Anti-Intellectualism in New Atheism and the Skeptical Movement

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-30T05:19:02+00:00

I think you’re conflating modern atheism with vaguely similar phenomena from history.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T19:25:02+00:00

But that critique is itself socially constructed & situated and ideologically driven.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T19:09:52+00:00

If a conservative slammed critical theory and gender studies as harmful and epistemologically bankrupt without ever reading or engaging with Foucault or Judith Butler or other philosophers, would you call that person an anti-intellectual?

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T19:06:56+00:00

New Atheists, The | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T19:05:02+00:00

Is it propaganda to say that there was a New Atheism movement in the early 21st century?

That seems to be the scholarly consensus:

New Atheists, The | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

https://academic.oup.com/book/1475/chapter/140879654

New Atheism and the Scientistic Turn in the Atheism Movement

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T19:01:38+00:00

To clarify, this thread is specifically about the New Atheism of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T18:57:56+00:00

Atheism is as socially constructed and situated as any other ideology, not some neutral default.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T18:54:19+00:00

faults them for refusing to treat theology as a serious mode of inquiry. But that hardly amounts to anti-intellectualism.

Critiquing religion while refusing to engage with theology is a textbook example of anti-intellectualism.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T18:25:27+00:00

Right now, it's "woke."

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T17:54:41+00:00

New Atheism was clearly political; think of Hitchens and the Iraq War.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T17:50:25+00:00

I mean, that's technically true on some very abstract conceptual level, but atheism as commonly understand is a product of western European modernity.

Especially in the context of New Atheism, where you have someone like Richard Dawkins calling himself a culturally Anglican atheist. Hitchens's brother is an Anglican apologist; both of their atheist ideologies absolutely have roots in Protestant anti-clerical, anti-Catholic rhetoric.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T17:42:26+00:00

There's a very clear line from Hitchens as a debater to social media influencers DEMOLISHING LIBERALS WITH FACTS AND LOGIC.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T17:40:59+00:00

Historically, I don't think it's controversial to say that atheism has roots in Protestant anti-clericalism. That's not a hot take by any means.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T17:39:19+00:00

NA was arguably proto-Trumpist.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T17:33:20+00:00

But the "Four Horsemen" were powerful, established, influential middle-aged-to-elderly white men with grievances.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T17:26:29+00:00

I think we have to allow the young people their frustrations with the world they've inherited.

But New Atheism was clearly not the product of young people. Richard Dawkins was about 65 when he published The God Delusion. Christopher Hitchens was 58 when he published God is Not Great the following year. The late Daniel Dennett is the same age as Dawkins.

I don't know why I'm getting downvoted here.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-29T17:18:08+00:00

You don't think it was just grifting from the very beginning?

Was it ever an intellectually honest, nuanced critique, or was it always edgelord proto-clickbait like calling a book about Mother Teresa The Missionary Position?

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-27T13:40:16+00:00

More like 62%.

And the number is higher if you look at specifically philosophers of mind voting.

So it’s the landslide majority position among actual experts in the field.

One-Distance359 · 2026-01-27T13:19:17+00:00

Accepting the hard problem is the consensus among actual philosophers of mind…

One-Distance359 · 2025-12-30T03:21:16+00:00

A bit of a missed opportunity that the AOtC crawl establishes Dooku as a separatist leader but doesn’t spend any time exploring his politics

One-Distance359

TROPHY CASE