I love the story, love the elegance of the hypothesis. I want it to be true. It is too beautiful to not be true.
I KNOW, I KNOW. Don’t lecture me, people. This is confessional literature here. These are the moments that make me empathize with religious folks who are disinclined to lift the veil on their own favorite bedtime stories. Once in a while, I feel their pain.
____________
1Though Sagan got it from a 1952 article by biologist Julian Huxley.
____________
Postscript: When Erin asked for “something new” as a bedtime story last night, I told her the tale of the heikegani, from battle to Cosmos. But when I reached the hypothesis, I did the right thing: “Some scientists think it looks like a face because…” The caveat made it no less cool to her.
Pants-on-fire parenting
Give me the fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.
Economist VILFREDO PARETO, referring to the errors of Kepler
_______________________________
In 1847, around the time Pareto was conceived, an obstetrician by the name of Ignaz Semmelweis noticed that pregnant women in his hospital were much more likely to die if their babies were delivered by doctors than by midwives. He then noticed that doctors whose patients died had usually come straight from autopsies. Semmelweis asked the doctors to humor him by washing their hands before delivering a baby. Maternal mortality in the hospital dropped below two percent.
It took another generation for the medical establishment to accept germ theory as fact — but once they did, the average human lifespan in Europe nearly doubled overnight.
Fast forward to the early 21st century, where we’ve overlearned the message. Thanks to air filters, airtight homes, and antibacterial everything, our environments have been so thoroughly scrubbed that our systems are losing the ability to deal with the germs and irritants that abound in the world outside our doors.
Among other things, the result has been a spike in serious childhood allergies and infections. According to an NPR story on studies supporting this conclusion, “An emphasis on hygiene means we are no longer exposing children to enough bacteria to help trigger their natural immune systems.”
With the best of intentions, we so thoroughly protect our children from an admittedly bad thing that we do them a disservice.
See where I’m headed?
I think the same idea applies in many areas of parenting — among them the careful scrubbing of all exposure to “nonsense” from our children’s lives. I’ve heard the assertion that “we must never lie to our children” from many nonreligious parents, always intoned in the kind of hushed voice usually reserved for sacred pronouncements.
Actually, I think it’s terribly important to lie to our children.
(N.B. That tongue-in-cheek sentence appeared in the initial draft of Raising Freethinkers until my editor protested that what I advocate isn’t really lying. Spoilsport. So I changed it to this:) Though I don’t advocate outright lying, the playful fib can work wonders for the development of critical thinking.
Many nonreligious parents, in the admirable name of high integrity, set themselves up as infallible authorities. And since (like it or not) we are the first and most potent authority figures in our kids’ lives, turning ourselves into benevolent oracles of truth can teach our kids to passively receive the pronouncements of authority. I would rather, in a low-key and fun fashion, encourage them to constantly take whatever I say and run it through the baloney meter. To that end, I sprinkle our conversations with fruitful errors, bursting with their own corrections.
When my youngest asked, “How far away is the Sun?”, I said, “Twenty feet,” precisely so she would look at me and say, “Dad, you dork!!” When my kids ask what’s for dinner, I say “Monkey lungs, go wash up.” When the fifth grader doing her homework asks what seven times seven is, I say 47, because she should (a) know that on her own by now, and, equally important (b) know the wrong answer when she hears it.
Yes, I make sure they end up with the right answer when it matters, and no, I don’t do this all the time. They’d kill me. But pulling our kids’ legs once in a while is more than just fun and games. For one thing, if every word from my mouth was a reliable pearl of factuality, they would get the unhelpful message that Authority Always Tells the Truth.
Now don’t instantly whip over to the cartoon extreme of Dad lying about whether a car is coming as we cross the street ( “All clear!! Heh heh heh.”) I’m talking about fibs of the harmless-but-useful variety — and yes, I firmly include Santa in that.
Knowing that Dad sometimes talks nonsense can prepare them to expect and challenge the occasional bit of nonsense, intentional or otherwise, from peers, ministers, and presidents. The result in our household is this: When I answer a question, my kids don’t swallow it without a thought. They take a moment to think about whether the answer makes sense. By seeing to it that their childhood includes nonsense, I’m building their immune systems for a lifetime swimming in the stuff.
An interesting and related post on lying by philosopher (and PBB contributor) Stephen Law
