Shapiro's slanderous rubbish

[ils]

Originally posted by azalea
I don't want to get into an argument, but is it possible that since Tolkien created ME as a mythology for England, that the foreign races are simply the factual historical enemies of England? I don't know if I can express exactly what I mean, but I'm not saying that they are a representation of them, but are them. I mean, if ME is our world a long time ago, and in truth the enemies of England were foreigners of all kinds, then it would make sense that these other races would be the enemies of the Celtic-like good men of ME.

Well, I think you can certainly say that Tolkien's groups of evil Men jibe nicely with a long Western European mythical/historical tradition of battles against the Turk (or the Moor) and the Hun. No doubt that's part of why the images recommended themselves to him.

Very often, writers will simply pull elements like that from the fabric of contemporary culture without necessarily giving too much thought to what they imply. I tend to think that's what Tolkien did. I actually prefer not to think that Tolkien imagined these to be representations of Britain's "true" historical enemies. To me, that's skating a lot closer to claiming racist intent than I'm comfortable with.

[markedel]

However the idea of evil is more likely a theological evil than a racial one-the Numenorians are not a single ethnic group but a confederation of tribes who repented and returned to worshiping Iluvatar. It is the faithfulness to the Valar, and not any racial characteristic that seperates the good men from the evil.

[ils]

Originally posted by markedel
However the idea of evil is more likely a theological evil than a racial one-the Numenorians are not a single ethnic group but a confederation of tribes who repented and returned to worshiping Iluvatar. It is the faithfulness to the Valar, and not any racial characteristic that seperates the good men from the evil.

No doubt the theological element was the most important part to Tolkien -- but it also happens to correlate strongly with people's descent. There's probably something of a notion of hereditary aristocracy at work here, too, eg. the idea that a person's likely character and commitments are formed to a large extent by his bloodlines. These things often "glom" together.

Of course, the English didn't start out as a single ethnic group either, but as an amalgam of Angles and Saxons. This didn't stop English commentators on "race" from thinking of themselves as such -- and in fact, if you go back far enough, most self-described "races" have some kind of mixed origin. But that's interesting about the Numenoreans -- I always had thought they were a single grouping within the Edain. I'll have to look at that again.

[Elfhelm]

I'm disgusted with this and won't reply anymore. Peace. I hope you come to know yourself better.

Gimli and Legolas overcome their racism. I hope we all can, too.

[ils]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Elfhelm

Gimli and Legolas overcome their racism. I hope we all can, too.

Me too, man. The first step in overcoming any problem is recognizing that one exists. So, peace. I won't patronize you by suggesting that your different opinion means you don't "know yourself."

[BeardofPants]

Ils, I've never read such drivel. Perhaps you should familiarise yourself with the concept of 'allegory' and Tolkien's position on it?

Further: Orks aren't a race. They're a species, twisted from that of either men or elves, depending on which mythos you subscribe to.

[ils]

Originally posted by BeardofPants
Ils, I've never read such drivel.

The force of your argument quite bowls me over already. Well done.

Perhaps you should familiarise yourself with the concept of 'allegory' and Tolkien's position on it?

Perhaps you should point out where I claimed Tolkien was engaging in "allegory." And of course, writers are always really doing what they say they're doing. Right?

Further: Orks aren't a race. They're a species, twisted from that of either men or elves, depending on which mythos you subscribe to.

Fair enough. But since both the terms "race" and "species" mean they're a population at least theoretically united by common descent, the point is pretty much the same.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by ils
But since both the terms "race" and "species" mean they're a population at least theoretically united by common descent, the point is pretty much the same.

Since the framework of your arguments have thus far been targetting racism within his works, then I would argue that the above point is invalid. There is a very real difference in applicability between race and species.

Originally posted by ils
The force of your argument quite bowls me over already. Well done.

I do my best.

[Beleg Strongbow]

No doubt the theological element was the most important part to Tolkien -- but it also happens to correlate strongly with people's descent. There's probably something of a notion of hereditary aristocracy at work here, too, eg. the idea that a person's likely character and commitments are formed to a large extent by his bloodlines. These things often "glom" together.

Aragorn (in movie, but sentiment of quote is reflected by book):m Isildur's heir; not Isildur himself. My fate is my own.

D'oh! Aragorn != Isildur
(!= is the c++ sign for [not equal to])

Your point is invalid, Ils, as Tolkien specifically emphasizes an example of a character overcoming the defects of their ancestors in order to prove that the "hereditary aqristocracy" theory is not true. It's as if Tolkien himself had argued against you -- or as if you hadn't read through the books enough to see the difference between Aragorn and Isildur.

[Elvellon]

Like any writer, J.R.R. Tolkien reflected many assumptions of his day and age -- some good, some bad. Race was among them, and I think it's simply denial not to see that, just as it would be denial not to notice racism in Shakespeare plays like "Titus Andronicus" and "The Merchant of Venice."

Though I haven't read his article, from what's quoted in the interview Shapiro seems to be overshooting the mark more than a little. But I'll cordially disagree with those here who have called him foul names, denounced his intentions as "cynical" or "slanderous" and dismissed his conclusions as "absurd."

I'll preface this by saying that I would take exception to anyone saying that Tolkien's work was <i>nothing more</i> than racist propaganda. I wouldn't read his work were that the case. But do the ideas turn up, and fairly prominently? Sure, they do. A couple of examples:

- The Swarthiness of Evil: The pattern of goodness = paleness, evil = swarthiness is not 100 percent consistent in Tolkien's work, but it's very, very strong. Too strong not to notice. Whether or not you want to think the swarthiness of orcs and goblins is just incidental to what REALLY makes them inherently evil,** the swarthiness itself is a consistent feature.

Really?

Another little example:

The Numenorians are considered in the Middle Earth mythology the greatest people of Men, for the better BUT also for the worst. Are you aware that the so-called “Black Numenorians” are white, blond and have (for the most part) blue eyes? (See HoME for this topic).
To give such an evil role to the descendents of the House of Hador is not very consistent with your claims.

And of course it's not limited to orcs. The men of the South are also held to be almost universally servants of Sauron wherever they appear -- the "cruel Haradrim" mounted on their oliphaunts are obviously meant to evoke North Africa (or perhaps India). And the Southron host also features men from Far Harad "like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues" in a parallel of the minstrel-show Negro stereotype (at the Battle of the Pellenor Fields).

About Orcs. Tolkien never decided what to make of them. While he considered first to make them corrupted elves, then he considered to make them corrupted men, but since they were an evil race without hope of redemption that created a problem; Eru could never allow that to happen, since all individuals were to have the chance of redemption. He finally considered if they were not a kind of “organic automatons,” without will of their own and without soul. In the end he didn’t seemed satisfied with any solution.
The fact is, you, as Saphiro, commit a crucial error. He failed to realise, (or at least to accept) what should be obvious; the origins of the concept of Orcs is not a depiction of modern peoples, but simply an adaptation of old mythological concepts to a new myth, the same way elves and dwarves are.

Now of course there are a few examples of the non-swarthy turning up in the ranks of the Dark Lord. Cf. Saruman and Grima, or the Black Numenoreans. But are there ANY examples ANYWHERE in Tolkien's corpus of the swarthy turning up on the side of good in a way that merits mention? I can't think of a single solitary one.

Bor and his children come to mind.

And what about the House of Beor?
Many of its members were swarthy. (According with the expanded information we get on HoME).


What about the Druedain?

An aborigine-like people. They are not “Indo-Europeans” for sure, yet they are counted among the Faithful. They go to Numenor and become Numenorians, and yet they never fall to the Shadow, remaining Faithful, [b]all[b] of them (no other of the Edain peoples can claim such). Is this an example of the evil swarthy people?

It doesn’t take long to find inconsistencies with the claim of racism in Tolkien’s work, does it?

[Elvellon]

Though these ideas were starting to lose scientific credibility while Middle Earth was still just a gleam in Tolkien's eye, they hung on to lay credibility long enough to turn up as background assumptions in his work. A central device in LotR is the notion of a paternalistic superior race of Men, the Dunedain. Though they're flawed, these long-lived and vigorous Men of the West always form the main bulwark of resistance to Sauron and create the best, most just and powerful states of Men in any Age (be it the Edain of the First Age, or Numenor, or ancient Gondor and Arnor, or Aragorn's Reunited Kingdom).

Again your reasoning is flawed since Numenorian civilization is not portrayed as the result of Numenorian intellectual superiority.
It was the Elves and later the Mayar that tutored the Numenorians and their ancestors. The superiority of their culture is the direct and indirect result of the cultural gifts of the “angelic” people of the Ainur.

We already know about the contrast the swarthy Haradrim present to this relatively rosy picture -- but the Easterlings, who seem to vaguely resemble steppe nomads (maybe anlogous to Cossacks or Slavs?) are also unrelievedly evil wherever they're encountered.

Interesting enough, the Haradrim and Easterlings you speak of are those that came to make war against Gondor, or that sided with Morgoth in the First Era, but in later writings Tolkien clarifies us that the so called “Blue Wizards” went to the East and managed to have some success in opposing Saurons plans there. If not for that, the armies of Saauron may have been unstoppable. Of course Gandalf had the same role in the West (as had Saruman and Radagast). The important thing here is that, there was a substantial opposition to the evil of Sauron among Easterlings (and probably among the Haradrim), I we accept the implications of this.

So, the concept of discrete "races" of Men with inherent characteristics is very much at home in Tolkien, and very much a part of the story.

Exept it isn’t so. For Tolkien, as a devout Catholic, could not accept the concept of an inherently evil human race to begin with.

What is portrayed are not evil races, but at best evil cultures. Something that is very different.

Now of course, having racist assumptions in his work does not make Tolkien necessarily a propagandist for rabid racism a la the Nazis.

Those racist assumptions exist only in the eye of the beholder. Those that are overeager to see them were none exist should stop and consider why.

And I'm not quite sure where Shapiro is coming from with the whole Dwarves-as-Scots thing. But the fact remains that Tolkien's work does pretty closely reflect the racial assumptions of Britain in his era, so it's no use pretending that race simply wasn't an issue.

Quite simply, it is nothing more than an example of how irrational Saphiro’s arguments are.
In what are dwarves portrayed as Scottish?
Their names? Their appearance? The way they dress? Their culture?
No, the correlation exists only in his mind.


As for Saphiro I restate my affirmations; Saphiro argument is nothing more than slander. However, if he is simply incompetent or if there was a malevolent intent I don’t know for sure.

[Elfhelm]

Elvellon wrote:

Those racist assumptions exist only in the eye of the beholder. Those that are overeager to see them were none exist should stop and consider why.

Thanks. I've been trying to say that and I just keep repeating myself in a boring way. It's called "applicability" and if someone uses the text for dubious purposes it says more about the user than about the text. But he's safe in his argument that the material was implied not infered, which I find to be presumptuous.

[ils]

Originally posted by BeardofPants
Since the framework of your arguments have thus far been targetting racism within his works, then I would argue that the above point is invalid. There is a very real difference in applicability between race and species.

So portraying a species as evil isn't racism? Technically correct, but in the context we're discussing, it's a distinction without a difference. "Race" is a smaller subset of "species." In strictly biological terms, there's a distinction, but strictly biological terms aren't applicable to Tolkien, who is primarily interested in mythology rather than science.

IOW, I think this is really just hairsplitting to avoid the point.

Since this is somewhat of a piece with some other arguments that have come up so far, I'm going to try to clarify a bit why some arguments don't persuade me. (A summary for anyone who doesn't want to read the long rant that follows: it’s not because critics like me are being deliberately or wilfully obtuse or trying to belittle either you or Tolkien – it’s because you simply need better arguments.)

Before I go into this, I want to say that this hypothetical scenario doesn't apply to some other recent replies to me, which I'll hopefully have a chance to respond to later today.

(start rant)

In posting on this thread, I've obviously forgotten a fundamental article of Internet discussion: it’s impossible to keep debate from getting hostile when the issues involved are as emotional as “race” and racism. So, just to clarify my position on the debate thus far, let me try an analogy with something a little less loaded: pipe-weed.

[HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO]
Just for the sake of argument, let’s suppose some unscrupulous tobacco company had hijacked images from the Lord of the Rings in order to promote pipe-smoking in their ads. There’s a general uproar! Some stuffy academic throws his hat into the ring, claiming that Tolkien’s books prove he was a shill for tobacco companies, since so many of the heroes were pipe-weed smokers who obviously enjoyed their habit and even used it to clear up their thinking in times of stress.

Someone on this board runs across the story, and promptly posts it so that people can comment on it, or (in a lot of cases) jeer at it and call that stuffy academic names. Another poor sap comes strolling through cyberspace researching articles on pipe-weed, runs across the thread, and points out that while the academic might be going a little far in calling Tolkien a shill – assuming that’s what he really said, and that’s assuming a lot – it’s really not that out of line to think that pipe-weed is an analogue of tobacco, a widely practised and relatively uncontroversial habit when Tolkien was writing the books. The Sap (let’s call him “ils”) then goes on to point out that the whole tobacco thing isn’t that important, but it sure is there and on the whole Tolkien does kind of portray it as a positive thing and it’s a pretty significant element of some of the characters, like Gandalf or the hobbits or Aragorn.

Now, the Sap hastens to add, this doesn’t mean the tobacco companies are right to use the images. After all, times have changed. Tolkien’s work a) is about way more than smoking pipes, and b) given how rich his work is, there’s really no excuse for pretending he would have supported with the companies are doing in this day and age.

This isn’t enough for some members of the board, who write back angrily to say that:

1. “Tolkien was not working for tobacco companies when he wrote the books, and look, there’s even a letter from him to a tobacco company saying they couldn’t use his work to advertise tobacco, so pipe-weed clearly can’t be any kind of analogue to tobacco!”
2. “Saruman smoked pipe-weed too, so there goes your whole argument!”
3. “Sure, Balrogs were smoky, but that was just symbolism, it doesn’t mean anything.”
4. “Pipe-weed is clearly not a weed, because it started out a seed in some soil!”
5. “The books are like a mirror, so if you look at them and see a dope dealer, you must be some kind of dope fiend! Don’t blame the mirror.”
6. (most recently) “Pipe-weed isn’t a weed, it’s a plant that grows in soil, so there.”

The Sap responds with some skepticism to these arguments, which don’t seem relevant to him, and all the usual joys of Internet debate ensue (“How dare you dismiss my argument? You’ve already made up your mind! What drivel! You disgust me but I pray you find yourself one day” et cetera.).
[/HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO]

I hope that illustrates a little more clearly why certain arguments thus far haven’t persuaded me, and won’t persuade people who are generally interested in debating issues like this. More responses to come later.

[Elfhelm]

Nifty combination of two logical fallacies. The "red herring" and the "extended analogy". Very interesting. I was thinking of going back and citing all your fallacies, but I actually work for a living and don't have time. I know you've used bifurcation, the undistributed middle, equivocation, hasty generalization, and dicto simpliciter, but I don't have the time to go deeper right now. Maybe BoP is bored and can hunt those down for us.

[Beleg Strongbow]

I'll give it a shot. Of course, as everyone has seen earlier, the main problem is that you're looking for the books to be racist. As someone -- I think it was Conan Doyle as Sherlock Holmes -- said: you must twist facts to suit theories, not theories to suit facts.

Elfhelm:

hasty generalization

That seems to be about all that his analogy is.

Well, here goes. Instead of picking apart your argument, I'm goint to pick apart your attacks on our arguments, and let yours fall apart when it doesn't have anything to stand on.

In conclusion, in case you don't want to read the rest (you seem impatient, ils, so I would suggest that unless you want to find single sentences to quote against me), I find ils guilty of misrepresenting the arguments against the books being racist in order to knock them down easily.

First, read Ils' "analogy", especially the parts where he makes fun iof the opposing arguments. I have reproduced them below and then proceeded to point out his errors.

1. “Tolkien was not working for tobacco companies when he wrote the books, and look, there’s even a letter from him to a tobacco company saying they couldn’t use his work to advertise tobacco, so pipe-weed clearly can’t be any kind of analogue to tobacco!”

Oookay. So what you're saying is... even though Tolkien is not directly supporting it he is indirectly? By adding ideas that are present in the general atmosphere of the time? Good one. It'd work better if ALL men from a certain area were presented as evil. And unpardonable. But they aren't. Shucks. Looks like Tolkien was forward-thinking enough to see that they had the chance of redemption by their behavior. Or further evil. Traitors from the white race -- oops but I need that for the next one

2. “Saruman smoked pipe-weed too, so there goes your whole argument!”

but in imitation of Gandalf -- *pop* -- oops, blew your analogy.
Anyway... Well, I think what you're trying to say here is that just one counterexample does not disprove the racist theory.
Reason #1 that's wrong: Racism states that all other people of other race are inferior because they are of other race. Tolkien has shown that people are good or evil because of their choices.
Reason #2 that's wrong: One counterexample does disprove a theory. An infinite number are required to prove them, however.

3. “Sure, Balrogs were smoky, but that was just symbolism, it doesn’t mean anything.”

You've picked a pretty bad one here. This is actually targeting your arguments. This quote pinpoints how ridiculous your claims are. Saying that Tolkien was indirectly supporting racism just because some enemies were of other race doesn't work. This pinpoints why. It's ridiculous to assume that Balrogs are supporting tobacco. It's ridiculous to assume that Tolkien is supporting racism.

4. “Pipe-weed is clearly not a weed, because it started out a seed in some soil!”

Uh huh. What? are you thinking? I don't think that even makes sense in relation to what we've been saying. Don't invent ridiculous arguments to make us seem ridiculous.

5. “The books are like a mirror, so if you look at them and see a dope dealer, you must be some kind of dope fiend! Don’t blame the mirror.”

Close. What you find in the books is what you're looking for. What you're looking for is racism; that's what you find. If you look at the books and see a dope dealer you're probably looking for a dope dealer. The books are vast enough that you can find examples to support almost anything; the message of the books that redemption is possible gets lost in your flurry of isolated sentence examples.

6. (most recently) “Pipe-weed isn’t a weed, it’s a plant that grows in soil, so there.”

Racism by any other name is racism. But it's not present in Tolkien's books.

Well. I draw your attention to argument number 5 above. This is indeed your true problem, ils, no matter how much you make fun of, ridicule, or mock it. In your eagerness to prove that Tolkien is indirectly supporting racism you have looked only for positive evidence and disregarded all evidence to the contrary.


How was that, Elfhelm? Have I measured up? I only had time to comment on one of his fallacies (hasty generalization).

I think this is my longest post ever. Wow. You really got me fired up ils. This is longer than many essays I have written.

[ils]

Okay, a few quick responses is all I have time for.

Originally posted by Beleg Strongbow
Aragorn (in movie, but sentiment of quote is reflected by book):m Isildur's heir; not Isildur himself. My fate is my own.

I'm a bit dubious about comparing the book to the movie, but never mind that for now.

A general principle to keep in mind: if I say that there is a strong correlation between two things (e.g. heredity and a character's or abilities in Tolkien's fiction) I am NOT necessarily saying that one thing ABSOLUTELY DETERMINES the other in Tolkien's writing. When you claim this, you're arguing against a point I am not making. As Treebeard would say, "Don't be hasty..."

In a broader sense, it's erroneous to think that anyone who argues for, say, the existence of hereditary "class" or "race" characteristics necessarily believes in absolute determinism. Nor is such a belief strictly necessary, to either classism or racism -- whether in their stronger forms or in the considerably more diluted forms in Tolkien.

(You may notice this has some implications for your arguments about "logical fallacies" later.)

[ils]

Elvellon
The Numenorians are considered in the Middle Earth mythology the greatest people of Men, for the better BUT also for the worst. Are you aware that the so-called “Black Numenorians” are white, blond and have (for the most part) blue eyes?

Are you aware that I specifically mentioned the Black Numenoreans in the post you're quoting as an exception to the trend? For that matter, are you aware that I've specifically mentioned the complexity of the Edain characters for both good and evil in other posts? If you'd read what I'd written, you would be.

Kindly do me the courtesy of responding to what I've actually said. Thanks.

Quite simply, it is nothing more than an example of how irrational Saphiro’s[sic] arguments are. In what are dwarves portrayed as Scottish? Their names? Their appearance? The way they dress? Their culture?

I don't know what Shapiro's arguments are. Neither do you. And since neither of us has read his work, save for some selective quotes in a news story, we're really not in a position to be throwing around heady terms like "incompetent" or "malicious," are we?

I'm actually inclined to agree with you about the dwarf thing on the whole. But ask yourself if you're behaving any better than you imagine Shapiro to be behaving.

It was the Elves and later the Mayar[sic] that tutored the Numenorians and their ancestors. The superiority of their culture is the direct and indirect result of the cultural gifts of the “angelic” people of the Ainur.

Yes, in fact, it's a kind of "chosen people of God" argument. I agree completely. But if you really imagine that such an argument is necessarily exclusive of the concept of "race," I can only conclude that you're just not familiar with historical claims of various self-proclaimed "races." Strictly "scientific" biological determinism is a very recent phenomenon -- the concept of "race" has a much older history, and includes such concepts as divinely-endowed peoples. (Including, for example, British Israelism, an ancestral doctrine to various modern versions of North American white supremacism. I thoroughly recommend Warren Kinsella's WEB OF HATE for a brief introduction to that topic.)

You and others here are simply arguing with an artificially, and I would say indefensibly, truncated definition of "race." I understand why that is, since many are anxious to defend Tolkien against all the odious evils I'm supposedly laying at his feet (I'm not, but never mind for now), but to anyone who's actually studied "race" as a concept in history -- and how broadly the people who used it for political purposes actually defined it -- this kind of thing simply won't wash. I'm sorry, but there it is.

in later writings Tolkien clarifies us that the so called “Blue Wizards” went to the East and managed to have some success in opposing Saurons plans there.

In fact that's the version I prefer myself; the Ithryn Luin are a favorite subject of speculation for me.

Sadly, though, the Blue Wizards never made it into the LotR canon**, and it's the LotR books we're discussing here. So they wouldn't be relevant to Shapiro's point, I'm guessing, and they certainly wouldn't be relevant to mine (which, I'm getting awfully sick of repeating, is not about what Tolkien intended.)

** yes, we've used examples from the Silm in this discussion too, but the Silm is a way more established -- and better known -- context for LotR than HoME.

Bor and his children come to mind.

I've already had a discussion on this thread about Bor and his kin and their non-applicability to the "swarthiness" portion of my post. Please go back and read it, I'm really not going to repeat it. AFAIK that discussion applies to the Beornings and the Druedain as well. If I'm wrong about that, then you're quite right -- they would make the "swarthiness" correlation much weaker.

it isn’t so. For Tolkien, as a devout Catholic, could not accept the concept of an inherently evil human race to begin with.

Again you pretend that I'm arguing about Tolkien's intentions. Again I say this is not so. Is this really that complex a point?

Time to go. I see the good Elfhelm and the worthy Beleg are trying to flex their logic muscles... I'll reply to that later (probably much later) if I have time.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by ils
So portraying a species as evil isn't racism? Technically correct, but in the context we're discussing, it's a distinction without a difference. "Race" is a smaller subset of "species." In strictly biological terms, there's a distinction, but strictly biological terms aren't applicable to Tolkien, who is primarily interested in mythology rather than science.

Hairsplitting? I think not. One would think that in order to make an argument for racism, then one should perhaps include arguments about the distinction between different races, not species. You will note of course that orks were perverted from all races of men/elves, not just one particular race.

As for Tolkien not being interested in science, that is simply not true. He went back through his mythos, and reworked them so that they would be more scientifically accurate.

BTW: You're not really Black Breathaliser are you?

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by BeardofPants
BTW: You're not really Black Breathaliser are you?

lol! There more than one, BoP.

I just discovered that "Pride and Prejudice" is racist. Even though it is full of white english people, the title gives tacit approval of the prejudicial views of the period.

Earendil was bi-racial, Arwen and Elessar are two bi-racials that become the rulers of the larger part of the realm of LotR. Racial mixing is not a compatible theme with racism. Maybe it's pigmentationism.

I
Love
Shapiro

I got tired of this semantic... discussion after we couldn't agree that swart meant black skin. It's a color and a race. It's two... two... two words in one.

[ils]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BeardofPants
Hairsplitting? I think not. One would think that in order to make an argument for racism, then one should perhaps include arguments about the distinction between different races, not species. /quote]

Well, I specified early on that my argument was about groups united by common descent. Which of course includes races AND species, technically. The throwing of "species" into the argument strikes me as a pretty dishonest attempt to obscure this point.

You will note of course that orks were perverted from all races of men/elves, not just one particular race.

And from the beginning, my argument about the orcs was about the rep of what they actually BECAME, not what their origins were. Again, not a complex point.

As for Tolkien not being interested in science, that is simply not true.

Your assignment for today, class: demonstrate how saying someone is "primarily" interested in one thing amounts to a claim that they are NOT interested in another thing.

Or, maybe this is just another straw man? Nahhh.

BTW: You're not really Black Breathaliser are you?

What?