So, I subbed to the Amazing Atheist on youtube. He normally has some pretty decent takes, but lately he's been going after a lot of the "old guard" of atheism, ripping Bill Maher for his support of Israel and ripping Richard Dawkins for calling "wokeism" a "religion." I'm mostly going to be focusing on the latter here.
The fact is, I mostly agree with Dawkins. He left out the idea of supernatural beliefs and pointed out how a lot of the woke act like those who are religious, with complete and utter intolerance of those who think like them. He talked about how they treat everyone as having the original sin of colonialism and how this is held over them with similar guilt mechanics to Christianity.
And I have to say...for the most part, I don't understand the problem here. "Wokeism" is a pseudo religion. it is a worldview and those who believe it are often just as evangelical as the fundamentalist Christianity I left.
The Amazing Atheist said he hopes he never gets as old as Dawkins because of the crap takes he has, and here I am, in my 30s, roughly his age, and yes, I do have those kinds of takes. The fact is, my views reflect the old guard of atheism in this sense and it's a huge reason I've rejected the postmodernist worldview. Does it has some validity? Yes. But holy crap, the quasi religious behavior surrounding the concept is creepy and cult like.
Now, Dawkins did go into a lot of transphobic crap at times too. I had to cringe. I know that the UK, where he's from, has this irrational obsession with transgenderism in recent years, and I find it mostly to be cringe.
Still, I think he has a point. Like he talked about how you have to accept the idea that trans women are real women regardless of genitals or biology, and I do think that's a big trap that SJWs fall into. It is absurd when the issue is framed that way, and it's a losing issue for the left. I think the biological truth of sex is what it is, and that to some extent, the SJWs try too forcefully to make people accept absurdities as an article of faith. Even I personally ain't comfortable accepting that, even though I tend to avoid the subject out of fear of being labelled as transphobic myself. But while we're on the subject, I think it's better to look at it this way:
Regardless of the biological nature of sex, I think that it's beneficial to accept a trans person's preferred gender as a SOCIAL CONSTRUCT. It's NOT a biological fact. SJWs try to push this obvious falsehood in order to promote the acceptance of trans people, and to make trans people feel more comfortable in their own skin. But I think it's a losing argument because not only is it biologically wrong, its implications are problematic. Should straight people be obligated to have sex with trans people in order to not be transphobic, for example? After all trans women are real women, right?
Still, the discussion of the issue shouldn't be based on whether a trans person's preferred gender identification is a biological fact. The issue should be based on whether trans people should have the right to live as they want as long as they don't harm others. And they should. As such, I kind of view the transgenderism debate to largely be absurd in general. Jesus christ people, just let them live their lives in peace.
However, as you can tell, this small philosophical difference comes down to the differing worldviews between myself and those who are "woke". Woke people take the more abrasive way out and try to force people to accept absurd doctrines under the threat of social exclusion and punishment, whereas I develop a positive framework for the acceptance of trans people and their rights, bypassing the biological issue completely. Because quite frankly, it's not important from a factual perspective and misses the point of the entire debate IMO. This is about a person's liberties and rights, not about biological fact.
As such, i think Dawkins, no matter how crappy he comes off here, has a point about the woke people, and I would agree that their framing of the issue makes them look just as bad as religious zealots trying to force creationism on people.
Toward the end of the video, Jordan peterson stated that the erosion of Christian morals that Richard Dawkins helped create is why we're in this situation. And as someone who supports that same erosion of morals, I think that that's the wrong way to look at it.
There is nothing explicit in the rejection of christianity that means that we have to accept wokeism as the alternative. A rejection of one is NOT a tacit endorsement of another. Secular humanism and postmodernism can overlap and humanists can also be post modernists, but they do not HAVE to be linked.
I will admit though that atheism and secular humanism has apparently created a vacuum in our society that was eventually filled by SOMETHING though, and that something was basically postmodernism.
I've actually noticed that a lot in recent years and if I recall even responded to an article outlining this transition from one to another. Basically, some would argue that atheism in itself couldnt create a comprehensive worldview to fill all of humans' psychological needs, and as a result eventually the left clung to postmodernism. I think that there is an argument for this and it does appear to be what happened, but I think it's deeper than that.
Honestly, I blame the rise of postmodernism and "woke" politics on the political forces of 2016. Before 2016, all of this stuff was fringe. We had elevator gate, and the atheist community mostly outright rejected the SJWs' crap on the subject, and as a result developed a stigma of being a bunch of racist sexist white males. And then in 2014, we had gamergate where SJWs picked a fight with gamers and it was WWIII on the internet for a while.
But honestly? Most of this stuff was FRINGE before 2014. No, what really drove the rise of postmodernism was Hillary Clinton's campaign and the need for the political left to unite around some common cause.
Think about it. Hillary Clinton was basically a radical feminist. her followers were radical feminists. Clinton had nothing for her to but lean into postmodernism to shame all of her opponents, both within and outside of the democratic party (Bernie and Trump and their supporters), and it served to unite a coalition mostly based around race and gender and sexuality on a crusade against the evil sexist racist white men.
And in a sense, postmodernism as an ideology became the litmus test. And as a white male secular humanist atheist free thinker who liked Bernie Sander...I rejected that. That's the thing. When SJWs play their games and force everyone to accept their ideologies as an article of faith, it polarizes people. And those who don't fall in behind the cult find themselves outside of it.
And for a while I tried to seek a middle ground with these people, acknowledging their points but also trying to keep my own ideology independent of them, recognizing a psychological attack on myself and my worldview in the process. The fact is, those guys basically tried to get me to abandon my worldview and accept theirs, as most cultists do, and as an ex christian, I just won't do that. As I said, I didn't leave fundamentalist Christianity and join the left...for THIS. This left wing version of religious fundamentalism. And anyone who thinks they can force me to accept their doctrines can kindly F off.
It's this kind of aggression and political cynicism that drove this ideology to the forefront. In the absence of any other positive qualities and the age of clinton, and the need to enforce party discipline among democrats, liberals, and leftists, postmodernism was forced down peoples' throats, and most just accepted it.
But I didn't. Because my mind had already been vaccinated against those kinds of forces. And that's why a lot of the old guard of atheism like Richard Dawkins, Sam harris, and Bill maher are now considered political pariahs among the left. And you know what? I'm right there with them.
Honestly, I'm going to even reject the narrative that atheism created a moral vacuum. Secular humanism is a darned strong epistemological worldview, and my politics are just that worldview personified. Such a worldview inevitably leads to, in a western environment at least, a liberal or libertarian stance on social issues, and a rather humanitarian stance on economics that takes the form of some form of liberalism.
A lot of so called "leftism" is a completely different ideology. It can be compatible with secular humanism and as I've stated before there are some influences in my worldviews, but I never saw a reason to abandon humanism as the core ideology. If anything, trending too far into marxism or post modernism seems to make people brain dead ideologues with absurd takes on issues, which is why I end up going after the far left as strongly as I attack the right.
So...where does that leave us?
Well, while the amazing atheist normally has some decent takes, and I know he's run afoul of "woke" politics before, he's kind of wrong here IMO. I actually largely sympathize with Dawkins' opinions here. Wokeism IS a cult. it's a worldview that masquerades as a religion, and has many quasi religious features in order to suppress freedom of thought and conformity to doctrine.
And ya know what? I'm tired of pretending it doesn't. I know some idiots will think I'm a right winger for this, but yeah. I reject this cult for the same reasons I reject Christianity. Because freedom of thought, evidence, and liberal values are important. And both factions are illiberal, authoritarian, and obsessed with conformity, so both should be resisted equally.
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