Dispatches: Eagleton versus Dawkins

As comments continue to roll in on Abbas's excellent "Taking Sides in the Recent Religion Debates" of last week, I thought I'd zero in on a particular conflict between two of the figures he discusses:  Richard Dawkins and Terry Eagleton.  As he noted while framing the debates over religion, there is something puzzling about the degree of subjective animosity that attended Eagleton's excorciating review of The God Delusion.  We can add to that the fact that the review has been one of the most popular things Eagleton has written recently - it is the second thing that comes up if you Google Eagleton's name.  Anecdotally, I can confirm this: when the review was published, several friends wrote to me approvingly about it, with the implication that finally Dawkins had gotten his comeuppance.  At the time, this confused me, as it seemed to me the two figures should be fellow travelers, or at least denizens of the same region of sympathies.  So it now seems worth unpacking their differences, as a gauge of our current intellectual atmosphere.

I should also note something at the start: I don't intend, at all, to revisit this debate for what it all-too-often threatens to turn into: a proxy for an argument between believers and non-believers.  That particular aspect of this issue is probably its least interesting feature.  (If you must know, I am an atheist, though one who regularly speaks to people I knew who are now dead.)  My personal eccentricities aside, what is much more telling about the Eagleton-Dawkins relation is the fact that Eagleton so clearly regards much of Dawkins' project in The God Delusion with contempt (though, to be fair, he is equally, uh, vigorous in his LRB reviews of his disciplinary colleagues Stanley Fish and Gayatri Spivak).  Eagleton's contempt conceals another conflict which is periodically renewed in academia, that between the humanities and the sciences.   We can begin by observing that one of Dawkins' foundational moves in his book belongs to just this conflict: he argues that the existence of God "is a scientific hypothesis about the universe, which should be analyzed as skeptically as any other." 

This move, more than any other, licenses Dawkins' method in the book, which is to set about debunking various claims of religion as though they were microcosmically representative of the whole: did Jesus have a human father, etc.  (Note the lack of specificity attaching to the term.)  It comes as no surprise that here Eagleton makes a stand on this issue, defending theological debates as a realm of the humanities, and not necessarily subject to the positivist scrutiny of a Dawkins.  In Eagleton's view, Dawkins flattens or elides what is complex about religion.  This is not a new argument for Eagleton.  For instance, here he is in his 2003 book After Theory:

Much atheism today is just inverted religion.  Atheists tend to advance a version of religion which nobody in their right mind would subscribe to, and then righteously reject it.  They accept the sort of crude stereotypes of it that would no doubt horrify them in any other field.  They are rather like those for whom feminism means penis-envy, or socialism labor camps.

In this case, Eagleton was prescient: there's no doubt that at times Dawkins  treats causation in the social world in a facile way, laying much evil and no good at religion's doorstep.  For instance, Dawkins opens the book by expressing his satisfaction with a billboard advertising a TV show he presented, which shows a picture of the New York skyline with the World Trade Center intact and the caption: "Imagine a world without religion."  I don't think you need to flock with the faithful to find this sentiment a little absurd.  Imagining a world without religion is a little more difficult than that - as though the removal of this irrational abstraction, religion, would correspondingly and magically remove only massacres, honor killings, and telesales. 

Of course, on the other hand, none of Eagleton's criticisms of Dawkins score direct hits on the central matter of disputation, except insofar as he tries to change the relevant genre of conversation from a scientific to a historico-theoretical one.  But that's neither here nor there, and the debate between the two of them should not be construed as an argument conducted on one playing field.  Each, of course, picks the ground that is most conducive to the discipline they profess: Eagleton avoids specificity when discussing the core of monotheistic faith, preferring to reiterate his quasi-Marxist version.  In his account, Jesus and Muhammad project a God whose omnipotence is an inverted version of the powerlessness of the destitute - the Christian and Muslim God, for Eagleton, might even be said to be the emanation of the spirit of the powerless, a proto-Marxist reminder of the limits of capitalism.

For his part, Dawkins makes religion into what suits him; he avoids discussion of figures who would complicate his somewhat simplistic faith in the power of the scientific method to verify phenomenological events such as beliefs.  Bruno Latour comes to mind as someone whose version of the history of science would cause serious problems for Dawkins in his Whiggier moments.  Same with Paul Feyerabend, on the blindness of early adherence to Copernican theory.  Dawkins also ignores the entire subfield known as the rhetoric of science, and its challenges to the scientific ideals of transparency and objectivity.  Plus, Dawkins seems to reify, or make overly tangible, the concept of religion while giving the institutional nature of the apparatus short shrift.  Religion is not so easily isolated - if it were, the Islams of Akbar, Ghalib, and Qutb wouldn't seem quite so incommensurable.  It is both social and personal, not a "natural phenomenon" in any simple way.

But my interest here is in the rift that so obviously lies between these two ostensible members of the academic left, even though each probably regards the other as a benighted secret rightist.  United in their opposition to hate-mongering, torture, poverty, and human suffering, why should they be antagonists at all?  The word "respect," repeated several times in Eagleton's essay, has something to tell us: the claims of each, for the primacy of empiricism and cultural theory, respectively, starkly divide them.  It offends Eagleton that complexly articulated histories of debate should be swept aside so churlishly by Dawkins.  Whose epistemology goes all the way down? 

Slavoj Zizek, responding recently to an attack by Ernesto Laclau, remarks:

"In academia, a polite way to say that we found our colleague's intervention or talk stupid and boring is to say, "It was interesting." So if, instead, we tell a colleague, "It was boring and stupid," he would be fully justified to be surprised and ask, "But if you found it boring and stupid, why did you not simply say that it was interesting?" "

To answer this question with regard to the Dawkins/Eagleton conflict, I'd suggest that the rhetorical excess does not belong to the debate about God itself, but to their competing disciplines, which struggle for social capital and resources.  In perhaps their most typically contemporary shared orientation, Dawkins and Eagleton each imagines himself the victim of powerful forces.  In Dawkins' case, the forces of ignorance and religious hucksterism suppress the put-upon atheist.  For Eagleton, those non-materialists who recognize anything other than inequity and the global world-system as the source of their troubles misrecognize reality.  Funnily, for neither does the real problem appear to be the private beliefs of individuals.  Why not, then, direct their vitriol at other targets? 

The rest of my Dispatches.

Comments

[James]

This debate is interesting. I don't think the dispute between Dawkins and Eagleton is merely about different academic disciplines fighting for social capital, etc. Dawkins simply defines religion as it suits him then critiques the idea of religion that he presents. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't hold up well to his criticisms.

I don't see how it's different than religious people saying that atheists are untrustworthy and have no morals. Presenting real atheists who are all around great and good people doesn't really dispel their belief.

It's the same with Dawkins. He wants all religion, whatever that word actually means, to fit his simple definition, so he can attack it. Unfortunately, the world is a bit messier than he would like it to be.

Plus, why should we expect a scientist to have anything meaningful to say about the humanities and social sciences. We don't expect social scientists to have anything to say about biology.

[kynefski]

"Funnily, for neither does the real problem appear to be the private beliefs of individuals."

Richard Dawkins does question the private beliefs of individuals, and it is frustrating that his numerous reviewers decline to respond honestly to that questioning.

Dawkins simply (everybody seems to say too simply) challenges belief in present supernatural personalities. In thousands and thousands of words, no secular reviewer (except, perhaps, obliquely) has defended belief in present supernatural personalities. (The same holds true for the recent debate organized by Intelligence Squared.) One suspects this is because none of these reviewers actually possess belief in present supernatural personalities.

It makes for a peculiar cultural conversation in which atheism is challenged primarily by atheists, and we come to understand that only the unlearned think that Divinity has anything to do with divinity. I wish somebody would let the guy with the "God Hates Homosexuality" banner in on the revelation.

[tom]

at the American Scholar website there is an article
"2+2=5"(spring 2007 issue) that offers a way to side step the extreme rhetoric and continue the conversation.

[fred lapides]

I don't want to bother with the intricacies of this "debate," except to note that science people aregue from evolution and data, but they also nearly always also allow for enbvronmental (socially constructed) factorsp social science, humanities folks more often than not regard only socially constructed things to be worth considering.

I was also amused by the comment aboive that it looks like Dawkins "got his cuomeuppance." Are we now out to get him because he is smart and his books sell so well?

[Luke Lea]

God is an historical idea, not a scientific one. In fact it is easily the most important idea in history. Those who pronounce it a scientific idea, and who confuse the words "God," "gods," and "religion" reveal their historical ignorance, which is easily the most dangerous ignorance on the scene today, particularly as it infects our so-called educated elites most of all.

[Deets]

Kynefski,

You are correct that Dawkins' central argument is against supernatural entities. But I think Asad is correct that this derives from a broader argument against a humanities-based worldview. Dawkins is clearly uncomfortable with anything taxonomically squishy. To which one can only say, ultimately, so much the poorer for him. (My favorite line in the Eagleton review is along these lines: "[Dawkins] occaisionally writes as though ‘Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness’ is a mighty funny way to describe a Grecian urn.")

The God Delusion is a long book reducible (excuse my French) to the complaint that a nine year old's conception of god is wrong. Well so it is. But so is a nine year old's conception of the atom, which many people maintain for all thier adult lives. The private beliefs of individuals would seem to be a problem only in select cases.

There is simply no reason to equate atheism with antagonism toward religion. There are dunderheads and genuises, clods and angels in all camps. No matter how often Dawkins repeats it, religions are not a mere amalgam of competing truth claims to those revealed by science. To some they do function that way; small men like "Reverend" Phelps. But then to some, science is just a plaything for pathological amusement. The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, scandalously (for the time) atheistic, is said to have once disembowelled a dinner guest as part of his study of human digestion.

There is so much more to this conversation than reason against faith.

[Scott Ahlf]

Asad--
I agree this is a political battle, with huge stakes especially for the Gould, Rose, Lewontin war front (who Eagleton is defending). Coming from a Marxist background myself, Pinker, Dawkins, Dennett etc. point out the fallacy of the "Blank Slate" individual, who is corrupted by conditions , and not environmentally inherited characteristics . I was rooting for the Gould camp--
But the evidence is firmly with Dawkins and Pinker etc.
One must fold, when your cards are not good--
However, Gould has the media to put out a attack at any time (usually by Orr, who the media always goes to)
Anyway, Dawkins or Dennett will never get favorable press under the current political alignment.

[beajerry]

Tom, I read the American Scholar article and find nothing of the sort. What is it you got out of it?

[Asad]

Thanks for the comments. I think kynefski's point that no secular reviewers defend "present supernatural entities" is the question with which I started. On that issue, for me, there is no new conversation to be had, unless you're interested in crazy things, like intelligent design.

Upon first seeing Eagleton's review, I naively expected him to help Dawkins construct a better case, to point out ways he could "market" his views better. Instead, the polarity was reversed, and Eagleton seemed to regard Dawkins much more antagonistically than I predicted. It bothered me that Eagleton was not more magnanimous, and I wondered why. Reading The God Delusion, I saw that part of the reason was that Dawkins did not restrict himself to the non-existence of "present supernatural entities" (a point on which I firmly agree with him) but went on to make, as Deets points out, all sorts of oversimplified claims about religion and social life. It was not a smart exercise in coalition-building.

But Eagleton, who in equal and opposite fashion betrays no knowledge of natural selection or genetics, is to be blamed for his vitriol: his polemical insecurity is typical of literary theory (and, of course, of book-reviewing) - the sense is one of an ever-shrinking ledge on which to stand, as science annexes more and more territory. Where is the space in which Eagleton might discuss, say, Milton's esoteric Christianity without being called irrelevant? Where might the true range of human cultural production be analyzed, rather than compacted into evolutionary imperatives such as a liking for symmetry or fecundity? It's a massive conflict of modes but one that didn't necessarily need to infect this topic.

Dawkins aggravated this by his lack of respect for the people he claims to want to convert. (Dennett and Dawkins do not have the copywriter's ability to sell an idea, that's for sure - remember the attempt to rebrand atheists "brights"?) It is sad how brittle this exchange became, despite what, to my eyes, looks like a much greater area of commonality than difference between the combatants. Feels kind of like a sectarian conflict, huh?

[Abbas Raza]

Your comment above (especially the third and fourth paragraphs) is an even more articulate statement of your point (and with which I, for the most part, agree).

[Asad]

Thanks. I think sleeping on it helped.

[kynefski]

The book one wishes Dawkins to have written would use his experience with evolutionary biology to explain how religious values can be disengaged from theism. Unfortunately, as others have noted, Dawkins (along with too many other scientists) seems uncomfortable with immaterial meaning of any kind.

I once read a letter in a scientific magazine in which the writer pleaded for animal rights on the basis that human exceptionalism was a "religious" claim. The expectation, of course, was that this would be received by scientists as an accusation!

Please understand, though, that part of the bitterness comes from natural scientists' proximity to some of the outcomes of belief. In the U.S., we have brilliant students graduating from colleges like Patrick Henry, and entering government service, who are proud to lie about the history of the planet. This should be disturbing to all who have benefited from the Enlightenment.

I identify myself as a religious nonbeliever, and I am grateful to Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris for getting me to question whether my religious expression pays tribute to tradition and values (as I have always told myself), or whether it abets superstition and intolerance.

[Janet Leslie Blumberg]

One comment says: "I don't want to bother with the intricacies of this "debate," except to note that science people aregue from evolution and data, but they also nearly always also allow for enbvronmental (socially constructed) factorsp social science, humanities folks more often than not regard only socially constructed things to be worth considering."
I tried to do a pingback because I mention this post on my own weblog at www.deepgraceoftheory.wordpress.com because I am a lit theorist who wants to open conversation between precisely those two camps. While some scientists (unlike Dawkins) are trying to explain science to non-scientists, I want to explain cultural theory to non-humanities types. (Maybe Quixotic in the extreme.) But I'm putting my course materials on-line and blogging about the conversation. This set of comments is the wisest set of exchanges I've run into yet and I'm going to talk about them soon.

[Scott Ahlf]

While not quite this cynical myself, the musician Jim Page (not of Led Zep fame, the other Jim Page) summed up the frustration of dealing with superstition based reality:
"So many Christians, so few Lions"

[Akbi]

I can see how people are put off by the sometimes extreme views of Dawkins, Dennett, et. al. But for SO LONG, and STILL, so many of us have to suffer through shcool prayers and evolution being removed from textbooks and the hopelessness we feel every time we're told that 96% of US residents believe in God, etc. Only recently have we atheists, secular humanists (yes, "Brights"!) had a tireless, charismatic, articulate, vocal champion in someone like Dawkins--and in a place like the US, atheists are still a tiny minority who feel we must shout to be heard sometimes. Given all the kowtowing to religion we do, I think it's not unreasonable to forgive Dawkins if he sometimes overstates his points. How else to be heard over Pat Robertson, Karl Rove, George Bush, and on and on!??!