The American Conservative’s Commitment to Truthiness?

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Rod Dreher at The American Conservative – which could easily be referred to as the “Rod Dreher Show” given his incredibly productive posting habits (he’s reportedly responsible for about half the site’s traffic) – writes that SJWs (Social Justice Warriors), like churches, need to commit to Truth over Social Justice. There is no splitting the difference:

[Social psychologist Jonathan] Haidt’s insight is also true for churches today. If we diligently seek Truth, and seek to conform our lives as much as possible around what we believe to be True, then we will inevitably achieve a form of Social Justice. But there can be no Justice, social or otherwise, without Truth. And Truth can never be what serves a pre-determined goal — the Revolution, the party, equality, the nation, the family, the temporal interests of the Church, nothing.

But in a 2014 piece entitled “Evolution & The Culture War,” Dreher was singing a different tune. On the implications of the truth of evolution, he wrote:

I flat-out don’t trust our species to handle the knowledge of human biodiversity without turning it into an ideology of dehumanization, racism, and at worst, genocide. Put another way, I am hostile to this kind of thing not because I believe it’s probably false, but because I believe a lot of it is probably true — and we have shown that we, by our natures, can’t handle this kind of truth.

Dreher went on to claim that “forbidden knowledge” is rightly forbidden.

Am I saying that we should ignore reality? I suppose I am.

Well there you have it. Perhaps Dreher has more in common with SJWs than he realizes. Religiosity will do that to you. At least many a SJW will tell you outright that they don’t hold to some vague Enlightenment adherence to truth come what may. They have blatantly tribal, and hence blinkered, commitments. Christian Dreher OTOH wants a bite of that sometimes bitter, realist truth pie without swallowing.

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3 Responses to The American Conservative’s Commitment to Truthiness?

  1. If we were in Eden refusing to eat the forbidden fruit would have an argument by way of the implications of application. But ignoring HBD isn’t socially innocuous.

  2. Steel T Post says:

    There isn’t much difference between old-timey biblical creationism and modern liberal creationism, as these three scholars acknowledge:

    • “In Western societies, the Judeo-Christian image of humankind—whether you are a believer or not—has secured a minimal moral consensus in everyday life. It has been a major factor in social cohesion. Now that the neurosciences have irrevocably dissolved the Judeo-Christian image of a human being as containing an immortal spark of the divine, we are beginning to realize that they have not substituted anything that could hold society together and provide a common ground for shared moral intuitions and values.” p. 297 –Thomas Metzinger, The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self. (Basic Books, 2009)

    • “The liberal belief in the free and sacred nature of each individual is a direct legacy of the traditional Christian belief in the free and eternal souls. Without recourse to eternal souls and a Creator God, it becomes embarrassingly difficult for liberals to explain what is so special about individual Sapiens…The idea that all humans are equal is a revamped version of the monotheist conviction that all souls are equal before God.” p. 231 –Yuval Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. (Harper Collins, 2015)

    • “As John Gray also notes, liberal humanist values are merely a ‘hollowed-out version of a theistic myth'” –What scares the new atheists, The Guardian, March 3, 2015

    It’s no wonder the atheist/humanist SJWs sound as ignorant of reality as bible-bangers; they are both in deep denial of evidence-based facts of human nature.

  3. Mike says:

    Dreher should know that reality has a funny way of making itself felt, no matter what you think.

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