{"id":2488,"date":"2009-08-14T19:31:41","date_gmt":"2009-08-15T03:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=2488"},"modified":"2009-08-14T19:51:49","modified_gmt":"2009-08-15T03:51:49","slug":"the-great-polarization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-great-polarization\/","title":{"rendered":"The great polarization"},"content":{"rendered":"

Occasionally we at Secular Right<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0prima facie <\/em>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.<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0I limited the sample to whites to remove demographic confounds in the trends.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong> the question about fundamentalism is measuring variation only among Protestants; Catholics are all coded as “moderate,” Jews & those with no religion as “liberals.”<\/p>\n

\"fundliberal\"<\/a>\"fundmod\"<\/a>\"fundconserv\"<\/a>\"funddem\"<\/a>\"fundindep\"<\/a>\"fundrepub\"<\/a>\"relliberal\"<\/a>\"relmod\"<\/a>\"relconserv\"<\/a>\"relprefdem\"<\/a>\"relprefind\"<\/a>\"relprefrep\"<\/a><\/p>\n

* 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<\/i> of human flourishing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9,10,15],"tags":[1129,281],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2488"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2506,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488\/revisions\/2506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}