From the moment I heard the title of Chris Stedman’s new book about a year ago – Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious – I’ve been cautiously intrigued.

Because for the six years I’ve identified as an atheist, I’ve been doing just that – working with evangelical Christians to advance LGBTQ inclusion, and working for atheist acceptance in more liberal religious circles. I think many aspects of religion are worth adapting for secular purposes, and that religious people (if not necessarily their beliefs) deserve kindness and respect as fellow human beings. These are controversial opinions in parts of the atheist community, and I was looking forward to a book making a case for them.

But the term “faitheist” made me cringe. And worry that Chris was somehow taking a good thing too far. To draw a political analogy, I think there are times for bipartisanship, but I would recoil from a book titled Republocrat, however well-intentioned.

And Faitheist exceeds both of these mixed expectations. It’s even better than I anticipated – and worse than I imagined.

The book

In it, Chris tells a compelling, moving story about finding religion as a child and losing it as a young adult, interwoven with his coming of age as a queer male. The recurring themes are his longing for community, his passion for social justice, and his call to the secular community to engage the religious with respect rather than scorn. I came away from the book (and the launch event) with the sense that he’s a person of courage and tremendous compassion.

Here are its most persuasive messages: (i) we should collaborate with religious people to achieve shared goals, and (ii) we should be more respectful of the religious to accelerate our acceptance into the mainstream and grow our numbers. And beyond that, it so drips with peace, love, and understanding that you can’t help coming away with an enhanced feeling of engagement and respectfulness purely on their own terms.

This is a hard sell for atheist audiences. But with the right caveats and qualifications (see below), I think these are incredibly important points, and that this is an important book for raising them.

And I wish I could stop there. As a memoir, I love this book. But it’s not really a memoir, despite being marketed as one – it’s narrative nonfiction, meaning, a book whose story serves to advance an argument. And when Chris strays from his story (chs. 2-6) to make more universal claims (chs. 1, 7, and 8), sometimes he gets himself into trouble.

What kind of trouble?

The most obvious problem is that even as Chris extolls the virtues of religious pluralism, he delivers an anti-pluralist message to his fellow atheists. Not content to merely do his own work, inviting like-minded people to join him, he expects the entire herd of cats to conform to his particular temperament and interests. Rather than increasing the breadth of the movement with his unique voice, he wishes to narrow it.

Second, even as he preaches respect, he casts aspersions on the so-called New Atheism, calling it “toxic, misdirected, and wasteful” (14). This is a curious way to call for more civility. And it betrays what, on closer inspection, seems to be a rather shallow appreciation for some of the dangers of religion – dangers that arguably justify much of the sharper New Atheist rhetoric.

In short, the central irony of the book is that the person who hopes to inspire atheists towards greater respect of religious diversity is disrespectful of the diversity in his own community.

And when you flesh out this picture with several astoundingly tone-deaf statements, risibly bad arguments, and signs of incipient narcissism, the result is tragic – a book whose narrative and core messages are pure gold, delivered in a manner that virtually guarantees their widespread rejection.

It’s not entirely surprising, then, that Chris’s reception in much of the atheist community is perfectly captured by a certain classic scene from The Simpsons.

The mystery

In an episode from season 8, the residents of Springfield are huddled on the edge of a forest, waiting in the twilight for an alleged alien that Homer had previously sighted there. Suddenly – a pale, slender, luminous figure emerges from the trees, and says in a soft, mellifluous voice:

“I bring you….. LOVE!”

The response: “It’s bringing love, don’t let it get away!” “Break its legs!”

And shamefully, some attacks on Chris are almost this unhinged – and of the calmer ones, many lack a careful reading of his actual words, as has been argued by my friend James Croft. (Who, incidentally, I was looking forward to appearing in the buff with, before the Secular Woman calendar was cancelled.) I don’t agree with James on every point – he’s too hard on Larry Moran, for example, and in general I think he reads Chris a bit more charitably, and his critics a bit less, than he would if they weren’t friends. But on the whole, he is right that there’s a concerning pattern of anti-Stedman criticism untethered from Chris’s actual words. Which reflects poorly on a movement that claims to value evidence-based reasoning.

So, to set the record straight: yes, Chris really is an atheist. No, he doesn’t think atheists should completely shut up. And yes, he really does criticize religion.

Yet there is a persistent sense that Chris, if not quite an alien from outer space, is still not one of us. That there is not just a difference of opinion, but a deeper disjunct in values, or experiences of reality, which no one can quite put their finger on. It is telling that Chris does not merely disagree with his critics; he is shocked by them (5). And that we, his critics, do not merely disagree with some of his statements; we are flabbergasted by them.

Or at least, I was – until something dawned on me while reading the book last weekend. It’s a fundamental difference between Chris and the mainstream of the community that I don’t think anyone has fully grasped – perhaps not even Chris himself. And it illuminates the entire picture I’ve drawn so far.

But before we get into the philosophical weeds, I want to show you what is so important and valuable about Chris’s message – not by merely summarizing it, but by sharing experiences of my own that confirm it.

Let me tell you two stories.

Common ground

Like Chris, my college years were dominated by a long, tortuous process of losing my evangelical faith. I stopped believing in God sometime in 2006, my last year at Gordon, the Christian liberal arts college north of Boston. The day I graduated, I tied my college ID to a rock and threw it into the Annisquam River. And I wanted nothing to do with Christianity after that.

But as time passed, I was reminded of the plight of students at Gordon and other Christian colleges who feel oppressed in the same ways I did – for not being straight enough, Christian enough, or both.

And the following year, I and two friends who were still students did something that had never been done at Gordon – we published a booklet of anonymous stories from necessarily closeted LGBTQ students, effectively giving a megaphone to people who were all but voiceless on campus before. A few years later, I helped then-current students publish further issues, including one this past spring – this time with stories from closeted atheists, agnostics, and doubters.

And the impact on the campus has been profound. Many straight students reading the first issue were consumed with remorse, recognizing in a deeper way the humanity of their queer classmates, and the pain their homophobia was causing them. At the launch of the most recent issue, one student approached me in tears, unable to find any words beyond thank you. I don’t know what her exact situation is. But I think I know how she feels, as a free-thinking person trying to survive in a stiflingly religious environment. And I’m so, so grateful we were able to make a difference for her, and others like her.

None of which may have happened had I been allergic to any engagement with any religious institution, or unwilling to collaborate with religious people of good will. My cofounders, for example, are both Christians; I presume most of the student editors since then are as well.

Equally important, the publication’s editorial tone has been consistently respectful – not haranguing the administration for being homophobic (even though it arguably is) or vilifying the students for being intolerant of nonbelievers (even though many of them are). Why? Because that would accomplish very little, beyond gratifying our sense of moral indignation. Our goal has been to increase the quality of life of marginalized students – and in this case, we think the best way to accomplish that is not pouring vitriol upon people, but appealing to the better angels of their nature.

It was in precisely that spirit that I wrote the most recent issue’s closing essay (which Chris highly praised), calling for the college to be more accepting of nonbelievers, in gentle prose more full of Biblical allusions than a Left Behind novel. Believe me – every Hitch-loving bone in my body wanted to let loose, and write a scathing indictment of the college’s unjust, discriminatory policies, and their absurd, mythological worldview. And there is a time and place for that critique. But there are also times and places for moderation, for seeking common ground instead of burning bridges. And this is one of them.

Because even though Gordon remains staunchly evangelical, I know firsthand that there are good, decent people among the faculty and administration, who don’t want any of their students feeling marginalized and persecuted. That, for what it’s worth, is meaningful common ground.

Does this mean every atheist needs to do this kind of work? Of course not. To each their own. But it’s tremendously important that some of us do it – and that we aren’t dismissed as fakes for our trouble.

Acceptance & growth

Meanwhile, in Indiana – the tables were turning.

It was the spring of 2008, and I was in the last place you’d expect to find an atheist: at a Christian seminary in the Midwest, for a conference of young adult members of the Religious Society of Friends (better known as Quakers). A woman from the more traditionalist wing of the Society – I’ll call her Emmylou – was speaking. And she seemed more nervous than I was.

“I know many people have done hurtful things in the name of Christ,” Emmylou said, her voice wavering, “but please, don’t reject Jesus entirely just because of them.”

Why would a Christian at a religious conference in a seminary be nervous talking about Jesus? Because Quakers are one of the most free-thinking religious communities in existence. Quakerism has evolved in many quarters to be a bit like Zen: a set of values, practices, and philosophies that, though rooted in a historical religious tradition, are compatible with a diverse range of beliefs – atheism included. Which was why I had come to the conference – to ensure there was a godless perspective at the table. My presence, and the presence of other non-Christians, was what what made Emmylou anxious.

She was afraid of offending us.

It wasn’t always this way: in 1994, my friend Robin Alpern, one of the pioneers of nontheism among Quakers, was expelled from her community in upstate New York after disclosing her unbelief. Ten years later, it was still a hotly contested topic. But thanks to the combined efforts of the little fellowship of nontheistic Quakers, by 2008 it was becoming normalized. At the conference, my breakout session on theism and atheism was the most well-attended of all of them – and free of major controversy.

Think about that for a moment. This is an incredible slam dunk – a resounding success for one of the major goals of the organized atheist movement, atheist acceptance. And yet, I know some readers are squirming, because this happened within a religious community rather than without.

But rational progress takes place on multiple fronts: not just when people leave religion, but also when religious institutions and people themselves become more humane and reasonable. (And secular ones, for that matter.) Both are important – I am gladdened not only by the news that record numbers of Americans are nonreligious, but also the news that the Episcopal Church is slowly coming to support gay marriage and transgender inclusion, and that the Catholic Church has become ever-so-slightly less batshit insane on condom use.

If you still aren’t convinced, consider the concept of harm reduction in public health. Given that opiate addiction will not be eliminated overnight, it is prudent to give addicts access to clean needles, lest they catch or transmit diseases, further harming themselves and society at large. Given that religion will be with us for the foreseeable future, it is worthwhile to work with – even within – religious communities to rein in their tendencies towards tribalism, xenophobia, and irrationality, support their more positive traits, and show them that atheists are good, normal people.

And while Chris won’t be crazy about that analogy, these are essentially two of the main points from his final chapter – that engagement with “pluralistic religious communities” is one of the best ways to combat religious extremism (167), and that “respectful relationships we establish with religious communities” will help us improve the popular image of atheists (170).

Does that mean every atheist need engage their local church or mosque, in patient, gentle, sometimes aneurysm-inducingly frustrating dialogue? Of course not. Different strokes for different folks. But if you already have a meaningful relationship with a religious community, and you’re a bit of a masochist, the nobler course is probably to remain in conversation rather than cut ties.

In that spirit, instead of leaving my religious community when I became an atheist, I cheerfully afflicted it. I hosted discussions on atheism at the regional and national conferences. I co-facilitated a three-day retreat at one of our retreat centers. And I ran what for a couple years was the flagship atheist Quaker blog (now offline), battling more conservative bloggers who wished we would just go away. And a long line of nontheistic Quakers before and after me have done similar work.

And what have we accomplished?

Drastically increasing the visibility, acceptance, and reputation of atheists in our corners of the world.

Demonstrating to closeted atheists that they can be honest about their beliefs.

Encouraging moderate theists and fence-sitting agnostic types to examine their beliefs.

This deserves being unpacked. How often do religious people ask atheists, with total sincerity, to talk about their atheism, and listen attentively? Almost never. But when you do what Chris and I are talking about, all the time. He is worth quoting at length here:

“Whether engaging Christians around my negative experiences as a former evangelical and a queer person, or challenging my religious peers to explain their beliefs rationally, I’ve found interfaith work to not only be a fruitful place for such conversations but, in fact, the ideal forum for it. I can fondly recall any number of incidents when I argued theology and philosophy with religious colleagues while doing interfaith work and now, later, they told me that they actually took my perspective seriously because we had built a trusting relationship. It made all the difference that I treated them as intellectual equals – as people with respectable goals rather than just mindless adherents of some stupid religion. They had heard positions similar to mine in the past from other atheists, but the arguments had been presented so disrespectfully that they made no impact, and in some cases closed my religious colleagues to even entertaining such ideas.” (173-174)

Showing atheist and agnostic youth that they don’t have to choose between their community and their convictions.

This is important. This is part of why I occasionally volunteer for a regional Quaker retreat program for high schoolers – not to influence their beliefs, but to support the ones who are already atheistic, by showing them that their community has a place for them too, if they want it.

Diversifying the range of environments where it’s safe to be godless.

This is huge. Not everyone is attracted to atheist conferences and brunches. Some people want a nonreligious place to talk about ethics and other issues in an intimate setting – hence things like the Humanist Small Group. Some want a secular place to send their kids for moral education and socialization – hence the Harvard Humanist Learning Lab. Some want a nonreligious place to meditate – for which reason I founded the Harvard Humanist Mindfulness Group, inspired by Sam Harris. All of this increases the size and complexity of the secular ecosystem, and makes it a more attractive place for increasing numbers and types of people.

And some people (many of them former hippies) want the particular tenor of ethical and contemplative community that Quakers have always offered, without having to check their rational convictions at the door. And increasingly, they can.

But only because we have been respectful, patient, and friendly in advocating for our beliefs and our inclusion. [1]

On the last night of the conference, I stopped by the bonfire to say my goodbyes. “Hey, I’m heading out,” I said to Emmylou, arms out for a hug. “It was good to see you again.”

She looked alarmed, as if braced for an insult – then relieved. “I really appreciate you being friendly to me,” she said, “even though I know we disagree about spiritual things.”

And that was a profound moment for both of us.

But does this mean every atheist, skeptic, freethinker, humanist, naturalist, pastafarian, and otherwise godless person on the planet must go and do likewise, hugging believers around bonfires like Chris and I do? Of course not. We can argue that this kind of engagement has value. We can testify that it can be rewarding, moving, healing, and transformative, for all parties involved. We can tell you our stories and hope they inspire you. And we can – and I hereby do – invite you to join us.

But I know that many of you won’t. It’s just not your style. Or your priorities lie elsewhere. As Cat Stevens might have said, there’s a million ways to be godless – so if you want to be Chris, be Chris, and if you want to be PZ, be PZ. (Cue photoshop of their heads on Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon’s bodies)

But strangely, Chris is unwilling to be so generous. And I think I’ve figured out why.

The post-truth atheist

The source of the alienness felt between Chris and much of the atheist community, myself included, is this: he values compassion and social justice to a remarkable, exemplary degree, yet places almost no value on the epistemological virtues near and dear to most in the atheist movement, such as rationality, skepticism, and the scientific method.

It’s easy to miss, because he pays just enough homage to these values to pass under the radar. But once you see it, it’s unmistakeable.

I first noticed it in chapter 7, where he considers Greta Christina’s influential 2011 blog post on the goals on the atheist movement. He disputes that the demise of religion should be among them, because religion itself isn’t so much the problem as the specific negative traits it is prone to. Which, so far as it goes, is a sensible attitude to take.

But all the negative traits he lists – “tribalism, xenophobia, and fanaticism” (153) – are offenses against social justice. Absent are epistemic vices that roll easily off the tongues of many atheists: superstition, dogmatism, wishful thinking, incuriosity, hostility to free inquiry, and so on.

Nor is this an isolated example. In passage after passage, he rightly preaches compassion and decries injustice, but is conspicuously silent on reason. He owns up to religious “atrocities” and “conflicts” – but not the absurdities that facilitate both (8). He desires a world in which “suffering and oppression” have been eliminated – but not ignorance or superstition (11). He faults some religious beliefs for being “dehumanizing” or “intolerant” – but not for being false (84, 154). He seeks to make society “more cooperative and less conflict-oriented” – but not more evidence-based (115). His mission is to “advance equality and justice” – but not rationality or free inquiry (158).

To be fair, in a handful of places he does both, for example, saying he works not just for compassion and pluralism but also “critical thinking” and “education” (153). But “critical thinking,” which he praises elsewhere as well (150, 172), is a rather flimsy substitute for the full panoply of epistemic virtues – in the same way that “niceness” is a poor substitute for compassion and justice. Only twice does he mention rationality in a positive light – once in the extended passage quoted above, and once where he is not really speaking for himself, but describing the aims of the humanist movement (“making the world a better, more rational place”, 148).

And there is one chapter that, on the surface, breaks this pattern – chapter 6, on his deconversion in college. He writes of losing his faith through “careful thought and investigation”, “intellectual and personal consideration”, and because he was “underwhelmed by the evidence.” (82-84) And there are two paragraphs about chance and meaning which could’ve been written by a younger Sam Harris (93). But on the whole, a celebration of reason this is not. He clings to the bitter end, grasping at an array of muddled, emotional pseudo-arguments in a desperate attempt to retain some shred of his faith (e.g. 101-102), turning bitter when he ultimately fails (102-105) – and I can sympathize, because my own deconversion was just like this. My point is not to fault him for it; it’s to point out that those of us with a passion for epistemic values will find little in that department to resonate with in this chapter. [2]

But still more revealing are the passages where he is silent about irrationality, or defends it. He minimizes belief in the afterlife as “benign” (24). He voices no epistemic discomfort with several factually unsupportable statements thrust upon him by religious leaders as a child (38, 57-58). He talks about children “losing or changing their faith” almost as though this were a bad thing (128). And most obviously, throughout the book he casts “faith” – belief in the absence of evidence, and religion that depends upon it – in neutral to favorable terms.

In sum, Chris does not merely have a different take on religion – much more deeply, he seems to only superficially share the epistemic values that are important to most people in the atheist and humanist [3] movements, and central for many of them. In this he is like a restaurant critic who is mostly indifferent to the quality of food. He may indeed have a column, and indeed go to restaurants, and indeed write reviews about their ambiance and service, which are indeed important. But few of his peers would fully resonate with his opinions. And if he began a quixotic campaign to moderate their negative reviews – because no chef should be belittled merely for their food – they could be forgiven for responding with bemusement, annoyance, and even scorn. Because really, what right does a culinary know-nothing have to lecture others on how to talk about food?

Now, perhaps I’m mistaken here. Perhaps I missed a blog post where Chris explains how he does, in fact, care about all these things. But until I see him wax poetic about the scientific method, or exhibit some passion for the theory of evolution, or at least confess his abiding love for Star Trek: The Next Generation – color me skeptical. I’m not asking him to be Neil deGrasse Tyson. I just fail to see how someone who gives half a fig for truth or knowledge or discovery could be asked to share his perspective about the origin of the universe, by a sincerely interested Christian in a friendly conversation, and deflect the question entirely as irrelevant (157). Say what you will about the Christian – but at least he’s not incurious.

And this disjunct in values clarifies virtually everything puzzling and maddening about the book.

Faitheism explained

It explains why he is so easy on religion, giving equal weight to its positive and negative contributions (4). Looking narrowly at matters of justice, this is not entirely unreasonable; for every Torquemada, there is a Gandhi – as well as a Robespierre. But when you broaden your view to include matters of the mind, the case becomes more lopsided; few institutions in history, and fewer still in modern times, are as guilty as religious ones of promoting ignorance, superstition, and dogmatism, and thwarting scientific progress.

It explains why he is so hypocritcal about pluralism and respect – he simply does not see much value in the epistemic goals of the “New Atheists,” seeing only the hurt feelings they cause, and the interfaith work they could be doing instead. Granted, if Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris were going around offending people for no higher purpose, Chris would be right to call their work “toxic, misdirected, and wasteful.” But they aren’t. And he isn’t.

It explains how he could be so deeply offensive as to compare antireligious atheists to fundamentalists (149-150). If interpersonal harmony is the only dimension of experience you care about, there are indeed many similarities between the two, and their main difference is merely their degree of intolerance (150). But this amounts to a Colbertian, post-truth epistemology, according to which a fierce defense of scientific cosmology (say) and a fierce defense of Canaanite creation myths are equivalent, notable only for their stridency. If he cannot acknowledge that these are in a very real sense worlds apart, and find more productive ways of criticizing excesses of certitude – well, he might as well start conflating Red Sox and Yankees fans, or climate scientists and climate change deniers, or Persians and Arabs. And see if they respond any better to his message of love.

It explains the single most baffling, dumbfounding fact about the book. That a professional atheist could, with a straight face, ask nonreligious, faithless people to engage themselves in “religious pluralism” and “interfaith work” – a hard enough sell as it is – without making the slightest attempt to find more atheist-inclusive terms for these activities. There are no words. No, really – when I realized the full extent of this, I sat dumbstruck, staring at the page like it was the monolith at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Chris, are you kidding me? It’s like inviting bank robbers to a police convention – without making even a half-hearted attempt to make it more appealing by calling it a “bank robber/police convention.” And it’s not like it would’ve been difficult to perform a find/replace with “interfaith” and “secular-interfaith” in his manuscript. And it’s not like people haven’t been telling him this. Yet somehow, he seems wholly uncomprehending of just how big a nonstarter this is (174). But it makes total sense. Because to him, “faith” is as benign as your choice of shoes. What’s the big deal?

And it explains why some of his arguments are just so appallingly bad. In the final two chapters, at times I felt like I was a TA again, grading a third-rate undergraduate philosophy essay. I don’t mean to say Chris is unintelligent – only that it is abundantly clear he is not intellectually exerting himself when he writes a sentence like the following (emphasis mine):

“Until those of us who do not believe in God are seen as having an equal capacity to be moral, anti-atheist remarks will continue to perpetuate discrimination and atheists will be seen as less moral than the religious.” (152)

In related news, until the sun comes up, it will be down; and if you only have three oranges, you don’t have four. I would gracefully overlook this, had he written an authentic memoir from his own experience and been content with that. But if he’s dying to make sweeping normative claims, throw bombs at people he disagrees with, and be taken seriously in the process, I recommend he first master the skill of stringing words together into meaningful sentences.

And considering this gulf of difference, and all of the above problems it causes, and the fact that Chris, while preaching his message of listening, does not seem to have been listening to his own community well enough to avoid at least a few of them, yet still has the hubris to compare himself to Moses (131) – I cannot believe I have to write that – frankly, I find myself beginning to sympathize with even his most immoderate critics.

But in the end, I don’t.

Conclusion

Because there are many kinds of people in this world, and different people are naturally attuned to different dimensions of experience. Chris’s attunement to matters of the heart is impressive, and I wish I had half of it. My friend Ben has a limited sense for visual aesthetics, and often asks me for advice on clothes. If matters of truth and knowledge play little role in Chris’s preferred mode of interaction with the world, that in itself is OK. It just means he’s like people who wear sandals with white socks to a wedding – infuriating, but they mean no harm. There’s a million ways to be.

And he is right to remind us, in his own way, of the necessity of balance. Compassion without reason is problematic – but so is reason without compassion. Our minimum standards for each, and the ideal mix of both, will always be a matter of debate. And though I have criticized Faitheist for an imbalance in the first direction, it remains valuable as a caution against the opposite – as a reminder that rational criticism insufficiently tempered by empathy can incur real human costs that should give us pause (148-151). [4]

And he is right to point out that this entire conversation is, strictly speaking, extrinsic to atheism – mere disbelief in God. The set of all nontheistic people is vast – and distinct from the smaller subset of us who get worked up about religion and homeopathy. Unlike Chris, I think these are worth getting worked up about. But I concede that by sometimes advocating for these broader epistemic concerns under the banner of atheism, rather than humanism, skepticism, and so on, we risk dissuading many latent atheists from identifying as such, and perhaps create more heat than light.

So I urge the community, especially those critical of Chris’s work, to be a little more tolerant of his peculiar turn of mind, and to give his book an open-minded, sympathetic reading, with as many grains of salt (and perhaps aspirins) as you need, and see if there is something you can learn from it. I think you might be surprised.

And I urge you, Chris, if you’re reading, to consider the possibility that you give epistemic concerns too little weight. Many of us care so deeply about them because we believe ideas have consequences, and absurdities sometimes beget atrocities, or at least, facilitate them – and in fact, your own story seems replete with fresh evidence of this. We see ourselves as striking at one of the roots of injustice, rather than merely the most obvious branches. So even if you have little native passion for truth and knowledge, I think you should care about them for that reason alone.

But most of all, I urge you to take your own advice – to listen more, condemn less, make fewer blanket statements, stop projecting your own experiences onto others, and celebrate the diversity of values and temperaments among the godless as well as the religious.

And to have a bit more humility. You have so much to offer. The movement, this country, and this planet desperately need more people with your depth of compassion. But we don’t need more people who are full of themselves. You call yourself “humble” (162) – almost always a performative contradiction – and I respectfully disagree. But perhaps we can respectfully agree that, in the way you’re currently operating, you have a lot to be humble about.

Notes

[1] At least, for the most part. There is one conservative blogger who isn’t speaking to me, but that’s a long story…

[2] In the same vein, he ends the chapter with a story meant to demonstrate his bona fides as a formerly antireligious atheist, but which I think few in the atheist community will fully relate to – getting a tattoo of a capybara, a rodent the Pope is said to have declared a fish. Disdain for the absurdity of the Catholic Church? Yes. Placing a permanent reminder of it on your body? Not so much. Not because tattoos are weird, but because a disdainful tattoo says more about a person’s emotional wounds than their values. (For comparison, the same year I got a tattoo of an owl: an ancient Greek symbol of wisdom, and hence, at least for me, the positive epistemic values I’ve been talking about.) I don’t fault him for getting a tattoo to express himself; as a tattoo, I’m sure it’s rad. My point is just that it fails to fully convince me that he shared the values of most antireligious atheists even in his most antireligious moments.

[3] You weren’t expecting that? The Humanist Manifesto III is very clearly about both rationality and compassion-oriented values, not just the latter.

[4] I added this paragraph after an atheist magazine asked to reprint this piece. Feedback on the original version made me realize its critical half overshadowed its positive half a bit more than I intended, perhaps in part because of the recency effect. Hence an additional paragraph reamplifying the positive. (Edited 11/19/12)

Even much of the criticism is combined with praise. Many commenters repelled by the essay’s vision of startups still expressed gratitude for its insight. For example:

Thank you Paul. You’ve actually freed me from a dream that I now realize will never make me happy…. You gave me back my life, my real one.

But the more I think about it, the more I find that the main line of criticism misses the mark — and meanwhile, there’s a more important criticism, of particular relevance to founders, which isn’t getting enough attention.

Growth

To summarize the heart of the essay:

PG offers two criteria with which we can evaluate newly-founded companies: (a) the size of their market, and (b) their ability to reach it. Most companies are constrained in at least one of these departments. A company that makes Tibetan language software for Hungarians, for example, can probably dominate their market – but it’s a tiny one. Conversely, a brick-and-mortar English school for Chinese speakers has a huge market, in an abstract sense – but it won’t reach much of it beyond its local area, no matter how excellent or innovative it is.

But an online English school for Chinese speakers has both a huge market and the potential to reach a large percentage of it – and thus, the greatest upside. Companies with this kind of massive growth potential due to their market size and potential reach, PG calls startups.

And this is where the critics get it wrong.

The top comment on HN argues the trend in the past decade has been towards greater founder independence, and with it the ability for founders to grow more slowly, if they wish, accepting VC funding on their own terms (if at all). Now is therefore a bad time to narrow the definition of startup to strictly “super-rapid-growth” startups.

But that’s not what the essay does. The essay privileges rapid-growth startups as best exemplifying the essence of startups, but goes no further. In PG’s own words:

“A profitable startup could if it wanted just grow on its own revenues. Growing slower might be slightly dangerous, but chances are it wouldn’t kill them.”

In other words, a startup doesn’t need to grow rapidly – it’s just that a successful startup can grow rapidly if it chooses, and arguably should (due to the rewards of so doing and the costs of not). But there’s nothing in the essay that says all startups must grow rapidly, or that they must take VC funding. Several passages, in fact, explicitly say the opposite.

Other highly-rated comments make the same mistake. This is unfortunate, because they’ve distracted attention from the more trenchant criticism. Which involves not the upside case (growth) so much as the downside (failure).

Expected value

The downside of starting a startup is that it’s difficult to succeed. All of the obvious ideas meeting these two criteria have been taken. So you have to do some combination of the following: find a golden opportunity everyone else has overlooked, pull off something no one else has figured out how to do, or enter a crowded market and outcompete everyone in it. All of which are hard to do. For that reason, the vast majority of startups fail.

Given that, why would any rational person want to start a startup, or invest in one? Because, PG argues, the expected value is still quite high. If we assume the reward for startup success is $100 million, and the chance of success a mere 1 percent, your expected value is still $1 million. If you’re an especially gifted hacker, your chance of success might be as high as 20 to 50 percent, and your expected value $20 to 50 million. [1]

And here we arrive at a real problem. With numbers like these, startups resemble gambling. (Which, as a modestly successful former professional gambler, is a topic I know a thing or two about. [2])

Before I flesh out this comparison, let me get the biggest contrast out of the way. Occasional bubbles aside, startups are generally positive-expectation, whereas gambling is generally negative-expectation. The set of all startups has created untold trillions of dollars of wealth, whereas the set of all gamblers has lost untold trillions.

So we can restate our claim more flatteringly as startups resemble advantage gambling. “Advantage gambling” means placing bets with a positive expected value, via card counting, for example, or a host of more advanced techniques.

Great – but we’re still miles from establishing that starting a startup is a good idea.

Variance

Why? Because of variance. In the long run, your actual return from an activity should closely resemble your expected value, but in the short term, anything can happen.

Consider the following bet. You may bet $10,000 on the roll of a pair of standard dice. If you roll a 12, you win $100 million. If you roll anything else, you lose. You may play as many times as you wish.

How good a bet you think that is depends entirely on how much money you can afford to lose. Sure, it’s massively positive-expectation, to the tune of $2.7 million per roll. But if your net worth is $100,000… well, there’s a good chance (75 percent, in fact) that you lose all of your first 10 rolls, and now you’re toast. A positive expectation does you no good if you go broke before reaping its benefits.

On the other hand, if you’re already loaded – suppose you’re a Republican presidential candidate with a net worth of $200 million – well, now this is a fantastic bet. Even though your expected value is exactly the same, $2.7 million per roll, you have a much better chance of realizing that value, because you can afford the possibility of losing $10,000 dozens of times en route to rolling a 12 for the big $100 mil payout.

And if your net worth is somewhere in the middle, other factors come into play, like your level of risk aversion, or more generally, your utility function for money.

Professional gamblers refer to this as bankroll management. It’s not enough to find a positive-expectation game; you must also scale your bets according to how much you can afford to lose. Otherwise, you’re just gambling. [3]

And in PG’s examples, the logic of startups is almost exactly parallel.

The startup bet

Consider the following proposition. You may move to Silicon Valley and start a startup. If your startup succeeds, you make $100 million. If it fails, you’ve gained nothing financially (though perhaps a lot in more qualitative terms). You may play as many times as you wish.

How good an opportunity you think that is depends entirely on how much of your time and energy you’re willing to expend while possibly seeing no financial reward beyond a founder’s salary. Sure, it’s massively positive-expectation, perhaps as high as $50 million if you’re extremely talented and hardworking. But if you’re 40… well, there’s a good chance that your first half-dozen startups all fail, and now you’re 60. A positive expectation does you no good if you retire before reaping its benefits.

On the other hand, if you’re young – suppose you’re Bill Gates, who was 19 when he started Microsoft – now this is a much better opportunity. Even though your expected value is exactly the same, you have a much better chance of eventual success, because you can better handle the possibility of being a serial failed entrepreneur for several years until you finally hit a home run.

And if you’re somewhere in the middle, the role of other factors increases. PG highlights several, like how smart and determined you are, and your utility function for money.

Hackers might describe this as… life management. It’s not enough for a startup to be a positive-expectation opportunity; you must also consider your age, as well as your goals, risk preferences, and an honest assessment of your own intelligence and determination.

So now we’re ready to make a qualified endorsement: starting a startup can indeed be a rational choice, especially if you’re young, as long as you consider these factors first.

Or in PG’s words, “Most people should not try to start startups.” Most people shouldn’t gamble either, even with an advantage. But if you’re the right kind of person, work smart, and work hard, you just might pull it off.

Conclusion: what’s the distribution?

All that is true, so far as it goes. But there are a couple issues with the picture we’ve drawn.

The first is that, even if you’re a talented 19-year-old hacker, the odds still have a harsh edge to them. Assuming a 20 percent chance of success per startup, there’s still an 11 percent chance that all of your first 10 startups fail. Think about that.

Which brings me to my final point: the numbers PG and I are using are simplified for the purpose of making a point, and perhaps make startups seem like a worse deal than they actually are. At least, so says Andrew Chen:

The whole 1% of $100M versus 10% of $10M calculation vastly oversimplifies the outcome of these companies as binary. This is totally wrong.

In my experience in silicon valley, people start with building something small/simple (but in a big market), get little drips of funding from investors as they show progress. If they fail at any point along the way, there’s value in what they’ve created, and they exit for whatever they get. The later you exit, typically the further along you get, and the bigger the exit. That’s why the diversity of outcomes in the valley are everything from zero to billions, and companies raise anywhere from zero to a dozen rounds of funding.

At any inflection point in the business, you have lots of options: you can sell, raise more money, raise more and cash out some shares, you can quit, you can make yourself chairman and have your cofoudner run it, you can do nothing and grow it organically, etc., etc.

Each one of the choices above are part of your arsenal of options at almost any point. The people who choose to raise tons of money, not cash out at all, and then who fail- well, they made a series of active decisions to do all of that. They’re big boys.

My point is, when you’re building a company you can make a lot of choices along the way, and it’s not just setting out for a suicide run of either 1% of $100M or 10% of $10M.

This point might not matter much to investors, who smooth out their variance by investing in a large number of companies. But it’s highly relevant to founders, particularly those who aren’t 19 and aim to be rational in making major life decisions.

So this is where I’d like to see more discussion: Is Andrew correct? What does the distribution curve of recent, real-world startup outcomes actually look like? And what are the best strategies for founders who want to keep a range of exit options open, while maintaining rapid growth as their primary goal? [4]

Notes

[1] Strictly speaking, an expected value calculation should include not just the rewards for possible successes, but the costs of possible failures; for a binary outcome, EV = p(success) * reward – p(failure) * cost of failure. But for startup founders working with VC money, evaluating that expression is difficult because the first term is denominated in dollars and the second mostly in time.

[2] For five months in 2010, I traveled across North America as a professional slot machine hustler, beating select games from the new generation of digital slot machines. Yes, I’m serious. I summarize the crazy story in this blog post, and recount it in several Facebook notes from that time period. For the curious and/or skeptical, this post explains the simple mathematical principle behind the vast majority of beatable slots.

[3] Not every professional gambler is mathematically savvy enough to fully appreciate this, unfortunately. One of my pro gambling partners in 2010 really wanted me to leave beatable slots to count cards with him, and I declined, because we would’ve lacked a sufficient bankroll to safely apply a betting scale high enough to support a good average hourly rate.

[4] Shameless plug if there are YC decisionmakers reading: this is a conversation I would love to have at Startup School next month.

(“We’re Back!” by Lonely Island – very NSFW, as they usually are.)

Here’s what I’ve been up to for the past three years:

Neuroscience

As I wrote in “Pruning the tree of life”, in 2009 I wanted to explore going into neuroscience research. To do that, in the summer I started working as the lab administrator for the director of the Harvard Center for Brain Science. I don’t have much of a science background, so a research job would’ve been a stretch. Plus, I wanted to see what the science world was like before diving in, and this was an excellent way to get my feet wet.

And the results were… mixed.

On the one hand, that job, along with several stints as a research assistant in two other labs, made me realize that yes, I love science, I’m good at it, and I could be happy making it my occupation. On the other hand, the economic realities of the science world (biology especially) gave me pause. The classic career path of an academic scientist is research assistant → PhD student → postdoctoral fellow → assistant professor → professor, and if you make it all the way there, it’s pretty awesome. But it’s a long, winding, competitive road. And along the way, most people work insane hours for not-so-great pay.

I could accept the hours and pay, because I’d enjoy the work. And I know I could wrangle journal articles and grant applications with the best of them, so the competitiveness doesn’t fully scare me either. So on balance, the positives outweigh the negatives. But just barely. Within a half year, my enthusiasm for starting a science career had somewhat cooled. To make matters worse, I was also getting burned out on office work, which is what I was actually doing most of the time.

And in this state of angst, I got a phone call.

Pro gambling

My friend Dan (not his real name) has been a professional gambler for years. As a former math major, I find gambling repugnant, so I was never interested in the details – all I knew was that he’d be gone for months on end, then suddenly show up in town and want to go to some indie rock show. And then he’d fall off the face of the earth for another extended period, with no explanation. It was a weird friendship.

In the fall of 2009, I get one of those calls from Dan, I think to invite me to see Pavement at the Middle East. And as we’re chatting, I share my angst over my job. “Why don’t you quit your job and work with me for six months?” he says.

“Um,” I say, “so what exactly is it you do?”

Dan used to primarily play poker, but for years now had switched to beatable slot machines. You read that correctly: certain titles of slot machines have design flaws that allow a skilled, disciplined person to win more money than they lose, and pretty consistently to boot. The catch? It’s usually not a ton of money – anywhere from a pittance to a comfortable living wage, depending on the machine – and good machines are hard to find. And when you do find them, they’re often already being milked by another professional, who may be unwilling to share. So it’s free money… if you’re willing to live on the road, spend lots of time scouting for good machines, and run into lots of unsavory characters along the way.

Anyway, to make a long story short: after a month of cross-examining Dan about the above, a proof-of-concept field trip to Foxwoods, and an ad-hoc Quaker clearness committee, my reservations were satisfied, and I decided to do it. I gave notice at Harvard in December, and in March 2010 we hit the road. For four months, we traveled through New York, Ontario, the Great Lakes, and Western Canada, beating dozens of machines along the way, and making about the same net income as at my cushy university job.

(By the way, if we’re friends, and you didn’t know about this part of my life, you can read my Facebook notes from this period: “How Zach went to seek his fortune”, “Living in a fool’s paradise”, “How to beat a slot machine”, “Hidden in plain sight”, “Love in the aisles of madness”,  “The kids with alligator blood”.)

But I soon grew tired of the hustler’s life. Living on the road is only romantic for so long, and casinos make a terrible workplace for a sober-minded person. So in late summer 2010, I returned to my apartment and friends in Cambridge, with renewed zeal for being a productive member of society.

Cooking & coding

And since January 2011, I’ve been the cook for the Beacon Hill Friends House, a Quaker boarding house in downtown Boston. I live there for free, and get paid to cook dinner for my housemates five nights a week. It’s a sweet gig, and pretty much the most wholesome job ever.

I accepted the job partly because I wanted the security of steady employment, combined with the free time to learn programming and explore web entrepreneurship. Also, my mom died unexpectedly the month before (December 2010), and it just felt like the right thing to do, as a sort of homage to her – she was a wonderful cook, and would’ve been really happy to see me here. So 2011 ended up being a sort of sabbatical year. I spent the whole year just making food, going to the gym, and going out dancing. It was a much-needed break.

And now I’m back in the saddle, ready to take the internet by storm. I’ve missed writing! And I love programming! So here’s to a 2012 full of stimulating blog posts and exciting web projects. And of course, good food and good dancing.

The crux, I think, is this: twitter et. al. provide more interesting and useful communication tools.  But communication isn’t enough, you have to wield power, and power doesn’t happen on the Internet… Communication is still really important to enable action.  But that communication doesn’t have to be new or fancy, and it may work better if it isn’t.

So what’s next in digital activism technology?  There’s a great quote in this Time article: “The sky is falling, but here we are — millions of us — sitting around trying to invent new ways to talk to one another.”  I think there’s something to that, and I think there’s something of a distraction and time sink that the Internet brings to efforts to enact meaningful social change.  I think we might be better served learning about what to say to one another than what incremental improvements we can make to the medium.  Learning how to influence people and change their minds, get them to be more aware of the plight of everyone else.  My personal research goals are around finding out how to get technologists to listen more deeply to communities in need about what their problems are, rather than what seems cool or exciting or technically challenging to the technologist.

Full email after the cut.

I haven’t been super-involved in the Iran goings-on other than a bit of following on twitter and reading news.  It’s interesting to see the number of people claiming both that twitter/facebook are the most important things in this uprising and also inconsequential.  I feel like I’d have to be on the ground in Iran to gauge whether the tools are actually proving valuable to Iranians, or just to foreigners.  Twitter’s proved remarkably proficient in drumming up frenzies, which may not accord with reality.

It seems that activists and technologists have vested interests in believing that twitter et al. are revolutionary.  They seem to have the fervor that tech. geeks have when they talk about operating systems or text editors — extolling virtues, but always from a standpoint of opinion and not from a standpoint of careful detached analysis.  The Internet is clearly becoming very important for politics and social organizing, but it’s also clearly not enough.

Noise on the Internet is not sufficient to bring about social change. Those participating in social media are still a pretty small and pretty self-selected crowd.  To actually bring about social change, one has to get off the Internet and into the places where that change happens: inside the legislature, government offices, board rooms, shareholder meetings, etc.  You have to get at the seats of power.

Even street protests in this country have had negligible impact since the civil rights movement.  When numbers similar to those now protesting in Iran rose up in San Francisco and New York in 2002/2003, this did nothing to stop our march to war.  The streets are also not where decisions are made.  Action in the streets only works when it either changes minds (doesn’t work for strongly divided or stubborn people), or has a substantial economic impact.  It may also be different in a country like Iran where protest is less easy to culturally ignore.  It may be that, unlike the US in 2002, the supporters of the status quo in Iran are not as staunchly determined that they are right, and are more amenable to the peer pressure of their families and friends going to the streets.  Or that there aren’t actually many supporters of the status quo, only people afraid to go out, who have been emboldened by the throngs that are risking violence and arrest.

But in any case, all of these things have NOTHING to do with twitter. At best, twitter is a potentially useful communication tool to help organize.  But in that respect, it’s an incremental improvement over existing tools like SMS, blogs, word of mouth, fliers, etc — it allows easier group participation on more devices and formats.  But it also brings in disadvantages, such as security threats, lowered signal-to-noise ratio, and brittle infrastructure that is prone to censorship.  How does the trade-off look on the ground?  I don’t have enough info to judge.

The use of digital media tech in other uprisings, such as the monks in Burma or Tibet, had a big impact on letting the world see what was going on inside those countries.  But it ultimately was not sufficient to bring about meaningful change, and in both cases was eventually stomped out by the governments in charge.  Burma and Iran are already on the western world’s shit list, so even if the western world does get an intimate perspective on what’s going on inside, it’s hard to get foreign governments to be any more influential.  ”The whole world is watching,” but that’s all, just watching and saying “tisk, tisk.”  Even if foreign governments did intervene, the results might not be pretty (see Iraq under both Bushes — the first one in inadequate support of an uprising, the second in invasion and occupation).

The crux, I think, is this: twitter et. al. provide more interesting and useful communication tools.  But communication isn’t enough, you have to wield power, and power doesn’t happen on the Internet, until the Internet is an economic choke point, which it isn’t pretty much anywhere yet, and even then you’d succeed via attacks on infrastructure (e.g. DoS) and not communication. Communication is still really important to enable action.  But that communication doesn’t have to be new or fancy, and it may work better if it isn’t.

So what’s next in digital activism technology?  There’s a great quote in this Time article: “The sky is falling, but here we are — millions of us — sitting around trying to invent new ways to talk to one another.”  I think there’s something to that, and I think there’s something of a distraction and time sink that the Internet brings to efforts to enact meaningful social change.  I think we might be better served learning about what to say to one another than what incremental improvements we can make to the medium.  Learning how to influence people and change their minds, get them to be more aware of the plight of everyone else.  My personal research goals are around finding out how to get technologists to listen more deeply to communities in need about what their problems are, rather than what seems cool or exciting or technically challenging to the technologist.

Why didn’t I know sooner that the Québec government has a New England office?

Gonna brush up my French for the next few weeks, and go to the Association of Québecois in New England pre-party for the Fête Nationale on Georges Island – I think the ferry from Boston is $14 round-trip, or free if you RSVP.

Official announcement below the fold.

L’Association des Québecois en Nouvelle-Angleterre souligne la fête nationale

La Délégation du Québec à Boston et l’Association des Québécois en Nouvelle-Angleterre sont heureuses de vous inviter à un pique-nique le dimanche 21 juin 2009 à Georges Island afin de souligner la fête nationale et la fête des pères !

Cette activité aura lieu dès midi le dimanche 21 juin 2009 dans l’aire à pique-nique de Georges Island, située dans la Baie de Boston.

Un billet aller-retour pour les Boston Harbor Islands sera offert gratuitement par la Délégation du Québec le jour de l’activité à chaque participant qui aura RSVP auprès de Mme Martine Dion, Présidente de l’AQNA, d’ici le 12 juin (jusqu’à épuisement des stocks).

mdion@smma.com

Des départs vers Georges Island sont prévus à 10h, 10h30, 11h et 11h30 à partir de Long Wharf.

Amenez votre repas préféré ou profitez sur place du snack bar. La Délégation du Québec à Boston fera tirer des prix de participation sur place. Pour nous rejoindre, suivez les ballons aux couleurs de la fête nationale !

Pour plus d’information sur l’île et sa programmation spéciale pour la fête des pères consultez :

http://www.bostonislands.org/isle_georges.asp

From March 10:

Our Transsexual friend Ebru has been stabbed to death at her own apartment on March 10.

We; who have been saying that Transsexual and Transvestite murders are political murders, are going to protest the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual phobic system which does not define “Hate Crimes”, awards the Killers by reducing their prison sentences, does not provide any constitutional rights to Gay, Lesbian, Transsexual, bisexuals, and transvestite population, and makes these type of murders much easier.

To commemorate Ebru and many others like her, We will be having a press conference infront of Ebru‘s house on Purtelas street. We are asking all to join us and support us on our cause for a just world for all.

And two days ago:

sorry to post this news,,
2 other transgender women have been murdered and one have been attached.
tomorrow we will make a demo and a press release..

rüzgar
on behalf of lambdaistanbul

“Attacks and murders in Eskisehir, Bursa and Edirne in Turkey”

LGBTT Rights Platform

Press Release, Thursday, 26 March 2009, Turkey

Subject: Attacks and murders in Eskisehir, Bursa and Edirne in Turkey

Homophobic and transphobic violence doesn’t stop: Assault in Eskisehir, murders in Bursa and Edirne!

A transsexual woman was attacked and beaten in Eskisehir. A transsexual woman was found her head cut in Bursa. A man has been killed by his friend on the claim that he asked for sexual intercourse.

There is still no word from the authorities about the cases of Ahmet Yildiz who were shot to death on 15 July 2008 in Istanbul and Dilek Ince who were shot to death on 12 November 2008 in Ankara. While we were in grief after them, another transsexual woman Ebru Soykan was stabbed to death on 10 March 2009 in Istanbul.

We continue to ask the same question again, “When are you going to stop watching?” The murderers, who are encouraged by the silence of the state, continue on their fearless attacks. The recent news from Bursa horrified the LGBTT community in Turkey. We are in great sorrow after these brutal attacks.

Human rights violations against LGBTT individuals continue in the form of violation of rights to life

Because crimes against LGBTT individuals are not punished!

Killers are being awarded with grievous provocation decreases in punishment!

LGBTT individuals are being excluded and isolated through hate speech!

LGBTT individuals forced into isolation are represented as lives with no values!

LGBTT individuals are being avoided from their legal rights and thus unprotected!

We are worried!

Because the government does not take action to enact necessary legislation and implementation to avoid human rights violations against LGBTT individuals

We don’t know if there will be any comments on the killings of Ahmet Yildiz and Dilek Ince!

We are worried because we don’t know whether the person who killed Ebru Soykan will be awarded with grievous provocation decrease in punishment!

We are not sure if the brutal murder in Bursa will be solved, or not!

We are concerned, because the government makes LGBTT persons easy targets by watching the attacks on them and thus encourages murderers.

We are concerned, because the government is paving the way for killings by not protecting the right to life of its LGBTT citizens.

We ask!

Until when are you going to stop watching the hate against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transvestite, and Transsexual (LGBTT) individuals?

Until when are you going to stop awarding crimes against LGBTT individuals and encouraging new crimes?

Why are the police departments in Istanbul and Ankara not able to find the murderers of Ahmet Yildiz and Dilek Ince?

Why are there no comments from the Public Prosecutors?

Will the Bursa case be solved?

We wonder if there is an undeclared war against homosexuals and transsexuals in Turkey?

If not, how many others should be killed to make you take action?

We don’t need mercy; we claim our basic human rights:

The right to life of LGBTT individuals must be protected equally with other citizens.

Cases of gay and trans murders must be solved.

Attackers and murderers must be found.

Decreases based on grievous provocation while punishing murderers of gay and trans persons must be abolished.

Crimes against LGBTT individuals must be defined under “hate crimes.”

You are committing crime by watching the murders, not providing right to life and imprisoning LGBTT persons into an unjust life!

LGBTT RIGHTS PLATFORM

Izmir Black Pink Triangle Association
Izmir Transvestite and Transsexual Initiative
Kaos GL Association
Lambdaistanbul LGBTT Solidarity Association
PurpleHand Eskisehir LGBTT Initiative
Pink Life LGBTT Solidarity Association
Diyarbakir Piramid LGBTT Initiative
Lambdaistanbul LGBTT Dayanisma Dernegi

Tel: +90 (0) 212 245 70 68
Istiklâl Caddesi, Katip Celebi Mah. Tel Sok. No: 28/6 Kat:5
Beyoglu – Istanbul
www.lambdaistanbul.org
lambda@lambdaistanbul.org

I also was forwarded a letter from Lambda Istanbul in response to the support they received after the murder of Ebru Dilan. Unlike the above, I don’t know that it’s meant to be public so I won’t reproduce it in full, but I will quote a little inspiring snippet: Transgender community in Istanbul and Ankara are radically strong. I feel that strength when we all march and dance together down the streets during istanbul pride, you should come and join us in 2009!

Photos of Istanbul Pride 2007:

Especially since I had an epiphany about “focus” last month. For most of my life I’ve sympathized with Sylvia Plath’s fig tree predicament, too engrossed in possibilities to fully realize any of them. But perhaps some process of maturation has culminated, because it’s become easier to prune away activities and possessions (tangible and electronic) that aren’t contributing to my goals.

(If you’re looking for inspiration along those lines, try the chorus of Saul Williams’ “Break” — NSFW)

PS — For the record, I do think one can be too goal-focused. In part because goals set by our conscious mind are likely to represent only our conscious needs and desires, which aren’t the whole picture.

But from primary season through today, I have been on his side – not as a Kool-Aid drinker (been there done that), but as a realist. People who think elections don’t matter need a reality check. And may get one this week, if children’s healthcare is passed and Guantánamo is ordered closed.

So, I’m not embarrassed to be happy today. Tomorrow, we’ll see.

Favorite image of the campaign:

(h/t witz.org)

And the day’s soundtrack has to be Justice, probably this track (mildly NSFW):

(version without the crowd noise here)

I also think that those who love the [humanities] enough to engage in arcane arguments in journals will continue to do so, whether paid or not by universities. We’re therefore looking at a future full of independent, hobbyist scholars — not the worst of all possible worlds. A return to the world of the gentleman-scientist, a reversal of the halcyon days when all the funding went to theology and fledgling geologists roamed the hills on their breaks from work as masters of divinity and grammar-school teachers. The world moves on, and so can we.

Not sure how I feel about that…

It was a little inspiring to hear about how the show started pretty much from scratch in Minneapolis/St. Paul and gained a local following, before eventually attracting the attention of cable networks. I often think about how much of a handicap it is for someone to do art somewhere outside of LA or NYC.

Also funny was hearing about confused feedback they received early on, from people complaining they couldn’t focus on the movies with all the snarky commentary interrupting. Reminded me of when in college I got one of the funniest guys on campus to write a fake, obviously humorous advice column for the school paper – people would hilariously complain that he was giving out bad advice.

In case you were wondering, the most disturbing (clip) and funny (commentary) MST3K clip they showed would have to be this one on how young women should dress themselves.

They also showed bits of the trailer to the 1972 ecological sci-fi film Silent Running, which formed part of the inspiration for the show. Joan Baez sang two songs for the movie (co-written by Peter Schickele of PDQ Bach fame, of all people), and here’s the one I like best:

I hear the talk may be on some MST3K DVD in the future, so be on the lookout if you’re a big fan…

it was — less. in most ways. less everything. less isolating, less emotional, less discovery. half hearted. the room was too small and everything i did felt truncated. i couldn’t work up any real speed, any real hysteria, any real devotion. just boredom; totally aggravating and unceasing. except movement could always undercut anything i was thinking — if i was moving, everything felt ‘normal’, totally familiar. for the first i guess twenty hours or so, nothing new came up movement wise, but after that something shifted and my body became total, it became one thing, all of it, at once. what i did then was familiar but different. also, i connected to my breath as this thing which could hold my mind and body away from flipping out about losing all (most) other landmarks. i counted breaths into the thousands, keeping them slow and deep even when moving relatively rapidly around.

and at the end ‘that was it?’ was there a great revelation? catharsis? expansion of dimension of being? a sense of uncertainty — did it ‘work’? did i fail because i think i passed out for some blank amount of time during the first night, because i didn’t exhaust myself athletically, because if i went to the window i could tell if it was daylight or not and so refused to totally surrender marking time, because i didn’t meditate very much about how to learn political truths from my body? but then i briefly looked in on some of the west coast dancers — one had a chair which she was pushing around listlessly with her feet, one was walking slowly across the back of an empty room, one was just lightly hugging himself and rocking. not in agony or insanity or pain, just sort of shifting weight. could have been for hours. and i was filled with so much compassion, so much empathy, so much awe for the beauty of some kind of spirit which cannot be contained,which is so much more powerful than our ability to know or be certain even that it was there.

“New Jersey.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“What for?”

“Pick up a pickup truck.”

“Oh my God.”

The Leffot shoe store’s blog share some tips for protecting your shoes from road salt stains this winter:

The best way to combat the stain is to rinse the shoes off while they are still wet. If that’s not possible the salt will dry leaving a white stain, and the longer it’s left on will begin further damaging the leather.

Yes there are products made to remove salt stains, but I’ve always used a 50/50 mixture of warm water and white vinegar. Use a soft cloth and wipe away the stain, after the shoe is dry proceed to a leather balm or conditioner and then polish.

(h/t A Continuous Lean)

I don’t know which special products he had in mind, but I am as likely to use Lexol leather cleaner as his remedy, since I happen to have a big squirt bottle of it. Why? Because I needed some Lexol leather conditioner (rather essential), and thought, why not get the whole kit.

A commenter makes the sensible point that if you keep your shoes polished well enough (polish being basically wax), your shoes will soak up foreign substances less to begin with. Which stimulates my guilty conscience about not having polished my main pair of brogues myself.

As a former vegan I never thought I’d be write a blog post about leather care. More on that another time perhaps.

Something completely different –

“If you think Richard Dawkins is too easy on religion, go down to that end of the room,” I said, indicating the steps up to the bookstore. “And if you…”

“Careful…” someone said.

And I was. There were several believers-in-God present – the exact number depending on your definition – and I didn’t want to make a joke that might be taken the wrong way.

“If you’re, uh… very theistic, go down to the other end,” I finished, indicating the fireplace. “And if you’re somewhere in between, go somewhere in between.”

(More…)

I wasn’t terribly interested in the atheist bus campaign until I saw the photos – it’s a simple but rather nice design.

Also surprising, many of the photos and also this video are via sexblogger Zoe Margolis. Which reminds me I haven’t read Greta Christina for too long.

The New York Times article includes the following I-don’t-even-know-where-to-begin passage:

An interesting element of the bus slogan is the word “probably,” which would seem to be more suited to an Agnostic Bus Campaign than to an atheist one. Mr. Dawkins, for one, argued that the word should not be there at all.

But the element of doubt was necessary to meet British advertising guidelines, said Tim Bleakley, managing director for sales and marketing at CBS Outdoor in London, which handles advertising for the bus system.

For religious people, advertisements saying there is no God “would have been misleading,” Mr. Bleakley said.

(Hi-res photo here. That’s creator Ariane Sherine on the left, and I believe Polly Toynbee of the British Humanist Association on the right.)

Update: A.C. Grayling connects:

It would be misleading, eh? Thus the metaphysical authority of advertisers. You have to take your hat off to this one. If one wished to cite a better example of insidiousness, pusillanimity, timidity and absurdity, you would be hard pressed. There is something delicious about the thought of a functionary in an advertising agency doing ontology by arbitrating on the question of which fictional characters need a grey area of uncertainty around discussion of their existence – Little Red Riding Hood? Rumpelstiltskin? Santa? Betty Boop? Saint Veronica (who allegedly started out as sweat on a cloth and became a person)? Aphrodite? Wotan? Batman?

Is naturalist or humanist spirituality an oxymoron?

Tom Flynn seems to think so. And since he happens to be the new director of the Council for Secular Humanism, his opinion is of some moment.

In the latest edition of the Council’s “Secular Humanism Online News”, responding to an article on secularism in The American Spectator, he writes:

[Christopher] Orlet seems to find sincere, full-bore irreligiosity – the absence of any sense of a supra-natural aspect to life – almost incomprehensible, something there’s barely even a label for. Actually there are a couple of perfectly good labels for people who abstain from religion and spirituality. I’ve used one already: “scientific naturalist.” For another, I look no farther than my business card: “secular humanist.”

The way I read this passage, it seems he is equating “full-bore irreligiosity” with “[abstention] from religion and spirituality,” thereby suggesting spirituality is necessarily religious, or at least supernaturalistic.

But is it?

This is rather like the question of whether you can be a religious atheist. Both “religion” and “spirituality” are associated with supernaturalism, and yet both have their godless proponents who want to see the terms reclaimed – for example, Felix Adler (founder of the religion Ethical Culture) and André Comte-Sponville (author of The Little Atheist Book of Spirituality).

I disagree with the first quest. It seems quixotic to say the least, and I’m not sure the word “religion” is worth reclaiming even if it were possible – it has negative connotations even for many religious people. But I agree with the second.

Because “spirituality” seems like a truly useful collective term for one’s emotional, social, ethical, and even cognitive functioning as subjectively experienced. At the retreat on nontheism among Quakers this weekend, the most common description of spirituality was “connection” – feeling connected to other people and to the natural environment, along with being attentive to the present moment. I see nothing objectively mysterious or supernatural about any of these things, as mysterious as they might feel subjectively.

* *

And yet – one should use the word sparingly.

To quote James Riemermann again, writing on a different but related subject, “the word feels so terribly imprecise, and I can almost always find better ways to express myself.” If you’re about to say “spiritual” but you really just mean “ethical” or “emotional,” why not be specific?

I didn’t have time to peruse the whole store, but I will say this – the tie section is to die for. If you need ties and are close to NYC, go to Century 21. Practially everything is under $20 (some under $10), and the selection is not just better than a TJ Maxx or Marshalls (the official analogues), but better IMHO than most department stores.

(What did I buy? A sixties-looking orange/pink striped Prochownick, a navy check by the same, a blue and a pink glen plaid, and some multicolored awesome London rubbish)

The Archbishop of Canterbury will urge people to treasure children and respect others during the economic downturn in his annual new year message.

Dr Rowan Williams will say it is important to “take children seriously” and focus less on “material wealth”.

He will call on people to question public policies and ask how they will benefit the young and most vulnerable.

(BBC News, “Archbishop urges values rethink”)

Though even better than liberal church heads would be secular philosophers. I wish the anglophone world were more like France, where the top philosophy professors are public intellectuals, sought after by reporters for moral comment. (Or so I hear.)