I recently came across this statement:
I fail to see how refusing to believe in God leads to the 'logical conclusion' of abandoning the belief that women exist to serve men.
"So what?" you may be thinking. "To any person who doesn't think fifty-one percent of the human race should be treated as second-class citizens, this is just a narrow reformulation of 'why should you be good without God?' I hear this all the time."
And, Gentle Reader, you'd be right. Given that very basic moral principle, that's exactly what it is and you most probably do.
Sad to say, this didn't come from some religious fundamentalist. It came from an atheist so-called "men's rights activist." (If you really want to know, it's from Justin Vacula, and you may google the above quote for confirmation if you like; I'm not in the business of providing click-throughs for hate-groups and their supporters. Here's where I came across the quote. But I digress.)
But, okay, all I really did above was say "it's obvious." So, for the benefit of fundies and MRAs, here's how we can and should be good—especially as regards equal rights (I've been reading too much Pratchett: I typed that as "rites")—without gods. In baby-steps for the hard-of-thinking.
First, his "dictionary atheist" point. Indeed, the disbelief in gods doesn't logically lead us to any conclusions about things other than gods. The (childishly obvious) implication, though, of having no Godly Guide To Morals, is that we might just need to put some brain-work in and come up with some of our own; grounded, as much as possible, in observation. We need to look at what the world is actually like, take a look at what people seem to want, and see if we can't come up with a way to make the former as much like the latter as we can. Preferably this method shouldn't involve gulags. Most people, oddly enough, don't seem to like them much. So…
Some observed behavioural properties of the human species. We don't need to discuss why we have these attributes; rather we should note that they seem to be near-universal traits of our species and take them as a given; our starting-point. Oh, and let's please not quibble about "why are these things good?" Never having met anyone who didn't think they were, I'm prepared to take them being viewed as good as a kind of meta behavioural property of our species; another given. They're good in the eyes of humans, because humans seem to insinctively view them as good. If you want to argue that one, go find a philosopher. A philosopher who isn't an MRA. Anyways…
We all have empathy to some degree or other. It's a much over-used word, so I'd best explain what I mean and don't mean by it. I don't mean it in some head-in-the-clouds "love for all life," or even "all human life" sense (though the former would be great, and the latter at least a damn good start). Nor do I mean it in the semi-telepathic Star Trek TNG sense. I mean we all have the ability to at least try to purposefully look at the world from a different perspective than our own. Also I mean it in the sense that we, on a more instinctive level, sympathise with each others' suffering—to the point where we'll actually wince at another's pain, exactly as if it were our own.
We all act, to greater or lesser degrees, altruistically. Whether it's soldiers throwing themselves on hand-grenades, people giving lavish amounts to charities or you helping that little old lady to gather the contents of her spilled shopping bag last week, we all, at least sometimes, go out of our way—even into harm's way—to do things which don't appear to be to our foreseeable benefit.
We seem to have an inbuilt idea of fairness. (I've harped on about this one before, I seem to recall.) The very first moralistic statement which most babies utter is "That's Not Faaaair!" Okay, it's usually weighted heavily toward not getting what they want, but they seem to pick up the concept very early on. And by age four or five, they'll already often be applying it—altruistically, we might say—when they see other people being treated unfairly.
So, okay; empathy, altruism and fairness. Now let's turn Vacula's statement into a question. Then let's turn it into the right question. As implied, the question asked is:
Why shouldn't women be kept subservient to men?
And here's how to ask it the right way:
Why should women be kept subservient to men?
Getting slightly ahead of myself, this is the correct way to approach any question of equal treatment, either in law or in less-than-legalistic societal custom. Gay rights, women's rights, matters of equal pay for equal work or equal punishment for equal crime; anything which can be expressed in terms of equalities. The default position should always be that rights should be equal unless there is good reason to grant more or take some away from a person or group. Here's why…
Fairness shows us when people are being treated, well, unfairly; unequally.
Empathy allows us to vicariously experience their unequal treatment.
Altruism makes (or bloody well should make) us want to fix that unfairness, now that we've spotted it and "felt" it.
Imagine a huge database of every person in the world. It's sortable by as many characteristics as we can think of. Skin-colour, taste in shoes, gender, sexuality, like or dislike of Marmite, religious faith or lack thereof, height… et cetera and probably ad nauseam.
Sort by any characteristic and ask yourself if there's a reason this group should be given more or less rights to equality than the "norm."
Children, partly for their own protection and partly for the protection of others from their likely ill-judged acts, stand out as needing their rights (very carefully) curtailed. Their guardians and protectors, conversely, need a bit more power over children in their care than a passing stranger would have. There is good reason to curtail the rights of criminals. Those charged with the responsibility of enforcing these rights and equalities need some (circumscribed) extra power. Those we elect to govern this ever-more complicated system of intertwining rights (and responsibilities) also need extra powers over the norm.
See how it works? We don't, in our idealised hypothetical situation, start with the present real-world inequalities. We start with the ideal in mind, and then only deviate from that where a need can be shown for us to do so.
Now, pick the group which you claim should be kept in its present, real-world state of inequality, and explain to me why that inequality needs to be introduced into the above ideal situation. LGBTs, the ethnic group of your choice, women, whoever. If you can't show good, well-evidenced, beyond-reasonable-doubt reason to introduce it, then the inequality (to really belabour the point) is un-fucking-needed and therefore unjust.
To any thinking adults who made it this far: I've quite probably just wasted a good few minutes of your time, telling you stuff you've known since kindergarten. Sorry! (You shoulda seen it before I blue-pencilled all the digressions. Oy vey!)
—Daz
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Good post Daz, a lot of good point which the likes of the MRA will completely ignore unfortunately.
Slightly OT but as you mentioned Star Trek TNG. Think of the sound the congregation makes as it mumbles along together in prayer at church and then ask yourself this, I wonder where the Star Trek producers got the idea for the sound of the Borg?
But that still leaves the problem of people with thinking deficits. Do you really think there’s much hope for the MRA?