Dawkins' Flawless Victory

This is Dawkins at his finest. A flawless victory without a doubt. The crowd gives him a wild ovation after a 70 second response to "the simplest question" from an audience member at Randolph Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Virginia.

The question is: "What if you're wrong?"

Dawkins delivers his stunning oratorial tour de force by enveloping the question using a rhetorical cultural relativity argument that sweeps his opponents legs from under her. Again he wraps his opponent in a metanarrative. He doesn't address the question itself, but rather goes on the offensive, and attacks the questioner and their frame of reference.

This is a prime example of Dawkins at his best - he is playing to a live audience of the public. Remember that he is the sitting chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. He is a populist orator. He knows how to play to the crowd, and this crowd of Americans cheers him on like he were Hulk Hogan and this were a Friday night Smackdown at the WWE.

In a previous post I explained that a scriptural tradition that is not accepted by another will be interpreted by them as cultural tradition. Dawkins plays to this to present any religious belief as cultural conditioning. He is also playing to the audience's fear of religious fanaticism. This is where religious and cultural groups violently proselytize on the basis of "I am right. You are wrong."

This is a recurrent theme in Dawkins' work, and one that strikes a chord with his global audience. He uses this sympathy to push his own agenda of atheistic science as the answer.

Classical Krishna Conscious preaching, and in fact the Vedic method of harmonization and assimilation rather than cultural negation, more closely maps to Dawkins' method than to the exclusive proselytizing of many contemporary religions.

Consider this excerpt from a classic speech by His Holiness Visnujana Maharaja, delivered in Portland, Oregon, in 1975 (the event that is the opening scene of Radha-Damodara Vilasa):

So this is the warm invitation of Krishna Consciousness. It has nothing to do with black or white, young or old, or believe me, Christian or Jew or Hindu or anything like that. We consider these to be as much a part of false ego—Christian, Hindu, Jew—as we do black, white, young, old, man or woman. Because they were delegated to this body—I'm born in a Christian family, I call myself a Christian; I'm born in a Hindu family, I call myself a Hindu—so because of this body I'm a Hindu, because of this body I'm a Jew, and if I was born a million years ago would I be a Hindu, Christian or Jew? No. But I'd still be a servant, I'd still have my consciousness. See? Suppose you're born a hundred thousand years from now? Are you going to be a Christian or a Hindu or a Jew? No. But you'll still have your consciousness, you'll still have to serve, and you'll still want to be happy.

Visnujana Maharaja uses exactly the same argument that Dawkins does. We have more in common with Dawkins than may be apparent on the surface.

Dawkins uses the cultural relativity argument to dismiss the question. Another example of this tactic in play is when a person said to Srila Prabhupada: "There are so many paths..."

Srila Prabhupada replied to him: "So you choose one, and follow it."

This is a good response. However, it requires an additional layer to deal with the contemporary concern about religious extremism and inability to coexist with other understandings. Dawkins always chooses the most extreme examples to underscore his point.

The other thing he brings into play is the Flying Spaghetti Monster [wikipedia entry]. You should be familiar with this. It is a satirical story used to present the argument that if creationists are allowed to demand that their story be taught in schools with no evidence to support it, then any old story should be allowed.

Underlying this is a dismissal of scripture as pramana (valid evidence), and the presenting of empiric evidence as the only valid and acceptable pramana. This trend has been accelerated in modern cultures due to the clash of cultures with different scriptures, with different and sometimes contradictory cultural prescriptions. As most people can only evaluate things on a cultural basis, especially if they have not studied the scripture in depth, they see only confusion and contradiction as a result.

Dawkins throws this into the mix, as his audience are already familiar with it. He doesn't need to explain it, he just draws on it as an argument by the previous acaryas that supports his position.

Key Points:

• You don't have to speak to the question, you have to speak to the concerns of the audience
• Again, you win by winning the audience, not by defeating your opponent
• Know your audience's frame of reference. By throwing in "the Flying Spaghetti Monster" Dawkins establishes a rapport with them and at the same time draws extensive context and argument support into his 70 second speech, with only a few words
• Show how Krishna Consciousness simultaneously transcends and unites all religions to address the concerns of contemporary Western audiences
• Whatever you do, don't allow yourself to be cornered on cultural relativity. Srila Prabhupada, when explaining the dress of devotees would talk about its utilitarian value in helping them to identify themselves to the public, and reinforce their own sense of self identity. In the same way, be able to justify and explain cultural elements of Krishna Consciousness on a rational basis