nevernotbroken:

Or, mean atheists do, when they talk about homeopathy. I don’t have anything against homeopathy itself.

So one time I found this video by this feminist atheist about this falling out she had with Richard Dawkins, over him and a bunch of other atheists being racist, sexist douchecanoes. I actually spent a couple hours reading what she had to say on the subject, and the whole thing was just really awesome documentation of when atheists are horribly sexist and awful — and I love reading peoples’ documentations of oppression just to see it put in really concrete terms like, here’s what happened, here’s why that’s BAD. By the time I was done with this I was totally crushing on this person (insofar as I crush, which is— not really…) and thought she was the COOLEST THING.

So I decided to check out her front page to see if she was always this awesome.

NO. NO SHE WAS NOT.

So her most recent video was talking about homeopathy and saying the MOST EVER CONDESCENDING HORRIBLE THINGS. She was complaining about the FDA only regulating it, and felt like it should be banned outright, because WHAT IF SOMEONE USES IT FOR CANCER. Surely people are so stupid that they need the government to protect them from themselves! Especially those pagans! Don’t they realize we already killed all of them? Her previous defense of Muslim women from Richard Dawkins seemed so much less so now that I realized she wasn’t arguing from a belief that oppression of marginalized belief systems is wrong, just that it should be rational and scientifically based.

and this made me really really sad because, er, it’s magical and doesn’t present itself as anything else, at least I’ve never heard of anyone present it as anything except faith-based and magical? and she was basically calling for the state to ban a magical technique. which. is a religious practice. and that’s really uncool, considering that states actually do have a history of doing that.

Anyway there are exactly two things I know about homeopathy.

1) It is based on magical techniques that I think are Greek?
2) It was created/revived/popularized at a point in history where there was a lot of resistance to the medical field, which was being formed in such a way that it was monopolizing knowledge over peoples’ bodies. The state actually does have a history of cutting funding to organizations based on this principle, which is how the medical field was able to assert the unconditional legitimacy and cultural hegemony it now enjoys.

So inherent in her call for the federal government to ban religious practices was also more subtextual support for the destruction of self-care and the further monopolization of knowledge to a select few specialists.

And it’s like how can you even talk to someone who doesn’t understand that!? And maybe this is why I have such a hard time making friends, but it’s just so triggering and upsetting.

People with knowledge of folk magic techniques and people who resist the cultural hegemony of state-backed institutions are both groups of people who I feel a really intense affinity for! And I feel kind of bad for not knowing more about homeopathy even though it’s completely unreasonable to expect me to know things about it considering how hard knowledge about either of those subjects is to come by and process for me.

and this made me really really sad because, er, it’s magical and doesn’t present itself as anything else, at least I’ve never heard of anyone present it as anything except faith-based and magical?

Lucky you. Around here there are homeopathy sections in every pharmacy and supermarket, trying to blend in with the science-based medications and trick people who aren’t looking for subjective faith things into buying them.

Take the time a couple years ago when I had an ear infection. If I hadn’t been there to talk her out of it, Mom would have bought me a bottle of homeopathic ear drops and never realised it consisted solely of ritually-charged water. I’m sure there are plenty more people out there who never did find out.

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