The New York Times recently ran an interesting article on the Secular Right blog, which I commented on here back when it was first established:
As a child, Razib Khan spent several weeks studying in a Bangladeshi madrasa. Heather Mac Donald once studied literary deconstructionism and clerked for a left-wing judge. In neither case did the education take. They are atheist conservatives — Mr. Khan an apostate to his family’s Islamic faith, Ms. Mac Donald to her left-wing education.
They are part of a small faction on the right: conservatives with no use for religion. Since 2008, they have been contributors to the blog Secular Right, where they argue that conservative values like small government, self-reliance and liberty can be defended without recourse to invisible deities or the religions that exalt them….
Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior editor at National Review, noted that conservatives throughout history have esteemed “mediating institutions” like schools and churches, sources of authority other than the state. “If that’s the way you’re thinking, concern for the strength of organized religion follows pretty naturally,” Mr. Ponnuru said.
I do have a small bone to pick with the article and possibly with Ramesh Ponnuru. There is a difference between being an atheist and having “no use for religion.” One can deny the existence of God, while simultaneously recognizing that religious institutions sometimes serve useful purposes. Being an atheist doesn’t prevent me from seeing that the Catholic Church runs an excellent system of private schools, for example. It also doesn’t prevent anyone from recognizing the value of “mediating institutions,” including religious ones.
At the same time, it is also the case that organized religion has often contributed to grave injustices, providing support for slavery, gender inequality, and occasionally (in the case of “Liberation Theology”) even communism. Whether a mostly secular society will be better off than a mostly religious one depends on the values advocated by the religious and secular ideologies in question. Atheism doesn’t require anyone to believe that every conceivable secular belief system has better social consequences than every conceivable religious one. One can be an atheist while still believing that Catholicism, Judaism, or Mormonism is less harmful than Marxism, for example.
Ryantk_6 says:
Religion is not the same as an ideology. Ideology can be proven wrong, but religion has a built in mechanism, in which it can never be disproved. Religion promotes blind faith in beings that do not exist. Even when bad things happen that are counter to religion, faith doubles down. For example, when a person loses a leg in an automobile accident, the religious thank God that they only lost a leg. When they should realize that they just lost a leg. On the other hand, ideology can be disproven and changed, for example, the anti-vaccine crowd and autism. Repudiation of Dr. Wakefield’s study has brought about many to abandon their anti-vaccination position just as the fall of the Soviet Bloc has changed many a person’s mind about Marxism.
February 21, 2011, 12:17 amRyantk_6 says:
Also, Catholic Schools are good places for acquiring debilitating guilt and getting physically abused by priests.
February 21, 2011, 12:19 amLarryA says:
Progressives, on the other hand, simply deify government, skipping the middleman.
February 21, 2011, 12:20 amricky says:
A strange new respect, perhaps?
February 21, 2011, 12:26 amIlya Somin says:
Religion is not the same as an ideology. Ideology can be proven wrong, but religion has a built in mechanism, in which it can never be disproved. Religion promotes blind faith in beings that do not exist.
As an atheist, I think that the existence of these beings can be disproved. It may be hard to persuade religious believers of that, of course. But it’s also difficult to persuade committed secular ideologues that their political beliefs are wrong.
Even when bad things happen that are counter to religion, faith doubles down.
Well, advocates of secular ideologies often do this too when faced with adverse evidence.
February 21, 2011, 12:31 amLarryA says:
Ideology, secular or religious, can be proven wrong only until it takes over the government. Then it justifies whatever level of violence is necessary to maintain its “purity.” The advantage of “mediating institutions” is that they are voluntary. The idea that religion can’t change, founders when you count the number of different religions that exist, and the number of denominations within those religions. And blind faith in beings that don’t exist is no worse than blind faith in philosophies that don’t work.
No thanks. “The glass is half full” people tend to live lives that are far happier and more productive than the pessimists.
February 21, 2011, 12:46 amPatrick says:
Not only can one be an atheist while conceding that religion may have its uses, it is equally possible to have “no use for religion,” or organized religion at any rate, without actually being an atheist.
February 21, 2011, 12:47 amLTEC says:
I’ve long been bothered by the fact that many secular/atheist people seem to think that all or most secular/atheist people must have a lot in common with each other, and they try to form organizations of “skeptics” or “secular humanists” or some such. I’m an atheist, but I have no reason to believe I have significantly more in common with a random atheist than with a random theist.
It’s about as silly as forming an organization for people who don’t like Brussel sprouts.
February 21, 2011, 12:53 amBruce Hayden says:
I think that it is an interesting dynamic. On one hand, atheism would seem to run counter to any sort of divine right to rule, which would seem to put atheists in opposition to at least monarchies (and, obviously, theocracies). And, I don’t think it was that easy separating ourselves from the British monarchy based on its somewhat theological underpinnings.
But, you seem to find atheists more interested in communitarian philosophies such as socialism, in all of its variants. Which are, I would argue, almost the opposite of libertarianism in its individualism.
But, communitarian political systems pretty much just don’t work, because they tend to be built on the Utopian assumption of a perfectable man. So, maybe the answer is that an atheist can be, and maybe even should be, a libertarian if he or she does not try to replace religion with some sort of Utopian view of man and/or nature.
I think though that it may be easier to be a libertarian if one is somewhat religious, esp. in the Christian mold, because the issue of sin translates directly into an awareness of man’s fallibility, and thus, into a skepticism of governments, because governments are invariably run by fallible, self-serving, greedy people. Not necessarily because they attract such (though, I would suggest that they do), but rather, because that is the natural state of man.
February 21, 2011, 1:04 amBruce Hayden says:
What I haven’t figured out yet is how someone who is a true skeptic, could be a communitarian, and not be a libertarian.
February 21, 2011, 1:05 amricky says:
“I’ve long been bothered by the fact that many secular/atheist people seem to think that all or most secular/atheist people must have a lot in common with each other, and they try to form organizations of “skeptics” or “secular humanists” or some such. I’m an atheist, but I have no reason to believe I have significantly more in common with a random atheist than with a random theist.
It’s about as silly as forming an organization for people who don’t like
Brussel sproutsblacks and Jews.”Now do you understand the appeal?
February 21, 2011, 1:07 amHm. says:
FWIW, Secular Humanism is not just atheists coming together to revel in their atheism or to prove that atheism is totally awesome. Though they would probably object to this description, they are more like a “secular religion” than a pro-atheism advocacy group.
February 21, 2011, 1:08 amHm. says:
That’s incredibly offensive.
February 21, 2011, 1:10 amRicardo says:
Ayn Rand’s philosophy is awfully close to Utopianism as well. Rand tried to make her philosophy an alternative for intelligent atheists who would otherwise be socialists or left-leaning progressives. Yet her philosophy looks a bit like Leninism with its idea that an elite vanguard can usher in a new political order (using sabotage and violence if necessary) and that all truly rational people will ultimately accept her philosophy.
As for Christian libertarianism, it’s possible and even likely, but every serious Christian has to come to terms with Romans 13. Atheists have never had to be saddled with that scriptural baggage. Moreover, while mainstream Christianity (especially its relatively secularized variants in the form of “mainline Protestantism”) certainly gets credit for emphasizing the idea of the fallability of man, it has had to compete with the creepy messianic cults that have had a tendency to spring up in the Christian world since almost the very beginning.
One of the ironies of history is that a form of proto-Communism was first implemented in Europe by John of Leiden, a tailor’s apprentice who abolished private property and claimed he was the second coming of Jesus.
February 21, 2011, 1:18 amRyantk_6 says:
Ilya Somin: <
I am also an atheist; however, you cannot disprove the existence of made-up, supernatural beings. Every religion claims that their god(s) are beyond scientific measure. How can you disprove a claim that is beyond scientific measure? You cannot. To disprove something like a god, you would first have to disprove infinite possibilities. For example, you cannot disprove that a small invisible elf impervious to scientific measurement lives on the moon. Despite that it is a laughable idea to begin with.
Ilya Somin:
Yes, this is true, because people, especially those who feel powerless, are able to clothe themselves in a religion or ideology in order to feel powerful. Any adverse facts to these persons’ beliefs will be met only with a mental block and cognitive dissonance. However, despite human nature, the addition of religion, which is only a feedback loop, is more dangerous than a political ideology. How many royalists are there running around anymore clamoring for a return to a monarchy? People seem to be able to outgrow that political belief.
LarryA: <
Superficially religion changes, but the underlying feedback loop of irrationality and blind faith never changes.
February 21, 2011, 2:08 amRazib Khan says:
thanks for the comment ilya. i noted that the contributors of secular right have different attitudes toward religion. i’d place heather as the most “militant,” and andrew as the least (andrew likes the idea of an established church, like britain has). for me, the main issue is that i just don’t believe in god, and i’m not going to go around lying and pretend i do through omission. but, i also hold to a conservative position, not necessarily a libertarian one. just how it is.
February 21, 2011, 2:36 amJust a Thought says:
Are there any stats to prove Catholic schools any worse in that respect than any other schools or places where youth congregate?
February 21, 2011, 2:38 amJust a Thought says:
Well, there is an organised religion for those who do like spaghetti. They’re called Pastafarians. See here.
February 21, 2011, 2:41 amBerkeleyBeetle says:
Support for monarchy, at least in the Western tradition, was religious. The example you give is an example of breaking the supposedly unbreakable religion “feedback loop,” and is why comparing religion to political ideology as somehow equivalent in impact is silly. Religion, unmoored from ideology, is harmless, while the ideological aspects of religion don’t leap out as somehow less subject to change than secular ideologies, as your example suggests.
February 21, 2011, 3:19 amDavid Schwartz says:
You can disprove the existence of god by standards that would easily be accepted in any other arena than religion.
Your claim, for example, is inherently contradictory in that it claims that the elf both “lives” and is “impervious to scientific measurement”. Living requires processes that are amenable to scientific measurement. Unless, of course, by “lives” you mean something different from what everyone else means by lives. You’ll find that to make your claim irrefutable, you’ll have to take the meaning out of all the words in it until no claim at all is left.
February 21, 2011, 3:26 ameyesay says:
Ilya Somin frets
Gosh. One would think that all the sad events of Latin America were caused by Liberation theology-inspired communism.
I have news for you. Most of the sad events of Latin America in my lifetime were caused by the right wing, not the communists. It was right wing death squads that murdered Archbishop Romero and six Jesuit priests and their cook and her daughter in El Salvador. It was right wing death squads that murdered American nuns in El Salvador. Whatever was wrong with the leftist government of Allende, the right wing government of Pinochet was much, much worse. To the extent that Liberation theology helped limit the abuses of right wing military governments in Latin America, especially El Salvador, it was a good thing. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
February 21, 2011, 3:28 amkerr says:
Just a question: Can you name a libertarian society that worked and didn’t grind up the workers in the process?
The advantages of libertarianism seem mostly hypothetical at this point
February 21, 2011, 3:33 amKazinski says:
What is offensive about it?
He has a point, there have been organizations formed before based on a hatred of Blacks and Jews, and the members may not have much more in common, besides being white. Why don’t you think a little bit about what the thought being conveyed is, without being all knee-jerk about it.
Quite a while ago, my wife was a going to a UU church, I would go to the social functions but not to the services. When the minister tried to get me to start attending services, she told me that several of the founding members of the church were atheists, so that wasn’t a barrier to joining the church.
I asked “what’s the point of being an atheist if you still have to go to church?”
February 21, 2011, 4:43 amKazinski says:
Give me an example of a libertarian society. I really can’t think of any.
Earlier in American history we were much more libertarian than we are now, and maybe that is what you are referring to, and of course workers had it much worse then they do today. But that isn’t much of an indication since the US at that time was still way ahead of the rest of the world in conditions for workers, as evidenced by immigration and emigration rates.
February 21, 2011, 4:48 amliamascorcaigh says:
I sure hope when atheists die they won’t hear a voice booming out of the ether saying “So, you think I’m a little elf, do you?”
Nemo scit. Omnes pontificant.
February 21, 2011, 5:51 amdearieme says:
“atheism would seem to run counter to any sort of divine right to rule, which would seem to put atheists in opposition to at least monarchies (and, obviously, theocracies). And, I don’t think it was that easy separating ourselves from the British monarchy based on its somewhat theological underpinnings.” This is a muddle: the idea that British monarchs reigned by divine right was given up at the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Thereafter they reigned at the invitation of Parliament – first by the separate parliaments of Scotland and England and afterwards by the Union parliament.
February 21, 2011, 6:19 amTLMO says:
I agree. Historically, most societies have used a complex mixture of religion, ideology and politics (as well as other factors) to maintain social coherence. I’m not sure you can assess the effect on a society’s behavior of one part of the mixture independent from the others. Religion divorced from ideology is harmless. Judging by example, the opposite is not true.
February 21, 2011, 7:25 amMark Field says:
While this is true, it was also true that the Anglican Church was widely seen as a bulwark of monarchy. That was pretty much the platform of the Tories throughout the 18th C.
February 21, 2011, 10:06 amJon Rowe says:
No utopia, libertarian or otherwise, has ever existed. However, libertarian principles, at least seem to WORK where Marxist principles do not. For instance Hong Kong.
February 21, 2011, 10:26 amMike says:
“Atheism” isn’t really anything, by itself, but more of a set of basic premises. Secular Humanism is one particular attempt to replace religious teachings with a secular value system, to allow people to make the same sorts of determinations of morality provided by religion, but based on science and human rights instead. There are, of course, other attempts at this as well, dating all the way back to Socrates.
As an aside, I am an atheist libertarian, and I know many people with similar beliefs. It seems to be a relatively common combination among technical people, for some reason. I think that atheism may correlate with communitarians only in the sense that it also correlates with urban culture.
But really, the bad parts of religion are for the most part just the bad parts of the human experience. Corruption, abuse of power, hatred of the “other”, opposition to anything different, blindness to other viewpoints… I can think of a secular equivalent to almost every issue most atheists have with religious groups. They just don’t think they have a god on their side.
Personally I think religion is a nice fantasy, and if it makes you happier then go right ahead and believe in it, just don’t expect me to take your beliefs too seriously if you try to justify policy choices based only on them.
February 21, 2011, 10:34 amCan a new religion be established with democracy? « Earthpages.org says:
[...] New York Times on the Secular Right Blog (volokh.com) [...]
February 21, 2011, 10:38 amJ_A says:
Am really surprised neither Professor Somin nor anyone in a libertarian blog seem to have a problem with this concept:
It doesn’t seem to worry Mr. Ponnuru whether the tenets of the organized religion he is so concerned about are true or not. Is just that religion is a good source for authority over the masses. “Just tell them God says so…”, seems Mr. Ponnuru’s message “…and they will do as told”.
Mr. Ponnuru amd dear Karl Marx have arriived to the same conclusion, it seems: Religion is the oppiate of the masses. The only difference seems to be that at least Marx was nominally against it, whereas Mr. Ponnuru cleary is in favour.
February 21, 2011, 11:07 amObviously, Mr. Ponnuru does not particularly include himself among those that should be lorded about. He sees his role more on the lording side, and hence is very worried that the institutions through which authority is exercised might be under attack.
dht says:
It is ironic that so many conservatives/libertarians are touting their lack of religion here, when so much of the mainstream conservative political narrative is that liberals are non-religious and that is why they should not be trusted with the reins of power.
I actually think that it is more rational for conservatives to be atheist than liberals. For example, as one commenter noted, liberals tend to be more communitarian, which seems to fit in with the religious narrative. Furthermore, conservatives don’t like being told what to do, not just by government, but by anyone, which would include religious institutions.
February 21, 2011, 11:36 amCJColucci says:
I suppose you could have an organization of people who actively dislike brussel sprouts, as I used to until I learned better ways to cook them, in just the same way that you could have an organization of people who actively dislike blacks and Jews, but it seems unlikely. (The canonical reference — pun intended–is to an organization of people who don’t collect stamps.) And in just the same way, you could have an atheist organization of people actively opposed to religion.
February 21, 2011, 11:41 amBut while you can have an organization of people against X, it’s hard to have an organization of people whose defining characteristic is merely that they are not X. Try organizing people who merely do not eat brussel sprouts, or who merely don’t collect stamps, or who merely don’t believe in God, but have no anti-brussels sprouts or anti-stamp, or anti-religion agenda. The meetings would probably be pretty dull.
karrde says:
Some libertarians (and minarchists) like the example of Iceland, ca. 800-1100.
It is probably as libertarian as the early-Colonial period.
February 21, 2011, 11:49 amyankee says:
If brussels sprouts were such a ubiquitous element of American cuisine that it was a major hassle to find food without them, people who hate brussels sprouts would have a reason to get together. They could have dinner parties without brussels sprouts, share brussels-sprouts-free recipes, trade info on which restaurants are have good brussels-sprouts-free dishes, and so on. Groups of people with who keep gluten-free or vegan diets exist for exactly this reason.
There’s no analogy with atheism though.
February 21, 2011, 11:51 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
I think that in some cases, religion is the thing that keeps conservatives from going completely off the deep end.
If you’re a bleeding heart liberal, you care about the poor and downtrodden. That’s cool, but it’s possible to disagree profoundly with the way you go about helping the poor and downtrodden.
If you’re a conservative, you may disagree with the bleeding heart liberal for one of two reasons: you disagree with the way they want to help the poor and downtrodden, or you don’t give a good damn about the poor and downtrodden and don’t want to be taxed in order to help them.
And there can be considerable overlap between these two views, and the second can really kind of subsume the first; but if you are a religious conservative, God commands you to care about the poor and downtrodden, so you can put that part aside and concentrate not on arguing that they need to be allowed to starve in the streets, but how best to go about helping them in such a way that they actually benefit, and society as a whole benefits. And push back the argument from the other side that you don’t care: “Yes, I care; I care because I care, and because God commands me to care. Now let’s talk about the best way of caring.” I’d actually like to hear more rhetoric of that sort. I realize that I am very much in the minority on that point.
February 21, 2011, 12:03 pmMark Field says:
Sadly, I think you’re right on this. Mike Huckabee does seem to share your view, though I don’t expect him to be nominated (nor to appeal much to liberals, despite his relative economic liberalism).
February 21, 2011, 12:47 pmzuch says:
… but … but … but … Objectivism is a religion!!!
Cheers,
February 21, 2011, 1:00 pmJohn D says:
I miss the days when Secular Right was trying to come up with a secular argument against same-sex marriage. Some flimsy arguments were put forth. Nothing convincing to those who hadn’t already decided that same-sex marriage was a Bad Thing.
Contortionists are endlessly fascinating.
February 21, 2011, 1:24 pmyankee says:
Are any arguments ever convincing to anyone on this issue? People change their minds, but it usually has to do with getting to know gay people as friends or family. Some people are converted the other way through religious conversions or by being horrified by the most libertine elements of the gay male community. I’ve never known anyone who actually changed their mind based on a rational argument.
February 21, 2011, 1:33 pmRandy says:
” The idea that religion can’t change, founders when you count the number of different religions that exist, and the number of denominations within those religions.”
The religions themselves don’t change much at all; rather a new version of it springs up in competition. It’s very rare for a religion to change any of it’s basic tenets. Indeed, most of them pride themselves on having discovered the ‘eternal truths’ that never change.
It takes a significant change in the social mindset and lots of time before a church will change. In the middle ages, slavery was supported by the catholic church, and today it is not.
February 21, 2011, 1:33 pmRandy says:
JA: “Obviously, Mr. Ponnuru does not particularly include himself among those that should be lorded about. He sees his role more on the lording side, and hence is very worried that the institutions through which authority is exercised might be under attack.”
Bingo. Worse, his belief that churches are authority figures akin to the state means that he believes it’s okay for the church to support the state.
Which, throughout most of western history, is exactly true, to the detriment of democracy and human rights. When the king and the bishop claim that your poverty/slavery/third-class/subservient status is part of God’s plan for society, you really have no place to go.
No doubt Mr. Ponnuru doesn’t believe that God’s plan for him is to meekly follow orders without question.
February 21, 2011, 1:38 pmzuch says:
Give me an example of a communist society. I can’t think of any there either. “No true Scotsman….” ;-)
Cheers,
February 21, 2011, 1:41 pmSilentBobNJ says:
I couldn’t help noticing that no one has said you don’t have to be an atheist to regard scriptural religion as a bunch of unprovable, disprovable, or already disproven crap. From this standpoint, Ponnuru’s argument is its own best argument against itself. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to incorporate secular humanist values with a belief in God, especially if the God you believe in could not care less how or even if you believe in Him (or Her, or It, or Them). The God in whom I believe only cares how well I treat my fellow creatures and the Creation entrusted to me.
February 21, 2011, 1:59 pmJohn D says:
I have encountered people who were changed their mind based on a rational argument, that is, they went from opposed to same-sex marriage to supportive of it.
One commentator on Secular Right stated that he would stop supporting same-sex marriage if it could be shown to cost him money.
I’ll take this one step further. I’m married to a same-sex spouse. If it could be shown that the net detriments to society outweighed the net benefits to me, I would end my marriage, rather than harm society.
I’ve been thinking about this issue since the first marriage lawsuit was filed, twenty years ago. During that time, I’ve seen many vague warnings of doom and gloom from the opponents of same-sex marriage. Their usual rejoinder to “but look at Massachusetts” is “these harms may not show for a generation.” As much as they want to be thought of as Cassandras, who see the future peril we do not, face it, they’re not making a convincing argument, but trying to work on fear.
Opponents to same-sex marriage (and that includes many of the blogger and commenters on Secular Right) ignore the benefits that come to same-sex couples who choose to marry.
My personal thought is that honest secular conservatives would be championing same-sex marriage as an counterweight to the most libertine gay men.
I doubt there are any people who have become opposed to same-sex marriage because of a rational argument because I have never heard any rational arguments against same-sex marriage.
February 21, 2011, 2:20 pmScott Eudaley says:
As an Objectivist, I can not let this pass. This is a mis-reading of Rand’s views. She argued that it is fundamental philosophical ideas which ultimately drive history (see For the New Intellectual and Philosophy: Who Needs It?), and the individual men/women involved are almost irrelevant. She contrasted this approach with the “Great Man” theory of history (often favored by conservatives) and the alleged historical inevitability of Marxist dialectical theory (dominant in the academy).
Any new philosophical or political idea is, of necessity, first promulgated by a small minority. That is simply an accurate description of the history of ideas, of all ideas, no matter their provenance or rectitude. She certainly would never use a phrase such as “elite vanguard”. That is simply a pseudo-Marxist projection on Ricardo’s part. Her statement on the crucial role of intellectuals is instructive:
For an excellent example of the actual Objectivist approach to history, I refer you to Leonard Peikoff’s Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America. He shows how, in the Weimar Republic, a confluence of certain philosophical ideas, shared by all the political parties, advanced by left and right and unquestioned by society at large, inevitably led to the election of a man who embodied the naked essence of those ideas and of a society which eagerly embraced them and proceeded to “drench the world in blood”. More frighteningly, he shows how those very same ideas have come to dominate in America today. Peikoff’s book is an excellent non-fiction coda to Atlas Shrugged.
Finally, destroying one’s own property and going on strike is “sabotage”? Defending one’s self against thieves, kidnappers and murderers is “violence”? I always find it amusing the extent to which some people must distort Rand’s views in order to attack them
February 21, 2011, 2:23 pmJon Rowe says:
I might reply so what? Ponnuru btw is a religious Roman Catholic. There are fervent atheists — the Straussians (many of whom believer after LS, which he purportedly said “no true philosopher could believe in God” something Saul Bellow has Allan Bloom saying in Ravelstein) — who support religion as an opiate. And would note it’s a necessary opiate, which it seems to me is the profounder question.
It’s one thing if Marx was writing to his fellow philosophers. But he wanted his ideas put into action. Could his atheism rally the masses to support revolt? That’s the reason, I believe, the liberation theology emerged. It’s much more practical than atheistic Marxism.
Plus, the Bible, does have a lot of texts which could support some kind of Marxist economic system.
February 21, 2011, 2:36 pmkerr says:
I couldn’t think of one either, except perhaps the Robber Barron era of the great monopolies
February 21, 2011, 2:36 pmkerr says:
HK is dog eat dog and the sweatshop reigns supreme, I don’t think HK is an example of libertarianism
February 21, 2011, 2:44 pmHarry Eagar says:
Really? Are there no conservative Roman Catholics?
When I was a boy, the priest told us which movies we could see.
February 21, 2011, 2:49 pmzuch says:
The fallacy of bifurcation is to be avoided at all cost. The fallacy of trifurcation, on the other hand, is A-OK….
Cheers,
February 21, 2011, 2:51 pmJon Rowe says:
“HK is dog eat dog and the sweatshop reigns supreme….”
Are you sure this is still the case?
February 21, 2011, 3:11 pmJon Rowe says:
This is 2010 GDP per capita data.
United States 47,123
Hong Kong 45,277
Switzerland 41,765
This doesn’t look like a sweatshop economy to me.
February 21, 2011, 3:13 pmjmaie says:
HK is dog eat dog and the sweatshop reigns supreme, I don’t think HK is an example of libertarianism
How does this conflict with libertarianism?
February 21, 2011, 3:18 pmMike P. says:
One can be an atheist conservative, but the fact that such folks are thin on the ground is not an accident. I think Ponnuru is right to say that religion has often been seen as a ‘mediating institution.’ It is also a source of the authority through time, as well as the source of many of our legal ideas; therefore anyone seeking to preserve these would probably at least respect religion. Prof. Somin is a libertarian, and many more libertarians are atheists than conservatives are. I think this also makes sense, given the libertarian skepticism about tradition.
February 21, 2011, 3:32 pmScott Eudaley says:
And, of course, ignoring the argument in a “drive-by” comment is OK too. I simply mentioned those two theories of history as examples because they are the most prominent. Rand’s discussion of this issue also included various non-Marxist economic theories of history. But then, I suppose that would simply constitute the fallacies of quadrification or quintification in zuch’s view.
February 21, 2011, 3:33 pmScott Eudaley says:
Oh, and Rand also discussed the “random chance” theory of history, as well as the concept that there is no overriding arc to history at all. Does that make her guilty of the fallacy of septification?
February 21, 2011, 3:54 pmzuch says:
The Randian concept of ‘history’ relies of fiction ["Peikoff’s book is an excellent non-fiction coda to Atlas Shrugged."]
But don’t feel so bad; that’s common among religions.
Cheers,
February 21, 2011, 3:56 pmAbigail says:
Clearly, you don’t understand the difference between philosophy and religion, bub.
February 21, 2011, 3:59 pmScott Eudaley says:
Zuch, you still haven’t actually made an argument. The closest you’ve come is the following:
You have it backwards. Her fiction was informed by her extensive knowledge of history (her university degree was in history).
February 21, 2011, 4:19 pmzuch says:
Wags would say the same is true of other religions. Gilgamesh informed the Flood, etc…. But it’s still fiction.
Cheers,
February 21, 2011, 4:28 pmDoc Rampage says:
Ilya wrote:
The only reason that there was a need for religious arguments for slavery and gender inequality is because of the religious arguments against slavery and (some forms of) gender inequality.
Before Christianity, slavery and subjugation of women were the default conditions of society. It was Christianity that first began to change this part of the natural human condition. Since these changes started taking place in a Christian context, it is only natural that the arguments against the changes tried to be persuasive to the people who were making the changes, that is, Christians. The religious arguments in favor of slavery and subjugation of women ultimately lost out to the religious arguments against same. Is it really reasonable to talk about this history as though Christianity supported slavery and the subjugation of women?
I changed your phrase “gender inequality” to “subjugation of women” to suggest that I was specifically speaking of (1) the social practice of treating women as lesser beings and the (2) laws that discriminate against women. If by “gender inequality” you simply mean the view that men and women have distinct social roles, then my comments do not apply to that. There never were (to my knowledge) any significant religious supporters of that idea and there is strong religious opposition to it.
Other than considering differing social roles for men and women as a grave injustice, I don’t think you can name any injustices that religion “contributed to” that were not going on quite rigorously without religion.
February 21, 2011, 4:39 pmScott Eudaley says:
At this point, my exchange with zuch reminds me of Arthur’s battle with the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. One of us has been (intellectually) dismembered, but doesn’t know it. And I’m sure the rest of you would rather the mayhem just ended.
Will do and thank you all for such a wonderful blog.
Clop, clop, clop.
February 21, 2011, 4:43 pmdht says:
I did not mean to indicate that all conservatives are not religious, only that logically atheism could follow from conservatism, for the reason that I stated. I made a similar argument in the other direction for liberals, but polls indicate that liberals are far less likely to be religious than conservatives. As I noted, irony.
February 21, 2011, 4:50 pmzuch says:
The scene that most comes to mind….
Cheers,
February 21, 2011, 5:02 pmzuch says:
and:
Someone doesn’t know what “sic” means, methinks.
Cheers,
February 21, 2011, 5:05 pmScott Eudaley says:
I’m sorry, one more informational post. Those of you only familiar with Rand’s fiction might be surprised to to know that she wrote far more non-fiction than fiction. Her non-fiction includes hundreds of essays published in The Objectivist, The Objectivist Newsletter and The Ayn Rand Letter. These can be difficult to find.
Her non-fiction books include:
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
The Virtue of Selfishness
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
For the New Intellectual
The Romantic Manifesto
The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (republished as Return of the Primitive)
The Art of Fiction
The Art of Non-Fiction.
These are all still available, I believe. Of lesser interest, but still fascinating are works published posthumously such as The Journals of Ayn Rand, The Letters of Ayn Rand and Ayn Rand’s Maginalia.
Non-fiction written by other Objectivists include:
Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America, Leonard Peikoff
Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff
The Capitalist Manifesto, Andrew Bernstein
In Defense of the Corporation, Robert Hessen
The Government Against the Economy, George Reisman
Sweet Land of Liberty?, Henry Mark Holzer
The Abolition of Antitrust, Gary Hull
Viable Values, Tara Smith
The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts, Harry Binswanger
The Evidence of the Senses, David Kelley
The Art of Reasoning, David Kelley
A Life of One’s Own, David Kelley
This is only a partial list, but I believe most of these are still available. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of books written about her or critical of her. As an aside, if you are at all taken in the by the lies of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, I encourage you to read James Valliant’s The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics. Until you’ve read that, you don’t really know the whole story.
Now I must retire and I leave you to your discussion of the secular Right.
February 21, 2011, 6:37 pmzuch says:
Those of you only familiar with Rand might be surprised that she wrote far more non-fiction that was fiction than fiction that was fiction. And this is not solely due to the fact that bodice-rippers like Atlas Shrugged are only “fiction” under a most generous definition of such.
Cheers,
February 21, 2011, 8:11 pmzuch says:
Sorry. These are fantasy.
Cheers,
February 21, 2011, 8:14 pmRicardo says:
HK is a market-based economy but is certainly not a democracy. Moreover, people exaggerate how free market it is. Back in the day, Cathay Pacific managed to convince the government’s airline regulatory authority to give it an exclusive monopoly as an HK-based carrier. One of the men involved in that regulatory decision just so happened to also sit on the board of Swire, the conglomerate that owned Cathay Pacific. HK is no more immune to special interest politics and crony capitalism than any other society.
February 21, 2011, 9:16 pmHere come the Judge: says:
Ilya, while I admire your writing, I must take issue with some of your assertions. Your reference to “organized religion has often contributed to grave injustices, providing support for slavery, gender inequality, and occasionally (in the case of “Liberation Theology”) even communism.” This is simply a-historical. If you wish to substitute the term “the American government” or “Confucianism” or “the patriarchy” for “organized religion” your comment would be equally true and equally vapid.
Slavery and gender inequality existed before Christianity. In fact the end of slavery is arguably more due to the teachings of Christianity than any other belief system.
There is another fact that is examined too little by people who disdain religion. You live in a society and culture suffused by Christianity. It is virtually impossible to imagine what society would be like in the absence of this culture and heritage. Imagine a society in which the self-constraints that Christianity imposes on believers don’t suddenly disappear, but never existed. The prohibitions against murderer, theft, or any of the other sins are no longer internalized but are left to the utilitarian desires of each individual. In such a culture the main difference between Hitler, and Stalin is that Hitler was less successful and didn’t die in bed. In such a culture, the death of six million Jews really is a statistic. If there is no ultimate judge then the old joke about the one who dies with the most toys wins is true. It is hard to imagine such a culture because Christianity surrounds and suffuses Western civilization much as water surrounds fish.
Every atheist exists on the patrimony of Christianity just like the Kennedys lived on the fortune built by farther Joe. Christians keep replenishing the well of charity and love in the name of God, re-creating a culture that make it possible to atheists to believe that humans can overcome their nature through reason alone. In the US, with its deep well of faith that’s a harmless pastime. In other times and other places – say the Soviet Union – where atheism dries up the well of faith we can see what kind of society human reason and human nature can create.
February 21, 2011, 10:01 pmyankee says:
I hate to break this you, but even in non-Christian cultures people tend to believe that murder and theft are wrong. The details of what killings count as murder and what takings count as theft have varied wildly from place to place and time to time, but that is no less true of Christian cultures than of others.
February 22, 2011, 12:39 am1040 says:
Really? I was pretty sure the west was the only place in the world murders were illegal. This is why I commit all my murders in India. Is that not a good idea?
February 22, 2011, 1:12 amJohn D says:
I’m still fascinated by the idea that there’s a book out there titled Ayn Rand’s Maginalia. If you were trying to contrive a book title that were a guarantee of a really bad reading experience, I don’t think you could do better.
February 22, 2011, 2:39 am1040 says:
Just one thing. You forgot to mention that Christians teach atheists to be modest and self effacing.
February 22, 2011, 2:44 amthirdeblue says:
And I thought Japan was pretty nice when I visited. I must be thankful the utilitarian desires of the Japanese must have been toward civility that week.
Nothing sets off the red lights on a hermetically-sealed Christian faster than when they pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
February 22, 2011, 7:29 amzuch says:
I suspect that the primary purchasers might be pimple-faced teenagers who are under the mistaken impression that it refers to exotic parts of their heroine’s anatomy. ;-)
Cheers,
February 22, 2011, 11:35 amRandy says:
judge: “Slavery and gender inequality existed before Christianity. In fact the end of slavery is arguably more due to the teachings of Christianity than any other belief system.”
In the middle ages, some popes gave slaves as gifts. In the US, many Christians used the Bible for support of slavery. Additionally, there are many other cultures that had slavery but not Christianity and yet were able to eliminate it. So Christianity per se didn’t have anything to do with eliminating slavery.
You complained that the prof. said that Christianity is responsible for gender inequality, yet you provide no evidence to assert the contrary. Christianity continues to have as a central tenet that women are inferior to men. Ask any nun.
Moreover, Christianity has and continues to be a the forefront of denying any equality to people who are gay. Perhaps you think that is a good thing, but oppression of any people based on who they are isn’t truly Christian and certainly isn’t a sign of love and compassion.
February 22, 2011, 12:02 pmHere come the judge says:
Yankee, I was responding specifically to Ilya’s post which you may want to re-read since he refers to the dominant religions in the US and the West in general. If you wish to make the argument that non-Western cultures have prohibitions against murder and theft you will get no argument from me. I will also respond that those cultures all have some form of dominant religion. In the absence of some kind of transcendent belief system, the prohibitions against murder, theft, rape or any one of a number of other things that we consider wrong can be viewed from a utilitarian perspective and can be committed if we can avoid punishment. In the absence of an ultimate judge human ethical systems are simply constructs that impinge on personal freedom, to be adopted or discarded as needed.
February 22, 2011, 1:53 pmHere come the judge says:
thirdeblue, I too have visited Japan. The next time you do you may want to visit the many shrines they have. None of them are monuments to atheism. The country was so suffused with religion that the emperor was considered divine until after WW2. Like the US, Japanese culture is immersed in religion. That did not stop the Japanese from treating non-Japanese horribly during their wars. That culture is different, but emphatically not atheist.
February 22, 2011, 2:00 pmHere come the judge says:
Randy, I understand that you prefer to blame Christians for your problems. And I can appreciate the fact that you can’t help yourself when you take digs at Christians past and present. But will you admit that slavery existed before Christianity? Will you admit that inequality between the sexes existed before Christianity? Will you admit that hate, war, pestilence, famine and all of the evils that man is heir to existed before Christianity? Then I will admit that Christians are in need of forgiveness because we are all sinners.
And will you ever get over the fact that Christianity does not exist to validate your lifestyle? Is there some rule that says that Christians can believe that adultery is a sin, venality is a sin, hatred is a sin, gluttony is a sin … but we have to change our minds about sodomy because you want it? My friend, Christians are not oppressing you and histrionic claims that you are being denied equality is preaching to the choir. You are seeking something that is not in Christian’s power to give, and let’s not even go to what a few billion Muslims believe. I understand that they are a lot less tolerant.
February 22, 2011, 2:17 pmHere come the judge says:
And Randy, you may want to check into William Wilberforce and the faith that propelled him to have slavery abolished in the British empire; an act that did more than any other to end the slave trade throughout the world (England really did rule the seas). Of course, slavery is still practiced in those parts of the world where it once flourished: parts of Africa and the Middle East. But that’s another story.
February 22, 2011, 2:30 pmhappycynic says:
To be fair, most non-western countries ended slavery because it was imposed upon them by the west.
February 22, 2011, 2:34 pmJon Rowe says:
Ricardo,
Well yeah there is big difference between democracy and marketed economics. I value both. But it’s the latter not the former which is needed for economic prosperity. Democracy is compatible with socialist economics that don’t work nearly as well as market economics.
Re Hong Kong’s less than perfect (or laissez-faire) that’s every nation on Earth. But the exception doesn’t disprove the rule. Hong Kong is the most “freeish” or “libertarianish” economy.
February 22, 2011, 4:23 pmMichael B says:
“Religion is not the same as an ideology. Ideology can be proven wrong, but religion has a built in mechanism, in which it can never be disproved. Religion promotes blind faith in beings that do not exist.” Ryantk_6
Religion can and has been proven wrong. Such primitive beliefs as cargo cults, Jim Jones styled cults, animism, etc. are readily proven wrong.
And, utopian, among other, ideologies have been proven wrong along empirical lines as well. It required more than a hundred million tombs in the 20th century alone, but heck, what an experiment in … blind faith, in self-blinded and self-blinkered faith, among other “helpful” forms of ideologically based faith.
Or, what of the ideological and presumptive philosophical investments to be found in scientism, a notably popular, au courant perversion of any more rigorous and hard-won and truer science?
February 22, 2011, 10:49 pmRicardo says:
Libertarianism has always been a lot more than free market economics. HK’s (and Singapore’s) success is impressive but subject to several qualifications. Statements like “HK proves free markets are best” are problematic for the same reason that statements like “Sweden proves corporatism and social democracy provide a high standard of living” are.
February 22, 2011, 11:11 pmKen Arromdee says:
If Christianity is just a list of arbitrary rules that are there because God says so, it doesn’t have to validate anyone’s lifestyle.
If it’s supposed to be about right and wrong, then it certainly does. How can it be *right* to condemn to Hell someone whose actions hurt nobody else?
February 23, 2011, 3:24 amRamesh Ponnuru says:
I don’t think Ilya Somin has a bone to pick with me or vice versa. I do not believe that atheists cannot have any “use for religion” or that atheists cannot be conservatives–and took pains to say so to Mr. Oppenheimer, who doubtless would have included more of my thoughts if he were writing an article about my attitudes.
J_A and Randy are quite mistaken in assuming that my explanation of one reason most conservatives have looked favorably on organized religion constitutes an endorsement of the view that all religions are worthwhile because they are socially valuable, and their criticisms are flawed because they rely on that assumption (which does not mean that I exclude the possibility that they are flawed on other grounds as well).
February 23, 2011, 11:00 pm