Discussing the fall of new atheism and the rise of SJW politics

 So, I didn't really realize this until recently, but I guess it explains why my views seem so out of sync with the modern left, but I'm seeing a lot of tension between new atheism and the new SJW movement, and how there has been essentially a political realignment that has shifted the left from being super pro free speech and pro rationality, to the right starting to take up some of these causes. I've kind of noticed this shift myself in recent years, and given how my introduction to liberalism was primarily through the atheist movement, the shift toward SJWism and identity politics has always made me kind of uneasy, where I've found myself becoming more openly hostile toward SJWs in recent years as a result of this tension. A friend recently sent me an article on this subject, and it has caused me to reflect on this. 

The fact is, 2016 was basically a realigning year in politics. I kind of knew it would be part of a party realignment, but looking at it 6 years out, I'm starting to wonder if maybe we aren't in a transition phase, maybe this is the actual realignment. I shudder at the thought. 2016 was the year that our politics went completely nuts. Where rational politics on the left was replaced by extreme fear of the right, the abandonment of progressive politics economically, and where SJWism became mainstream. SJWism has always had a weird relationship with both myself, and the atheist movement. I remember when I became political in the early-mid 2000s that I read Rush Limbaugh, and he always talked about "feminazis" and other social movement extremists. And how these guys basically loved to do this performative stuff of showing how much they cared, while being largely loud belligerent haters of white males and stuff like that. But, as I got older, I kind of began realizing this is a stereotype. I kind of realized that a lot of serious structural issues existed within various identity based communities, and their grievances were legitimate. And while there had been some policies they've tried pushing in the past like affirmative action and quotas, that largely, the real neon haired whackos were actually very vocal minorities no one took seriously. And as I transitioned into being a secular liberal in the early 2010s, that while these guys were somewhat weird, they largely seemed harmless. Ultimately, women, people of color, the LGBT+ community, they just wanted to be left alone, and to be given equal rights. Fair, next. 

If anything I actually came into contact with some of these people through atheist channels. I would talk and debate within various online forums in the early-mid 2010s leading up to the creation of this blog, and had various friends who were atheists as a result. And....I actually considered the relationship between SJWs and atheists to be largely positive. If anyone in society was for gay and trans acceptance, it was atheists. Atheists, if anything, seemed to be among the most consistently left wing blocs of voters in the US. Because atheists were progressive and unmoored to the dogmas of traditional religion, which were quite illiberal, authoritarian, and often illogical. There were times when these SJW types within atheism went too far, like the elevatorgate incident where Rebecca Watson got uppity over being solicited in an elevator, and the whole atheism+ movement being regarded as a general failure. But still, I largely saw these guys as on the same page as us. 

Me personally, I've always tried to respect those views, understanding there were some philosophical points, but being the white male I am, they were never my focus. I mean, I never really spent a ton of time dealing with thsoe issues. There were plenty of POC, female, gay activists to do that. For me, I started setting my focus on economics and the injustice of capitalism as I knew it. I was new out of college, the economy was a dumpster fire, and I considered the way things to be ran to be deeply unjust. So I used my college education as well as my new epistemology under atheism to construct a new humanistic worldview that was extremely reminiscent of what later became Andrew Yang's human centered capitalism. I'm not saying I've influenced Yang in a very significant way directly, as this kind of mentality was cocreated between myself and other basic income activists in the mid 2010s like Scott Santens, but I do imagine that general perspective did end up influencing Yang in the long term. 

Generally speaking, SJWs I talked to were very open minded to my views. Some even joked I was from the future to save humanity and stuff. A welfare worker I knew at the time said my idea would put her out of the job. 

But then 2016 happened. 

2016 is seen as the decline of new atheism and the rise of SJW politics. But what really made it so ascendant? Long story short, an orchestrated propaganda campaign from the Clinton campaign if you ask me. Okay, so imagine you're me in 2016. Heck, go back and read my posts from 2016. You're a progressive, you like Bernie, and the democrats just arent interested. In 2015 they come out swinging pushing Hillary hard and essentially doing what amounts to bullying supporters into supporting the democrats. I didn't really even put much thought into whether I would support the dems, I just assumed I would. I kind of just expected 2016 to be a spirited primary, followed my endorsing the winner. But when the democrats tell me I HAVE to support the winner, well, that kind of worked in a reverse psychology way on me. Who the hell are these guys to DEMAND my vote? So I started posturing like, well, what if I didn't? You're not entitled to it. BUT I HAD TO AND BLAH BLAH BLAH. They started making arguments about the supreme court. They started ignoring economics and pushing identity issues instead. Why? Because that's all the dems had. If the dems were gonna sweep economics under the rug, they needed some appeal to get voters to support them, and it took the role of identity politics. 

And with that, came back the conservative strawman of the pink haired "feminazi" Rush LImbaugh talked about in my youth. Military social issues activists who tried to bully people for not thinking the same way they did. A lot of Limbaugh's analyses of the 90s suddenly made sense. This is Clinton's playbook. It always has been. Ignore economics, move right, and overemphasize social issues in response. And from there, they can just tap into the large numbers of social issue oriented democrats like the black/latino communities, women, LGBT, etc. This served to do two things for democrats. it allowed them to push back against the sanders faction of the party, painting them as "bernie bros", college educated white men (guilty as charged) who were racist and sexist against women and POC (not so guilty, not really racist or sexist, i just didn't particularly care about those issues). Honestly, I tried to be cordial with these guys at first. Reason with them. Come on guys, im not racist and sexist, i just dont like Hillary. But if I dont like hillary im sexist. And it just went on and on. And I just got madder and madder at these guys. The second thing this allowed the democrats to do was to fight Trump. Trump pitched his campaign as the campaign against normal politics. He was loud, he was obnoxious. He said what the conservative voters thought but were too afraid to say. He made racism and sexism mainstream. And Hillary positioned herself to be the antidote to that. The one who respected veterans, who was "inclusive", even though she actually cynically used these identity groups  for her own purposes. 

And me, I was alienated. Being the atheist, economic based person, I just felt like Clinton spat in the face on my values. Not just on economics, but even on social issues. The economics was obvious, given her outright hostility and antagonism toward the Sanders wing of the party. But on social issues, as I kind of noted in 2016, Clinton was a Christian! She privately hated gay marriage. She was pro life in her personal life. Her methodist background made her very pro work spouting all that "god given potential" BS of hers. 

Ideologically, I just felt clinton was a complete rejection of what I felt the left should be. But she was GREAT for making SJWism mainstream. Prior to 2016, SJWism was a niche phenomenon. You had atheism+, which never went anywhere. You had gamergate where they were completely insufferable, but to be fair, a lot of the gamers had outright sexist views too so they kind of had a point at times. But it really took 2016 to make it take off. In 2016, it became the year of SJWism, the left was taken over by it, as the important enemy stopped being christianity and regressive values based on religion, and started being those darned trumpers. And again, sticking with the democratic party even if you hated this new value system became a badge of honor among left leaners. Voting democrat wasn't about people making a rational decision about what benefitted THEM any more, it became about voting in solidarity with a flawed cause that did nothing for them, but they had to do it, for their black brothers and sisters who are underprivileged or something (I've literally heard people talk like that). 

And this is where I started diverging from the democrats. I came over to the left for two reasons. New atheism influencing my social views, and fiery economic politics toward making the world a better place. Now I was being told to abandon my values for a greater cause that I didn't even believe in, and while I wasn't inherently hostile to it, they seemed to be doing a good job in making me hostile since they seemed to demand my unconditional participation for nothing in return. I just had it.

And you know what? As Trump won surprisingly, my attitude was a bit different than most of my liberal friends. A lot of them were freaked out. Crying. Having panic attacks. Being afraid trump was gonna put them in camps for being gay and trans. And here I am having schadenfreude for Hillary losing. I'm gonna be honest, I never was a trumper, I never really celebrated Trump winning, I HATE trump. And I hate him even worse. But I also hated hillary with a passion. She spent so much time bullying and pushing us around, trying to pressure us into supporting a campaign that did nothing for us, and she LOST. Screw you, Hillary, screw you.

This didn't take too well among my leftie friends. They thought I was cold and heartless. They thought I was selfish. They thought I was evil. They started turning on me, and I slowly lost my friends going into 2017 and Trump's inauguration. I watched the people rioting and burning cars and smashing storefronts, and I just thought these guys were insane. Obviously this vigilantism should not be tolerated. We live in a civil society. The cornerstone of that civility is NOT wanting to kill our enemies just for thinking differently. Despite hating Christianity post deconversion, I never once thought about actually persecuting christians for their regressive views. Because it would undermine my idea of civil society and lead to violence. And it would only galvanize them and fit their twisted little persecution complexes. No, we had to respect them despite them being total morons. But this new left, the left of "antifa" and crap, well...let's just say I had people on my facebook wall actively cheering on violence and rioting. And I just couldn't partake in that and cut many of them off from my friend's circles throughout 2017. 

It seemed quite clear, having interacted with some of these former friends on mutual friends' walls, that they tend to now have disdain for me and treat my politics like that of dinosaurs. Well, screw them. And as you guys can tell, throughout 2017, I stopped caring about politics for a while. 2017, 2018 I mostly focused on other topics. And I never quite realized it at the time, but that really was the death knell of the new atheism community as a cultural phenomenon. It never regained steam since then, and while I followed various atheist groups throughout this time period, I kind of lost interest myself.

And then in 2019 I had my "spiritual awakening." Like always I won't go into the reasons for it, but it was weird, I listened to Andrew Yang on Joe Rogan, and it affected me so much I started reflecting on my life, looked into some stuff from my past, and ended up figuring something out related to my deconversion that I didn't know at the time. And it kind of changed everything. I won't go into more detail than that, but from then forward, I couldn't really be a full on atheist.

Don't get me wrong, my POLITICAL values havent changed. I still support a strong separation of church and the state and ultimately believe politics is a secular affair. Religious or spiritual views that can't be demonstrated in reality have no place dictating public policy. So my ultimate value system remained unchanged politically. I think it was intended to be that way, honestly. Looking into the spiritual phenomena I experienced it seems like that this whole mess was a set up to purge my former conservative views and give me a new belief system through which I could do my life's work. And that atheism phase was essential for it. And it still reflects in my politics to this day, despite me not being an atheist any more. 

But that also brings me back to this blog. In 2019 I was interested in the Yang vs Bernie discussions, all while going through the fallout of transitioning out of atheism. Then in 2020 COVID came around and everything changed. And I maintained my pro Bernie/Yang and anti other dem mentality. I kind of figured Trump would lose.

Although, I'm going to be scared, the fact that the election came as close as it did in 2020 scares the crap out of me. I feel like given how awful Trump was, that people shouldve abandoned him. Instead they liked the moron. And then January 6th happened and he actually encouraged his nutjob supporters to attack the capitol over a lie that he lost the election. Jesus Christ, this guy is a psychopath. I kind of figured America needed a reckoning where they needed a taste of a guy like this to abandon the right for good, but PEOPLE ACTUALLY LIKE HIM. It scares me. And while I still maintain my third party orientation, the idea of Trump running in 2024 troubles me deeply. The fact that Biden is floundering this badly isn't unexpected, but also troubling. 

But yeah. Back to atheism. Idk, atheism really did seem to drop off the face of the earth. And the democrats became obsessed with social issues since. And this just fed the right. And now the right is making major gains in 2021 and now in 2022 we're looking at a red wave. And a lot of it is due to dem incompetence but also dems overextending on social issues.

I'm going to be honest, there's NOTHING attractive about the democrats in their current form. They are a combination of useless, and the joke I thought they were as a conservative in my youth. This SJW stuff has ruined them, and honestly, it's just galvanizing the right among their own social issues.

This is why I'm saying maybe 2016 WAS the realignment, and we're just screwed. As the democrats become obsessed with race and gender and sexuality and the GOP goes full speed ahead toward fascism, I almost feel like America is screwed. If nothing changes, what's gonna happen is the democrats will collapse, and the GOP will become a fascist party, with our democracy descending into one party rule similar to Russia.

The fact is, their post 2016 strategy has been a failure. They cant combat the GOP in their current form, they went from being ascendant in Obama's second term, merely needing to get the enthusiasm back to kick the GOP out of congress and overturn their gerrymandering, to basically getting destroyed as they stood for nothing except being extreme on very polarizing social issues.

I'm going to be honest, if I were in the situation I was in 10 years ago, would I becme a democrat? maybe out of necessity, wanting to avoid the insanity that is the GOP, but I would have no love for them. I would probably end up being the same third party forwardist I am now honestly. 

But where does that leave new atheism?

I don't know, it's mixed. SJWs like to scream constantly about how new atheists are alt right, but they seem to forget, a lot of early adopters of their politics WERE ATHEISTS. And whenever I tune in to the atheist experience or the line, I see Matt Dillahunty using pronouns and intellectually beating down regressive right wingers who are transphobes. So a lot of atheists actually have adopted to the cult of caring.

But the SJWs love to focus on those who didn't. They talk about Bill maher who has gone full on boomer as of late (to be fair he has). They talk about Sam Harris who is an "islamophobe". They talk about Dawkins and his SJW branch. Then they talk about people like thunderf00t and the amazing atheist who always had that alt right streak.

I mean, honestly, I always felt like the alt right type views among new atheists were a minority. Sure, they existed, but the SJWs seem to focus too much on them. I never saw thunderf00t or sargon of akkad or the amazing atheist as arbiters of my views. And while sam harris, christopher hitchens, and richard dawkins WERE more my thing, I feel like we need to contextualize their positions.

First of all the islamophobia complaints. I'm gonna be honest, I feel like the SJW left drops the ball on this a lot. Islam kind of represents a contradiction for them. They (SJWs) preach tolerance and inclusion of everyone, but then you have this extremely radical and illiberal religion that has extremely anti humanist values. They throw gay people off of roofs, stone women for adultery after being raped, and generally treat anyone who isn't like them horribly, to the point a lot of atheists are horrifies and often try to work to get people who have liberal and progressive ideals out of such theocratic states. Those places are horrible to live, and those religions are a huge reason why. But suddenly when muslims immigrate say to europe it's racist to point out that maybe their ideals are at odds with western civilization? A lot of SJWs think harris and the like are peddling great replacement theory and while i see their point I think one factor is being overlooked here: WE'RE TRYING TO PROTECT YOU GUYS. Seriously, the reason a lot of new atheists, including someone like me who is an ex christian ex new atheist who is now spiritual, hates religion is because IT ISNT TOLERANT TOWARD OTHERS. It's anything but! These belief systems are at odds with the western civilization you supposedly support. Think about how you crap on trumpers for being these regressive christians against abortion and gay marriage and trans rights. I'm seeing all of these handmaid tale memes in response to the potential fall of roe v wade. Uh....WHAT DO YOU THINK MUSLIMS WOULD DO IF THEIR BELIEFS RULED OUR COUNTRY?! Don't get me wrong, I'm not blanket anti people from middle east, that IS racist, and if muslims want to come here, and ASSIMILATE TO OUR CULTURE, keeping their beliefs as subservient to western culture and enlightenment ideals of freedom and tolerance, that's fine, come to our country, I don't care. But, I feel like there's a real potential for a "clash of civilizations" here and SJWs trying to be overly tolerant toward muslims where they pull this great replacement BS on atheists who think as they do EXPLICITLY BECAUSE THEY SUPPORT PROGRESSIVE VALUES is very problematic. You're kinda digging your own grave. You guys are the ones who promote the "paradox of tolerance", but then you live it in bashing new atheists for islamophobia. Keep in mind atheist criticism of islam isnt the same as right wing criticism of islam. I know it's hard to know the difference sometimes, but it's this. Right wingers hate islam because they hate all culture that isnt their own. The idea of sharia scares them but if they had CHRISTIAN theocracy, they would be for it. They're more concerned about muslims for being nonchristian. Atheists worry about islam because they worry about their religion spreading and influencing our politics, leading to their views being imposed on the rest of us. That is the death of a liberal society. And while I think we're pretty safe from this threat at least in the US, in Europe, eh, there's a discussion to be had. 

Honestly, I feel like most atheists actually do have the left's back on social issues. Including ex atheists like me, as my value system isnt functionally any different on those issues. We may be politically incorrect, uncouth loudmouths who say what we think and at times reject the cult of caring that the left tries to impose on us, but on SUBSTANCE? There isn't any functional reason to be enemies. Hell the only reason I've turned so hostile on those guys is because they DO try to impose their views on us, and have essentially aligned with a democratic party that is against my values on other issues, and weaponizes those politics against my own politics. 

So idk, is new atheism still relevant as a cultural force? Not really. SJW politics have effectively replaced it. Has this made politics better? HELL NO. It's made it worse. Atheists might be insufferable jerks sometimes, but they're insufferable jerks who ultimately wanted a world where people could be free to live as they want, and where politics was primarily decided by what's rational and evidence based. SJWs tend to instead engage in a cult of caring, expressing hostile and illiberal attitudes toward their political opponents and who seem to use any means necessary to coerce people into agreement with them. 

New atheists largely didn't support taking rights away from christians. We generally respected alternative views in theory, even if we did dump on them in unceremonious ways. SJWs seem to instead prefer to guilt you into thinking like them and engage in cancelling behavior if you dont. 

Honestly, I don't fit well in the modern democratic party. The pre 2016 party sure, but not now. I think this is directly related to the fall of new atheism and the rise of the SJW cult. I just dont have that same value system as they do. I have a very close parallel value system leading to a lot of functionally similar positions, but I don't have the same value system. 

Seriously, we should theoretically be allies but because they take the worst framing possible and refuse to cede any ground at all we end up being enemies. It kind of sickens me. But that is the nature of the modern left.