Department Of A New Way To Handle Rejection
Context: Although I am not currently [1] writing nor submitting fiction for publication, I do keep up with some fiction markets and occasionally send something I think might be a fit for a specific journal/publisher. Dateline: last week. I received a standard rejection email. It was sent to my correct email address (robyn@ ____.com) , and disguised as a personal note: it was longer than the standard, thanks-but-it’s-not-a-fit-for-us note, but when you read closely you realize the plethora of sentences after the no thanks are about the publisher and nothing about you or your work – all they had to do was fill in your name…which was done in this entertaining (to moiself ) fashion:
“Dear Sarah,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to evaluate _____( name of work)
in view of its potential fit with (name of the publisher)….I’m very sorry to tell you that we regretfully….”
I can take some comfort in knowing that it wasn’t *my* work that was so regretfully rejected, but that of my evil twin, Sarah. [2]
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Department Of Speaking Of Writing Adventures
My next project: I’m going to pitch Netflix with my idea for a historical series, ala Bridgerton. It will be about upper-class women navigating the intricacies of their menstrual cycles during the Regency era. It’s a period piece.
Thank you; I’ll show moiself out.
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Department Of But Before Moiself Embarks On That Adventure,
There Is Feedback To Be Given
Feedback in the form of the following email, which I sent Monday afternoon, to one of my favorite podcast hosts (journalist Shankar Vedantam) of one of my favorite podcasts. [3]
Dear Mr. Vedantam,
Big fan of your podcast here – I’m a regular listener, who often gives Hidden Brain a shout-out (and link to) in my blog. I’m writing to give feedback on something that caught my attention in HB’s most recent episode, The Moments That Change Us.
Early on in the episode, you and the podcast’s guest, philosopher Laurie Paul, are discussing the life-altering events for John Newton, the 18th century English slave ship captain who later wrote the hymn Amazing Grace. When Newton was very young his very religious mother died, and his father remarried, leaving Newton feeling abandoned. Subsequently, Newton, as you put it, “soon found himself not only turning away from religion but against it…he became what you might call a *militant atheist*….”
Why did you choose to use the term militant atheist, a derogatory neologism which certainly wasn’t in usage among Newton’s peers?
Militant atheist is a lazy rhetorical cliché, a label ala the (much wittier) “Four Horsemen of the New Atheist Apocalypse,” which itself is a riff on the violence-infused imagery of end-times Christian scriptures. The “Four Horsemen of the New Atheist Apocalypse” refers to four particular scientists/philosophers/authors/journalists – Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens – known for their respective, vigorous, droll, evidence-based critiques of religion. Each of them have also been labeled as militant atheists.
When did Dawkins, Harris, Dennett and Hitchens ever arm themselves with AK47s? Have they amassed a cache of IEDs? Have they opened a school for training atheist suicide bombers? The closest they’ve come to tossing grenades are the ideas they lob to point out the delusions of religious tenets and the dangers of applying religious-based constraints to politics and science.
When is the last time you encountered an armed, violent group of atheists bent on murdering a political cartoonist or stabbing a fiction author because they objected to the religious editorial content of the cartoonists’ and authors’ respective works?
How’s about we all agree to not precede the term atheist – which simply means, a person sans theism – with militant, unless that non-theist is actually engaging in the violent acts of a militia?
The main proponents of the term militant atheist are religious propagandizers: “You atheists are so militant!” Translation: “I am upset that you who do not hold my religious beliefs are unapologetically and forthrightly invoking facts to support your critical thinking.”
(from Oxford Languages dictionary)
Militant: adjective – combative and aggressive in support of a political or social cause,
and typically favoring extreme, violent, or confrontational methods.
Being described as “militant” is dismissive to we who hold natural (as opposed to supernatural) worldviews. We who are religion-free are not subject to the actual militancy of scriptural decrees and religious leaders’ admonitions, which are depressingly too common to list in their entirety. A sampler from Christian scriptures includes:
* “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)
* “He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” (Luke 22:3)
* (from one of Jesus’s parables) “But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.’” (Luke 19:27)
* “For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13:4)
* “…whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.” (2 Chronicles 15:12-13)
* “But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 1:20)
* “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined; with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.” (Amos 7:9)
Sure, many of us atheists/Freethinkers/Humanists/Skeptics get annoyed, frustrated, and sometimes even outraged at the supernatural folly we are surrounded by. Human Psychology 101 alert: People who are misunderstood, mischaracterized, denigrated, oppressed, and even attacked (physically as well as verbally) frequently become angry. Remember how “militant” was applied to the Black Power and Feminist groups of the 1960s and 1970s?
We who are religion-free would simply like to be able to express our beliefs without encountering vitriol and discrimination. We would simply like to acknowledge our views against and concerns about religious influence in public and civic life – yep, even in front of religious people, who have become accustomed to the arbitrary privilege of freedom from critique which is accorded religion in the United States (a country where seven states still have bans on atheists holding public office ).
Sincerely and compellingly (if not militantly) yours,
Robyn Parnell
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Department Of Letting The Mystery Be
Only two weeks ago I blogged about my wistfulness re the unlikelihood of successfully pulling off a prank in this there-are-cameras-everywhere world ( The Pranks I’m No Longer Playing ). However, one of my neighbors (? [4] ) has done so.
A couple of weeks ago MH showed me the above, which was tied to one of the branches of our pear tree in our front yard. Yes, this is the same tree that gets a feature in this blog during the holiday season, when the tree hosts a rotating/weekly lineup of Partridge Family ® members, ala:
Those omnipresent neighborhood porch/house/garage cameras I mentioned? MH and I have them, as well. The cameras are sensitive enough (to our irritation) that they record when someone just walks past our front yard, on the sidewalk [5]…which goes by the pear tree…which means we could figure out who did it.
Moiself thinks it’s best to not know the specifics; rather, it’s fun to hold good thoughts for the entire neighborhood. I’ll just let the mystery be.
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Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [6]
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May you be the grateful recipient of a heart-warming prank;
May you reserve epithets like militant for true militants;
May you, sometimes, just let the mystery be;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] As in 99.2% of the time not….
[2] who apparently has gotten hold of both my manuscript and my email address, that plagiarizing bitch.
[3] Which regular readers of this blog are aware of me recommending, along the lines of, “you must listen to this episode….”
[4] Moiself is guessing/assuming.
[5] We receive a notification that someone activated the front porch camera , though no one in fact it is on our front porch, they’re just walking past our house.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
