Jake Rogue
Prowler
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2005
- Posts
- 1,010
- Location
- Leeds, England, UK
On Satire: An Atrox devours a "Hockey Mom"!
"I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. " - The Friends of Voltaire (1906).
The above is a paraphrase of Voltaire's attitudes, based on his Essay on Tolerance where he made the general assertion: "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too".
As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize Catholic Church dogma and the French institutions of his day.
Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses. To Voltaire, only an enlightened monarch or an enlightened absolutist, advised by philosophers like himself, could bring about change as it was in the king's rational interest to improve the power and wealth of his subjects and kingdom. Voltaire essentially believed that enlightened despotism was the key to progress and change.
Now cultural relativism aside, I have to admit that I can understand why this kind of philosophy can be seductive. As I like to think of myself as a free-thinking, rational and logical skeptic, who actively embraces the concepts of deductive reasoning, falsifiability and the scientific method, I am a big fan of contemporary public debates on a whole range of issues from politics to science to philosophy. Especially when it is clear that one party is clearly very wrong in their assertions, or as the quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli would say, so far wide of the mark that they're "not even wrong". Seeing a skilled wordsmith wipe the floor with the irrational, idiotic or ignorant views of another with their rhetorical skill is something that I can often find highly amusing and worth “having a laugh at”.
I’m also a big fan of Prof. Richard Dawkins, who is often criticized for not having sufficient “respect” towards the irrational views of others (particularly “Young Earth Creationists” who believe that the universe is less than 5,000 years old despite all the contradictory scientific evidence). Famously following the 11 September, 2001 attacks, Dawkins was quoted as saying:
“Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!”
As I’m the sort of person who would stay awake until 4am in the morning just to watch the US Presidential and Vice Presidential debates live, despite living in England (and to the protest of my sleeping girlfriend!), just to try and sadistically catch that one hilarious gaff or “Bushism” moment, I can fully appreciate the merits of satire.
The one debate I would love to see though, purely for my own amusement, would be between Prof. Dawkins and Sarah Palin on the subject of dinosaurs!
"I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. " - The Friends of Voltaire (1906).
The above is a paraphrase of Voltaire's attitudes, based on his Essay on Tolerance where he made the general assertion: "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too".
As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize Catholic Church dogma and the French institutions of his day.
Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses. To Voltaire, only an enlightened monarch or an enlightened absolutist, advised by philosophers like himself, could bring about change as it was in the king's rational interest to improve the power and wealth of his subjects and kingdom. Voltaire essentially believed that enlightened despotism was the key to progress and change.
Now cultural relativism aside, I have to admit that I can understand why this kind of philosophy can be seductive. As I like to think of myself as a free-thinking, rational and logical skeptic, who actively embraces the concepts of deductive reasoning, falsifiability and the scientific method, I am a big fan of contemporary public debates on a whole range of issues from politics to science to philosophy. Especially when it is clear that one party is clearly very wrong in their assertions, or as the quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli would say, so far wide of the mark that they're "not even wrong". Seeing a skilled wordsmith wipe the floor with the irrational, idiotic or ignorant views of another with their rhetorical skill is something that I can often find highly amusing and worth “having a laugh at”.
I’m also a big fan of Prof. Richard Dawkins, who is often criticized for not having sufficient “respect” towards the irrational views of others (particularly “Young Earth Creationists” who believe that the universe is less than 5,000 years old despite all the contradictory scientific evidence). Famously following the 11 September, 2001 attacks, Dawkins was quoted as saying:
“Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!”
As I’m the sort of person who would stay awake until 4am in the morning just to watch the US Presidential and Vice Presidential debates live, despite living in England (and to the protest of my sleeping girlfriend!), just to try and sadistically catch that one hilarious gaff or “Bushism” moment, I can fully appreciate the merits of satire.
The one debate I would love to see though, purely for my own amusement, would be between Prof. Dawkins and Sarah Palin on the subject of dinosaurs!
