Posted by:
Tal Bachman
(
)
Date: September 18, 2014 11:06PM
I'm a musician, but I hate most musicians and most music industry executives. Most of them are douchebag pigs.
And whenever I see the same patterns of douchebag pig behaviour in other realms - big, powerful egomaniacs colluding to prey on women - I feel the same intense nausea and hatred, and I want to beat them with a cricket bat.
I have read many of "Skeptic" magazine editor Michael Shermer's books over the years. I thought they were fair, well-documented, and well-reasoned. I also have regularly picked up "Skeptic" magazine. But now, I hate the guy.
Michael Shermer, it turns out, is a complete douchebag. I can't say I have seen evidence he's a genuine rapist - but he's pushing it. And his pals James Randi and Richard Dawkins are still defending him. In fact, I am quite sure they have kept his secrets over the years (about which more below).
What I am referring to is report after credible report now surfacing of Shermer's habit of tanking up at public events and then groping/assaulting unwilling women, or else, refraining from drinking much himself, while encouraging his targets to (over?)consume alcohol only for the purpose of bedding them. And all that, while he was married (evidently, his wife did not consent to that sort of behaviour, and was unaware of it).
James Randi, by his own admission, was aware of this behaviour, but did nothing. Richard Dawkins is still defending his pal Shermer. So the picture I see is similar to the one I see in the early days of Mormonism, in show biz, and in politics: a bunch of douchebag alpha males protect each other's rotten behaviour.
Now, a bit more about Richard Dawkins.
Richard Dawkins has made a career out of crudely slagging off religion, describing it as a force for immorality. Morality, for Dawkins, is most perfect when it emerges from a purely rationalist and scientific view of the world. So what then is the content of Dawkins's enlightened moral worldview? Amongst other things, he has claimed that being raised to believe in Roman Catholicism is worse than being raped by a Catholic priest (see
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2251963/Being-raised-Catholic-worse-child-abuse-Latest-incendiary-claim-atheist-professor-Richard-Dawkins.html), and also that it is "immoral" for women to have a Down's Syndrome child, if they can abort it (see
http://www.newstatesman.com/health/2014/08/why-richard-dawkins-abort-it-and-try-again-comments-about-down-s-syndrome-babies-are ).
As noted, Dawkins's latest foray into teaching the world about morality was a series of tweets in defense of his sex predator pal, Michael Shermer, in which he sternly admonished women not to make claims of sexual assault if they can't remember what occurred (see
http://www.buzzfeed.com/markoppenheimer/will-misogyny-bring-down-the-atheist-movement#2883njo )
I realize that in one way, this makes perfect sense: if you can't remember what happened, how can you make a credible claim about what happened? But entirely missing from Dawkins's thought process here is the fact that NO ONE, including his pal Shermer, should ever have sex with someone (not least a stranger) *that blotto*. In other words, in the act of defending his pal Shermer, he's painting him as a douchebag, because *only a douchebag* would bed a perfect stranger who was near blackout (and therefore unable to give consent). In many states, such an act meets the legal definition of rape.
Why is Richard Dawkins defending a douchebag sex predator? I suggest there is only plausible reason: Dawkins is also a douchebag (after all, only a douchebag would defend a douchebag). And certainly, anyone who believes that morality *requires* the abortion of Down's Syndrome children, or who thinks that Roman Catholic belief is worse than rape, *is a douchebag*.
Last week, I went to rent a DVD at the last remaining rental place here (it carries all the rare movies not available on Netflix), and a Down's Syndrome guy in an electricity-powered mobile chair was there looking at the Japanese samurai movies. I kneeled down to pull out a Kurosawa movie, and the guy looked at me, broke into a big, guileless smile and said loudly, "YOU'RE CUTE!". Truth is, I felt flattered :). Then he held out his hand and said, "I'm Bill!". I shook his hand and said, "Thank you, Bill. Nice to meet you"; and there was something about the whole exchange that was so innocent and touching and sincere, that I thought about it fondly the whole night.
Innocent souls like Bill, according to Richard Dawkins, should have been killed before birth, while douchebags like Michael Shermer deserve not only to be born, but to be actively defended after years of crude, lecherous, and probably illegal, behaviour. That is one strange kind of morality - and certainly not better than the early Mormon morality of sexual cover-up.
For those interested in reading about this emerging story, see:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2014/09/the-shermer-affair-erupts/Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/2014 07:08AM by Tal Bachman.