It’s sometimes difficult to escape the feeling that we’re living under the tyranny of the perpetually indignant. Taking the time to think things through and developing a measured response to some hot-button issue is a luxury we’re infrequently allowed. Not only do media outlets thrive on sensation, but readers are also often eager to be the first to express outrage at some new conspiracy, malfeasance or instance of ineptitude.

And so those hot-button issues can get generated out of thin air, then recycled and amplified in the echo-chamber of Twitter and other social media. Last week, Twitter itself became the latest subject of hysterical misinterpretation when they announced their new policies for blocking tweets. As of January 26, tweets (or Twitter accounts) can be blocked on a country-by-country basis rather than globally, as was the case before software refinements made selective blocking possible.

The Forbes’ headline “Twitter commits social suicide” summed up many of the responses, which made accusations of charges of censorship and complicity in killing free speech trend under the hashtag #TwitterBlackout. Some even suggested that the once-plucky underdog had now sold out, and was caving to the (purported) illiberal demands of their new investor, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal.

But bin Talal only purchased a 3% stake in Twitter, and we have no evidence that he has any interest in dictating policy. We also have no evidence that Twitter’s policy change is a bad thing for free speech. In fact the opposite seems a far more plausible reading, which makes it more the shame that most of the indignant seem to not have bothered to read the policy itself.

It is not the case that Twitter will be monitoring your delight at having found your car keys (in the last place you looked!) or your #occupation of some patch of suburban scrubland. Any blocking (or censorship, for that is what it amounts to) will be reactive rather than proactive, where a party with legal grounds for requesting a takedown of tweets or an account lodges an application with Twitter to do so.

This has always been Twitter’s policy. For example, evidenced claims by film studios of copyright infringement have led to tweets being deleted. The difference between the old policy and the new is that, instead of those tweets being deleted globally, they will only be blocked in the country where that tweet violated the law. If you tweet some pro-Nazi sentiment in Germany (where doing so is illegal), Germans won’t be able to see the tweet but the rest of the world will.

In other words, more people can now see the tweet than was the case before. And if you’re planning a revolution on Twitter, you could always tell your fellow Bolsheviks to simply follow Twitter’s own instructions for changing your country settings to “worldwide”, thereby allowing you to see any tweets, no matter how repressive your situation might be.

What’s more, users in countries where tweets have been blocked will be able to see that something or someone has been blocked. And here Twitter has again done its best to increase rather than decrease transparency, by committing to posting the details of who requested the censorship at Chilling Effects. The “Streisand effect” shows us how exposing attempts at censorship will tend to increase the dissemination of the undesirable material – here made easy not only by changing your Twitter settings, but also by the fact that the same undesirable material, if originating outside the censoring country, will not be blocked by Twitter.

In short, then, Twitter has done nothing to increase the likelihood or frequency of censorship, but instead attempted to obey the laws pertaining in certain jurisdictions without affecting information flow in others. It’s a positive move, and is being conducted in a fully transparent and defensible way. On balance, there’s good reason to suppose it could result in increased protection of free speech.

But for the #TwitterBlackout crowd, evidence takes a back-seat to indignation. Some indignation is of course justified – it shouldn’t be the case that governments attempt to censor speech (arguably, outside of some narrowly-defined cases). That they do so is not Twitter’s fault, and there is nothing that Twitter can do about it. Taking a stand against censorship by refusing to obey local laws would simply result in the complete unavailability of the service, as is the case in China.

Us advocates of free speech, and those campaigning for other causes, can forget that our idealised version of the world collides with the real worlds of politics and pragmatism. It’s not Twitter’s job to share your or my ideological commitments, and to run the risk of being shut down in more places than only China. Here, it’s governments that are censoring, and Twitter is doing is best to minimise the effects of that censorship while spreading its global reach for the sake of profit. That’s their job.

But of course, de Botton thinks that this project is in the public good. The Guardian reports that he sees this as an example of those “awe-inspiring buildings that give people a better sense of perspective on life”. As many critics have already pointed out, though, a sense of perspective – whatever that might mean to you – can be attained from various sources other than temples. Andrew Copson (chief executive of the British Humanist Society) is quoted as saying, “the things religious people get from religion – awe, wonder, meaning and perspective – non-religious people get them from other places like art, nature, human relationships and the narratives we give our lives in other ways”.

Richard Dawkins (whose “destructive” atheism de Botton envisages atheism 2.0 as combating) has also spoken of finding awe and wonder in the natural world – see, for examples, his wonderful book Unweaving the Rainbow. (As an aside, with the exception of some passages in The God Delusion, it seems to me entirely false that Dawkins fits this “destructive” caricature that de Botton, Eagleton and others like to present.)

But de Botton has responded to some of the concerns regarding this building, and in particular the idea that atheism needs a “temple”. An emailed statement from de Botton can be read at Hanna Thomas’ blog, where he states that

contemporary architecture [should] look more closely at the examples of religious architecture, in order to give their buildings some of the qualities that are most appealling in religious buildings; to put it bluntly, in order that these effects not reside heretofore only in the cul-de-sac of religious architecture.

As is sometimes the case with jokes – where explaining them tends to deepen embarrassment, or further highlight the weakness of the joke - this statement (you should read the whole thing) doesn’t make the idea of atheist temples any more sensible, or any less facile. Architects are surely already aware of the majesty of many cathedrals and religious buildings, and are already borrowing the elements they find worthwhile. This process doesn’t need formalisation, or a new name, or to be roped into the service of presenting atheism as a unifying creed/society/club of any sort.

Atheists are connected, or similar, in not being theistic. Beyond that, we’re just like everyone else. For some, cathedrals remain awe-inspiring, as do beautiful parts of the natural landscape. If I was inclined to gaze at things while pondering meaning or mortality, there’s no shortage of impressive things to look at while doing so. The fact that some of them were built in the service of religion makes no difference to me, except for the fact that I’ll tend to not enter them when people are praying, singing hymns or delivering sermons (as examples from one set of traditions).

Then there are some who don’t care much for architecture or natural beauty. I’m more in this camp than in the former one, but this doesn’t mean that I lack triggers or reasons for being taken “out of the everyday”, “encourag[ing] contemplation, perspective and (at times) a pleasing terror”. Books and films do that, as do people, the tribal loyalties of being a football fan, and so forth.

For some, shopping malls could do it too – who knows. But if it’s buildings as works of art, or fulcrums of inspiration that you’re after, it’s not only the case that (as I mention above) I’d be very surprised if architects aren’t already aware that features from religious buildings do the trick. Second, there’s no shortage of ostensibly “secular buildings” that are pretty darn awe-inspiring in their own right. Consider, for example, the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, or the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao.

As with the very idea of atheism 2.0, de Botton is dressing up the obvious as if it’s insightful. And his further explanation of how he thinks these are good ideas don’t make them appear any more so.

[EDIT]: de Botton’s statement was also sent to Richard Wiseman (and others), and is attracting some good comments on Wiseman’s blog.

It’s easy to forget that arguments in favour of unfettered free speech often come from positions of privilege. That privilege could be economic, social or educational, but whatever its origin, the result can be a bewilderment at the thought that anybody could find mere words offensive enough to censure.

I’ve made this sort of case before, defending various people and a wide range of utterances – from Floyd Shivambu and Kuli Roberts to Annelie Botes. A consistent thread in those columns has been that we learn nothing by silencing odious voices – that it’s only through being exposed to opinions that make us uncomfortable that we develop defences against them.

Again, it’s easy for some of us to say these sorts of things. It’s easy for me. For others it’s less so, especially if you might have been subjected to years or generations of abuse. So the idealism of a position – mine, broadly speaking – which entails hoping that society will at some point grow up and learn to deal with offence can easily seem rather smug – not to mention condescending.

However, it remains paternalistic to impose constraints on what we’re allowed to read and hear when those constraints are intended to protect us from offence. We don’t have the right to be shielded from all potential offence, even if there may be cases where the offence is simply gratuitous rather than potentially instructive (even if not instructive to the target of the offensive claim, then to the wider audience that is exposed to it).

But conclusions regarding whether a particular case intends gratuitous offence or not are subjective ones, also complicated by the emotive nature of many such cases. A recent case involved an Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) decision against River’s Church, who were instructed to take a billboard down following a complaint by Eugene Gerber.

Gerber is reported as saying that the “billboard offends him as an atheist as he does not consider his existence to be an accident. Secondly, the depiction of a man with an empty head communicates that atheists are stupid”. In comments to an article addressing the judgement and the apparent contradiction of an atheist (where atheists often defend their right to offend the religious), Gerber clarified his motivation for the complaint, saying:

During our darker apartheid years, it was ultimately the reaction and pressure from the international community that allowed us to move into a democratic society. And now, as our free speech rights are dying a slow death in South Africa, we once again need the world to take note and join our outcry.

So one atheist in South Africa gets a Christian billboard taken down, and blogs all over the world (atheist and Christian alike) are up in arms about my infringement on free speech. Yet, about a month ago, a Christian had a television commercial taken off air for exactly the same reason, and not even a peep on the internet about free speech. My options were simple, impede on their free speech but the get the message out there that our country needs help, or let them have their billboard and sit back and watch free speech decline. The latter was simply unacceptable.

So as long as their [sic] are people out there who voice the concern at me being able to have a billboard removed, I think I made the right choice. Hopefully the next headline you read is ‘Atheist tries in vain to have billboard removed’.

Limiting free speech for the sake of protecting it is certainly counter-intuitive, yet not obviously mistaken. Gerber could have been attempting to highlight how easily claims of being offended can result in limitations on freedom of speech, thus gesturing at a broader, perhaps systemic problem. But the evidence for this motivation is sketchy – not only because examples of these sorts of limiting moves are easy to find, but also because he appears to be wrong about the facts.

Assuming that the television commercial Gerber is referring to is Unilever’s Axe Excite advertisement, featuring “super-hot angels crashing to Earth” then smashing their halos in order to (presumably) be able to “know” the man wearing the deodorant in question, it’s simply not true that this ASA decision went unnoticed. My browser bookmarks include five newspaper articles and three blog posts – most of them explicitly concerned with whether the ASA was being overly sensitive towards claims of offence.

Just as with the Axe advertisement, one can ask whether the River’s Church billboard was sufficiently offensive to merit censure. While these are subjective judgements, a broader question is whether the ASA should even be placed in a position of needing to make them – especially if they are placed in this position by those who regularly protest the hypersensitivity of others to criticism.

The ASA ruling on the billboard was at least consistent with the Axe ruling. But if a depiction of an atheist having an “empty head” (itself a subjective reading – I’d be happy to entertain the charitable possibility that this image depicts a head lacking in certain beliefs) or believing that they are accidents now meets a threshold of unacceptable offence, then that threshold is far too low.

Regulation of advertisements that make false claims is certainly merited. But in this case, as a colleague (and atheist) pointed out, many of us might know as fact that we are accidents. As for having empty heads, well, as Psalm 14.1 reminds us “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” If a billboard isn’t allowed to call unbelievers fools (on the uncharitable, and more plausible reading), would Gerber now have us petitioning for the Bible to be withdrawn from sale, or edited to remove content offensive to atheists?

Gerber’s complaint to the ASA was hypersensitive and misguided, in that it serves to undermine free speech arguments in more typical cases involving things like blasphemy. But as I’ve indicated, some feel better equipped to shrug off insults than others, and cases like these are thin ends of very thick wedges. Speech (and advertisements are of course a complicated example of speech) can create a climate of hostility, serving as propaganda for encouraging negative attitudes towards certain groups.

I do still hope that we can learn to deal with these insults without feeling the need to run to the courts or the ASA for protection. It remains true that any restrictions on free speech on the basis of offence put us on an unprincipled and very slippery slope. And, as I’ve argued before, freedom to cause offence doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing for us to do. Somehow, though, I wish we could find a mechanism to shut some people up – but only the deserving ones, of course.

And in the curious place that is South Africa, this poster is somehow racist. It’s one thing to criticise the very idea of non-racialism – you can argue that a political party that is trying to encourage us leave race out of our analysis is naïve, and you can even argue that non-racialism can’t serve as an antidote to racism because we need to focus on race. But if you believe that race shouldn’t matter, as I do, then highlighting the fact that some people are still inclined to see relationships between different races as wrong – or even simply remarkable – is perfectly consistent with a commitment to non-racialism.

That’s what this poster does. It simply highlights the fact that some people would look twice at an inter-racial couple, and reminds viewers of the poster that in the ideal DASO future, this wouldn’t happen. As I pointed out in a Twitter exchange, my regular interactions with students at the University of Cape Town confirm that it’s simply not true that South Africans don’t need to be reminded that inter-racial relationships are okay. Yes, they (they meaning the DASO target audience, ie. youth) might be well aware that the Immorality Act has been repealed, but this doesn’t mean that social pressure to date people with similar pigmentation has disappeared. It’s still a very real pressure, which I hear about (or overhear people talking about) on a regular basis.

This is perhaps again simply an instance of the Twitterati imagining that they are the only arbiters of good sense and reason, imagining that they speak for everyone. And one is sometimes fearful of that possibility, seeing as the Twitterati can say some profoundly stupid things. I was told, for example, that it’s “racist to presume non-racialism is about who you have sex with”. As I said in reply, this poster is but one example of what non-racialism would entail – namely that nobody would care if people were having an inter-racial relationship.

Was the poster meant to include depictions of every possible instance of non-racialism to avoid being racist? It seems that it should have, which would have made for a pretty large poster. And even if it had tried to, someone would still have come up with something that’s wrong with it. Perhaps the art direction was racist, or perhaps it’s somehow sinister that the DASO logo covers the black woman, and not the man (this is not a joke – someone did say that. It does so happen that the black woman has breasts, which is a more likely contender for why the logo was placed where it was).

Should DASO’s poster have featured two white people? Of course not – that would be racist. Should it have featured two black people? Of course not – that would have been described as desperate. Should it have featured a gay couple, whether inter-racial or not? Perhaps (although that would also have been described as desperate) – but one can understand that they did not, partly because the majority of the market is heterosexual, and partly because they might have been cowed by the amount of (obviously unjustified) offence that would have caused.

What this sort of thing goes to show is that if you want to find a problem, you’ll do so – regardless of the intellectual contortions necessary. As I said at the start of this post, it’s entirely possible that non-racialism is misguided, even impossible. But making the claim that this poster is racist – in the context of inter-racial relationships being an actual issue for some – is an entirely unsympathetic, and unjustifiable, analysis.

UPDATE: The stupid doesn’t stop there. The African Christian Democratic Party say the poster is “shocking” and promotes “sexual immorality”. Furthermore, “in a country with high levels of Aids and an overdose of crime, especially the high incidence of farm murders this year, this poster sends the opposite message to the country than needed”. (Apologies to the ACDP for initially mis-attributing these quotes to them.)

The first concern this talk raises is that it starts from a presumption that so-called “new atheism” is the only game in town. It sets up a false dichotomy between “living in a spiritual wasteland” and being a churchgoing zombie, which allows de Botton to swoop in and propose “atheism 2.0″ to fill the gap between those extremes. In atheism 2.0, we would develop secular mechanisms akin to religion’s “giant machines, organisations, directed to managing our inner life“. But the “new atheism” trope can quite plausibly be described as a caricature, especially if put in the terms de Botton begins with in the TED talk. Yes, there are lighting-rod type atheists, just as you’ll find more vocal proponents of any contested view. This sort of engagement isn’t compulsory, and it’s to my mind not even typical – it’s simply one element of a strategic interaction with religious believers, in an attempt to persuade them of the wrongness of their views.

Of course it’s true that religions have been very effective in inculcating certain beliefs, habits and dispositions. But they have done so partly by dissuading thought – by creating an impression that certain propositions have the strongest possible truth value, because “God” says they are true, and you can’t argue with that. Any attempt at creating an organised – but secular – form of religion should immediately make atheists wary, because part of the point of a reason-motivated life is that groupthink is in general a poor guide to truth. I can agree with part of what de Botton says, in that he points out the dangers of a potential lack of “moral mentorship” once one escapes from whatever doctrinal understanding of morality your religion brings, or brought. Even here, though, we have all sorts of competing grand narratives already – things like human equality, justice, rights and free speech – which are arguably already as or more entrenched in human minds than any moral notion that results directly from a religion. For better or worse, those sorts of concepts already constitute a kind of groupthink – and if “atheism 2.0″ is meant to encourage them, de Botton is offering us an empty box with pretty wrapping.

But that’s not all “atheism 2.0″ is good for – we should, according to de Botton, borrow elements of religion to improve things like education, and to find sources of consolation. Listen to the talk yourself – he describes various ways in which elements of religion can be deployed in order to help us to understand “how to live”. Again, the stuff that works has either already been secularised or will be, or was never “owned” by religion in the first place. As for education, PZ Myers is right in dismissing de Botton’s claims that our educational practices can benefit through using sermonising techniques such as repetition. And of course we can be more effective public speakers – but that’s something we can learn through experience, or Toastmasters. We don’t need to study the techniques of the person behind the pulpit.

As for meaning, art, and sources of consolation: Of course we might all get value from ritual, ceremony, community and so forth. Most of us do this already in celebrating birthdays or anniversaries, and even in those regular social interactions with people we know, trust and love. This doesn’t need a label, and doesn’t need any formalising through inventing a new way of being secular.

In summary, here’s the thing: of course we can learn from religion. We can learn from anything, and already do so. But it’s not true – at least in my experience – that there are “so many gaps in secular life”, as de Botton claims. It’s only if you grant that premise, and furthermore claim that religion provides opportunities for learning that aren’t available elsewhere, that religion can be granted any form of privileged status as a source of meaning. The status that it might have is already accommodated in good old-fashioned atheism, and atheism 2.0 seems to be little more than the theme for a book-tour. Which is fine – I wish I could make as much profit from saying so little – but let’s not imagine there’s anything particularly interesting in the idea.

While President Obama could be accused of trying to curry favour with moral conservatives in rejecting the FDA’s recommendations on the “morning-after pill”, liberals can find some comfort in the fact that he’s at least pro-contraception, and isn’t planning to criminalise abortions just yet.

This puts him at odds with nearly every (plausible) Republican candidate with the exception of Mitt Romney who, while having changed his mind and become pro-life in 2004, is at least not a signatory to the regressive “Personhood Pledge” that has to date been signed by Santorum, Gingrich, Perry and Paul.

Ron Paul’s case is complicated by the addendum to his signing of the pledge, in which he disagrees with the Pledge’s assertion that the 14th amendment (which protects individual liberties from state encroachment) has a role to play in defending the interests of the unborn. While the addendum has led to some questioning of the sincerity of his commitment to the Pledge, he is nevertheless clear that “life begins at conception”, and that “it is the duty of the government to protect life”.

Of those who have not signed the Pledge (Huntsman and Romney), both want to repeal Roe vs. Wade, and Huntsman supports the introduction of a right to life amendment to the Constitution. While Romney thinks that current legislation has “cheapened the value of human life”, his stated intentions are to put abortion legislation in the hands of the state, rather than the Federal government.

Broadly speaking, then – because the details are, well, very detailed – all the candidates are pro-life to varying degrees of commitment. And while Romney and Paul can be credited with at least attempting to introduce a level of sophistication to their positions instead of simply appealing to the emotive fervour of a conservative base, the rest of the contenders speak of pre-born humans in terms that assume that the debate has an obvious conclusion, where a woman’s rights over her own body, and what to do with it, are significantly weakened.

As in most emotive issues, language is important here. A bias is immediately introduced in using terms like “pro-life”, given that it suggests an anti-life stance on the part of those that support abortion. Speaking of “unborn” or “pre-born” children introduces a similar bias, in that it encourages us to think of blastocysts, zygotes, embryos and foetuses as if they already had desires and aspirations capable of being dashed by those callous “anti-life” Democrats.

It is in the Personhood Pledge that these biases come to the fore in all their glory, where “every human being at every stage of development must be recognized as a person possessing the right to life”. While the Pledge’s opposition to assisted suicide and euthanasia increase the intended threats to individual liberty, it’s the language on abortion that is of most concern here.

Because it’s not only this pledge, but also a legislative move that should be seen as a concern. It should be concerning to Americans – most directly American women – but also to the rest of us, in that these sorts of developments can easily serve as example and inspiration to those who want to undermine South African liberties in this regard. It’s not only the ACDP that might want to do so – President Zuma’s visit to the Rhema Church during campaigning in 2009 included a reassurance that he’d be willing to entertain changes to legislation permitting both abortion and same-sex marriages.

The (American) legislation at issue is H.R.358, the Protect Life Act, which passed the House of Representatives in October 2011. The bill is considered unlikely to pass in the Senate, and President Obama intends to veto it even if it does. But in the hypothetical absence of the current Democratic Senate and President, the bill gives a clear insight into the how dedicated the current crop of Republicans in the House are to defend the unborn human, no matter how nebulous its form.

The first version of the bill submitted to the House by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) called for a modification of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to only allow for health plans to cover abortions in cases of “forcible rape or, if a minor, an act of incest”. Women who fall pregnant as a result of gentle rape – or adult victims of incest – must presumably have had it coming.

That language was removed in the bill that passed the House (you can see each version here), which now allows for coverage in the event of “an act of rape or incest”. But this concession to the reality of women sometimes needing an abortion through no fault of their own does not address some of the worst aspects of the bill.

The Protect Life Act, if signed into law, would prevent women from buying even a private insurance plan through a state health care exchange (these are not insurers themselves, but entities that attempt to promote insurance transparency and accountability) if that plan covers abortions – even though most private insurance plans currently cover abortion.

It would require any insurer that operates under an exchange and covers abortion to also offer otherwise identical plans that exclude abortion coverage. The administrative costs of managing two near-identical schemes – where one would do, save this conservative agenda – might well result in many insurers thinking it’s simply not worth the trouble to offer a plan that covers abortion.

Of course, consumers can join a plan that isn’t offered through an exchange. But because of the extra visibility of plans offered under an exchange, and the consumer protections ensured by these exchanges, it seems likely that the only women who would do so are those who are well-informed and financially advantaged – raising the possibility of this bill introducing a bias against the poor, who need more protection than most.

Perhaps worst of all, the bill opens up an avenue for softening current requirements under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), signed into law by Reagan to protect poor and uninsured patients who need emergency care. The Protect Life Act would allow hospitals that are morally opposed to performing abortions to withhold treatment in cases where a woman requires an emergency abortion in order to save her life.

As Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) says of her own experience in this regard: “I was pregnant, I was miscarrying, I was bleeding. If I had to go from one hospital to the next trying to find one emergency room that would take me in, who knows if I would even be here today. What my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are trying to do is misogynist”.

Nobody should be required to die for the sake of someone else’s religious beliefs. And while I can understand the desire for abortion to be treated as a non-trivial matter, we shouldn’t satisfy this desire at the cost of eroding an existing and thinking person’s rights over her own body. While life might begin at conception, individual rights do not. This is the sort of case in which we might hope that public representatives attempt to fight the tide of populist sentiment, rather than allowing the most reactionary forms of that sentiment to stand the chance of influencing policy.

Happy birthday, African National Congress. Congratulations on your centenary, and thank you for your tireless efforts to liberate South Africa from the unprincipled inequality that the majority of our population suffered under. As you enter your second century of existence, please consider eliminating various items of your own cultural baggage that are themselves unprincipled, and that become increasingly offensive within a modern democracy.

Besides the most obvious and most toxic tendencies, such as a patriarchal disposition that often seems inseparable from misogyny (as with President Zuma’s statements in his 2006 rape trial), or the apparent desire of some of your members to introduce new forms of racial nationalism, you could perhaps start with something small.

Small, but still meaningful, in that it would demonstrate not only a concern for the suffering of sentient creatures, but also an awareness that actions should be justifiable on objective evidence and impartial reasoning – and that nothing can be justified by an appeal to cultural traditions alone, no matter how longstanding those traditions are.

Please think about whether the 21st century is still an appropriate time to be slaughtering animals in rituals such as ukweshwama. I do understand that killing a bull or an ox with a spear is a deeply symbolic act, and that these non-human animals are not simply meat, but are instead signifiers of things like prosperity, or devices by which you attempt communication with ancestors.

My understanding here is of course not a lived one, and is no doubt incomplete. But you surely know as well as I that prosperity begins with gainful employ, and that the bread and circuses nature of some of what went on in Mangaung are a time-honoured (and no doubt useful) way of distracting those who don’t have jobs from that uncomfortable truth. These rituals unite, placate, and give hope for a future that might escape resembling the past.

Hopefully, you’re also aware that your ancestors are in fact dead and no longer capable of interceding on your behalf, no matter how many animals are slaughtered. Again, paying one’s respects to the dead is something we can all understand – but causing another animal to suffer as a method for doing so requires a justification beyond the simple assertion of cultural habit.

As I’ve said before, defending a practice on grounds of culture alone offers a slippery slope towards not being able to condemn anything at all. And we’d like to be able to condemn some things that are part of some cultures, like racism or sexism. We’d like to be able to say they are wrong – not simply illegal or unconstitutional.

So what else stops outsiders such as myself from saying that it’s wrong for President Zuma to have participated in the ritual killing of a black bull earlier this month, during the ANC’s centenary celebrations? The argument can’t end with silencing any opposition, simply on the grounds that they aren’t themselves part of the culture in question.

Perhaps those of us on the outside can’t say it’s wrong to stab a bull with spears, or (in more enthusiastic versions), to rip out its tongue and tear out his eyes. At least Zuma didn’t attempt to have sex with the bull, as Swaziland’s King Mswati is recently alleged to have done. Not simply because we don’t understand, but because we’re being inconsistent.

Or so one claim goes: those of us who eat meat cannot judge these rituals as wrong, because of our own complicity in needless suffering via the industrial farming of non-human animals for food. But this appears to privilege the relativistic defence of the argument from culture, in that it is possible to be a less or a more compassionate meat-eater, whereby those who are concerned with suffering can attempt to source their meat from farms which try to minimise it.

And even for the suffering that can’t be avoided in an omnivorous diet, there is still a noticeable difference between killing something slowly, tormenting it with the pointed end of a spear in a drawn-out ritual, and putting a bolt through its brain for the purposes of securing dinner. The former exhibits a bloodlust, the latter a dietary preference.

Wally Serote was quoted in the Mail&Guardian as saying “We spill the blood of these animals in the hopes that our ancestors will help us prevent spilling human blood in the future”. But what will stop us from spilling human blood in the future cannot be our deceased ancestors. It can only be the examples that they have set, and the lessons we can learn from those examples.

Perhaps we can best avoid spilling human blood in the future by continually moving toward a future in which needless suffering is always to be avoided, and in which we make our choices based on reasons that would be considered defensible, if not always acceptable, to any impartial observer. The ritual slaying of non-human animals, by contrast, is an artefact of the past.

Cultures can and frequently do change, even though these changes are sometimes slow to occur. And attempts to change them from the outside are typically doomed to failure, especially because they might be difficult to understand from a distance. In the 2009 case brought against King Goodwill Zwelithini, KwaZulu-Natal Premier Zweli Mkhize and others by Animal Rights Africa, Judge Nic Van der Reyden said it was difficult for him to rule on the matter of ukweshwama as the ritual went to the heart of Zulu tradition.

And so it does, as evidenced again in Mangaung last week. But the fact that these rituals are not proscribed by law does not mean we should endorse them, simply through a desire to appear politically correct. For those who engage in these rituals, their legality means they are permissible – not that they are necessary, or even appropriate.

If they are not appropriate, discovering this requires giving it some thought – not simply asserting the privilege of culture, but rather, debating the issue in order to determine which cultures happen to have gotten this one right, and whether the others shouldn’t consider changing their minds.

By contrast, Jack Bloom (DA Leader in the Gauteng legislature) seems to have no qualms in putting God at front and centre as a potential answer to South Africa’s ills, regardless of the diversity of belief among those who voted for his party (not to mention a large number of those who work for his party). In fact, God seems to have been here all along, not only facilitating the “transition from Apartheid”, but also working abroad in spurring the abolitionist movement against slavery, and inspiring people to formulate the “democratic concepts that led to the American Revolution”.

There’s no question that Bloom is sincere, and that he believes religion can play a role in encouraging people to think about their moral obligations. Sadly for those of us who think morality can only be principled if also secular, he’s in agreement with the DA’s general position here, where the party says that religion “should serve as a moral and spiritual inspiration“.

But even this view (the mistaken one, that morality and religion are easy bedfellows) is at least comprehensible, given that our country is mostly religious. Comprehensible, not reasonable, because if we need more prayer and less politics (as Bloom argues), surely the ACDP would have a far higher share of the votes?

What’s most egregious about Bloom’s opinion piece is that he by and large simply makes things up as he goes along, plucking historical events out of the timeline and – without any evidence (unless you count dubious correlations as evidence, which you shouldn’t) – attributes them to prayer and religion. It’s true that Lanphier drove a large Christian revival movement in the US during the mid-1800′s, yes, but to say that it was the Christianity – rather than basic human compassion or economics – that informed the abolition of slavery is an entirely circular argument, which assumes what it purports to demonstrate.

The American Revolution – also offered by Bloom as evidence for the power of prayer – seems more plausibly explained by something like the first 13 colonies revolting against rule by the British Empire, regardless of whether some or many the revolutionaries were religious. Their desire to be free doesn’t need religion to make sense, and it seems entirely spurious – and again circular – to use this as evidence for us needing more prayer and less politics.

And then of course there’s the elephant in the room: namely, that the data overwhelmingly suggest that on any benchmark of morality you care to pick, secular countries usually outperform religious ones. Corruption? Check. Divorce rates? Check. Crime? Check. Do a comparison for whatever measure you like using something like Google’s public data explorer, or read a simple and short book like Sinnott-Armstrong’s Morality without God.

One of the saddest aspects of public utterances like this from DA leaders, for me, is the fact that the DA has one clear advantage over other contenders in the political arena: the effective, and entirely pragmatically motivated, delivery of goods and services. That’s their clear competitive advantage, and the drum they should be beating more loudly than any other. But when a DA official – and a highly placed one at that – tells us that he hopes to outsource his job to God (at best) or collective insanity (at worst), it only reinforces the fear that populism is taking the place of common sense.

Bloom closes his piece with “maybe if we all prayed more the social change we desire will happen”. Seeing as all the existing studies of prayer’s efficacy show no effects (or in at least one case, negative effects), don’t hold your breath.

Edit: This post as well as a reply from Jack Bloom can be found on PoliticsWeb, where you’ll also find some entertaining comments. Also see another Christian perspective from Jordan Pickering.

When we think about the evolution and development of society, we often emphasise competition rather than cooperation. But nature – including our natures – is only partly described by Tennyson’s famous description of it as ‘red in tooth and claw’. We also evolve through cooperation aimed at finding better ways to live, to educate, to govern and communicate. It’s worth highlighting three aspects here of relevance to South Africans.

The first, relevant to all humans, is that we seem to be getting less violent. Kurt Schock’s 2005 book Unarmed Insurrections, and more recently Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels Of Our Nature: How Violence Has Declined present compelling cases for the notion that the past few decades have seen a substantial shift from away from war and towards resolving differences in less destructive ways.

The second, related to the first, is the rise of civil society as a force in accomplishing these resolutions. In South Africa, the Right to Know campaign has reminded South Africans that they can make a loud enough noise for government to be forced to pay attention. Elsewhere, tyrannical regimes are even being caused to fall, partly as a result of this (usually) nonviolent form of people’s power, as in the so-called Arab Spring.

And finally, we shouldn’t forget that a peaceful and prosperous future is only possible if we empower everybody to determine the course of their own lives, and help them develop the resources to do so. A vital foundation for having such control is education especially for women, who have historically suffered a disproportionate share of social inequality – often propped up by high fertility rates and low levels of economic agency. While readers of Cosmopolitan will no doubt be less affected by these factors than many other women, the welfare of our fellow citizens affects us all through impacts on government spending and social harmony (amongst other things). It is thus immensely heartening to note that while still unacceptably high, literacy rates are steadily increasing, and fertility rates are falling.

We have a long, long way to go, but it’s not only Polyannas who dare to imagine that they see light at the end of the tunnel.

There are of course countless reasons for little or no optimism. But seeing as those are undoubtedly all over the news as per usual, I’ll leave it there, and wish you all a good year.

What this might immediately bring to mind is the furore and 2010 lawsuit involving “Girls Gone Wild”, where “Jane Doe” sued the makers of the show for damaging her reputation, after her breasts were exposed during the filming of an episode of the show. But the cases are not at all symmetrical, in that Jane Doe had near-certain knowledge of this sort of thing happening with some regularity at parties filmed for GGW, and also knew that the filming was taking place. This is not to excuse the person who pulled her top down, or to express a view on whether Jane Doe was violated in any way, but simply to say that the case is different to that of a woman sunning herself while watching cricket.

Having said that, it’s always been the case (well, for many years now) that the cameramen and producers of the live cricket feed for television tend to focus on attractive females with some regularity. Lingering close-ups of cleavage are a common occurrence, and frequently involve whole-body shots – making identification and potential embarrassment that much easier. By contrast, many of the jugcam shots are simply of cleavage, making claims of any sort of violation more difficult to sustain. Many do also include faces, though, so are at least potentially violations of privacy.

One difference between GGW, the TV camera feed and jugcam is that these involve a sliding scale of implied consent. You fully expect to be filmed at GGW, you partially expect that you might be filmed by the TV cameras, and you don’t (or hadn’t, until now) expect to be photographed by random strangers while watching cricket. And the latter typically involves the opportunity to give actual consent – especially if you’re the focus of the photograph, rather than merely a character somewhere in the background of one.

So I can sympathise with the idea that there has been a failure of courtesy on the part of those who take these jugcam shots without obtaining consent. But treating this as an analogue to rape, or linking it with SlutWalk, is taking things too far. SlutWalk (which I’ve criticised here and here) is about protesting victim-blaming, where those unsympathetic to the exploitation or abuse of women imply (or make explicit) the claim that women invite sexual abuse through what they choose to wear. With jugcam, there’s no suggestion that these pictures lead to sexual violence, merely that they are creepily invasive and that they objectify women.

But if you go to a stadium containing 40 000 spectators, where the goings-on are being broadcast on television, many people are going to see you. Many of those might find you attractive, and enjoy looking at you. This applies to both men and women, although men are far less likely to mind the attention given their artificial (and unwarranted) social privilege. To think that you welcome sexual abuse based on what you wear is obviously offensive – but to think that people shouldn’t look at you if they find you attractive is insane.

These thoughts (of finding someone attractive) and the subsequent behaviour (of looking at them) are entirely normal, and to regard them as constituting objectification is political correctness gone mad. We would not be able to meet, marry and/or procreate without these impulses. As I commented with regard to the Foschini T-shirt episode, it’s dangerous for us to keep amplifying our feelings of offence and responding with increasingly hyperbolic outrage – the real offences could simply get buried over time by self-important bleating. Furthermore, an excessive focus on symptoms of patriarchy might do little to address the underlying causes – not to mention the possibility that even focusing on patriarchy itself could obscure the more general (and more important, to my mind) fight against inequality in all forms.

Jugcam goes further than simply looking, though – it involves public exposure via Twitter (and websites). Do those wielding smartphones have an obligation to ask for permission to take photographs that TV cameramen do not? Paul Jacobson says no, arguing that

we live in a time when we are increasingly online, socially connected and capable of publishing a dizzying amount of content on the Web for virtually anyone to see. … We are getting to a point where you can’t go anywhere without seeing smartphones or other devices being used to take photos, record video and publish that content to sites you have no control over.

When it comes to the #JugCam meme (which is an organized version of what guys have probably been doing at sports events for some time now), we have to start making decisions about how we behave in such a connected world. I know how this next bit sounds but I think it has to be said and really does have some merit as an argument: women who wear bikini tops at public sports events like cricket matches must be aware that their photos could be taken and uploaded for broader consumption. I’m not saying its ok for that to happen, it is a little creepy, but it happens. Arguing that people (ok, men) shouldn’t be allowed to do this in public spaces without express permission is a little disingenuous. If a woman is opposed to being photographed in a bikini top and having her photo published online then she should reconsider wearing a bikini top at these events. Women should also be free to express outrage at their photo being published and demand that it be removed but whether that actually happens will likely come down to a decision based on the rights to freedom of expression, dignity and privacy being weighed up. I suspect the legal position will be something along the following lines: women in public wearing bikini tops have no real legitimate expectation of privacy when they are in public and can’t complain if their photo is taken and published online, particularly where they are aware that this could (and does) occur.

He’s right that we are at the point where this sort of thing often happens – but that doesn’t make it right that it does. As I outline above, there are some known risks of public exposure when attending a public event like a cricket game, and you might think there’s some chance of a TV camera focusing on you. Things like jugcam add to those risks. The point is not only a “real legitimate expectation of privacy”, but also that the bounds of what is private and what is public are being affected, where everyone you meet could take on a paparrazzi role. Yet we are not all celebrities, and it seems disingenuous to argue that we can treat any random female cricket spectator as if she were (leaving aside the question of whether even celebrities deserve this sort of intrusion).

My point is this: The fact that something like jugcam is not illegal, and also not offensive to the extent that some have argued on Twitter, does not make it a meme to be encouraged or defended. Jugcam is simply an excuse for being an ass, and an attempted legitimisation of a boorish and juvenile impulse to entertain yourself and your fellow frat-boys. There’s a simple question of courtesy and respect here – genuine celebrities know what they’re in for, and can’t be surprised by the attentions of photographers. The average cricket-watcher can not only be surprised, but more importantly, she can have preferences in this regard that outweigh the value you get from posting her picture online – even if it’s not that offensive to post her picture online.

It’s really not a lot of trouble to ask. And not asking – where someone might have a good reason to refuse – is rude. And it’s the sort of rudeness which comes from the invisibility of privilege, where the protagonists of jugcam can appear incapable of understanding why anyone would mind. The reason for being incapable of this understanding is the key thing – namely that it’s incomprehensible for some to think that their understanding of what is and is not problematic aren’t universal. Here’s a simple take-home lesson: if something you do affects someone else, and you have the opportunity to establish whether they welcome that effect or not, the default behaviour should be to ask them to express a view.

Having said that, we shouldn’t be at all surprised when people act like asses – and not every slight or insult needs to be spoken of as evidence for civilization’s downfall. Unauthorised jugcam pictures are rude, sure, but that’s all they are.