I've been doing a lot of mulling recently about hard-line-ism and intellectual righteousness vs pragmatism and manners. I've seen the struggle played out in two theaters recently and neither case makes the quandary any clearer to me and I'd like to have a discussion to see if I can make progress in my thinking.
The first case is in bicycling. There have been a lot of articles on BikePortland recently about the progress the BTA is making with various Portland city departments like Transportation and Police. Last week,
PBOT issued their first ever traffic advisory aimed at bicycles, which I take a good sign that bicycling is gaining official legitimacy as a mode of transportation here. There is also the recent
Community Policing Agreement. [ SEE TANGENT-1 BELOW ] Jonathan Maus, who writes for Bike Portland, interviewed Rosie Sizer, the chief of police, reported that she said that "this new tone from bike advocates is what has made it possible for her and her staff to come to the table and work productively on bike traffic issues" (wording from Maus). [ SEE TANGENT-2 BELOW ] I think police support means that bicycling advocacy has become sufficiently muted and submissive that the police and the power-structures they protect find it acceptable, and here's where I circle back to my question about hard-line-ism vs pragmatism. Is it possible that meek, submissive advocates can get more done with police support than strong, indomitable advocates can get done while the police work against them? I honestly don't know. Progress is slow either way and I think the difference is hard to measure. What's even more unnerving is that I'm afraid that the goals of the submissive advocates could be easier to influence. Once a movement has police support, I begin to question whether it's still working for me or not.
So is the change in tone in bicycle advocacy a good thing? Is it a good thing that the police are finally "helping?" I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.
The second case is Atheism. I've said a number of times before that I have lots of respect for the likes of Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins, etc. Especially Harris, whose major argument is that "belief" and "faith" provide a shield so that ideas can't be questioned and that (1) has allowed religious people to hold on to bad ideas in perpetuity and (2) put people in positions of respect and power who are trained in the avoidence of thought and analysis. But I've started to see a wave of backlash and I think it's important that my atheism not become faith and that I continue to question my own ideas. Recently, I read an article that cites a book by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum called, Unscientific America. It's aimed specifically at Dawkins because Kirshenbaum is a biologist and it says that Dawkins presents a unnecessarily divisive choice, that moderates of faith who might be receptive to a blend of faith with scientific reasoning might become more firmly faithful because Dawkins says the two disciplines are mutually exclusive.
But this doesn't make my stance on hard-line-ism any more clear, either because I agree with both of them. The "new atheists" aren't just the latest in a long line since Galeleo to suggest that investigation and evidence might have some benefit over faith, they're actually suggesting that faith is hurting us, and I think they're right. On the other hand, they're mean and derisive and I can't believe that helps, either. See my quandry?
TANGENT-1:
I think the agreement is a small but good thing with two important components: (1) A formal (and therefore harder to drop through the cracks) way for the bureau of transportation and police department to have two-way communication about where the traffic trouble spots are and (2) a commitment from the police department to put officers at trouble spots and a commitment from PBOT to fix those spots.
TANGENT-2:
Sizer's statement as paraphrased by Maus got my hackles up when I first read it and in writing this post, I finally figured out why. That's a really asinine, childish approach to police work and it's an attitude I would find unacceptable from any adult and especially from the police chief. How is it that the Sizer is so emotionally fragile that she finds it impossible to work on an issue when she doesn't like the "tone" of some of the other people involved? I'm not saying I expected her to work WITH poorly-toned bicycle advocates, that probably wouldn't have been productive, but the way this statement reads makes me think that she wasn't working on bike issues at all before now and she's the chief of police for the biking-est city in the US. What's worse is that her statement taken in context with a line from the recently published
bicycle training video which explicitly states that policy changes are because the "old, outlaw edginess" no longer dominates Portland's bike culture, tells me that the police department mindfully, willfully and officially ignores the needs and safety of sub-cultures they don't like. This REALLY gets my hackles up because it's the same TYPE of behavior I've seen directed to various targets through our recent history. Fifty years ago, the police were protecting decent society from "uppity blacks." Twenty years ago they were protecting decent society from "sexual deviants" at gay bars and dance clubs and five years ago they were protecting decent society from "edgy, outlaw cyclists." One good thing I want to say about that pattern is that our society continues to examine the target of the police misbehavior and we continue to find it inappropriate. But I find the pattern disturbing because we're not examining the behavior itself. Why do we continue to tell police departments that they're targeting the wrong people but we keep not telling them that they shouldn't be the ones setting the targets? That's for the legislature to do.