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27 June 2003  

Is "Bright" Beyond the Pale?

What is behind all of this outrage at Richard Dawkins' "Brights" article? I mean, I can see someone finding the whole idea a bit silly, and perhaps the implied antonyms make it a bit ill-mannered, but those evaluations would hardly warrant the scorn-fest we're seeing. As Dean Esmay notes, "a lot of people [are] angrily denouncing a very trivial thing. I find that fascinating." Dawkins is being labeled an arrogant boor by theists and atheists alike. Worse, all of them are on an ideological axis of the blogosphere where I usually place myself. It's more than a little ironic that this axis identifies itself as "anti-idiotarian." In fact, all but one of the sites linked above who find "bright" so uncouth a term appear, unashamedly, on this list. Really now, if you're OK with explicitly calling your political opponents idiots, whence comes your high dudgeon over someone merely suggesting it in another realm?

That realm — religion — does appear to be the key to this mystery. The memo that Dawkins didn't get is the one that said religious beliefs are off limits for criticism, or at least off limits for the kind of bluntly negative characterizations of opposing views that one is allowed to throw around liberally in the rough-and-tumble fray of any other domain. If a tacit proscription of this kind were being enforced in a different ideological camp, it might be called political correctness.

Whatever it is, I'm not playing along. Belief in religion may have been excusable thousands of years ago as mankind first tried to make sense of the world. In the 21st century, it just betrays a lack of clear thinking. And no one has explained to me why this particular brand of irrationality should get a free pass.

At the risk of appearing to make a "some of my best friends..." kind of qualification, I have to add that none of the above means I regard all religious people as stupid. First of all, some people don't take their religion that seriously — it's more cultural than anything else. Others are predominantly sharp individuals who have for some reason compartmentalized religion as a logic-free zone. They literally don't practice what they preach, and in this case I'm all for it. None of this changes the fact that qua religious believer, they've made a mistake in my opinion, an obvious one and a dangerous one.

Since a wickens.ca post without a mention of Ayn Rand is like a Corner post without a gay reference, let me note finally that Dawkins is in good company having people all aghast at the idea of him stepping over this invisible line of religion-respecting decorum. It's reported that Ayn Rand's first words upon meeting William F. Buckley were "You're too intelligent to believe in God." Buckley wasn't as flattered as he ought to have been.

12:07 AM |