WHY RICHARD DAWKINGS DROPPED A BOLLOCK IN 2006 AND AFTER

 Dear Readers,

Many of my readers will have heard of Professor Richard Dawkins, an Oxford zoologist born in 1941, who made his name in 1976 with his book 'The Selfish Gene'.  Professor Dawkins was born and raised for the first eight years of his life in Kenya, when it was still a British colony. Interested in science but brought up with a Church of England (Protestant) culture, Professor Dawkins was something of a believer until deciding in his teenage years that Darwin's Theory of Evolution provided a more feasible explanation.

Years later, he returned to England with his family, studying primarily in Oxford, and eventually graduating from university in 1966. Lecturing in California and Oxford, he made his name with books on evolution such as 'The Selfish Gene' and pro-atheism publications such as 'The God Delusion' of 2006.

Sadly, Professor Dawkins had a stroke in 2016, but fortunately it wasn't fatal.

Personally, I was never a fan of Richard Dawkins. I liked some of the things he said - certainly some of his ideological opponents were just downright deranged - but generally I always found him to be rambling, pompous, snobbish, and with the charm and warmth of a blobfish in an ISIS costume (something lost on his more sycophantic then-teenage fans). Besides, I always found Stephen Hawking carried a much more interesting and convincing philosophy on atheism than Dawkins ever did, but that's another story.

Unfortunately, Professor Dawkins, has the occasional habit of saying things that aren't merely misinterpreted by moral hysterics, but are genuinely weird and actually quite disturbing. I'll start off with his quotes that he made on Eugenics in 2020.

"If you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?"

I'll just let that sink in.

"I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler's death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons."

Because my parents getting me to do piano lessons with my neighbour didn't involve the cruelty of literal extermination of human beings considered "inferior".

"Intelligently designed morality would have no problem with negative eugenics,"

Pretty sure that's what they all say.

Perhaps because of the above point I made.

"Just because Hitler wanted to do something is not in itself an argument against it.

Except perhaps that we're not talking about the Nazi anti-smoking adverts or animal rights laws, we're talking about things like forced sterilisation and culling.

(Though you know I personally despise the "woke" crowd for their appalling treatment of male abuse victims and still do not condone their ham-fisted faux morality, in this case I actually agree with their reason behind disliking what Dawkins has to say here.)

This could all have something to do with the fact that Dawkins was brought up in a colonial farm in Kenya - then a British colony - in the 1940s. European colonialism made widespread use of the idea of eugenics, the modern version being conceived by half-cousin of Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton. Of course, this is open to interpretation, and it may be simply that Dawkins has taken his views on Eugenics from a distortion of the theory of evolution through his study of the latter subject.

In 2014, Professor Dawkins took another morally dodgy step on twitter in his response to a woman who admitted that she would have a "real ethical dilemma" if pregnant with a down syndrome child. This was Dawkins' response.

"Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice."

(Ironically providing an unintentional argument AGAINST abortion.)

When people started asking questions, this was his response.

"I can't help feeling that at least half the problem lies in a wanton eagerness to misunderstand."

"If your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down's baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child's own welfare."

I'm pretty sure a lot of Down's Syndrome people would have something to say in response to that.

"Those who took offence because they know and love a person with Down's Syndrome, and who thought I was saying that their loved one had no right to exist, I have sympathy for this emotional point, but it is an emotional one, not a logical one. It is one of a common family of errors, one that frequently arises in the abortion debate."

 

That sort of argument may be the case for a scientist wearing a shirt with scantily-clad women on, college students wearing dreadlocks or Chinese dresses, but this is a different kettle of fish entirely. 

This isn't an argument for or against abortion, but Professor Dawkins unwittingly provides quite the ammunition for the "pro-life" side of the argument.

Some might think I'm a "snowflake" or a hypocrite for objecting to points of view. That is not the case. I'm not pointlessly losing my shit over trivial ideas, nor am I demanding a grovelling apology or for Professor Dawkins to be forcibly silenced, but pointing out that the "Professor" has said some things in the past that can potentially encourage and cause actual harm to others.

However, these quotes are here really to just set the scene, and aren't the relevant quotes that I'm focusing on. Rather they're here to highlight that this is a man who carries some rather dodgy points of view, to say the least, but now I'm going to focus on ones that, in the context of the purpose behind my blogging, are downright outrageous and actually quite damaging.

When Dawkins wrote 'The God Delusion' I decided to eventually take a look, and though I thought that there were some interesting points to be made, and 

Here is one of the quotes I read in the book:

"All three of the boarding schools I attended employed teachers whose affections for small boys overstepped the bounds of propriety. That was indeed reprehensible. Nevertheless, if, fifty years on, they had been hounded by vigilantes or lawyers as no better than child murderers, I should have felt obliged to come to their defence, even as the victim of one of them (an embarrassing but otherwise harmless experience)."

Bravo, Professor Dawkins. Being touched without consent is an "embarrassing but otherwise harmless experience". Would you care to tell that to the individuals I encountered during my therapy sessions waiting for their turn? Would you tell that to people silently staring at the walls or in one case, a woman who was crying bitterly into her hands? For me, my own experiences happened in 2001. I had a breakdown about them in 2014, 13 years later.

It doesn't end there though. Here's more.

"I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can't find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today."

To be honest, it's nothing new to see abuse victims like Professor Dawkins rationalise and underplay their experiences, I'm not going to hold that to him. It's up to him to interpret what happened to him personally. What I really take issue with is the suggestion - based on a quote from a single woman - that religion is more damaging than paedophilia.  

I may be an atheist and a skeptic myself, but I'm not so far gone that I'll kiss the ground that Professor Dawkins walks on like so many of his online followers do (or used to, particularly in the late 2000s). Sexual assault of children is a devastating crime on society, and it is 100% an insult to compare general religious teaching (which varies from place to place) with child molestation and downplay the pain of the latter. It's an insult to the victims of child sexual assault, it downplays their (our) pain that is much more devastating than religious teaching and indoctrination, and it's a grossly irresponsible thing to say.

Dawkins came under fire for this in 2013 and rightly so. The Atlantic rightly referred to his words as  https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/richard-dawkins-defends-mild-pedophilia-again-and-again/311230/

Once again, I'm not engaging in "cancel culture", in fact I think that if Professor Dawkins says things like this, he should be allowed to do so (especially to "give him enough rope to hang himself" as the saying goes), but I am entirely at liberty to criticise him for what he says here. And I am at liberty to say that I find him a deeply creepy and morally bogus man who makes my skin crawl. He shows contempt for people with disabilities, and he shows contempt for survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

This isn't just about Richard Dawkins, though. Even eight years on we see the same dismissive attitudes towards abuse victims. We see the innocent with lives ruined and their abusers given a free pass for various reasons. We see victims like Alex Skeel still accused of being the real abuser, of female abuse victims blamed for wearing "revealing clothing". (My own therapist told me he spoke to a woman who was raped as a schoolgirl, and her attacker blamed her for wearing a school uniform to which my therapist said "But you were a schoolgirl. What else were you supposed to wear?") 

In comparison, religious indoctrination in a free society can be actually quite easy to escape (though sadly this is not guaranteed). Sexual assault however, is a much tougher battle to fight.

Let's not forget that.

Sincerely,

The Invisible Man

(A) https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/richard-dawkins-defends-mild-pedophilia-again-and-again/311230/

(AA) https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/21/richard-dawkins-apologises-downs-syndrome-tweet

ON 'APPROACH ANXIETY' AND WHAT THIS MEANS FOR ME AS A MALE SURVIVOR

Dear Readers,

I've just got back from being on holiday yesterday, and I gotta say how much I enjoyed myself. I didn't want to travel abroad with everything having been so precarious during COVID. However, since my M.A has rather taken the wind out of my sails, and other job stresses getting in the way (summer is my busiest time), I felt like I really needed a city break.

Since I was away in another city, I decided to just relax and enjoy myself, have a wander around and despite some of the stifling heat giving me a colossal headache on my first day, everything else was great. One particular experience I decided to try was approaching women in the local bars. 

Thing is, I recently came out of a relationship that fell apart due to COVID separation (she lived in another country) and usually my handful of relationships have been because either I was lucky enough that one time in that the girl has approached me (something of a rarity in general for blokes), or it was someone I'd known for years and we started feeling physically attracted to one another and decided to capitalise on it.

As far as I know, approach anxiety is a problem for most men, fear of having your ego shot down in flames is not a pleasant thing to risk, and fear of being misunderstood in the post-#MeToo environment, this feels even more precarious. However, as a male survivor of a female abuser, this fear is tripled, then tripled again. What's usually held me back wasn't so much the fear of my ego being damaged (other than perhaps the girl saying something genuinely unpleasant) but the fear of being unsafe. Will she slap me? Knee me in the crotch? Throw a drink in my face? Will the entire bar start laughing at me as some creep or loser? Will some jealous and protective boyfriend I don't know about threaten me?

Then there were other questions. 'Some of these women are stunning, they wouldn't even want to give me the time of day.' This one evening, I'd actually managed to overcome most of my nerves by telling myself that I was excited, not nervous (and by having a beer with my pizza), and dressing fairly smart and stylish. When I got to the bar with my friend, I completely lost my nerve and started to freeze up. I started feeling genuinely scared of approaching a girl at the bar, in case something terrible happened. My friend noticed that I was completely frozen up and tried to reassure me, even though I was a gibbering wreck, and he just stepped back and let me to it.

Then I leaned against the bar and gently introduced myself - breaking the ice by asking the nearest girl if she had room to be served at the bar, or if the bar staff had noticed her yet. I wasn't so much trying to actually "score" so to speak, but rather get over that initial barrier that to approach an attractive woman was wrong or dangerous or both. I ended up speaking to about five of them, and you know what I discovered?

Everything was fine. They were just friendly and open to being talked to. If you think about it, it makes sense because women who seem hard to approach are probably not going to be approached at all by guys. Even if they're not into guys (lesbian/other LGBT etc), then 

Obviously as a male survivor, if your abuser was female, this may be difficult to overcome, and believe me, I found it incredibly tough. However, I would like to reassure you guys that there's nothing to be afraid of. I once did the same thing when I was on holiday in Sweden, approach a girl and talk to her at a bar, and while I was too awkward to successfully maintain a conversation, let alone attract the girl I spoke to, nothing terrible happened. She didn't set the bouncers on me or anything, but just made her excuses and left, which was kind of a relief.

This being the case, I'd like to offer a few pro-tips to guys who are recovering from abuse and want to learn to start interacting with women again.

1) Make sure you're looking after yourself. Wash and shower regularly, and make sure that you have a decent change of fresh clothes.

2) The past is not where you're going. Most women you approach in a bar are unlikely to be aggressive or hostile.

3) Make sure that you also look after yourself mentally. If you find that you're at risk of giving yourself a panic attack by trying this out then you're probably not ready to approach women yet.

What I started doing when I was on holiday was when I was in the bar, I made it my mission to approach at least one woman (in the end I spoke to five of them) and open up an interaction. That was it. I didn't feel ready to try and take it any further, and if you want to start trying the same exercise, here are my suggestions.

1) Remember, being out of your comfort zone is where you grow as a person. It may feel scary, but you'll feel dead brilliant afterwards.

2) If you want to talk to a woman, try and approach one who seems to be pretty sober, drunk girls are the ones more likely to act inappropriately, and make you feel uncomfortable.

3) Start off by something simple to break the ice. This could be introducing yourself, or asking if they have room at the bar to be served, something chivalrous is a great start.

4) Don't start by immediately launching into chat up lines as to why she needs to follow you home (women don't feel comfortable with this going 0 to 60).

5) Choose your time and place wisely. A bar or a club is a pretty obvious place, but this could be anywhere. However, there are some places that women will feel less comfortable with being approached, or they may just not be in the mood (say, if their heads are buried in a book). Also, some cultures may be more reserved than others so consider that depending on where you - and she - comes from. 'Read the room' and assess for yourself

6) Practice by just opening up conversations if you don't feel comfortable with escalating to something more intimate - these have to feel natural, such as asking someone for directions or if they know of a good restaurant to eat in. These can be in a queue in a shop or at the post office, and try opening these discussions with people in general, not just attractive women.

7) Usually if you get rejected, a woman will just probably say something like 'thanks but no thanks' and excuse herself. Obviously don't go chasing after her if you get rejected, or be rude or overly invasive, or try and touch her in a way that she feels uncomfortable with. If she says 'no' or 'no thanks' then leave it at that. Be respectful. Always treat others the way you want to be treated yourself. (I don't doubt that you would follow this golden rule, but I feel I have to put this just in case there's someone reading who didn't get the memo.)

8) Likewise, do not let her treat you badly either. If she behaves in a way that you feel uncomfortable with, whether she's being rude or too hands-y for your liking, then tell her 'no' and make it crystal clear that she's in no doubt, and end the interaction. You don't have to put up with being treated badly.

9) Have fun and relax! If you make mistakes, that's OK. None of the terrible things you suspect will happen are actually that likely at all. Hostility and aggression usually comes between drunk friends.

Obviously I'm saying this based on my own experience, but at the same time I'd like to pass on whatever information that might be helpful. As time goes on, I'll probably discover more and if anything can help you guys out, I'll let you know right away.

In the meantime, I hope that this helps!

Sincerely

The Invisible Man