When I read Dennett, I feel as if I am watching him attempt to convince someone who prefers Brie that Cheez Whiz has all the same (or similar) ingredients and so should be preferred. Or at least not dismissed. This will always be a hard sell for someone who actually likes gourmet artisanal cheeses. And it may be difficult to explain just how hard to someone who really doesn't taste the difference.
To go (inadvisedly?) forward with this analogy, Orr seems to be making two arguments
- that Dawkins could and should have done much better than make simplistic (Cheez Whiz like) arguments
- that what Dawkins claims to argue against is an anemic caricature of religious thought (a Spam version of what can be in the hands of some be a delicious Parma ham). Warning: these references to food products are culturally bound.
- that Orr would rather read an argument between the nuanced versions (something with the character of Manchego against something with the delicacy and tradition of prosciutto).
Now we might, staying with the analogy, agree that Cheez Whiz is better than Spam but just as likely we might stand with Orr and insist that neither is worth wasting a meal with. Now, many many people buy and presumably eat Cheez Whiz and many (more?) like Spam. So numbers of fans don't really reflect Orr's concerns. That Dennett, Dawkins, and unfortunately (because he seems at points genuinely interested) Sam Harris, have chosen to attack a simple and noxious religiosity doesn't mean that no one gets hit in their fire-ready-aim approach to polemic, only that it is too easy for those who could or should be targets to write them and their project off.
I am not surprised that Dennett can not and will not hear the criticism. If he were more self-reflective, he would write differently than he does. I get the sense that to get him to leave them alone his victims/correspondents will say, "fine, fine, Dan, I read you as saying something else." Dan then transforms this polite brush off into vindication.
Years ago, when he and I met at the Coffee Connection off Harvard Square for a good discussion and lovely cup of tea (he wanted to dissuade me from publishing my annoyed review (Ahouse, 1998)), Dan mentioned that he had gotten to spend many hours with Stephen J. Gould. Steve patiently offered to teach him some evolution... but alas Dan, it seemed to me, had read Dawkins and so felt he had nothing further to learn from Gould. I imagine that if nothing else, as an educator, Dawkins must shed a tear at this sort of outcome. Many of us overstate and teach by caricature, expecting that our students, thus provoked move on to more intricate positions. They aren't supposed to make a fetish of the hook, the line and the sinker.
I am surprised that Dennett thinks he can, by force of sheer repetition, get critics to come to love the caricature that he and Dawkins extrude. I am more sympathetic than you might think. I remember feeling that by repetition I could make a difference when I first encountered selfish genes. When I first read this odd metaphor I would remind people over and over again that neither selfishness or genetics was really under discussion. But that didn't stop this metaphor from resonating with some. Especially those who, in a kind of Ayn Rand induced night sweat, have to tell you that everything, everything, is (merely) [often their emphasis] self interest. If you point out that this kind of universalization is self defeating, because when we vacate the very distinctions terms like generosity and cooperation were initially capturing, we then have to invent new words to do all the same work. Alas, this rarely cools the fever. So I suppose repetition doesn't work for either side of the discussion.
All this talking past one another from unassailable positions is a bit unfortunate because there are some critical points to be made at this very moment in history about the way that a coalition of oil interests, military-industrial interests, and an angry version of Christianity (that even give the Pope pause) are inflicting profound and long term damage. And this deserves criticism. Why toss away any allies in that critique just because they have the whiff of God about them? Christianity has meant a radical form of acceptance for many people and constituted a way of peace for others why not stand with people who are inspired by faith?
There is something weirdly fundamentalist about Dennett et al. in their hesitance to be in coalition with those who might share positions but haven't come to those positions without their particular (often strident) materialist metaphors.
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Ahouse, J. (1998) "The Tragedy of a priori Selectionism: Dennett and Gould on Adaptationism" Biology and Philosophy. Springer Netherlands, Volume 13, Number 3 / July, 1998, p 359-391.
