SIO297: New Atheists Didn't "Merge with the Far Right"

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is me, Thomas, doing a solo show. Got some commentary for you. I did promise. Well, not only you guys, but I did promise Lindsay that I would still do these occasionally because she likes them. So she says. But don't you worry. We already have a recording in the bank for next week. Lindsay and I had Aaron on the show. Of course, Aaron Rabinowitz from Philosophers in Space and his show embrace the void. And we will break down for you on Wednesday, next Wednesday, the pointlessness paper in the journal of whatever the heck ideas journal of kind of boring, not really particularly controversial ideas. It was a lot of fun. So don't worry, we'll be right back to our regularly scheduled program. But I just wanted to talk about this because it's something that's, you know, kind of right in the wheelhouse of what the show used to be and sometimes still is, which is this meta-atheism kind of, I don't know, niche.

0:01:27 Thomas: It used to be all I'd talk about, you know, like the disagreements within the atheism movement and also a lot of times defending atheism from attacks from people, something I've done less and less, but this may seem like a bit of that. So you've seen the title of the episode. If you don't Know What That's About, there was a Salon article recently written by Phil Torres, past guest, multi-time guest on the show called Godless Grifters, How the New Atheists Merged with the Far Right. And the photo, cover photo, which is pretty important in today's media environment in which most people see on social media, you share an article, you see the title, and you see The Picture. And if we're being honest, that's most of what anyone sees.

0:02:13 Thomas: Most people don't read the article. They click on it or they, you know, they don't click on it and they just share it because it confirms their beliefs. We've all done that. But also, so it's a big deal. And I only say that because that is my main problem with this article that we'll get to. The cover photo is Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Steven Pinker. So godless grifters, how the new atheists merged with the far right, Sam Harris. Richard Dawkin, Steven Pinkar, picture just underneath. So before I go on, I don't think I I need to reiterate to you folks how much I've criticized Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and even Steven Pinker. Recently, I said I want to do an episode that's just called Fuck Steven Pinker, which I might do. We'll see. Still in the works, still in the back of my mind. Not a big fan. I'm not at all a fan of any of these guys.

0:03:01 Thomas: Obviously, I was. I can't hide that I used to be a fan of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. I don't think I ever was a fan of Steven Pinker. He wasn't really that big in the new atheism movement that I knew of. I mean, he was around, but already that is a little weird to include him in that grouping, but I could be wrong there. Maybe different people experienced new atheism differently, but Stephen Pinker was not anywhere near the Four Horsemen for me. So I want to say off the bat, I think I've already said this, but Phil is a friend. Phil Torres has been on the show. This is not really at all a criticism of Phil, because I have learned after a lot of years of doing this, you don't get to choose your headline and your picture. If you are the author of an article, that's just how they do it. You know, you write, you submit an article and then salon.com or pretty much every website like that.

0:03:52 Thomas: They choose the headline and they choose the art that goes with it. So I think this is pretty much not at all a criticism of Phil. I don't think, I think this is really a criticism with that decision. And obviously, if that's all I had to say, the episode would be over and I'd say, "I don't like that headline," and then be over. But I think there's a lot to talk about around this. And I'm curious to see if folks will agree or disagree. So here's what I would propose. And again, I think automatically there'sa group of people that seems pretty large that interacts with me online who, already the minute you try to say you don't agree with the article or the headline or the whatever, you know, then you're cast as agreeing or trying to defend these people and their behavior, which is very much not true.

0:04:38 Thomas: I don't think I should have to tell my regular listeners that. I'm not a fan of these people, as I've said. I just think that like, I just wonder, what are we trying to do here these days? You know, I really wonder who is this helping and what is it accomplishing? Salon has long had a history of just shitting on new atheists. And what's funny is back in the day, I used to get really mad about it. And now I get it a little little more, you know, now that, now that, you know, I've evolved in my views and I've come to see how the new atheists were really problematic in many ways. And I've been also a lead critic of them on certain issues and I get it now. So I definitely don't have that same response, but I still think this does nothing but further inflame people who might otherwise be reachable.

0:05:32 Thomas: I really, in this case, I think it's significant. Sometimes it's like, oh, it's a minor tone policing thing. It doesn't matter. But like, who are we trying to, whose mind are we trying to get to? Who are we trying to change? Are we just writing an article? Are we just publishing clickbait? Honestly, like maybe that's what we're doing. We're just publishing a clickbait article. People can see Godless Grifters. I hate these new atheists. They're the far right. I see Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins' picture and maybe, you know, Steven Pinker. Good. Share. Awesome. Some clickbait. Great. You know, or are we trying to meaningfully warn somebody about this? Are we trying to reach somebody who might take these people seriously, but may not be very right wing, which is going to be a lot of them. I can all but guarantee you, having been a Sam Harris fan previously, I can all but guarantee you anyone who is a Sam Harris fan at all, at all who sees this is instantly going to say, well, this is bullshit.

0:06:30 Thomas: Salon is a bullshit thing. Sam Harris hasn't merged with the far right. Sam Harris spent hours railing against Trump, trying to get people to not vote for Trump. Now, maybe some of the problem here could be definitional, like maybe we have different definitions, but I think it's pretty hard to say you've merged with the far right if you are an outspoken critic of Trump and also have other left-wing views, which Sam Harris absolutely does. Richard Dawkins absolutely does, Steven Pinker absolutely does. The IDW is its own thing. And it's why you've heard me, if you, if you listen to the show, you've heard me, over the last several years, struggle to find the right language. And for exactly this problem, uh, if we're going to collapse everything down to the people who have some views that are right-wing, which undoubtedly they do.

0:07:22 Thomas: I'm not saying that Harris and Dawkins and Pinker don't have right-wing views. They do. But which ones? How much? Where does that put them? Who do you think they voted for? You know, those are all questions that I think matter. And that's why I've come to embrace the term that I just came up with. So I don't know that it's a great term, but I've Come to say cultural conservatives, because I think that gets at it. I think there's an old, it tends to be an older generation, administration, usually, who like Dawkins, you know, and Harris is a little bit older and all the all the same type of people, Pinker, the same IDW people. They all seem to be a little bit older. They all seem to be people who had voted Democrat their whole lives, basically. I mean, unless you just want to say people are outright lying, which you can, but I mean that would be a long con.

0:08:10 Thomas: Because I followed these people since back in 2008, or whatever, when, when, or yeah, maybe a little earlier than that, when they, it would be a very long con for them to have been saying this whole time they vote Democratic. Now, obviously, Dawkins isn't an American, so that's a little different. But he would criticize George Bush. He would do all those things.

He was, he would agree with with the sentiments in that four person, four horsemen video, which was one of my favorite things back in the day. So that would be along con. I don't really, that I don't think that's true.

I think it's pretty easy for me to believe, having listened to these people for a long time, back when I used to like them a lot more, um, they, they've always voted Democrat and, uh, they've supported Democratic candidates, but, and this is a big but, in recent years there are a number of these people, namely the IDW, like specifically those type of people who, I think, socially speaking, in certain ways the left went too far for them, and, you know, it's been frustrating because I am going with the left and learning, you know, I've gone with that. I have gone with the left and separated myself, at least in just in my personal politics, from these people and people like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Pinker, the Weinstein, Weinstein brothers. Well, although I think Eric Weinstein is pretty right wing, actually, and we'll get to, there's some exceptions to this. But like these, this, this group of people has split

0:09:46 Thomas: Off from the left, obviously, and to varying degrees they have gone to the right, I guess, but again, in a cultural way. I mean, if you took their views, if you were able to pull their views on economic issues, on even stuff like gay marriage, so other, other issues, I, that doesn't make someone a full lefty, and I'm not saying that, but it also is, is importantly not far right. So I don't know, maybe it's a definitional thing. Maybe if you make some argument that because Sam Harris has been so fucking stupid on these race issues and honestly has been racist on the race and IQ issues, like absolutely, I think that's something that has been very damaging. And if the headline said, I want to propose two changes that I would, but if, if this were true, I'd have no problem with it.

0:10:34 Thomas: If the headline was instead how new new atheists became a pipeline to the right or something like that, I don't know. I'm not, I don't work for Salon. I would come up with something maybe a little punchier, but whatever, you know, like that, I think, is a very defensible claim. And it's an important one. You know, it is really important. And it's one that Sam Harris supporters would still hate me for. They'll be blah, blah, but it's demonstrably true that Sam Sam Harris turned into a step along the path to the far right for some people for a meaningful number of people. You know, he introduced them to race science, you know, and IQ, all that bullshit with Charles Murray. And that was, I think, a genuine gateway for some people.

0:11:20 Thomas: That was a genuine gateway to the alt-right for a group of people, hard to know how many, and I think you can, you can take really uncharitable views and say it's all of them, like his entire audience. Or you could take more charitable views and say, I don't know. I don't know how many people are of his previous audience, how many were susceptible to those racist beliefs, specifically for the reason that, and I wanted to talk about this, what bothers me about this is for so long, Salon has bashed new atheists. And I've already emphasized that I think they were actually right in a lot of cases that I was wrong. And I acknowledge that, but also it's been used more broadly in the media and in our culture to bash atheists, which is particularly frustrating given that atheists as a group support Biden and supported Hillary over Trump more than any other religious group.

0:12:11 Thomas: And I think that's what really gets at me. That's what really irks me. A lot of this is being used to bash atheists more broadly. I know the article may be more specifically targeted, and I think it is. I think Phil did a good job. Phil did a great job in the article of keeping his claims to what he could support and documenting what he was actually saying with links and all that. He did a great job in that. But the headline and the photo really compromised that in my mind. I just think it's absolutely abundantly clear to me that Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, and specifically Steven, even Pinker, as much as I hate him, I don't even think the article attempts to claim that he is merged with the far right. Imagine if there's a picture, if you're an atheist out there, imagine if there was a picture of you and it says "new atheist merged with alt-right" or whatever, the far-right.

0:13:04 Thomas: And then in the article, yeah, okay, there's couple examples. That's the other thing I was going to get to. James Lindsay is the biggest example here and Peter Boghossian. And they're both in the article. And those are, I think, the furthest right wing of anyone who was remotely involved in atheism that I know of. And maybe you could say Michael Shermer was always kind of a libertarian guy. Talk about that. Gosh, there's a lot of topics I want to get to. To. So again, if the picture had been of James Lindsay and maybe Peter Boghossian, that would work. You know, the headline then, here's my other qualm with this though. James Lindsay was not at all a new atheist. He just wasn't. Like I was there, folks. I tried to tweet about this because I know it might seem like a minor thing, but it's a little frustrating.

0:13:51 Thomas: Like you're using James Lindsay, somebody who demonstrably barely, barely had an influence as an atheist. I tweeted the The photos of his Amazon reviews, his books. I remember I was there. I had him on the show because I saw that he, and this is relevant to that other podcast that's, that's been a little critical of me lately that I'm not going to name. And we'll see if I end up doing anything with that. I don't know. Part of me is just so annoyed. I don't care anymore. But anyway, one of the reasons I had James Lindsay on, and you might remember this, you might not, is that I was a tiny show. In 2014, I was a very small show. I'm still a very small show, by the way. I've grown since then. This show has grown since then. But I was a very small show, and so James Lindsay was a gettable guest for me.

0:14:38 Thomas: Why? Because no one knew who the fuck he was. Nobody knew who he was! If you do a Google search for 2014 James Lindsay and confine the dates, there's nothing. I mean, he was very unknown. You could not call James Lindsay and new atheists. By the time James Lindsay had any, any sort of meaningful following new atheism was already like dead. You know, it was already, it might be, might even be post Hitchens. I think when Hitchens died, new atheism pretty much died. Uh, we could argue about the dates. It's always hard to put a fine line on these things, but I, I think that's a defensible line to say that like the quote-unquote new atheism movement died with Christopher Hitchens. And then it became a weird divided thing where, again, a lot of the blame goes to Sam Harris, who went down this rabbit hole and started getting into these weird, culturally conservative things.

0:15:33 Thomas: But I was there. James Lindsay was a nobody until he went on the anti woke grift. And this is backed up by the Amazon data, you know, some of which, by the way, if anything, since he's gained notoriety later on, it's possible that he got got more Amazon reviews after the fact, but set that aside. His first atheism book, God Doesn't, We Do, Only Humans Can Solve Human Challenges, that was what his Twitter name was based on back then. I remember his Twitter game was atgoddoesnt. The handle still exists. It has 33 followers, and it now says, defunct, my new thingy is at conceptual james, which is pretty pretty clear. He started that once the conceptual penis grift started.

0:16:21 Thomas: 33 followers. Like, for example, I don't use at T and the B anymore. Like I don't use it. And people don't just unfollow. Like it still has 6,000 followers over there, even though I DON'T use It. So it's like, it's not as though God doesn't, the Twitter handle had like a billion followers and everybody left. Like people don'T really do that. You know, if you stop tweeting, they don't think to, I mean, obviously a certain percentage might, but like for the most part, you don't think to go and follow. So that's kind of tells you how small, how minuscule his following was. 11 Amazon reviews. The one everybody is wrong about God that he, I think he got a foreword by Boghossian, and Peter Boghossian was always a little bit more known than James Lindsay until now, I think. But back then in atheism, that one got 70 reviews.

0:17:07 Thomas: So, all right. Few people read that. I mean, really not that many. I had him on the show again to promote it because he was an easy gettable guest and my show was not very big. And then once he starts doing the conceptual penis stuff, his, I don't know if this is his latest book, but his cynical theories book, 2,842 ratings. So we went from 11 to 70 under atheism. And then when he goes full IDW grift, anti-woke grift, 2,882. The point is his notoriety right now is not at all based on atheism at all. It's just not. And what little of it is, you could argue that he had a couple atheist followers through, especially through Peter Boghossian.

0:17:53 Thomas: They were, they're very, they were still very close and Boghossian propped him up and Boghossian had a little more sway with an atheism. Still not a huge name. It is hard to even call him part of new atheists. James Lindsay, I don't think you could meaningfully call part of of new atheists, unless every single follower of atheism at that time is allowed to have that name. In which case, saying new atheism merged with the far right is laughable. That's just not true. If you're counting like all of the movement. So back to what I was saying, imagine if your face or my face as an atheist, as an atheist who has like a tiny following at least, was on the cover of a Salon article that said how the new atheist merged with a far right. And then the only thing that remotely justifies that is James Lindsay.

0:18:39 Thomas: And you're like, hold on, you're using somebody who wasn't there, like barely even was a blip in atheism. By the way, another thing I thought of too, did James Lindsay ever speak at an atheism conference? I do not remember that a single time. Now I'm not, I don't have a perfect memory, but I think if you look back, you are not going to find that he was at any of the major ones. I am pretty certain about that. It is hard to check them all. But maybe I have no idea if someone invited him to speak somewhere. I don't think so. He was not part of that movement, really, at all. I was there again. OK, it would be pretty frustrating if you were on the cover of something. And then the only thing that really justified the merged with the far right claim is James Lindsay. That would be frustrating to me. So let's go in order of the picture, because I think that, again, that is my main problem.

0:19:26 Thomas: We got Sam Harris, Dawkins and Pinker. So here's the Sam Harris section. And I just want to pick out maybe the best, because I do want to present the best side, because again, I don't like these people. I absolutely want to critique these people and I do, but I want to pick out, is there anything that could at all justify merging with the far right, which is a huge claim.

I mean, in the wake of white supremacist chants of the Jews will not replace us and Trumpism and coups happening, being called far right is actually a big deal. I think that is something that we should say for for people who are on the far right because things are bad, you know, far right is, it's it's bad. I, I think a lot of connotations come with that and I think we're better off if that label retains its value if somebody who has, who's a TERF, but in all other respects, for example, is left. I'm not a fan of that person, don't get me wrong, I'm not defending their character. But are they far right because they have one view that's that? Is that, is that a useful way of labeling people? Is that a, will that help anything to label people like that? You know, again, I'm not absolving that person of responsibility. I'm absolutely not. I're not saying like, oh, they'll have no choice, but to go further, right.

But like, it doesn't help if you have the choice between labeling that person is like, well, they are, you know, they're TERF. Yeah. I's going to not label them that. Uh, but otherwise call them culturally conservative, call them whatever you want to call them. If you just label them all right or far right, I don't see how that holds up. You know, there are a lot of people who are a certain age, maybe they are a little older.

0:21:10 Thomas: They didn't, they haven't come along with the progressive left on some of these cultural issues. And that's problem. I disagree with them. I try to convince them at any time I can. I think it hurts us more than it helps us to label them as far right. Okay. The Sam Harris section, you know, it's short enough. I may be able to read most of it. Let's see. Arguably the progenitor of new atheism. I think Hitchens was honestly. So Phil, I'm going to disagree with you there. Hitchens and Dawkins were way bigger. Back during that Four Horsemen video, I know as an atheist, again, before any of this, before the political whatever, as an enthusiast, I was there to watch Hitchens & Dawkins. And then I didn't know who Dennett was and I didn't know who Harris was. And frankly, I've said this before, in that Four Horsemen video, Harris kind of annoyed me and I wanted him to stop talking and I want to listen to Hitchens and Dawkins more.

0:21:59 Thomas: So I don't know about that claim. But anyway, not a big deal. Harris was, for me, one of more entertaining atheists. More recently, though, he is quoting, again, the Salon article by Phil Torres. He has expended a prodigious amount of time and energy vigorously defending the scientific racism of Charles Murray. That's absolutely true. Nothing wrong with that claim. Absolutely agree. He believes that IQ is a good measure of intelligence. Okay, I want to pause there. What percentage of people do you think believe that IQis a good measure of intelligence. I mean, that's, I think if you polled people, like 90% of them would say IQ is a good measure of intelligent. I'm not saying that means it's right. Um, but that's a weird thing to put again under the headline. And so I don't, I can't really blame Phil under the headline merge with the far right.

0:22:47 Thomas: And one of your justifications is he believes that IQ is a good measurement. I think it's not very well known that that doesn't seem to be true. Like like experts, intelligence researchers. I gather from my reading that IQ is not a good measure of intelligence. But how many people know that? I don't think that many people know that. Anyway, back into the article. He argued to Josh Zeps during a podcast interview that not only that black people are less intelligent than white people, but that this is because of genetic evolution. He has consistently given white nationalists a pass while arguing that Black Lives Matter is overly contentious, has stubbornly advocated profiling Muslims or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim at airports. This is, I think I've talked about almost every one of these issues. This next part, I Think, is somewhere where I do think Phil is being a little bit unfair because then he tries to make a comparison to Donald Trump.

0:23:37 Thomas: And in an article where, you know, again, the thesis is apparently that they merged with the far right. This is a cheap way to do it. He says this, quote, when Harris believes he's right about something, it becomes virtually impossible to talk him out of it, no matter how many good arguments, expert opinions or or hard data are presented to him. Like Donald Trump, he's pretty much unteachable. End quote. That's, I gotta be honest, that's pretty unfair. In this day and age, we're all fucking unteachable. Who are we kidding? Do you really think it's fair to say that Sam Harris is as unteacheable as Donald Trump? Come on. You know, that not, not every amount of rigid in your views is Donald Trump. That's really unfair. You could be wrong and be rigid in your wrongness, but have intellectually more defensible reasons for being wrong.

0:24:30 Thomas: Sam Harris reads books. Donald Trump does not read books. You know, this strikes me as a cheap way to try to make that far right claim work. Just liken him to Donald Trump by being unteachable. That is unfair. I think that is not not a good sentence. Okay. Skipping a little bit.

His primary focus these days is boosting the moral panic over social justice warriors, political correctness, and wokeism, which he apparently believes poses a dire threat to Western civilization, a word that has a lot of meaning for white nationalists, Uh, end quote. Yeah, I totally agree with that. Totally agree with that. That is, it seems to be his main thing, the moral panick over the woke. Absolutely. And it's really frustrating. Um, I'll finish out here. Uh, he, he's become popular, quote: Consequently, Harris has become popular among right-wingers and the sentiment appears to be mutual. But to support that, here's what he said, for example: he's described Ben Shapiro as being, quote, "committed to the rules of intellectual honesty and the same principles of charity with regard to other people's positions," end quote. Yeah, no, that's that's a good, uh, good critique of Sam Harris. That's one, one of the stupidest things Sam Harris has ever said. It's a little bit dated. He said that a while ago.

I remember because it was around the time that I really fully just fucking gave up on Sam Harris. Right when he said he couldn't talk to the left anymore, but he could talk to Ben fucking Shapiro because he's committed to the rules of intellectual honesty. Note in that same quote, he said that he disagreed with Ben Shapiro on a bunch of stuff, but he could have a conversation because he thought Ben Shapiro was committed to the same rules.

0:26:06 Thomas: Now, he's wrong about Ben Shapiro. He's totally wrong. And that's a really stupid thing to say. So that's the evidence to back up the claim that he is merged with the far right. We get he does. And by the way, these are true things for the most part. I think the Donald Trump comparison is the only thing that I find outright unfair. But there's a difference between these things being true. Guilty as is charged, and these things meaning he has merged with the far right. So is he racist? Yep. Does he have racist views? Yep, but here's where I want to make what I think is a pretty important argument. I think we ought to be careful to not play the no-truth Scotsman when it comes to being on the left, and this is going to apply to a number of things.

0:26:55 Thomas: While on one hand, And Sam Harris has racist views, and that puts him in league with some right-wing people for sure on that specific question. I think if you look at the other way and say, well, does that mean that there's nobody on the left who has racist reviews? Does that mean automatically if you express these racist views you are on the right or even the let alone the far right? And on one hand, you might want to say, yeah, I would I would think. But on the other hand, I think that lets us off the hook too easily. I think that lets the left off the hook too easily for times that honestly, there's plenty of racism on the left. So I think it's a, that's a little too easy. And that strikes me as like everybody who is wrong.

0:27:40 Thomas: I get to say, isn't on my side. Everybody who's got problematic views of one sort or another, I get to say isn't my side and then it becomes a no true Scotsman, you know, like a no true leftsman thing. I think that lets us off the hook because when I looked at the democratic primary process and what happened there. I saw a lot of sexism, for example. You know, I see a lot of sexism. I see some measure of racism in the fact that we had to go with an old white man. Now, that's a complicated question. That doesn't mean that's operating for everybody. I'm not saying that. There's some amount of it. And the point is, if there's some amout of it, which I think there is on the left, I don't think it's as simple as someone who has a racist view, as Sam Sam Harris does, I'm not arguing that, automatically you get to say, well, they're on the right, far right, in fact.

0:28:28 Thomas: I think it's actually a more difficult thing to grapple with to realize that there are people who might be Democrats, who might vote for Democrats, might be on the left, who also have some bad views. I think that's a harder thing to deal with. And I think if we want to convince them, and I'm not talking about Sam Harris, I'm talking about, again, the fallout here isn't about Sam Harris himself. The fallout is about, for me anyway, the point of this is if there's anybody who respects Sam Harris in any way, but is still reachable, this is just going to move them further to Sam Harris. So what are we doing here? If you don't care, you don'T care. Fine. If you DON'T care about that, if you think it's not a concern of yours, okay, you know, fine. But like, what are we doing Here Salon?

0:29:14 Thomas: Is the point to try to drive people who might slightly agree with Sam Harris further to him, than just pat ourselves on the back and feel great because we say that they've merged with the far right? And that's, that's great. I don't know. I mean, if that's your goal, that's your goal. I think that this is not helping. That headline and picture are not helping. I think it is a defensible position to say Sam Harris is a pipeline to the right. Sam Harris has some right wing views for sure. But I don't think the claim that he has merged with the far right is supported by this paragraph. All right, let's go to the next one. I know that is a lot of time. Dawkins, this one's actually even worse. Sam Harris was probably of the three I'm going to cover was the best case because Richard Dawkins.

0:30:01 Thomas: All this is again, I want to remind you, it's picture that says they've merged with the far right, which is a big deal in this day and age when the far Right is storming the Capitol. This is a big deal. And the list of grievances against Richard Dawkin's, I agree with every single one of them. I have raised every single one of these, I think, almost. There's a couple of things that were new to me. I don't think I had remembered how much he went after the, remember the Muslim teenager who brought the clock to school? Like Richard Dawkins had a frigging weird thing about that kid that I did not remember. He was just like, well, what was he doing with a clock? You know, which again, I agree with these. I just recently yelled about how mad I was at Richard Dawkins for the elevator gate stuff.

0:30:49 Thomas: But all this reads as to me is a bunch of legitimate grievances with Richard Dawkins. None of it, none of it backs up the claim that he's merged with the far right. None of it just doesn't. I could, I could read you the whole paragraph. It tells me he's bigoted against Muslims for sure. For sure. Do you think that there's nobody on the left who's bigotted against Muslims? Do you think that that one view means you're far, not just right, far right? I don't think so. I think that's too easy. That lets us off the hook too easy where we get to say, yeah, no, the left is for all the people. There is no, A, there's no racism and B, there is no anti-Muslim bigotry on the left. Totally pure. None of that. You can't be on the, you know, I don't think that's how the world works.

0:31:36 Thomas: I mean, it's how I would like it to work that way. I don't think it works that way. Let me read you this. It's not long. The Docking section is not long. I want to remind you, I agree with every single claim here. Absolutely. I agree with these criticisms. I have criticized Dawkins for the same thing. I'm not defending any of this. Okay. Once a heavyweight within the world of evolutionary biology, Dawkins energized atheists the world over with his book, The God Delusion. Over time, though, it became increasingly clear that he's neither an adult in the room, nor a particularly nice guy. I disagree with all that. For some bizarre reason, he obsessively targeted a Muslim teenager in Texas who was arrested after a homemade clock he brought to school was wrongly thought to be a bomb. He also flipped out over what came to be called Elevator Gate, which began with Rebecca Watson calmly asking men to be thoughtful and considerate about how they make women feel at conferences.

0:32:22 Thomas: For example, in the enclosed space of an elevator. I not only stepping out, not only do I agree with that, I went through all that a few episodes ago. Good criticism. Good job, Phil. Agree with it. Back to the article. This resulted in a flood of rape and death threats directed toward Watson, while Dawkins mocked the situation by writing a shocking letter addressed Dear Muslima, in which the first line was stop whining, will you? More recently, he's made it clear that he hasn't isn't bothered by the allegations against Krauss and posted seemingly anti-trans comments on Twitter. When asked why Twitter has caused him so much trouble, he claimed, I love truth too much. And then Phil sneaks in or I say he sneaks and it's like a parenthetical for some reason, I think, because it doesn't really relate to anything else here for Dawkins troubling Troubling views on aborting fetuses with Down syndrome.

0:33:10 Thomas: See this. Like, I don't know. I don't like how Dawkins has spoken about that. But if you make the personal choice or would make the personal choice if you were pregnant to abort a fetus with Down syndrome, are you far right? I don't know. It doesn't seem to support that to me. And then we throw in a few more tweets, which are really bad. Again, don't defend any of this. Here's a tweet. Date rape is bad. Stranger rape at knife point is worse. If you think that's an endorsement of date rape, go away and learn how to think. I remember that one, Richard Dawkins. I remember that. The other tweet is a response to somebody else who said, I demand the right to get drunk as fuck and still not be violated. By the way, totally agree.

0:33:56 Thomas: To which Dawkins replied, of course, that's your right. But don't expect a jury to take your word against his if you can't remember what happened, which is fucking gross. Okay. That's the entire section I read to you. I didn't skip anything in that one because it's really short. Is there anything in there that at all remotely justifies the claim that he has merged, again, quote, merged with the far right? By the way, this is a secondary point and it's not as important to me, but you know, while we're on the topic, is there anything that even says he's a grifter? Because keep in mind, This was godless grifters was actually the first two words of this article, godless grifters. And I think James Lindsay is a grifter. I think Bogosian is a gifter. I can demonstrate that they are huge grifters.

0:34:42 Thomas: I think Michael Shermer, to an extent, is a grifter. I don't think anyone else is. I don't think Sam Harris is a grifter. I mean, again, we could have a problem with definitions here, but I think of a grifter and, you know, trying to look it up to make sure I'm not wrong. But con artist, someone who swindles people out of money through fraud, that kind of thing. I think Sam Harris genuinely is kind of racist. I don't think he's racist for money. You know, I think he believes what he says. I don't think he' defrauding anybody. I think He' pretty open with his racist views and He gets paid for it. You know? Is anybody who gets paid for their views a grifter? Don't think so. That would be a tough bar. That would mean opening arguments as a grift, which I would hope you wouldn't think it is.

0:35:30 Thomas: We're doing our best to explain the news and explain the law and people find that valuable and pledge to it. I don't think that's a grift. Michael Shermer, like I said, I see him as a little more grifty because I always thought he was a no talent ass clown, to be honest with you, especially as evidenced by when he came on the show and was the worst. And I demolished him in debating him. That was something that happened. Nothing to him. So I see them as kind of more of a grifter. Krauss. How is Lawrence Krauss a grifter? Come on. I mean, he's a fucking rapist, allegedly. I think I better say allegedly, because I know he might be a little lawsuit happy that Lawrence Krauss. He's a sex pest. Absolutely. I've covered on here many a time. Lawrence Kraus is gross. Super gross. Super, super gross.

0:36:16 Thomas: Is he a grifter? No, he is physicist. I was really a fan of his physics work, of his science communication. I was. I'm not going to pretend I wasn't. I had him on the show before I knew he was a sex pest. I loved his talks, they were great. I was, I thought I was super thrilled that I got to see him once and learn about all this like complicated theoretical physics and stuff. It was super cool. Like, I, you know, I don't think we can do a revisionist thing and say he was always full of shit or something, or like it's not a grift. I don't, I don't think he's a grift. Richard Dawkins a grifter? For one, Richard Dawkins has always been super wealthy. I don't think he needs to grift. And you know, he has books that I, to this day, I still like. I still like Greatest Show on Earth. I still like God Delusion to some extent. Probably not as much now.

0:37:01 Thomas: Actually, I should go back and read that one before I endorse it. I liked it at the time. I don't remember for sure if I still liked it. But Grifter? Eh. James Lindsay? Grifter. Absolutely. 100% a fucking Grifter, ding, ding. But not a new atheist. Was not a New Atheist. Peter Boghossian? Grifter 100%. 100%. Maybe a little bit a New atheist. I think you could say he's maybe the closest thing to somebody who ticks all the boxes of the headline. Like if it was how this new atheist, allegedly kind of Peter Boghossian, merged with the far right and he's a grifter and all there was was Boghossian's face. Yeah, I'm not arguing with that. That's fine. I agree. He's a grifter. Silverman, David Silverman. Okay. Here's a complicating case. I got to get back to Dawkins.

0:37:48 Thomas: I know I'm on a sidebar of a side bar. I do that to myself. Here is another another complicating factor of this. And you know what? Let me finish Dawkins. Okay. I'll set that aside. I'm going to finish Dawkin's Silverman. You could argue now he's a grifter. I don't think he was before, you know, he led American atheist. He seems to have been guilty of some impropriety there. I, I don't think that the general public has the details of that. There could be, I don't know if grift would be the right word, but there could be like, I don't know, embezzling. This is just speculating there. There COULD be something there. He got kicked out for something, relationships that were inappropriate for sure. Grifter? I don't know. Is he a grifter? Now he is. Was he then? I don't know. Pinker, is he a grifter? I mean, he's a successful academic. Uh, I think pinker, you know, is, is all in on the anti-woke stuff.

0:38:34 Thomas: And maybe you could call that a grift a little bit. It's also unclear to me if he was, was he a new atheist? I really don't remember. I don't remember him being, I don't remember finding out about Pinker until much later on. And I didn't even hear him talk about atheism. Like to me, Pinker was always about some other like linguistic stuff and, you know, had some other views, but I don't, I don't remember him being a big atheist influence, you know, write in if you think I'm wrong about that. Okay. Back to Dawkins. Nothing in that paragraph justifies him being labeled as merged with the far right. Nothing, not even close. There's a lot of things that say, boy, you are are really shitty on me too issues. Yeah.

0:39:19 Thomas: Do you think, I know I keep asking this. Do you think that only the far right is shitty on Me Too issues? I can barely ask that without laughing. I think almost, almost, well, I think a majority of the country is terrible on Me Too issues. I don't know how far of a majority, how big of a minority. I think a minority, I think the right is obviously terrible on Me Too issues and then a portion of the left, I think, is pretty bad to varying degrees. And I will give as an example, Al Franken. Al Franken, sex pest, groper. Does that mean he's far right now? Do we get to just say, he's a groper, bad on me too issues, far right. No, Al Franken is not far right, sorry, he's not. And all the people defending him, he is actually just trending today and it's sickening.

0:40:09 Thomas: It's sickening, it's so sexist. People use the fact that Gillibrand missed a vote or something that didn't even matter because you need 60 and we don't have 60 and we're not doing the filibuster. We're not, filibus reform, whole different episode. So she missed a vote. Yeah. Okay. Optics didn't look great on that, I guess, but she said she had a family issue, that happens. People have family issues. And then a bunch of people took to Twitter, and I don't know how astroturf this is. I can't, it's hard to tell nowadays with Twitter, but they got Al Franken trending to say, would Al Franken have missed this vote? Which, all right, that's kind of stupid because in the alternate universe where Al Franken wasn't expelled from the Senate, Gillibrand is still in the Senate. They don't represent the same place, you know, like somebody else.

0:40:56 Thomas: The person who took over for Franken didn't miss the vote. So it doesn't matter, matter. But anyway, they use this opportunity, as a lot of people in this country do, to be sexist against a woman who apparently all of the Franken situation gets to be just, just piled onto Kirsten Gillibrand. Gillibrand, I always forget. You know, that she just gets to take full blame for that. Not him, you know, for the nine accusers, you know, that, that he might've groped, allegedly, again, I'll say allegedly for legal purposes, but I believe them. There's picture evidence. And this was, by the way, not even that comedian person or whatever, that entertainer, that when he was a comedian, this is people on the campaign trail. These are people who are Democrats. These are people who are like worked in Democratic politics, women who said, I couldn't believe this.

0:41:44 Thomas: I voted for the guy and he did this to me during a picture. He has a problem, you know, pretty well documented. I believe those accusers. Um, but anyway, all those people who support Franken, they are being sexist as hell. Are they far right? Do you get to say they're far right because they're being sexists as hell? Do you get to say that anyone who's sexist isn't on the left, that everybody on the left is perfectly pure and not sexist? Fuck no, that's not even close to true. So there is nothing in this. And by the way, I already covered the anti-Muslim bigotry, I I think that still applies. I think there's plenty of anti-Muslim bigotry on the left. I think that isn't something that, again, this is a reason that these people were a bit of a pipeline. Sam Harris, especially, I think he's had the most bad effect of these people, this group of people, because I think he's had the most broad audience and has done the most harm with that audience and led a lot of them to the far right.

0:42:43 Thomas: But Dawkins, you know, a little bit, maybe, yeah, the anti-Muslim bigotry, yeah, that puts someone on a pipeline potentially, that puts someone on track to maybe move further right and maybe even to the far right of the alt right, but that doesn't make him merge with the far right. That's not fair. It's just not. And then let's look at the evidence for Steven Pinker. This is maybe the worst case of all. Steven Pinker's not far right. I hate the fucking guy. He's not far right. Come on. Almost all of it, I think this entire paragraph actually, except for the first sentence. So the first sentence of the charges here are, consider that Pinker has claimed that rape is often over-reported. To support this, he cites right-wingers like Christina Hoff Summers and Heather McDonald as primary sources.

0:43:28 Thomas: Yep. Nope. That's bullshit. Does it mean he's far right? Nope. But it's certainly bullshit. And then the next stuff, so it talks about him being fixated on political correctness. Again, that's an IDW thing. It's culturally right movement. I get it. Totally. It is true that you can be on the left and be, you know, is James Carville a far right person now because he said wokeness is a problem? No. There's a lot of people who don't like wokenness. I disagree with them. There are a lot people who are doing a moral panic over wokenest. I agree with them vehemently. Are they far right? Not all of them. And then the rest of it is all about Jeff Epstein, which, yeah, I get I agree. Once again, Phil, if you happen to be listening. I agree with almost everything you've written in this article.

0:44:16 Thomas: I thought the Sam Harris Donald Trump thing was unfair. I think that was a little cheap personally, but almost everything else fully agree with. It just doesn't support the thing that, you know, 85% of the people will see, I don't know what the numbers are, but tell me, you can actually figure it out. If you're Salon.com, you could see how many impressions that tweet gets, shares, but whatever. And then then you could cross-reference how many people actually read it, like it's going to be a lot of people didn't read it, and even if they did read it, they're still reading something that has the thesis statement on the beginning that they've merged with the far right, you know, so it's like, it's, it's, yeah, it's not supported by this article. So yeah, the Jeffrey Epstein stuff, fucking weird, gross, um, here's a question, do you think Bill Clinton is the far right?

0:45:05 Thomas: No, he's not the far right. Is he a rapist? Yeah, he is a rapist. And he has a weird relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, possibly a really gross rapey relationship. Is either far right? Nope. Here's the truth. People on the left suck too. That's the truth. People on the left also suck. Not you don't get to do that. Everything I hate is the far right. It doesn't work. And the thing I was going to get to earlier, which I think is an important point is some of these examples I'm not going to get into because I'm already out of time. My goal is to go over the main three that are in the picture. Again, that's what everybody sees. Far right, merge with far right, grifters. And the main 3, I do not think any of those 3, Harris, Dawkins, and Pinker, they do not fit the bill for that.

0:45:53 Thomas: They're not grifters, I don't think. I mean, I really don't think they are. I think they're pretty genuine. Maybe you could say there's a little bit of bullshit in there, I guess, but Grifter, like, I think they just have shitty views personally. Yes. Racist views, sexist views. Yeah. Not supported. Okay. So some of the other examples though, and this is important. David Silverman, there are people in this article, Silverman. I think specifically Silverman and Krause, which by the way, the evidence for Krauss is just sex pest stuff. Again, that's a perfectly acceptable thing to say. This person sucks. Yeah. Yeah, I've done it. I've done the episode of This Person Sucks. Are they far right? Nope.

0:46:39 Thomas: Krauss's entire paragraph is all about his sex pestery, which I feel like I'm repeating myself. Yes, I agree with all that, Phil. Not far right. And to do so is to absolve and kind of get out of jail free card for the left, like if, if only people on the right can be sex pests, that's kind of like we're not properly grappling with the problem here. But, um, so I don't think Krauss has like turned right wing as a result of being outed as a sex pest, that I know of, and I think if he had, Phil would have seized on that as evidence in this article that says people that they've merged with the far right, um, so I don't think he has. But somebody like, like David Silverman, absolutely has. Now, David Silverman and Michael Shermer, they've always been a little bit right wing.

0:47:27 Thomas: I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I think they've been pretty libertarian. They've been open about that even back before they were outed as abusers. But part of the story here is once these people were rejected by the broader atheism movement, David Silverman was kicked out of his position as president of the American Atheist. He was booted out. And sure, some people went along with him. But the organization still goes on. And I think the majority of people were like, oh, that guy sucked. And then as a result of that, they've had to shop for supporters wherever they can find him. Well, where can you find people who don't care if you're a sex pest? On the right. That's where you can find an audience for the most part. That's going to skew toward the right people who do not care.

0:48:13 Thomas: I've already said the left isn't perfect, but if you want a group of people who are going to overlook Me Too issues, you're going to find most of them on the right, and so that's part of the story, that they were actually rejected by the atheist movement and then had to go into this right-wing grift to stay relevant. And so actually, I think that reflects a little bit better on the atheism movement than you might think. I mean, that doesn't mean everybody in atheism is great. I'm not saying that. But yeah, it wasn't acceptable for those people, for Shermer, for Krauss, for Silverman, to to be in the movement and to be figureheads, they had to go elsewhere and they had to find a sympathetic audience. And unfortunately, that's going to be right wing people.

0:48:58 Thomas: But that's that. All right. Well, hopefully you got something out of this. You know, I guess it might seem like a small thing. It might seem like I'm just trying to defend these people again. If the if the title were how the new atheists are pieces of shit, I'd be like, yeah. Yep. Especially new. Anyway, I kind of wish it would have said new atheist leaders, because again, yes, there was a terrible movement of online atheism that was full of assholes, probably still is. I get it. I get that. We've all had that experience. But when you look at poll numbers, no religion as a group is like the most left-leaning group. And so it's frustrating to see this attack, you know? You know who really ought to be attacked for being far right? Fucking Christians.

0:49:44 Thomas: I know, we know that, but still it just, it feels as an atheist, it feels a little unfair to me to get lumped in like this and to say, I was part of new atheism, by the way, I was part of that as a follower, not a leader, as a follower of new atheism, I didn't go to the far right. I think there's a lot of me, I think there's a lot of me's out there, like you guys, you know, we didn't go to the far right, and I'm not denying that exists, but like, let's be a little careful on who we're smearing here, and let's smear accurately, that's a, that's all I'm saying. And hopefully you didn't find that to, to petty a disagreement. But, yeah, no, I think it's, I think it's meaningful. I don't know what function this serves, other than to get the people like Harris, Dawkins and Pinker, who are the people pictured in the photo, to say, oh, well, this is bullshit. Oh, Salon's bullshit thing. Why?

0:50:29 Thomas: I'm not going to read that anymore. Far right. They haven't merged with the far right. What the fuck are you talking about? Not OK. I won't read that thing. You know, that's the effect that's going to have. And then a bunch of other people are going to say. Yeah, fuck those guys. They are far far right. Yeah. What's that doing? Is that doing something? Is accomplishing anything? All right. All right, well, I've said my piece. I hope you got something out of that. Appreciate you listening. Appreciate you pledging. Sharing the show if you like it. If you know, if you think it's worth hearing, please share it. It's hard to be a podcast these days. There's a lot of us. And you know if you like what you hear, please shared out help the show. Otherwise I'll see you next week with Lindsay and with Aaron for a really fun philosophy episode. So see you then.

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