What topics haven’t we been blogging about on this site that would relate to our niche and make for interesting reading?
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Meta
So far, there has been very little attention paid to current events here at SecularRight. Lots of talk about atheism, Christmas etc. and some cultural posts, and a bit of science. It seems that “secular” is crowding out “right” for the moment. This is understandable, I suppose, since this is the distinguishing feature of the blog.
However, I would be interested to hear the authors opinions on eg. the ongoing Israeli operations in Gaza, recommended economic policies for the current financial crisis, the Iraq war, Afghanistan, Iran, multiculturalism and so on.
How about Samuel Huntington’s thesis of the salience of culture, religion, and tradition as the driving force of contemporary foreign affairs.
I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on drug legalization, death penalty, abortion, and the American prison system, and how you balance your conservative views with being an atheist.
the ongoing Israeli operations in Gaza,
Don’t care.
recommended economic policies for the current financial crisis,
Don’t know enough.
the Iraq war,
Against.
Afghanistan,
Who knows?
Iran,
Leave them alone.
multiculturalism and so on.
Against.
If anti-science, anti-reason on the right is considered to be opposition to natural selection, what about the anti-science on the left? The woo of spirituality that resembles fascism, that mimics eugenics? Am I off-base thinking that anti-scientific thinking is not limited to the fundamentalist Christian right?
Am I off-base thinking that anti-scientific thinking is not limited to the fundamentalist Christian right?
Nope. Though to be fair, I did look at the GSS once to see if there was a correlation between left-wing politics and opposition to something like GMO, which is what I would have expected. There wasn’t. Also, the correlation between left-wing politics and belief in astrology is a bit confused (depending on which variable and filter you apply, it exists, or doesn’t). The difference between the Left and the Right (or, more specifically, the Spiritual Left and the Religious Right) is the former at least genuflects to the conclusions of science. They often don’t understand or misrepresent science, but, it is often easier to engage in a serious argument with someone who on paper wants to be seen to be “on the side” of science. This is not my experience with some people on the Religious Right. And when I looked at the GSS, it did turn out that there was a modest tendency for those asserting very conservative views to be suspicious of scientific claims. I am pretty certain this has mostly to do with the belief that science and religion are in opposition.
P.S. The main analog to the Religious Right prima facie distrust of science is among feminists and minorities on the Left in my experience.
The main issue I’d like to addressed here is immigration. Not just to the US, but to Europe, Canada, Australia, etc.
Other interesting issues would be prison reform (directed at goals like making prisons less violent but perhaps more deterrent as well, which seem obvious to me but I hear no one talking about) as well as pretty much any environmental issue other than anthropoboring global warming.
@Donna B.
Steve Sailer agrees.
(I have no idea what that “quote” above is going to look like! Should my New Year’s resolution be to become proficient in html?)
That’s interesting, as feminists and minorities would not seem to be natural allies. I perceive that minorities are more Christian in outlook than feminists, who “should” be more scientific, or at least based in reason somewhat.
What I find truly puzzling is that feminists and minorities should find their interests better served by the ‘right’ than the ‘left’.
So many topics … Selfishly, I am interested in this blog’s thoughts with regard to comparing and contrasting the secular left and the secular right. How are they alike? How are they different?
It seems to me that one benefit of a blog like this one is seeing right wing views defended without appeals to religion. I’ve heard non-religious arguments against abortion, but they are generally just poor comparisons (abortion is the the unborn what slavery was to black persons). Are there non-religious, conservative arguments against prostitution? What about conservative views of capitalism that don’t give a flip what the Apostles thought of a rich man’s chance of getting into heaven?
The best arguments supporting Israel are the one’s that stick to the facts, and leave out “God gave them the land.” Does this hold true with other issues?
Another question: does the term “right” in Secular Right refer just to right wing libertarians, or does it include conservatives too?
Many people believe that Christianity (and Judaism) give a person the best tools to recognize evil, and then to conquer it. Can the Secular Right see evil for what it is? Do Secular Rightists have the stones to support what is necessary to stop Islamic Jihad, or is the Secular Right just a branch of free-market libertarianism that will ultimately just say “leave them alone and they’ll leave us alone.”
Another question: does the term “right” in Secular Right refer just to right wing libertarians, or does it include conservatives too?
It includes them. Neither John or Heather are libertarians to my knowledge. I myself am libertarian when I am optimistic, less so when I’m not.
Does the Secular Right have a political agenda, or just a novel ideological position? Should we be working toward saving the Republic our Founders bequeathed us, or just pontificating about Reason and belittling the Faithful, who are generally our putative Patriotic allies?
I would like to see the mind power corralled here applied to devising a practical approach to nullifying the Washingtonian technique of dividing us into competing camps based on false dichotomies, for the purpose of increasing their power and maintaining their incumbency.
Political Correctness vs. Piety Correctness has nothing to do with good government, and is a non-issue for me. Is this a general Secular Right viewpoint, or are there Politically Correct altruists among us? In other words, could “Secular Government” be defined (or redefined) as one that does not try to impose a moral code of any sort on its citizens?
As irrational as we may personally think their beliefs are, what is the point in coming off sounding like hateful ACLU type atheist activists to the embattled Piously Correct? Isn’t it obvious that, except for a tiny minority of fundamentalists, these folks think they are playing defense? Wouldn’t we get farther just trying to get them to leave their religion out of politics than trying to take their god away from them?
Is there a way to rally all those Patriots (from either Party), who do not regard resolving these PC moral issues as their primary focus for politics, to join forces? Would an effort be effective, to try to convince as many moralists as possible that retaining our individual Liberty and capitalistic economic system, is more important than winning their moral battles?
Wouldn’t it be better to work toward marginalizing the fundamentalist religious Leaders, who insist that political candidates twist themselves into pretzels, trying to pass their litmus tests without alienating the swing voters needed to win a general election, than attacking religion in general? Wouldn’t those swing voters be easier to seduce if they did not fear the agenda of the Religious Right?
I have many more questions regarding our allegiance to our Founders basic principles, of extremely limited government and free market economics; but the above seem paramount to understanding the thrust of a blog entitled “Secular Right.” ◄Dave►
I second Jonathan Gupton’s thoughts. It would be great to see this blog examine issues such as immigration, drug legalisation and capital punishment.
I’d love to see Derb or Razib or Heather take a look at why so many of the vaunted New Atheists are knee-jerk liberals. Presumably they would bridle at the suggestion that their politics is not the result of careful reasoning, but in fact I really wonder to what extent they would justify their leanings credibly.
For what it’s worth.
Clarification: I did not mean to imply that the Contributors go out of their way to belittle the faithful; but the nature of many posts is to throw a subject open for discussion in the comment section. It is those frequently fascinating and thought provoking discussions that are driving the traffic here.
Yet it always takes time to work out where a given commenter is coming from politically. I have eventually come to realize that most of the contentious Atheists vs. Christians debate is going on between Secular Progressives who probably support the ACLU, and Christians who regard themselves as on the defense from their assault. Neither are Secular Right, yet the casual observer who decided to follow a link to here, to investigate the incongruity of putting Secular and Right together as a political label, would probably have his worst fears confirmed about all atheists, by reading some of the threads.
If there is the slightest interest in promoting a Secular Right agenda here, it would seem that such tired and pointless debate would need to be discouraged. ◄Dave►
Don Kenner: My thoughts exactly. Whenever the right appeals to religion for one of the arguments in favor of some position, it immediately loses credibility with a large segment of the population. Hence, solidly reasoned arguments from a blog such as SecularRight could be very influential. Many intelligent religious people already know this.
John Farrell: Yes, another interesting point. Why are all those New Atheists leftists? I wonder if it is related to my point above that mere association with religion (which has fewer and fewer adherents towards the right end of the bell curve) is enough to push many intelligent people towards the left. Is it a group association phenomena, as opposed to the result of reasoned argument?
David Hume is obviously not terribly interested in current events, but I know Derb, Heather and a lot of the readers of this blog are. The good thing about current events (from a practical point of view) is that they keep happening, and thus make for good raw material to give you something to write about, instead of sterile arguments that never seem to go anywhere.
Iraq, for instance: I would be interested in knowing if Derb’s mantra “rubble doesn’t make trouble” still expresses his strategic thinking. David Hume seems to be against the Iraq war. Derb was for it in the beginning, but turned against it when it bogged down in nation building. Many conservatives did as well, including WFB. Personally, I think the strategy should have been to exploit the initial success of the fall of Saddam in 2003 by maintaining the tempo of the offensive by immediately putting pressure on Syria to break its alliance with Iran and assist in removing Hezbollah from Lebanon. The United States was a very strong horse in those days and I doubt if Syria would have put up much resistance. That would have left only Iran to deal with and, presumably, they would by this time have had very little reason to doubt the resolve of the United States and could have been maneuvered into abandoning their nuclear program and submitting to UN inspections. Then, without interference from its neighbours, the Iraq occupation would have been much easier to deal with.
All of the previous paragraph seems perfectly logical to me, in terms of traditional strategy. However, it of course runs totally counter to the modern viewpoint that everything should go through the United Nations and be resolved by multilateral action. As a conservative, multilateral action invariably seems to me to be multilateral in-action. Nothing ever gets done. This is another topic for the blog to consider: Is the modern worldview tenable, or is it doomed to failure after failure?
I’m with those who would like to see more topical subjects covered, whether or not from a uniquely “secular” perspective. What I find slightly annoying about other blogs on the right is the facile assumption that if you’re conservative you must therefore be open to a steady diet of religion-on-sleeve, either overtly (see KLopez) or in the form of paying lip-service to belief (almost anyone on NRO save Heather, Stuttaford, or Derb).
Like some (many?) atheists, I think debating religion in the public square is tedious (vigilance re separation issues like I.D. excepted–but other blogs cover that). Being a militant non-believer strikes me as a contradiction.
And oh yes, I’d like Razib to expand on why he doesn’t care about what’s going on in Gaza. What, if anything, are we to extrapolate from that?
There seems to have been a lot of debate on Secular Right with believers on other blogs; surely there can be more debate on Secular Right with each other. I think Heather Mac Donald and Walter Olson, for example, have different views on gay marriage, and how they arrived there would be interesting to hear. We know that Bradlaugh (aka John Derbyshire) is a “To Hell with them” hawk, which is probably very different from most of the other contributors. Why not discuss amongst yourselves?
The left tends to be anti-science on certain niche topics where they have pre-existing ideological commitments. The primary niche is in the area of human nature vs the “blank slate”. You see this in feminist circles, and it was on display in the controversy that cost Larry Summers his job at Harvard University, when he correctly cited the studies that showed that girls/women predominantly disfavor career paths that are primarily scientific or technological. The “blank slate” is one of the sacred cows of leftist dogma. You can’t radically reorganize society if the raw material isn’t amenable to being molded.
Sociobiology is one field which is under fire from the religious right and the secular left, for different reasons. The left opposes the notion of an evolved nature, whereas the religious right accepts the notion of human nature, but not as a result of evolution.
AGW represents another pre-existing ideological commitment of the left that isn’t amenable to objective scientific reasoning. The green movement has quasi-religious underpinnings with the notion of Gaia, or the ecosystem as a living, intelligent organism, tantamount to a god (or goddess). Its a religion that is as capable of generating as much misplaced hairshirt guilt as any orthodox creed.
Why are all those New Atheists leftists?
Well, is Hitchens still a Leftist? Dawkins is Left, but he did address the Conservative Humanist Association.
And oh yes, I’d like Razib to expand on why he doesn’t care about what’s going on in Gaza. What, if anything, are we to extrapolate from that?
I don’t think Israel is really that big of an issue. It is a big issue if you are a Jew, or a Christian or Muslim who cares about Jersalem, or an Arab. Being none of these I have no investment, and I am not one who thinks that its geopolitical import or humanitarian urgency is what any of those principals would have you believe.
the ongoing Israeli operations in Gaza,
Don’t care.
I cared up to the point when Arafat rejected the peace offer on the table at Camp David, left town and ignited another Intifadah. I find it hard to care more for a people than they care about themselves.
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Why are all those New Atheists leftists?My impression is that Hitchens still considers himself a man of the left (like Orwell). Although I don’t know for a fact that the others (Dennett, Dawkings and Harris) are left-leaning, that is certainly my impression. Perhaps it is symptomatic of the problem we are all concerned about that because they espouse rationality over religion, I naturally assume they are leftists. This is the assumption that the right has to overcome.Your link to the video is much appreciated. I didn’t know the UK conservatives had such a subgroup of humanists (though I am not sure I like the term “humanist” either – I prefer secular). Any chance of such a group forming within the Republican Party?
Well, libertarians are often secular. I know many people on ScienceBlogs are disconcerted with the fact that Michael Shermer is a libertarian 🙂
Michael Shermer is an athiest, I believe. Or a non-theist as he puts it.
I’m not sure exactly where the line is to be drawn between libertarianism and conservatism, but I am on definitely the conservative side of that line. I think that libertarianism puts too much faith in the power of market mechanisms to organize society. I also think that libertarians place insufficient value on the notion of social capital. I’m no communitarian, but I do think that a healthy society needs to place more constraints on personal freedom than libertarians are willing to accept. I think that there is a perfectly secular argument to be made against elective abortion, and involves, to be brief, the defense of social capital. Commoditizing unborn human life has a definite, negative impact on the value that society will ultimately assign to born human life.
I enjoy reading your blog. But your attempt to de-couple the the agenda of the secular right from the rest of the political, economic and foreign policy issues that are the focus of debate among conservatives, libertarians, Republicans, etc. is disingenuous and unhelpful. After all, the religious right has played a major role in shaping the Bush Administration’s foreign policy, especially in the Middle East/Iraq/Israe/Islam, and has been a driving force in promoting the notion that Christian Americans are confronting Global Islam. Christian Zionists have certainly been a powerful force in the debate over Israel. Michael Gerson is an intelligent representative of these views. So you need to explain how a secular consvervative’s approach towards these and other issues will be different. Otherwise the writers on this blog will sounds more and more like just another group of atheists mocking religion.
TrueNorth
Although I don’t know for a fact that the others (Dennett, Dawkings and Harris) are left-leaning, that is certainly my impression.
-Dawkins opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, wants to replace the British monarchy with a Republic and didn’t particularly like either Blair or Bush. Although those views aren’t exclusively reserved to the left, they are certainly more common amongst leftists than rightists.
-Dan Dennett is part of Steve Sailer’s Human Biodiversity Institute discussion group, so I suspect he is a rightwinger.
-Sam Harris has said that he wants taxes raised on the wealthy, drugs decriminalized and homosexuals free to marry, but he has also criticized liberals as being blind to the inherent militancy of the Islamic religion.
I joined this forum because I thought it was a group of true conservatives who are non religious. But I see that there are many different shades of religious and political beliefs here, and I agree with someone who said that often the ‘secular’ muscles out the ‘right.’ Personaly, I’m tired of being in political rooms where the assumption is that if you’re a conservative you are religious. I’m sick to death of religion and its absurd claims. What I would like to see is a discussion of important topics like illegal immigration, abortion, economics, welfare system, etc. told from a conservative point of view.
Since our goal is ( should be ) to persuade others as to the wisdom of our social and political proposals, it would seem the most effective ways to do so should be a point of study and discussion.
Since I am a believer in the race IQ data, I find that certain questions appear on my radar screen that might not occur to those who don’t believe/accept the IQ data. For example, I wonder if the same methods of persuasion work well enough to be used, basically one-size-fits-all, for all IQs? I would guess that for higher target IQs, rational, logical presentations would work well, but is this also so for lower target IQs? Perhaps a presentation heavier on carefully selected allegory, analogy, and metaphor would work better? Perhaps even with religious aspects thrown in?
Do, in fact, communication issues manifest when the IQ gap between the communicators is great than some average number? If so, is that perhaps part of the reason why humans in social environments seem to so readily self-segregate ( high school cliques come to mind ) – because communication gets difficult/problematical if all are not within some same fairly narrow range of IQ and interest?
I’m not aware that there has been much research published with those themes. Though again, this would only be relevant IF the IQ data is correct.
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P.S. The main analog to the Religious Right prima facie distrust of science is among feminists and minorities on the Left in my experience.
I think we fail to appreciate the growing menace of pseudo-scientific lunacy in the humanities and the social sciences. The application of postmodern thinking in the social sciences has become widespread enough to alarm two eminent scholars, Paul Gross and Norman Levitt, who wrote Higher Superstition, a modern classic of critical analysis of muddleheadedness.This is must reading for those of us who value rationality over superstition in these complex times.
There are radical movements in ecology, feminism, and sociology that are at serious odds with what we consider “normal” science.Afrocentrism, for instance, is treated by publishers as acceptable material despite its pseudoscientific reality.The MSM rarely “blow the whistle” in order to protect the public.
The real difference between left and right opposition to science liesin the sophistication of the offenders. The left is generally better educated,often Marxist, and radically dedicated to making science fit their schemes to remake society. The right opposes science because it conflicts with their Biblical beliefs.But for evolution the right has no conflicts with science because most are ill equppied to read cosmology and physics.Ignorance is bliss.The left is often well-educated and have a deconstructionist perspective.This emerging rationale conflicts directly with scientific epistomology.
There are more leftists because liberalism and esprcially Marxism appeals to intelligent minds wishing a perfect society of equals.The belief in equality is preferred to belief in freedom.That Darwin didn’t believe in equality has been ignored by his vast leftist army of supporters.They extract what they need from his work and ignore the rest, but they do in fact pose a threat to modern science for that and other reasons. Do not underestimate the potential for chicanery on the left.
“But for evolution the right has no conflicts with science because most are ill equppied to read cosmology and physics.”
I do not believe this is true. Climate change is an area where the right has demonstrated significant conflict. You have people like James Inhofe, who claim it to be a hoax and others who spin wild conspiracy theories. This makes the right look foolish. (As someone recently noted, given that the world’s scientists are barely able to agree on a common set of units of measure, the notion that they could conspire to foist a hoax on the world regarding climate change is simply too insane to consider.)
Grant:
You’re right that there’s no specifically organized conspiracy to put over a hoax. But “the left” is, as much as it is anything, an always-ongoing disorganized conspiracy ready to seize on any issue that can be made (by any stretch) to provide a basis for their fundamental desire to reorganize society according to egalitarian principles. Leftists are all fundamentally totalitarian in outlook; even those with comparatively “loose” standards with regard to (chiefly their own) personal behavior are quite committed to one or another system for the rigid control of that of others; they “know” what’s good for everyone.
Dan Dennett is part of Steve Sailer’s Human Biodiversity Institute discussion group, so I suspect he is a rightwinger.
Daniel Dennet describes himself as an ACLU liberal in Darwin’ Dangerous Idea.
Hitchens leans left, but he’s not a knee-jerk leftist, and neither is Sam Harris, really.
@gene berman
“But ‘the left’ is, as much as it is anything, an always-ongoing disorganized conspiracy ready to seize on any issue that can be made (by any stretch) to provide a basis for their fundamental desire to reorganize society according to egalitarian principles.”
The same could be said for many other groups in society, most notably, the right (although the manner in which the right desires to fundamentally reorganize society differs, of course). Indeed, what you’ve asserted here most reminds me of what Rush Limpbaugh tried to do with his “Operation Chaos” nonsense during the Democratic primary.
“Leftists are all fundamentally totalitarian in outlook; even those with comparatively ‘loose’ standards with regard to (chiefly their own) personal behavior are quite committed to one or another system for the rigid control of that of others; they ‘know’ what’s good for everyone.”
Well, I guess I would ask first what you mean by “leftists.” Because I know many liberals and quite a few leftists, and while they believe that their beliefs are “correct” (a trait shared by all of the rightists I know [and most notably, the relgious enthusiasts I know]) very few can be described as totalitarian, in any way.
@Polichinello
“Hitchens leans left, but he’s not a knee-jerk leftist”
Hitchens is a Democratic Socialist and a (barely) former Trotskyite. Just because he agrees with Bush on his the War on Iraq and the Great Crusade Against The Islamo-Hitlerian-Fascistic-Nazi-Muslim-Hilterfascists doesn’t change that fact.
Just because he agrees with Bush on his the War on Iraq and the Great Crusade Against The Islamo-Hitlerian-Fascistic-Nazi-Muslim-Hilterfascists doesn’t change that fact.
Hitchens’ views on abortion, education and some other issues diverge from leftist orthodoxy. While on race, he’s social construct partisan, he’s advanced evolutionary arguments explaining gender differences that draw a lot of lefty fire.
Look, I’m not saying you have to like the guy or his views. You just can’t characterize them as “knee jerk.”
Grant Canyon:
“Operation Chaos?” I can’t believe it! Not unless you’re an adolescent or barely past. That was just a good-natured prankish “payback” for the concerted, well-financed effort by the Democrats during the 2000 primaries to cross over to support McCain and derail Bush’s candidacy.
And, isn’t it at least a little surprising that the then-record contributions to Bush’s campaign came in at a $72 average (and Gore’s at an average $21,000!) That’s because the Democrats are the party of the “little guy,” I’d guess.
I’m not trying to be a pedant, but if there is somebody named Hitchens with some political views, and he’s got a brother with different political views but the same last name, it may behoove us to supply a first name once in a while. 🙂
I think there needs to be a discussion of what secularism is and why both believers and nonbelievers should be interested in it. I say this because time and time again I see in the comments that this is “just about atheists”. Of course, as some of the writers of the blog are atheists, there will be some times in which there will be an atheists perspective discussion. However, secularism isn’t solely an atheists perspective, it is a perspective about the role of religion in the world which is held by many believers and nonbelievers. You would never know this from the mainstream media, and lately, you would never know this from this blog or its commenters. More needs to be covered on this.
How about a proper dig into the sexual system of the modern west? Razib wrote in the Guardian about how polygamy might return in a west of widening inequality. Peruse the essays of F Roger Devlin – Rotating Polyandry and Sexual Utopia. Here he explains that the west is ‘returning’ to an African sexual system where the courtship phase lasts indefinitely, couplings are frequent and short, alpha males hog many women at the same time (and the women are attracted to them because, not in spite of this fact), and men dedicate less time to productive effort due to the time spent at courtship. Like in Africa, modern women tend to do a large chunk of the work, and are quite self-sufficient. This leads them to abandon beta male providers and shack up with the small minority of alpha males. One sees this dynamic in all major cities.
I know that ‘moralizing’ about sexual issues has the taint of Rome, but how does the secular right view the sexual right? The question is key, complex, and needs to be confronted. Does the secular right have an answer?
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