A comment:<\/p>\n
I wonder what the writer\u2019s here have to say about my contention in the TAC thread that the idea of a secular right is virtually an oxymoron. Modern rationalistic secularism is clearly a product of the left. (Think of the origin of the terms left and right.) I really don\u2019t think this is a disputable contention. I think someone can be a person of the right and have a secularist tic. I don\u2019t deny that Derbyshire is generally a man of the right. But there can not be a secular right in mass, because the right opposes secularism almost by definition. There can not be a secularist right (or secular conservatism) in mass in America because America is a particularisticly Christian country and conservatives, if they are actually conservatives, should seek to conserve that particularity. Secularism is virtually the opposite of Christian particularity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I think the Secular Left and Religious Right would probably agree enthusiastically on this. The first point is that there can be no “mass movement” of secularists when defined as atheists or agnostics, period, Left, Right or Center, because there aren’t enough of us in the United States. \u00a0From the GSS, 4.4% who were conservative were atheists & agnostics, while 11.3% who were liberal were. \u00a0Of atheists and agnostics 45.5% were liberal and 23.4% were conservative. On the issue of support of Christianity as the status quo, and so conservative position, this is a fair point in my opinion. \u00a0But the more accurate point I think is that the American culture is imbued with a civil religion of Christian flavor & influence. \u00a0The problem today on the Right is that the movement has made a tacit alliance with a highly sectarian movement which represents only a minority of Americans, theologically conservative Protestants. \u00a0Several individuals in the comments have avowed their own religious beliefs, but affirmed their support of this project because they do not believe religion and politics should be coterminous. \u00a0In contrast, there are some who would say that to be a conservative one must by necessity be a Christian of a particular variety.<\/p>\n
From where I stand the point is not about purging religion, or religious people, from the Right. \u00a0Nor is it my goal to engage in a jihad against religion, as such. \u00a0Rather, the point of the Secular Right is to emphasize that one can be on the Right and non-religious. \u00a0Here is David Hume, arguably the first public intellectual who disavowed any supernatural beliefs in the English-speaking world:<\/p>\n
With regard to politics and the character of princes and great men, I am very moderate. My views of things are more comformable to Whig Principles; my representations of persons to Tory prejudices. Nothing can so much prove that men commonly regard more persons than things, as to find that I am commonly numbered among the Tories.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Perhaps there is some a priori<\/em> grounds to reject those who don’t admit a belief in the supernatural in a predominantly Christian society as members of the Right. I won’t make any apologies for myself, nor will I make a proactive case for why Hume, Friedrich Hayek or George F. Will, are of the Right. Theory is irrelevant when faced with reality. We do exist.<\/p>\n
Note: <\/strong>Thomas Hobbes might count as a nonbeliever who precedes Hume. But I am not so sure that the Left and Right are useful terms that far back (Hobbes’ was a supporter of the king, obviously), Hume flourished a generation before the French Revolution and so I think an argument can be made in adding him to the genealogy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A comment: I wonder what the writer\u2019s here have to say about my contention in the TAC thread that the idea of a secular right is virtually an oxymoron. Modern rationalistic secularism is clearly a product of the left. (Think … Continue reading