Taking Names

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.
William Shakespeare

Atheists and humanists are never prone to shy away from a good in-fight. And a minor controversy among nontheists was recently precipitated by Sam Harris’ sacrilegious address at the September conference of the Atheist Alliance International. Harris, author of “The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation” and nom célèbre on the atheist / humanist circuit, has achieved notoriety for his blunt and forceful criticism of theistic religion. But at AAI’s conference in Washington DC he risked excommunication. Among the statements to which some of my freethinking brethren have taken umbrage:

We should not call ourselves “humanists,” or “secular humanists,” or “naturalists,” or “skeptics,” or “anti-theists,” or “rationalists,” or “freethinkers,” or “brights.” We should not call ourselves anything. We should go under the radar—for the rest of our lives. And while there, we should be decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them.

This is of course not a dramatic departure from statements Harris made previously, such as this one from his book “Letter to a Christian Nation:”

Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, “atheism” is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a “non-astrologer” or a “non-alchemist.” We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.

Over at Rant and Reason (the blog of the American Humanist Association), Lisa writes:

As a Humanist I’m all for being decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them, but I think now is the worst possible time to go under the radar. With the religious right trying to make even greater inroads into our political and legal system we have to stand up and be counted, now more than ever. We also can’t go underground at a time when we are the most untrusted group in the country. Only visibily can change those statistics.

At Pharyngula, we get this take from PZ Myers:

It seems to me, though, that there is no conflict at all between being decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them and also finding common cause with like-minded people and working together to promote that same decency, responsibility, and critical thinking publicly. In fact, I think such coordinated (and proudly labeled) action by a group would be more effective than similar action by modest individuals.

and

Those labels you denigrate — “atheists,” “humanists,” “secular humanists,” “naturalists,” “skeptics,” “anti-theists,” “rationalists,” “freethinkers,” and “brights” — are useful rallying cries for the tiny, scattered bubbles of rationality drifting in the sea of superstition and ignorance. It’s how we find each other and grow. It’s how we build whole communities working for a common cause, rather than acting as isolated individuals.

Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, says in a letter published in Humanist Network News:

Mr. Harris cannot see why we need a name for a group of people who are “against” something, or who don’t believe in something. Take racism he says. There isn’t any term for people who are against racism. We give ourselves a name because we are proud of who we are. A group needs to be identified in some way. And we want to be a “group.” We aren’t just against something. We are something.

Is the American Cancer Society just “against” something because they fight against cancer? Are they a “negative” organization? Is Greenpeace a negative organization because they are against pollution? Sounds silly doesn’t it? Yet we buy into this nonsense when it is said about us.

Ms. Johnson misses the point almost entirely. Any organization that advocates for a position is, by definition, against its opposite. Greenpeace and the American Cancer Society are clearly promoting a positive stance (sound environmental policy and improved public health, respectively).

Of course, one might strain to couch atheism in positive terms, but on this point Mr. Harris seems to be on solid ground. Atheism is, by itself, little more than the articulation of a lack of belief in a particular construct. To create a similar word for every ridiculous concept for which we would hold a similarly negative belief would be a waste of time.

Mr. Harris has some valid points, and labels can be unhelpful (even detrimental). Certainly there are few uniquely atheist or humanist issues, other than discrimination (both overt and more subtle) or threat against individuals so identified. And there exist a multiude of organizations dealing with single issues of typical concern to humanists, such as the separation of religion and government, the promotion of rigorous science education standards, reproductive and sexual freedom, democratic self-governance, social justice, etc.

Which gets to the heart of the matter. This is not merely about the utility of words like “atheist” or “humanist.” It is about the usefulness of organizing around such principles. That is, do atheist and humanist organizations serve any purpose other than to provide some feel-good self-identification with a group of others? Does “humanism” stand on its own as philosophical outlook, or is it indistinct from a modern, secular, progressive worldview? If that is the case, then Mr. Harris is correct, and we should focus not on our organizational affiliation, but on the stances compelled by our philosophy. That but a tiny fraction of atheists belong to any of the national or local atheist or humanist organizations (in the U.S.) suggests that Mr. Harris’ view may be more prevalent.

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