Is European Exceptionalism the Context for the New Atheism?
March 19, 2010
Johann Hari, a journalist for the British newspaper, The Independent, has written an article which lands quite a few good punches on the current religious scene, particularly with reference to the plots to murder the Mohammed cartoonist and the Pope's involvement in covering up the rape of children in the Catholic Church. He also uses these incidents as an opportunity to have a pop at religion in general, in the typical style of the New Atheists. He clearly aspires to be a Christopher Hitchens, though he bristles with too much self-righteousness and lacks Hitch's wit and learning to be as entertaining as the latter, surely one of the great essayists of his generation.
Hari's style is typical of the new atheist arguments, however: minimal acquaintance with the content of the creeds of those he criticises (e.g., he gives only a bald reference to papal infallibility, without feeling the need to clarify exactly what it is that the papacy claims by this -- and, hey, I am not sympathetic to the doctrine; I just think it doesn't actually mean that the Pope thinks he can do no wrong); and a strong accent on aesthetics -- religion is distasteful and ridiculous, built on beliefs that are completely bonkers and leading to equally whacko and dangerous behaviour.
Such elements of argument have always been part of the atheist/agnostic/deist arsenal -- think Euripides, Voltaire, Russell; but in times past the accent has often fallen on logic -- again, think Russell and A.J Ayer; the latter was especially strong in arguing that religious language was fundamentally illogical, non-sense in the strictest sense of the word. This aesthetic turn we now witness represents a change of polemical emphasis (in line with typical late/post modern sensibilities); and, at times (as with Hari and Hitchens) it verges on hysteria -- some religious people do bad things so all religion must be bad etc; we apostles of free speech must silence them or shame them into going away; they have no place in civilised society etc etc.
I wonder if this new atheism, though, represents a response not simply to religious extremism in itself but also to what appears to be a new, unexpected turn in history. For years, it was standard orthodoxy that the USA was exceptional in a number of ways, not least the way it preserved a high level of religious observance and belief among its populace. The secularisation thesis worked so well in Europe -- as industrial/post-industrial society `advanced, ' so religion retreated. Not in the US. There, modernisation seemed to exist very happily with high levels of organised religiosity.
Now, however, in the twenty-first century, with resurgent Islam worldwide and conservative forms of Protestantism in the southern hemisphere, it looks increasingly as if old Europe may be the exception, and the US more typical, of what is happening across the globe. This, in turn, has generated both frustration and fear among those who assumed secularisation was as predictable as the daily rise and set of the sun; and as European economies become increasingly dependent upon immigrants from religious groups, the secularisation thesis is increasingly imperiled.
This is speculation: but I wonder if the aesthetics of the aesthetic critiques of religion are determined as much by the anger and fear of those who feel they are on the losing side of the historical moment. It would certainly help to explain the bitterness of the polemic and the sweeping nature of the (il)logical generalisations which often creep into arguments by those who are typically more nuanced in their thinking on other matters.
Hari's style is typical of the new atheist arguments, however: minimal acquaintance with the content of the creeds of those he criticises (e.g., he gives only a bald reference to papal infallibility, without feeling the need to clarify exactly what it is that the papacy claims by this -- and, hey, I am not sympathetic to the doctrine; I just think it doesn't actually mean that the Pope thinks he can do no wrong); and a strong accent on aesthetics -- religion is distasteful and ridiculous, built on beliefs that are completely bonkers and leading to equally whacko and dangerous behaviour.
Such elements of argument have always been part of the atheist/agnostic/deist arsenal -- think Euripides, Voltaire, Russell; but in times past the accent has often fallen on logic -- again, think Russell and A.J Ayer; the latter was especially strong in arguing that religious language was fundamentally illogical, non-sense in the strictest sense of the word. This aesthetic turn we now witness represents a change of polemical emphasis (in line with typical late/post modern sensibilities); and, at times (as with Hari and Hitchens) it verges on hysteria -- some religious people do bad things so all religion must be bad etc; we apostles of free speech must silence them or shame them into going away; they have no place in civilised society etc etc.
I wonder if this new atheism, though, represents a response not simply to religious extremism in itself but also to what appears to be a new, unexpected turn in history. For years, it was standard orthodoxy that the USA was exceptional in a number of ways, not least the way it preserved a high level of religious observance and belief among its populace. The secularisation thesis worked so well in Europe -- as industrial/post-industrial society `advanced, ' so religion retreated. Not in the US. There, modernisation seemed to exist very happily with high levels of organised religiosity.
Now, however, in the twenty-first century, with resurgent Islam worldwide and conservative forms of Protestantism in the southern hemisphere, it looks increasingly as if old Europe may be the exception, and the US more typical, of what is happening across the globe. This, in turn, has generated both frustration and fear among those who assumed secularisation was as predictable as the daily rise and set of the sun; and as European economies become increasingly dependent upon immigrants from religious groups, the secularisation thesis is increasingly imperiled.
This is speculation: but I wonder if the aesthetics of the aesthetic critiques of religion are determined as much by the anger and fear of those who feel they are on the losing side of the historical moment. It would certainly help to explain the bitterness of the polemic and the sweeping nature of the (il)logical generalisations which often creep into arguments by those who are typically more nuanced in their thinking on other matters.
