Ed Brayton writes a wonderful letter to Richard Dawkins that can be found here. I just wanted to set the record straight on the one point that concerns me. Ed writes:

The irony is that I only found out about the petition and your promotion of it in the process of defending you against the charge that you favored such coercive policies. An ID advocate accused you of that in a reply to me on another subject and I came to your defense, saying that despite your statements about parental religious instruction being child abuse, I had seen nothing at all to indicate that you would support coercive policies to end such a practice.

In my article on the typology of ID critics, I never accused Dawkins of advocating coercive policies.

In that thread, I was immediately asked, "In what sense does Dawkins want to "coerce" people into his belief?" And I immediately replied, "In the sense that he, and his followers, are bullies. They seek to create a culture/environment that will stigmatize religious people as evil and stupid. The idea is to make people ashamed to admit they are religious. For example, why does he liken religious parents to child abusers?"

I further emphasized this point in my follow-up blog:

When it comes to the Evangelical Atheists and their attempt to convert people to atheism, they have the classic choice of the carrot or the stick. The type B critics choose the carrot, trying to lure people into atheism with the wonders of science. The type C critics choose the stick, which also includes the heavy-handed portrayal of all religious people as being either stupid, dishonest, and/or deluded. And yes, I do indeed view this type rhetoric as a form of bullying, which is much closer to coercion than persuasion.

Part of the confusion may stem from the two ways the word can be used. According to the dictionary, it can mean "the act of coercing; use of force or intimidation to obtain compliance." Those, relying on an uncharitable interpretation (and maybe stereotypes) thought I was saying type C critics wanted to use force to impose their views, but I, as I immediately clarified, was talking about intimidation.

I have long acknowledged that Dawkins is about "consciousness raising." He is trying to spark a cultural evolution where it will be more common for religious people to be viewed as mentally ill, child abusers, addicted to harmful narcotics, and expressions of the root of all evil. Ironically, if he succeeded, he might very well create a society where the next generation of Dawkins will sign such a petition and do so proudly.

Anyway, it was only after I posted the original typology thread that I became aware of the petition. At this point, it was no longer necessary to quibble about the term, as the petition itself overshadowed the entire argument.

Like I said, I'm just setting the record straight here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 31st, 2006 at 2:58 pm and is filed under The Critics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. The trackback link is: http://telicthoughts.com/more-clarification-on-coercion/trackback/