Occasionally we at Secular Right receive emails as to the agenda or manifesto behind this website. Since this is a collective of varied opinions we can not naturally offer a creed or statement of beliefs which is very thick. In any case, one correspondent asked whether we believe that the world should be transformed in an atheist free-market utopia* (or to that effect). Speaking for myself I only responded with a succinct “no.” More to the point the reader, a religious individual of conservative inclinations who supports separation of church & state, wondered at why some contributors to this website critiqued religion, as opposed to making a positive case for church-state separation as part of a conservative order.
One reason why a critique of religion, in concert with self-conscious conservative politics, may be useful is purely a matter of identity politics. The reality is that younger age cohorts in the United States have become progressively more secular and Leftish in inclination. In fact many people of “Gen Y” reject non-Left politics on prima facie grounds of identity; conservatism is fundamentally religious, and therefore they reject conservatism since they reject religion. Some conservatives may work at the project of converting irreligious liberals to religion, and so make them more open to non-Left politics, but I am not sure that this will be enough, or the project of conversion will yield as much as the religious think it will.
In any case, below the fold I have placed a variety of charts from the General Social Survey, which asked individuals their ideological & party affiliations between 1972 and 2008. I’ve broken down religious affiliations controlled for ideology & party. I limited the sample to whites to remove demographic confounds in the trends.
Note: the question about fundamentalism is measuring variation only among Protestants; Catholics are all coded as “moderate,” Jews & those with no religion as “liberals.”
* Though I am libertarian leaning, I would demur if termed a libertarian or enthusiast for the free market. The utilitarian benefits of the capitalist system in terms of generating economic productivity are undeniable, but I am not one of those conservatives who believes that the defense of the free market is the sine qua non of human flourishing.
These graphs are very unclear: what is the x-axis measuring?
I doubt any of the contributors to SR would object to an “atheist free-market utopia” if it could be achieved, although I suppose some might suggest that’s really a contradiction in terms.
Let’s be clear, here: is SR attacking the respectability of religion because it believes religion is not respectable, or for reasons of Realpolitik? Veridical motives, or pragmatic?
I see no need to exterminate religious belief (especially as it’s doing just fine hanging itself with the rope it’s been given), but I require a government founded upon reason, and that means that religion must be excluded as an influence on policy. To the degree that sincere religious belief does not permit believers to leave religion out of their attempts to participate in society, believers must therefore be deprived of influence.
It’s the general case, which is the same as it is for more specific examples: white supremacy or Flat-Earthism or Creationism – it can and will be tolerated as long as it has no power, and must be rigorously opposed to the degree that it attempts to gain it.
I have to say that when this site was created I hoped it would be a conservative site writing from an atheist/agnostic perspective. I have a lot of respect for the contributors here and I know they have other avenues to write about political subjects not related to religion directly but I had nevertheless hoped for a little more Right in Secular Right.
I am an avid reader of NRO and generally quite appreciative of it but it irks me that it at times morphs into the Vatican hardliner news service and certain prominent writers there approach almost every subject from a strictly religious perspective. Whenever I come across that I find it fairly irritating, especially as I agree with them on a lot of things but find myself identified as part of the enemy as a result of my lack of religious conviction.
I would think that the response to that however can’t be limited to a mere continued defense of the very existence of secular or even atheist conservatism along the lines of “Hey, conservatism and atheism aren’t mutually exclusive, guys!” but I think the stronger response would be to set a conservative agenda from that secular viewpoint. Not a libertarian agenda, a conservative agenda.
There are 5 million libertarian blogs and websites out there and whenever you encounter a secular Republican or even self-proclaimed conservative there is a good chance you will actually meet someone to whom conservatism is purely limited to minimalist government and little else. Similarly there are a great number of atheist blogs about science etc. but what there isn’t a whole lot of is conservative analysis of current events and politics coming from a secular viewpoint. And given the caliber of the contributors here I hoped for that, a NRO without Kathryn Jean Lopez so to speak.
These graphs are very unclear: what is the x-axis measuring?
year.
I also think it would be interesting to see more conservative commentary on the blog. For instance, we could certainly talk about Obama’s health care plan, immigration, terrorism/torture, ect. The debates we’ve had about abortion and gay marriage have been interesting. I wouldn’t even mind a bit of social commentary like NRO or the Weekly Standard sometimes gives us. Any good conservative movies or TV shows lately?
All the above posters discuss the link between atheism and libertarianism. There certainly does seem to be one. Most atheist conservatives do have a libertarian bent (I include myself here), and are unlikely to be more conservative on social issues than economic ones. It’s hard for me to imagine atheist versions of Mike Huckabee or Rob Dreher.
An interesting question is, why? My hypothesis is that I tend to agree with the idea that the purpose of religion is to enforce social norms. Therefore, any atheist is, by definition, rebelling against the social order. I think it’s fair to say that a person who would score highly on disagreeableness, someone that likes doing things his/her own way, is more likely to be an atheist than someone who likes to go with the flow. I think it is obvious that such a person is also more likely to be libertarian. I know that it has already been shown that people who score more highly on disagreeableness have more free-market views on economics. I’d like to see an agreeableness/religious belief poll.
I remember when the Gen-Xer’s were often described as being quasi-libertarian during the 90’s. Are the Gen-Y’s really left on economic issues?
I’m a little hostile to the concept of getting the Weekly Standard or National Review on our side. Those are both strongly Neoconservative publications, and I for one am glad that (as a conservative site) this blog take a laissiez-faire attitude toward foreign policy issues. I would like to see the secular right be a little less Buckleyesque and more Menckenesque.
I kind of agree with Mike H. My idea of a “secular right” blog is basically NRO without any mention of God or religion. Every time an article brings in a mention of God it immediately loses credibility for me (and not doubt countless others who would otherwise be sympathetic). If you can’t make a point without bringing God into it then your position must necessarily be a fairly weak one. Resorting to a religious justification has the same effect on me that I remember experiencing in my university days when reading mathematics journals from the Soviet Union with their obligatory homage to Lenin in the foreword. There is a clash.
NRO is actually already pretty secular (with a few, well commented upon, exceptions). However, I always get the implicit feeling that the National Review editorial assumption is that their readers are not only religious but expect religion to play a part in their political decision making. This is certainly in the Buckleyite tradition so National Review is I suppose remaining true to its founding principles. Not wishing to change NR (it has a certain charm to it) I prefer a “secular right” option in addition to National Review.
I am not hostile to religion. I just want it kept out of public policy.
re: NR, i recall buckley picked rich lowry over david brooks as the editor of NR in part because it wouldn’t be appropriate for NR to have a non-christian at the helm.
Wow, Brooks would have destroyed NR. He is a total anti-science, anti-liberty, authoritarian squish. Buckley did the right thing for the wrong reason.
@John
But how might NR have faired if Buckley had carried out his original plan and had Brookheiser take over as editor?
Let me start by thanking you for addressing my question. I want to emphasise that I didn’t in any way want you to refrain from confronting religion for fear of offending my (or like minded people’s) sensibilities. As far as I’m concerned, religion is fair game for criticism.
What you seem to say in your post is that you fear young people are all left wing because they think only left wing parties are secular / atheist. I think there is some truth in this in the US, though less so in Europe (except in countries like Italy and Spain). So in a sense I can understand that you want to re-brand conservatism to make it more appealing.
I think that what young people are mostly after is social liberalism. I’m one of them. I think that this requires removing religion from being involved in policy-formulation. But I think the problem with your approach, if I’ve understood it correctly, is that you risk alienating religous people who want to associate with a party of the right but also believe in social and economic liberalism. You may say that this is such a small group that it doesn’t matter. So be it. But I think that you could still win most of those atheist lefties by emphasising social liberalism and secularism rather than atheism. I think that’s what the British Conserative Party has done to good effect.
Forget, please, “conservatism.” It has been, operationally, de facto, Godless and therefore irrelevant. Secular conservatism will not defeat secular liberalism because to God both are two atheistic peas-in-a-pod and thus predestined to failure. As Stonewall Jackson’s Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:
“[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth.”
Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
PS – And “Mr. Worldly Wiseman” Rush Limbaugh never made a bigger ass of himself than at CPAC where he told that blasphemous “joke” about himself and God.
Hmm, that’s funny. I never realized that God was a prerequisite to relevance.
But how might NR have faired if Buckley had carried out his original plan and had Brookheiser take over as editor?
hmmm, that’s a tougher one. I think that Brookheiser would have done OK. I wish he was more libertarian, but he is definitely a conservative. Brooks calls himself a conservative, but isn’t one.