Watch this space, you poor doomed motherfuckers

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Jack Graham

Jack Graham writes and podcasts about culture and politics from a Gothic Marxist-Humanist perspective. He co-hosts the I Don't Speak German podcast with Daniel Harper. Support Jack on Patreon.

8 Comments

  1. SpaceSquid
    January 22, 2014 @ 11:57 am

    Do you know where the picture originates from? I don't disagree with anything you've said here, but it's always helpful to know a) who to blame, and b) whether this is being dissected as an example of general trends in (too much of) atheism, or whether it's promulgated to the point where it specifically is needing pushback.

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  2. Lucy McGough
    January 22, 2014 @ 12:16 pm

    Hear, hear! applauds

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  3. Matthew Celestis
    January 22, 2014 @ 1:43 pm

    Excellent post. This should have been on the Guardian comments page.

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  4. Jack Graham
    January 22, 2014 @ 4:21 pm

    You do me too much honour.

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  5. Jack Graham
    January 22, 2014 @ 4:21 pm

    No idea.

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  6. liminalD
    January 23, 2014 @ 4:28 am

    Great post! I heartily agree, though I could never have expressed these ideas as eloquently as you have here 🙂

    On a barely-related note, Reading Point #6, I was instantly reminded of the South Park episode 'Elementary School Musical' in which the boys try to join in the singing and dancing that's broken out at the school in an attempt to be as popular as the good-looking kid at the centre of all the big song and dance numbers, only to discover that the singing and dancing was only popular because it was what the good-looking kid was doing… and once the boys – being less cool – started doing it too, it suddenly became unpopular. Sadly, ideas (and art forms) only really seem to become popular when the most visible advocates/practitioners are conventionally attractive – Sam Harris is a decent-enough looking bloke, even if he does look like Ben Stiller, but 'atheism' in most people's minds is associated first and foremost with dry, humourless old Richard Dawkins and vitriolic, self-righteous Christopher Hitchens… if there were a bunch of 'young and sexy' types outing themselves as atheists in the media you can bet the number of people declaring themselves atheists, agnostics, religious 'nones' etc would skyrocket. Perhaps it's a mercy that it's still the province of the wrinkly 😉

    Same goes for Doctor Who – casting the young 'sexy' David Tennant and later the even younger (and supposedly sexy – YMMV) Matt Smith is, I would suggest, the single biggest factor in the phenomenal and ever-increasing success of the revived show, bringing legions of male-admiring viewers into the regular audience and 'fandom' (whatever that is). Now don't get me wrong – I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just saying that I'll be interested to see if viewing figures and the nature of the show's following will change with the casting of a mature man in the lead role again after the two younger blokes.

    All of which is off topic – you're right, ideas are not sexy just because a conventionally 'sexy' person seems to be associated with them, and we should resent the connection of our intellectual standings and ideas – whatever they may be – to depictions that are, fundamentally, sexist.

    🙂

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  7. Michael
    January 23, 2014 @ 2:52 pm

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  8. Jack Graham
    January 23, 2014 @ 5:47 pm

    From the above link, apparently from Carisa Hendrix herself: "felling frustrated by Rebecca Watson's video on her getting hit on in an elevator. Please stop finding issue where there is clearly none."

    This is in reference to this: http://skepchick.org/2011/06/about-mythbusters-robot-eyes-feminism-and-jokes/

    Which developed into this: http://skepchick.org/2011/07/the-privilege-delusion/

    Reply

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