A Lost Opportunity
By Peter Blair '12, Staff Columnist
Published on Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Yesterday, Aaron Golas ’07 published an editorial accusing a guest columnist of dismissing “a decades-old tradition of editorial cartooning and centuries-old tradition of satire.” This comment was the latest chapter in a two-week long exchange in the pages of The Dartmouth.
For those of you unfamiliar with the ongoing debate surrounding recent comics in The Dartmouth, let me give a quick synopsis. On Nov. 17, Justin Murray ’13 published an article in which he discussed tolerance (“An Intolerable Situation”). He raised some interesting points about how a false kind of tolerance, by leading to relativism and cynicism, can inhibit honest, respectful debate. Drew Lerman ’10, the author of “The Still North,” responded by caricaturing Murray, depicting Murray as professing a belief in “fairy tales” and seeking comfort from a Christ character who doesn’t “care if your arguments make any sense” (“The Still North,” Nov. 18). A guest columnist, Charles Clark ’11, responded to Lerman with a call for respectful and reasoned dialogue on issues of religion (“Constructive Criticism,” Nov. 23). Lerman responded to this request with an insulting comic in which a caricatured Clark declares, “Although masturbation is forbidden by the Lord, I never miss it! For whenever I open my mouth to speak, I am essentially performing that very task” (“The Still North,” Nov. 30). Finally, Aaron Golas ’07 wrote an editorial in defense of Lerman, claiming that Lerman was unjustly accused of ad hominem tactics by Clark.
There are many curious features of Golas’ article, not the least of which is his outrage over Clark’s characterization of Lerman’s comics as “ad hominem” and “anti-intellectual.” He describes the comic about Murray as “highlighting the absurdities of someone’s position through parody” and advises Clark to “brush up on his logical fallacies.” But perhaps Golas should brush up on his literary genres. At least, so says the Oxford English Dictionary. Lerman’s comic is not a parody, “a literary composition modeled on and imitating another work … for comic effect.” Rather, Lerman’s specialty is, as Clark correctly labeled it, the lampoon, “a virulent or scurrilous satire upon an individual.” Drawing a comic in which you issue cliche, knee-jerk criticisms from the mouths of your caricatured opponents while personally attacking them is the epitome of anti-intellectual, ad hominem tactics. Calling someone’s religious beliefs “fairy tales” is not an argument, it’s an insult based on nothing but the dogma of secularism’s intellectual superiority. If your entire position rests on the assumption that people who disagree with you are stupid, then you cannot fail to “enter the discourse in bad faith.”
A double standard runs through Golas’ entire article. He suggests that Christians looking for a reasoned debate should “start by refraining from belittling and insulting those of us who aren’t sufficiently deferential to their beliefs.” A fine principal, but wasn’t Clark pointing out that Lerman was “belittling and insulting” Murray for his beliefs? If he is so committed to promoting insult-free discourse, he might have put into his article a sentence or two reproaching Lerman. The most stunning example of this double standard comes when Golas writes, “Ideas and beliefs, however, are automatically entitled to neither respect nor even tolerance.” Then he writes, “motivation to enter a discussion … requires the impression that one’s position will actually be heard and considered.” Golas reserves the right to openly scorn others, granting “neither respect nor even tolerance,” but demands a respectful audience to discuss his own views.
In contrast to Golas’ double standard, intellectual Christians believe both sides deserve a fair hearing. In fact, The Apologia, of which Clark is editor-in-chief and I am an editor, is dedicated to the idea of reasoned discourse between nonbelievers and Christians. In the spring, the magazine published an interview with prominent atheist Daniel Dennet in which Dennet makes the case that religion is a “rogue cultural variance” or the product of poorly performing genes. In light of this, Golas’ claim that Clark has “absolutely no interest in considering the merits of [atheists’] arguments” simply does not hold water. Orthodox, intellectual Christianity welcomes honest, reasoned criticism. What it does not welcome is cheap insults, poor arguments and assumptions of intellectual superiority. If Golas and Lerman are ready to shed themselves of those attitudes and tactics, we would be happy to engage with them in what Clark calls “proper academic fashion,” in “rational discussion and respectful debate.”
The real parody here is the idea of Christians accusing anyone of ad hominem arguments. The entire history of Christianity is one great big ad hominem argument.
Maybe if Mr. Blair could see past the blindingly obvious bias that he has, he’d realize that Mr. Murray’s original article was incredibly belittling and insulting to non-Christians and other actually-tolerant people.
By Dylan C. Hume on Dec 2 | 12:54 pm
Still, I’m surprised that Mr. Hume could read Mr. Blair’s article and then make his post. Is this “blindingly obvious bias” the same thing that led him and Mr. Clark to respectfully interview Daniel Dennett, the aforementioned man in the article who believes that those who have a religion are somehow the result of a genetic malfunction? I also went back and re-read Mr. Murray’s article to see if I’d somehow missed something and if it was indeed, “incredibly belittling and insulting to non-Christians and other actually-tolerant people.” What I found was as follows in the third and fourth sentences: “Smirkers come from every religion, every nationality and every school of thought. You can see them in classrooms, at rallies and in churches, condescendingly dismissing other people’s ideas.” Notice Mr. Murray wrote, “all religions,” “every school of thought,” and “in churches.” Presumably, this would include Christians in the group of “smirkers,” as he put it—which is broadly defined enough that it might as well read “everywhere” or perhaps “all of humanity.” I can find literally nothing that should offend anybody in Murray’s article.
By Sterling C. Beard on Dec 2 | 3:35 pm
Hmm. It seems the form doesn’t allow for quotation marks. Odd and annoying when trying to quote something.
By Sterling C. Beard on Dec 2 | 3:38 pm
Peter Blair ‘12 is right. Justin Murray '13 is right. The opinion page and “comic” pages need no elaboration from anyone. Read and view them and an honest, thinking person knows what is true and false. Drew Lerman '10 and Aaron Golas '07 would not, have not and will not attack anyone or anything associated with Islam this way. Christians are open season though, because for leftists they represent the basis of American morality and the Founding principles of this country. Therefore Lerman and Golas see anyone who stands openly for morality as their enemies. They expose themselves as sputtering, blathering morons who are unable to make even a single point in favor of their “argument” without impaling themselves and spinning on their own words so they are reduced to calling their “enemies” what they publicly, in print, prove themselves to be.
Lerman and Golas have achieved the rare trifecta of debate, flatly wrong intellectually, morally and factually. To this self inflicted injury they add self insult and insult the public with disgusting, gutless, infantile, self contradicton, mixed with classless, humorless, disrespectful, inhumane, filthy dishonesty. A Dartmouth College Senior and a Dartmouth College graduate who have destroyed themselves in debate with a first term freshman and a sophomore. Well done boys.By Frank on Dec 2 | 5:14 pm
I think Blair’s editorial misses one of Golas' larger points entirely: beliefs that enter the public forum are fair-game for public rebuttal. Maybe that comes in the form of parody, or academic debate, or whatever. Most importantly, bellyaching over the manner in which these beliefs are handled in the public forum does not refute the parody — which is probably the most offending bit (to the believer), and not the (lack of) respectfulness of the message.
I’m not sure Frank – the above commenter – is in any position to criticize debate tactics, as he concludes that Lerman and Golas are ‘morally wrong’. What basis for debate?! I find his final diatribe entertainingly ad hominem, in light of this whole discussion.
By Steven R. Gomez 07 on Dec 2 | 8:47 pm
I disagree with Peter’s religious perspective generally (and he knows this from me) but I will have to agree with his points on disrespectful dialogue, however.
I am an agnostic by examination so right off the bat that means that I will not agree with the Apologia’s statement that Christianity is an objectively true faith. But I definitely have to agree with Peter that there is some serious impropriety when non-believers mock/insult believers (and vice versa).
If some serious debate is going to happen between the two camps, they should get rid of their arrogance and stop their tendency to turn their opponents and their arguments into cartoons.
True debate will only occur when both sides have the intellectual honesty to “take the bull by the horns”: which means, accurately reconstructing each others' arguments and respectfully showing each other where the disagreements occur.
This is the way to go, but I am afraid that as long as both sides keep on smirking each other and expressing arrogance, both are wasting people’s valuable time and accomplishing nothing aside from angry feelings and frustration…
By Katherine Cespedes ‘10 on Dec 2 | 11:43 pm
“A Dartmouth College Senior and a Dartmouth College graduate who have destroyed themselves in debate with a first term freshman and a sophomore”
It’s no shame to be “destroyed” by Peter Blair. I’ve never met a 19 year old who has his uncanny ability to critically think.
By Bobby Bambino on Dec 3 | 12:59 pm
I’ve written a reply to this column, which I invite you to read on my website: http://www.aarongolas.com/2009/12/further-religious-discourse-at-dartmouth/
In brief, I advocate no such double standard. My request that atheists' position be considered was made specifically within the context of being invited into debate. In fact, the double standard Blair ascribes to me is actually precisely the attitude I rebuked Murray for holding.
A “fair hearing” for both sides is all I ever asked for, yet Blair seems unwilling to extend the same consideration to his fellow students as he did to Dan Dennett. I don’t know where he got the idea that my position is “based on nothing but the dogma of secularism’s intellectual superiority.” Perhaps he simply has difficulty accepting that there are those of us who have heard the arguments in favor of religion and yet find them wanting.
By Aaron J. Golas 07 on Dec 15 | 11:53 pm