Friday, November 8, 2019

The latest navel-gaze

Scott Alexander has made an argument that the "secular web" started out from liberals. He then explains the #awokening of the second Obama Administration, 2013-15.

I attended the secular humanist events in the late 1990s. It was liberal-driven even then - but not yet #woke. The rank and file, where I was at, were young metalheads and autists. We thought there was, in humanism, a positive drive (because not negative like pure atheism) toward better wisdom. I personally hoped that, in this community, the Burkean Right had a chance to win.

The Burkean Right didn't win. Atheism+Plus excommunicated the whole Secular Right. In 2008 PZ Myers followed Atheism+; and in 2009 Charles Foster Johnson followed Myers. I have to confess that the Ex Muslims of Britain are Atheist+Plus as well; I fled them before I could get banned.

Meanwhile the fundamentalists were losing their power over the Right. They had a lot of clout... up to the Dover decision Pennsylvania 2005. Evangelicals still exist but they're now fighting on the cultural side, not anymore on the scientific and educational side. I would even go so far as that the Evangelicals and their Right allies don't argue from the Bible anymore (at least not as an authoritative text) - they have figured out that this tactic doesn't work.

I note that the Atheists+ have observed the Right remnant about accurately. The Right don't dispute the Left on religious grounds anymore. They - I should now and in this context say, we - dispute them on their own ground, these days. (Sometimes with unintended humour. As with the bleats about "Darwin!", and "Wilson!!", and "Sanger!!1"; all summed up, "hoo r reel raysiss then, huh!?". I personally avoid this.)

And yes, that the Right is challenging the Left from secular principle is the problem, and this is why the Current Year #wokening hates the Right so much more than the old secular liberals did. The Left thought they could convince us if they only talked us out of the Bible. So the Right set the Book aside (this much was easy for me)... and we still aren't buying what the Left were selling.

As for what Atheism-Minus can do next, I can recommend also the Prussian's comment. At least, to get his take on it. He observes that if "Atheism+Plus" truly cared about social justice, they'd oppose Islam more than they oppose (rump) Christianity. He predicts that social-justice and Islam will both lose the coming holy-war, formally allied or separate. The Prussian argues that Atheism-Minus should jump Right and convince us reactionaries toward classical liberalism, before we all go Freikorps. He wants more people like 1999-me in the Right.

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