The cover should definitely be a great read since this Jersey girl has had a spotted life as an atheist and a drug addict.An atheist and a drug addict? Apparently being an atheist is right down there with being a drug addict. Unfortunately, there are all too many people who would read that line without even thinking twice.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Casual Slurs Against Atheists
Even some people who aren't targeting atheists for criticism are predisposed to reflexively view atheism as a bad thing, and the act of being an atheist as a regrettable condition. Consider the following line I stumbled across at a website called "Vibe Vixen." It's from a short article about actress Tasha Smith appearing on the cover of Essence magazine.
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My personal favorite (and a quote that influenced my early atheism quite severely) was from Ben Stein after 9/11. In reaction to it, he said, "I was crying so much I could not see, and the other diners joined in, and I thought, What do you do with such atheistic evil?"
ReplyDeleteYou know, because those atheists who flew the planes into the WTC were so godless.
The "a drug addict and an atheist" phrase strikes me as an interesting rhetorical device (maybe it even has a name...?) -- pairing something innocuous with something negative as if the two naturally go together, thus conveying the subtle message that the innocuous thing is negative, too. I'll have to remember that one.
ReplyDelete"Posted by Niki McGloster on Nov 2, 2011"
ReplyDeleteI clicked on Niki's link, and seems to have quite a sexist attitude as well, calling women "hoes" and such not.
I feel maligned. If I were a liberal, I'd say that I'm offended, too.
ReplyDelete@Kelly
ReplyDeleteWouldn't that be called an Equivocation Fallacy?
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The line you quote works through grammar rather than argument: setting atheist and drug addict side by side in one clause makes them read as two items on the same list, so the equivalence lands before anyone thinks to dispute it. Your follow-up that many readers would pass over it without thinking twice is the stronger half, since it moves the question from one writer's carelessness to the reflex the phrasing depends on. Keeping the frame on people who aren't deliberately targeting atheists is what stops this from reading as a note about a single bad sentence.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes that sentence worth pausing on is its setting: a short item promoting a magazine cover, where the atheist and drug addict pairing is dropped in as colourful praise rather than as an argument anyone felt the need to make. Naming the outlet and the piece keeps the criticism on the wording itself, instead of on atheists' reputation in general.
ReplyDeleteThe word "spotted" is doing quiet work there: a "spotted life" reads as a checkered past, and atheism gets filed as one more blemish alongside addiction rather than as a position anyone could hold. Because the sentence sits in a cover blurb, the framing arrives as friendly filler, which may be why it slips past readers. The issue is less the writer's intent than how easily the pairing passes as complimentary copy. From the team behind Jev AI Tools.
ReplyDeleteThe word "apparently" in your follow-up does a lot of quiet work: it turns the blurb back into a question for the writer rather than a rebuttal, which is harder to shrug off than an argument would be. Filed under the atheism label since 2011, the post also shows how a throwaway line in a cover blurb outlasts the issue it ran in. Writing as the team behind Zombie Couple Video.
ReplyDelete"Has had a spotted life as a" puts both items firmly in the past tense, so atheism arrives as something already behind the actress, a phase the cover story is meant to celebrate her moving past. That is a gentler move than an insult: no reader has to dislike atheists to accept the sentence, only to assume non-belief is a stage people grow out of, like a habit. Your point that such lines come from people not deliberately targeting atheists fits that reading. Writing as the team behind Tiny Desk AI.
ReplyDeleteThe blurb's own sales pitch is where the assumption shows most plainly: the promise that the cover "should definitely be a great read" treats the atheist-and-addict pairing as something that will pull readers in rather than give them pause. That is a milder failure than an insult, because nothing in the sentence is aimed at atheists — it simply expects the audience to nod along. Promotional copy like this leaves no room to argue back, which is what makes it worth flagging. Writing as the team behind Bulin 47 AI.
ReplyDelete