[lbo-talk] Last Supper, in a leather harness

[ravi]

On 28 Sep, 2007, at 17:51 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> On Sep 28, 2007, at 5:26 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote:
>> ravi wrote:
>>
>>> The truth is more probably that atheism is a luxury of over-educated
>>> comparatively wealthy intellectual brats
>>
>> I don't know.  If you're raised with religion it takes a lot of work
>> to shake it off.  It took me years and I began trying long before I
>> became over-educated.  And if I am comparatively wealthy then lord
>> help my child.
>
> Besides, this pseudo-populism annoys me. In this society, there are
> advantages to being rich. Is atheism, or freedom from superstition,
> one of those advantages? And what's wrong with being educated? It
> also annoys me when highly educated people doubt the value of
> education. I just don't believe them. It's a faux populist pose.
>

Yikes!

1. Define "pseudo" in "pseudo-populism"! What other kinds of populism  
are available to understand this term by contrast.

2. Atheism != freedom from superstition. And luxury (the word I  
used) != advantage. And if we are on definitions, lets define  
"superstition" and why all of it is a bad thing?

3. There is nothing wrong with being educated. Who doubts the value  
of education? Not me in the passage above.

4. Explain "faux populist pose"?

Hell, if you guys were really over-educated you might even have  
figured out #2 and #3. ;-) The point, which I bet you already knew  
while constructing the strawmen ;-), is what you do with that  
education. I am under no misapprehension that there is sadness,   
emptiness, etc, to being rich (or educated). The essence of my  
genuine populism is the hope that the average Joe too can become  
educated and rich like me and sport an atheist pose (faux or otherwise).

Did I offend you terribly with the non-gay white guy reference,  
perhaps? I apologise. That was intended at the explicitly listed  
brats (Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens). There are upstanding specimen to  
be found among the white male category (or the privileged non-white  
male category), many on this list!

	--ravi