Sustained Seasonal Symbolic Struggles

by Gary Berg-Cross

As we run up to the winer solstice and associated holidays (you know what they are) there is plenty of secular/religious word-swords crossed. It's another season of symbolic struggles over words and associated values.

For example Italian parents are reportedly furious when a school canceled the "Christmas" concert:


".. Italian school principal was forced to resign amid a flurry of controversy after he replaced the annual Christmas concert with a winter recital — a move even the prime minister and the predominantly Catholic country’s non-Christians have condemned.

Marco Parma said he moved Rozzano Garofani Elementary School’s annual concert from December to January and stripped it of its Christian hymns in a bid to make it more inclusive. 

A fifth of the institute’s 1,000 students are not Christian, the Guardian reported." Ok, so Italy is still a religious country.

We all have heard of the Christian evangelist's flameup with Starbucks "holiday cups."  The coffee chain’s seasonal, minimalist red, green and snowflakey white designs get remixed each year, but this year’s tri-color winter, holiday tone  has apparently angered some religious leaders for declaring a so-called “war on Christmas.”  As former Arizona pastor Joshua Feuerstein posted on Facebook post

“Starbucks REMOVED CHRISTMAS from their cups because they hate Jesus,”

Hate goes with war I guess, as do offensive moves. 

 Focus on the Family and the Catholic League have launched a flurry of such verbal offenses. One is a button campaign to the get the meme out that  "It's OK to Wish Me A Merry Christmas."  More offensive is their  "watch lists" identifying "Christmas-unfriendly" retailers.  

There are some counter moves as the Christmas offensive grounds forth. 

Charlene Storey, a New Jersey councilwoman quit,  after her city voted to call the traditional holiday tree a Christmas tree.

Yes, Christianity has won this battle in the war as they changed the name of the town’s tree unveiling ceremony from the previous“Annual Holiday Tree Lighting” (going back to the 1990s) to “Annual Christmas Tree Lighting.”

Storey, who grew up Catholic but now considers herself a “non-believer,” said the four people who voted to change the name are Christians active in their churches. 

 

“There are also many other philosophies and religions outside of Christianity,   Changing the name … clearly disrespects them all and hijacks the tree lighting for one religion.”

That's the trouble with one true religious views.  It seems a bit intolerant at times, especially when we are supposed to be full of good will and joy for all.

BTW, Tom Flynn of The Trouble with Christmas fame will be speaking at the next WASH MDC meeting at the Wheaton Library)

Saturday, December 12, 2015

3:15 PM to 5:30 PM).  

The topic?    "A Radical View on Church and State.

Just in time for the holidays.

Misinformation, Lies and Ignorance

By Gary Berg-Cross

At a recent meeting I attended the topic of American decline came up somewhat as an obvious assertion as fact with the subsequent search for why this was happening.  After the usual suspects of ineffective government and various stresses such the wealth gap and declining resources it was suggested that an additional reason was “ignorance.” This was elaborated a bit as people not understanding they are being fooled, lied to and manipulated.  For a number of reasons people are just misinformed. We can blame Fox unNews and others parts of conservative media for misinformation on the Affordable Care Act - see What Epic Propaganda Looks Like Obamacare And Permanent Right-Wing Misinformation which includes the sensational rumor mongering ideas of “death panels” and fact-free claims that:

• Obamacare is a "cancer" and "a top-down, iron-fisted, Soviet-style program."
• Obamacare represents the "largest tax increase in the history of the world."
• Obamacare is "sticking it to men."

These are the type of unbalanced, sensational, emotion-generating stories that abuse common sense but appeal to some bias and thus spawns meme waves.  The more boring reality of a neutral story can't compete. 

How do we handle this? One idea is to simply ask, "what is the source or these claims?"  Challenging the source is one way to fight misinformation (MI) in a person, but it may not stem a tide of MIs.  Media and political machines provide an easy way to spread these oversimplified memes which are not sourced back to facts, but are just myths.

 As Mark Twain wrote:

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.

 It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

Yes, and Psychology tells us a bit about why people hold on this this Foxian misinformation. You can read a bit about it in Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing by Australian Stephan Lewandowsky and others.  

Novelty, emotional capability and over simplicity making misinformation memetic is part of it.  Having a megaphone to get the meme out is another, but it is also important that we live an nonintellectual climate that

accepts a naive idea of binary balance or what I called binary thinking.  You see in arguments about evolution vs. creationism.  There are 2 sides and so it is balanced to give them equal discussion.  No, this is not the way to balance fact and opinion, although Fox news seems to place the asymmetry in the other direction – more opinion than facts.  People will believe something if it comes from a well-positioned source.  Should I believe in creationism?  Well if it is good enough for my moral leaders (Rabbis, priests, ministers etc.) than it is good enough for me.

 The internet and the social web makes this easier than ever to get a preponderance of opinion and advocacy out there as opposed to literal fact. And of course people believe internet misinformation because it sounds literal like an authoritative source.
 
“A survey of the first 50 Web sites matching the search term “weight loss diets” revealed that only 3 delivered sound dietary advice.” Why People Believe Weird Things and 8 Ways to Change Their Minds by Jeremy Dean

I once had a conversation with a person who thought the facts were against climate change.  His source was a site with some authoritative  definitive name like Climate Facts I don’t remember the actual name, but I looked it up and found it was funded by Exxon. That gave me something to use aside from different climate change facts. With my confused friend I could show why the site he found might be misinforming him – they had hidden motives.

The lesson here is that people are partly ignorant because it is hard to keep up with the flow of information, and not critical thinking or skeptical enough. But there is also responsibility on the part or the 4^th Estate to inform.  As Carl Bernstein noted:

The lowest form of popular culture - lack of information, misinformation, disinformation and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people's lives - has overrun real journalism. 

Psychologist Jeremy Dean proposes a few other ways to unstick folks from misinformation.  These include keeping the rebuttal short and sweet. By sweet one means not attacking the person and being affirmative and not just negative. Don’t overload a misinformed person but dose things out as they may be able to assimilate it and do it in an exchange
An interesting idea which I haven’t tried systematically is to, as Dean calls it “affirm identity.” The idea is to mitigate people’s natural resistance to new, countering, unpleasant facts by getting them to affirm their identity. So if people think of themselves as generous or open or having Christian values they may be better able to accept the value of funding food for hungry people while thinking of those identities. Research suggests this helps people deal with inconsistencies between their beliefs and the new information that is conflicting with it.

In this informative process there are some things to avoid.  After you have noted a topic you are addressing, don’t keep repeating a myth associated with it, such as “death panels”. It just activates emotions, so re-frame the discussion and repeat your main points, which should include facts to give

them a chance to replace unfacts. Think of it as dismantling a structure in stages, but providing a new, sturdy structure to replace it.  I had that experience in that same meeting where we discussed ignorance.  One person supported the idea that our society was declining because it was, yes, too complex, but that this was driven by the government making things too complex in order to be “fair.”  Step by step people in the group offered simple examples of how things like the tax code or laws are complex due to greed and interest on the part of power groups able to influence the construction of tax exemptions etc.  By the end we had a group understanding and the myth of government imposition of fairness was dismantled.

Lewandowsky and colleagues conclude their article with a mixed note of caution and information consumer advice:

“Correcting misinformation is cognitively indistinguishable from misinforming people to replace their preexisting correct beliefs. It follows that it is important for the general public to have a basic understanding of misinformation effects… Widespread awareness of the fact that people may “throw mud” because they know it will “stick”…will contribute to a well-informed populace.”

 Yes, we are all information consumers and know how to move other’s opinions.  It is the task of ethical information agents to pursue the true and educate our fellow citizens.

Images

Myth vs. Fact: http://lifehacker.com/5863557/the-debunking-handbook-explains-the-art-of-shooting-down-misinformation

No hell below us: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201103/misinformation-and-facts-about-secularism-and-religion

Replacing misinformation:http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201103/misinformation-and-facts-about-secularism-and-religion

Battle of Earth Hours and Saving the Planet

by Gary Berg-Cross

Earth Hour 2012 is March 31, at 8:30 pm local time. It promises to be a very secular and humanistic hour, but I notice that like Darwin Day some conservative forces feel left out . Or perhaps that they can't let this type of progressive statement go un-co-opted. So the Competitive Enterprise Institute has jumped into the hour with Let there be light: 'Human Achievement Hour'. It coincides with Earth Hour but is probably not the same set of beliefs about protecting and saving the planet, our only home, that you see in WWF plea: Dare the World to Save the Planet.

"I Will If You Will" is a simple promise and a challenge. Dare anyone (your Facebook friends, co-workers, celebrity crushes) to accept your challenge and help protect the Earth or accept the challenge of someone else.

Visit "I Will If You Will" to see all the challenges and create your own.

There they go again: Chopra & O’Reilly Pay Back Try on Richard Dawkins

By Gary Berg-Cross

In an earlier article, Magic of Reality Part 2 –Why are You so Insensitive About my Real Myths?, I discussed an exchange between Richard Dawkins (RD) and Bill O’Reilly on his Fox show. I thought that Bill got much the worst of that exchange, but he is at Dawkins again, without having Richard there to defend himself. Instead he had mystic, spiritual author Deepak Chopra as a guest, who was hawking his new book, “War of the Worldviews: Science vs. Spirituality,” on the “O’Reilly Factor”. As you can imagine this book is quite a contrast with Dawkins Magic of Reality. And Deepak did spend some time contrasting his book to Dawkins'. But Chopra had more to say about Dawkin personally and this seemed pretty emotional, perhaps because the only time that Chopra had met Dawkins previously, was in an interview for Channel 4 in Oxford. He called that engagement an ambush since he did not know beforehand that he would be interviewed by Dawkins for TV. You can see a small snippet of that exchange about Chopra’s ideas on psychic healing, quantum theory and the arrogance of fundamentalist science on YouTube. And, of course, it is not the only time that Chopra’s belief about belief has been held up to critical thinking –see the snippet on belief and insecurity.

One way to make sense of what took place on the “O’Reilly Factor” was payback from Chopra and O’Reilly for being shown up by someone who really understands Science. Here is a bit of the phrases that O’Reilly used to characterize his first interview with Dawkins:

• Dawkins thinks that we are idiots.

• There’s more emotion in them (atheists),

• they get really upset and ticked off and
• I kicked his butt

Pretty emotion laden phrasing and you can watch Chopra's appearance on The Factor here and decide for yourself on whether reason or emotion was the main player in their discussion.

What I saw is that both O’Reilly and Chopra used some mind numbing ideas to discuss Dawkins. At one point they argued that he was “hypocritical” to insist of using only using “facts and logic.” when really his discussions are emotional. One can go back to the transcript and original video to see how the shoe is really on the other foot here and we are in Big Lie territory.

Later on The Factor show Chopra also played a payback game accusing RD of “camouflaging his bigotry” by parading his scientific credentials to make himself seem credible.

After what seemed to me an emotive payback session it was time for a meeting of the Christian right and what some call "Eastern mystique in credible Western garb." So, as you might imagine loose, emotion-grabbing ideas flowed freeing in the mystical summit of pop-thinkers. They discussed what O’Reilly called a flashpoint tension between believers and non believers. Chopra was more on book topic responding to Bill’s leads stressing how people have to listen to the heart and understand the great prophets. O’Reilly went back to his claim that Judeo-Christian principles were central in founding the United States, and how the Ten Commandments were the basis of the U.S. justice system.

It's certainly a debatable point but my guess is that O'Reilly is not likely to have a on a secular guest to discuss - too emotional a topic for Bill. I'd guess that in the future these 2 guys will stay away from debates with Dawkins and his kind. Rational secularists are just too emotionally committed to facts and critical thinking. This makes them hard to content with and they don't rattle easy unlike .

Accommodation and Openness: Thoughts on Religion & Non-Belief Cooperation at the Occupy Movement

By Gary Berg-Cross

There are many voices that can be heard in the Occupy movement, but coverage sometimes simplifies it down to familiar categories often framed in false dichotomies. So it is described by Fox and right wing outlets in what seem like hot button labels such as anti-bank or anti-capitalism. Or it characterized as made up of (or controlled by) a new brand of amoral, dirty hippies. For good measure the label of atheist & secular humanist are smeared on with rigor by right wing outlets in an effort to get an emotional response from their base.

But clearly religious moments, and even events, have become part of many Occupy camps. Indeed, while a minority of what is shown, religious imagery have been common since the protests began. In New York, activist clergy carried an Old Testament-style golden calf in the shape of the Wall Street bull to decry the false idol of greed. In contrast fundamentalist & some establishment religious leaders are cautious about involvement and less visible. They seem uncomfortable with the focus on what they see as “liberal issues” and are natural allies of the powers that be. An example of this tool place in Atlanta on 10/25 when a mix of clergy stood behind Mayor Kasim Reed as he walked into Occupy Atlanta to hold a press conference. It was then not surprising that later these clergy were rebuffed when they tired to serve as intermediaries between the movement and the mayor.

What we think of as liberal and interfaith groups seem more comfortable with the movement and see it as a fight for social justice and participatory democracy. As a result these segments of the religious community have secured some role in various Occupy events and the movement itself has made room for them as part of acceptance of the 99%.

One example of this spirit was the Chicago group, Interfaith Worker Justice, publishing an interfaith prayer service guide for occupation protests nationwide. Another example is downtown Dewey Square in Boston with its fill of tents, tarps and cold weather garb. But early on organizers ensured that encampment provided room for what was called a "Sacred Space" tent. It was made clear that it accepts all faiths & spiritual traditions. That welcome was evidenced by the presence of a Buddha statue abutting a picture of Jesus, and a hand-lettered sign pointing toward Mecca. Boston reporters also noted a mix of chakras, "compassion meditation" and discussion of biblical passages.

Religion might not fit into the movement seamlessly everywhere, but back in NYC, activist Dan Sieradski has helped organize a Jewish Yom Kippur service arguing that the movement must find space for religious faith somewhere:

"We're a country full of religious people….Faith communities do need to be present and need to be welcomed in order for this to be an all-encompassing movement that embraces all sectors of society."

That all encompassing movement includes a mix of believers and non-believers and we need to avoide a superficial response, to the legitimate question, “Is Occupy largely is a predominantly secular, atheist or Humanist undertaking or is religious?” This seems hard to answer, and perhaps is too simple a formulation. Some self proclaimed atheists have written of involvement, but often in cooperation with “left-leaning”/progressive religious groups. Secular and progressive religious groups may be similar minds on some issues that OWS is stressing and tactical cooperation among many parts of the 99% may be needed to move society forward. Indeed the Occupy efforts seem to be energizing progressive, religious activism. This may allow for some convergence of secular and religious activism over humanistic values and ideals such as fairness. It is perhaps good that secularists and religions can get together focus on something larger than their movements and rally about common values. This raises some accommodationist issues, but what is clear is that there have been roaring responses when some commonality has been raised, such as when Cornell West gave a shout out to:

"the progressive agnostic and atheistic brothers and sisters"

To some this suggests that the movement might serve to point out “not just the gulf between haves and have-nots in modern America, but between the religious right and not-so-religious left.”

In earlier times some religious groups and their leaders like MLK have been at the forefront of progressive social movements. Ministers like MLK could raise the nation's conscience on some of the issues OWS represents – inequality, poverty and injustice, languishing civil and ending wars. Improved national conversations represent one target for such movements and greater social consciousness. But since the 70s the main activism has been on the fundamentalist side, whose right-wing political activism has, among other things, eroded the separation of state and church. More liberal religious denominations, like unions have lost membership, and now seem less a part of the national conversation.

The Occupy movement may be a vehicle to get a succinct, social justice message out. A chicken and egg factor is the forging of an alliance between interfaith groups, atheists and secularist humanists of like mind. It might be needed for the greater good, but would require accommodation on both sides. Religious groups might have to accept the pragmatics of having non-belivers as partners, whose moral values are as valid & acceptable as those from the faith community. The responsibility of nonbelievers towards religious believers, as expressed by John Shook, is to help the religious “accommodate themselves to the cold hard truths about naturalism and the firm political structures of secularism. “

This togetherness & accommodation idea may not play well with some religious groups nor with many new atheist/secularists, but it may be something nonbelievers may accept as part of a broader, humanist, evolutionary path for both.

Telling a Fuller Story About Sensationalized Claims

By Gary Berg-Cross

Sensational claims have been taken to task here in the Secular Perspectives blog. Luis Granados took on The supposedly scientific Prayer Study proving the existence of God and Robert of rwahrens just had to rant about:

“another of those idiotic news items where they take a common every day item and claim that the government has paid an exorbitant price for it. This one is for muffins. Muffins they claim the government paid $16 for.”

Both blogs expose an instance of a sensationalized claim, seemingly but not really grounded in facts, which advances some popular bias and lingering hope. Wouldn’t it be great if Science could prove that God exists and that we can get what we pray for - or at least what we good people pray for to the right god and not what those fanatics are praying for. Luis shows some of the fraud behind the claim for prayer. The news report that Robert took on week about alleged spending $16 a piece for breakfast muffins and $8 for a cup of coffee for employees attending a conference in Washington two years ago was quickly countered by avalanche of criticism that pointed out it was a half baked report. Only later did papers like the Washington Post report, that the price included not just a muffin, but a continental breakfast of baked goods, fresh fruit, coffee, tea, soft drinks, tax tips as part of the use of the conference space.

Media is prone to over-hyped and controversial news pieces because of the pressing need to increase viewership/readership. On the other hand it may not cover protests such as Wall Street is being occupied against corporate greed. There is a good argument that it did not get adequate coverage till there was a sensationalized violence- see Op-Ed: Wall Street is Occupied protest not getting media coverage

Sensationalism sells and may include reporting about generally insignificant matters and events such as $16 muffins appeal to the emotions are proxies for important arguments such as whether government is too big and wasting money. Equivalent dog whistle stories such as corporate wooing of pols by overpaying for Redskin booths and services may not be given equal treatment.

Consider the quick response to the grand muffin claim after The Washington Post, among other media outlets, pronounced word of the offense in a front page story, based on a Justice Department auditor's report. Senior Republican Senator Chuck Grassley who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee (which has oversight of the Justice Department), said the report was a blueprint for the first cuts that should be made by the "super committee" searching for at least $1.2 trillion in savings. Later NBC's Brian Williams featured the Justice Department's offense in that day evening's news lineup. As rwahrens feared an ill-informed link was made to sensationalized examples of wasteful government spending such as the Lockheed bill for $640 for custom molded toilet seat covers.

Wyatt Kash, Editorial Director of AOL Government contextualized the sensationalization well:

“Regardless, to put the blame totally on government employees, as the auditors and then the media so quickly did, and not at least in part on what and how hotels routinely charge for conferences services, is another example of how easy it has become in America to demonize the federal workforce--a group of dedicated public servants who in reality are working tirelessly to protect our country, provide services to the needy and tackle problems that are bigger than any one of us can solve alone. “

More examples of loud stories include misleading statements, omitting key facts and information and half truths as discussed in my Flexible Thinking in a Time of Imprecise Statements.

Advocates can get away with this because we live in a time of head spinning news overload. In our news cycle one story steps on the previous so rapildy that we don’t have to reflective on the core information that often is no more than half truth and innuendo. See my Stressed Buffet Offered by the Hurricane, News Quake for more on this phenomena.

The Murdock Scandal

By Bill Creasy

Rupert Murdoch and his corporate empire News International is becoming engulfed in a scandal including hacking of cell phones to listen to private messages, and bribery of police. Currently, most of the problems are in Britain, but an investigation is beginning in the U. S. This scandal relates to an article I wrote in WASHline asking whether corporations encourage unhumanistic behavior. I wrote

A corporation is organized and run to accomplish a particular narrow goal. For-profit corporations are organized around a need to make money, but even nonprofits have a particular focus.

Because corporations have a narrow goal, they force their employees to work toward that goal. People as individuals have a range of needs and wants, but these are suppressed. People have a feeling of empathy for the suffering of others. But if their employer, a corporation, causes suffering, the individual is able to say "it isn't my fault" or "it isn't my problem."

Modern life depends on corporations. But there are certain kinds of corporations that produce bad results....

One kind of bad corporation is a dictatorial corporation. It can happen that the board of directors and shareholders to become completely passive and allow the CEO to do whatever he wants. If the CEO is successful, that's fine. But power corrupts, and the CEO may not be able to distinguish his or her personal good from that of the corporation. For example, the CEO may decide to spend corporate money to elect political candidates. This is perhaps the most undesirable effect of the Citizens United decision. At the same time, the CEO is still shielded from personal responsibility by the corporation....

The legal purpose of a corporation is to keep one person from being liable. But by doing so, it allows employees not to be responsible. If a government official is bribed and corrupted by a corporation that is only trying to accomplish its narrow goal, who is the person responsible for paying off this bad official? Are citizens losing political and economic control in society to unethical corporations run by irresponsible employees that have vast amounts of money and influence?

The scandal enveloping Rupert Murdoch, his associates including Rebekah Brooks, and his media empire, is turning into an example of this problem. Murdoch is a classic example of a dictatorial CEO. Apparently no one in his organization was capable of criticizing his actions. Carl Bernstein compared the scandal to Watergate and Murdoch to Nixon. Bernstein pointed out that there are indications that much more of the scandal will emerge (Newsweek, July 18, 2011, 4-6). He wrote that it is inconceivable that illegal activities occurred at Murdoch-owned newspapers without Murdoch's implicit agreement. Alan Rusbridger, editor in chief of the British Guardian newspaper that broke the story of the scandal, wrote that the story caused a “surge of revulsion” in Britain. Previously, “you needed Murdoch to get elected in Britain,” and “British public life had molded itself to accommodate the Murdochs.” Now, “that spell has been broken.” (Newsweek, July 29, 2011, 45-47.)

Many humanists may connect Murdoch to the Religious Right because of the right wing commentators on Fox News in the U. S. Fox News has without question supported conservative Christian political influence, including giving jobs as commentators to a number of potential Republican presidential candidates like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Huckabee.

But Murdoch doesn't appear to be a Christian true believer. He is more of an amoral opportunist. His only interest seems to be amassing a media empire and the political and economic power that comes with it. Often, his efforts to increase his audience comes by lowering journalistic standards to the lowest tabloids standards, manufacturing stories and controversies out of nothing, and enflaming emotional political debates to the point that neither side is willing to have a reasonable discussion that will lead to a compromise.

Some of the tactics that are used on Fox News to generate controversy are discussed in the documentary Outfoxed, directed and produced by Robert Greenwald. It is worth noting that conservative commentators on Fox News regularly rail against declining standards of TV entertainment. But Murdoch's Fox Channel pioneered the "gross out" low-brow entertainment shows with sitcoms like "Married With Children" that were responsible for lowering the standards. "The Simpsons," an animated show, was considered risque when it started 20 years ago, but is now a mainstream show about a nuclear family with a loving husband and wife.

With this history of decreasing standards, perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that Murdoch's British media companies like News of the World were using illegal methods to get news stories on a routine basis. The methods included hacking cell phones to listen to messages, and paying off policemen. These are simply expedient ways of getting information. It wouldn't be surprising if some U.S. companies are doing similar tactics. Hopefully, elite companies like The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Murdoch, are maintaining their standards.

If Murdoch knew about and approved of these methods, perhaps it is surprising that he thought he could get away with them as a long-term effort. Was he really such an absolute dictator in control of his company and British politicians that he expected no one would notice?

Being ethical means being concerned with the long-term consequences of actions. People in charge of corporations should be concerned with long-term survival, not just the simplest way to reach short-term goals. If Murdoch approved illegal methods to get news stories, he is an example of the worst kind of dictatorial corporate leadership. He and his close associates should be removed from control of the company, by any legal mechanism.