Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Dawkins' limits

Elders with Andrew Denton - episode 6: Richard Dawkins (21/12/2009)

Last night's Andrew Denton interview of Richard Dawkins was pretty fascinating. It seemed to me that Dawkins was quite defensive and almost ludicrously cautious; seemingly worrying all the time that Denton was setting him up for some sort of trap. For example, this exchange:

ANDREW DENTON: What's your definition of success?

RICHARD DAWKINS: ...Oh dear, I don't really answer that kind of question...

ANDREW DENTON: Why not?

RICHARD DAWKINS: ...I'm just trying, well, because I just think of it as a dictionary word, which has a dictionary definition and you can go and look it up. I don't have a personal...

ANDREW DENTON: Well, you don't have a marker in your life for what would be achievement?

RICHARD DAWKINS: No, it's cause it's either you just give a dictionary definition or it becomes very complicated and personal. No, I don't really think I've got a got a good answer to that.

And then this part where he seems unwilling to talk about emotions:

ANDREW DENTON: Is it possible to explain love?

RICHARD DAWKINS: I think it in principle can be explained but I don't actually have the internal wherewithal to explain it. I just experience it.

And this:

ANDREW DENTON: When do you laugh at yourself?

RICHARD DAWKINS: ...Are all the questions going to be like this?

ANDREW DENTON: Not all... do you find these very difficult?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Yes.

ANDREW DENTON: Well, why is that?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Um ... because they're about me, I suppose.

ANDREW DENTON: Some of the questions are about you and some are about your observation of other people.

RICHARD DAWKINS: Yes...

I found this avoidance of the personal and emotional a strange contrast with his aggressiveness and apparent confidence in attacking belief in God.

1 comment:

TJW said...

"ANDREW DENTON: What's your moral code?

RICHARD DAWKINS: I suppose it's a version of the Golden Rule, don't do unto others what you wouldn't wish them to do to you. I do feel intense vicarious sadness when I encounter sadness in others."

I don't know how to reconcile this with the fact that he often takes delight in humiliating audience members who ask the wrong questions, sometimes quite innocently.

E.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-eAg7Z6m1Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFamS4RGE_A