Over at Mixing Memory, Chris is annoyed with Larry Moran and PZ Myers for comparing themselves to suffragists:
It’s difficult, at this point, to say anything other than, “Are you kidding me?” Watching white, middle-class, mostly ex-Protestant males (the dominant new atheist demographic) compare themselves to feminists, labor movements, gay and civil rights activists, or the members of any other persecuted group fighting for their social, political, and economic lives is just plain surreal. Or worse, as Trinifar notes, it’s just plain manipulative.
The ensuing discussion and the follow-up are about as enlightening as you might expect.
This whole thing just makes me sad– so much fuss over a simple typo. You see, Larry didn’t mean to type “suffragist,” he meant “suffragette.” He wasn’t claiming that atheists should model themselves on Elizabeth Cady Stanton, he was saying they should be more like Ziggy Stardust, liberating humanity from the banality of religion through sexual promiscuity, massive drug use, and kick-ass glam rock.
It’s an interesting strategic shift, or, rather, it would’ve been, were it not for that fateful typo. As it is, Larry inadvertently compared himself to women’s rights activists, and being the stubborn cuss that he is, he couldn’t just retract it, and the whole thing spiraled out of control.
Really, it’s a tragic missed opportunity– think Velvet Goldmine with more discussion of evolutionary biology. Alas, we’re stuck with a new self-righteous spin on the same old arguments…
(OK, maybe I need to catch up on my sleep a little… But, hey, it makes as much sense as anything else.)