A secular perspective on politics?

I’ve been thinking of what it means to be of the “Secular Right” recently due to the comment threads where people asked us to weigh in on our specific political positions. Some people take the Secular Right to be libertarian (as evidence by that characterization in the inbound links). As an empirical matter this isn’t unfair. But there are non-libertarian Rightists who are not religious. My own political orientation is of a very squishy libertarian variety which I suspect most libertarians would claim heretical. On the other hand, I am socially liberal enough on many hot-button issues that I doubt traditionalists would accept that I could be any such thing (no less for the fact that I am not religious). In the past I have assumed that my secularity allowed me to have a particularly “reality based” outlook on the world. Yet even here, I don’t think that captures the reality on second thought. I don’t really think any political ideology is metaphysically true, rather, politics are presupposed on a particular set of norms.

Consider Will Wilkinson (who just got engaged, congratulations!), a secular libertarian.  He favors open borders.  I don’t think that’s realistic….but, he has also admitted that his way of judging utility would have no issue with humanity’s population slowly converging upon 0 until there was only 1 human remaining in the last generation of our species’ existence, granting that utility was maximized for that individual.  Will’s argument is actually very reality based, but it is just predicated upon different set of axioms from my own (in short, I have much more of the irrational  “anti-foreigner bias” which Bryan Caplan identifies).  I lean toward the mild restrictionist side, though if I had to pick between open borders and closed borders, I would pick the latter.  The reasons have to do with my own vision as to what the good life and the flourishing society are.  There are Christians, as it happens, who agree with my position, and those who agree with Will’s position. The former might argue that Christianity is a matter of salvation for the hereafter, and that it is but hubris to to attempt to create a heaven on earth.  The latter sort of Christian, who leans toward open borders is familiar to us, the past 8 years have seen exactly that sort of Christian as head of state in the United States. Their justifications are also familiar, as the universalism of Christianity as a religion is translated into a sort of universalism of utility which has affinities to Will Wilkinson’s godless variety.  Those who march together in politics do not always pray together, and those who pray together (or do not) do not always march in politics together.

But despite all that, I think there is a need for this sort of website.  Secular Right saw light of day in late November of 2008, and it has really been far more successful than I would have ever imagined.  The very response to this website to me is an argument that a site like this needed to exist, that there had to be an open, explicit and forthrightly conservative voice which serves as a counterpoint to the necessary connection between particular religious viewpoints and our political orientation.  Some have suggested that because we are not Christian or religious we can not, by definition, be conservative.  Others have argued that by definition conservatives can not criticise religious beliefs, that anyone who  criticizes religious beliefs reads themselves out of conservatism.  The very prominence of these arguments in immediate reaction to this website tells me that our voice is needful, perhaps even necessary.

But we are not all negation.  I believe that secular conservatives can elucidate a political program informed by naturalistic premises in a way that more religious conservatives may shy away from.  I believe there is value in elaborating an evolutionary conservatism.  In the future I will attempt to do this in a less general, and more specific manner, with application to particular elements of public policy.

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4 Responses to A secular perspective on politics?

  1. I don’t really mind that you focus mostly on the secular issues. A bit of variety is nice, but who really wants to hear moderates talk about politics?

    You have your niche, and you do it well. As your recent posts have shown, the comments add plenty of variety.

  2. Kevembuangga says:

    I found this link which I think is relevant to the matters discussed at SR, namely political correctness crippling science and reason, and this thread is as good as any.
    Will Progress Kill Learning?;
    (via Hsien-Hsien Lei blog)

  3. Cass Rice says:

    I am very conservative on every issue except for religion. I think the conservative viewpoint is the one that allows society to function most efficiently. I do not believe in government sponsored welfare programs. Churches and organized charities should take care of the poor, as they have done for many centuries. Americans are very generous people, and give the choice, they would give freely of their bounty. I think it’s immoral for the government to take one person’s money and give it to someone else.

  4. mnuez says:

    Razib, I love you, I absolutely adore you, but I believe it’s possible that you may be harboring an insanely optimistic perspective on this. I can’t categorize as “my view” any perspective that isn’t terrifically joyous to have more Razib, Bradlaugh and MacDonald to read so I’ll refer to this obliquely as “a” view, I myself could never go so far as to say this.

    One could argue that this blog, masquerading as it does as a blog that fills the hitherto muted “secular right” niche actually further mutes the already silent and scattered members of various secular rights by claiming to be a community of them while it in reality is not.

    This blog is overrun by Right-Libertarians (by which I mean capitalism-loving libertarians, as in contrast to the now-forgotten Left-Libertarian schools of thought). On account of my parenthetical break, I’ll reiterate that: This blog is overrun by right-Libertarians.

    I’m not speaking about the blog authors per se but rather about the general tenor of the blog as it’s manifest in the comments. And, BY GOD, libertarians already have their “niche” quite well spoken for in the blogosphere.

    To wit: The Ayn Rand post has 167 comments while this, longer and more thoughtful one, has 3. (Of which, one is a gentle thank-you for the blog, one is on an entirely different subject and one is yet more Randish “Right means less government involvement with our money”. Rand wins.)

    Again, I’ll take what blogs from you that I can get but I believe that I have a duty to share with you the view that you may be deluding yourself into believing that “secular-rights” of any variety other than the already-heard-everywhere libertarian is getting heard in these here comment sections. These are hit n’ run people (and the occasional hopeful Christian) and no one more. Or at least no one more who cares to speak.

    (I’ll note briefly that a type of “secular-right” thinker from whom I’d like to hear more, and with whose views I have some sympathies, would be the type who doubts the existence of various supernaturals yet who believes that society might be best served by adhering to some religious/traditional principles, such as clearer gender roles, greater altruism, sabbatical periods, a greater sense of community, less promiscuity, etc.)

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