Wednesday, April 25, 2012

The problem with external critics

I want to draw a distinction between internal and external critics.  An internal critic is someone who's had experience inside the movement, and thus criticizes it with an internal understanding.  An external critic is someone who is not part of the movement they criticize.

I believe these thoughts are widely applicable to all sorts of movements, but I have a concrete example guiding my thoughts.  Alain de Botton has a TED talk criticizing atheists, basically saying that secular society can learn a lot from religious practices (if not religious doctrine).

(TED talk below may not show up in rss feed)
 
I've been sympathetic to the general idea that atheists should feel free to do some things normally associated with religion, but I think de Botton's more specific ideas are quite ridiculous.  He thinks art should be didactic, and we should do more rote learning?  (For more on de Botton, I recommend this review of his book, Religion for Atheists.)

The talk also solidifies Alain de Botton's position as an external critic.  He may be an atheist, but any veteran can plainly see that he has not had experience in the atheist movement.  The first sign is right there in the talk's title.  In the past, "new atheism" has also been dubbed atheism 2.0, and de Botton's views are more aligned with atheism 3.0.  Calling for atheism 2.0 is a bit like calling for a "second wave" of feminism--it just shows ignorance of the existing discourse.

That may be a rather weak point (since I'm sure many atheist activists are also unaware of the term "atheism 3.0"), but it's corroborated by numerous other intangible markers throughout the talk.  And of course, you can just go look up de Botton's background to be sure.

It is okay to be an external critic!  We are all external critics at one point or another.  Atheists are external critics of religion.

In fact, external critics are a great thing to have.  Movements are made of many people who argue with each other, but there's nothing quite like an external perspective.  The external critic has no interest in the movement being "right", and therefore avoids confirmation bias in favor of the movement.

But that does not mean that external critics are free of their own biases.  In fact, there are some things external critics can just get wrong, rendering themselves unproductive.  I hope to pinpoint a couple of those problems.

The "Here's What You Say" gambit

It is pretty hard to criticize atheists without saying, "Atheists say that..." or "Atheists believe..."  But every time you say such a thing, you are making a rhetorical gambit.  Every atheist who reads that sentence will compare what they say with what you say they say.  And if you got it wrong, you just lost the argument and your credibility.

There's also a less risky form of the gambit, "Some atheists say..." or "Most atheists say..."  You can lose this gambit as well, if, in the readers' impression, no significant segment of atheists says as you say they do.  People within a movement are likely to have more accurate impressions of what people in their own movement say, believe, and do.

External critics, on the other hand, have all sorts of distorted impressions.  I've experienced this first-hand multiple times, when people started talking about those atheists, not knowing that I'm a card-carrying atheist myself (figuratively speaking).  Usually their comments are traceable to some atheist they knew in high school who just argued about it all the time.  I observe that, despite being a hardcore atheist, I've somehow managed to bring up atheism in front of them fewer times than they've brought it up in front of me?  Also, I think talking about atheism all the time is no different from someone who is interested in politics and talks about politics all the time; it doesn't have to mean anything.

Now, atheists can also have inaccurate impressions of their own movement, and it is possible to trump their impressions with harder evidence.  You can cite people who in fact say what you said they say.  And hopefully you're not just citing cranks, or fringes that have been internally criticized.

Concern Trolling

My (possibly idiosyncratic) definition of concern trolling is as follows:  A concern troll is someone who advises a group on how to achieve their goals, but whose advice is compromised by their own differing goals.  I do not think that a concern troll needs to be aware of what they are doing.  They could simply fail to appreciate the difference in goals.  I also do not think that a concern troll need be incorrect in their advice.  All that matters is that the concern troll fails to establish the trustworthiness of their advice.

The classic example of a concern troll is an external critic who thinks a movement is just so loud.  Surely, if they quieted down, more people would listen to them!  (Concern trolls don't listen to their own advice.)

Also see: External critics who say we should stop talking about race, because bringing attention to the issue only causes racism.  External critics who think feminists should hand out more cookies for seeing women as people.  External critics who think who think asexuals need to stop acting like it's an issue because it's not.

Concern trolling is a perpetual problem for external critics.  I think it is best to avoid criticizing the means that other groups use to achieve their goals.  It is better to criticize the goals themselves as wrong, or to criticize specific claims as wrong.  And if you really want to criticize tactics, don't pretend that you're doing it to lend a helping hand.  You really aren't.

I challenge readers to apply these concepts to atheists who criticize religion as well.

2 comments:

miller said...

"Atheists are external critics of religion."

Are you claiming that people who were part of a religious movement and subsequently realized they could no longer hold the belief that supernatural beings actually exist never "had experience inside the [religious] movement?"

"You can lose this gambit as well, if, in the readers' impression . . ."

Are you claiming the reader's impression has anything to do with the truth of the claim? I'll take the answer to this question as no considering the following: "You can cite people who in fact say what you said they say." A little confusing that you refute your prior claim, but it is what it is.



At any rate, criticism isn't judged by where it originates. This entire argument is based on a genetic fallacy. The external critic's arguments stand or fall on its own merits, just like every other argument.


Last, and certainly not least, is the appalling assumption that religion should be left uncriticized atop the golden pedestal upon which it was placed. The atrocities caused directly and solely by religion should be the very first thing any decent human criticizes from the moment he/she is cognitively able to do so.


Nothing should be left uncriticized. Uncritical thinking is the root of all that is evil. To deny criticism by "outsiders" is petty and could even be argued to be immoral when applied to religion. It demonstrates an insecurity in a person's own movement to suggest it.

miller said...

Super_openid, those are good questions.



Are you claiming that people who were part of a religious movement and subsequently realized they could no longer hold the belief that supernatural beings actually exist never "had experience inside the [religious] movement?"

Atheists are external critics of religion because they do not really have the interests of religion at heart. If I gave religious people "advice" on how to be religious, I would be concern trolling because of course I'm not actually interested in religious people fulfilling their own goals. However, I grant your point that some atheists have had experience in the religious movement and thus may have accurate impressions of religion.

Are you claiming the reader's impression has anything to do with the truth of the claim?

As a practical matter, the reader's impression totally matters. We do not build our arguments from the ground up, we build them upon shared assumptions. Depending on who you're arguing with, you may share a different set of assumptions. If you tell someone "Here's what atheists say" and they disagree with your impression, then you are basing your argument on what you thought was a shared assumption, but which was not actually shared. When this happens, you must use evidence to argue that your impression is more correct than your opponent's.

At any rate, criticism isn't judged by where it originates. This entire argument is based on a genetic fallacy. The external critic's arguments stand or fall on its own merits, just like every other argument.



I think you have more confidence than I do in the arguments that people commonly use. My personal impression is that the vast majority of arguments fail badly if they are judged purely on their "merits", without any degree of trust accorded to the arguer.


In particular, take the arguments discussed in this post. Most people who use the "Here's what you say" gambit do not support their assertions with citations. Most people who offer advice do not demonstrate that their advice is any good. We trust internal critics to have more accurate impressions and to have better advice. External critics do not have this trust, and thus should be judged more on the "merits" of their argument.


In the case you seem to care about most, atheists are certainly entitled to criticize religion, even as external critics. However, they should use decent arguments, rather than relying on assumptions that religious people do not share.