I confess that I hadn't got in on the raging "bright" debate. I wouldn't call myself bright because among my many fine qualities my most sublime is my modesty.

I do, however, like to use a bit from Douglas Adams to describe myself - even though he was describing something that wasn't tea: I am almost exactly, but not quite, unlike anyone you've ever met.

Dean,

I read Pejman's piece. Alot of wasted energy spent arguing against something. Negative literature is a huge downer man. I had to eat some Ben and Jerry's, go outside and hug a tree, and make a donation to Greenpeace just to get the positive energy flowing. Oh, wait, can I do that as a bright? Ok, it was nonmetaphysical energy.

Here is my thought for today: Most of the time, the secrets of life are simple. Enjoying life, even for a thinking person, shouldn't involve our getting "wrapped around the axle" on every issue. Keep it simple, honest, and kind.

Tim the Soldier

Hey Mark: I've always loved that line.

Hey Tim: I'm married to a Catholic girl. Must mean I don't think she emits many photons. Funny, because she's pretty colorful! I love her to death for that. :-)

The thing I'm "angry" about is not that someone is trying to spread a meme, but that someone (Dennett) is trying to talk down to me in the process because I am a believer. If I really were "angry" about the meme itself, and simply want to marginalize those who call themselves "bright," I wouldn't have linked to, or praised Dean's analysis of the issue of what it means to be a bright. And considering the fact--as Dean himself points out in the post I linked to--that others were as offended by Dennett's tone and comments, it would appear that I am not alone in feeling the way I do.

Let's leave the analyses of my mood to the psychoanalysts, 'kay?

D'oh! Okay Pej, somehow I missed that link!

Dean,

Your list of dictionary definitions isn't really to the point, is it? "Bright" is generally used adjectivally of human beings only one way. If someone tells you your daughter is an exceptionally bright child, you are not being told that her hair ought to be a less shocking pink. If someone is described as a bright man, the obvious inference is not that his voice is high and loud, nor that he glows in the dark.

In other words, whether naturalism needed "rebranding" or not, this particular effort at rebranding is insufferably complacent and smug.

What has any item on that list of definitions to do with holding a naturalistic theory of the universe, if it isn't the implication that those who hold that theory are smarter than those who don't? Why "Bright"? Why not, say, "Rhubarb"? If Dennett consented to call himself and those who agreed with him Rhubarbs, that really would be "whimsical and charming." I'd pass "Wombat" as well.

Why "gay"? What's so cheerful about homosexuality anyway? Why can't they just call themselves rhododendrons?

Bright doesn't just mean clever. I think it's more a reference to the Enlightenment and the idea that science and the investigatory spirit has the aspect of shining light on the dark unknowns.

Even if "bright" were to be construed as "clever" and clever only, I fail to see why it is more offensive or arrogant than "saved" or "chosen" or "clear" or "washed of sin," among other adjectives that the religious apply to themselves without controversy.

So help me, I can't stop myself.

Did you know that Jews consider themselves God's chosen people? Oh sure, they deny that they think they're superior to us, but they must really be elitists, right?

Then of course there are those awful Christians who consider themselves washed of sin! This obviously means they think all non-Christians are unclean, virtually reaking of the stench of their uncleansed sins.

Some even consider themselves beacons to the world, shining the Truth Of God onto the unwashed. "Beacons!" Imagine such a thing.

Why do I cut these folks slack? Why do I believe them when they say they don't mean it the way it sounds? Maybe it's because I know most of them aren't elitists? Because I am willing to take their word for what they say?

Lighten up gang. Please?

Dean, let's not start taking about religious terms which invoke the idea of illumination. After all, Lucifer means "light-bearer," which sounds like a rather bright occupation ;-)

Kidding aside, I will return to a point I made in your first thread: this bright business obscures the real divide, which is between openminded believers and non-believers on the one hand, and zealots of belief and nonbelief on the other. If the bright meme is to survive and be at all positive, the good brights need to outcompete the "brightmares" of the world.

P.S. since some people apparently don't like the term gay, could a gay bright be called a "rainbow bright"? (Sorry, 80s cartoon moment.)

Oh crap! I'm a minion of Satan! Aaaaah!

I am gonna be doing what I can to get ahold of the folks behind this "brights" thing--they really do need to think about these issues a little harder.

yeah. its silly. its another label to stick on ones self. whatever floats your boat, as they say. Or turns your crank, or fires your plugs, or clashes your gears or lubes your zerks or...

The only objection I have to this usage of the word "bright" is that I think it is a misnomer. From what I read at the web site (and I know Dean seems to disagree) a "bright" is by definition a materialist and by implication a mechanist.

It is my opinion that a material universe governed stricly by mechanistic determinsm is the deepest darkest prison a man can put himself in. It is a place where there is no free will (in fact the term free will is meaningless in such a place).It is a place where there is no self, no part of you (or me) that is not appetite or impulse. It is a place where there are no trancendent concepts, i.e. no freedom, no liberty, and no love.

It is a place that there is no escape from, ever.

It seems a rather grim world view for a group of people that call themselves "brights".

1. "Gay" as a term for homosexuals is something that evolved in a natural fashion over the years. Don't waste time picking on this in comparison with "bright", the comparison is not valid.

2. I thought Pejmans screed was well written, and I didn't see a lot of anger there. I saw quite a bit of disgust with Dennets attitude, but that's not the same thing. In any case, it was well worth reading, that's why I posted the link.

3. I thought Dennets peice was so condescending as to be almost unreadable. Note that I am talking about his essay, not the concept.

4. I think all this debate is amusing as hell. (And I do find Hell an amusing concept, but that's not what I meant.)

Actually, you're mistaken, Gary: A group of homosexuals specifically picked out the word and made a point of using it, asking their family and friends to use it, and asking their political supporters to use it.

"Queer" was placed on them by others, although they chose to embrace that.

As for the rest: I don't much care how much people make fun of this. I think it's cute and I'm stickin' with it. The more wildly people react to it, the more convinced I am that it's a good idea. Because when people think something's really dumb and harmless and doomed to failuire, they ignore it.

So pbtbrtbtbtbrtbt! ;-)

Dean

So we finally find out the real reason Dean is doing it. The same reason a toddler keeps doing something when you tell him to stop: it irritates others.

I guess he is a bright after all. ;-)

BTW, Dean, do you have some kind of a link to this statement:

A group of homosexuals specifically picked out the word and made a point of using it, asking their family and friends to use it, and asking their political supporters to use it.

I'd like some more info.

Ha! I find a term charming and fun, and am variously lambasted as arrogant, condescending, a cultist (just like a Moonie), of believing things I've repeatedly said I don't believe, of endorsing everything every other person who likes this meme has said, and, best of all, am told I'm perverting the language. That last one, even from a friend of mine who actually has the gall to call herself a "goth chick" but then say I am making up stupid words and debasing the tongue.

So after all that, when I say "poop on you guys," I'm being immature? Well, all I can say is that you folks are lucky I'm hard to offend. So pbttbtbtbtbt again! ;-)

As for gays specifically asking to be called "gay" -- let me be clear that the word has been used in some senses related to promiscuity and/or homosexuality for quite some time. HOWEVER, gays specifically started asking to be called gay in the 1980s, and it became a political issue for them. They defined it exactly, for the first time, as "a homosexual man," with that as a specific and concrete definition rather than the loose, informal one it had been before. They began pushing it, hard.

They demanded, in very organized and disciplined fashion, that newspapers, magazines, and screenwriters cease to use "homosexual," suggesting that it was slightly bigoted, and repeatedly asked--through organized letter-writing campaigns, demonstrations, and, of course, general "tell your friends and family!" grass roots effort--that "gay" be the only standard usage.

I had a number of gay friends who took the same exact stance back then. No I have no links for you. But this was a choice, a specific request, and a specific movement. Just as they embraced "queer" as their own, they also chose "gay." Only in the specific case of "gay," they decided it specifically meant it to be a homosexual man, and demanded lexicographers, newspaper editors, and etc. begin this usage.

By the way, all throughout the 1980s, countless newspapers, and especially conservative commentators, angrily objected. But gays kept insisting, more and more newspapers and magazines began relenting, and finally now only the most ardent and passionate continue to hold out.

It was a political movement, NOT some spontanteous popular thing. No, I have no links, but I was there and I remember. Just like I remember when we were all forced to stop using "girl" to apply to adult women, and were all forced to start using "he or she" or "they" to avoid "sexist language."

Well I have to say the latter two efforts have met with mixed results: "girl" is now only a minor political issue among some old bat feminists and reactionaries. "They" has develved halfway into a gender-neuter pronoun but most women, that I've seen, have given up trying to police it everywhere.

Expunging sexist language failed, and I think there's a reason: they weren't asking for one or two minor word changes, they were asking for wholesale restructuring of the tongue and a rigid, endless self-policing to endorse a whole set of political assumptions many people just didn't share.

On the other hand, "gay" worked just perfectly.

By the way, I'll mention it again: Goths are a community that picked that word for themselves. So are the Greens. So what, in the name of all that is holy, is this horror over "bright?" Especially coming from so many religious believers who think I AM GOING TO HELL IF I DON'T SHARE THEIR BELIEFS?

I suggest that what's really going on here is this: some are conservatives who are still shuddering over the excesses of feminism. Some also have residual resistance to "gay." There's also some wild defensiveness among religious believers who--considering how many of them consider themselves "cleansed of sin" and "saved" unlike myself--really damn well need to get over themselves.

Of course, Dawkins is an unsufferable snot at times. Dennett I still think people are being too hard on. But whatever.

Oh, by the way, one more time: pbtbtbtbtbtbt!!!

;-)

Dean

Dean,

If you're going to keep identifying yourself as a bright, at least carry leaflets to hand out to the vast majority who will meet you with a blank stare or a puzzled frown. Maybe there's a more intuitive term in Sagan's Demon-Haunted World.

I know your game: you want opportunities to hold forth at length on the concept - what fun. :)

PS - How about "clear and bright"? That'll bring on board both Scientologists and meteorologists.

To my mind, "bright" (and "gay", and other terms like those) are merely the attempt of various groups to destroy precision in the English language.

"Gay" used to mean a particular kind of happiness that you just can't describe anymore without a lot of words. "Giddy" is close, but implies a bit of unreasonableness that borders on intoxication. "Happy" is too broad, covering simple contentment and frenetic celebration. There's "joyful", which is even closer than "giddy", but that has religious connotations (and thus is not particularly "bright").

But no matter. That particular quality of happiness has been banished from our sensibilities, to be replaced with yet another adjective to pair across an equals sign with "homosexual" or "queer".

(And let's not get started on the peculiar type of eccentricity that used to be conveyed by "queer".)

Those words are lost to us, so there's no use whining about them any more than necessary. But why would we want to rob the language of more words? Do we really believe that we can avoid carrying the negative consequences from the old words into the new, just by saying that we want to? When "bright" means the same as "agnostic" or "secular humanist", what word will "the brights" train their sights on next?

In one sense, Marx and Hegel have truly won; conflict, not nuance, seems to be the driving force in the evolution of language. Needle-splitting accuracy, it seems, is more necessary now when trying to find ways to oppose each other than in trying to find ways to approach each other, or the world.

"Bright" traditionally puts across luminescence with a keen edge. All of the conventional definitions revolve around this basic theme, with various metaphorical constructs across the light-dark axis: intelligence, happiness, fame, color, personality. "Bright" is not just "high-intensity"; it's an intensity with a quality that grabs you.

The new definition of "bright" has no relationship to this axis. It is as nuanced as a memory bit in a computer: you are, or you aren't. It excludes as much as it includes. Do we really need to sacrifice the traditional insight on the altar to gain yet another word for divvying us up into little spheres of opposition?

It doesn't seem very bright to me.

I won’t quibble, but I believe I have said this before: “gloomy” does not imply the permanent nature suggested by “dim” even if you don’t see it that way.

To illustrate, let me paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill:

I may be gloomy today, but tomorrow I shall be joyous and you shall still be dim.

The converse does not have the same impact. :)

Oh, I forgot. pbtbtbtbtbtbt!!! back at ya!

;-)

All I have to say, Dean, is stay on campus. When speaking of people bright has one main connotation, that of being more intelligent than the norm. You walk into a bar full of rednecks with this bright stuff, you'll be goin' PHHHBBTT from a body cast. The choice of that particular word implys that everyone else is a Dim and that, amigo, can be tough on the dental equipment.

Actually, "gay" has for centuries carried a connotation of immoral, lascivious sexuality. In the early 1900s, it was a term used primarily to describe prostitutes. It also was at times used to describe brightly-colored, flowery clothing popular among prostitutes and homosexual men, and would probably have been used to describe a transvestite's clothes.

So, no, it did not always have a connotation of "happy." It has had another usage for centuries.

It was in the 1970s and the 1980s in particularly that a political movement began to specifically pin it down to one specific definition (a homosexual man) and try to force the world into that usage. It did work, although the word has evolved some since then, since it now generically describes an entire movement and in some contexts includes women, although the women have their own special term in "lesbian."

Establishing new word usages takes time. I'm on board for the project, even if I have to fight a lot of prejudices doing so.

An English language that can deal with a world full of queers, gays, blacks, Greens, and elites can find some way to live with brights. Call me a heathen who perverts the language all you want, it won't stop me. Neither will it make me an elitist. ;-)

By the way, here a very good Usenet article, with references (yes, there really is such a thing) on the etymology of "gay" and "queer":

"Gay" was a standard term for homosexual men AND women when I was in college, in the 60's. And it wasn't new then. I'll grant that it had not yet been adopted by the media as the standard term, but in those days, the media still used Negro as a standard term.

There may have been an effort to MAKE "gay" THE standard term, but it was not invented as a definition for homosexuals by one or two crackpots.

Well, we'll see what we see, won't we?

Having worked in the repo industry, I know my way around tough parts of town, and how to deal with people in them. ;-)

I am a Man.
I am a Husband.
I am a Father.
I am not Liberal.
I am not Conservative.
I am not Gay.
I am an Atheist.
I am a Humanist.
I am a Human.
I am a Bright.
I am a Label-Using Animal.

Everyone has an agenda.

Everyone favors their own beliefs.

Language is not innately precise.

Language changes.

Deal with it.

When Johnny comes marching home again,
Hurrah, Hurrah,
We'll give him a hearty welcome then,
Hurrah, Hurrah,
The men will cheer, the boys will shout,
The ladies they will all turn out,
And we'll all feel gay,
When Johnny comes marching home.

I can see clearly now the rain has gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way,
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind,
It's gonna be a bright,
Bright,
Bright sunshiny day.

Complaints? Register tham at AmISmugOrNot.com.

Pbthbthbthbth!

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