Joshua, I think you’ve had some contacts with Craig. If you have the opportunity, you really should tell him that language like this is very offensive. He would certainly not want to be offensive but he just isn’t aware of what he is saying. He is so accomplished in his own field of philosophical theology and strict rational argumentation that I think he has developed a kind of tunnel vision and simply has not thought out the full implications of what he’s saying in other areas. Let me mention a very different example to demonstrate this. One of Craig’s former teachers, Norm Geisler, was once asked by reporters what he thought of some claimed UFO sightings. In the process of the interview Geisler said he thought some apparent UFO activity was actually the result of demonic activity. The news service anchor person, it might have been Walter Cronkite, actually laughed at Geisler’s statement on the air. Geisler told Craig that he regretted having said this and Craig agreed that they need to be careful of what they say, even for statements they truly believe. So I’m very sure that Craig would stop talking about “primatives” or the “uncivilized” if he understood how patronizing and arrogant this sounds. Craig is not a racist and his talk was actually intended to demonstrate the essential intellectual equality of people from all ancestry and cultures, but his use of contrasts was self-defeating. Though he is not a racist he does give the impression of thinking some cultures are better than others on the basis of their technologies. If that is what he thinks, that’s cultural bigotry. I hope you might have a chance to point this out to him.
Snort.
Also snort.
But the main point is reasonable.
In the old days (terminology may have changed), there were two Stone Ages, the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) and Neolithic (New Stone Age). The Greek word for “stone” (lithos) can be seen in both. So it would be quite correct to call a culture at the Neolithic level a “Stone Age” culture.
I wouldn’t have chosen Craig’s wording to make his point. However, as Rumraket pointed out in his first post, there are many people in the world today who seem to be obsessed with parsing every word or turn of phrase people use, looking for something that might just possibly be construed as offensive. My reflexes are quite different from those of many. I try always to give an author the benefit of the doubt, and to put a neutral construction on expressions where possible. I don’t like it when people falsely impute prejudices to me, so I don’t do it to others. I make this as a general statement, without specific reference to Craig.
Regarding Craig’s statement, a few points:
“Stone Age” is a technical term in anthropology. Craig may or may not have misused the technical term in relation to Amerindian culture. But I believe it’s plain from the context that he intended it as an objective reference to a state of technology, not as a slam against the native population of North America. So I don’t see any “racism” there.
“Civilized” is an ambiguous term, since it may have emotional connotations, as may its negative, “uncivilized.” On the other hand, as Classicists know, the root of the word has to do with cities – “civilized” people from this point of view are city-dwellers (as opposed to cave-dwellers, nomads, or people who live in small villages consisting of a few reed huts). It’s possible that Craig meant “uncivilized” only in this “Classical political theory” sense. And if so, then whether or not the term is correct would depend on whether or not Amerindians had anything that would be properly called a “city”.
“Primitive” is another ambiguous term. It can of course have negative connotations, but again, it need not. In the early 1980s, writers and programmers working on their Commodore Super-Pets were using what we would now call a “primitive” computer technology. “Primitive” in that case means “near the crude beginnings, not very technically sophisticated, compared to what came later.” The term in such uses isn’t intrinsically derogatory. It’s likely that Craig meant “primitive” in this sense, though of course, because of the possible connotations, it should have been qualified (“primitive with respect to X”).
One place where Craig made a definite error was in his use of “uncultured.” “Civilization” (see above discussion) and “culture” aren’t the same thing. There are tribal cultures as well as urban cultures. The cave paintings in Spain etc. suggest that there was a cave culture as well. One can speak of nomadic culture. Even if there were no cities in North America before Europeans arrived, there was definitely culture. So that was a blunder. I’m surprised that someone as well-educated as Craig would be so careless with his words, but maybe his education was almost exclusively theological and philosophical and he didn’t read much social science, general history, etc. Also, of course, “uncultured” can have negative connotations. But again, I think he meant something descriptive, so I chalk this up to clumsiness on his part.
His point was that one doesn’t need a high level of civilization (urbanity) or even of culture to have the ability to learn languages. It comes naturally to human beings. It doesn’t come naturally to gorillas or chimpanzees. He could have made that point without talking about some native who was shipped off to Britain to be a servant, an example which was bound to raise hackles. But I’m quite willing to believe that he had no intention of belittling native Americans as such.
In my view, people like Craig, and Alister McGrath, and other intellectual “oracles” would do the world more good if they would write and speak less, but write and speak more carefully. The problem with becoming a cultural superstar, in constant demand, is that it tempts one to put into print (or into lectures) almost every casual thought, example, etc. which pops into mind, without going through a process of self-editing to make sure one isn’t misunderstood. Here Craig failed to take a minute or two to recast his thoughts more precisely and sensitively regarding possible misunderstandings, and the result is the reaction here. There’s a practical lesson for him in this – though I doubt he is reading this discussion in this column, so he may not learn it.
Cahokia? Teotihuacan? Etc.
You should wonder why that example came so naturally to him. It demonstrates unconscious bigotry which, if he realized it, he would doubtless abjure. One would hope he wouldn’t react defensively. Why that example rather than one of Americans being able to learn Chinese? Because the point was that even primitive, cultureless savages are fully human (and make good servants too). Perhaps he was accommodating the supposed prejudices of his audience, who might say, sure Americans can do that, but benighted aborigines can only grunt?
Oh, yes.
Seriously???
Hadn’t heard of Cahokia – thanks for letting me know about it. As for Teotihuacan, I knew about the Mexican and Central American cities (I used to read up on them as a kid, in popular books on archaeology), but was thinking about “North America” more as a cultural unit than a geographical one, and hence had in mind the US and Canada, and nothing in what we call Latin America.
Anyhow, since there were native American cities in the US, then clearly Craig was wrong if he was implying that all US natives were “uncivilized” even in the narrow technical sense. It’s quite possible that he had never heard of Cahokia or any other example that you might bring up. His mention of Massachusetts suggests that he had in mind New England native peoples. Perhaps he would be correct to think that they weren’t city-dwellers. I’m not an expert on the details of native cultural history, so I make no comment. In any case, the main point is that even among people who have never lived in cities, even among people who have a very low level of technology, language is easily learned by any human being, but not by other animals. So human beings have a natural predisposition for language learning – qua human, not qua civilized. That’s one thing that makes humans different from non-human animals. And I think he is correct about that. He should have focused on that point, without wandering into questionable examples.
I don’t know why it came to him, and would prefer not to speculate in the way you have done. But I agree that, given the way it was employed, it could sound as if he were denigrating native peoples as somehow lesser beings than Europeans. For that reason, he should have expressed himself differently.
Apparently not, at least in the MAD magazine pronunciation. See the following rhyming verse:
“Whon thot Aprille swithin potrzebie,
The burgid prillie gives one heebie-jeebie.”
That comes from MAD 43, December 1958.
The story is that one of the usual gang of idiots saw it on the side of a truck and thought it was funny. Of course he didn’t know the Polish pronunciation. Furshlugginer.
World heritage site. In @swamidass backyard.
This is a man who, when corrected by multiple neuroscientists on his ridiculous claim that no animals other than humans are capable of experiencing physical suffering, refused to admit his error and doubled down on the claim.
And who refused to accept that he was wrong that Sean Carroll’s cosmological model was eternal into the past, even after being told this to his face by, uh, Sean Carroll.
Craig is pathologically incapable of admitting error. A defensive reaction is almost guaranteed.
That is not true.
I’ve seen him admit error many times. In fact, I did not observe defensiveness when I brought this to his attention.
As for the other example with Sean Carroll, I don’t really know the details. There is a difference, often, between the public statements people make and how they respond when approach respectfully and in private. Some issues, such as the issue in this thread, are too important to make about scoring points. I’d rather do the work in private so that understanding can grow and change will happen.
OK, I was referring to his public statements and behaviour. I have no idea what he is like in private, as you do.
Otherwise, my statements still stand.
You can watch the debate with Carroll near the end, for when Craig tries to contradict Carroll’s understanding of a rather simple aspect of Carroll’s own theorem. It’s one of my favourite parts of the debate. I’ll see if I can find exactly where it happens.