Truth Claims in a Post-Truth World: Faith, Fact and Fakery [1 ed.] 9781003039822, 9780367484538, 9781032550886

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Truth Claims in a Post-Truth World

Drawing on debates from a multi-disciplinary perspective, this book examines what it means to offer a genuine sociological critique of religious faith, illiberalism and anti-secularism from a macro perspective. Arguing that as a discipline concerned with real issues in the social world, sociology should be at the forefront of any analysis of religious power and legitimacy, the author contends that much religious faith is fundamentally incompatible with any twenty-first-century society that seeks inclusive, utilitarian and humanistic principles as its goals. With an emphasis on sociology, the effects of organised religion’s overall decline in modern Western contexts are explored, while the troubling re-emergence or persistence of faith-based and other non-evidentiary perspectives is also discussed via debates around identity politics, postmodernism and multiculturalism. Through an analysis of the rise of irrational thinking in our politics and our entire social and cultural fabric, the book moves to conclude that religious beliefs and other forms of dogmatism are underpinned by powerful, influential and potentially dangerous ideological structures at various levels of society and that viable, secular alternatives to faith teachings ought to be nurtured in their place. A critique of religion that advances modern, secular humanistic thought, Truth Claims in a Post-Truth World will appeal to scholars of sociology, social theory and philosophy with interests in religion, political thought, ethics and civil society. Erkan Ali is Lecturer at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China, and the author of Interpreting Visual Ethnography: Texts, Photos and the Construction of Sociological Meanings.

Routledge Advances in Sociology

This series presents cutting-edge developments and debates within the field of ­sociology. It provides a broad range of case studies and the latest theoretical ­perspectives, while covering a variety of topics, theories and issues from around the world. It is not confined to any particular school of thought. Space, Mobility, and Crisis in Mega-Event Organisation Tokyo Olympics 2020’s Atmospheric Irradiations Rodanthi Tzanelli Subaltern Workers in Contemporary France To Be Like Everyone Else Olivier Masclet, Thomas Amossé, Lise Bernard, Marie Cartier, Marie-Hélène Lechien, Olivier Schwartz, and Yasmine Siblot Cultural Values, Institutions, and Trust Seung Hyun Kim and Sangmook Kim The Experience and Fear of Violence in the Public Realm Hegemonic Ideology and Individual Behaviour Charlotte Fabiansson Cultural Sociology of Cultural Representation Visions of Italy and the Italians in England and Britain from the Renaissance to the Present Day Christopher Thorpe Truth Claims in a Post-Truth World Faith, Fact and Fakery Erkan Ali

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Truth Claims in a Post-Truth World Faith, Fact and Fakery Erkan Ali

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Erkan Ali The right of Erkan Ali to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-367-48453-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-55088-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-03982-2 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003039822 Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

For Carl Sagan, a clear thinker and a sublime communicator – one in at least a billion

Contents

Acknowledgements Preface 1 Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith

viii x

1

2 Morality and Society

24

3 Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity

48

4 Campus Chaos: Postmodernist Thought as Intellectual Crisis

70

5 The Rise of a New Orthodoxy: Woke “Justice” and the Sleep of Reason

97

6 Pardon the Expression: Islam, Media Representation and Censorship

122

7 Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism

149



Conclusion: The Persistence of Intuitions and the Fear of Knowledge

172

References185 Index209

Acknowledgements

Given my training in the social sciences, I realise as well as anyone – and perhaps better than most  – that even the most laudable of “personal” achievements can never really be regarded as exclusively individual. To a greater or lesser extent, all of the tasks that we attend to in life also routinely depend upon the efforts, encouragement, love, generosity and enthusiasm that we get from others around us. A monograph is surely a prime example of just such a task, as it bears the name of its author and thereby obscures the details of various social and collaborative factors that must have been necessary for its completion. This book is, of course, no different in that respect. Its pages have benefitted greatly, whether directly or indirectly, from the support of family members, colleagues and friends at various junctures, and I would like to show my appreciation for all of their contributions here. First, I  would like to thank Routledge, and particularly Neil Jordan, Paige Loughlin, Gemma Rogers and Spandana P B from Apex Covantage (P) LTD, India for their patience and guidance through the challenges that inevitably come with a project such as this. I have been with Routledge since the publication of my first book Interpreting Visual Ethnography in 2018, and this is a relationship that means a great deal to me. Second, a number of people generously donated their time in fruitful discussions and towards readings of earlier chapters of the book, making many important observations and suggestions along the way. To my dear brother Kenan, thanks for the encouragement, for proofreading a number of the earlier pieces and for offering that ever-dependable support. To Graeme Gilloch at Lancaster University, thanks, as always, for being there and for lending a sympathetic and obliging ear; thanks also for making decisive recommendations towards the book’s title. For the record, I know that Graeme disagrees vehemently with some of the points I have made in these chapters. But at least we still both realise the primary importance of maintaining friendships in upholding differences of opinion (and arguing passionately for them) while remaining civil in the process. To Yasmine Mohammed, thanks for being someone I am proud to call a friend, for being an inspiration and a vital and genuine source of support to women and stigmatised minorities across the world in her endeavours, and also for taking the time to read and offer her thoughts on my own work. To Flemming Rose, much appreciation not only for his insightful comments and suggestions towards Chapter 6 but also for his courageous, unwavering and

Acknowledgements  ix crucial defence of free thought and expression today. Finally, thanks also to Kevin J. Nelson, Chad Bartlett, Paola Carunchio, Gavin Osborne and Dawid Juraszek for their editorial comments on various chapters, as well as their time and insights in discussions. All of them have made suggestions and observations which have benefitted the arguments I make in this book. I shall be donating all royalties from sales of this book to the Free Speech Union.

Preface

With a focus on the three great monotheistic traditions – Christianity, Islam and ­Judaism, broadly defined  – the primary purpose of this book is to explore the ­concept of religious faith and to subject it to a contemporary sociological critique. Taking inspiration from the works of Bertrand Russell (1927), Carl Sagan (1996), Michael Shermer (1997), Sam Harris (2006), Richard Dawkins (2006a), among others, the main objective will be to assess the legitimacy of worldviews based on faith, by contrast with beliefs based on evidence, and to discuss the significance of these in a twenty-first-century context. Of course, even without investigating the finer details regarding questions of religious faith from a strictly sociological standpoint, its immediate relevance to certain issues in the social and/or political world – both historically and presently – should not need spelling out. For the sake of clarity, however, if we feel the need to give examples, we may refer to the seemingly never-ending territorial disputes in the Middle East or the decades-long sectarianism of Northern Ireland; we may cite acts of global terrorism, such as those of 9/11, during which a team of jihadists cried out “God is great!” as they slammed two passenger jets into New York’s World Trade Center; we may talk about the disingenuous efforts of certain Christian groups who have tried to use the American constitutional system in order to have Creationism taught as “fact” alongside biology in American classrooms; or we may simply highlight the routine acts of intimidation, discrimination, censorship, honour violence, FGM and a host of other possible examples from within and across communities that still impose themselves, whether directly or indirectly, on the majority of people living in the world today. Notwithstanding other relatable factors, all of these stubborn, objectionable, even horrifying, conditions or forms of behaviour are essentially underpinned by the common component of blind religious faith. At this point, the reader might like to pause and ask whether these really are still relevant arguments to be having now. Were these concerns not just part of the “New Atheist” movement that followed the terror attacks of 9/11? Are they not quite distinct from the more traditional sociological discourses on the meanings of religious belief and religiosity? Aren’t these kinds of arguments pointless anyway? Do we not just go in circles asking questions like these, and are we thereby not simply antagonising people by “hating” on them merely for holding beliefs that are different from those of our own? My answer to each and every one of these

Preface  xi questions is an emphatic and unequivocal “No” and for a variety of reasons that I shall now begin to outline. First, religious claims to truth warrant careful scrutiny, just as all others do. Second, faith-based bigotry is not confined to any particular, or long-since forgotten, period of history; if anything, such characteristics and problems appear to be resurgent once again in our societies. Third, a proper and comprehensive acknowledgement of some of the sociological and intellectual issues raised by phenomena such as the New Atheist movement and its engagement with various questionable aspects of faith has never really been observed within sociology itself (for reasons I will expand upon later). Fourth, we still appear to have learnt absolutely nothing, as a society more generally, about the various dangers of irrational thinking and the need for cool scepticism, despite the best efforts of the numerous thinkers and writers who have engaged with these issues over a number of generations. Fifth, religious faith and the intellectual dishonesty of the contemporary academy have much in common. It has to be admitted that the social sciences, and particularly sociology – the development of which coincided with the advent of modernity and the decline of religion – have themselves garnered a certain reputation among academic disciplines as defenders of actively anti-scientific and subjective, even nonsensical, perspectives over at least a 60- to 70-year period. Sixth and finally, faith-based perspectives (like any other form of dogmatism, ideology, pseudoscience or disingenuousness that is designed to subvert, subdue or mislead) should not simply be regarded as the exclusive domain of special interest groups, such as academics or religious leaders, but as highly significant social issues that concern every single one of us. For all of these reasons and more, all versions of religious faith and their corollaries could not be more mainstream or sociological if they tried, and they need to be analysed and discussed openly. A number of sociologists discuss religion in a “post-secular” context, as if religion’s fate is already sealed and the whole world realises the irrationality of it (see Habermas in Knapp, 2008; Bender et al., 2013). But this is not necessarily the way that religious faith is regarded in the social world today, and nor is this by any means the overwhelming treatment of religion in the academy generally, nor the mainstream media or politics. Religious faith, even in the face of extreme beliefs and violence upheld in its name, is often treated with kid gloves or undue reverence and respect, which continues unabated. The philosopher Simon Blackburn has argued that religious faith positions (and, I would add, other nonsensical or ideological convictions) have been undergoing a process of “respect creep” in that they are now demanding more than just the polite tolerance that they might expect in a liberal-democratic setting (Blackburn, 2007: 180). It seems evident that mainstream culture, across the board, is generally in denial about religion and its ability to negatively affect the social world. Much of this sympathy is the result of an admittedly complicated yet misplaced politeness towards the adherents (particularly of minority faiths) that stems from an understandable and wellintentioned position of equality and respect for all in society. Nevertheless, I will argue that religious institutions are themselves in many ways disrespectful, offensive, dangerous and out of kilter with the kind of values we should seek to espouse

xii  Preface in society today, and I shall suggest that it is up to sociologists themselves to help point this out. Although some commentators have argued that sociology has tended towards criticism of religion and faith over many decades, my argument here is that this has generally not been the case. Sociology’s conventional approach to the study of religion has typically been very different to the ones found predominantly in the natural sciences. As one might expect, sociology concerns itself mostly with the social processes that go into the continual making and re-making of what religion is as a general institution in the lives of the people involved with it. This kind of research, of course, has its place, providing us with an intricate picture of the inner-workings of various belief systems, with relevant insights into cultures, ethnic compositions, gender issues, ritualistic practices and many other aspects. But this kind of approach doesn’t go far enough in explaining the potential for religion to negatively influence the lives of all in society, as it so very often does. There is a general dearth of sociology from this perspective, and one reason seems to have to do with the nature of sociology itself. As Ronald Johnstone has pointed out, sociology addresses religion in much the same way as it does any other social phenomenon  – with “nonevaluative intent” (2015: 5, original emphasis). This opinion has been echoed by other academics as well (see McGuire, 2001: 6). A sociological perspective is therefore apparently not concerned with the truth of religion or lack thereof, but only the sociologically relevant influence of religion on people’s lives (with the focus mainly on in-groups, not out-groups). In sentiment at least, this seems in keeping with what Emile Durkheim famously described as the “sociological method” (1962/1895), which seeks to observe, analyse and understand social phenomena in a uniquely sociological yet dispassionate or empirical way. But isn’t this just a convenient cop-out? Why should sociologists always necessarily approach religion merely with a kind of methodological relativism reminiscent of the anthropologist? Why shouldn’t the accuracy or inaccuracy of religious claims to truth be counted, especially given the prodigiously grand nature of those claims, and especially when they can affect the religious and nonreligious alike in negative ways? And, in any case, is it really true that sociology usually or necessarily takes a “non-evaluative” approach to social phenomena? On any other topic affecting the social world, and particularly controversial ones, sociologists are usually at the forefront, as they should be. Take politics or economy, for instance. Sociologists have, for a very long time now, co-opted the critical arguments of economists or philosophers like Karl Marx, who pointed out the inherent injustices in the political-economic sphere of capitalist relations of production. This has continued right up to the present day. If it were really true that sociologists are indifferent towards the status quo, then there never would have been a Pierre Bourdieu, who clearly adopted and adapted the ideas of Marx, Weber, Durkheim and others to develop perhaps the most sophisticated theoretical schema ever devised by a sociologist, a schema that has offered a comprehensive means of analysing and theorising the structural dynamics of modern societies. In addition, contemporary “inter-” and even “post-disciplinary” sociology is increasingly engaging with sophisticated arguments in philosophy and other areas in an effort

Preface  xiii to produce a more rounded picture of various phenomena in the social world. Even on matters of the natural environment – seemingly, on the surface, the most unsociological of topics – sociologists are equally well invested, and they have been for many decades: see, for example, Beck (1992); Mcnaghten and Urry (1998); Guy and Shove (2000); Irwin, 2001; King and Auriffeille (2014). Although sociology may not be the most obvious port of call for climate science, nobody should need convincing for one moment about the implications of the environment, pollution and global warming from a human-social point of view, and for its issues to therefore be probed critically and sociologically. So why does a quintessentially sociological topic like religion get let off the hook so easily? This will be a central question throughout this book. The main premise of the book is that religious faith and the (non-)existence of God are as much sociological concerns as they are scientific ones. It will advance the argument that religious faith affects people’s behaviours with wider consequences for the social world and that it is often harmful and deeply incompatible with a twenty-first-century society in which scientific knowledge sets the standard and in which all rights are apparently increasingly cherished. Yet, at the same time, a more complex society, with a plethora of voices, actually requires not a “multicultural” stance but rather a stronger sense of identity: an insistence on rationality, an honest engagement with all forms of knowledge and evidence, a single secular law, and equal opportunity for all, rather than a vain attempt to please all groups in society by indulging religious superstitions and subjective perspectives in political and legal contexts with which they are regularly at odds. In turn, this new approach to the critique of religious exceptionalism calls for a new approach in sociology as well – sociology must do more to recognise these problems. Religion itself often rouses the very criticisms that cause it to sustain the most political and intellectual damage. Like any other form of personal choice or belief (and religious conviction is essentially personal by definition), it should not be excluded from scrutiny, criticism or even derision. Rather, the true relevance of faith today needs to be (re-) assessed properly and soberly, and there’s no reason at all why sociology cannot be involved in such an enterprise. And yet, despite all this, my own quarter-century of training in sociology, along with a series of bizarre developments in academia and in mainstream society generally, has made me painfully aware that a focus exclusively on religious faith is insufficient for a true appreciation of how and why it is that a whole range of disingenuous forms of belief persist in our societies today. The events of the last few years, in particular, have given me cause for deep disappointment and grave concern regarding the current state and future of reason and other Enlightenment principles, which I unapologetically endorse and favour. Moreover, and perhaps just as alarmingly, amid the chaos and the controversy, the social sciences have not been the detached and cool observers that they might like to portray themselves to be. In fact, in many ways, as we shall see, the social sciences, and sociology in particular, have often been the instigators and at the very heart of it. The reason why I reflect on things in this way is that I was first attracted to sociology on account of (what I thought was) its brutal honesty. Sociology has often prided itself on being able

xiv  Preface to “make the familiar strange,” as many of its researchers like to say, particularly by critically engaging with one’s own social milieu in radical political ways. This was always a great and exciting feature about sociology. But it turns out that, rather like established religions themselves, academic disciplines like sociology are also capable of (1) creating fantasies; (2) having clear intellectual boundaries – indeed, some of the clearest boundaries of all – beyond which they are absolutely not willing to venture; and (3) adopting the most rigid of political stances that they are not willing to compromise on either. Today, the familiar (or one particular, specially selected kind of familiar in a multicultural context) is becoming rather a bit too strange – perhaps a sign that sociology might now be enjoying a little too much success, on balance. Tragically, in recent times, we appear to have lost our powers of critical judgement and perspective. We have become, so to speak, ignorant about ignorance and its many perils. As Steven Pinker has put it, the Enlightenment is “perhaps the greatest story seldom told” (2018: 5), and this is certainly the case now more than ever. These days, “Enlightenment” is generally something of a swear word, both within academia and outside of it, and it is simply assumed that we all now necessarily live in a “post-truth” world (Kakutani, 2018). I  think this is a crucial factor. Instead of “speaking truth to power,” as the old adage goes, ideologies of all kinds today appear to have become newly emboldened as they now routinely speak power to truth. And this is a second crucial reason why I have felt compelled to write this book, which will explore a series of key themes throughout its chapters. Those themes are faith, dogmatism and ideology; morality and society; secularisation and secularity; modernity and postmodernity; the new woke movement; extremism, intimidation, language and censorship; and science, democracy and relativism. Across seven core chapters – a rather convenient, though totally co-incidental, biblical number – all of these themes (and particularly the italicised ones) shall be discussed in a range of sociologically relevant ways. Engaging with scripture and other theological and philosophical sources, ­Chapter  1 will set the ball rolling by discussing the meaning of faith from various monotheistic perspectives. In the interests of balance, the chapter will discuss some of the ways in which faith is regarded as being important to theists. At the same time, however, it will also present arguments as to why the concept of religious faith – as the archetypal example of an excuse for a range of unsupported beliefs – is sociologically objectionable, particularly by considering not only its inherent gullibility but also its scriptural claims to eternal and divine wisdom vis-àvis the ongoing developments and uncertainties of twenty-first-century sociopolitical issues. To be clear, following Douglas Krueger, I define “faith” as “belief in the truth of something despite the fact that there is no evidence for that belief – or even when there is evidence to the contrary” (1998: 208). Overall, I  therefore regard faith-based claims to truth as holy, holey and wholly: “holy” in terms of their alleged provenance; “holey” because they are often full of holes; and “wholly” because they are, in the final analysis, wholly inadequate. Faith is an important first theme, because it has recently been applied in powerful new critiques against

Preface  xv perspectives in the secular academic tradition, such as neo-Marxism, which are developments for discussion in later chapters. Faith-based scriptural claims to wisdom and their relationship to the stability of societies lead us to the main concern of Chapter 2: namely, morality. The issue of morality is a central thread running through all of the main chapters. For example, morality was a central concern in the rise of Enlightenment values as the dominant mode of thought in modern European history, just as it was in the theologically dominant European societies that preceded them. Given that Emile Durkheim – arguably the most influential of all of the earliest sociologists – regarded religion, morality and society as varying manifestations of essentially the same thing, morality has always held a central place in modern sociology as well. Accordingly, the chapter shall explore theological, sociological and scientific perspectives on morality and will argue that a concept of biological nature – something frequently resisted or even denied in both religious teachings and sections of the academy today – still remains indispensable to understanding it. It was the tumultuous events of the modern era, along with the demise of religion in Western Europe in particular, that led to the rise of sociology as a modern academic discipline. Accordingly, Chapter 3 shall discuss the advent of secularisation, along with its discontents and controversies. Exploring some of the ideas and writings of a number of key commentators from both the past and the present, the chapter outlines some of the crucial developments of secularisation and again discusses politics, reason, faith and morality in a secular context. Following the sociologist Steve Bruce (2011), the chapter upholds the unpopular “secularisation theory” in sociology – that is, the claim that a decline in religion in Europe really did occur as a result of the Western experience of modernity and its influences. Relatedly, the chapter also supports the connected ideas that the same process could potentially happen again under similar conditions, but this is by no means inevitable because of historical hindsight. Finally, the chapter argues that the process of secularisation was overall a net positive for Western civilisations, but it has raised certain challenges for our societies moving forward. Among those challenges is the decline of traditional social structures and the range of “myths” that have generally been used in support of them. Chapter 4 therefore explores postmodern perspectives, defined by Lyotard (1979) as the demise of “grand narratives” (such as those found in religious teachings) that were crucial in holding modern and pre-modern societies together for centuries. Representing, in large part, a break also with traditional Marxist perspectives (themselves being aspects of a grand narrative), and in other ways a kind of reconfiguration of them via various expressions of neo-Marxism, postmodernist thought is defined perhaps best of all as a trend towards radical uncertainty produced by a comprehensive rejection of modern ideologies and principles. This perspective, sometimes also called “radical scepticism” among academics, is therefore known for its wholesale rejection of objective truths and natural explanations for phenomena in the world, apparently on account of their supposedly oppressive effects on particular individuals and groups in societies. Accordingly, following Foucault and others,

xvi  Preface postmodernists typically believe that all knowledge is relative and purely an effect of power and language. One of the key strategies of the postmodernist project, then, is the appropriation of language by (or on behalf of) those traditionally deemed to have been marginalised and dominated by more powerful groups in society as a means of protest and resistance. But postmodernism itself relies, mostly, on faith positions. While sympathetic to certain aspects of postmodern sensibilities (such as a wariness towards forms of discrimination, excessive naturalism and scientism), this chapter will argue that, ultimately, by rejecting reason, realism and objectivity, advocates of postmodernism nevertheless undermine their own arguments and in fact typically only reproduce empty assertion and dogmatism in new guises themselves. If the eccentricities and absurdities of postmodernism were confined mostly to the academy, we now see their troubling and increasing influences taking hold in Western societies on a broader scale in the form of so-called woke politics, the focus of Chapter 5. In fact, picking up a series of themes and concepts – power, identity politics, subjectivity, intersectionality and so on – woke ideology is essentially a fusion of postmodernism and neo-Marxism, which is why it places an emphasis on “praxis” or action in the social world (answering Marx’s famous call to “change it”). In this way, woke ideology, in all of its manifestations, presents itself as a positive political movement – indeed, the only positive movement that anybody can get behind today. Although the term “woke” will need no introduction given its allpervasive menace now, this concept is nevertheless, by design, also a rather slippery and convoluted one. For example, owing to its origins as a term referring to acute political awareness among African Americans in the 1950s, “woke” plays a central role in intersectionality thesis, which privileges race in particular, but it also extends to all other areas of contemporary political awareness, including gender issues, sexualities and even the environment. Again, morality is a crucial theme in all of these. But while wokeism presents itself as unmistakeably righteous (indeed, it has been characterised as a new religion), in practice it is anything but tolerant, let alone perfect, and it also has extremely concerning theoretical origins and sinister political implications for the future. This is because the Critical Race Theory (CRT) on which much of “wokeism” is built is really just the latest manifestation of what James Lindsay calls “Race Marxism” (2022), an openly anti-liberal, fanatical, vengeful and race-obsessed series of New Left power-struggle programmes with “utopian” visions of a “Communist” future, apparently with a horrifying racial (as opposed to a class-based) agenda. Given their common focus that combines aspects of identities, language, power and censorship, in some ways, it should not surprise us in the least that the perspectives of the contemporary left and the woke set have merged neatly with those of certain Muslims and even Islamists – and this marriage of convenience will be the focus of Chapter 6. Specifically, the chapter will begin by considering arguments around the Danish cartoons’ controversy. It will then analyse the decades-long assault by the Islamic world on the core principles of traditional liberal Western values, which, just like the neo-Marxists of the late twentieth and early twentyfirst centuries, many Muslims openly despise. The main principles in this case are

Preface  xvii those of free thought and free expression, which are now perhaps in the gravest danger we have known in living memory. High-profile and often fatal attacks on writers, journalists, film-makers and politicians from across the world have cast a long and intimidating shadow; and, alongside the thousands of other individual acts of terrorism in various countries around the world since 9/11, they strike right at the heart of Western civilisation itself. For its part, whenever it does break its otherwise deafening silence on the matter, the academic and political left has a tendency only to tell us that there is “nothing to see here” or, alternatively, to typically attribute the matter to “offence” or to territorial, postcolonial or neo-imperial issues for which the West is allegedly exclusively culpable anyway. This is primarily because the contemporary left no better understands the ideology of Islam any more than it does the realities of the Communism that it also valorises (nor does it seem to have any desire to). But by reassessing certain issues with regard to faith, media and representation, religious scripture, colonial history, slavery and politics, this chapter will argue that the Islamic world and its apologists are in no position at all to pontificate on matters of imperialism, racism, bigotry or ideology, and will suggest that there is much more to this agenda than “offence” at mere words or a series of “blasphemous” cartoons. Finally, having explored some of the key sociological issues relating to the themes of faith, morality and epistemology, Chapter 7 rounds off by addressing some important debates in the sociology of knowledge and science. The chapter begins by returning to the emergence of sociology as a novel academic enterprise, apparently intended as an answer to the advent of modernity and the decline of organised religion in Europe as a result of secularisation. But sociology has often struggled for acceptance among the sciences, and these difficulties have, in part at least, led to new sociological perspectives on the meaning of knowledge itself. Addressing a series of now classic texts, the chapter focuses mainly on the legacy of relativism that has been left behind, making it somewhat complementary with Chapters 4 and 5. Despite their “classic” status, there is no doubt that many of the best-known texts in the philosophy of science from the post-war period still retain significant influence both within and beyond sociology, apparently validating the subjective and postmodern perspectives that dominate today. But this lasting significance cannot be anything but ironic, because it must imply that the now canonised philosophers of science who questioned the scientific method and rationality must have appealed to reason and objectivity in order to have been able to “convince” many of today’s academics that there can be no such thing as reason or objectivity. The chapter will therefore argue against such trendy claims and will reassert the significance of rational thinking and honest civil discourses, particularly in liberal-democratic contexts. These are the seven main themes of the argument to follow, then: faith, morality, secularisation, modernity and postmodernity, “woke” ideology, censorship, and epistemology and relativism; each one is the focus of a specific chapter. But there are in fact eight themes overall, the final one being sociology itself – the discipline that binds all of these themes together in this volume. Sometimes sociology will be peripheral to the discussion, while at other times it will be central. Either way,

xviii  Preface it will be consistently relevant throughout. To be clear, I am not condemning the discipline of sociology per se – there is much good work in sociology, just as there is in many other kinds of academic enterprise. I am merely pinpointing those areas of the discipline that make fantastical claims and stubbornly maintain them as existing dogmas for political purposes, even in the face of contradictory evidence and logic. In short, like many others today, I am simply exasperated and exhausted by “the glorification of ignorance” (Dee, 2015), a glorification that is continually taking on new forms. In the Conclusion of the book, I argue that the developments described in the case studies presented here essentially relate to a “fear of knowledge” (Boghossian, 2006), perhaps an innate inability in humans, at least occasionally, to accept truth and reality on its own terms. This fear is traceable back to religious scripture; and it should be admitted that, in one way, such a fear is capable of producing some of the most beautiful reflections on the painful process that can sometimes come with learning. For example, a particular favourite of mine is found in the Bible: “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow” (Ecclesiastes, 1:18, original emphasis). Nevertheless, I argue, along with Carl Sagan (1994, 1996) and other commentators on science, that it is far preferable, and more empowering, to live in truth and knowledge than in ignorance and delusion. Like all books (including the “holy” ones), this one is finite and imperfect. Each of the key themes mentioned earlier could have been – and very regularly are – the topics of book-length treatments on their own. I am not under any illusions about this, and I do not pretend to have all of the answers or to have covered all possibilities. As is always the case, brevity will sometimes be called for. The point is simply to bring this range of themes together in order to provide an overall picture of the situation we now face and to critique a troubling intellectual crisis and culture of censorship and authoritarianism that is now engulfing both our centres of “education” and our societies at large. As Aron Ra has pointed out, people of faith have an annoying tendency to assume that you “can’t know anything unless you know everything” (2016: 113). Western academics can sometimes be a little bit like this as well, and they might therefore demand a more “equal balance” between, for example, “left” and “right” perspectives. But the point is that I categorically deny that there is any such useful distinction anymore, because this is way too simplistic an assertion given the complexities of our societies and the authoritarian nature of many of those on either side of this supposed divide at this point. Frankly, although I always regarded myself as being on the left and having been a life-long Labour voter (in the UK), I now consider myself to be largely non-partisan when it comes to two extreme sides that have an equal disregard for truth and honesty. To the extent that there might still be a left and a right, I am now a centrist who simply values the freedom to think, choose and believe what he wants based on the right to assess ideas and arguments using his own faculties. In the limited space available, while contributing many of my own thoughts along the way, I have offered interpretations from either side while placing an emphasis on the authoritarian and

Preface  xix censorious agenda that is now overwhelmingly coming from sections of the political and academic “left” (as they generally refer to themselves). Accordingly, this book may not always reflect the subtleties that one might typically associate with academic arguments, because, in all honesty, it is much too late for that. Instead, the time has come for candour. Many academics, including social scientists, have made several attempts to engage their audiences in a familiar, reserved fashion over a number of decades, and all have apparently failed. In response to the destructive radicalism and cognitive dissonance that now appear to be prevalent both on our campuses and beyond them, my defiance in this book is what might be described as a “cognitive dissidence” (if I may coin the term). What is alarming about the developments over the last decade or so, in particular, is that a kind of overtly politicised dishonesty has become the coin of the realm. In many ways, it may therefore seem hypocritical and rich of any non-theist to analyse the follies of faith, because we might also often appear to be devoutly religious now, especially given the current state of our universities, whether they are expressly religious institutions or not. And so it is according to the neo-Marxist of the day, hell-bent on imposing his or her own style of a rudderless “Justice” on everybody else, that knowing what it means to be on the “ ‘right side’ of History” is akin to the faithful claiming to understand the mind of God and therefore knowing his plans for all of us (Lindsay, 2022). Amid this kind of fanaticism, the main objective becomes not a matter of being on the “right side” of (the Marxist’s) history anymore, but being on the correct side of clarity, honesty and integrity. In any case, I very much doubt that those of us who truly value erudition, transparency, human liberty and equality could possibly be on the wrong side of very much at all in this whole crisis, which may yet prove to be a mere passing phase anyway. But if it turns out that I am indeed on the “wrong” side, then I’d rather let a decidedly non-deistic history itself be the judge of that.

1

Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith

Like many people today, I was raised in a home in which religion, although a ­presence, played only a minor role. Being of Turkish origin, my father, who a­ rrived in the UK in the late 1950s, is Muslim, though he has never really practised any kind of religion passionately. My mother, on the other hand, despite not being particularly observant either, identified herself unequivocally as a Catholic and ­believed strongly in many Christian values. Both my brother and I were officially inducted into the Muslim tradition as infants. However, although we were always taught to at least assume the existence of God, no formal religiosity was ever really forced on us. Fortunately for my brother and I, our parents loved their offspring much more than they loved any deity or prophet, and I was always free to discover things for myself and to, potentially at least, make up my own mind about the various aspects of life and the questions pertaining to them. That said, I  clearly remember the moment when I  first told my mother that I didn’t believe in any kind of God (though I don’t recall knowing the meaning of the word “atheist” back then), and I remember her reaction to the news. Although I’m not sure of my exact age at the time, I was certainly no more than 12 years old when we had that conversation; and even for a moderate, my mother’s reaction was far from encouraging. I can remember how she made it clear that belief in God was necessary, even if the doctrines of any given religion were not central to absolutely everything we did in life. There was an overwhelming sense of disappointment, disgust and disbelief (in me, not God), and there was even a little anger. Having only a basic understanding of theism at the time, the main reason I gave for my doubt was simple: a singular God is apparently fundamental to every human being (according to the teachings), yet there are numerous gods and I have no way of knowing which one is the correct one. They can’t all be right, but they could all be wrong. “How can they all co-exist and all be right at the same time?” (This was a question I actually put to my mother, and she wasn’t able to answer it satisfactorily.) But I also remember telling my mother that the stories didn’t make much sense either – I didn’t know all of the biblical stories at the time, but those I did know were very strange indeed. After that conversation, we never really spoke much about the topic again, but it was clear that I had hurt my mother deeply with my scepticism, and I even found out from other family members that she had DOI: 10.4324/9781003039822-1

2  Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith confided in them by telling them about what I had said. In short, it was clear that my atheism didn’t sit right with either of my parents. I’m quite sure that, in that moment, and for some time thereafter, my mother took my words as the rather thoughtless, misguided or even rebellious musings of a preadolescent who was all just a bit mixed up. Perhaps I would “grow out of it” in good time. But I never did. In fact, once gripped by the thought of it, especially over the ensuing years, the imperative of the concept of scepticism or non-belief, it occurred to me, is many times more powerful and more important than the assertions and fables of any “holy” book. Without necessarily being well articulated or properly understood back then, my realisation around that time had already set in train a process: the development of an ethos that has ever since compelled me to try to think more deeply and believe less easily. A great part of this scepticism involves my wholesale rejection of religious faith along with other forms of dogmatic ideology. And the main purpose of this opening chapter is (1) to discuss definitions of faith, (2) to identify why it is sociologically important, and (3) to critique it and explain why it is a legitimate topic for sociological analysis. Belief, Non-Belief and Credibility The story that I have just relayed is not necessarily my motivation for writing this book, but it is not simple window dressing either; rather, it is designed to emphasise the institutional basis of religious belief, its persistence in our societies today and how that arrangement affects the thoughts of people (and indeed the ability of thought itself) in everyday life. There is a socio-psychological aspect to the hold that religious belief has, which is incredibly powerful and diffuse, even now. But the rather odd juxtaposition of the child and guardian roles in the memory I have just shared should, in itself, give us pause for thought. Instead of being impressed at her 12-year-old son’s questioning of a bizarre tradition and encouraging him to pursue his doubts further, my mother’s first reaction – for which I cannot entirely blame her – was to question me, not so much in the hope of engaging in further discussion but in order to dissuade me from thinking the “wrong” thing. Much to my good fortune, my mother was no zealot; she was never going to disown me on the basis of our discussion, yet it’s scary enough that she instinctively felt the need to speak up for her God, rather than her own flesh and blood (or indeed, putting relations to one side, the value of criticism or doubt itself). But things could easily have been more difficult in other circumstances. This is just the most fundamental way in which religious faith subverts the notion of responsibility on a routine basis. It demonstrates the power and potential danger of faith. Far too often, belief remains not a choice but a requirement to be accepted without question, even in families that might not be particularly religious. The reasons for this kind of tacit acceptance (if not insistence) on the virtues of religious faith, and the negative reactions to declarations of non-belief, may often be well intentioned or at least non-aggressive, so far as one can discern. That is to say, I expect that many people who believe in religious values do so without necessarily wishing misfortune or ill-judgement on others. And they probably believe for

Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith  3 rather vague reasons, including misapprehensions of some or other basic human emotions and traits, such as “love” or “hope” or “morality” itself (an essential theme to which the next chapter of this book is dedicated). Yet by the same rule, believing something for sweet and fluffy reasons does not necessarily make that belief good or true. (Cue the audible gasps: “He mentioned the ‘T’ word!” “How could he?” “What does he mean?” “How naïve!”) We will get to concepts of truth in due course. For now, the overall point is that the concept of faith is sociologically relevant, and the assumptions made about it are equally important, because such assumptions are often based not on a proper understanding of what faith is philosophically, but on the sheer good will of most people in societies to agree to live alongside one another regardless of divergent beliefs. Unlike most sociologists, then, it is not my intention to try to swerve the question of truth completely when it comes to matters of religion, pleading some vain position of value neutrality. At first glance, it may seem understandable that some people might wish to take such a non-committal position with regard to religion, but it is neither necessary nor particularly more ennobling to do so. In fact, the very idea of value neutrality in sociology is fiercely contested anyway, if not by now rejected completely (see, e.g. Johnson, 1977: 371). But critical and honest debates in the social sciences haven’t always been applied to the topic of religion, and I argue that they should be, not least because religiosity itself can present us with extraordinary claims about alleged experiences that do not readily permit or sustain neutrality in the cold light of day (more on this on this will be discussed later). In any case, on an everyday level, the question doesn’t even need to involve pretentions to formal science at all. Instead, whether an academic or not, one could simply state that no given religion or god concept is any more convincing than any other and proceed on the basis that they are all, most likely, equally untrue. Simply withholding one’s belief and rejecting faith wholesale need not therefore be regarded as a claim in itself, and it is not necessarily being value neutral in any scientific sense either; it’s often just neutral (at least on the existence of gods). In short, an atheist does not need to commit him- or herself to a positive position and state categorically that “God does not exist!” All that the atheist needs to do is reject the proposition that any god does exist, and the burden of proof still necessarily lies with the theist, because the sincere theist is asserting that a god exists; if a theist is not asserting this, then there seems little point at all in believing in any particular god or being affiliated with any given religion in the first place – and I say this even though it is of course possible to call oneself an “agnostic theist” (which is to believe in a god without claiming to know that she/ he exists). This is why the all-too-common dichotomy between the (supposedly sure-footed) “atheist” on the one hand and the more open-minded “agnostic” on the other is a false one, because (a-)theism is essentially concerned with faith and (a-)gnosticism is essentially concerned with knowledge, but neither the “atheist” nor the godless “agnostic” ultimately believes. Regardless of how one wishes to define oneself, then, an agnostic who does not believe in a god of any kind is still an atheist, and any claim to “know” that a god exists or not is always precisely that: a mere claim.

4  Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith Non-belief is therefore more complicated than is sometimes appreciated. Although some atheists do make clear assertions that gods do not exist, many others do not. To clarify, this latter position is what some philosophers have referred to as “agnostic atheism” (my position), and this involves non-belief in gods while making no definitive assertion regarding their (non-)existence. But this shouldn’t mean that we cannot analyse god claims and therefore criticise the position of faith itself: we certainly do not need to be neutral on that, and I aim to explain why. Indeed, I would go even further by adding that if anybody in society should treat a concept like faith with any degree of seriousness and suspicion, then it is the thinking academic or intellectual, not only because we need to probe all truth claims carefully but also because beliefs affect actions (Durkheim, 1973/1912), actions have consequences for the social world, and actions based purely on faith are hardly ever sound and are even, potentially, irresponsible. The conscientious academic would know that there are powerful and compelling philosophical arguments to suggest that belief on faith alone is not just ridiculous but positively contemptable in itself for various reasons, as we shall see in more detail later (for insightful considerations on this, see Krueger, 1998). Unpacking such objections, I want to subject the concept of religious faith to a sustained sociological critique, beginning with the analysis in this chapter, because it suffuses the lives of so many people and determines or colours various thoughts and actions, often in negative ways. Another crucial reason for the focus on religious faith is that it has import for a range of sociological concepts and themes, including politics, education, nature, morality, as well as perennial questions concerning (in-)equalities along the lines of gender, race, social class and so on. My overall point will be that politicised religious faith is, by definition, incompatible with the values of inclusive, secular societies because partial or universal acceptance of any particular flavour of it would necessarily imply the interference here on Earth of a supposedly transcendent being for which there is no proof and over which there is no agreement and no hope of any agreement. However, unlike religions, I won’t be expecting you to just take my word for all this; rather, I shall endeavour to draw on various sources and carefully lay out the evidence into what I hope will be a coherent and convincing argument. In short, faith-based beliefs are often hugely important to the affiliated, while they are presented as being fundamentally important to all humans; and yet they are also largely provincial, mutually incompatible and esoteric all at the same time (Anthony, 2007a). Religious Faith So, what is “faith” according to the monotheist? The answer to this question seems to be dependent upon whom one asks and under what circumstances. But where better to begin for a working definition than with the sources that are often claimed to be the very word of God himself? For the record, my Kindle lists the author of the Holy Bible as “Collins” (ironically, perhaps it would seem somewhat impudent to list the author as “God”). In any case, according to Hebrews 11:1 of the New Testament, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things

Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith  5 not seen” (King James Bible, 2011/1991: 1106). It is easy to see how some people could be seduced by the poeticism of the Bible, especially when it adds that “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” However, to my knowledge, we now have a decent working understanding of how the universe and Earth were actually formed, thanks mainly to physicists, and it didn’t entail the commands of a “divine” voice. What we find in the monotheistic narrative with regard to this question is, by contrast, a rather unsatisfying appeal to a performance of magic and a direct contradiction to the standards usually applied when establishing proof or accuracy in reality: we have a being who allegedly used His “words” in order to cause things to come into existence, and we are said to “understand” this as “evidence” precisely by way of the absence of any evidence that any such act ever took place. In other words, if faith is the “substance of things hoped for,” it sounds very much like nothing more than wishful thinking, and the Bible itself admits as much. The definition of religious faith provided earlier is commonly cited by philosophers, scientists, theologians and other commentators, whether they are theistic or not. Initially, it appears to be a statement made in ignorance, which would also make it, at best, unreliable by definition. But we cannot even conclude this much since the Bible and other such texts add yet more to the mix by telling us that God has decreed that all of us are required to have this faith if we are to be accepted by him, and this implies a degree of certainty on the part of the messenger: “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6, original emphases). This requirement presents a fundamental contradiction to the supposed “virtue” of religious faith, and it is an aspect of Christianity that has, of course, been attacked epistemologically and philosophically in Western discourses for centuries. The Qur’an makes very similar claims to those found in the Bible and repeats several times that most of its messages relayed through Muhammad were in fact reconfirmations of the ones given previously by a long line of other prophets including Jesus, Moses, Job, Abraham, Noah and others (though apparently not the future Joseph Smith). To give just one example, the Qur’an states that “the scripture of Moses was revealed as a guide and a mercy, and this is a scripture confirming it in the Arabic language” (46:12). Many other verses state this again and again (see 3:3; 3:84; 37:123; 40:5). The magic is also mentioned: “This is how God creates what he will: when He has ordained something, He only says, ‘Be’, and it is” (The Family of Imran 3:47; see also The Cow 2:117). There are differences, of course, and one of the main issues that the Qur’an has with the earlier scriptures is the suggestion that God can have offspring: the angels are not God’s daughters or sons, Jesus is certainly not God’s son, and he is not a three-in-one being either (Women 4:171). (Apparently, this all-knowing God was unable to get these trivial details straight at the first time of asking.) A further objection that follows is the idea that ordinary people can be described as God’s children. The Qur’an reprimands the Jews and Christians on this point, telling them (and all of us) that we “are merely

6  Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith human beings, part of His creation,” while confirming that “all journeys lead to Him” (The Feast 5:18). And this is quite an incentive, at least for some. Indeed, certain studies have shown that religion can have social benefits. A person of faith would probably interpret this as an example of how we receive much-needed guidance and fortitude from our Lord and shepherd, but scientific analyses – including those made of primate species – have demonstrated that it probably has more to do with the need for an innate sense of community and contact between people. As De Waal has pointed out, “church attendance” may be a “major factor in religion’s effect on personal well-being, which suggests a social dimension” (2013: 198). The great sociologist Emile Durkheim also wrote about these kind of effects, arguing that the power of faith can give people strength and resilience. In contrast to the faithless, the believer, wrote Durkheim, feels within him more force, either to endure the trials of existence, or to conquer them. It is as though he were raised above the miseries of the world, because he is raised above his condition as a mere man; he believes that he is saved from evil, under whatever form he may conceive this evil. (1973/1912: 189) This is traceable to the Bible: “If ye have faith of a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:20). Durkheim also ­defined faith as a source of “warmth” to the individual, a moral and inspirational force deriving its power from the society itself. Ordinarily, faith is often conceptualised as an individualistic phenomenon, a “security blanket” in a mysterious and dangerous world (Sophia, 2003); however, in typical Durkheimian fashion, what we have here instead is a sociology of faith, the concept being understood in collectivised terms. Faith, Morality and Society Building on the original work of Durkheim, a number of sociologists have argued that religion has historically been at the heart of human association, particularly as it helps to stimulate people and hold societies together. In other words, religions have been conceptualised by some sociologists as having a functional purpose. Durkheim himself has been categorised as a “functionalist” among sociologists of religion, and thereby often contrasted with so-called “substantive” theorists. As McGuire puts it neatly, “Substantive definitions try to establish what religion is; functional definitions describe what religion does” (2001: 8, original emphasis). No definition is by any means universally accepted in sociology as an explanation for the general significance of religion in societies; however, morality, symbolism and action are crucial components in Durkheim’s understanding of religion and the purpose it serves. Although I shall say more about these facets in forthcoming chapters, it is worth just dwelling on them briefly here, because they are sociologically fundamental.

Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith  7 One of the most crucial features of Durkheim’s concept of religion involves his distinction between the sacred and the profane (Durkheim, 1973/1912). As McGuire explains: Whereas the natural/supernatural distinction of some substantive definitions refers to the intrinsic quality of the object of worship, the sacred/profane distinction refers to the attitude of the worshipers. The realm of the sacred refers to that which a group of believers sets apart as holy and protects from the “profane” by special rites and rules. (2001: 12, original emphasis) We could cite any number of examples of such a demarcation of the sacred and profane, and not just religious ones, but a classic example from religion would be the wafer that Catholics take to be the body of Jesus Christ in the context of ritual (the “transubstantiation”). Not unlike the Christian God, Durkheim’s notion of religion in fact involves a kind of trinity of its own, according to some sociologists. Craib, following ­Steven Lukes, identifies three key interpretations of religion within the Durkheimian perspective: “the causal, the interpretive, and the functional” (Craib, 1997: 71). The causal explanation of religion relates to participation and experiences shared among groups; these shared experiences are often the result of what Durkheim called “collective effervescence,” a socio-psychological effect which refers to the levels of excitement that can take hold of the individual and the group during ceremonies and other activities (or even, e.g. in a secular context, a music concert, a rally or a public demonstration). The interpretive explanation has to do with the centrality of religious symbolism. In his Elementary Forms thesis, Durkheim sought clues as to the origins or essence of religious belief, and he drew on studies of native societies in Australia and America because he considered these as containing the most rudimentary examples of religion. This is why he identified the “totem” as the central representation around which all worshipers or members congregate. Again, the concept of the totem can be expanded into the secular realm (a national flag, for instance), but the point is that the symbol stands for the society itself and must be protected against violation. Finally, the functional interpretation refers to the overall force of the religion to the society in question, centring on morality and cohesion. All three of these factors work together whenever religious adherents congregate or celebrate a festival: worshipers re-enact the rites of their faith together using symbols, thereby reminding each other of their collective commitment to the beliefs at hand, and reinforcing group cohesion. The “New Atheist” movement of the 2000s, principally led by Harris (2006), Dawkins (2006a), Dennett (2007a) and Hitchens (2008), has been criticised by some social scientists for having focused too narrowly on the psychological effects of faith in influencing the behaviour that can potentially endanger others. Jonathan Haidt is one such critic, and he argues that the New Atheists, being scientifically and intellectually driven, didn’t reckon on the power of belonging in religion, a crucial factor in Durkheim’s analysis. The simple believing-doing model favoured

8  Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith by the New Atheists therefore mutates into a tripartite belonging-believing-doing model, placing rather greater emphasis on the guidance of a community, which may not necessarily be negative. The point is that when it comes to religion, we are not simply talking about individuals and their actions, but groups and their togetherness, the formation of communities. Haidt refers to this competing perspective as “the Durkheimian model” of religion (Haidt, 2012: 250). While Haidt’s observations are important, however, we should be cautious about automatically assuming that “belonging” suits everybody or that it necessarily takes a trained scientific mind to experience the cognitive dissonance that often comes with religion. We shall return to these points later. Also containing echoes of Durkheim’s perspective, Peter Berger (1967) argues that humans construct or “build” their social worlds and their own “realities,” and he states that religions have played a fundamental role in such constructions throughout history and across societies. Berger discusses a three-step process: “externalization, objectivation, and internalization.” These related concepts describe the complex ways in which human thought processes and activities continually pump out understandable and communicable entities, meanings and cultural products (externalisation); the aggregation of such production takes on the form of a reality which “confronts” the human agent (objectivation); and this constructed reality is then more or less learned (internalised) by members of the society in question. We are engaged in an ongoing process of making and re-making our worlds – what Berger calls our “world-building” activities. Variable factors, such as specific languages, laws, names, customs, occupations, citizenship, among other things, combine to contribute towards “the fundamental reality-bestowing power of society” (Berger, 1967: 13). This is the “nomos” of any given society, harnessed in its values and knowledge pertaining to the world. The nomos is defined by certain “legitimated” activities and behaviours which produce and maintain the “plausibility structures” that ultimately connect our social realities to a grander, mystic-cosmic order. The significance of these activities is what lends such power to religious affiliations and meanings as they become central to the entire fabric of the community in question. The values of the nomos create what Berger calls a “sacred canopy” that envelops the whole society with a cultural significance rooted in a psychologically protective worldview and shared memory, which religions have been central to for much of human history. Regardless of the society in question, if this “sacred canopy” is ever punctured or torn, it can result in a state of “anomy” (meaninglessness), and the results can be catastrophic. This, in part, explains why religions can be so defensive and aggressive when it comes to preserving their identities and boundaries. As Durkheim understood, religious traditions usually have a strong sense of their own interconnectedness and the importance of values, morality and cohesiveness in maintaining their strength. In more pluralistic societies, however, to any cool observer, one community’s “plausibility structure” may appear as an “implausible fabrication” that is often used to excuse all manner of nonsense, discrimination and even violence against non-members and deviants. This kind of realisation inevitably results in the relativisation of all religious accounts concerning what is “true” and “moral”

Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith  9 in our world, and it can be the cause of great anguish and friction. Plurality is also one of the reasons why concerns such as education, family and sexuality are generally very important to the religious, becoming tightly controlled aspects of life and continuity. Some religious communities therefore have a tendency to cocoon their children in the teachings of their particular faith system as much as possible, including attendance at religious schools, because “the ability of parents to pass on their spiritual capital is affected by the general levels of ‘ambient religion’ in the culture” (Bruce, 2011: 70). But this can of course be stifling. For example, Seth Andrews has referred to his own faith-based upbringing, with its many threats and incursions, as “Stockholm Syndrome for kindergarteners” (2013: 5). Religious faith appears to be a central component in the moral precepts that are often shared and handed-down within and across generations of people. This has prompted many to point out that faith is by no means an exclusively negative force in the world. Indeed, aside from providing some people with a sense of hope, religious faith has motivated many individuals and groups to do good things. Examples abound, and they are both historical and contemporary. Religions were of course responsible for initiating educational provisions in Western societies (Wilson, 1966: 40). Max Weber was referring to faith traditions when he argued that “the common rule of kindness to neighbors appears almost universally as the doctrine of charity or alms – giving freely to help others in need” (Pals, 2006: 174). Similarly, Bruce notes: Late-eighteenth- and nineteenth century British evangelicals such as ­William Wilberforce, Lord Shaftesbury, Hannah More, Dr  Thomas ­Bernardo, and many members of the sprawling wealthy Quaker families devoted vast amounts of time and money trying to improve the lot and the faith of the poor. (2011: 50) In more recent times, we continue to hear similar stories. In 2002, The Guardian reported that a Roman Catholic Bishop in Lancaster planned to sell his “beautiful 16-room Victorian mansion” for over £1 million, with most of the proceeds to be donated to the needy in some of the most deprived areas of north-west England. The article noted that most of the money from the sale was intended for improving the lives of locals whose experiences had been ravaged by poverty and illicit drug dependency (Ward, 2002). In December 2018, The Independent reported that an Islamic youth charity (AMYA) had successfully managed to deliver over 5,000 free meals to homeless people at Christmas time in a number of major cities in the UK, breaking its previous record while expressing its aim to reach the 7,000 mark by New Year’s Day (Shukla, 2018). The Muslim youths did this on their own time and benefitted mostly those unaffiliated with their own religion. There are many other such stories. Nevertheless, the automatic assumption that one requires a faith to be either happy or moral remains a point of controversy that is fiercely rejected by advocates of secular humanism. When it comes to happiness, many studies suggest that faith

10  Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith can in fact be a burden, and that the faithless often find genuine meaning elsewhere and are all the happier for it (Taylor, 2007; Barker, 2015; Zuckerman, 2015). As for morality, according to Grayling, “a very long list indeed of secular organisations are at the forefront of charity, aid and human rights work in the world, and greatly outweigh religious charities in number and resources” (2013: 45). And such charity work is necessarily conducted without the all-too-typical religious strings attached, such as restricting charity to one’s own kind (which is more common than not), promoting one’s church and proselytising or simply trying to win God’s favour with “good” deeds. Nor is it simply the case that having faith automatically makes a person angelic, even if they do great things inspired by it. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose protests against civil rights abuses in America were undoubtedly inspired and strengthened by his religious convictions, is a case in point. As Hitchens argued, there are numerous reasons for us to avoid assuming that King himself was the perfect human being on account of his faith, given that he “probably plagiarized his doctoral dissertation,” and also that he certainly had numerous vices (including extra-marital affairs, a partiality to alcohol, and even orgiastic sex). Although none of these kinds of behaviour would be deemed acceptable by any interpretation of Christian teaching, Hitchens also points out that King’s weaknesses should not trouble us at all, but should instead be “encouraging in that they show that a high moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments” (2008: 303). Dr. King was, of course, one of the greatest orators of all time, and he used that talent towards the most positive of ends. That said, it should also be made clear that his preachings and campaigns were helped by the fact that, ultimately, he had not so much a god on his side as true justice, and with it the weight of public conscience and opinion that gradually gathered over time. Moreover, Hitchens adds that those throughout American history who have opposed slavery have tended, overwhelmingly, to have been freethinkers, while “the chance that someone’s religious belief would cause him or her to uphold slavery and racism was statistically extremely high” (2008: 312, original emphasis). People should therefore think carefully before simply asserting that faith itself has been the driving force behind every positive change. But although “[n]o supernatural force was required to make the case against racism” (Hitchens, 2008: 311), we cannot deny that faith itself remains a powerful force for many. In the end, people “believe” in gods for all kinds of reasons, most of which are questionable to a greater or lesser extent, including tradition, loyalty, fear, comfort and sheer popularity. However, winning a place next to God in Heaven for good behaviour has always been the primary motivation in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions. It is therefore not mere beliefs, but everyday actions expressed in a state of belief, that are the stock-in-trade of religiously based ethics, at least in theory. In other words, one has to really live one’s faith because “faith, if it hath no works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:17, King James Bible, 2011/1991: 1112). We shall expand on the concept of morality in the next chapter, considering theological, sociological and biological explanations. But for now, we will continue in this chapter to consider how the concept of faith has been discussed with regard to behaviour from religious points of view.

Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith  11 Faith and the Reformation It is the imperative of actions (or “works”) that led, inadvertently, to the most significant developments with regard to modern religious practices in European societies via the Protestant Reformation. Indeed, following Max Weber, the sociologist Steve Bruce (1996) has argued that the Reformation, which began in 1517, didn’t just modernise religious practices, it is as good an event as any other in history for identifying the very beginning of modernity itself (more on this is discussed in Chapter 3). Faith was integral to the changes wrought by the Reformation. According to Bruce, prior to the Reformation, there was a more over-arching religious framework that was largely administered in a mass-orchestrated fashion: “A small number of highly trained officials, acting on behalf of the state and the people, glorified God. They did so with a liturgy and with music that was far too complex for the active participation of lay people” (Bruce, 1996: 2). The clergy were therefore the delegates of God and the state: religious experts, if you will, who guided the flock and maintained the spiritual order. What this meant was that lay people could choose to pay minimal attention to spiritual matters and rituals on an everyday basis, and could simply consult with the priest at the end of a day or a week and thereby make everything alright again in the eyes of God. As Bruce (1995, 1996) points out, one of the main things that the reformers objected to was the idea that a handful of officials could somehow act on behalf of all citizens in these ways, cleansing them of their sins or lack of piety and effectively restoring their spiritual condition as authoritative mediators. Although the oft-assumed uniformity of religious belief in pre-modern Europe has been called into question by a number of commentators (see, e.g. Turner, 1991: 136; Arnold, 2005), it is clear that what the likes of Martin Luther and John Calvin aimed for with the Reformation was an intensification of religious piety, insisting that it become a personal project. Individuals were to become responsible for their own relationship with God – after all, according to scripture, each person would have to answer to God for him- or herself on the Day of Judgement. As Bruce puts it, “whereas ritual could be delegated to others, right belief could not” (Bruce, 1996: 3). It is also evident that every effort was made to help the ordinary people in this, as the language of services changed from Latin to the local language and even the music changed to a more familiar style. However, belief wasn’t enough by itself, and what Weber (1992/1904) referred to as the “Protestant Ethic” produced a change in attitude towards life in its entirety, which is summarised in three main principles: vocation, consistency and predestination. Vocation refers to the sense of responsibility that became more personal. As Bruce puts it, “Martin Luther insisted that every man be his own monk. We all have a constant obligation to live moral lives. We cannot rely on others to do it for us” (1996: 14). This sense of responsibility extended into every aspect of daily life: “Mundane roles and occupations were now promoted as expressions of piety, as being pleasing to God, provided that they were performed diligently and honestly” (Bruce, 1996: 14). It therefore seems that, along with piousness, the simple virtues of accepting one’s lot in life, loving one’s family and giving one’s utmost every day – whether as a carpenter, a cobbler or a clergyman – was the best and easiest way to

12  Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith impress the Almighty. Second, consistency refers to the efforts made by individuals to always be mindful of their behaviour, maintaining their guard in their own personal fight against the forces of temptation and evil. So out went prayers and Masses for the dead. Out went penance and, for most Protestants, out went confession. In came the idea that life was a ledger with a plus and a minus column and a running score at the bottom of the page. (Bruce, 1996: 15) There was, then, a kind of economy of morality based on faith, and many people literally wrote it all down in “detailed diaries.” According to Bruce, these changes mainly had a twofold effect on believers who became much more anxious about sinning, while they also replaced a “cyclical view of time” with a more linear one in which “all spheres of life” were aligned with, and directed towards, an ultimate sincerity in all tasks and relationships in the hope of, presumably, being saved (1996: 16). However, the third principle, that of predestination, seems particularly important to our discussion on faith from a sociological perspective, so I will focus on it in a little more detail briefly here before returning to the more far-reaching effects of the Reformation on Western societies as a whole again later. To put it succinctly, the principle of predestination is a fatalistic one, but the Reformers felt that this stipulation was necessary because it would fit more readily with the idea that God is an omniscient (all-seeing or all-knowing) and omnipotent (all-powerful) being. It was decided that both of these must be fundamental characteristics of God, mainly because they would make him insusceptible to the influences of any mere mortal: for the Reformers, it would be a rather unworthy God who, after listening to a little prayer or two, would allow himself to be manipulated or tricked by his own subjects. But sin has always been stubbornly present in the world, so that had to mean that God had planned things that way; there also had to be a price to pay and a Hell for the wrongdoers to go to. The ultimate destination of all people, then, had to have been pre-determined, since God is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent (there can be no temporal, geographical or cosmic limits to what he knows, so he would have known that some people would be bad, which means he must have made them bad). The god of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions is undoubtedly represented in these ways, and this can be confirmed simply by reading any of the so-called “holy” books. Being omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, nothing can escape God’s attention, so he must have chosen only a select few in advance, allowing or willing the rest (an overwhelming majority) to go astray and therefore to perish, whether in ignorance or not; there is simply no other explanation for it. Faith as Exclusion Given the foregoing argument, whichever way one looks at things, God is obviously playing favourites, and he is doing so without apology or rationale. Meanwhile, here on Earth, we’ve had the Peasants’ Revolt, we’ve had the French Revolution, the American Civil War, the Suffragettes, the Indian Rebellion of

Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith  13 1857, the anti-slavery movement across the world, the civil rights movement in the United States, and anti-apartheid politics in twentieth-century South Africa. These comprise just a selection of some of the most dramatic and notable events in human history that have had questions regarding rights, social exclusion and political representation at their heart. I cannot think of a single sociologist who would argue against the ordinary people in any of these political movements, which were all fought in the name of social justice. Even on the most mundane of levels, equal opportunities (in the workplace, marriage, politics, sport and much more) have become increasingly important. We still have to be on our guard constantly, and sociologists regularly discuss how social inequalities get routinely played out in such phenomena as, for example, the segregation and class disparities that are often inscribed into the very landscapes of our inner cities (see Bauman and May, 2001: 39). Yet somehow faith is different, and God’s society up in Heaven, the place that we should all allegedly aspire to reach, has an exclusive membership system all sorted out before a single human being is even born. This must be viewed as fundamentally malign and an insult, not just to human intelligence and dignity in the wider scheme but to the discipline of sociology itself and everything that it stands for. Not all sects or denominations will necessarily live by such puritanical rules these days, of course, but that fact in itself merely re-emphasises the point about the unreliability of the so-called “word of God.” Who’s right and who’s wrong? Who should we believe? Whose interpretation matters the most? It’s interesting that a person’s interpretation of a holy book usually reflects favourably on their character when the news is good; yet everyone, including God himself, gets off scot-free whenever the news is bad. But Calvin and Luther clearly knew their Bibles well (and better than most apologists do today), because the words are definitely there for all to see. Describing entry into God’s Kingdom, the New Testament has the following to say: Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:13–14, original emphases) The Qur’an couldn’t be clearer about God’s grand plan either, repeating it on several occasions. From the outset, we are told, each and every one of us is created by this god, despite the daily reality of human copulation and its spontaneous biological consequences: “Nothing on earth or heaven is hidden from God: it is he who shapes you all in the womb as He pleases” (3:5). Muhammad himself is told that “if God intends some people to be misguided, you will be powerless against God on their behalf. These are the ones whose hearts God does not intend to cleanse” (5:41). Anyone who “rejects” God, then, only does so because God himself intended things to be that way; and, to top it all off, the victims will also receive all the blame in the end! The non-believers are therefore the unwitting pawns in a cruel game that has been rigged in advance, merely so that God can show those that

14  Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith he has personally selected just how much he loves them. The message is unequivocal and is repeated constantly in the Qur’an: “God leaves whoever He will to stray and guides whoever He will” (35:8) and “No soul can believe except by God’s will” (10:100). And yet, at the same time, this god apparently makes it seem as if the nonbelievers are acting of their own accord, freely in the knowledge that he really exists. The Qur’an makes numerous references to the ways in which the various peoples of the Middle East regularly ignored messages that were sent down previously with such honoured figures as Noah and Moses: “The disbelievers will be fuel for the Fire, just as Pharaoh’s people and their predecessors denied Our revelations, and God punished them for their sins” (3: 10–11). The book is replete with such threats, and they clearly extend beyond the ancient times to encompass anyone and everyone who doesn’t accept the religion of Muhammad. Of the doubters, the Qur’an claims, “every time revelation comes to them from their Lord, they turn their backs on it” (6:4). This omniscient God is therefore not just supremely powerful but, apparently, supremely forgetful as well, since we’re also told, “The hypocrites try to deceive God, but it is He who causes them to be deceived” (4:142, emphases added), while we are regularly assured, “It was not God who wronged them; they wronged themselves” (3:117). Speaking of hypocrites, we are also reminded that “God is the Best of Schemers” (3:54). (You got that right!) The story is hopelessly confused and totally unsavoury. It actively endorses, even celebrates, the establishment of the worst kind of caste system imaginable and then compounds the offense by blaming the unwitting victims for their own exclusion and exacting the worst punishment imaginable by sending them all to a fiery Hell for eternity. It is no wonder that some prominent ex-Muslims have referred to Allah as a God who, quite simply, “hates” humanity (most notably women) and the world itself (Sultan, 2009). Faith and Viruses The biologist Richard Dawkins (1993, 2006a) and philosopher of science Daniel C. Dennett (2007a) have both portrayed religious faith as a kind of “virus” or “meme.” According to this perspective, religious behaviour, essentially beginning in the brain as a biological and neurological disposition with a Darwinian rationale, is passed on to successive generations via certain cultural processes like rituals, teachings and other traditions. Some theologians, and even some colleagues in Dawkins’ own discipline of biology, have disagreed with him on this, stating, among other reasons, that Darwinian natural selection is a theory that generally dislikes waste, so it would make little sense for something so destructive or useless to have survived along with us for this long. But we know that natural selection produces apparent anomalies all the time, as Darwin himself famously pointed out with regard to the cumbersome tail feathers of the peacock, which would surely be a hindrance to him should he need to flee from a predator. Of course, to complete the Darwinian explanation on peacock anatomy would be to point out that the peacock uses those feathers for the sole purpose of attracting a mate, with the larger and more colourful feathers being preferred. It is therefore plausible that natural

Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith  15 selection produces traits that can encumber us at the same time as they might be the best chance that we have of passing on our genes. Humans are not the fastest animals, nor the strongest; we are not capable of selfcamouflage, and we don’t have stings, claws or wings either. What we do have are our big brains and our intelligence; these have undoubtedly been our greatest weapons in the survival stakes. And this is the reason why intelligence has been identified by Dawkins as a kind of pivot-point for the human animal: the same processes that help us to take flight in mechanical vehicles, or to create life-saving medicines and antidotes in laboratories, are closely connected to the ones that produce other things as well, like stories and ideas. In a certain sense, then, our creative brains and imaginative powers can become our very own peacock feathers – both science and superstition are expressions of human culture arising from the same brain, but the latter, for Dawkins, is increasingly becoming a hindrance. Dawkins’ point is simply that the everyday specifics of religious behaviour don’t necessarily need to make sense in order for some deeper-lying evolutionary-psychological mechanism to be able to account for them. One idea put forward by some scientists has it that we have a tendency, built into us by natural selection, to assume patterns in nature, even when they aren’t really there; and we often “perceive minds where no minds exist, even in ‘inanimate objects’ ” (Mitchell cited in Carr, 2010: 216). A corollary of this behaviour is to attribute agency to all forces and movements in nature on the assumption that they might be a threat us (see Shermer, 2012: 69). This tendency in the brain to anthropomorphise natural occurrences – sometimes referred to as an “agency detection module” (Haidt, 2012: 252)  – is by no means universally accepted (see Hamilton, 1995: 35), but it has been suggested as a credible means by which superstition has been able to survive down the ages. Such an impulse could explain the development of religion and spirituality, and it doesn’t have to mean that religion is therefore necessarily good or beneficial today. As Dawkins puts it, “The general theory of religion as an accidental byproduct – a misfiring of something useful – is the one I wish to advocate” (2006a: 218). Like a virus, then, in Dawkins’ opinion, the essence of religion is probably chemical or neurological and therefore invisible to the naked eye. But the behaviours that it is capable of producing are expressive and experiential, and they are also compulsive and potentially harmful. If Dawkins’ perceptions are correct, they are more sociologically significant than many sociologists would probably care to admit because he makes no secret of his suspicions regarding the power of institutional influences, and particularly families, on the continuation of religions over time. But the survival of a religion, just like a virus, also depends on the internal environment of a suitable host. In the case of children, the biological explanation emphasises the young brain’s natural absorption and efficiency, both of which are necessary for mere survival in our formative years: When you are preprogrammed to absorb useful information at a high rate, it is hard to shut out pernicious or damaging information at the same time. . . . Like immune-deficient patients, children are wide open to mental infections that adults might brush off without effort. (Dawkins, 1993: 13–14)

16  Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith But religions generally like to ensure that scepticism doesn’t prevail, which is why Dawkins places such an emphasis on the impressionable mind and the (lack of) quality or standard of the information that gets fed into it from an early age: [W]hat I want to say is that it doesn’t matter what particular style of nonsense infects the child brain. Once infected, the child will grow up and infect the next generation with the same nonsense, whatever it happens to be. (2006a: 218–219) And we know that such nonsense gets cultivated and reinforced as part of institutional life. Recalling an experience in her religious education, Louise Anthony writes: “Mysteries of faith are, by their nature, incomprehensible. We must simply believe them. But how can I believe something I don’t understand, I asked? ‘Just memorize your Catechism’, was Sister’s reply. ‘Belief will come’ ” (2007b: 43). The views of Dawkins and Dennett have, perhaps inevitably, been categorised as “offensive” by some (see, e.g. Wiebe, 2008). But I’m not entirely sure what all the fuss is about, because, if one reads scripture with any degree of care, one will quickly discern that monotheism lends itself very easily to the analogy of viral infection without the need for any kind of distortion whatsoever. The only difference between Dawkins’ interpretation and mine is that, in scripture at least, I would emphasise not only that belief can be represented as a contagion but also that nonbelief can as well. Indeed, in everyday vernacular in the Western world, we have such phrases as “spiritual leprosy” and “spiritual health,” as if to indicate that a person’s vital signs can have some sort of essential metaphysical dimension, that a naturally occurring spiritual well-being can be preserved or boosted by various kinds of treatment and that the infection of non-belief or depravity can eventually spread its way through a population to the detriment of an entire group or society like a virulent disease. On this point, one interesting thing about “sincere” faith (or lack thereof), as it allegedly resides in a person’s heart, is that it is invisible to any onlooker, with the exception of God of course. In other words, we cannot tell that someone is a “genuine” believer just by looking at them. To be in good spiritual health means to remain pious and resistant to all temptations. The only way that we can tell if someone is sick is when their symptoms begin to emerge: that is, when they start to misbehave (by acting against scripture); and when that happens, maybe it is a sign that they are not one of the lucky ones. If we have really been chosen by God, then perhaps our spiritual health should remain intact no matter what we encounter, but every exposure to the waywardness of non-believers perhaps increases the chances of our contamination. This is guilt by association, a classic trope of religious faith. As the Qur’an warns: “if you hear people denying and ridiculing God’s revelation, do not sit with them unless they start to talk of other things, or else you yourselves will become like them” (4:140). Complacency and ingratitude towards the Creator appear to be two of the most visibly detectable and serious symptoms, as when the Qur’an also points out that some “perform the prayer only lazily” (9:54) and when, almost aping Donald Trump, it also warns that “Only the losers feel secure

Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith  17 against God’s plan” (7:99). The stories in the holy books clearly play on this kind of psychological uncertainty with regard to non-belief, as some kind of infection and therefore a spreadable threat can result in exclusion from paradise. It is the perfect scare tactic for consolidating the faith and for keeping everyone vigilant and on their toes – or rather, on their knees. Faith and “Othering” Some recent debates in the sociology of identities, media and representation have emphasised the notion of “othering” as a concept for understanding how dominant discourses represent and misrepresent various individuals from minority or traditionally disadvantaged backgrounds. The concept of othering has its roots in some key texts, including Edward Said’s (2014/1978) book Orientalism, which analysed Western political and media representations of Eastern colonial outposts, such as Egypt and other parts of the Middle East in particular. According to Said, the overwhelming narrative in such perspectives was one of superiority, disdain and disrespect, as the West sought to distinguish itself from what its administrators regarded as inferior, uncivilised and “backward” societies in the East. But the concept of othering has recently been applied in various other identity discourses, including those on sexualities (see Ezzell, 2009), social classes and perceptions of whiteness and other ethnicities (Tyler, 2012), migrant workers (Dannecker, 2005), motherhood and how it intersects with notions of language, postcolonialism, African diaspora and feminist discourses (Nnaemeka, 1996), perceptions of people with AIDS in Chinese media (Hood, 2013), notions of belonging and the experiences of Somalian Muslims in Holland (Kassaye et al., 2016) and even WesternOrientalist perceptions of “disease causation” by “mosquito-borne epidemics” in tropical countries (Weinstein and Ravi, 2009). The concept of othering has therefore gained quite some traction in sociological discourses on identity, politics and media. However, to my knowledge, there has been no serious attention given to religious scripture from this point of view. Although sociological arguments about “othering” usually imply inequalities and abuses towards minorities, and despite the fact that most religions could conceivably be considered in that category (depending on context), I think that a discussion of representations of othering towards the non-religious is still perfectly valid and would be very fruitful for sociological consideration. This is based partly on the fact that atheists still represent a global minority (Anthony, 2007a) and partly on the erroneous assumptions often made about “atheism” that were mentioned earlier (and are to be discussed further). One of those assumptions is the idea that atheism is itself a belief system or a religion. However, although it is sometimes listed (either wrongly or for the purposes of convenience) as a category of “belief” in some social surveys, atheism is by no means a system of thought or belief. It is partly because of this fact that atheists are some of the most underrepresented people around the world today, including in advanced countries like the United States, although this has recently started to change in the Western context at least (see, e.g. Cimino and Smith, 2014; Cox, 2017; Sherwood, 2019). It is also an error to

18  Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith simply conflate secularism with atheism because a “secular” majority attitude can and does comprise religious people as well. Indeed, atheists can hardly be regarded as an organised political group in society in most countries, since there is very little that actually unites them in terms of “belief” per se except the assumption that gods probably don’t exist. Overall, in many places, even today, atheists and humanists are mostly closeted and living in silence and/or fear, with many at risk of ridicule, intimidation, social denigration, persecution, imprisonment, torture and even death (see Azad, 2003; Kamguian, 2003; Ismail, 2003; Anthony, 2015; Cottee, 2015; Sherwood, 2020b). Even when personal safety is not the issue, atheists typically choose to say little or nothing about their lack of belief for the sake of simply maintaining harmony. By contrast, in terms of numbers of adherents, the two largest religions in the world today, as collectives, are Christianity and Islam. Despite their inner complexities, both traditions share the same God, both have accumulated great wealth and aggregations of political influence, and both the Bible and the Qur’an have some very interesting things to say about non-adherents and non-believers. To be honest, it shouldn’t even matter who the “minority” or the “majority” is when considering the kind of language used in scripture: it is unbecoming no matter who is referring to whom. But we should all take an interest in what these books have to say about the people of the world, and we should be under no illusions about the sense of grandiosity, as the Bible, famously, tells us what we’re all in for when Jesus makes his long-awaited return: When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. (Matthew 25: 31–33) Those on the right, of course, are the chosen ones, those who have won a place in Heaven. As Slick (2004) explains: The difference between being a sheep and a goat, spiritually, is the difference between night and day, life and death, salvation and destruction. The goats do not hear the voice of God. They are unregenerate and cannot hear Him because they have not been redeemed and do not have the indwelling presence of the Holy spirit in them who guides them and convicts them of sin and righteousness. But we Christians are indwelt by God. We have the presence of God. We are greatly privileged by His grace and redemption. The separation of the sheep and the goats has worked its way into our everyday language as a popular adage now, but the original message is nothing if it is not sinister, and we can clearly see in the quotation earlier how its sense of superiority has rubbed off on some Christians even in the twenty-first century. Probably

Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith  19 inspired by the Bible, the writers of the Qur’an (whoever they really were) used similar imagery. It states: When the earth is shaken violently and the mountains are ground to powder and turn to scattered dust, then you will be sorted into three classes. Those on the Right – what people they are! Those on the Left – what people they are! And those in front ahead indeed! For these will be the ones brought nearest to God in Gardens of Bliss. (56:4–11) “Those on the Right,” it goes on to add, “will dwell amid thornless lote trees and clustered acacia with spreading shade, constantly flowing water, abundant fruits, unfailing, unforbidden, with incomparable companions We have specially created” (56: 28–35). Those on the left, meanwhile, “will dwell amid scorching wind and scalding water in the shadow of black smoke, neither cool nor refreshing” (56:42). (Remember, these people were the ones that were allegedly pre-programmed in a defective state by God himself, yet there is not a hint of sympathy from the all-wise and omnibenevolent God of monotheism.) Moreover, it is not at all clear how anybody’s ancestors might presently be enjoying the various luxuries of Heaven or cursing the torments of Hell, since, presumably, they won’t have stomachs and nerve endings inside them, nor taste buds or sex organs in order to experience some of life’s greatest pleasures. Don’t forget, the Qur’an promises “beautiful-eyed maidens” (56:22), “specially created” just for the guys! What about provisions for the ladies? Where are the studs with bulging biceps? How old would we all be in Heaven, by the way? How old would grandma be? What if you wanted her to still be the middle-aged lady who you fondly remember used to place you on her lap to tell you a story when you were a toddler? What if grandma herself wanted to be a little girl again? Could she be both younger and older at the same time? Maybe she could, who knows? Despite these inconsistencies and contradictions, it is the believers who are often the most arrogant about the “truth” of things, even as their patently bizarre books openly mock the non-believers in their daily lives. In one particularly obnoxious verse from the Qur’an, it is said of one non-believer in a recounted “story” that “he was like a dog that pants with a lolling tongue whether you drive it away or leave it alone. Such is the image of those who reject our signs” (The Heights, 7: 175–176). In Islam dogs are considered “unclean” and are often mistreated or even killed by people (Ismail, 2003: Location 3484). It should therefore be obvious from this quote that the mystery person symbolises all non-believers or “kafir,” an extremely derogatory term in Islam (see Warraq in Dawkins, 2006a: 347), whenever and wherever they may be. “Academia, We Have a Problem!” It isn’t just allegations of “offense” that pose a strategic barrier to criticisms against religious beliefs and other strange or unfounded opinions. Another favourite method to deter the detractors is to ridicule them for taking the debate too seriously

20  Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith themselves. This is a particularly irritating and ill-judged response from fellow atheists, in my opinion, because it patronises people on either side of the debate and somehow sets the would-be commentator apart as some kind of uniquely perceptive onlooker who simply rises above it all. But this kind of perspective is starting to become a la mode in academic circles today, especially from those on the atheistic side when they’re looking for some extra brownie points. Alain de Botton’s (2012) views on religion seem to come across in this way. Part of de Botton’s thesis is that it’s all just a big waste of time, isn’t it? What’s the point of arguing and questioning the existence of God, he asks? For the record, de Botton proceeds on the assumption that gods don’t exist, but he would much rather we focus on other questions, such as what we might learn from religion. (In truth, such questions are usually too charitable and they’re becoming cliché and tiresome anyway, not least because most of the answers, or better ones, can usually be found elsewhere.) I could concur with much of what de Botton has to say in a theological sense, in theory, but ultimately there’s a problem with his approach because it ignores the fact that “[m]any religious people are convinced that there is a rational foundation for their faith” (Johnson, 1977: 374). Such an approach therefore leaves wide open a whole set of scientific and sociological questions that go completely unaddressed. Indeed, it is not so much the various writings of the supposedly over-zealous “New Atheists,” but the insistence of the believers themselves, that ultimately keeps these fires burning. What is more, if those in academic circles actively chose not to investigate claims to religious truth and other questions of the paranormal, where would that get them? This really would be a kind of ignorance, opening them to accusations of neglecting new possible a­ venues towards knowledge on the one hand; or, on the other hand, simply behaving in a dismissive and haughty way by rejecting religious narratives out of hand. Engaging sincerely with any text is, by definition, a sign of integrity and respect. Arguments like the ones from de Botton (2012) and others miss the point completely, because (undue) credibility offers (undue) legitimacy. Quite often, such perspectives also apparently lump all the New Atheists together, claiming that they are (or were) all intent on disproving the existence of God (see, e.g. Jack, 2015). It is indeed true of the late Christopher Hitchens that he, at one time or another, completely rejected the idea that a God exists, but that is certainly not a claim that has ever been made by Richard Dawkins. As he points out in his book The God Delusion (2006a), with his seven-point scale of belief (1 representing the “100% probability of God” and 7 being the “strong atheist” position, which would assert the firm position that God does not exist), Dawkins himself registers a 6 in terms of his non-belief (2006a: 73). That doesn’t mean that Dawkins isn’t confident in his position (he’s a six out of seven, after all). What it does mean is that he, more than most, actually respects the difficulty of the question at hand. But working only with what is presently on the table, Dawkins is about as sure as he can be that there is, most likely, no God, and he lives his life on that basis even though he admits he/ we might never know for certain. As scientists or philosophers of science, thinkers like Dawkins, Harris and Dennett are therefore simply responding to the challenges presented to them. What else are they supposed to do?

Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith  21 While influential, though, the opinions of the best-selling New Atheists are by no means the consensus. For example, in his book Rocks of Ages (1999), the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould declared that religion and science are two completely separate domains of knowledge that do not intersect, referring to them, famously now, as two “non-overlapping magisteria” or “NOMA.” Gould’s claim has become extremely important as an idea in academic discourses on religion, but it has been thoroughly rejected by many in science (see Stenger, 2009). The NOMA concept has been more eagerly proclaimed by those on the theistic side of the argument, for perhaps an obvious reason: here was a highly respected scientist offering endorsement of religion as a sphere of knowledge that is independent from, and on a par with, the natural sciences. But what can religious authorities and theists possibly know that the rest of us can’t? If they do know more than the scientific community, then they had better start sharing their methods and findings with the rest of us, and quick. More recently, Sam Harris has expressed his despair at the fact that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in the United States “has declared the conflict [between religion and science] illusory” (2007: 62). In fact, for Harris and others, it is actually more important than ever that we recognise a fundamental tension between these two domains. And if academics are not going to take the lead in delineating a suitable position on questions of this nature, then it is not clear who else can or will. Sociology and Religion Not surprisingly, these kinds of approaches have also plagued the social sciences. Some have claimed that there has been a history of “hostility” towards religion in sociology (Kunin, 2003: 74). However, it is clearly more accurate to say that the sociological tradition has been overwhelmingly sympathetic towards religion, and this has set the tone in our discipline, particularly since the post-war period. In a brilliant article, Benton Johnson (1977) provides part of the explanation as to how and why this happened. Citing the work of Robert W. Friedrichs, he writes of a “détente” between religion and social science, a “non-antagonistic division of labor” that has been well established when it comes to answering some of life’s most important questions. As we shall see later, early sociology was very much aligned with natural science, as its founding contributors attempted to answer questions about everyday life in a systematic and predictable way, while over-arching socio-historical models were often understood in evolutionary and deterministic terms. While admittedly mistaken and even naïve in hindsight, these features emphasise the scientific ambitions of early sociology in the modern era. Nevertheless, Johnson notes two main reasons for the eventual pact between sociology and religion. First, he explains, there was an apparent agreement on both sides that “empirical science can say nothing about the truth or falsity of religious beliefs”; and second, there was the “assertion that science is incompetent to make value judgements concerning religious practices and their effects” (1977: 368). Previously, the writings of Kar Marx, in particular, had questioned both religious truth and its social benefits. The détente was primarily a response to Marxism and,

22  Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith later, the writings of Herbert Spencer, as the post-war sociological community established a dominant perspective that we still find largely intact to this day. Reflecting this ethos, for example, Spencer believed that religion “is quite consistent with science provided neither try to transgress their respective boundaries” (Keat and Urry, 1982: 78). Johnson explains that “Talcott Parsons was the most influential sociological architect of the détente,” adding that “[i]t is difficult to overestimate his contribution to shaping modern sociological thinking about religion” (1977: 377). Parsons advocated two main positions in the sociology of religion: on the one hand, he upheld the idea that science should be value free; on the other hand, he rejected the Durkheimian perspective on religious symbolism, language and ritual at the centre of social life (see earlier on Durkheim, 1973/1912). As McGuire points out, this produces a “shared meaning,” which, for Durkheim, rendered religion and society inseparable: “Thus, religious meanings are metaphorical representations of the social group, and participation in religious ritual is experience of the transcendental force of society itself” (McGuire, 2001: 198). This is why sociologists refer to these perspectives as “integration theories,” as they are important in explaining the links between the individual and the society. But Parsons went a step further, arguing that religious symbols and rituals belong to a reality all of their own, a reality that is beyond the reach of science (Johnson, 1977: 370). Indeed, this is still a commonly held view in sociology today. Hamilton, for example, has suggested that it is not for sociology “to adjudicate” on matters of religion (1995: 5), while Kunin has suggested that the most effective sociological approach to religion is what he regards as a neutral “methodological atheism or agnosticism” that allows for a competing religious truth (2003: 74). Sociology has therefore had its own NOMA moment, and it actually preceded the one in the natural sciences by a number of decades. But Johnson, along with a few other sociologists, has identified some serious problems with its conclusions: namely that, first, the sociology of religion is not value free, and second that scientific investigations can and do reveal plenty of problems with regard to religious truth on a regular basis. In short, value freedom is only an ideal from a technical standpoint, but a sociology completely devoid of values would be very boring indeed, if not entirely useless. We are participants in society before we are participants in sociology. Matters in society motivate us, or they don’t matter at all, and the conclusions that we make about them can act back on society and have further consequences for it. As Johnson points out: [T]o purge sociological language of all value-laden terms would be to make the discipline irrelevant to anything most people care about. The alternative to addressing meaningful issues is to retreat into triviality. Religion is not a trivial matter to many people. (1977: 371) Therefore, value neutrality towards religion, particularly in sociology, is a highly questionable notion, if not inconceivable. In any case, beyond sociology,

Oh, Your God! The Sociological Case Against Religious Faith  23 if it is true that God intervenes in our lives, then there should be clear evidence of it; and if there’s evidence, we should find it. But so far, that evidence has proven elusive. We therefore have no option but to suspend our belief, because, in the words of Carl Sagan, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (Cited in Grimes, 2019: 369). As a final remark, despite the forgoing, it seems clear that the sociological ­interpretation of religion has generally emphasised its importance not just to individuals but to societies themselves. The reader might therefore legitimately pose a very pertinent question at this point before reading on, and it might go something like this: If the “Durkheimian model” of religion has been theorised by so many ­sociologists as being conducive to social interaction and cohesion, then why should some other sociologists wish to question the legitimacy of the faith that so often underpins the beliefs of religious adherents? One answer to this question is that sociology is not an exact science, and the ideas of this or that particular thinker do not necessarily carry the same weight as those in the natural sciences where observations can be tested much more thoroughly and convincingly. But an even more emphatic response would be to point out that, even when a scientific theory is extremely robust (such as evolution by natural selection), there are certain scientists (namely Richard Dawkins) who wholeheartedly uphold the truth of Darwinian theory as an explanation for the natural world even while they deny its legitimacy as a model by which humans should live and organise themselves in societies (Dawkins, 2003: 10–11). If Dawkins can describe himself as “a passionate anti-Darwinian” biologist when it comes to the application of a perverted “survival of the fittest” principle being applied to human affairs in the social realm, then perhaps sociologists could describe themselves as “passionate anti-Durkheimians” when it comes to accepting the great sociologist’s insights into the “nature” of religious affiliation and its propensity to “bind and blind” humans, to use Haidt’s (2012) phrase, into specific enclaves. As Bruce puts it, “In the final analysis, personal religiosity rests on belief, on faith. No shorthand explanation that cannot be extended to include a sensible account of why people believe or not should be accepted” (Bruce, 2011: 53). Critical engagement with the issue of religious faith is therefore not something that sociologists should duck or be expected to avoid. In short, perhaps the task is to recognise the genius of thinkers like Durkheim on religions, but not to excuse the strange tendencies and distortions that often arise from them in spite of, or on account of, that intimate understanding. This opening chapter has offered several justifications for a legitimate critical analysis of religious faith from a sociological perspective. The purpose of the next chapter is to move the discussion to the topic of morality, a crucial motivating factor for the persistence of religious faith and a controversial issue in a range of debates between theists, atheists, philosophers and scientists over many decades and centuries.

2

Morality and Society

Morality and behavioural codes have always been central features of religious teachings. According to Answers in Genesis, one of the most powerful fundamentalist Christian organisations in America, the morality of the non-believer, based on secular philosophy and reasoning, is necessarily weak, because it can make no claim to any kind of impartial authority. By contrast, “God’s moral standard flows from His unchanging nature. Because God’s nature is perfect and holy, He cannot sin, so His standard is objective. It is impossible for God to contradict Himself or act inconsistently with his own nature” (see https://answersingenesis.org/morality/). For the hard-line Christian, then, the god of the Bible was the instigator of everything, including morality itself, and both God and his commands are faultless and therefore fixed, permanent and unquestionable. However, as we shall see, the truth of the matter is much more complicated than the theist might claim. Nontheological philosophers the world over have also grappled with questions of right and wrong for millennia, suggesting that a sense of justice and fairness, however defined, long predates the introduction of any particular deity. These questions – of (1) the meaning of morality in various social contexts and (2) its provenance – will therefore be two main themes in this chapter. It seems that the stakes have always been high with regard to questions of morality. For instance, as the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker has pointed out, when Galileo, following Copernicus, put forward his heliocentric view of the universe in 1633, he wasn’t simply submitting a scientific observation which today we take as a mundane fact; he was also “challenging a theory of the moral order of the universe” (2002: 137), that is, the geocentric view held, on the basis of religious scripture, by the orthodoxy of his day. In the “moral order” that Pinker describes, everything – including the sun, the moon, the planets, the angels, the monarch, humans, the animals and plants – had its place in a perfect hierarchical system created by God: the Great Chain of Being. Galileo’s observation threatened that order, both figuratively and literally, because it undermined God’s authority and invited chaos as a result. Representing the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge, human inquisitiveness certainly has presented the world’s religions – and perhaps all of us – with a succession of disconcerting and inconvenient truths, not the least of which has been the removal of humanity from our divinely ordained pedestal. As Sagan puts it, with reference to Copernicus and Galileo, “We can readily see how DOI: 10.4324/9781003039822-2

Morality and Society  25 science began to make people feel nervous” (1994: 43). Nevertheless, I  choose inquisitiveness over the Inquisition every time. Yet while it might be tempting to regard debates over morality as existing simply between a naïve, faith-based “religion” on the one hand and a more sober, evidence-based “science” on the other hand, such a dichotomy would be a mistake, because, as Pinker (2002) has also noted, both domains have demonstrated a tendency to try to deny the possibility of entertaining a certain thought that they each find untenable for remarkably similar reasons: a concept of human nature. For the theist, Darwinian explanations pose a threat to humanity’s centrality on God’s green Earth and render us nothing more than animals, just like any other, with nothing other than base emotions and drives to motivate us. To many intellectuals, on the other hand, certain historical developments – such as colonialism, slavery, industrialisation, Victorian anthropology, the world wars, and perverted sciences, such as eugenics – have all been part and parcel of a modern world under centuries of Western dominance; and what this means is that notions of human nature should be resisted by those of us on the non-theistic side as well because, it is assumed, an acceptance that there is such a thing as human nature may be invoked to justify all kinds of immoral actions. But as Pinker rightly points out, it simply doesn’t follow that accepting a notion of human nature should necessarily result in evil and peril; it only emphasises an inability to distinguish an is from an ought. In fact, he argues, “[I]t’s not just that claims about human nature are less dangerous than many people think. It’s that the denial of human nature can be more dangerous than people think” (Pinker, 2002: 139, original emphases). Pinker (2002) therefore identifies the “Blank Slate”  – the quaint notion that there is nothing innate in humans and therefore no (or only very few and very negligible) natural differences between people  – as a new kind of secular faith position or dogma in contemporary academia, a linchpin that must be protected at all costs in the name of “equality” and therefore morality. Pinker’s observation is fundamental, and we shall certainly see plenty of evidence of what he means regarding the dangers of denying scientific and natural explanations in Chapters 4 and 5 of this book. But for now, let us turn our attention to the discussion on morality to follow in this chapter. We shall begin with an overview of the all-too-familiar faith-based interpretations. After these, we shall discuss certain sociological perspectives which place a particular emphasis on socio-historical and cultural developments relating mainly to modernity. And finally, the discussion will return to a number of contemporary academic perspectives which have argued that our current aversion towards naturalistic explanations for certain forms of human behaviour appears to be in need of a radical re-think. Monotheistic Morality Monotheists have a tendency to assume that belief in God is necessary in order for a person to have any kind of acceptable moral standards. As Keith Ward writes, “Our whole understanding of morality really does depend upon the existence of God, upon seeing human conduct in the context of a wider spiritual realm, if it

26  Morality and Society is to make sense” (cited in Zuckerman, 2008: 189). Echoing the Great Chain of Being noted earlier, this rather presumptuous position is related to what some philosophers and theists have referred to as “the moral argument” for God’s existence (Grayling, 2013: 66–67). In other words, if God does not exist, then there is no foundation, no grounding, for our morals; and if you even so much as imagine that God might not exist, then you are yourself entertaining a reprehensible thought and opening yourself to sinful actions. But if we are assumed to derive our morals exclusively from religions or the existence of God, then one question that needs to be answered by the theist is why it is that the results of psychological experiments on theists involving posers on hypothetical moral dilemmas show no significant differences when compared with those of atheists, or indeed with anthropological studies of native peoples, such as the Kuna tribe in Central America, who have had “little contact with Westerners and no formal religion” (see Dawkins, 2006a: 258). In truth, the religions, for all their posturing and self-promotion on moral matters, typically demonstrate no noteworthy impact with regard to behaviour, whether good or bad. This point is made all the more interesting by the nature and form of theistic moral frameworks, which are often dogmatic and uncompromising. As Dobbelaere points out, “Belief in a ‘personal God’ tends to promote the acceptance of absolute moral guide-lines as opposed to the notion that good and evil depend entirely upon the situation” (1993: 22). Religious moral codes are often described as “absolutist” because they set hard and fast rules making certain kinds of behaviour always wrong. An obvious example of this kind of code system in a religious context would of course be the Ten Commandments. According to the narrative in the Bible, these were lists of instructions, literally set in stone(s), that Moses is said to have retrieved from God at the top of Mount Sinai for the sake of the Hebrews (Exodus 20). Nevertheless, a number of commentators have highlighted the general irrelevance and specificity, even absurdity, of most or all of these supposedly divine instructions. For example, the first three commandments refer to blasphemy in one form or another: not putting any other god ahead of God, not making images of God, and not using his name without good reason; the fourth is concerned with keeping the Sabbath (Sunday) “holy” by not working during it; the fifth one orders us to “honour” our parents; the sixth commandment tells us we shall not kill another human being; the seventh tells us that we shall not commit adultery; the eighth instructs us not to steal; the ninth tells us not to be deceptive or treacherous against our neighbours; and the last one tells us that we shall not covet the belongings or property (including wives, slaves and animals) of our (male) neighbour. The first four are therefore completely useless to anyone except adherents of the religion, while the others either are strange or do not require a “God” in order to be accepted and followed by the vast majority of people anyway. As the late Christopher Hitchens pointed out, if the Hebrews, hurriedly leaving Egypt under persecution as they supposedly did in a large group, needed to get to Mount Sinai in order to hear the voice of God and receive instructions on how to be co-operative and respectful towards one another, they never would have made it that far in their journey in the first place (2008: Location 1477).

Morality and Society  27 Perhaps, the theist may say, “[W]e are being rather harsh here, a little too literalist in our assessment of religious morality.” Rick Warren, a well-known pastor from the United States, would almost certainly say such a thing. In The Purpose Driven Life (2002), Warren argues that, while God is nevertheless essential for morality to exist, our aim in life should be to merely begin with scripture with the aim of using it to establish a kind of relationship with God so that we might come to learn what he really has in store for us (because he does have a plan for each of us, claims Warren). There is nothing random or unplanned about our lives, and we are not here by “accident,” as Warren puts it; the universe was created by God specifically for human beings, and to give rise to us as the ultimate of all his creations; this God offers direction, relieving us of our guilt, resentments, fears, superficial desires, and petty social squabbles and biases, once we begin to accept him as our guide. For Warren, God provides us with hope. Life is made simpler and more focused once we accept God’s plans, and this new-found purpose becomes our motivation. To know God is to know love and therefore morality itself. However, this life matters considerably less than the everlasting afterlife to follow. We must all therefore prepare ourselves for our meeting with God, in order to ensure that we will be accepted by him, but his acceptance in Heaven depends upon our prior acceptance of Jesus in life because this offers the maximisation of our potential as individuals through an understanding of our ultimate purpose. God has given us all free will, and the price for not accepting Jesus into our lives is made clear: damnation and rejection. Any decision to reject the Christian god apparently leads, necessarily, to hedonism, debauchery and crime. Religious affiliation acts as a kind of insurance policy, then, permitting us a place in the ultimate retirement home in the cosmos. Those who do not fear death, Warren claims, are the ones who have accepted Jesus into their hearts, because their place in eternity is guaranteed. Contrary to Warren’s claims, however, sociological evidence suggests, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the faithful are generally much more fearful of death than non-believers are (see Zuckerman, 2008). Such anxieties relate to the prospect of being “saved” (or not) by God; redemption appears to be the main objective of an overwhelming majority of believers. But the philosopher Dan Barker, himself a former pastor, has argued powerfully that atheists have much more to live for in the absence of faith in his book Life Driven Purpose (2015), which deliberately reverses the title of Warren’s book. Moreover, religions of various persuasions have a tendency to make an odd virtue of faith-based thinking while they may label those who simply do not believe as either “evil” (see Cragun on teachings in the Mormon Church, 2013: Location 3469) or “arrogant” (Qur’an 16:22). But surely such believers themselves are the ones who have got things precisely backwards. The presumption that one is special and to be “saved” on account of having a certain set of beliefs based on faith rather than evidence (thereby having “a relationship” with God) is the height of conceitedness when compared with the large swathes of other people in the world who do not assume these things and who, most probably, never even allow such thoughts to trouble them in any part of their day. However, holding the correct beliefs is only one means of acquiring God’s acceptance. As we have already noted in the previous chapter, clearly there are certain

28  Morality and Society kinds of conduct that will also ensure entry into Heaven, just as certain others will get you stopped at the door by security. For its part, the Qur’an provides a vivid (if comical) account of what is going to happen to each of us on Judgement Day: On that Day you will be exposed and none of your secrets will remain hidden. Anyone who is given his Record in his right hand will say, “Here is my Record, read it. I knew I would meet my Reckoning,” and so he will have a pleasant life in a lofty Garden, with clustered fruit within his reach. It will be said, “Eat and drink to your heart’s content as a reward for what you have done in days gone by.” But anyone who is given Record in his left hand will say, “If only I had never been given any Record and knew nothing of my Reckoning. How I wish death had been the end of me.” (69: 18–27) To give the Qur’an some credit, it does state that the ones with the bad records are likely to have been selfish, having accumulated great wealth and power, and that this (along with unbelief) is part of the reason why they are to be condemned. However, as much as I despise the super-rich myself, I’m not sure that such “crimes” in themselves necessarily warrant being collared and chained up to burn forever “in the blazing Fire” (69:30). And what is all this discrimination towards left-handedness, by the way? Overall, it seems that the Ten Commandments and other perspectives on ­morality from the “holy” books sanction against a particularly limited range of behaviours, but mostly against the following: unbelief, blasphemy, murder, stealing, infidelity, jealousy, greed, hatred and back-chatting mum and dad. In the main, I  could get behind each and every one of these (with the exception of unbelief and blasphemy). However, in the words of Sam Harris, the “principle concern” of Christians “appears to be that the creator of the universe will take offense at something people do while naked” (2007: 26). The same is certainly true also of Muslims. In other words, there is one taboo still missing from this list that is glaringly obvious because it is a clear obsession in all of the Abrahamic religions. That taboo is, of course, sex. We shall discuss this special concern in more detail and consider some of the reasons why it occupies the level of importance that it does in religious sensibilities. Religion, Sex and Bodies According to research published in 2014, opinions about sex held by religious members of the American electorate can relate to everything from pre-marital sex, to the use of contraceptives, non-marital sex, abortion, the legitimacy of homosexuality and even the availability of “sex education literature” for young people (see Barrett et al., 2014: 166). Christian groups have long-since comprised a very vocal and powerful section of American society, and their influence cannot be simply dismissed as a feature of an archaic past. In 2020, we were reminded of the contemporary significance of these matters amid the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett,

Morality and Society  29 selected personally by President Trump, into the U.S. Supreme Court. Following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal predecessor who was widely recognised for defending the rights and freedoms of women and sexual minorities for decades, Barrett, a Catholic and a political conservative, was apparently fasttracked into her new position (along with a second Trump nominee) in the interests of tipping the scales of political influence in the run-up to the presidential elections. Citing the Roe vs. Wade Constitutional decision of 1973, which granted women the right to choose on abortion without institutional or governmental pressures, John Stoehr (2020) noted that Barrett’s nomination was also part of a long-term strategy on the part of Republicans to challenge progressive policies – such as the Affordable Care Act, LGBTQ rights and birth control – for religiously motivated reasons. Stoehr’s predictions became a regrettable reality in June 2022 when Roe vs. Wade was officially overturned by a 72 majority ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court. There are also good reasons for concern on the other side of the Atlantic, because twenty-first-century Britain is still ruled largely by religious bureaucrats, with “Twenty-six Church of England bishops [who are] automatically granted seats in the House of Lords to support or oppose any legislation they please” (Cohen, 2012). In 2019, the House of Bishops of the Church of England issued a pastoral guidance statement formally reaffirming its adherence to the traditional values of Christianity, noting that heterosexual marriage is the only acceptable context for sexual relations, and instructing its clergy not to give their blessings to civil partnerships (Sherwood, 2020a). With such overt sympathy towards religious sensibilities in the corridors of power of Western democracies, it should not surprise us at all to find that, for example, British faith schools have been able to exempt themselves from policies designed to counteract discrimination against employees whose sexual orientations or marital statuses they might disapprove of (Cohen, 2012). Furthermore, religious organisations often buttress one another, and some of our most trusted liberal institutions apparently allow them to do so. In 2006, there were details of an encroaching “Islamist influence” in British universities, most notably at Manchester University, where Muslim students had apparently “gained control of the student newspaper and promptly removed the paper’s dating column – to the ire of other students” (and, apparently, much to the delight of the author of the news article) (see Ali, 2008). In 2009, The Guardian also reported that British Muslims “have [a] zero tolerance policy on homosexuality,” according to a survey conducted by Gallup (Butt, 2009). The results indicated that British Muslims are far less tolerant than other European Muslims. Unsurprisingly, then, by 2016, another poll had discovered that “half of all British Muslims” believe that homosexuality should be outlawed, in line with sharia (Perraudin, 2016). Moving further afield into Europe, it was reported in 2013 that a “leading Greek bishop warned lawmakers that they risk incurring the wrath of God – and will be excommunicated  – if they vote in favour of legalising same-sex partnerships” (Smith, 2013). In 2016, a sociological study in Belgium showed that Muslim immigrants from Morocco with same-sex desires have found that they have no support at all from their own communities and that those who wish to maintain a relationship with their god can find themselves living double lives for fear of revealing the truth

30  Morality and Society of their sexuality, resulting in isolation, depression and trauma (Peumans, 2016). In 2019, Verona in Italy – nicknamed “the city of love” – hosted the World Conference of Families (WCF), the 13th annual event of its kind. According to a news report, the WCF is an American group with right-wing Christian affiliations, and the event included a “line-up of anti-LGBT, anti-feminist and anti-abortion activists whose declared goal is to restore the ‘natural family order’ ” (Giuffrida, 2019). Finally, in 2020 in Poland, one of Europe’s most religious countries, the “constitutional tribunal . . . ruled that abortion due to foetal defects is unconstitutional, rejecting the most common of the few legal grounds for pregnancy termination in the predominantly Catholic country” (see The Guardian, 2020). These and many other examples emphasise that religious conservatism has been making its considerable presence felt across Europe and interfering in the peaceful lives of others for quite some time – all on the premise of moral supremacy. If anything, the theocratic menace to personal freedoms in Europe therefore appears to be growing, but, of course, it doesn’t stop there. In Nairobi, Kenya, in 2018, Christian groups and the Pentecostal church lobbied the government after it proposed “to expand coverage of sex education in primary schools” (Okeyo, 2018). Kenya is a country experiencing something of a teenage pregnancy crisis – with, in some cases, girls as young as 8 and 10 years engaging in sex and getting pregnant – indicating that its children might benefit from some productive guidance on sex and life, but religious groups campaigned that the planned education programme would send a “dangerous” message, teaching children that homosexuality is acceptable and that abortion is a right. In 2019, Brunei, an Islamic kingdom and former British colony in which homosexuality is illegal, wrote a letter to the European Parliament defending its policy of death by stoning as punishment for gay sex. In the letter, Brunei explained that such punishments would be rare exceptions anyway, since it is necessary to have two male witnesses “of high moral standing and piety” in order to secure a conviction. Astonishingly, Brunei had apparently appealed to the gentler side of the MEPs’ nature, imploring them to turn a blind eye to the continuation of the policy out of compassion and recognition of traditional values and the rights of a “family lineage” (in other words, religious authority). Thankfully, apparently unimpressed, a number of leading member states of the UN still condemned the practice (see Boffey, 2019). We could go on, and there will be references to other cases later. But the point, for now, should be clear: examples such as these demonstrate that negative, religiously rooted opinions and regressive policies on various kinds of sexual issues are widespread and institutionally ratified in societies around the world. More importantly, these kinds of stories reveal, most candidly, the intentions of those at the forefront: to ultimately impose the rules of their provincial belief systems on society at large (confirmation, if we needed it, that religious morality is typically anything other than a private matter). Heterosexuality and wedlock are clearly related to institutional standards in monotheistic traditions, while abortion is invoked particularly on emotional and consecrated grounds. Admittedly, abortion can be quite a controversial issue under certain circumstances, including to the non-religious (see, e.g. Sagan, 1997, Chapter 15). The termination of a foetus is not something that should be engaged in frivolously by those

Morality and Society  31 who may wish to use such treatment as an alternative to contraception (as some conservative commentators have argued). However, the comprehensive policies of governments informed by religion over reason simply ignore a raft of social issues, not to mention biological facts, when they make all-purpose rulings that could potentially impact the lives of not just women in search of control over reproductive rights, but a whole bunch of other people as well, including the unborn “baby” itself. What about a woman impregnated in an act of rape? What about young teenage girls impregnated by their abusers, including family members in some cases? What about the non-recognition of foetal defects alluded to earlier in the context of Polish law? In any of these kinds of cases, some very serious sociological questions would need to be asked about what the most humane course of action might be, particularly with regard to the quality of life and the potential future suffering of those concerned. As a humanist informed by science, I find myself arguing, as much as possible, though not exclusively, for the rights of the pregnant female in question, because hers is the life that is being lived currently (see Grayling, 2013, ch. 19, for extended coverage of moral dilemmas on abortion and euthanasia). To many Christians, the foetus is a life that has the right to existence from the very moment of inception, regardless of the circumstances. This kind of viewpoint can immediately hamstring us when it comes to discussing the ethics of pregnancy and birth control from psychological and sociological perspectives. While attacks on abortion clinics and their staff have only continued to rise in America, even after the overturning of Roe vs. Wade (Durkee, 2022), a reasoned argument, informed by science and liberal philosophy, gives us the conceptual tools needed to take a much more sensible line of approach. Religious people sometimes like to point out to atheists and pro-choice advocates that even Christopher Hitchens expressed misgivings about the morality of abortion. This is, of course, true, but it is also true that no atheist is duty-bound to any particular opinion simply because Hitchens has spoken – that’s not how atheism works. In any case, Hitchens’ opposition was mostly aimed at feminist propaganda that seemed to dismiss the foetus as merely “a growth in the female body,” thereby rendering it a kind of parasite or “tumor” that the female has a unilateral right to have taken away at any time of her choosing (2008: 378). If one cared to read on in Hitchens’ book, one would see that there is plenty of evidence that he advocated the kind of nuanced opinion that I have just expressed, where quality of life issues (both for the female and for the baby) would come into play when considering the ethics of terminations. Right-wing Christians in America often fail to see any irony in their warped understanding of what it means to be “pro-life” and therefore automatically “good,” a point emphasised perfectly in George W. Bush’s seemingly righteous claim that he was “told by God” to invade Iraq in 2003 (MacAskill, 2005). The Second Iraq War as yet remains a controversial conflict in which an estimated minimum of somewhere between 184,382 and 207,156 civilians (men, women and children) lost their lives (Crawford et  al., 2021). Conversely, around the same time as the invasion of Iraq, advances in medical science, such as stem cell research, that might improve the lives of millions of people with existing and lifethreatening problems, were stifled on religious grounds. Clearly, some American

32  Morality and Society politicians would rather focus on the potentiality of the cells themselves, moving to effectively “ban embryonic stem-cell research on February 27, 2003” (Harris, 2006: 167). Putting the debate into a scientific context, Harris notes that “[b]y the measure of a cell’s potential, whenever the president scratches his nose he is now engaged in the diabolical culling of souls” (Harris, 2006: 167, original emphasis). Falling-back on scripture won’t help the theist either. Adherents to the Bible and other so-called “holy books” are in no position to pontificate about the protection of babies or the sanctity of human life, which they claim to defend so fiercely on behalf of their god. After all, in the words of the Bible itself, the region of Samaria was to be laid waste by an invading army for rebelling against God: “their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped apart” (Hosea 13:16). Nevertheless, it seems clear that the issues of sex, families and life are closely connected, especially in the context of religious morality. They are also necessarily deep-rooted. For example, “porneia,” the source of the contemporary derivative “porn,” is a word found in the Greek New Testament which was used to refer to a range of unlawful sexual acts including not just bestiality and sex with close relatives, for instance, but also adultery, homosexuality, lesbianism and even sex with a divorcee (Harper, 2012). But focusing on the acts themselves misses a more fundamental point. The language used in the taxonomy of sexual sin has always held connotations of ownership and possession, with clear roles for each of the sexes. Gender bias has had a long-standing role to play in the definition of the rules pertaining to sex and marriage. With reference to the Hebrew Bible on adultery, Satlow further underscores the male perspective inherent in Judeo-Christian interpretations of the offence. He writes: “Adultery represents more to the rabbis than a breach of God’s command; it is also the ‘theft’ of a woman’s reproductive potential from her husband” (2020: 119). This is the crux of the issue. The rights of the man are centralised, and the body of the female is represented as his possession because it will bear his children. Accordingly, Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, indicates that the union between one man and one woman is the natural state of marriage, and is therefore the only one that can be permitted to exist lawfully. Indeed, it is believed that such an arrangement was decreed by God himself after he allegedly created woman (Eve) from the rib of the first man (Adam) for the very purpose of placing them together, literally and symbolically, in a perpetual state of companionship and harmony. Recent Gallup Polls suggest that around half of all Americans still believe in the literal truth of Adam and Eve and the Bible itself, despite the contradictory evidence from across the spectrum of academic disciplines (Saleten, 2014). Despite the need for a degree of caution regarding polls (Morin, 1998), figures like these appear to indicate the enduring power that religious assumptions can have over societies; and it is one reason why sociologists like Turner (1991) discuss morality with reference to interactions between human bodies (individuals) and social bodies (institutions), because these two themes comprise a crucial dualism at the heart of all sociological interpretations of personal experiences. The institution of marriage, as it has been understood in modern societies, has

Morality and Society  33 therefore come under much scrutiny, and religious morality has been a central component in this. Taking inspiration from studies such as that by Friedrich Engels on the History of the Family in 1884, sociologists and feminists have critiqued the assumptions relating to traditional unions and the nuclear family. Engels drew heavily on the work of Lewis H. Morgan, and particularly his well-known study on Ancient Society, which was first published in 1877. In this work, Morgan identified three main periods of (pre-)history  – savagery, barbarism and civilisation  – through which human societies have transitioned. He highlighted a number of technologies, corollaries and accidental discoveries in the history of the development of human existence, all of which have impacted on how we have organised our societies since. The details of these changes are extremely intricate, contingent and, in some cases, incomplete, but among the most significant of these were the development and use of all kinds of tools and weapons; the development of systems of spoken communication; the domestication of animals; the rise of agricultural practices; the introduction of the wheel and other early innovations; and the cultivation of grain, which was probably discovered accidentally as a result of our turn to agriculture in the first place and the need for keeping animals. Later still, we find the greater advances in the smelting of iron and other forms of metalwork, along with the introduction of new graphic forms and phonetic language systems. There is insufficient space here for a comprehensive exposition of Morgan’s study. However, the main point, at least for Engels, was that all of these changes were gradual and relatively recent. Throughout the largest expanses of historical time, protracted over tens of thousands of years, most of our ancestors would have lived in smaller groups, tribes and villages within which it must have been necessary to organise kinship structures in ways that were very different to the ones we generally see around us today. Some of these arrangements included various forms of group marriage in which women and men shared each other’s husbands and wives. Within such systems, practices like incest between close cousins would have also been commonplace. Neither of these would seem (morally) acceptable to many people today, whether religious or not. Within these group systems, biological sex and gender categories were instrumental from the outset, because it was possible to know only the matrilineal line with absolute certainty; identifying the father of a particular child at that time would have been considerably more difficult. For this reason, it is claimed that women probably possessed greater esteem and legal power than men did in matters of kinship in most ancient social systems for many thousands of years. But then, the most important development that took place in the establishment of monogamy was when men gradually started to take control over inheritance rights for their offspring. It was this change that would lead, ultimately, to the establishment of the monogamous family as the standard in the Western context, developing further during the Middle Ages before being consolidated in modernity. For example, hundreds of years after the fall of Rome, traditional systems still existed in Wales and Ireland, but these, according to Engels, were all forcibly broken up by the English (Engels, 1884: 73).

34  Morality and Society As Elias pointed out, the institution of the family had been crucial in the transmission of bourgeois values, especially since the sixteenth century, partly because it is the primary environment in which children will be nurtured in close contact with adults. Marriage laws and rules pertaining to sex therefore became extremely important and “[t]he Church certainly fought early for monogamous marriage” (Elias, 2000: 154). As part of this, primogeniture had become a crucial policy for the preservation of family wealth, while dowries were also commonly paid, u­ sually in exchange for a daughter’s hand in marriage. The monogamous marriage was therefore originally imagined as, by definition, one of convenience, ratified by the religious morality of the courtly societies of medieval Europe. Women’s bodies became the main focus of attention, being crucial to both production and reproduction at the same time; this was particularly the case during the era of early capitalism when most of the new wealth resided in the hands of a limited number of affluent families. Again, Christian values were central to this process, a point which is emphasised by Turner’s assertion that “religion played a crucial role in subordinating female sexuality in the interests of property transmission and family stability” (1991: 235). The family unit has been the bedrock of the system of bourgeois values – this explains Engels’ focus on it as a central institution. That said, the world that we inhabit now is a very different place to the one that confronted Marx and ­Engels. For one thing, the concept of “family” has become pluralised in the interests of greater inclusivity (Cheal, 2002; Chambers, 2012), and legislation on matters of education, employment, marriage and divorce have extended greater rights to women and dependents in particular. Beyond these factors, there are other unanswered questions that remain, not least those addressing the extent to which most people today would be willing to endorse the monogamous system of marriage for their own personal and psychological reasons. Although group marriage and communal life suited our ancestors, it doesn’t necessarily follow that most people today (whether male or female, rich or poor) would favour a return to that kind of society now. (Indeed, where communes have been forcibly tried, as in Mao’s China, they have often failed miserably.) A further problem with Engels’ study is that it appears to treat monogamous marriage as a “Western” institution having crucial links to capitalism, completely ignoring the fact that non-Western societies, both religious and non-religious, have also institutionalised monogamy. Finally, the main problem with Engels’ portrayal of relationships between people is, quite simply, that it is economically deterministic, and his vision for a non-materialistic backdrop bringing about a utopia of perfect equality and everlasting peace is simply just another form of “wishful thinking” (Benson and Stangroom, 2006: 113). Nevertheless, the arguments of Morgan, Marx and Engels provide insights into the development of modern Western societies. For writers like Michel Foucault, however, the advent of modernity requires us to focus also on the rise of the individual. Accordingly, Foucault’s work has become central to sociological understandings of modernity – and the centrality of the human body in relation to the minutiae of institutional power has also become relevant to reflections on morality in contemporary Western contexts.

Morality and Society  35 Modern Civilisation, Deviance and Individuals Taking a Foucauldian perspective primarily, Turner (1991) criticises the traditional materialist approach to religion, advocating the position that the “material” must not be defined too narrowly in its sociological terms but should also necessarily incorporate a somatic dimension to complement its Marxian-economic one. After all, as Foucault himself suggested, there could be few things considered more material to us than our own physical bodies. Accordingly, via corporeality, a primary concern of Foucault’s entire social philosophy was to reconceptualise the meanings of conduct and power as they had been understood traditionally in socio-historical and political narratives. In a range of now classic texts focusing on Western understandings and regulations of “deviant” forms of human behaviour, Foucault described a series of processes that led to the formation of new institutional arrangements that were gradually established between the Middle Ages and what is often referred to as “modernity” or the age of Enlightenment. According to Foucault, both the state and the churches had a role to play in these processes. The primary reason why this reorganisation of society began to emerge was the transition from a largely rural to an overwhelmingly industrial milieu. More and more people were effectively forced into the towns and cities in search of work. In the industrial era, the process of increasing urbanisation changed society radically, and it led to the development of a plethora of new problems and mysteries, as well as a series of novel technical disciplines designed to understand and explain them (including, of course, the discipline of sociology itself). The increasing density of urban populations produced the society of the proximate stranger, the new “social type” that Simmel re-characterised not as “the wanderer who comes today and goes tomorrow, but rather as the man who comes today and stays tomorrow” (1971a: 143). Although the concept of the stranger was by no means completely new, the dual processes of rapid urbanisation and anonymity in modernity created a situation hitherto unknown. In Madness and Civilization (2003), Foucault describes the proliferation in seventeenth-century France of what were called hôpitaux généraux. Despite their benign-sounding appellation, these were essentially workhouses and prisons designed to contain all manner of persons, including not just those diagnosed with forms of madness but also the homeless, beggars, criminals and the infirm: “In its functioning, or in its purpose, the Hôpital Général had nothing to do with any medical concept. It was an instance of order,” Foucault asserts (2003: 37). The apparent need for order increased during the period of industrialisation, and the building of these places of confinement became a continental phenomenon, not just a French one, as similar institutions spread right across central Europe (they had apparently already become well established in parts of England decades earlier). This obsession was predicated on controlling expressions of what the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (2008/1651) described as a “state of nature” or wildness that lurks within all human beings. According to Foucault, whereas previously the phenomenon of madness was an open one, now the need for a new, modern civility required it to be separated and contained: “it was this animality of madness which confinement glorified, at the same time that it sought to avoid the scandal inherent in the immorality

36  Morality and Society of the unreasonable” (2003: 73, original emphases). As Tester has suggested, “It is possible to see the emergence of the imagination of civil society as, simultaneously, a moral condition of human being and a moral regulation of the reciprocity between strangers” (1992: 76). This, for Foucault, describes the origins of how – initially by way of attempting to control the visibility of madness – Enlightenment philosophy began to imprint its indelible mark onto the lived environment of the new metropolis, thereby ­defining the latter as the locus of reason in contrast with a now banished unreason. Sanity and sanitation had been twinned. According to Foucault, madness, along with a range of other conditions, came to be categorised as a kind of deviance that needed to be kept securely hidden away and at a safe distance, lest it spread further to infect the moral integrity of civil society as a whole. Foucault argues that confinement and forced labour were initially introduced as moral imperatives, and they were accompanied by an imposed spiritual education at the same time, fuelled primarily by the need to eradicate “idleness” (2003: 55). The spiritual connection served as a legitimising and useful model because “religion can play the double role of nature and rule, since it has assumed the depth of nature in ancestral habit, in education, in everyday exercise, and since it is at the same time a constant principle of coercion” (Foucault, 2003: 231–232). Clearly, there existed in this new state of affairs something of a combination between the ruthless dogmatism of religious instruction and an emerging, embryonic rationalistic force, no less brutal in its essence, which, in the name of regulation, would take society in an altogether new direction. In Discipline and Punish (1991), originally published in 1975, Foucault relayed, in graphic detail, various historical accounts of the brutal torture and execution of Damiens the regicide, which took place on 2 March 1757 in front of the doors of the Church of Paris. The main reason why Foucault made reference to this event was for the purpose of impact, especially because this method of punishment, presided over by the monarch, represented a pre-modern and more violent form in which a public and protracted spectacle of pain and suffering was inflicted on the body of “the condemned man” as a necessary prelude to his inevitable and complete destruction: after having muscles torn from his body and being burned in those places by molten lead, oil and sulphur, Damiens, while apparently still vaguely conscious, was quartered and literally pulled limb from limb by horses. This form of punishment, which Foucault called an example of “sovereign power,” was contrasted starkly with the subtler forms of correction and control that were more frequently encountered less than 100 years later in the modern penitentiary. In the medieval period, the monarch was the absolute ruler, and his or her power over the subject was demonstrated by the most direct and physical of means. This was a symbol not just of the severity of the charges or the crime at hand, but also of a hierarchical relationship, an expression of the importance of the monarch as the ultimate individual (God’s earthly representative), contrasted with the lack of importance of the hapless victim, whose final moments on the scaffold were intended mainly to ceremonially remind the watching public of their own rightful place in their ruler’s domain also.

Morality and Society  37 By the mid-nineteenth century, much of this had changed. Although there were still executions, the gratuitous violence of the scaffold had long-since disappeared. Moreover, there was now a focus on a new range of categories of persons: the convict, the prisoner, the schoolchild, the patient and any other individual who was subject to the gaze of an expert and was monitored, examined, corrected or rehabilitated accordingly. This situation, which defined the status of the subject in relation to the institutional authority in new terms, Foucault called “descending individualism,” as opposed to the “ascending individualism” of an absolute ruler that had been the norm previously (Danaher et al., 2000: 57). By contrast with the sheer brutality of sovereign power, the modern period would therefore come to be defined by a more coercive and pervasive kind of power that was noticeable not by its “marks” but by its “signs” (of manipulation and control) (Foucault, 1991: 130). This institutional, disciplinary power was responsible for producing what Foucault called “docile bodies,” which were exemplified in the compliant figure of the army soldier (1991: 135). For Foucault, what this amounted to was a new diffusion of power transmitted throughout the whole social structure by way of institutional authority and practice. Thus, far from being superfluous and relatively unimportant, the individual was now squarely the focus of a very different kind of attention, intended for the purposes of extracting and producing various kinds of technical knowledge or “truth” as a result of interactions with experts. Having its roots in the religious practice of confession, Foucault called this novel disciplinary process “power-knowledge” (Foucault, 1998: 58). For many sociologists, Foucault fundamentally reinterpreted our understanding of historical power relations in novel terms, thus affecting our general perceptions of moral behaviour and punishment also. Despite Foucault’s critique of the new and more manipulative systems of control he describes, a sense of morality is implicit in the very nature of these new regimes of discipline, which represented a more modern, “gentle way to punish” at the same time as they were intended to promote a better understanding of various conditions (Foucault, 1991: 104). Yet it seems that, for Foucault, there was also something fraudulent about the ways in which these new forms of knowledge were generated, at least initially, mainly because they relied almost completely on a reciprocity between the technician and the subject by way of discourses. Without sufficient explanation, without data via dialogue, there could be no way of knowing who or what one was dealing with. The expert was therefore dependant on the wilful donation of information by the individual at the same time as s/he was empowered with identifying or interpolating that individual through the use of language and written records. Wherever these lines of communication broke down, the systems of knowledge intended to understand and legislate for them encountered insurmountable problems. This situation was perhaps best illustrated by Foucault with regard to what he termed the “dangerous individual.” In a compelling article dedicated to the notion of the dangerous individual, Foucault (1978) makes reference to a spate of unrelated and hideous murders committed in the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States. A number of common factors made these crimes stand out. The first was that they were all completely

38  Morality and Society unexpected – that is, these acts had happened without warning and were not relatable in any way to the previous behaviour patterns of the individuals who had committed them. The second factor was their excessive cruelty or wickedness – in one case, for example, cannibalism had been reported. Third, the murders were committed by perpetrators who were familiar with their victims: family members, friends or neighbours. Finally, each of the murders lacked any clear motive: no evidence of theft nor passion could be discerned. But as Foucault points out at the beginning of the piece, it was in cases where the perpetrator refused to engage in dialogue or confession that legislators were most perplexed and perturbed. Via the sheer brutality of the senseless murder, the spectre of an inexplicable madness in humans had therefore suddenly re-emerged, this time from the crowd itself, to haunt the major cities of the Victorian world. In effect, categorisations of madness had been permitted to exist legally and scientifically by way of the discursive practices that had by now become well established. But mysteries can be quite unsettling to the human mind, and they are especially worrying when they are prone to outbursts of spontaneous and murderous violence. There is a kind of symbolic silence in the motiveless crime in and of itself. And that silence is truly unbearable when it stubbornly thwarts the limits of our existing knowledge and when an explanation is needed in order to safeguard the well-being of society as a whole. The crime therefore came to define the individual, becoming one with his or her identity: the stalker, the sexual predator, the psychopath and the killer. The emergent new forms of mass communication would ensure that a continuous stream of lurid stories came to the attention of the public, mainly via the press (see Sindall, 1990). Also, according to Callinicos, criminal statistics were among the first sociological data to have been systematised and analysed in modern societies (2007: 125). Each of these points indicates that there was a proliferation of information on criminality at this time, along with a heightened interest in it, creating new realms for discursive activity. Even if the identity of a dangerous offender – or his or her motives – remained a mystery to the experts and the authorities, then, the gory details of the crimes themselves certainly would not, and a menacing moniker would more than suffice as a reference in the absence of a real name. The newspapers were the first to introduce this, as exemplified most strikingly in the naming of the serial killer “Jack the Ripper” via publication of the “Dear Boss” letter that was allegedly received by the Central News Agency of London from the killer on 27 September 1888. Ever since, the written word and other media have been instrumental in creating a fascination with the modern history of violent crime and all of its subsequent “superstars” – Gein, Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer, Nilsen, Wuornos and others – in what Mark Seltzer (1998) has described as a “wound culture” that has only intensified as it has permeated Western culture. Just as with sexuality and families, then, contemporary perceptions of individuals and criminal types are inextricably bound up with modernity and its institutional development. And as Turner (1991) points out, Foucault’s work accounts for more than one type of body in society, while religious authority has generally been a telling factor in their development in each case: on the one hand, we have the influence of religion on the bodies of individuals; on the other, there is

Morality and Society  39 a relationship “between religion and the body of populations” (1991: 8). The one dovetails with the other. Foucault’s ideas, and particularly the metaphor of the “panopticon” (Foucault, 1991), indicate a modern focus on individual scrutiny and mediatisation. This God’s-eye view of any particular domain has influenced a range of studies concerned with the regulation of contemporary societies, including not just studies on criminology and incarceration (see Norrie, 2001; Carrabine, 2009; Alber and Lauterbach, 2009), but also monitoring and urban surveillance systems (Lyon, 2001), recording-keeping and photography (Tagg, 1993), and even consumer behaviour and practices (Paterson, 2006; Stillerman, 2015), to name only a few. Despite Foucault’s influence in sociology, there are some significant problems with his work and legacy, and we shall discuss some of these later and in subsequent chapters. However, in what remains of this chapter, I would like to foreshadow such critiques by returning to debates on human nature and how these contribute to questions of morality today. Morality, Philosophy and Science The popularity of figures like Foucault in the social sciences can be explained by a number of factors, but the main ones are, first, that his work offers a critique of modernity (a concept which has always been central to sociology, e.g. as we shall also see in the next chapter) and, second, because it offers an analysis of society as the primary and overwhelming influence on people’s behaviours and categorisations. In upholding such a viewpoint, contemporary academia now routinely questions any notion of human nature, preferring socio-cultural explanations for all forms of human behaviour. However, while socio-cultural explanations have their place, they certainly don’t explain everything. As we noted via the work of Pinker (2002) at the beginning of this chapter, socio-cultural explanations regarding some kind of social “super-organism” are fraught with dangers of their own, and for any serious scholar today a new appreciation of nature in one form or another has once again become indispensable in understanding human behaviours. As the religions themselves should have taught us by now, you don’t make something “incorrect” simply by making it unfashionable or taboo. Another contemporary thinker whose work is causing a reassessment of the role of human nature in morality is Jonathan Haidt. In The Righteous Mind (2012), Haidt, like Pinker, discusses the various faculties associated with the human mind – thoughts, languages, reasoning and so on – and treats these as the functions of a physical brain which arose as a product of evolution. Steering a course between exclusively scientific explanations on the one hand, and excessively emotional/ personal ones on the other, Haidt argues for a kind of middle way when it comes to understanding (im)morality and our typical methods of analysing it. To this end, one central theme in Haidt’s book is his “elephant and rider” analogy. Basically, for Haidt, the typical human mind comprises both an elephant and a rider. The former refers to our emotions, which are overwhelmingly powerful, accounting for some 99% of our responses to various experiences, including but not limited to such things as injustice; the latter refers to the intellect or “conscious reasoning”

40  Morality and Society component, whose role it is to try to guide the elephant. In short, the elephant, which is not itself an unintelligent animal, holds formidable power by comparison with the rider, though it ultimately lacks the rider’s potential reasoning capabilities; and we generally react first and reason second. So Haidt does not argue that our emotions are necessarily the irrational drives which produce only whimsical or knee-jerk responses to the things that happen to us, and he does not argue that the intellect is necessarily superior to emotion. Both exist for good evolutionary reasons, and the “rider” component is just as capable of error, often making post-hoc rationalisations (i.e. excuses) for the unruliness of the elephant when it blunders. Despite the obvious “biophobia (fear of biology explaining human phenomena)” that exists in the social sciences in particular today (Saad, 2020: 15), evidence in support of biological interpretations seems overwhelming. Chief among the fears are tropes like determinism, which can be used to justify such things as discrimination, inequalities, a lack of reflection, and a denial of any foundation for our values (see Pinker, 2002: 139). But such fears are not just based on factual inaccuracies; they are also misplaced in a practical sense. Most of those in academia who advocate this kind of viewpoint do so because they see it as automatically “good” and they wish to be moral in all things, but fundamentally they may be doing more harm than good. It is not an acceptance of a basic human nature that is most likely to provide a dangerous platform for inequalities but rather the tendency to make excuses for certain groups or individuals on account of some or other form of moral cultural relativism (more on this in Chapters 5 and 6). By denying human nature, contemporary academics (in both the natural and social sciences) resemble the Bible-thumping Christian on the American political right who cannot distinguish an “is” from and “ought” and who simplistically believes that biological explanations excuse all kinds of behaviours: “Don’t you call my daughter an ape!” Acknowledging that that person’s offspring is basically an ape, just like anybody else’s, is not to deny their humanity or suggest that they are likely to suddenly behave in brutish ways. Indeed, such a visceral response is itself inadvertently deterministic; it does a great disservice to our mammalian cousins because their own societies have demonstrated clear signs of both compassion and altruism, just as ours do. Even great and non-religious philosophers of the past have at times been guilty of such simplistic reasoning. For example, Nietzsche himself believed that “No moral comfort could be obtained from scientific advances, least of all from the evolutionary theory of Darwin” (Turner, 1991: 115). For me, Nietzsche could not have been more wrong on this. First of all, the purpose of Darwinian evolution is not to offer us comfort but only to provide an insight into our true nature. But in any case, such an insight can be comforting, actually, because it provides a natural, bottom-up explanation as to why we are capable of both good and evil; and in this sense it is much more satisfying and more appreciable than an absolute morality purportedly imposed from above by a God or by those in authority, whether they be from the overwhelmingly religious right or the typically atheistic left. It is interesting in itself that so many smart people automatically treat “morality” as if it is something that is necessarily separate from nature. To the contrary, morality is in our nature; its various expressions

Morality and Society  41 derive from our nature; and that nature would not be there to begin with were it not for a close association between the biological and the social. Countering the attitude currently prevailing in contemporary academia, then, there is in fact no obvious conflict between sociology and biology on a fundamental level. The great American biologist E.O. Wilson understood this perfectly when he coined the term “sociobiology” in 1975. One of the most important concepts in studies on morality is that of “prosociality.” The fascinating writings of Frans De Waal on various social species, including not just other apes but also dogs and elephants, describe in detail how such animals understand the importance of love, compassion, co-operation and togetherness. Many examples of prosocial tendencies have been recorded among chimpanzees in the wild and in captivity, as when they have been observed in “food sharing or risky defence of friends”; or even biting “through poacher snares when group mates are trapped”; or in adopting “unrelated orphans”; in helping “others retrieve a needed tool” or helping to “open a door so that a companion can reach food” (De Waal, 2014: 117). Even more distantly related mammals have also been shown to have an acute awareness of compassion and altruism (see Singer, 2011/1981); and some other animals also appear to have an innate sense of injustice. Concepts like “inequity aversion” have been devised by primatologists and zoologists to describe situations when animals recognise deliberately unfair treatment: “A dog will repeatedly perform a trick without rewards, but refuse as soon as another dog gets pieces of sausage for the same trick” (De Waal, 2014: 17). Members of societies need to protect and trust one another; they must rely on each other for individual and group survival. Despite our greater ingenuity, human morality developed in essentially similar ways to those found in other social animals. In his pessimistic account of human civilisation and its history, Freud argued that our social connections are “libidinally” rooted (1930: 82), and this appears to be a reasonably accurate assessment. Freud recognised that, as social animals, humans need to feel accepted as part of a group and that moral transgressions are sure-fire ways for us to find ourselves excluded from it. De Waal would apparently agree with that sentiment: “Human morality,” he writes, “develops out of sensitivity to others and out of the realization that in order to reap the benefits of group life we need to compromise and be considerate of others” (De Waal, 2014: 164; see also Dawkins on “reciprocal altruism,” 2006a: 252). Dependability and reputation are crucial features of modern human associations owing to the opinions that others form about us (Dawkins, 2006a; Haidt, 2012). It has even been suggested by the cultural anthropologist Chris Boehm that group selection pressures have led to the reduction of genes in circulation that pose a threat to group harmony, as cheats, bullies, rapists, freeloaders and also psychopaths (who are not necessarily always dangerous) have found themselves on the wrong end of “ostracism, shunning, banishment, or execution” over tens of thousands of years (2012: 67). Punishment is one tactic, but prosociality is concerned more with extensions of kindness and respect to other members of the group, which regularly results in acts of reciprocity. We get further faster by exercising understanding and compassion. And, although we might have been schooled into thinking of our ancestors as

42  Morality and Society “savages” by contrast with our more “civilised” selves, we should be careful about such assumptions. This view is emphasised not least by the things we have learned about our ancestors: we know that “Neanderthals and early humans took care of the handicapped, for example” (De Waal, 2014: 92). According to De Waal, “publication of the bonobo genome reveals that we share genes with bonobos that we don’t share with chimps, but we also share genes with chimps that we don’t share with bonobos” (De Waal, 2014: 81). We should therefore not be too proud nor complacent. De Waal further suggests that we inherited our peace-making skills from a shared line with the bonobo, but our aggression and tribalism from the line we share with the chimpanzee. For De Waal, this explains why we are capable of great harmony and heroic acts of self-sacrifice at the same time as horrific outbursts of fury and violence. However, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has urged caution about these kinds of simplified dichotomies between related species because they misunderstand the more gene-centred view of evolution, in which “selfishness” or competition is part of the very process of collaboration or compatibility itself at every level, including in gene pools, individual genes and even cells; such perspectives can also lead to false dichotomies over “schools” of biological thought (i.e. pro-altruism vs. pro-competition), which are misleading (see Dawkins, 2006b, ch. 9). Nevertheless, it is our capacity for wickedness that, ultimately, defines the good in us and makes morality itself worth pondering. As De Waal points out, “Morality would be superfluous if we were universally nice” (2014: 387). But a certain degree of effort and learning is required, and this takes place on a social level. A number of studies into morality show that “collective action” in dealing with tyrants, trouble-makes and the idle sets the human species apart from other primates: sociality, intelligence and communication have been essential in our own development of moral systems (see, e.g. Boehm, 2012: 240). It is therefore at once laughable and infuriating that non-believers are continually expected to believe that morality is absolute and that it depends upon a divinely inspired foundation. As we noted earlier, this is a common assumption among Christians and other people of faith (see Sinnott-Armstrong, 2009: Location 862; Harrison, 2015), and it is rooted in tradition and unwarranted bias. According to Cahill, “Aquinas associated morality with certain essential human characteristics and values, which communicate the ‘eternal law’ of God to all creatures and eras” (1987: 75). In truth, as Ara Norenzayan points out, “the ethnographic and historical record contradicts the claim that this linkage is a cultural universal” (2014: 373). Norenzayan argues that gods of traditional societies and those found in the history books tended to be overwhelmingly interested in rituals and sacrifices, rather than our treatment of human beings. Moreover, even a doctrine like “love thy neighbour,” as admirable as it may seem, has had to be expanded way beyond its original form. In our more complex, global societies today, this is a great message; but if we are really honest and trace it back to its archetype, it isn’t quite as “prosocial” as the religious might have us believe, since it originally referred only to other Jewish people, not everybody in society (see Hartung, 1995). This comes across in Jesus’ instructions to his disciples when he extended his powers of healing to them and

Morality and Society  43 sent them out to do good works: “These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:5–6, original emphasis). In truth, “Love thy neighbour” only became supposedly “universal” tenet that it now is under the context of Pauline Christianity. Nevertheless, the God hypothesis remains a popular assumption when it comes to morals and values in many parts of the world, and particularly in America in the Western context. Little wonder, then, that we find tendencies like moral licencing and double standards being more prevalent among those raised in accordance with faith. Some studies have shown that “[r]eligious belief appears to have a negative influence on children’s altruism and judgements over others’ actions even as parents see them as ‘more empathetic’ ” (see Sherwood, 2015). We see other evidence of hypocrisy and a sense of superiority from the religious in the behaviours of some Catholic priests and in the concerted and expensive efforts of their leadership to cover up sexual molestation accusations made against them, all while pontificating to others about how to conduct their own private sex lives (see Joseph, 2016). Despite the persistence of religious appeals to the concept of an absolute morality, most of the evidence “suggests that morality predates current civilizations and religions by at least a hundred millennia” (De Waal, 2014: 56). Although often wrongly attributed to Christian teachings exclusively, something like the so-called “Golden Rule” has been around for thousands of years, and it has been traced to geographical and historical locations that were untouched by Christianity or any other version of monotheism (see Stenger, 2009; Barker, 2015: Location 730). It should be noted that agreement on the rule is by no means clear (see Martin, 2002: Location 1950). For example, although the traditional standard of the Golden Rule states that one should “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” the instruction actually works better in the negative form: that is, “Do not impose on others what you would not wish for yourself” (Confucius, cited in Stenger, 2009: 151, emphases added). This latter interpretation has also been referred to as “The Silver Rule” (see Sagan, 1997: 183). Whatever we call them, such general principles cannot cover every eventuality, and their finer details are still debated by philosophers today. Nevertheless, they are offered as at least reasonable cornerstones of a universal morality among a social, thinking, communicating species. As societies have become more complex, we have seen concepts of god adapt and morph accordingly. The Canadian psychologist Ara Norenzayan (2014) has written on notions of what he refers to as the “Big Gods” and how they have developed over time: in short, the size (or capabilities) of our gods have had to grow in proportion with the size and complexity of our social systems. In a society of strangers, it has been a very effective psychological trick to have people imagine that their every move is being observed and that they might face certain consequences for immoral actions later on, whether in this life or the next. The Bible makes God’s omniscience clear: “the very hairs on your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:30). Today, a panoptic gaze need no longer be only imagined; it has long since become a reality of modern society, as Foucault (1991) realised. Interestingly, though, according to Norenzayan, “studies show that when religious reminders are

44  Morality and Society absent, believers and non-believers – especially those from societies with strong rule of law – are equally prosocial towards strangers” (2014: 372). But one caveat is that the prosociality of the religious kind often comes with certain “in-group” conditions that more inclusive ones need not necessarily adopt; such conditions become especially apparent when “one’s group is seen to be under threat by . . . other groups and non-believers” (Norenzayan, 2014: 367–368). As Hartung has noted, then, rather than a universal touchstone, “The Bible is a blueprint of in-group morality, complete with instructions for genocide, enslavement of out-groups, and world domination” (Hartung, 1995). Or again, in the words of Haidt (2012), religious morality has a tendency to “bind and blind” people at the same time. Religious morality can also have impossible standards. The views of New Zealand-born writer and broadcaster Ray Comfort are a case in point. Despite having a rather appropriate-sounding name for one involved in preaching the word of God, it turns out that this televangelist is neither a ray nor a particular source of comfort in the lives of some of his fellow Christians, who see his hard-line approach to faith as ridiculously extreme. This is because Comfort preaches that salvation is not possible for anyone who sins in their life after claiming to have accepted Jesus Christ as their saviour. Many Christians, following the words in John (3:16), subscribe to the principle of atonement: the idea that God “sent his only begotten son” to Earth in order to absolve all of the sins of humankind as a collective and that, regardless of our misdeeds, the only thing we need to do to ensure our safe passage into Heaven is to simply accept Jesus as our saviour. Comfort’s stringent approach to his religion is designed to counteract this assumption to avoid excusing wrongful acts and crimes. But this has been criticised by some (see, e.g. Stewart, 2007), who have pointed out that perhaps no human is capable of living a life of moral “perfection” (whatever that means). Regardless, the notion that Jesus, a scapegoat, was brutally tortured and murdered in an act of “atonement” intended to save the rest of us from sin is in itself morally reprehensible by definition, as a number of commentators have pointed out (see Dawkins, 2006a: 286; Hitchens, 2008: 362–363). Social scientists have also identified potentially dangerous mechanisms involved in the maintenance of behavioural codes in dogmatic ideological structures like those pertaining to religions. One such mechanism is referred to as “costly signalling theory” (Sosis and Bressler, 2003). Based on a longitudinal analysis of communes (both religious and non-religious), the authors of the study noted that “costly signalling” is the custom or tendency of members to demonstrate how willing they are to accept certain demands (such as rituals and taboos) in order to support the group and remain a part of it. Displaying such behaviour is described as “costly” on account of some or other personal sacrifice or compromise that needs to be made in order to retain membership, but also because of the potential loss of support from the community that can come as a result of “signalling” insincerely: in other words, this social mechanism weeds out the pretenders. Costly signalling, in a religious context might include such things as fasting or upholding extreme or irrational scriptural beliefs at one end of the spectrum and female genital mutilation (FGM), honour killings and terrorism at the other. The study compared the survival rates of socialist communes with those of religious ones. Worryingly, the results

Morality and Society  45 revealed that communes that made the greatest demands on their participants had vastly better survival rates. “Secular communes were 3 times more likely to dissolve in a given year than religious communes,” because reason is more likely to intervene as participants of secular communes generally weigh the pros and cons of membership in rational ways (see Sosis and Bressler, 2003: 222). Overall, the only way that the supposedly divine origins for faith-based teachings on morality could possibly be considered any worse is if they were actually proven to be authentic. It is not the case that faith or the absence of it necessarily makes a person either moral or immoral – of course that’s not true. There are plenty of good and bad theists, just as there are plenty of good and bad atheists. The main point, however, is to consider the potential power of ideology and dogma in getting people to behave in selfish, wicked, tribal and inflexible ways. Appealing to the idea of the one true “God” (an often merciless and vindictive god whom your people fortuitously happen to believe in) is a perfect way of fostering and consolidating such blind devotion and tribalism, especially when the alleged stakes and rewards are so high. From the very outset, monotheism has had a very different conception of “morality” from the one that we would generally recognise today, which has been honed over millennia: “Democracy, freedom of speech, and religious tolerance are not among the values in the Torah. Within Torah Judaism, all serious decisions, even personal decisions, are vested in a male-dominated ­hierarchy” (Shapiro, 2007: 9). It is for these reasons that some commentators, including the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg, have gone so far as to say that it is in fact the power of faith itself, rather than its absence, that is most likely to be a driving force in unethical behaviour and the committing of terrible deeds. This perspective chimes-in well with Plato’s Euthyphro dilemma, also known in philosophy as divine command theory. Plato’s question (via Socrates) runs something like this: “Does God’s command make deeds necessarily ‘good’ because they are given by him, or are the deeds good in themselves and that is why God commands them?” The dilemma arises once we realise the awkward relationship of God to the command, for the following reasons: If God commands you to commit murder or genocide on his behalf against a person or people for the simple “crime” of, say, disbelief, and you realise that that edict is immoral, then what does that say about God? At best, it means he’s probably not the omniscient and perfect being that he is so often imagined to be; at worst, it means he’s a maniac. If, on the other hand, God only commands deeds that are necessarily good in themselves, and we can recognise or work out why they are innately good by and for ourselves, then why do we need God in the first place? In this way, good morals can and do exist outside of religion. To attribute an absolute morality to an unproven and clearly fallible “god” is therefore not just dangerous; it is an insult to the human species itself. Good morals emerge socially; they are simply co-opted by religions before being re-packaged and sold back to us as their products exclusively, without any obvious justification. Too often, then, the hard and fast rules of faith lead us not into the temptation of questioning bad ideas and using alternative sources in order to work things out for

46  Morality and Society ourselves. Religious absurdities still abound, and they do so mainly because of tradition, dogma and coercion. For the faithful, morality is very often not a principle for living at all, but only the ultimate expression of the notion that “might makes right.” It is the so-called “problem of evil” (a philosophical objection to the persistence of suffering and wrongdoing in the world) that leads to theodicies (divine justifications given by the religious for phenomena such as genocide, natural disasters, famine, viruses, violence and criminality). Some contemporary manifestations of the mantra that “God works in mysterious ways” include the assertion made by a mayor of New Orleans that the floods which devastated the city in 2005 were a punishment for the “invasion of Iraq” (Hitchens, 2008: 256); and that “America’s surrender to homosexuality and abortion” sowed the seeds that resulted in the destruction of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers on 11 September 2001 (Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell cited in Brueggmann, 2010); and in the fact that “there are still Jewish sects who maintain that the Nazi ‘final solution’ was a punishment for living in exile from Jerusalem” (Hitchens, 2008: 296). Anybody wishing to explain those statements away as the wild proclamations of eccentrics speaking in highly charged political contexts is invited to re-read the pages of the Bible and the Qur’an where they will discover many other similar examples of God’s wrath unleashed on certain peoples at various times and places for no good reason. A final obvious point of moral controversy concerns Christianity’s explicit endorsement of slavery (see also the Qur’an 23:6; 33:50; 33:52). The Bible is littered with references to the rules on keeping and managing slaves. There are clear instructions for slaves to obey their masters “with fear and trembling,” as they should also fear Christ himself (Ephesians 6:5). In Exodus (21: 20–21), it is even stated that a master can beat his slave “with a rod.” As long as the slave survives the beating for a day or two afterwards, the master shall face no punishment, for the slave “is his money” (emphasis in original). Although some Christians would protest that the New Testament is more acceptable, we still find in it passages like the following: “Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again” (Titus 2:9, original emphases). Critics of the “holy books” are frequently reprimanded for “taking passages out of context.” But what kind of context could possibly excuse such behaviour? In any case, the excuse about “context” is usually a lame one because, as Warraq has shown comically with reference to the Qur’an, placing such passages into wider contexts often confirms their meanings and makes them even worse (Warraq, 2003: Location 2490). To some, it might seem cheap or rude to refer to scriptural passages like this, but it is nothing of the sort because we have to accept that morality and ethics evolve, and we cannot overlook the power and appeal of certain attitudes that can be underpinned by faith. If you have convinced yourself that morality begins and ends with the perfect word of your god (as we find on Answers in Genesis) and your god gives you express permission to enslave people or to hurt or mistreat other sentient beings in a host of other ways to his satisfaction, then that god him-/her-/ itself demands an explanation. The big problem for the theist, from a philosophical standpoint, is that the more we ourselves grapple with moral questions, the more we see that “God” himself appears to know less about morality than we do.

Morality and Society  47 In conclusion, then, not only does this God allow pain and suffering in the world; if we are to accept that he exists at all, we have to assume that he himself positively revels in an evil of his own making. Few observations could emphasise this point better than that made by the American sociologist Gregory S. Paul, who has estimated that, across all of human history, “[p]robably hundreds of billions of conceptions and fifty billion children have died, the great majority from nonhuman causes, before reaching the age of mature consent” (see Paul, 2007). Apart from re-emphasising a theological hypocrisy regarding the protection and care of children and the unborn, Paul’s observation highlights an extremely perverse injustice on an even more fundamental level, because it would have to mean that a supposedly omniscient and omnipotent God deliberately created the world and its history as stated while countless lost souls must have died needlessly, perhaps in pain, without ever having experienced the joys of life. And those innocent children, having never had a concept of faith either, might now be the perpetual fuel for the fires of Hell without even realising why they are languishing there in the first place. These and many other quandaries resulting from simple meditations have been instrumental in the growth of secularism in the modern Western world. And that process, with its wider implications for our philosophical reflections, will be the main theme of the next chapter.

3

Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity

Secularisation was essential to the development of sociology as a modern discipline, and it is a central concept in this book. As we have already seen, and as we shall see further, the process of secularisation has prompted questions regarding the significance of religion and its role in matters such as morality, values, knowledge, community and other aspects of human life. Addressing the concept of secularisation directly, Bruce (2011) has suggested that sociologists spend way too much time quibbling over the precise meanings of words. I generally agree, so I will not devote any undue space here trying in vain to provide the most ideal definition. However, for the sake of argument, I will defer to Bryan Wilson, who defined secularisation simply as the fundamental and widespread “loss of religious influence” in society (1966: xi), and to Peter Berger, who defined it as “the process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols” (1967: 107). On the surface, these seem like pretty uncontroversial and rudimentary explanations. Yet the deeper problem is not so much a matter of linguistic definition because sociologists have not always agreed on exactly how the concept of secularisation should be theorised and/or applied in socio-historical terms. One of the main bones of contention has been the allegation from certain critics that too many sociologists, following the founders of the social sciences, have regarded the specifically “Western” experience of secularisation as the model for all other societies, and that the spread of this particular model around the world is an inevitable eventuality (in fact, there are various forms of “secularism” already in existence in different parts of the world today). Another issue is the idea that secularisation is necessarily connected with reason and rationality. Third, there is the notion that secularisation is the result of a concerted effort exclusively on the part of atheists, communists or anti-religionists. Fourth, there is the topic of whether or not Western secularisation is reversible. Fifth, there are questions regarding the pros and cons of secularisation: what has it made possible (whether “good” or “bad”) in our world? What are its strengths and limitations as a worldview? And what does the future hold for it and for societies that live (or claim to live or even don’t currently live) according to its customs? Finally, as a result of all of these, others have discussed secularisation less as a theory and more as an intellectual “paradigm” – a paradigm being defined in this case as a set of ongoing debates that DOI: 10.4324/9781003039822-3

Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity  49 form the basis of a discursive or “scientific community” in the academic context (see Tschannen, 1991). There are plenty of reasons why these themes have been prominent in debates over secularisation and secularity, but there are problems with many of the arguments comprising them as well, as we shall see. The main aim of this chapter, then, will be to explore some of the key points and to assess the significance of secularisation from various temporal and conceptual perspectives. With this in mind, we turn first of all to a selection of some of the most influential interpretations that comprise the traditional model of secularisation theory in sociology before analysing some of its implications for the contemporary moment. Generally speaking, there are two main strands of argument pertaining to classical secularisation theory: one that regards the decline of religion as an exciting and/or positive development and another which views it in a more pessimistic and negative light. The foundations for the former viewpoint were laid-down by such figures as Auguste Comte, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, whereas major contributors of the latter perspective include Max Weber, Friedrich Nietzsche and particularly Émile Durkheim. As each of these thinkers realised, in one way or another, there is something quintessentially sociological about religion, expressed in its meanings, symbols and rituals. It was the upheavals and changes that came with the arrival of modernity that had highlighted these connections so emphatically. And although many philosophers and social scientists have discussed the role and demise of religion in various ways, these six modern thinkers have been among the most influential on secularisation theory, so their commentaries shall set the scene for us here. Starting with Comte, we will begin by discussing some of the relatively negative modern perspectives on religion before discussing the more sympathetic ones. But ultimately, the chapter will argue that secularisation was, on balance, a good development, and that faithbased views are superfluous in secular political contexts. Classical Secularisation Theory: From Comte to Weber Like many other philosophers of his time, Comte was a positivist and a historicist. He therefore assumed that the course of history was taking a certain trajectory through particular phases, each one with its own dominant mode of thought. For Comte, there were three such stages: “the religious, the metaphysical and the scientific, the last of which he thought we were entering” (Craib, 1997: 25). The religious phase attributes all forces to the gods, and therefore renders us passive and rather helpless; the metaphysical phase was an intermediary one in which the forces were only beginning to be vaguely understood but were generally attributed to a still largely mysterious natural realm; the scientific phase is, however, much bolder and more decisive. For Comte, this final stage was the one that promised to unveil all of nature’s secrets, and he applied that same logic to society. Following an epoch-defining series of revolutions, along with increasing urbanisation, a deeper understanding of the nature of association appeared to become an even more urgent need. Comte – a theorist about whom I will say a little more in C ­ hapter 7 – had great confidence in science, but he also regarded religion as a

50  Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity “unifying principle” and even harboured concerns about the prospect of a society without it. These anxieties led him to develop modern sociology as a discipline designed to fill the void (see Hamilton, 1995: 26–27). To give Marx his proper billing in this discussion, it would be fair to say that he is perhaps the most (in)famous philosophical opponent of religion from the modern era. This is not because of the volume of Marx’s commentaries on religion, but because of what he wrote about it and why. Quite simply, Marx fitted a cursory concept of religion into his wider framework of class conflict theory: he regarded theism as a central and powerful tool of social control. Religion, Marx held, was a state apparatus with the capacity to subdue the exploited working majority (the proletariat), thus reducing the prospect of uprisings and violence in retaliation against the injustices inflicted upon them by a powerful minority class (the capitalists). Religion is therefore primarily a pacifier. This sentiment is best captured in Marx’s well-known description of religion as “the opium of the people” (1986a: 301, original emphasis). Marx realised that theodicy is a powerful device in helping to buttress a person’s faith. By divine wisdom, the poor are not to take matters into their own hands; all scores will eventually be settled by the provider of the ultimate justice in Heaven, as promised in the Bible: “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. For the evil shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth” (Psalm 37:8–9). To put it mildly, however, Marx was unimpressed with this directive, and he sought to empower the proletariat not to gamble on worn-out promises but to seek recompense in this life instead, by way of violent revolution. Third, there’s Freud, whose (1930) account of the role of the community in the suppression of the ravenous id for the sake of the greater good indicated a level of appreciation for the broad benefits that might be derived from mechanisms of social control, religious authority being key among them. Yet overall Freud was, like Marx, certainly disparaging towards religion, regarding the beliefs and rituals pertaining to it as primitive and likening them to a kind of collectivised obsessional neurosis. The neurosis is emphasised best of all in the continued adherence to sacraments whose original meanings had been hollowed out, but also in the internalisation of a guilt complex based on the need to control the potentially compromising pursuit of our libidinally induced desires (see Freud, 1907). Having its origins in superstition and magic, religion is, for Freud, an emotional phenomenon which nevertheless calls for rational analysis in order to be understood on an ontogenetic (individual) and phylogenetic (collective) level, in evolutionary terms. But despite his Jewish heritage, Freud himself has been described as “a natural atheist” who “found no good reason to believe in God and therefore saw no value or purpose in the rituals of religious life” (Pals, 2006: 64). Each of these perspectives therefore championed science in one way or another. Comte’s view was a sweeping, epochal one. Marx’s view was the application of science towards an understanding of the grinding realities of human existence in ­societies organised in accordance with certain interests and the strategic mechanisms, such as religions, which serve to hinder that understanding. Finally, despite the dubiousness that many would now not unreasonably attribute to psychoanalysis,

Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity  51 Freud was a trained medical doctor, and his total body of work had been interpreted by some in the early twentieth century as providing the most radical insights to date on the nature of the human animal from a psychological perspective in various contexts; in the case of religion, his analyses sought to get beneath the surface to understand, from the inside-out and back again, why humans engage in it and to demonstrate its superfluousness. But some other commentators were not quite so triumphal about the advent of science and its potential. They cautioned that the disappearance of religion from society could have catastrophic consequences akin to the potential collapse of an ecosystem following the removal of a keystone species. In the case of Nietzsche, it would be fair to say that his contributions straddle the divide in this debate. On the one hand, his book on The Genealogy of Morals (1887) presents the traditional (i.e. Judeo-Christian) concepts of “good,” “bad” and “evil” as based in a system that ultimately values such attributes as compassion and altruism over strength and will. Nietzsche referred to this as a kind of “slave morality” because it was essentially based in the honourable suffering of oppressed peoples (archetypally, the Jews under the Romans) – by contrast with the determinacy and privilege of the powerful – and was premised upon the deferment of an imaginary, divine justice to be meted out later. In other words, the Judeo-Christian moral system inspires a kind of exalted self-pity. Nietzsche held a dim view of these values, which he took to be the basis of the prevailing moral systems in Western cultures. However, on the other hand, the view for which Nietzsche is often included in discussions on secularisation is his pronouncement, in “The Parable of the Madman” (1882), that modern humanity had “killed” God. Nietzsche was aware that religion and God had become drained of any significance in modern life, and his well-known fable has often been presented as an indication of his trepidation at the potential dissemination of an ultimate meaninglessness and hopelessness that complex and highly individuated societies might find impossible to countenance. As part of his explanation on the origin and function of religion, Durkheim identified what he called “the totemic principle,” a force which provides the whole basis for a community’s rituals, actions and morals (Pals, 2006: 99). As already noted in Chapter 1, this is something much more fundamental even than a god. It is simply a kind of code (written-down or not) that stimulates an inclination towards the designation of certain things as sacred and a separation of these things from those that are to be considered profane. The totemic principle also inspires cohesion and loyalty to the group. It is on the basis of this principle that Durkheim felt it was a mistake to reduce religious beliefs simply down to the worship of supernatural beings. Indeed, Durkheim argued that, to the religious mind, it is ultimately the society itself that is revered – society is the deity, in effect (Durkheim, 1973/1912). One can easily see the importance and credibility of an idea such as this; the object or symbol, whatever it may be (a totem pole, a flag, an emblem) can become a very powerful representation around which members of an in-group can galvanise and bind themselves together. Durkheim therefore argued, “[R]eligion, or some substitute for religion, will always be a necessary if the integrity of a society is to be preserved” (Thrower, 1999: 186).

52  Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity When it comes to the more sympathetic perspectives on religion, Weber’s views are a good place to conclude, because his observations seem particularly powerful in the context of secularisation as a distinctly modern (and Western) phenomenon, which we will go on to discuss in greater detail later. Weber’s thesis on The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1992), originally composed between 1904 and 1905, has been hailed as a classic of the sociological canon, and it still holds great influence to this day. Weber’s book, which focuses on the religious habits of Protestants beginning in the sixteenth century, and how these influenced the development of capitalism, is often misunderstood by his critics. Weber did not argue that the Protestants started capitalism, and certainly not by any methods of intentional manipulation; he did not believe, either, that Marx or Adam Smith were correct to assert that economic systems evolved naturally through phases of inevitable historical development. Simply, what Weber argued was that the religious practices of various Protestant sects were responsible for establishing novel attitudes towards life, wealth and commerce which, although nowadays completely detached from their initial religious sensibilities, nevertheless had their origins in the strictest interpretations of Christian piety. What made the Protestant merchants different to their predecessors was that they hoarded surpluses; they worked harder; they were more careful with their investments and expected returns on them; they innovated their practices where they could; they were disciplined, rejecting laziness, wastefulness and indulgences; and they impressed these values on those they employed and influenced, thus giving rise to a new capitalistic system and a uniquely disciplined labour force. Weber argued that all of these were as a result of the application of Protestant values to all spheres of life, not just ecclesiastical ones. The notion of a “vocation” or “calling” issued by God inspired the Protestants to strive for asceticism on the one hand and personal improvement on the other. It was no longer regarded as sinful to maintain and accumulate wealth. The notion of the “calling” had been secularised, and its most significant result was the gradual emergence of a more sophisticated form of capitalism and the advent of modernity itself. Many criticisms have been made about all of the perspectives explored so far. Comte’s views have been criticised on account of their positivistic assumptions. Marx’s (and Engels’) have been considered reductionist in that they regarded religion purely as a social and ideological construct designed to manipulate people and excuse disparities. Freud’s work has been regarded as overly simplistic and even disrespectful towards religious outlooks. Durkheim’s point of view has been described as tautological – religion and moral structures are the basis of societies, while social systems explain the advent of religions. Nietzsche’s take has been accused of exaggeration: was it really the case that modernity had “killed” God given that atheistic perspectives had already been undermining religious perspectives for thousands of years before? Finally, Weber’s Protestant Ethic thesis has been criticised for its lack of direct “evidence for the widespread distribution of the spirit of capitalism in the important time period” (Bruce, 1996: 20). Despite the impressiveness of their collective efforts, then, the featured modern theorists were unable to account adequately for either the ultimate meaning or origins of

Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity  53 “religion” as a singular thing (and this was the stated goal of at least some of them). In truth, the insights of all six writers are mostly limited to the effects of society on monotheism or, particularly in Weber’s case, monotheism on society (and even then, the analysis is mostly only applicable to Christianity). But one final criticism about these foundational observations is that they have all, to a greater or lesser extent, relied on the premise of a kind of social evolutionism, which sees the development of religion as something that goes through stages that culminate in rationality and science (see Kunin, 2003). The perspectives of Comte, Marx, Durkheim and Weber, in particular, have been collectively taken as prominent among the general standard for secularisation theory in the social sciences: a theory that treats religion essentially as a social construct, in one way or another; a theory that appears to make claims pertaining to the superiority or “normativity” of Western socio-historical standards; a theory that makes predictions regarding the inevitability of a single form of secularisation as a destiny for the rest of the world; a European perspective which is somehow selfobsessed and over-confident. But these kinds of criticisms are often unfair when applied to contemporary understandings of secularisation theory. It turns out that the real determinants of secularisation depend on much more than the mere musings of deceased intellectuals with French, German and Austrian origins. Instead, although it is important to reiterate that there is no agreed history of Western secularisation, the process can and has been plausibly traced through some combination of a set of complicated factors and real historical circumstances, and it is to this range of developments that we now turn. Key Developments The poet Steve Turner once quipped, “History repeats itself. Has to. No-one listens” (cited in Claver, 1995: 199). Turner’s observation is brilliant and, I think, generally accurate. However, when it comes to common interpretations of certain historical phenomena, it might not be that the information is necessarily unchanging, but rather that we use our receptive organs too selectively to create and maintain a history that then gets repeated. The general understanding of secularisation theory is a case in point. Answering critics who question such assumptions as whether or not there was ever a “golden age” of religiosity in Europe (see, e.g. Warner, 2010), Steve Bruce suggests that, given the centrality of religion in earlier epochs, and the fact that Europeans risked their own safety and fought wars for their beliefs, and the historical records of such activities as church attendance, we can be very confident that religiosity was significantly greater in the pre-modern period: “No serious historian has suggested that the people of pre-modern Europe were as likely as we are to be atheistic, agnostic, rationalist, or religiously indifferent” (Bruce, 2011: 80). Some critics also simplistically assume that certain contemporary sociologists still believe that it is only a matter of time before secularisation overtakes the rest of the world in precisely the same way it has taken hold in Europe. But again, Bruce clarifies that the European experience was dependent upon a particular set of developments that, if repeated, could well result in the very same outcome but,

54  Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity ultimately, probably still would not. And the main reason why such developments are unlikely to happen in exactly the same way again is partly owing to their intricacy and partly owing precisely to the fact that they have already happened once before – in Europe. In other words, the reality of the European experience becomes the reference point for other cultures with very different histories, sociopolitical systems and people who, even as they themselves may undergo secularisation, might also actively resist the “Western” model for cultural, political or ideological reasons. In such a way, global secularisation becomes something akin to a selfnegating prophecy. Other commentators have maintained that secularisation theory is nothing more than a “taken-for-granted ideological reflex” directed by some anti-religious sociologists against religious belief (see, e.g. Hadden cited in Beckford, 2003: 32). Yet many of the leading proponents of secularisation theory in more recent history – Martin, Wilson, Berger – were/are themselves either religious or dubious about the prospects of a Godless society because they have assumed that a “society without a shared value system internalized in most citizens as conscience would have to rely on external coercion to maintain order” (Bruce, 2011: 59). Therefore, although it has been argued that there “was never a moment in the formative period of the social and human sciences when questions about the trajectory of religious beliefs, practices and influences did not carry, explicitly or implicitly, a strong ideological charge” (Beckford, 2003: 41), this is not necessarily the case today. This is yet another all-too-common preoccupation in contemporary sociology: the simplistic and automatic association between people, ideas and politics. As Bruce puts it, “Why Galileo wanted the earth to rotate around the sun is neither here nor there for determining if he was right” (Bruce, 1996: 52–53). The fact is that most recent sociologists who have advocated secularisation theory have generally done so because they have been convinced by the evidence in support of it, and not because of some ideological preference to argue in favour of it. So what is the evidence? Explaining secularisation is by no means easy, but there are plenty of indicators suggesting a completely unique experience that culminated with “modernity” as a Western phenomenon. The signing of Magna Carta in thirteenth-century England, essentially establishing the rule of law, even for the monarch, is often cited as a crucial development in the formation of modern politics. There were the influential writings of Erasmus and other humanistic scholars during the Renaissance (see Grayling, 2013: 141). The significance of the Protestant Reformation in the s­ixteenth century has already been noted and will be returned to again later. S ­ ixteenth-century England under Henry VIII also witnessed the systematic removal of property, functions, and status from the Catholic Church (and from what b­ ecame the Church of England) by acts of “secularisation”, thereby stamping a modern meaning on the term and establishing legal boundaries between what was in the sphere of religion and what was not. (Beckford, 2003: 34)

Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity  55 Indeed, the original use of the word “secularization” is said to have occurred in the aftermath of the Wars of Religion (1552–1598) in France and referred to “the removal of territory or property from the control of ecclesiastical authorities” (Berger, 1967: 106). Thomas Hobbes (1651) later forwarded the notion of contract theory, which emphasised the importance of a civil agreement among peoples and rulers to live under more egalitarian and secure conditions. John Locke, another contract theorist of the seventeenth century, promoted life, liberty and property, a trilogy of values that were influential in the founding of the United States with its emphasis on the will of the governed and the separation of Church and State: the writings of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson were built on this. By the mid-eighteenth century, even natural disasters (previously excused away) were beginning to force new questions concerning the possibility of a benevolent and protective God: In 1755 an earthquake destroyed most of the city of Lisbon and killed a considerable part of its population. This event, slight as it may seem in comparison with the mass horrors of our own time, was an important event for eighteenth-century thought. It violently raised the problem of theodicy and the validity of its Christian solution in some of the best minds of the period, among them Pope, Voltaire, Goethe, and Kant. (Berger, 1967: 78) The two great political revolutions of the eighteenth century – the American Revolution (c. 1775–1791) and the French Revolution (1789–1799) – had crucial and substantive influences on secularisation in Western societies. Even late into the eighteenth century, and despite its rich philosophical traditions, France remained under the authoritarian rule of its monarch, whose power was buttressed by the presence and impact of the Roman Catholic Church. Following the Revolution, this vanquished politico-religious arrangement came to be known as the ancien régime. When the French Revolution erupted in 1789 to sweep that old system away, both the Crown and church were equal targets. New laws had to be drafted, and an elected assembly produced the Déclaration des droit de l’homme et du citoyen (Declaration of Human and Civic Rights). Its principles drew heavily on Enlightenment thinking, and freedom of thought and religion were declared among the rights. (Copson, 2017: 20) The French Republic was founded in 1792 during the Revolution. At the heart of the new republic was the notion of laïcité, which (in theory) emphasised equality for all and the permanent separation of church from state. Secularism was now firmly in the hands of the state itself, and it was guided by reason and liberaldemocratic principles. Scientific and philosophical thought had progressed rapidly in the eighteenth century, perhaps most notably in the writings of Hume who famously advocated

56  Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity “committing” holy books “to the flames” on account of their offering nothing but “sophistry and illusion” (cited in Warner, 2010: 28). But other notable contributors of the era included Montesquieu, Voltaire, Spinoza, Rousseau and Adam Smith. Just over half a century after the French Revolution, the publication of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in November 1859 provided a bottom-up explanation for the development of all life on Earth, further undermining the authority of the church by definitively removing a top-down creator-God from the equation. Despite Darwin facing a fierce backlash from the establishment in the immediate aftermath, a well-known series of Essays and Reviews on Christian belief published “in March  1860” by “leading Anglican liberals” all but consolidated his insights four months later (Warner, 2010: 18). Indeed, in the course of the nineteenth century, and particularly under the auspices of positivism, socialism, theories of evolution and liberal biblical criticism, the idea of religious and secular views of the world were opposed to each other and gathered momentum. (Beckford, 2003: 34, original emphasis) All of these set the stage for Marx, Freud and other modern thinkers to theorise about religion in their various ways. In terms of social practicalities, religious participation is often discussed in analyses of secularity, though the issue of appealing to church attendance figures as evidence of secularisation is very much a contested one. Some sociologists have referred to such figures as useful data on religiosity, while others have pointed out that mere attendance in churches tells us nothing substantial in itself about people’s actual beliefs. However, as a strong advocate of secularisation theory, Bruce (2011) has highlighted the willingness of people to voluntarily attend church on a regular basis as an indicator of general religiosity. Once more, the mid-nineteenth century evidently provided a red-letter day for the general demise of organised religion in Europe as sociologists have referenced “the 1851 census” in Great Britain as the “high point from which attendance and influence have suffered prolonged and enervating decline” (Warner, 2010: 11). The figures on church attendance can also be misleading because of the fact that census figures count attendances and not attendees. In other words, the census does not give specific information on individuals who may have attended more than once in a given day. Despite this, there can be no doubt that church attendance generally peaked in the mid-nineteenth century in Britain (see Bruce, 1996: 30–31). However, it is not only a question of church attendances but also a decline in memberships, baptisms, Sunday school attendances, church weddings and so on that all clearly point towards a dramatic reduction in the significance of Christianity in Western contexts over time. Throughout the twentieth century, the emergence of class-based political identities, along with other political interests, including feminism and the civil rights movement, also shaped the significance of religion in the daily lives of most people. The impact of religious faith on identities in turn further re-defined religion itself, aligning it squarely with group interests in the secular realm. For example,

Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity  57 from the eighteenth century, Methodism, as a decidedly rationalistic Protestant movement for the working classes, was highly influential in the development of secularisation, particularly in Britain. As Bruce puts it, “The British labour movement always owed far more to the Methodists than it did to Karl Marx” (2011: 8). The influence of Methodism also carried to the United States, and its significance on social class lasted into the twentieth century. Later, in the post-war years in particular, sociological factors such as increased disposable incomes, mobilities (with the proliferation of car ownership), leisure pursuits and the increasing standardisation of traditionally religious celebrations to laypeople and non-believers, all had the effect of speeding up the process of secularisation (Wilson, 1966). Overall, individualism, allied with the freedom to express oneself in the formation of new associations and identities, has been gathering momentum, especially since the mid- to late nineteenth century; and individualism has been acknowledged as a crucial theme in Western secularisation. The societies of the Middle Ages were structured as top-down hierarchies (the monarch down to the peasants). As we have seen, Foucault (1961, 1975) argued that the coming of modernity gradually produced a reversal of such hierarchies in which there was a new focus on subjects: what he called “descending individualism” (see Danaher et al., 2000: 57). This new emphasis was important in shaping perceptions and the structure of the socio-economic order, and this began to be reflected in various cultural works: “it is capitalism that leads artists like Rembrandt and Frans Hals to paint portraits of Dutch townsmen and their families instead of the saints and kings whom we find in the frescoes of medieval churches” (Pals, 2006: 131). Indeed, Simmel traces the development of “individuality” back to “the era of the Italian Renaissance” owing to its separation of people from their communal ties and its emphasis on uniqueness (1971b: 217). Little wonder, then, that the double-edged sword of individualism has consistently found some of its most poignant expressions in visual art, a graphic form that can hint, quite literally at a stroke, at the joys of independence in creativity or contemplation and the accompanying price of potential isolation in a complex mass society (expressed typically, e.g. in the iconic work of Edward Hopper). Robert Putnam’s thesis regarding the general breakdown of American community spirit since the 1950s in Bowling Alone (2000) is echoed in references to more specific areas of social life by other sociologists and to the kinds of trends that have gradually taken hold as, today, “Young people dance less as a ‘couple’, but on their own, losing themselves in the crowd” (Dobbelaere, 1993: 28). At the same time, in the late modern era, the continuing rise of greater individual rights and freedoms also came to be importantly enshrined in such domains as education, health, consumer culture and other areas of social and institutional life (see Haidt, 2012). Indeed, through its gradual transition, it was the adaptive role of the religious institution that laid the foundations for this. As Warner points out, “many major government departments originated under the aegis of the church, but now function either predominantly or entirely as secular institutions, including health, education and social security” (2010: 13). A number of theorists have noted the gradual movement towards this point as Christian churches, particularly during

58  Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity the mid- to late twentieth century, began to take on a token role in the lives of people, assisting them in an increasingly vain or symbolic way at particular stages of the “life-cycle” and taking on the function of yet another “service agency” in a secular milieu (Wilson, 1966: 18). In such an individuated society, market forces started to become more important, and this led to an even greater proliferation of religious denominations, particularly in America. This is why some sociologists have also distinguished between a subjective (or private) process of secularisation and an objective (or public) one, even as the two are inevitably intertwined. Berger points out the irony that, in such a situation, religion can be more “therapeutic” and more morally appealing “if it can be shown to be ‘relevant’ to private life than if it is advertised as entailing specific applications to the large public institutions” (1967: 147). As in many other cases, with a focus on the self, a consumerist element takes over in the area of spiritual provisions. Again, this is particularly the case in America. Bruce summarises such changes rather neatly: “The vengeful God has been replaced by Christ the inspiring Big-Brother or Christ the therapist. The purpose of religion is no longer to glorify God: it is to help find peace of mind and personal satisfaction” (2011: 13). Some theorists are fond of singling out the United States as some kind of anomaly that short circuits Western secularisation theory (see Voas and Chaves, 2016). But others have explained America’s higher rate of religiosity as being a legacy of relatively recent colonisation: religions tend to be important cultural factors in the lives of immigrants and the new communities that they form (Bruce, 2011: 173). Nevertheless, although it is certainly true that America is still much more religious than certain parts of Europe, it is clear that religiosity is presently in decline in American society also. In 2003, according to Gallup polls, around 61% of Americans said that religion was “very important” in their lives. By 2021, that figure had dropped to 49%. Only 25% of people regarded religion as “not very important” to them in 2021, but again that figure had changed considerably by comparison with the 15% of 2003. Also in 2021, a whopping 78% of Americans believed that religion is “losing its influence” in American life, while only 21% thought religion is “increasing its influence.” In 1999, more than two-thirds of Americans (70%) claimed to be members of a church or synagogue. In 2021, that figure had dramatically declined to 47%. That said, more than half of Americans (53%) in 2020 said they felt that “religion can still answer all or most of today’s problems,” while roughly one-third (35%) said that “religion is old-fashioned or out of date” and cannot answer today’s problems. Also in 2020, 58% of Americans said they prayed to God “often” and this figure shows a fairly notable increase on the one from 1990 (49%). In 2016, 61% of Americans polled said they believed in the devil; 72% in angels; 71% in Heaven; and 64% in Hell. Large swathes of the American population still clearly believe in God – in 2017, the figure stood at 87%, with 64% saying that they were “convinced” of it. Nevertheless, the figures do all indicate religious decline overall, especially as the figure of those “convinced” of the existence of God in 1944 was 96% (https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/Religion.aspx [March, 2022]). All of these indicate increased individuation and perhaps also a change from traditional to new collective values.

Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity  59 A fundamentally important feature/driver of individualised life in the modern era was the advent of functional differentiation and pluralism – in other words, the rise of various areas of expertise and specialism. In functionalist terms, modern societies, as highly integrated systems, require a more complex division of labour than pre-modern ones did. Such societies are defined by what Durkheim called “organic solidarity,” which is contrasted with the simpler “mechanical solidarity” of pre-modern societies (1984/1893). The success of modern societies therefore depends upon a vast series of individual parts working in unison, not unlike those of a living organism. Moreover, “In societies based on mechanical solidarity, where there is little or no distinction between different groups, religion will be strongest as religion and society are in effect the same” (Kunin, 2003: 21). Western secularisation forms part of a “global transition from ‘community’ to ‘society’ (in the sense first proposed by Tӧnnies)” (Tschannen, 1991), producing more complicated and diverse civilisations that are usually harder to manage. But again, the greater complexity and sophistication of modern societies did not happen so much by design as by evolution. Like other aspects of modernity, functional differentiation and modern bureaucratisation can trace their origins back to the Protestant Reformation with the establishment of a priesthood whose remit was to rationalise and justify religiously based ethics. According to Weber, a modern, secular form of social organisation developed out of this kind of model, and it now manifests itself in all manner of institutional forms, including politics and science. Weber, Protestantism and the “Iron Cage” Despite the foregoing argument, it is important to stress again that Weber’s Protestant Ethic thesis emphasises that the development of capitalism – and therefore the condition of “modernity” as it is commonly understood in its European-Western form – happened in many ways in spite of the forces of Enlightenment rather than because of them. The irony is that the condition of what we now call “modernity” has its origins in an extreme version of religious faith, which has long since been largely abandoned in the world of commerce. The notion of the calling or “life task” appears to have been unique to certain Protestant denominations; it is relatively new and is traceable to the Reformation. “Luther developed the conception in the course of the first decade of his activity as a reformer” (Weber, 1992: 40). The concept of the calling had numerous dimensions, but the main interpretation of it was related to a notion of predestination, of which Luther was a keen advocate. But the realisation that one may find oneself ultimately excluded from God’s elect few, exempted from salvation in Heaven, was a source of great anguish for many people, and this became a kind of motivating factor in the testing of one’s faith, along with God’s grace. The Protestants believed that divine favour could be ascertained by this-worldly endeavours: the level of success in one’s activities in this life was taken to be an indication of divine Providence. Weber argued that this component of faith acted as the catalyst for what he referred to as the “spirit” of modern capitalism because the pioneers of the new attitudes towards business and commerce were originally inspired largely by this

60  Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity kind of religious reasoning. It was on this basis that the reformers – and especially the Calvinists – completely reversed some of the traditionally held beliefs found in other denominations, particularly with regard to material gain and mammonism. The doctrine of predestination was also a driver of individualism because the fate of the individual rested with God and was dependent upon his or her own activities and personal relationship with the deity. In Calvinism, unlike with other Christian denominations, the priest could not act as an intermediary and expunge an individual’s sins like a “magician” (Weber, 1992: 71). As a result, a work ethic, time-keeping, shrewdness, organisation, the separation of household and workplace, a pride in one’s work, contentment with one’s lot in life, and specialisation or expertise are all features of what the “calling” demanded of all people. Wealth accumulation was engaged in for its own sake, and asceticism was also highly valued, even in those who became wealthy. Everything is connected and pre-ordained. What mattered to the reformers was that we humans accepted our place in a divine order and that we were responsible for making the best of what God had planned for us: Man is only the trustee of the goods which have come to him through God’s grace. He must, like the servant in the parable, give an account of every penny entrusted to him, and it is at least hazardous to spend any of it for a ­purpose which does not serve the glory of God but only one’s own enjoyment. (Weber, 1992: 114) These values worked equally in all directions and formed the basis of a new class system. What Marx had called “exploitation” – that is, the systematic procurement of the labour of an army of “willing” individuals  – was, Weber confirmed, based in the religiously inspired doctrines that came to be normalised and even enshrined in national laws. “The treatment of labour as a calling became as characteristic of the modern worker as the corresponding attitude toward acquisition of the businessman” (Weber, 1992: 121). In short, a faith-based organisation of labour was the guiding force of modern rationalisation. “The culmination of the products of rational thoughts, however, produces unintended and often opposed effects which cannot be described as rational in any sense of the term” (Andreski, 1983: 9). This is precisely what Weber means by his notion of the “iron cage” of bureaucracy (1992: 121). This “cage” is the trap (of rationality) that modern human beings build for themselves. Bureaucratic systems, and the intricate legal frameworks supporting them, comprise the bedrock of modern societies. Impersonal and processual, such systems have often been likened to a kind of machinery of rules and procedures. Bureaucratic “red tape” can be a source of everyday frustration. Bureaucracies have been the subject of nightmarish representations in novels like The Trial by Kafka. They have also been the subject of sociological studies like Modernity and the Holocaust by Zygmunt Bauman (1989). Bauman’s thesis is that arguably the most horrific crime in the history of humankind was enabled by precisely the kind of depersonalised efficiency

Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity  61 afforded by the bureaucratic and advanced technological systems of modern societies: blinded and distanced by personal responsibility and detachment from events, each bureaucrat and employee in the great chain of command simply performs their duty sincerely (the signing of a document, the checking of an I.D., the driving of a locomotive) towards the successful completion of any given task, even if it culminates in the extermination of millions of people. In this way, modernity itself comes to be regarded as a crucial facilitator of the most unspeakable wickedness. Although applicable to a singular horrific event such as the Holocaust, Weber’s core critique of modern rationality was much more general and mundane, and was for that reason all the more profound and perceptive. What makes Weber’s take particularly interesting are his observations regarding modernity’s unintended consequences, even with regard to the application of science and reason. In short, he regarded modernisation and secularisation as producing the very opposite kinds of intellectual effects to the potentially liberating ones suggested by, for example, Marx. These happened precisely because of the heightened degree of professional specialisation, modelled principally on technical endeavours, which had multiple effects. First, the system effectively made everything amenable to rational calculation and scientific understanding. But in addition, while specialisation separated scientists into distinctive new fields, it also increasingly distanced the laity from the knowledge that was generated as a result. Weber’s point was that, although such knowledge is powerful and potentially available to anybody, putatively speaking, in practice the technical-bureaucratic and systematic nature of such knowledge keeps it beyond the reach of most people by preserving it, ultimately, as the domain of the specialist. Modern people are therefore surrounded by, and yet estranged from, indeed become the objects of, the very scientific and bureaucratic knowledge systems that give meaning to their existence. Overall, in Weber’s estimation, the rise of modernity, with its combination of specialisation and the all-conquering powers of reason, produced a paradox: a trap created by the most productive data classification systems we have ever known accompanied by an ironic deadening of the imagination given the premise of the potential elimination of each one of life’s great mysteries. Weber referred to this condition as a form of “disenchantment” which he regarded as being peculiar to modern societies (1918: 13). However, while Weber’s writings have undoubtedly been influential, particularly in sociology, there are also counter-arguments to his perspective. Although modern bureaucratic systems have been lamented as frustrating at best and even potentially dangerous at worst, a good counterpoint to Bauman’s perspective is offered by Paul Du Gay (2000), who argues that bureaucracies can and should be considered enabling and moral precisely because they are procedural and impersonal. In addition, it is vitally important not to caricature “science” as referring exclusively to specialist technicians in white overalls testing chemicals in laboratories, or mathematical geniuses devising efficient equations capable of explaining more about our universe in four or five characters than can be found in entire volumes of certain textbooks. The word “science” encapsulates more than this. Simply put, our very capability to reason is invaluable to our daily lives as human beings, regardless of the kinds of societies we inhabit. As is the case with concepts

62  Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity of morality, it is safe to say that we humans would not have made it this far without our ability to reason, leaving us with a “baby and bathwater” situation when it comes to tossing out rationality. Although I will devote a whole chapter to science later, I will foreshadow my deeper discussion of these debates by briefly turning to them here. Rationality, Science and Secularisation Science and religion have been at odds for a very long time. The most obvious reason for this is that science seeks to break-down barriers without sentiment, whereas religion has traditionally tried to erect and maintain them. Giordano Bruno, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei and Charles Darwin are just a sample of the many famous names in science whose ideas have been met with the ire of a religious establishment in one way or another. For these and other reasons, religion and science have been presented as sworn enemies in modern contexts. However, such a view is rather a simplistic one in light of all the evidence, though not necessarily for the reasons that many religious people often claim. As we have seen in this chapter, the “science versus religion” battle is in some ways misplaced. The irony is that much of the momentum pushing societies towards modernisation and secularisation came in the first place from religious movements themselves, often inadvertently. As Berger has pointed out, “historically speaking, Christianity has been its own gravedigger” (1967: 129). Even monotheism itself has been identified as a rational move, a means of streamlining and therefore organising the concept of God: “First Judaism and then Christianity were rationalizing forces. By having only one God (that is, being monotheistic), they simplified the supernatural and allowed the worship of God to become more systematized” (Bruce, 1996: 10). “In other words, we would maintain that the ‘disenchantment of the world’ begins in the Old Testament” (Berger, 1967: 112). It is also well known that the Calvinists sought to de-mystify many of the aspects of Christianity, with the Eucharist, the Trinity, miracles and the Virgin Birth all being called into question after the Reformation (Wilson, 1966: 26–27). Aside from the necessities of clarity and order, much of the reason for such change has been precisely because of something more fundamental in humans: an incessant drive to know and to understand. Religion is essentially a search for answers, just like science is. Indeed, as Weber pointed out, Protestantism and Puritanism both “thought of science as the way to God” (Weber, 2004/1918: 16). The only difference is that religious inquisitiveness has a tendency to freeze when the answers contradict what is currently accepted, whereas modern science in similar circumstances is inclined to embrace the challenge to change and thus develop further. In many ways, science and the modern world that it has helped to forge are the unintended outgrowths of a common human curiosity in our search for the ultimate answers to the toughest questions. Yet despite these shared origins and purposes, religious faith and the scientific method are indeed very different, and it is still true to say that science has been a potent force in the demise of religion in Western societies. In short, the rise of science has ultimately punctured what Berger (1967) called “the sacred canopy”

Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity  63 provided by religion, calling its explanatory credibility into question, and eventually making it untenable. One study on Catholicism found that various identity markers – being younger, being male, having weaker traditional ties to Catholicism, and having higher levels of educational attainment – are all relatable to the decline that this particular religion has undergone over many decades, with implications not just for belief but also for “loyalism,” “drop-out” rates and “returns” to the faith (see Hammond and Shibley, 1993). It has also been argued that, as humans are exposed to new ideas and the fruits of technology, they might just as easily embrace the advancements and feel liberated by them, rather than feeling estranged form them or from nature itself as a result of knowing about them. When humans see themselves as the as the custodians of their own lives and the general direction of their societies, it is the alleged connection with God that becomes increasingly outdated or alien, not necessarily the one with humanity (Dobbelaere, 1993). While participation and the opportunity to actually feel involved remain crucial, if what Dobbelaere writes is true, then the condemnation of science is not quite as clear-cut as Weber might have imagined. As Acquaviva points out, “society rejects religion intellectually without taking account of the cost of all this in terms of the emotional support which men need in order to live” (1993: 47). On some level, this is certainly a valid and understandable argument, inasmuch as it speaks to the social or spiritual void often left behind by the absence of religion – there is much more to religion than intellectuality, and it is also true that some people might really need to rely on their faith in order to get by. And yet this conclusion does not seem sufficient either. Is it not more accurate to say that religion causes most of its own problems by rejecting intellectuality in the first instance? I propose that it is in fact some combination of the inherent contradictions, along with the aforementioned effects of secularisation, and the often aggressive sociopolitical nature of religion itself, that so regularly leaves people with little choice but to lose or reject faith. After critiquing the absurdities and limitations of the religious narrative, what do we have left to draw on? Well, faith. The overt dogmatism and inconsistencies of religions have invited commentary and dissent for millennia. Even the holy books themselves make mention of the doubters and the sceptics precisely because most of the claims made within them always appeared outlandish, even to some pre-modern people. Humans are born to think. Is it therefore the fault of individuals themselves if they are confronted with ideas that they can then make no sense of but are nevertheless expected to indulge in, supposedly for the sake of society or humanity at large? Isn’t this just typical of the character we have come to expect of faith-based ideologies in general: to present us with such a ridiculous compromise or dilemma? Finally, by way of conclusion, we will now briefly turn to some of these issues. Faith, Morality and Politics One of the crucial concepts that links all of the perspectives explored earlier is that of morality, and the question of what role, if any, religion should play in how we govern our societies. On one side, most secularists argue staunchly for keeping religion out

64  Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity of politics; on the other side, many theists and their supporters argue that such an arrangement is discriminatory against religious voices and therefore undemocratic. Again, it is important to note that such arguments can descend into simplistic (or even unnecessarily chaotic) thinking if one is not mindful of certain nuances involved. First, secularism is not simply a by-word for “atheism,” as some are wont to imagine. Secularism is generally understood as the commitment to a political system in which religious beliefs have minimal or even no influence at all, while atheism is generally a personal position which simply means to be without God (a definition also implying no necessary animosity towards religion in itself). Second, and related to this, it is not the case that we have non-religious secularists exclusively on the one side and die-hard theocrats on the other. Quite often, we find religious people who are advocates of secularism as defined earlier, just as we occasionally find the non-religious arguing in favour of the inclusion of faith-based worldviews in politics. Third, it is important to acknowledge again that there is no single definition of secularism which is necessarily adhered to by all states that may refer to themselves as “secular” today. Despite these nuances, for the sake of argument, let’s limit the notion of secularism to its most basic premise – the exclusion of religious influence from politics or, as it is also sometimes known, the separation of church and state. Many secularists argue that policies derived from religious faith are potentially coercive to non-adherents, thus they pose a threat to peace. It is therefore suggested that theists abandon faith-based reasoning and instead agree to adhere to secular principles like everybody else. For example, as Grayling wittily argues, “It is time to demand of believers that they take their personal choices and preferences in these non-rational and too often dangerous matters into the private sphere, like their sexual proclivities” (2007: 16). Such a view can immediately appear to be a controversial case of question begging given that, as Hogan happily admits, “for most religious believers religion is inescapably political and cannot meaningfully be relegated to the private realm,” while also claiming that it is not “clear that the unambiguous distinction between the public and the private can be sustained in the terms advocated by many secularists” (Hogan, 2009: 2). Theorists on political liberalism generally argue that, in order for people to be able to accept any level of coercion in liberal-democratic systems, the citizenry need to be able to deliberate and be in possession of all the facts relating to a given policy so that the coercion in question may be deemed justifiable. This is sometimes referred to as public or secular reason, and it is on this basis that many theorists on political liberalism make their case for secular systems of governance. But other theorists question the assumption that citizens in liberal-democratic systems do (or even should) only follow “public or secular” reasoning when it comes to accepting policies made by secular governments (Wolterstorff, 2009: 17). For Wolterstorff, the assumption of secular reason is itself flawed on a number of counts. He suggests that (1) the terms set by advocates of political liberalism are themselves often subjective; (2) it is highly questionable that all citizens are ever well informed enough to accept every coercive policy on these terms; (3) citizens disagree with each other all the time anyway, regardless of whether or not they can be said to be sufficiently well informed and reasonable when it comes to deciding

Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity  65 on policies; (4) if people have reasoned that a given policy is good for them and for society as a whole, then it may not make any sense to even say that the citizenry would find themselves under “coercion” in the first place; and (5) if some citizens do not regard themselves as possessing sufficient reason to be able to accept a given policy that is enacted, then they will be coerced by that policy in any case. Some have suggested that the fact of religious pluralism, in addition to the presence of a sizeable non-religious core of citizens in our societies, are strong grounds for not imposing religiously based policies on everybody (see Rushdie, 2005; Lindsay, 2014). Wolterstorff rejects this idea also, while arguing that there are lots of religious people in our societies who do not use secular reasoning to decide on matters of policy. “Many are in the habit of debating and deciding those issues on the basis of reasons drawn from their own particular religion. For some this is more than a habit; it is what they ought to do” (2009: 21, original emphasis). But this “ought” is precisely the crux of the issue. The compulsion to act in certain ways in accordance with one’s religion necessarily implies that the “beliefs” one holds in such circumstances are not held independently, but are purely and simply inflexible obligations to conform; they are, in other words, administered beliefs. Moreover, these obligations to believe and act in specific ways are enforced on the assumption that the theistic citizens (or their religious leaders) hold the correct interpretation of the particular scripture that they all claim to follow. If this is all true (and I think it has to be), then why complain about unjustified “coercion” on principle in the first place? Religious affiliation often is unjustified coercion by definition. Arguments like the one from Wolterstorff assume that all the people included within a given religious community themselves agree on the rules that they have to follow, and even that they willingly agree to be part of the community in question at all and be bound by its obligations. Yet, from numerous studies on theism, atheism and deconversion, it is evidently not true that all so-called “members” of any given religious community necessarily agree with its precepts, because people have been shown to leave or switch religions in droves (Warraq et al., 2003; Sinnott-Armstrong, 2007; Zuckerman, 2015). Others are trapped in their belief systems and are forced to live double lives for fear of losing significant social ties. Therefore, if it is not possible for religious communities to retain their own members owing to disputes over supposedly “shared” beliefs based on glorified tittle-tattle, then what chance do those religions have of convincing the rest of us of the soundness of such beliefs as the basis for public policy for all? Indeed, secularity is not even a unilateral process anyway. As Lindsay points out, governments have “no theological competence” and should stay out of religious affairs; conversely, this also means that matters of faith need to be kept distinct from “this-worldly matters” (Lindsay, 2014: Location 346). Secularity is therefore supposedly an agreement between religious organisations and governments not to trespass on each other’s territory. Christianity’s commitment to such a principle can even be traced back to the Bible itself: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). This well-known passage has been interpreted many times, even by theists, as a clear instruction to uphold a dividing line between politics and faith, the former being more amenable to reason and conciliation.

66  Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity This explains the importance of faculties such as logic, reason and rationality in the sociopolitical realm, and it is why science provides a crucial bedrock. Despite the imperfections of science, it is the most reliable system of knowledge we have, and it provides a blueprint for assessing and negotiating our day-to-day affairs (Sagan, 1987). Again, “science” is referred to in the broadest sense in this case and includes our ability to make judgements on a whole range of experiences and information that cross our paths. It has to do, primarily, with a reasonable scepticism. As Grimes notes: Scepticism is implicit in the scientific method, the very lens we use to interrogate the universe. But it’s every bit as fundamental to our political and societal health too. Without it, we cannot hope to question the assertions of those in power. If we do not know to ask for evidence or what constitutes valuable information, we are powerless against the whims of the demagogues, dictators and charlatans who would seek to exploit us. (Grimes, 2019: 368) To help Hogan (2009) out a little bit with the problem of an elusive definition of what “private” actually means, sophistry and gobbledygook are effectively “­private” because they are nonsensical and therefore incapable of being understood and shared. In other words, the bounds of the “public” and the “private” are not necessarily physical spaces. Therefore, when Hogan tries to claim that the dividing line between “public” and “private” is a fuzzy one, she is basically correct, but she appears to be too clever by half. Hogan isn’t really telling secularists anything that they are not already aware of. Deciding on matters of policy is by no means easy at the best of times, even without invoking the alleged perspective of an elusive “God,” the veracity of which there is not the faintest hope of any agreement about, whether between or within religions. As Lindsay (2014) points out, drawing on the writings of Locke, secularism is demonstrably a superior system to a theological one, not because it originated in the West (as some might cynically assert) but simply because of what it means by implication. First, the theological system privileges what God wants over what the governed themselves would like; such a system therefore implicitly claims to know the mind of God, and it demands that everyone accept it, whether they are adherents or not. Second, belief in God is, ultimately, a personal deposition ­because what really exists in one’s heart and mind, so monotheists tell us, can only be known by the individual and God. Yet the price of sinful or heretical belief is seen primarily as a contaminant not so much to the individual concerned as to the community at large. This means that heretics are removed not for their own sake but for the good of the clan. Both of these considerations nullify the whole ­notion of individual conscience, which is a cornerstone of liberal societies. A secular ­society, by contrast, only requires all citizens, religious and irreligious, to respect others by not seeking to impose views derived from dogma or doctrine. Moreover,

Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity  67 in a religiously pluralistic society, secularism is the only reliable means of ­preserving public order and freedom for all. (Lindsay, 2014: Location 183) Secular societies undeniably have a much better track-record of upholding religious equality by comparison with theocracies. At this point, it is important to mention the irritating habit in some commentators of citing countries like China, North Korea, Cuba and the former Soviet Union as “secular” territories. Although these countries do/did indeed refer to themselves as secular, they officially installed atheistic Communism as the dominant position or cultural-political outlook, and they have pushed it aggressively. However, even then, it is not “atheism” that is the problem per se, but political hostility expressed through an extreme kind of socialism and nationalism. Model secular countries, such as Denmark, do not behave in such ways, and have no need or compulsion to do so (see Zuckerman, 2008). Since, in the technical sense understood according to the European model, secular countries neither promote nor terrorise religions, the inclusion of the hostile countries named earlier in the debate on “secularism” is therefore a little misleading. Genuinely secular states are intended to be neutral on matters of personal belief, and they guarantee the rights of religious people in ways that neither Communistic nor theocratic states do. Requesting that faith-based reasoning be largely or completely omitted from public policy is not the same as destroying religious buildings, removing civil rights or chasing the faithful out of town with pitchforks and shovels. The bottom line is not that secularists want to exclude religious people from engaging in democratic processes – that would be a gross misrepresentation of the situation. Rather, what many secularists seek (and what any right-minded theist should also seek given the obvious controversies and disagreements that exist between and within religions and denominations) is that people do not engage in public policy discussions in liberal-democratic societies by appealing to beliefs based in religious faith. That is the point. If the discussion really is an honest one, applicable to any real-world issue at hand, then there should be nothing that a religious person could say on any matter of morality or policy that could not be said by anyone else who does not share the theist’s religiously informed worldview: “If one cannot reformulate a religiously based moral belief in terms that a nonbeliever might find persuasive, one should pause to consider whether one’s views are correct” (Lindsay, 2014: Location 919). But ultimately, the debate about the (in) validity of knowledge or opinions might itself be a red herring anyway. As Helen Pluckrose puts it: A secular society does not deny belief systems power over others because they are factually wrong. It denies them power over others because it protects the individual’s right to her own private conscience, whether she is right or not. This is a remarkable and counterintuitive thing to humans, but it has served us well. (Pluckrose, 2020)

68  Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity Having more religiously diverse societies has been put forward by some commentators as a reason to relax the non-religious aspect of secularity (Woodhead, 2008; Wolterstorff, 2009). However, this line of argument has been questioned by others who have stated, “On the contrary, it could equally be an incentive to strengthen secularism” (Copson, 2017: 132). I think Copson is onto something. This is not simply because the moral basis of such beliefs is unverifiable, and it is not only about the often doctrinaire nature of religiously based perspectives, but each of these factors combined can culminate in a stubbornly subjective position that claims to be beyond question. Whether someone uses religion as justification for conservative opinions on the right of the political spectrum or for policies considered more progressive and liberal is not the source of objection in the secular context. Rather, the point is simply that once a god or faith position has been invoked, it usually means that the conversation is officially over before it can even get started: “It’s just against my religion, and that’s that!” Given that there is hardly any limit on how many religious views could potentially intervene in such ways, and given that such beliefs are deeply personal to the individual involved and that verification would require access to the elusive deity that the believer claims is informing him or her on matters of morality or truth, such a situation is completely untenable. Again, Lindsay reminds us, “[I]ntroducing religious beliefs into policy discussions inevitably throws a monkey wrench into such discussions. If the discussion doesn’t stop completely, it gets thrown off course and derailed into ultimately unproductive theological disputes” (2014: Location 816). But in recent years, the religious have become resurgent. Citing social unrest, rising levels of crime, disorder and vagrancy, the breakdown of the traditional nuclear family, recreational drug-use, rampant individualism and identity politics, some have suggested that there is a “God-shaped hole” in Western civilisation. This concept was devised by Blaise Pascal to refer to the “hole or vacuum within each fallen human being” (Nowalk, 2011). Now many commentators, and particularly conservatives and those on the Christian right in America, are suggesting that it is our entire societies that have “fallen,” and they claim that the void needs to be refilled by God; we need, they argue, to re-embrace our religious heritage in order to foster greater cohesion again and save Western civilisation. The renewed influence of the Christian right in American politics was demonstrated most recently with the removal of women’s constitutional right to abortion by a 6–3 majority vote taken in the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 (see Smith, 2022). The unjust force of this conservative influence is also illustrated by polls which showed that only around one third of all American adults agreed with the reversal of the “Roe vs. Wade” verdict dating back to 1973, the landmark case which originally granted abortion rights to women across the entire United States (see Edwards-Levy, 2022). Thus religious bigotry can still Trump the democratic process (pun intended). Regrettably, America is by no means alone in this. Andrew Copson has pointed out that such developments are merely part of a new global trend as many states have shown moves away from secularism and towards the support of a favoured religion in recent years. “If there is such a thing as a global tendency in religionstate relations today, it is in the opposite direction from the secular” (Copson,

Secularisation and the Necessity of Secularity  69 2017: 110; see also Shafak, 2019). This assessment contradicts those of others, who have ­argued that secularisation is in the ascendency (see, e.g. Kurtz, 2012). But if ­Copson is right, then global secularism is challenged today as it never has been before; and this is a tragic development, with all manner of human rights and freedoms potentially facing a new religious menace. And again, the problem is by no means limited to Christianity and the West: “The fast moving pace of current Turkish politics may yet see secularism eliminated formally from the constitution as well as from reality” (Copson, 2017: 138). Ultimately, this kind of finding makes one wonder what all the fuss is about in Western societies today regarding Western hegemony. If Western civilisation is defined by the European definition of secularism, Copson’s perspective provides yet more evidence that the idea of a continued status of “Western domination” in the world is being rather exaggerated by some people, this time on the left, who hold equally unpopular and extreme political positions that they are themselves seeking to universally impose on others as the pendulum continues to swing wildly back and forth in our ongoing so-called “culture wars.” With this point in mind, through the next two chapters we move from modernity to “postmodernity,” addressing the continued rise of extreme political correctness. Beginning with an analysis of the intellectual origins of postmodern perspectives, we work towards an exposition of “woke” politics, the seemingly now all-pervasive secular movement which has nevertheless itself been likened many times to a kind of quasi-religion.

4

Campus Chaos Postmodernist Thought as Intellectual Crisis

One afternoon in November 2008 at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (­IUPUI), mature student Keith John Sampson was sitting and reading a book on his lunch break. The book’s title was Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish ­Defeated the Ku Klux Klan. As per the norm, imagery also adorned the cover: in this case, hooded Klansmen and burning crosses. Instantaneous recognition of what this kind of imagery symbolises, however, quickly brought unwanted attention to Mr. Sampson (a white male), as a number of fellow students and co-workers were increasingly drawn towards it (Sampson was also a janitor at the university at the time). Some of those around Sampson engaged him in conversation, asking him why he was reading such a book, telling him that it was “offensive” to them. Sampson informed those concerned that the book was no celebration of racism, but rather of “the defeat of the Ku Klux Klan in a 1924 street brawl with Notre Dame students.” Initially, his explanation had apparently defused the situation somewhat, yet it ultimately fell on deaf ears. “Two weeks later, Sampson received a letter from IUPUI’s Affirmative Action Office (AAO), informing him that two employees had filed a racial harassment complaint against him and that he had been found guilty – all because of the book” (see Lukianoff, 2011). Following a protracted investigation, Mr. Sampson was, thankfully, officially exonerated. But the fight to clear his name was far from easy; it depended upon an organised campaign of pressure on the college and the exceedingly rare honesty of the university’s Chancellor, who stepped forward to admit the mistake. Had he not done so, Mr. Sampson’s alreadycompromised reputation would have been tarnished completely, probably for life. Sampson’s case is certainly not unique or even rare anymore. This incident is in fact merely the tip of a considerable iceberg now, as individuals from groups considered to be “powerful” sections of our societies are deliberately targeted for condemnation by other individuals, and even universities themselves, on behalf of those deemed to belong to necessarily “weaker” ones. Needless to say, not everyone is quite as fortunate as Mr. Sampson was, and most of the people involved in such incidents will face an up-hill (often legal and expensive) battle to refute or fight the charges made against them by bad-faith actors who have been newly empowered. There are hundreds of other such stories concerning free expression violations featured on the FIRE website (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), DOI: 10.4324/9781003039822-4

Campus Chaos  71 which is run by the American legal scholar Greg Lukianoff (see w ­ ww.thefire.org). But how and why has such a culture been allowed to infiltrate and overtake, of all places, our contemporary institutions of learning? This is a key question of this chapter, which explores the origins and effects of a new form of morality (the so-called “Social Justice” movement) that is designed to address various inequalities in Western societies as it has swept its way through our universities, and has since targeted the wider world beyond them (as we’ll see in the next chapter). Unlike the more traditional moral systems we have considered thus far, this new one does not belong to an established religion of any kind. And yet, disappointingly, it nevertheless apes the very same kinds of characteristics we have come to associate with those of the faith-based Abrahamic ones: relativism, subjectivism, zealotry, censorship, witch-hunts, guilt by association, truth by association, dogmatism and much more. Rather than the preserve of the established religions, then, these tendencies have unfortunately become the coin of the realm in our supposedly liberal-secular societies, and, for many, they currently pose a grave threat to the integrity of Western civilisations. Building on neo-Marxist perspectives, or at least borrowing from them, the intellectual basis of this new morality is to be found in certain philosophical traditions that have their origins in the social sciences – those often referred to as poststructuralism and postmodernism. The former generally pertains to the philosophical domain of ideas and theories, denoting the transition from the conventions of modern science to a new age that is much more relativistic and open-ended; the latter refers to the effects of poststructuralism on society itself, with implications for such things as architecture, art, fashion, cookery and many other areas of life. Although these terms have inspired fierce debate as to their precise meanings, I do not have the space here (nor the inclination) to partake in such disputes. Furthermore, many commentators over the past 20–30 years have made their lives more straightforward by simply collapsing “poststructuralism” (along with a set of other “posts-” such as postcolonialism) into “postmodernism” as an umbrella term that can also describe the new trends in academic enterprise. Again, I shall generally do likewise in what follows. Later sections and chapters shall be devoted to debates on reason and science more specifically, but my main focus here will be on tracing the links between postmodern theory and the “Social Justice” movement. The concerns of the movement clearly have a basis in the reality of social histories, and it is not my intention to deny those realities. But ultimately, I will argue that such approaches, as they are currently being practised, are misguided, mainly (1) because they are often unjust in themselves and unnecessarily adversarial, but also (2) because they depend upon extreme forms of subjectivism and relativism, which means that, rather like the established religions, they frequently have a tendency to refuse the very logical standards that they need in order to make their own case. However, before we get into a deeper discussion of these issues, and before we outline the trajectory of postmodernist thought, it will be useful to provide some context by considering some influential ideas from the patron saint of Social Justice himself: Karl Marx.

72  Campus Chaos Marx and Social Justice According to Scruton, “the term ‘left’ derives from the French Estates General of 1789, when the nobility sat on the king’s right, and ‘third estate’ on his left” (2019: 1). This historical insight not only reveals the deep-rooted connection between power relations and political influences but also offers an example of the substantive basis behind certain concepts that we use routinely, often without knowledge of their provenance. Although distinctions between the political sides are becoming increasingly difficult to uphold today, the labels “left” and “right” have become short-hand for “commoner” and “elite” or “progressive” and “conservative” respectively. The former has become synonymous with the dynamism of working-class politics (or those with less power and influence), while the latter is associated with caution and the preservation of traditions (which includes the protection and maintenance of upper-class privileges). Perhaps inevitably, then, in conversations on the origins of “cancel culture” or “the culture wars” as they have come to be known today, the name “Karl Marx” figures prominently. With a humanistic concern, Marx analysed the implications of historical socio-economic power relations and thereby gave greater definition to the meanings of “left” and “right” in politics. It has been said of Marx that his work is essential for “anyone wishing to understand the modern world” (see Brewer, 1984), and it is clear that his influence has carried into the current debates on culture and identities in our “postmodern” era as well. Indeed, as Craib puts it, “One suspects that, if Marxism did not exist, neither would postmodernism” (1997: 101). However, “Marxism” is a vast and diverse area of scholarship and a hotly contested term in itself, so it would be helpful to first isolate some key concepts associated with Marxism, which are clearly relevant to the present debates. A central concern of “The Communist Manifesto” (co-authored with Engels in 1848), the first concept we shall consider is social class. Although class is a much more complicated theme in debates in sociology today, it is still an indispensable concept for this discussion because it is the basis of what has come to be known as “conflict theory” – the opposition of groups of people in societies throughout history. Like the feudal system, capitalism, for Marx, is based essentially on what Rousseau called “master and slave” relations, the haves and the have nots. Concisely, the bourgeoise (or capitalists) own the wealth, the property and therefore the means of production (the buildings, technologies and tools, etc.). The proletariat (the workers) own nothing but their individual labour power, which they are forced to sell to the capitalists in order to work and thereby live, precariously. In this way, the workers can make no claim to the saleable objects (commodities) they are involved in producing. The workers are merely compensated (insufficiently) by the capitalist who exploits them and seeks to keep them in a position of dependence. Labour is itself a commodity, with its price expressed in wages, which, like any other, are also kept competitive. The proletarian, defined by his or her ability to work, is therefore also a kind of commodity. But workers become “the most wretched of commodities,” according to Marx (1986b: 35), because they are ­essentially dehumanised and humiliated.

Campus Chaos  73 The second main concept is that of ideology and its links to group interests. Marx, famously turning Hegelian theory on its head, believed that our ideas are largely the products of our social existence. That is, although Marx acknowledged essential human endeavours in the establishment of social environments, he wanted to emphasise that not everybody possesses the luxury of that kind of power. The society generally precedes the individual, and human beings are always the products of their social relations because we are all defined by those relations. Given the imbalances between the social classes, most people necessarily live in accordance with the interests of the powerful, which causes the sense of exclusion and alienation underpinning the class antagonism that Marx believed he had identified. The oppositional structure of society is perhaps best expressed in “The German Ideology.” Marx writes: “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force” (Marx and Engels, 1986b: 302, original emphases). The capitalists are therefore the active class; proletarians are passive and are necessarily subject to the ways of their masters. The proletariat is generally unaware of its own political interests as a group and submits to the domination of the ruling ideology. Some Marxists have described this as the adoption of a “false consciousness” on the part of the masses. The point of Marx’s writings was to rouse the working classes, making them realise their own interests. Third: political activism. One of the single most important quotations, repeated regularly by Marxists everywhere, and engraved on his tombstone, is his 11th thesis on Feuerbach: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it” (see Marx, 1986c: 23). In one sense, Marx appears to have been as good as his word, sticking doggedly to his principles, becoming unemployable as an academic, and facing hardship and inconvenience after being expelled from Paris and forced to move around Europe because of his incendiary journalism in the 1840s (though he did come from wealth and is also known to have enjoyed many of life’s luxuries and to have spent lavishly on them in later life after his family received an inheritance fund). In 1849, he finally settled with his family in London, where he stayed until his death in 1883 and where he remains still, in Highgate Cemetery. To this day, Marx’s mantra has inspired political activists of various persuasions the world over. The final concept, for now, is capital, which has a further impact on alienation and its effects in the world. For Marx, alienation results primarily from the detachment of the workers from the fruits of their labours and from each other. But capital (or money) also taints the relationships between things and people by putting a financial valuation on everything, including human character itself. So, for example, we often ask how much a person is “worth” (say, e.g. Bill Gates or Madonna). This is an implication of that person’s standing or status, expressed in dollars and cents, and we “revere” them for it. Money can effectively put a price on human morality and dignity, especially if we cannot afford to pay back a debt or bill, for example, meaning that the inability to pay necessarily makes someone, simplistically, a “bad” person. Finally, the value of items is also affected  – the more abundant and easily produced they are, the cheaper they become; and nothing

74  Campus Chaos escapes the influence of the mighty dollar. One of the most incisive quotes on this particular tendency can be found in Marx’s Capital. He writes: “If we could succeed at a small expenditure of labour, in converting carbon into diamonds, their value might fall below that of bricks” (Marx, 2008: 17). With such concepts, classical Marxism offers us a framework from which to explore the issues of economic, social and cultural (re)production from the point of view of competing groups with more or less wealth and greater or lesser political influence. The workers seek change and are therefore cast as the revolutionary class (potentially at any rate), and this aligns them, traditionally, with the “left,” where historical power and influence have accumulated the least. The capitalists, by contrast, identify with the political “right,” because they seek conservatism, the smartest means of maintaining the status quo which gives them the upper hand. Despite the contemporary debates about the precise significance of “left” and “right” in contemporary politics, these definitions are intended to clarify their traditional meanings in broad brushstrokes, and all of the above concerns will return as interconnecting themes throughout the rest of this chapter and the next. But before that, it will be helpful to turn to more recent writings that are built on Marxist concepts, setting the scene for a more thoroughgoing analysis of postmodernism to follow. Neo-Marxism and the “Frankfurt School” In the 1920s and 1930s, members of the so-called “Frankfurt School” of critical theory – most notably Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse – were combining elements of Freudian psychoanalysis, Weberian rationality and Marxian economics in their critical analyses of Western societies, which mainly addressed problems with the capitalist system and its impact on culture in particular. Essentially, the Frankfurt School theorists wanted to know why the Marxian revolution had ultimately failed in Europe (given its alignment with working class interests). On account of their Jewish heritage, many of these philosophers were forced to flee Nazi oppression before the outbreak of World War II, and Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse eventually found sanctuary in the United States in the 1930s, after stopping off in various parts of Europe. But the defeat of the Nazis in 1945 did nothing to allay the concerns of these theorists. In fact, it only deepened them because now the world was confronted with a new and even more terrifying problem: the prospect of atomic warfare and total annihilation, which the critical theorists regarded as the ultimate consequence of scientific and technological advancement. Moreover, the nuclear age came to reinforce the raison d’être of the competing ideologies on either side of the iron curtain, providing a new dimension to the notion of “false consciousness,” as the respective populations internalised and defended the ruling ideologies pertaining to East and West. This, for the members of the Frankfurt School, best emphasised the irrationality of rationality itself because the race for ideological supremacy represents an illogical foundation that ignores or stubbornly obscures various injustices, limitations and perpetual inaction against inherent social inequalities, monotony and domination. The “culture industry,” as Adorno (2001) referred to it, therefore

Campus Chaos  75 became a vital conduit of Western indoctrination. The only future these theorists could envisage was one of totalitarianism, and they argued that all aspects of Western culture were ultimately geared towards that end. In a series of influential philosophical reflections on the legacies of the Enlightenment written between the 1930s and 1960s, Adorno and Horkheimer (1997), Horkheimer (2004) and Marcuse (2002) all made deep impressions on contemporary sociopolitical thought as they sought to call modern, chiefly Western, societies into question. But in 1964, Marcuse published One-Dimensional Man, and this powerful book became extremely important in left-wing circles. Writing amid the Vietnam War and the turmoil of the civil rights movement in the United States, Marcuse generated a huge following on college campuses and has since been described by some as “the father of the New Left” on either side of the Atlantic. He has therefore been a central and inspirational figure in a kind of counter-cultural politics of rebellion and resistance which he called “the Great Refusal” (2002: 261). With our every action and general compliance geared towards the preservation of the exploitative capitalist system, Marcuse argued that capitalist societies produce a “false morality” in their inhabitants (even if unwittingly), and he called for the raising of a “new consciousness” among young people and elites in order to counteract it (1969: 39). This was the basis of his “Great Refusal” concept. Crucially, Marcuse also appealed to the potentialities in exploiting the politics of “other races and other colors” in the project of over-throwing the current social order (2002: 260), though Marx is also known to have given a cursory mention to this kind of tactic. In addition, Marcuse introduced the notion of “Repressive Tolerance” in an essay of the same name, first published in 1965. In the essay, Marcuse argued that the notion of “tolerance,” as it is understood in advanced industrial societies, is not one of the great virtues of the liberal society but is rather a key obstacle preventing liberty (which a violent and bloody Marxian revolution would of course guarantee). Marcuse therefore offers a counter-argument to J.S. Mill (2006/1869), for example, who he refers to directly. For Marcuse, the familiar “tolerance” of advanced industrial Western nations is really just a euphemism for the passivism of the general public who are deceived into believing that they are empowered by such systems – epistemologically, politically and so on. As we engage in this system, he suggests, we actually do nothing more than co-opt and strengthen the values of the powerful and the majority even more, thereby consolidating our own enslavement. One strategy intended to counteract this impasse was to empower those in society who represent the more disenfranchised, and to disempower those who are considered strong (or “negative” in some way): black versus white, Communist versus fascist and so on. This is the concept of “repressive tolerance” in a nutshell. The apparent aim of it was to introduce a series of overt biases towards the purposes of “levelling” things up in the ongoing power struggle. But Marcuse’s dichotomous logic, taken literally, easily invites such things as double standards, witch-hunts and bifurcation fallacies, often asserted without evidence (as we shall see). Indeed, the legacy of Marcuse’s influential concept is just one of the reasons why Keith John Sampson was caught in his dilemma at Purdue University: he’s a white man and therefore guilty, while his accusers must be believed.

76  Campus Chaos In any case, what Marcuse and the Frankfurt School theorists sought to present us with primarily is a fresh interpretation of Marxist alienation, which has three main components: alienation of labour, mystification and domination. Alienated labour has already been discussed earlier, but it is further extended via the experiences of mystification and domination. Mystification refers to the inability of the majority to understand the products we routinely use, as they at once empower and limit us. An example of this might be the personal computer – a mass-produced, indispensable technology that most of us would be unable to fix in the event of a malfunction. Second, the notion of domination describes how our integrated social (now global) processes and systems – also products of human endeavour – have a way of acting back against us, regardless of our knowledge, social power, or position in the hierarchy. Wolff has referred to the capricious nature of “market forces” as an example of this (2002: 33). Indeed, such effects are alluded to in “The Communist Manifesto,” in which the complexities of “bourgeois society” are described as being akin to “a sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells” (Marx and Engels, 1986a: 229). Thus, a nonsensical and unequal world has been constructed in this way by humans themselves. But as a construction, society could potentially be changed into something very different if we only willed it so. Marcuse (1965, 2002) therefore advocated radical political activism in the realms of cultural production and social life, with an emphasis on epistemologies, aesthetics, language and politics. A number of later theorists would answer the call. The Rise of Postmodernism Also in the 1950s and 1960s, in France, another group of writers were making a similar impact. Again inspired partly by Marxism, the likes of Georges Bataille, Claude-Levi Strauss, Roland Barthes and Giles Deleuze, among others, were setting the standards for European left-wing critical commentary, while the writings of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard and others were laying the foundations for what has come to be known since as postmodern theory (or, for some, just “Theory”). Though not all of these writers would be referred to as “Marxist” in the strictest sense, they each deployed most, if not all, of the concepts listed earlier to varying degrees as they sought to engage with the very foundations of “Western” thought. Consistent themes included the experiences of individuals and groups in societies, the decline of overarching value systems and institutions (such as religions), analyses of epistemologies and particularly the linguistic basis of our understandings of the world around us. The ideas of Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard, in particular, but also Bourdieu, are crucial to Theory mainly because of what they had to say about the role of various conventions in our institutions, systems and cultures. Wordy and abstract, the writings of Jacques Derrida are notoriously difficult to comprehend, but the concepts of différance and deconstruction are crucial to understanding his work (see Derrida, 2001). Différance is the central concept that refers to the continuous deferral of meaning in texts. Dovetailing with the essential

Campus Chaos  77 principle of punning in linguistic structures, Derrida’s concept of différence is deliberately mis-spelt, referring both to the process of extensive semiotic connections (the deferral of meanings) and to the distinctions and differences between words. Ultimately, the purpose of Derrida’s concept of deconstruction is to probe and undermine the very foundations of meaning itself, highlighting its fundamental dependence on language. Thus, language essentially comprises its own bounded universe, outside of which there can be no essential meaning: “he insists that words only refer to other words” and that “they differ from one another” in various ways, producing only “chains of ‘signifiers’, which can go off in all directions with no anchor – this being the meaning of his famous and often-mistranslated phrase, ‘there is nothing [read: no meaning] outside of text’ ” (cited in Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020: Location 564). Norris (1997) cautions that this is an exaggeration of Derrida’s true position, though he also states that it has become a modish interpretation of his work; and it is certainly the case for Foucault, and many other postmodernists, that “truth relates to nothing outside discourse” (Prado, 2006: 81). Pluckrose and Lindsay undoubtedly understand Derrida in precisely this way: [M]eaning is always relational and deferred, and can never be reached and exists only in relation to the discourse in which it is embedded. This unreliability of language, Derrida argues, means that it cannot represent reality or communicate it to others. (2020: Location 564–571) So, as if to presage the perfect recipe for disaster that we see around us today, language is all there is and it is practically useless at the same time. Similarly, for Lyotard, there is no such thing as objective truth, only subjectivity and vague truisms that are established via “narratives” imbedded in cultures and political systems (1979: 20). Truths don’t consist simply of factual details, but of systematic mythologies that are formulaic, structured and understood by the producers, senders and receivers of subsequent messages in a contrived effort towards social understanding and coherence. “What is transmitted through these narratives is the set of pragmatic rules that constitutes the social bond” (Lyotard, 1979: 21). Lyotard introduces the notion of “language games” as strategies of power in society. He argued that language is a crucial source of institutional power, producing standards that are forceful, normalising and apparently oppressive. Such standards are said to manifest themselves in various registers, dictating the boundaries of such concepts as “justice, beauty, truth and efficiency respectively” (Lyotard, 1979: 19). In order to play the social game effectively, we need to have a grasp of the standards and the language in each case. But we can also use language as a form of resistance – indeed, language provides the most effective means of resistance, according to Lyotard. We can acquire, distort and deliberately misuse language, in what Lyotard called “counter-moves,” in our efforts to avoid the all-encompassing control of the various institutional powers (1979: 16). The primacy of language in the postmodern worldview, and its relationship to supposedly arbitrary metanarratives of truth, means that co-opting and manipulating language are the most radical

78  Campus Chaos tactics at the disposal of activists. Lyotard’s perception of knowledge and the role of language within it immediately set up a cynical and paranoid reality, in which individuals only use language as a means of survival or as a strategy for conquest or opposition. As we saw in Chapter 2, Foucault argued that the modern human subject has been produced by epistemologies rooted in the power dynamics of institutional structures. But whereas power in Marxist perspectives tends to have verticality via the “economic base” and cultural “superstructure” model dictated by bourgeois interests, Foucault’s definition of power is radically different. Instead of being imposed largely from above, power is, according to Foucault, horizontal and diffuse. Moreover, whereas power has traditionally been conceptualised in terms of oppression, restriction, control and limitation, Foucault (1998) argued that modern “Western” forms of power have achieved precisely the opposite kinds of effects: they have instead permitted and produced concepts in a range of social institutions and special disciplines; they have actively and subtly enabled the emergence of the modern human subject through the use of knowledge systems based in technical terminologies and “discourses,” as Foucault (1991) called them. Foucault’s postmodern conception of power therefore takes on the appearance of an interconnected grid or web-like structure at various levels in society, as opposed to the more rigid, pyramidic one we find in Marxist interpretations. But such systems of “power-knowledge” are still political in nature, and Foucault argues that they even determine what can be accepted as “true” in any given socio-cultural context, which, again, appeals to relativism. Foucault called these knowledge systems “epistemes” and insisted that they promote not objective knowledge, but “regimes of truth.” What makes such systems so oppressive, he argued, is that they are inescapable and often inconspicuous, even as they reproduce disparities of power. Everybody participates in the structures, perpetuating and developing them, whether realising it or not, in and through their everyday usage of language, and as they partake in established institutional relations. Accordingly, Foucault’s analytical style is known for its neat little epithets or aphorisms describing subjects and the processes that (re)produce them. Apart from the ones mentioned earlier, some of the best examples include expressions like “docile bodies,” “descending individualism,” “hierarchized surveillance,” “archaeologies of knowledge,” “arithmetic of evidence,” and others that make his writing quite seductive and accessible. Finally, Pierre Bourdieu is another French theorist who deserves a special mention because of how he understood modern Western societies and their oppressive potential. Bourdieu has become hugely influential in contemporary sociology, and is perhaps best known for his reconceptualisation of Marxian capital. As we have seen, for Marx, capital (in the form of money, assets and property) bestows a sociological advantage on its holder. But Bourdieu (1984) extended and pluralised the notion of capital, identifying a range of symbolic capitals that upper-class people can use to ensure and maintain their social standing. These symbolic resources include “social capital” (nepotism or connections in the social world); “cultural capital” (one’s knowledge of, say, fine art, literature, science and other specialised domains); and “linguistic capital” (one’s ability to use language effectively). Life is

Campus Chaos  79 an ongoing competition, and each of these kinds of resources is deployed by actors in the social world looking to win at the game in various domains (fields) where there are certain prizes on offer. Being operational resources, symbolic capitals can also be used to obtain financial capital (money), and vice versa (which Bourdieu called transubstantiation). A person’s deployment of symbolic resources is usually indicative of the kind of person they are, alerting others to their status via forms of distinction and taste that exist in a hierarchy. But people are also largely the products of their original environments, meaning that most of our characteristics and tastes have been deeply ingrained into us according to our socialisation, producing a disposition (or habitus) that corresponds with certain biographical details, such as class, race, gender and experience. Bourdieu therefore complicated the original Marxian conception of social class. The production of the habitus means that the overall aggregate of the social structure has a tendency to remain largely unchanged, even though individual movement within it is rendered possible. These kinds of perspectives have dominated the social sciences for many decades, and they provide the basis for much of contemporary academic culture. Of course, postmodern perspectives are not necessarily ridiculous by definition. As Sokal and Bricmont point out, “many postmodern ideas, expressed in moderate form, provide a needed correction to naïve modernism (belief in indefinite and continuous progress, scientism, cultural Eurocentrism, etc.)” (1998: 183). The problems arise, however, when such discourses become so politically radical that they try to detach knowledge from reality itself, thus making their own adherents so polarised from others in the academy that they become simply unreachable by means of reason alone. In short, in the wake of the linguistic turn, a new breed of “superidealists” (as the philosopher Roy Bhaskar would refer to social constructivists and postmodernists) have rejected the possibility of a referent – the actual existence of the thing or phenomenon in the world that a word or sign (signifier) and its meaning (signified) call to mind. In this way, the postmodernists reject the possibility of a real domain, which exists objectively and independently of our thoughts about it. As Collier puts it, this is the kind of perspective “which involves explicit denial of the relation of knowledge to anything outside of it” (1994: 88). What this leaves us with, essentially, is simply competing forms of political rhetoric and power struggles. Despite its popularity today, this is therefore a self-defeating and dangerous tactic, which ultimately grants the old adage that “might makes right” by denying the possibility of epistemological standards beyond words and perspectives. I shall return to these debates in Chapter 7. For now, suffice it to say that extremism on either side results in the ever-deeper entrenchment of scholars in the natural and social sciences into rival political camps, as C.P. Snow famously described in his thesis on The Two Cultures (2012/1959). (Indeed, this is happening within disciplines also.) This is most unhelpful in an era that has previously defined itself as “interdisciplinary” and co-operative. But I focus mainly here on the social sciences because, as part of the so-called “science wars” (Sokal and Bricmont, 1998: 197), many in this cultish fraternity are openly activistic and hostile towards Enlightenment values and the scientific method, which they often regard as quintessential

80  Campus Chaos features of the Western domination that they seek to oppose. It is this radical-leftist concern that has led to the rise of the new moral framework I discussed at the outset, as the sociological-political factions in academia have condemned Western traditions as necessarily hostile towards marginalised and vulnerable groups, to whose defence they have rallied. But I argue that even this is quite unnecessary because, overall, traditional liberal values have proven to be more than good enough in themselves; and I suggest that what contemporary social scientists generally offer is an unbalanced and prejudicial assessment of Western/liberal societies, if not an outright caricature of them. We see this clearly in the continued trajectory of postmodernist thought. The Second Phase of Theory In their analysis of the traditions of Theory, Pluckrose and Lindsay (2020) discuss its gradual development beyond the academic periphery. They describe the emergence of a second wave that occurred during the 1980s and 1990s, which they call “applied postmodernism,” and a third phase called “reified postmodernism” after approximately 2010 (more of which later). At the second stage, capitalising on its emotional appeal, Theory started to take itself much more seriously and started to have an impact on the social world. With its open challenge to traditional knowledge systems and the “grand narratives” of modernity (those pertaining to the Enlightenment, Christianity, capitalism and so on), Theory has been regarded as a means of empowering those who have felt themselves to be on the margins of a social world that often seems exclusionary and indifferent. It has been taken up as an antidote to injustice on this basis and is expressed in what is known as “identity politics” today. A number of notable sociological and cultural studies have applied or critiqued such concepts as patriarchy (Walby, 1990), embodiment (Bordo, 1993; Grosz, 1994; Shildrick and Price, 1999), gender (Oakley, 1997; West and Zimmerman, 1998), sex (Braun et  al., 2003; Fausto-Sterling, 2008) and reproduction (Petchesky, 1987). But Theory has also caused some major problems, which become clearer as we consider some examples of its application, particularly in the sensitive areas of gender, sexuality and race. One of the central figures in identity politics, despite her protestations to the contrary, is the radical feminist Judith Butler (2011/1990, 1993). Butler draws on “the Derridean notion of phallogocentrism – the idea that social reality is constructed by language that privileges the masculine” (Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020: Location 1638). In Gender Trouble (2011/1990), Butler argues that the categories of both gender and sex are mere social constructs that have no basis in biological reality. She introduces the influential concept of “gender performativity” to describe how gendered identities find expression as fictional realities in the social world. Butler also adopted the concept of “queer” because it was a valuable tool in her efforts to “deconstruct” the notion of gender and, ultimately, sex. The subsequent concept of “queering” therefore originally referred to the deliberate act of undermining traditional categories pertaining to the sexes and sexuality by pointing out anomalies to certain binaries, particularly male/female, but also mind/body and nature/culture.

Campus Chaos  81 Using a Derridean approach, it is the act of “troubling” or “disrupting” such social conventions with language that is alleged to create such “spaces” for the marginalised (making it not limited to sex and sexuality). This seems admirable, yet Butler’s thesis flies in the face of established biological science, which is clear on the fact that human beings, despite their variations pertaining to a phenomenology of the body, are indeed a binary species (see Malone et al., 2019). Sexual dimorphism  – the two sexes, male and female  – first appeared on Earth 1.2 billion years ago. Mammals – animals like humans that grow their young inside them, rather than laying eggs – date back 210 million years. In all that time, no mammal has ever changed sex. (Joyce, 2021: 14) This has biological implications for the “trans” debate today, but poststructuralist feminism has long since drawn hostile fire even from some feminists (see, e.g. Annandale and Clark, 1996: 33–34). More recently, particularly strong opposition has come from gays and lesbians who, as same-sex attracted people who have fought long and hard for equality, understandably resist the notion that biological sex is simply a social construct (see, e.g. Stock, 2021). A number of other commentators have argued that notions such as “feminist science,” “gender-biased physics” or “white” mathematics have been wildly exaggerated (Gross and Levitt, 1994; Haack, 2007; Dreger, 2015). This is not to deny that forms of bias and discrimination can be problematic factors in the practice of science, just as they can in any sociological context; it simply means that the immutable characteristics of the individual’s identity don’t enter into the science itself (or at least they shouldn’t in the final analysis). If the science is good, it will be effective and will produce consistent results, regardless of who produces or conducts it; if the science is bad, that will also be reflected in its results. Some radical feminists have been arguing for decades that there is just such a “malestream” agenda at the heart of the academy and therefore Western civilisation as a whole (Harding, 1986; Alcoff and Potter, 1993). Indeed, Sandra Harding has expressly promised to provide a “feminist science” (related to so-called “standpoint theory”) but has never succeeded in revealing what this very different kind of science is or how it might work in reality (Gross and Levitt, 1994: 135). Standpoint theory has an expressly moral imperative which its adherents believe necessarily supersedes evidence (see Benson and Stangroom, 2006: 47). It argues “that the dominated and marginalized – those in subaltern positions – have certain advantages in terms of understanding, in that they are able to see things which are invisible to the dominant groups” (Sayer, 2000: 52). However, Sayer continues, “Just how strongly this claim can be made is debatable, for if it is made too strongly, then it treats the views of the subaltern as privileged, thus merely shifting, rather than challenging foundationalism” (2000: 52). Indeed, this danger is what we typically find in the writings of many postmodernists who write on science or borrow its terms in analyses of culture and society. Many such scholars have in fact been shown to know very little about the actual

82  Campus Chaos science they are claiming to be “deconstructing” – they simply confuse arguments over certain social disparities within science professions and other aspects of the social world (very reasonable and important concerns) with the business of conducting science as such (see Gross and Levitt, 1994; Sokal and Bricmont, 1998). As these writers discard any notion of objective standards in the pursuit of knowledge while privileging nebulous notions of power, their own writings therefore adopt the approach of nothing other than a kind of dogmatism. This dishonesty damages the reputations of such theorists, and, by extension, that of the social sciences in general, to a greater or lesser extent. The whole point of scientific knowledge is that it is intended to be true for, and therefore useful to, everyone; it doesn’t belong to any person or group in particular, and it doesn’t in principle discriminate on the grounds of gender, race or any other identity. Effective science, appropriately, only discriminates against nonsense. Similarly, racism, in its various forms, is of course a topic on which various sociologists have done, and are doing, good and necessary work. Over a number of decades, the concept has been evolved by social scientists in order to encompass more forms of discrimination that some people may experience in certain situations. Again, Pluckrose and Lindsay (2020) provide an overview of some of the main developments in the evolution of Theory on racism: bell hooks (a pseudonym intentionally written in lower case letters), for example, became well known in sociology after publishing Ain’t I a Woman (2015), originally in 1981, in which she argued that feminism has traditionally excluded black women. One feature of philosophical discourses that hooks opposed was essentialism, and her work opened up new debates about the ways in which certain perspectives (both female and black) have been either reduced or overlooked completely in traditional Theory. Around the same time that hooks first rose to prominence, Derek Bell was among the first scholars to write about CRT, which was originally concerned with legal debates and the status of black people in American society. For the early CRT advocates, racism was built into the United States’ legal framework from the outset, and they set about trying to demonstrate its effects on an everyday basis in the lives of non-white Americans by citing instances of racial discrimination in various social contexts. The CRT scholars asserted, therefore, that racism in America is unequivocally systemic, and that every single disparity between white and black people in society is accounted for by the system itself. They challenge First Amendment advocates by suggesting that this quintessential American value actually facilitates racist language and forms of expression which necessarily serve the interests of the (white) majority and undermine those of everybody else, effectively arguing that the First Amendment is a license for white racism. CRT holds that the “lived experience” of non-white people is therefore symptomatic of systemic racism, rather than simply the result of isolated encounters. Language is therefore equated with physical violence, striking at the core of the minority individual and his/her identity. Drawing directly on Marxist principles, CRT forwards the overtly racialised/racist claim that “whiteness” is itself a form of privilege, and that it is in the interests of all non-white people to unite against the system and produce radical changes to it (see Matsuda et al., 2018). Ultimately, CRT calls, at the very least,

Campus Chaos  83 for an accommodationist kind of legal system which recognises special rights and requirements for non-white ethnic groups, and particularly black people, rather than a universal system which prevails regardless of racial differences (so much for the “content” of one’s “character”). Later, Kimberlé Crenshaw, a student of Bell’s, published “Mapping the ­Margins” (1991), an essay which developed her earlier concept of “intersectiona­ lity.” The concept of intersectionality correctly points out that an individual can be discriminated against in a social situation in a variety of ways. The more those points of identity “intersect” – say, black, female and poor – the more likely that person might be to experience opposition or prejudice in society. Again, this is a reasonable suggestion; it is certainly plausible that more identity markers can, in some circumstances, expose an individual to a greater likelihood of experiencing more forms of discrimination. But intersectionality has become a new expression of class conflict in which “society” (as a kind of super-organism controlled by “white” people) is responsible for all individual problems. Intersectionality is the basis of what Lindsay calls “Identity Marxism” (2022: 69), as it sets up a potentially perpetual power struggle in which race replaces class as the primary marker of privilege in a system that renders mutual understanding practically impossible and even undesirable. Subsequently, intersectionality has become central, and indispensable, to all aspects of Theory. All experiences are now to be read through a kind of matrix of difference. Despite its insights, Crenshaw’s argument is deeply cynical about “society” in general terms. For one thing, it implies that Western societies are permanently fixed and uncompromising. It also leads to the assumption that any negative experience in a non-white person’s life must necessarily be the result of social discrimination by whites based on structures and characteristics identified a priori and that intersectionality thesis thereby renders discrimination more quantifiable and comparable. But this is an oversimplification of reality, because misogyny, violence and discrimination can and do also occur within identity groups, a social problem about which Crenshaw’s perspective essentially has nothing to say (see Hughes, 2020). With its emphasis on language and a “white” conspiracy, CRT also appears to misunderstand the basic principle of the First Amendment, which “is that offensiveness alone is no justification for banning or restricting speech – especially on campus” (Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018: 200). Free expression is intended as a right protecting all people primarily against governmental tyranny, not each other. In any case, Crenshaw’s argument rests, again, on some very shaky foundations because it explicitly combines postmodern Theory with identity politics. This immediately sets up a tension between categories that are understood in postmodern thought as mere cultural “constructs”  – race, gender, sex, class and so on  – at the same time as they are relied upon as being “objectively real” conditions (Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020: Location 852). The likes of Crenshaw (1991) try to get around this by arguing that race is essentialised by the system itself, not by her. Regardless, a resulting consequence is that we apparently have clear distinctions between black people considered to be “authentically black” and those who just “happen to be black” based on the extent to which their behaviour conforms to the political

84  Campus Chaos d­ emands set forth by the CRT scholars (what they believe, how they vote and so on) (see Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020: Location 843). This smacks off thought control and, ironically, leads inevitably to charges of essentialism by definition: “You are your race!” or “You are not ‘authentically’ Black!” Either way, “truth” is guided by identity politics. It is in this kind of atmosphere that we find the most radical claims concerning “gendered science,” “feminist algebra” and “Afrocentric” history, all of which rest on distortions of true or accurate information and allow for outright fabrications and overt double standards about what constitutes a reasonable argument. Moreover, those who qualify for the right to bastardise standards of knowledge production with total abandon must not be challenged in any way, apparently in the interests of good etiquette. A “white” or male colleague who might ask for corroborating evidence to support a given claim, for instance, is to be treated immediately as an aggressor, a closet racist or misogynist. Indeed, this kind of fate can also befall a woman. Mary Lefkowitz (1996) discovered this herself when she challenged a claim made by a non-white academic in a public lecture that Aristotle had stolen books from a library (the library of Alexandria in Egypt) and had thereby stolen black African knowledge on behalf of Western civilisations, founded as they are largely on the political principles of ancient Greece. For the record, Lefkowitz’s objection was based on the fact that Aristotle could not possibly have been guilty of the crime, since the library wasn’t even built until more than two decades after his death, which Lefkowitz realised because she is an expert in the field. But for merely broaching a reasonable question in the academic spirit, Lefkowitz (a white Jewish-American) was scolded by the visiting speaker and further vilified and shut down by colleagues in discussions afterwards. In the words of African-American linguist John McWhorter, “In ‘black’ academia, as often as not, comment is preferred over question, folk wisdom is often ­allowed to trump rigorous argumentation, and sociopolitical intent is weighted more heavily than the empirical soundness of one’s conclusions” (2001: 55). ­Indeed, the consequences for the prospects of reasonable discourse (let alone ­accurate information) in this kind of environment are spelled out by Gross and Levitt: Once a postmodern critic has at hand a license to read every position as its opposite when it suits his convenience, analytic skills of the more traditional sort are expendable and logic is effaced in the swirling tide of rhetoric. (1994: 85) This is why something like “standpoint theory” requires extreme caution. But such problems are consistent features of Theory, not anomalies, and they are based in its traditions. Pluckrose and Lindsay state that this is because, throughout its development, Theory has stayed true to two main principles and four key themes. The former are “The postmodern knowledge principle” and “The postmodern ­political principle.” The postmodern knowledge principle is a kind of “Radical skepticism about whether objective knowledge or truth is obtainable and a commitment to cultural constructivism” (2020: Location 865). This idea is relatable to

Campus Chaos  85 ­ errida. As a result, scientific facts are to be denigrated while cultural and subjective D experiences can be elevated. Second, the authors describe “The postmodern political principle” as “A belief that society is formed of systems of power, which can decide what can be known and how” (Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020: Location 871). This perspective emerges primarily from the ideas of Foucault (1991, 1998) and Lyotard (1979); it also takes inspiration from Marcuse (2002), being “central to the advocacy of identity politics, whose politically actionable imperative is to dismantle this [modern-‘Western’-liberal-democratic] system in the name of Social Justice” (Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020: Location 871). The four themes are (1) the blurring of boundaries, a theme “most evident in postcolonial and queer Theories, which are both explicitly centred on ideas of fluidity, ambiguity, indefinability, and hybridity”; (2) the power of language; (3) cultural relativism, a perspective “most pronounced in postcolonial Theory,” but also in “intersectionality”; and (4) the loss of the individual and the universal, which places an emphasis on group identities and produces a devaluation of traditional liberalist principles of universal rights, individual opinion and personal achievement (Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020: Location 871–897). All of these perspectives have therefore been mobilised against a new common enemy. In traditional Marxism, the common enemy used to be the capitalist, the owner of the means of production and wealth, a genuinely powerful and exploitative minority class. But demographic and political changes resulting from postcolonialism, the re-location of industrial sectors overseas, the women’s movement and environmentalism, among other developments, have contributed to the decline of social class as the main driver of social struggle in the Western context (see Gorz, 1997). As these developments have taken place, and as reflections on forms of discrimination have continued to develop, a new folk devil has emerged, a more general and convenient scapegoat for the grievances of all the “marginal” figures in a predominantly white and supposedly aggressive “patriarchal” society: the heterosexual, white male (see Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018: 70), an individual with a decidedly unholy trinity of characteristics today, regardless of his personal beliefs. Ironically turning Marxism somewhat on its own head, this is a new spin on conflict theory in which the roles of “oppressor” and “oppressed” have been recast in a variety of new but limited and especially racialised ways, with majorities now cast as the “bad” people and language the main currency in the new power games. And this marks the beginning of Theory’s third phase. It is at this point that Theory becomes “reified,” to use Pluckrose and Lindsay’s term, because this was “when scholars and activists combined the existing Theories and Studies into a simple, dogmatic methodology, best known simply as ‘Social Justice Scholarship’ ” (2020, Location: 174). An effect of this ideology is a new, crude moral hierarchy based on identity markers which, even at the risk of sacrificing accuracy and truth, either validates or invalidates certain voices accordingly. Given the fact that “denialism” is a common tactic in all humans when they wish to reject the truth (Kahn-Harris, 2018) and that “identity-protective cognition” can cause anybody’s ability to reason to be skewed (Grimes, 2019: 160), postmodern Theory can thereby become an ideal all-purpose excuse for opponents of nuance and reason.

86  Campus Chaos The Third Phase of Theory According to Pluckrose and Lindsay (2020), when Theory entered its third stage – that of “reified postmodernism” – its assumptions came to be taken for granted. It was now necessary not just to apply postmodernist and postcolonialist perspectives to sociological studies but to treat them as if they were undeniable facts that condition every aspect of life and every interaction between individuals in the social world. These changes took place during the first decade of the twenty-first century, and they influenced not just scholarship but the entire ethos of the academic sphere. In short, “Social Justice” ideology has taken on a kind of quasi-religious truth, even beyond academia; and to deny its principles, particularly on campuses, has now become dangerous and deviant, rather like a new form of heresy. “Therefore, in Social Justice scholarship, we continually read that patriarchy, white supremacy, imperialism, cisnormativity, heteronormativity, ableism, and fat phobia are literally structuring society and infecting everything” (Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020: Location 3009). The effects of this new morality have been detectable in some of the more recent offerings in sociological theory. For example, there’s Robin DiAngelo’s best-­selling White Fragility (2018), in which she argued that white people are in a collective state of denial and that they get too defensive over the issue of race and simply won’t talk about it. However, this is not the sense we get from students on campuses. According to the College Free Speech Rankings website, black students in America are far more intolerant than whites when it comes to talking openly about racial issues (66% and 43%, respectively) (CFSR, 2020), suggesting that an exclusively white sensitivity towards the topic has been wildly exaggerated. Indeed, black students (of all groups) have even been among the most inclined to self-segregate on campuses for decades (see Steele, 1990: 55). The “white fragility” claim doesn’t seem true either of the wider American society and its mainstream media, in which it appears that race is hardly ever off the table. Undeterred, DiAngelo and others argue that racism is the default, and it is no longer relevant at all to ask whether an act of racism has occurred in any given interaction in American society, “but rather ‘How did racism manifest itself in that situation?’ ” (cited in Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020: Location 2166; see also Matsuda et  al., 2018). In other words, there’s no way around it; every interaction is necessarily racist now. This is because white supremacy (a particularly strong accusation) is simply ­assumed automatically. Another superstar of the current debates is Ibram X. Kendi. If his How to Be an Antiracist (2019) sounds like a patronising self-help book for white folks, it’s because that’s pretty much what it is. And his message, again, is simple and dogmatic: you cannot be a non-racist anymore. One is either a racist or an anti-racist; there can be no in-between. But it is not surprising that we are presented with this straight choice when it is already assumed that racism is the default anyway. This essentialises and infantilises “white” and “black” people, but it also insults and dismisses the very complicated and varied histories – and constitutional foundations – of societies that can be described as “Western.” Kendi’s work has been criticised

Campus Chaos  87 by a host of liberal intellectuals, including black academics and commentators, particularly in America, who see it as presumptuous and simplistic at best and downright “anti-intellectual” at worst (see Hughes, 2019). In short, Kendi offers us what logicians would call a “bifurcation fallacy,” which is to say a straight choice between only two options (in this case, racist or anti-racist) when there is no obvious reason (Van Vleet, 2011: 7). At least three further objections arise from the current “anti-racism” movement as framed by the likes of Kendi. First, it cheapens racism, making it unremarkable and more difficult to properly identify. Second, and paradoxically, it gives rise to a superstitious and reactionary mentality that demands “action” (whatever that might be at any given moment) against “racist” behaviour (however defined at a particular time) based largely on emotion, interpretation and subjective opinion (more on this will be discussed later). Any individual seen not “fighting” the good fight in the correct and required way (which can all-too-easily change daily) is likely to become the object of suspicion and even vitriol on a whim. Finally, all of these mean that racism would have to be a one-sided and perpetual condition, meaning that the fight against it is therefore not only racially biased in itself but also completely hopeless anyway. The integrity of reified postmodernism has certainly been tested by the wellknown “hoax papers” stunt undertaken by Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian. Over approximately a one-year period beginning in August 2017, in a secret project based loosely on a similar venture by physicist Alan Sokal in the mid-1990s, these leading academics set about trying to expose what they regard as the corruption of genuine scholarship in contemporary academia. Submitting a series of outlandish articles to top journals using pseudonyms, they concerned themselves with the various sub-disciplines of the humanities, which they collectively refer to as being part of the “grievance studies” industry. After a shaky start based on design flaws of their own making (wrongly believing that they could successfully publish any old poorly researched paper), the team changed its strategy. While certainly not altering the strangeness of their core ideas, they did attempt a more rigorous and scholarly approach to the project, along with adopting the language and concepts in keeping with the disciplines under scrutiny. Their efforts eventually started to pay off, and they have since referred to their activities as a kind of “reflexive ethnography – that is, we conducted a study of peculiar academic culture by immersing ourselves within it, reflecting its output and modifying our understanding until we became ‘outsiders within it’ ” (Pluckrose et al., 2020). In a critical response to the grievance studies hoaxes, Engber (2018) claims that Pluckrose et al.’s findings actually reveal more about their own biases against gender specifically, rather than a full range of concerns in identity politics. Although there does indeed appear to have been a focus on gender, Engber’s interpretation of the situation is incorrect. Lindsay has since explained that, even though the hoaxers understood Theory as well as any scholar out there at the time of their project, they didn’t have enough time available in order to fully master the jargon specific to law studies and education studies – and such work is generally found in specialised journals in these areas (Lindsay, 2022: 158). Second, Engber neglects to mention that the concept of “queering” has led to greater pliability and playability when it

88  Campus Chaos comes to the concept of gender; for this and other reasons (including greater historical sensitivities around “race”), active social scientists themselves are almost certainly more likely to have engaged more radically with this area over certain others over time. Third, Engber notes that acceptance of poor quality papers is also possible in journals dedicated to the natural sciences; again this seems highly plausible, and Pluckrose et al. would be among the first to agree, though the point remains hypothetical. Finally, he claims that only three of the 20 bogus papers submitted by Pluckrose et al. were accepted by the highest-ranking journals in the humanities and he seems confident that the peer review process would generally weed out the dross. But this final criticism directly and significantly contradicts the claims made by the three authors themselves. Among the ideas put forward by the hoaxers, we find a paper that advocates training men as we train dogs in the park in order to counteract “rape culture”; a “paper that argues feminist and queer astrology should be considered part of the science of astronomy” (Pluckrose et al., 2020); a paper that advocates sitting white male college students down on the floor in chains while not allowing them to ask questions of lecturers so that they would understand slavery and claims for reparations; and a paper that incorporated the re-writing of a chapter from Mein Kampf in feminist terms. All of these papers, as well as others, were accepted by some of the very top-ranking journals in the business, while others were under consideration pending “revisions” (a very normal part of the academic process). In addition, Engber makes no mention at all of the fact that seven papers were still “in play,” as Pluckrose et al. phrase it, but could not be submitted due to the fact that they were forced to “go public” with their results before the project was completed. Bizarrely, Engber also complains that Pluckrose et al.’s project was “politically motivated” (yes, they engaged with identity politics, which is normally fine when it’s the radical left who are doing it). But on this point, why should academics not be concerned with politics when our campuses have been over-run with such concerns at the expense of quality education, and when political “wrong-think” can get them into trouble or even fired from their jobs? Why not “politics” when these ideas are also infiltrating almost every other social sphere now? Finally, Engber claims that Pluckrose et al. are just three of the many old-fashioned academics who are apparently confused and disgruntled by a new world in flux that we don’t truly understand yet. But I find it suspicious that anyone could so easily dismiss the concerns of these and other serious academics in this way. Sure, scientists routinely accept that mysteries are part and parcel of their endeavours to overcome new challenges, but they don’t actively celebrate the exacerbation of that process as a result of a deliberate distortion of reality itself via the imposition of politically motivated language games and downright lies. It is not just rich but patently absurd that a postmodernist should berate these academics for reacting to such a problem as this in the mischievous way they did. Such criticisms only serve to further indicate the disingenuousness of certain aspects of Theory and many of its adherents. But devotees of reified postmodern Theory tend not to see its glaring logical fallacies and double standards. Just as with advocates of religious faith, such anomalies are simply ignored on account of the desperate need to spread the message:

Campus Chaos  89 “A  moral person aware of the Truth According to Social Justice must serve its metanarrative by actively asserting a Theoretical view of how the world works and how it ought to work instead” (Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020: Location 3025). With echoes of Marx’s call for “change” and action, this is what gives reified postmodernism its evangelical zeal. And the issue of race has become primary in a new culture that now regards “whiteness” itself as an oppressive ideological system of disproportionate wealth, undue privilege and automatic power that must be overturned at all costs (Lindsay, 2022). In true postmodernist style, language and speech are therefore considered as being central to power, and so these must be strictly regulated (Hicks, 2010). The Moral Imperative The culture described earlier represents a new moral framework which first emerged on college campuses, as sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning (2018) have outlined. Campbell and Manning pinpoint the so-called “microaggression” as the central concept in this new morality. This term, coined by Harvard psychiatry professor Chester Pierce and later popularised by Derald Wing Sue, a professor in psychology at Columbia, refers to offences that may take place in various kinds of interactions between individuals belonging to groups with historical power differentials. Moreover, the microaggression is often invisible to the perpetrator, yet no less damaging to the victim. But this ordinariness, according to Sue, is precisely what gives the microaggression its force, because it is said to be reflective of the aforementioned structural disparities in the social world, and it is entirely dependent on the subjective interpretation of the “offence” from the victim’s point of view: the perpetrator may be completely unaware of any offence they have caused. “Microaggressions are offensive to those aggrieved by them because they believe they perpetuate or increase the domination of some persons or groups by others” (Campbell and Manning, 2018: 93). In today’s world, racism has been redefined as some combination of Patricia Bidol’s “prejudice plus power” definition (Lindsay, 2022: 69). Accordingly, advocates of this new form of morality “might define racism so that blacks by definition cannot be racists or whites victims of racism, sexism so that women cannot be sexist or men victims of sexism,” thereby also endorsing a one-sided view of censorship (Campbell and Manning, 2018: 52, original emphases). This assumes the automatic “truth” of intersectional politics and that individuals within groups are necessarily and perpetually more or less powerful than others on the basis of identities. Thus, we have the basis of a radical new outlook which is highly charged and has the potential to become confusing and open to serious abuses. Significantly, Campbell and Manning argue that no moral code is haphazard or natural but is the result of social situations and conditioning. They trace the history of different moralities that have belonged to different eras and settings, highlighting two in particular: cultures of honour and cultures of dignity. In cultures of honour, good reputation is fundamental and will be defended vigorously; mere insults will typically be resolved using violence, and this is why disagreements in

90  Campus Chaos medieval societies were often settled with confrontations, such as duels (see also Elias, 2000). By contrast with “honour” (as it is understood in societies underpinned by honour culture), people in contemporary Western societies have dignity as an inalienable right which is recognised by the state and implicitly understood by most other individuals. This status produces a range of effects, including a kind of self-confidence in people when dealing with slights: People from dignity culture are less touchy. It is even commendable to have a thick skin that allows one to shrug off slights and insults, and in a dignitybased society parents might teach children some version of “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” – an idea that would be alien in a culture of honor. (Campbell and Manning, 2018: 41–42) The degree to which a culture is definable as one of “honour” or one of “dignity” depends mainly on the levels of state intervention in the lives of citizens and their conflicts. Honour cultures are found in societies that tend to have fewer formal laws, leading to the tendency of individuals and groups settling differences between themselves. However, with the expansion of laws came a reduction in the levels of private violence in societies and an inclination towards the state inflicting punishments on perpetrators on behalf of the victims. This produced what we now recognise as “civility” in most modern contexts. Nevertheless, modernity in itself does not always necessarily imply the presence of a “dignity” culture because some societies (e.g. authoritarian ones) may find themselves prone to an “over-dependency” on the state. In such cases, citizens have been known to “privatise” the power of the state by reporting their fellow citizens to the authorities, even (or perhaps especially) out of sheer spite, by making accusations that require no proof and may have no justification with regard to any actual, private disagreement in question. Under totalitarian regimes, such false accusations might relate to claims of espionage, for example; in the puritanical context of seventeenth-century Europe, they might have been concerned with witchcraft. The new “victimhood culture” that Campbell and Manning identify works in a very similar way, as we observed with reference to the accusations made against Keith Sampson earlier (see Lukianoff, 2011). Underpinned by “Social Justice” politics, it combines the need for reprisal in “honour culture” with the hyper third-party assistance of totalitarian societies. College students have demonstrated this by becoming increasingly reliant on a proliferation of administrators, such as the new-fangled “Bias Response Teams” that have been set up “charged with investigating reports of bias, including microaggressions” (Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018: 43). This is how students now settle their differences, and there has been no shortage of bogus “hate crimes” reported (see Campbell and Manning, 2018, Chapter 4). Indeed, this new moral framework actively incentivises and encourages false accusations via its social structure of credulity and its double standards based purely on perceived, identarian power disparities (see Reilly, 2019). The structure of credulity means that all claims will be investigated, even though false

Campus Chaos  91 ones will generally not be punished. Just as with the political witch-hunts described by Bergesen, “guilt and innocence” therefore become irrelevant in these situations: “It is the activity of the trial, the purge, the accusation or the self-confession which transforms the individuals from one reality to another” (1977: 223). What this wellmeaning approach can therefore lead to are mistakes or abuses and official policies that are often plainly unjust in themselves. The microaggression concept has led to a succession of other related concepts that are currently undermining institutional integrity and educational quality in the Western world. These include “speech codes” (unconstitutional practices that police the limits of language), “free speech zones” (which localise and quarantine free expression to certain designated areas), “trigger warnings” (messages outside lecture halls or on books warning about content that supposedly worldly young adults and some academics are likely to find offensive and therefore unbearable), “cultural appropriation” (which assumes that cultures are somehow necessarily pure, unmixable, and the exclusive property of ethnic groups and their individual members) and so-called “safe spaces” (areas of college campuses that are sectioned off mainly for those who allegedly feel fragile or threatened in some way) (see Lukianoff, 2014; Hume, 2015; Fox, 2016). Campbell and Manning (2018) assert that the transition from a dignity culture to a victimhood culture is what is causing so much controversy both on campus and off campus today – because of misunderstandings between individuals holding competing moral paradigms. But they also ultimately condemn the microaggression concept, pointing out that it emerges not from “victims” themselves but from elite busybodies in universities. Most significantly of all, though, they regard it as a useless concept in sociology, because it doesn’t refer to anything identifiable in particular (and apparently doesn’t need to), except the subjective interpretations of those who might be “offended” by everyday questions like: “Where are you from?” Nevertheless, our universities and other institutions appear to have become increasingly acquiescent. One reason for this is that the young people who enter them today are very different to those of yesteryear. Lukianoff and Haidt (2018) have discussed the rise of “safetyism” that now prevails both on and off campus, creating a culture in which young people are being over-protected and mollycoddled. As part of this culture, speech has been redefined in terms of literal “violence” (Haidt and Lukianoff, 2017), even as students themselves gang up on lecturers to intimidate, physically threaten, and hound them out of their jobs, as in the cases involving Weinstein, Christakis and Stock (so much for “safe spaces”). The arrival of the internet has been identified as a crucial development in this rapid redefinition of speech as violence, and Twenge (2017) has referred to the current cohort (GenZ) as “iGen,” “because they are the first generation to grow up with the internet in their pockets” (Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018: 146). Ironically, the internet, which was first imagined by Tim Berners-Lee as the ultimate democratising information technology, has tested our abilities to tolerate the principles of liberal democracy far more than any other. The internet is the proverbial double-edged sword: its openness and instantaneousness provide a platform for sharing, but also shaming. Both of these are important devices in imposing moral codes, but they can also be

92  Campus Chaos central to exclusion and bullying. Social media, and the “social-validation feedback loop” that it encourages (in its use of “likes” and re-tweets and sharing and so on) is crucial in this respect (Sean Parker, former President of Facebook, cited in Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018: 147). According to the WHO, the United Sates ranked joint second globally for rates of depression among adults in 2022 (https://worldpopulationreview.com). (To put things into perspective, the country at the top of the list, Ukraine, was invaded by its larger neighbour, Russia, in 2022, and is, at the time of this writing, still in a state of war.) Various anxiety disorders are linked to self-harm and suicide, so they are taken extremely seriously. North America has seen a sharp rise in cases over recent years, and the current population of students in college are very much among those included in the statistics (see Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018: 156). Given that they spend the majority of their lives on the internet, today’s young people are exposed to more explicit material, trolling and unrealistic standards (e.g. of life or beauty) than their predecessors. All of these have made iGen, and particularly girls, more susceptible to torment and exclusion, and this has been a crucial argument in controls over content and speech. However, it is also true to say that many people today actively go looking for “offence” in order to have power over others by policing the language they can use, and Doyle has pointed out that individuals can use the “blocking function” on their own devices in order to avoid seeing things or interacting with those they disagree with (2021: 38). Nevertheless, with the growing prevalence of “trigger warnings” and other measures, our institutions, particularly the universities, have adopted an approach which regards “offensive content” in the way that psychological therapists would regard the traumatic experiences in patients with PTSD, which is usually associated with upsetting flashbacks from warzones or experiences of physical harm (Campbell and Manning, 2018: 116). This has resulted in a proliferation of provisions, including “safe spaces” and the cancellation of a growing number of invited guest speakers at universities. One of the effects of this bureaucratic effort has been to make iGen much more compliant, yet also more fragile and needy, than previous generations; and this has resulted in them becoming the unwitting cheerleaders for dramatic and sweeping social changes (such as ever-greater censorship laws) that will affect all of us in the years to come. However, Lukianoff and Haidt (2018) do not seek to blame iGen for this necessarily. Rather, they argue that this generation has been let down by parents and guardian figures (via phenomena such as “helicopter parenting”), as well as those in official positions of authority, and predatory corporations seeking to exploit their minds and their attention for the sake of competition, profit and growth. Yet our response has also been erroneous. In their discussion of “cognitive behavioural therapy” Lukianoff  & Haidt state that therapists would usually recommend something like “exposure therapy” to their clients, which helps them to confront and ultimately deal with the issue at hand. By contrast, the culture of mollycoddling does precisely the opposite of what therapists would suggest by removing the perceived threat from immediate view and magnifying its menace. They imply that Western institutions are therefore not so much responding to and

Campus Chaos  93 remedying an emerging mental health crisis on campuses today, but are in fact helping to exacerbate it. The rise of the culture of safetyism, which really started to burgeon on campuses around 2013, has been discussed in the context of a series of other developments that are said to have affected this generation of young people in particular. First, “social atomization” (the process of individualisation that generally occurs in advanced industrialised societies) has produced a weakening of partisanship from a nationalcultural point of view, as described by Campbell and Manning (2018: 85). Second, there is now a lack of a “common enemy” in America, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Third, we have seen the privileging of “standpoint theory” or subjective knowledge, which renders personhood, experience and knowledge as inseparable (Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020). Fourth, at the same time as there has been a proliferation of identities that compete with one another in the “victimhood” stakes, the world has also been curiously separated increasingly into two opposing monoliths, resulting in a range of simplistic “Us” and “Them” dichotomies and “binary thinking” (Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018: 10). Echoing Marcuse (1965) and others, examples include “white” people (and “adjacents”) versus all “non-white” people (plus “allies”); Westerners versus non-Westerners; Conservatives versus all other political denominations; all heterosexuals versus all other sexualities; and so on. Finally, Haidt and Lukianoff (2018) also highlight a new focus in the news on violence, injustice and political polarisation since 2016, including perceived police brutality against minorities in America; the election of Donald Trump; outbursts of far-right racism; mass shootings and acts of terrorism; and the #MeToo movement. All of these appear to reflect the fashionable narrative that “Western” history and its societies are necessarily and uniquely aggressive, hostile and dangerous, ideas that are clearly traceable in writings associated with postmodernism and postcolonialism. Aside from the influence of Derrida, who, as we have seen, believed that all words exist in “hierarchical binary pairs” that privilege the masculine (in Lindsay, 2022: 131), others have suggested that a need for orderliness and categorisations has been a particular effect of the modern period and its use of language in classifying everything (Bauman, 1991). Similarly, in The Order of Things “Foucault discusses the difference between the ‘Renaissance’ and ‘Classical’ conceptions of language, specifically the difference between ‘trinary’ and ‘binary’ conceptions of the relation of signs to what they signify” (Prado, 2006: 73). Such criticisms are detectable also in Edward Said’s Orientalism (1979) with its focus on “Othering” as, apparently, an exclusively Western preoccupation. By contrast, the postmodern mind is allegedly much more ready to embrace ambivalence (and is therefore deemed more tolerant). All of these explain why “dualisms and binaries are regular targets of scepticism today” (Sayer, 2000: 4). (Indeed, “scepticism” would have to be classed as a massive understatement at this point.) But this obsessive association between binaries and the traditions of Western philosophy exclusively is yet another curious one. Didn’t the principle of “yin and yang” originate in ancient China, for example? Besides, is it not true to say that there is currently nobody more “binary” in their thinking than the present-day radical leftist or “Justice” activist, seeing things as they do necessarily (and often quite

94  Campus Chaos literally) in black-and-white terms? This is why Steven Pinker (2017) has used the term “Left Pole” to describe the situation – everything that is not now considered part of an increasingly exclusive “left” is necessarily right-wing, just as everything below the North Pole is south. Indeed, the only context in which binary thinking is now illegal (in some cases, quite literally sanctioned against) is when discussions turn towards “gender” or sex (see Bruce, 2022; Faria, 2022). Like all moral systems, this one also relies on support or enforcement, and it gets that from academics and administrators. Alongside the redefinition of speech as literal violence, there are various other reasons why this ideology has wreaked havoc. First, education is a multi-billion-dollar industry with a high price for the privilege. This means that there has been mounting pressure on the protection of paying customers, even at the expense of academic excellence (Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018: 197). Second, it is well known that political consensus in the arts and education generally leans left and always has done. But these days, the disparities between left and right in university departments are overwhelmingly massive in favour of the left. In some sociology departments, the ratio can be as large as “44 to 1” (Saad, 2020: 63). This development is of course extremely damaging to our educational institutions because it is likely to promote viewpoint homogeneity, intimidation tactics, and spirals of silence, phenomena which stifle honest debate and discourage the “institutionalized disconfirmation” (Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018: 110) that typically regulates reasonable discursive practices. In the echo-chambers of our contemporary university departments, what we now have instead is a culture of one-sided censorship, or “viewpoint discrimination” Verber (2021) that is being overseen even by leading academics. It has been pointed out by any number of commentators that university departments encourage a “call-out” culture (in which the “bad” people are stifled), which in turn results in a “vindictive protectiveness” over the ideas, individuals and groups that are deemed to be necessarily “good” or in need of help, even when they are not (Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018). Accordingly, the activists are preoccupied with notions of inclusion, exclusion, marginality and harm, and with analysing the ways in which they believe the Western world (uniquely) perpetuates these conditions. Nevertheless, as Haidt (2012) has pointed out, there is more to morality than just preventing harm (more on this in the next chapter). But even if this were a perfectly fair assessment of the Western world (which it is not), it still wouldn’t lend justification to such notions as Afrocentrism or gendered politics unilaterally governing our education systems: We can accept the need to take note of previously excluded and unheard voices, for they are likely to lead to new knowledge, but there is no warrant for giving them an epistemic privilege which we would deny to socially privileged groups. (Sayer, 2000: 55) But even then, it might still be objectionable from an identarian point of view to claim that there is one “black” perspective or one “female” point of view at all.

Campus Chaos  95 To be clear, the question is not whether we should help the marginalised or those in need, but how we should. The activists of today want to impose one aggressive and anti-liberal set of policies on everybody else without debate. We ought to show compassion to others and assist those in need of help, but it does not follow from this that we should have to distort logic or our language to try to socially engineer a “destabilisation” of such factual categories as biological sex, for example, because we are afraid of the effects that they might have in the social world. This is what today’s activists, schooled in neo-Marxism and postmodernism, are trying to achieve. It is why they have tried to denigrate reason and science, characterising the latter as just another “ideology” that is only supported by certain power interests, and particularly those along gendered, racial and political lines. But again, despite the fact that certain financial and ideological interests from all sides can and do pose significant challenges and threats to academic and institutional integrity (see Benson and Stangroom, 2006, ch. 7), it is a total misrepresentation of the ethos of the scientific method to suggest that it might be behind such perversions. Indeed, the scientific method is more likely to be the remedy given that it has to do primarily with impartiality, integrity, an acceptance of the best evidence available on any issue at any particular time, proportioning one’s beliefs accordingly, and making such principles the basis of democratic processes (see Popper, 1970). The prevailing postmodern narrative also overlooks the fact that many prominent scientists have often complained about the lack of scientific literacy in party politics and in publics over many decades. So whatever the goals of Republicans, Conservatives or “white” people, scientists themselves are by no means necessarily in cahoots with the wishes of the political establishment, as Carl Sagan regularly pointed out (1996: 428; 1997: 79, 96). The radical left is therefore not rallying against tyranny (as it assumes it is), but is creating a new form of tyranny all of its own. Things could hardly be o­ therwise when they are waging a vain war on nature and reality, especially from an a­ bstruse perspective, simply because certain scientific facts have a tendency to be politically or socially inexpedient to us. This is a classic Marxian tactic, and it is the ­basis of “political correctness” and its sinister implications for actual truth, as ­Kisin has noted: Political correctness has nothing to do with ensuring sensitivity to the feelings of others, or protecting vulnerable groups, as you are now being told. In fact, the term first appeared in Marxist-Leninist vocabulary following the Russian Revolution and was used to describe adherence to the policies and principles of the Communist Party. YES  – THAT’S WHERE IT COMES FROM. (Kisin, 2022: 81, original emphases) In other words, the kinds of rationales that were originally referred to as politically correct, rather than factually correct (and endorsed as being “true” on that basis), were the kinds of things that would have satisfied the whims of Mr. Stalin himself.

96  Campus Chaos That, in a word, is sinister. This is a tactic purely of power; and if political correctness is the method by which we in the West now wish to define what we regard as true, then its advocates are quite welcome to it but count me out. To summarise, sections of the academic left, on our campuses and beyond, have attacked notions of “normativity” (principally, as they see it, whiteness, hetero­ sexuality and biological sex categories) as Western constructs based only in language, while simultaneously imposing a whole new set of arbitrary rules of their own upon the majority, apparently for the sake of everyone. This is, then, ironically, a new kind of “metanarrative” (the very thing that Lyotard was allegedly opposing) (see Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020). Much in the style of their hero Foucault, the activists, being relativists, are apparently trying to avoid making normative judgements about the beliefs of “Others” when it suits them while simultaneously upholding the leftist principle that knowledge is always the product of “regimes” of truth. But this is in itself necessarily a definitive statement on truth. The activists are thereby attempting to smuggle-in their own version of “normativity” – “cryptonormativity,” as Habermas referred to it (“crypto-” meaning “hidden”) (see Sayer, 2000: 49). What this amounts to, of course, is hypocrisy, and many people are not buying it. The often aggressive tone and the double standards hinder the chances of attaining understanding because “[t]he academic left, after all, is fiercely judgmental and highly vociferous, though all the while it is eager to denounce judgmental behavior in its opponents” (Gross and Levitt, 1994: 254). This is why Sayer has referred to the postmodern tendency to invert the focus on dualisms (e.g. their privileging the subjective over the objective), to speak from a position of pure authority, and to retain its very own relativistic “regime of truth” in doing so, as a “pomo flip” (2000: 63). But now, with the rise of “woke” ideology in mainstream society, it is not only those on university campuses that need to be concerned about the eccentricities and dangers of postmodern thinking. In the next chapter, we shall therefore look more closely at some of the real-world effects of this quasi-religious crusade as it has swung, typically hastily and often catastrophically, into action.

5

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy Woke “Justice” and the Sleep of Reason

With its imperviousness to reason, its dogmatism and its evangelical moralism over identity politics, the woke movement has been described by any number of commentators as displaying all of the fervour of a new religious authority that is attempting to establish itself in Western societies today (see, e.g. McWhorter, 2021; Doyle, 2022). Lacking a deity, wokeism might not satisfy certain sociological definitions of “religion” in the strictest sense, but it displays almost every other hallmark. In its similarities to other forms of fanaticism – such as Communism and nationalism – woke entails what some sociologists have referred to as “­surrogate religiosity” (see Hamilton, 1995: 20). And as the previous chapter pointed out, the scriptural basis of this new belief system derives largely from the rather fringe postmodernist perspectives of various social science and cultural studies courses found on our university campuses – it is not so much from the Church of Sciento­ logy, then, as the Church of Sociology. Yet while Marxism and contemporary social theory certainly inform aspects of the woke perspective (see Lindsay, 2022), we should also be mindful that the woke agenda is definitely not some kind of valiant bottom-up rebellion against authority, but is rather “a ‘revolution from above’ that [has] ‘promoted the material interests and intangible values of the college-­ educated minority of managers and professionals, who have succeeded old fashioned ­bourgeois capitalists as the dominant elite’ ” (Michael Lind cited in Williams, 2022: 57). In short, “woke” is therefore a new orthodoxy, and it retains a classpower dimension. Accordingly, the safetyism, authoritarianism and conformism of the contemporary university are features that have since been imbedded into every area of our lives. As journalist Andrew Sullivan (2018) puts it, “we all live on campus now,” because suddenly we too find ourselves subject to mandatory speech codes in all areas of the public square; the condescending and counter-productive identitybased training programmes in our workplaces; “cultural appropriation” mythology; gender ideology; overtly racialised politics; and a great many other divisive and controversial ideas that come ready-packaged as part of the new “victimhood culture” which, as noted in the previous chapter, is steadily redefining contemporary Western societies (Campbell and Manning, 2018). Indeed, the irresistible success of such sweeping changes would not have been possible in the first place without the infiltration of the new university-educated elites into the administrative DOI: 10.4324/9781003039822-5

98  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy positions of our major corporations and social institutions. Despite this, it seems the activists – many of whom now wield genuine power and “privilege” over ­others – sincerely believe that they are valiantly tearing-down some kind of oppressive, out-dated, illiberal system and replacing it with a more liberal and tolerant one. And they have certainly duped (and intimidated) many others into believing (or accepting) this narrative as well. The purpose of this chapter is to explore how all of these changes have ­happened and what they could mean for the future of certain traditional Western values, ­particularly the rights to free enquiry and free expression as the cornerstones of liberty, creativity and therefore such things as open intellectual and journalistic pursuits. Beginning with a discussion of the origins of woke, we shall consider its implications for conventional class-based politics in sociology while examining its spread with reference to numerous examples in various contexts. Finally, I shall argue that woke policies often in fact reinforce the very kinds of stereotypes and discriminations that the movement allegedly seeks to remove at the same time as it produces a whole set of new judgements and dangers. For these and other reasons, I argue in this chapter that the rest of us, a significant majority, are compelled to wake up to the dangers of “woke” ideology and to challenge it in turn. The Origins and Development of “Woke” The terms “woke” and “stay woke” date back to the 1940s, and were first used by African Americans who were actively seeking to remain politically cognisant and sensitised to social injustices taking place in the United States at the time (Ng, 2021). For the social justice activists of today, however, upholding all of the principles of postmodernist discourse, being “woke,” is concerned with a much wider range of issues. Rooted primarily in postcolonial and feminist discourses, it means adopting a kind of militant position that is constantly on-guard against a white, patriarchal, capitalist, sexist, racist, ableist system which is necessarily adversarial, oppressive and harmful towards all types of minorities in Western societies. In the words of one proponent, “Woke extends to conversations around art, politics, economic and social class, gender inequality, trans rights and environmentalism. But woke in its original incarnation rests on activism and blackness” (Hunt, 2020). “Conversation” would be a fine thing indeed, but it is becoming rather a precious commodity today. Paradoxically, conversation can often be most difficult of all with self-described “liberals,” who are typically unable to sustain a civilised discussion as soon as they meet any form of opposition: “I’m disengaging!” “You’re an asshole!” (see, e.g. Boghossian and Lindsay, 2019). You see, wokeness, being oriented towards political “awareness” around various kinds of social injustice and harm, is already shot through with a kind of moralistic urgency, and this often renders “conversation” a non-starter by definition. This no doubt also explains why woke is often so uncompromising, and why those who appear to subscribe to its sensibilities are usually eager to evangelise and broadcast their own sense of virtue. Yet, at the same time, oddly, these same individuals usually do not wish to be labelled as woke, owing to the word’s negative connotations. To some on the

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy  99 inside of the movement, predictably, this is the fault of people on the political right, who have allegedly “toxicised” the term in order to “insult” those on the left (see Ng, 2021). (In fact, as we’ll see once again in this chapter, the terms “left” and “right” themselves are becoming increasingly difficult to uphold today.) But let us indulge this notion for a moment. Even if we accept the left-right distinction as stated, in true postmodernist fashion, Ng’s explanation places way too much emphasis on the mere usage of words; for it is not the label “woke” that should concern anyone nearly as much as the often eccentric actions and thinking of those associated with wokeness itself: those traits are what usually invite the questions and the ridicule. In any case, such squabbling has produced a situation in which the word “woke” has become the proverbial hot potato that nobody wishes to lay claim to. As the journalist and former academic Joanna Williams puts it, the term is now both “ubiquitous” and “elusive” in our culture (2022: 2). But as Williams also points out, whether the activists like it or not, it is they who first co-opted that word to describe themselves, and, more importantly, it is the word that dominates the current sociopolitical scene in Western contexts. This is not simply a figment of Williams’ (or anyone else’s) imagination either, because the activists themselves often express this very same sentiment: “I can’t think of a word that reflects the era as well as ‘woke’ does” (see Hunt, 2020). Instead of focusing on petty labels and empty platitudes, Williams actually goes into detail about the substantive changes that transformed woke from an understandable and particular ethnic disposition in a certain socio-historical context into the profoundly institutionalised and confusing global (yet largely unpopular) movement that it has become today. She identifies one significant source of the problem: radical alterations to the administrative structures of British and American institutions since at least the early 1970s, which have given a whole new qualitative meaning to the term “elite” (as referring to those who are actively engaged in social management and in driving moral standards). Changes at this level, she suggests, have brought about a much more nuanced and sub-divided system of “elites” today which complements those in governmental office and aristocratic positions. At this point, the reader is reminded of the discussion from the previous chapter of Bourdieu’s (1984) concept of symbolic capitals, which explains how bourgeois values have traditionally set the standards, and how the upper classes have generally maintained their privileged positions by operationalising a superior knowledge of the resources available to them (their very own resources, in effect, given the traditional social hierarchies). But Williams argues that this sociological mainstay has since become rather outdated, because it is no longer clear that “bourgeois” values occupy this superior role anymore (as part of a conventionally Marxian/“capitalist” class model of stratification). Instead, expansions in education and the civil service sectors have produced today’s much more complex structure: a two-tier system comprising “governing” and “non-governing” sections of elites (Williams, 2022: 54–55). The non-governing strand would include personnel in the media, the academy and the arts, referred to collectively as the “cultural elite” (scientists, civil servants, white-collar workers, managers, intellectuals and others). This cultural elite wields its own kind of power and influence while nevertheless forming part of

100  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy the broader and interconnected systems of organisation that define contemporary societies. Acknowledging this reconfiguration of the managerial hierarchy is vital for understanding how and why it is that Western societies now find themselves in an almost constant state of confusion and contradiction: because at least some of those who comprise the multi-layered system of influence have certain competing values and are creating something of a moral, social and psychological transition. And those who are suffering the most in a whole new set of ways amid these changes are the ones who have always paid the heaviest price: the lower classes. Having been trained in Social Justice scholarship with its hierarchised systems of victimhood, the cultural elite have now turned their attention and their powers increasingly towards a proliferation of new concerns, and away from traditional class politics. Indeed, it has been noted that the snobbish middle classes have developed a new disdain for the “uneducated,” (overwhelmingly white) working-class “plebs” at the bottom of the pile, and have now completely abandoned them as a populist group who would probably be more inclined to support right-wing racist fascism than a fight for equal rights for all (O’Neill, 2015). One might think of this new tactic, then, as something like an investment in stocks and shares: pound-for-pound, there is now much greater punch in areas of identity politics that are not class-based but more marginal. It is becoming increasingly clear that this is what the overwhelmingly New-Leftist group of cultural elites has been investing in for quite some time because such an agenda appears to legitimate their activities. “Woke” is therefore actually a moralistic movement of and for the upper classes against the lower classes, which is what makes the constant talk of “privilege” so astonishing when it is directed at people who may well be on the breadline themselves. Thus we have entered the era of what some have referred to as “woke capitalism,” a term coined by journalist Ross Douthat to describe “how companies signal their support for progressive causes in order to maintain their influence in society” (see Piccoli, 2022). This has led to the adoption of Social Justice principles by global corporations at every level of operation (Young, 2019). “Woke capitalism” has also been referred to as “stakeholder capitalism” on account of its concern for both people (in the form of customers, investors and workforces) and the natural environment, because such concerns should be in the interests of companies that wish to sustain their success into the future (Hutton, 2022). In this way, CEOs and company bosses have insisted that their concerns are not political at all – and certainly not “woke” – but have been cast with one eye on the future in a changing world. On the surface, this is certainly a rational approach, but it is also difficult not to see through the hypocrisy and cynicism, especially as the gap between the rich and poor did in fact widen even further during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 (see Neate, 2020). Vivek Ramaswamy (2021) describes woke capitalism as a “scam” that is designed only to increase the status and profits of such corporations, who could hardly care less about the lives of the poor and the vulnerable as, for example, they continue to avoid paying taxes; as they expand their businesses into territories with horrendous human rights records; and all while they effortlessly continue to virtue-signal using exclusive access to influential media messaging.

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy  101 Woke capitalism is about pretending to care, and having the power and luxury to claim and broadcast a hollow sense of self-satisfaction. The decidedly selective “justice” of woke ideology has therefore created a uniquely perverse situation in which the super-wealthy – the true beneficiaries of historical, widespread exploitation – present themselves as the radicals while the majority of the rest of the population are cast as bigoted and “privileged” dinosaurs in need of correction or removal. Subsequently, many lower to middling white employees  – the easy targets  – have been forced to undergo mandatory “diversity training” and “unconscious bias training” in their workplaces, and have been compelled, at the risk of losing their jobs, to sit and listen to the testimonies of non-white colleagues or guests who share anecdotes about their experiences, or those of family members. Most evidence shows that these initiatives are “likely ineffectual” (Saad, 2020: 61) and that they “may even exacerbate existing prejudice” (Ahmed, 2022). Moreover, in its first week of opening in January 2021, Helen Pluckrose’s “Counterweight” website, set up to offer support to those subjected to such “positive discrimination” policies, was “inundated” with requests for help (see Ellery, 2021). According to Caccavale (2019), the earliest courses of this kind date back to as early as the 1960s and, again, were introduced not by governments but by corporations in response to the various rights movements at that time. Today they have become immensely popular, and they now draw heavily on certain principles associated with contemporary postmodern theory. A strategy of Robin DiAngelo’s (2018) White Fragility thesis, for example, is to make white people feel “uncomfortable” by confronting them with racism, because it might reveal to them some of their own prejudices, and her book has become instructive in the new programme of “justice” meted out in these ways (see Pluckrose, 2020). Such programmes are accusatory and threatening by definition, and have been shown to be counter-productive, producing distress, resentment and anger (see Clark, 2020). But anyone who objects to the examinations, with so much as a rolling of the eyes, necessarily demonstrates their “white fragility” or must therefore be a racist, according to DiAngelo’s (2018) and Kendi’s (2019) terms. This is what is sometimes called a “Kafka trap” – and, as in religious traditions, it rests on a notion of guilt by association. It says: “Admit to your racism, or we’ll call you a ‘racist’!” Ultimately, this kind of intimidating tactic typically forces over­whelming compliance: the human need for social ties and acceptance, the pressures of “moral” scrutiny, and “the fear of isolation,” create a phenomenon that sociologists call a “spiral of silence” (Bishop, 1998) or “pluralistic ignorance” (O’Gorman, 1986), which is a crucial method of control in ensuring the maintenance of various tribal practices. Even when victims of such bullying can sense that something is amiss, they overwhelmingly choose to remain silent. Those implicated in the crime of intergenerational racism so defined, though confused, are therefore reluctant to ask why they are being accused of it. Indeed, simply asking for evidence to corroborate an opinion in the context of identity politics is now considered confrontational by definition because the very notion of evidence pertains to “a system of discourses and knowledge production that was built by . . . white Western men”

102  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy (Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020: Location 513–517). Interestingly, this aversion to evidence is, again, not unlike those in established religions, which require trust only on faith: “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it” (Matthew 11:39). And “He who is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30). What results is a culture of scapegoating and new oppressor-victim social categories that must not be questioned under any circumstances. In other words, we have a new form of dogmatism. All of these explain the tidal wave of woke politics that has hit Western societies over the last five to ten years. New teams of administrators and managers (“diversity” tsars, e.g. – yes, “tsars” – that’s the word that gets used without a hint of irony) have populated the upper-level positions of our organisations and have started dishing out “justice,” woke style. But the problem with the “diversity” that is promoted is that it is so obviously superficial, and the convenient target of the “justice” is anyone who belongs to a traditionally “dominant” group or majority. The true purpose of classical liberalism works best when it pursues equality for all against autocracies of various kinds (see Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020). But, as Williams has pointed out, “[t]he woke are primarily obsessed with just two characteristics: race and gender” (2022: 195). And protecting these two categories of individual is the chief goal of a moral crusade that provides the new cultural elite with its sense of purpose, its mission. Yet it is not so clear why the new form of justice has to be so barbed and spiteful, as it clearly is. The current “moral” programme is patently not concerned with creating fairer and more cohesive societies, but seems more intent on divide and rule. It is not so much about good manners as following dogmatic instructions, checking who’s on the special list of people whom one should never “offend” under any circumstances, and following the straight path. It is not so much about levelling up as levelling down; not so much about a redistribution of wealth and opportunity, as a redistribution of pain. And then “progressives” wonder why they struggle to recruit enough “allies” to their great cause. With this in mind, one thing I find extraordinary about the postmodernists and Social Justice activists is that they seem incapable, or perhaps unwilling, to see the irony in the imposition of the recent and novel forms of surveillance and control that their Foucault-inspired activities in identity politics are helping to influence and bring into force. Handing governments, employers and other organisations the legitimacy to introduce a raft of new disciplinary powers to threaten, intimidate and expel the relatively powerless subjects within them for any lack of conformity seems like an odd way to fight for “justice.” And abuses of such powers have already been seen on numerous occasions – as in the case of James Damore, the Google employee who was fired for simply stating his belief that gendered behavioural differences between males and females are based in real, biological distinctions. Such incidents are happening at the same time as certain others are clearly being judged according to different standards, as when the black female comedian Sophie Duker made a joke on British TV about black people wanting to “kill whitey,” for which she was instantly treated to a cacophony of laughter from her fellow presenters, both white and black. For good measure, the BBC simply

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy  103 dismissed the 13,000 complaints it reportedly received as a result. It is not that I believe that Duker should have received punishment for the quip (I don’t). However, the double standard by which some people are treated in relation to others on account of “identity” should be clear, especially given that scientific opinion on the accuracy of Damore’s internal memo was, at the very least, split (Eggert, 2017), and that the comments were not part of an inappropriate or distasteful joke. But again, it is now assumed by some that black people cannot be discriminatory, even if they try, just as it is assumed that certain others are fair game for condemnation, even if they merely ask a reasonable question or express an opinion (see Campbell and Manning, 2018: 52). Again, this is Marcuse’s (1965) “repressive tolerance” in action. Nothing could emphasise this new, bizarre (and particularly racialised) moral hierarchy better than the tweets sent in 2016 by San Francisco schools official Alison Collins (a black female) as she mocked Asian-Americans online for using “white supremacy” to “get ahead” in society, referring to them as “house n*****s” for good measure (see Steinbuch, 2021). The Social Justice mob would normally be the first to condemn racial slurs, often calling for the offender’s job. Usually, “offence archaeologists” will trawl social media platforms and reach back years in order to root somebody out and ruin their reputation: “offence archaeology,” a sinister and Foucauldian-sounding epithet, was a term coined by Freddie deBoer (see Williams, 2022: 38) and is associated with left-wing activism. Yet, despite huge pressure, at this writing, Collins is still confidently holding firm, defending her position amid calls for her resignation – in her case, “offence archaeology” has proven ineffective. Similarly, shortly before the passing of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, Uju Anya, a Nigerian-American Professor of Linguistics at Carnegie Mellon University wished the ailing 96-year-old monarch an “excruciating death” on Twitter (Wilford, 2022). Again, not only has Anya survived the resulting backlash, she has even suggested that the criticism she received was racially motivated, and has been able to rely on the support of her students and some faculty members. Her sad and regrettable comments suggest that “privilege” is now anything but a “white” phenomenon. But this is precisely the kind of effect that a victimhood culture can produce – a situation in which skin tone may determine one’s morality and one’s right to lose all self-control. By the logic of intersectionality, we must all learn to see superficial characteristics before anything else today; for instance, we must see “race” and its history inscribed into every individual, rather than seeing the person beyond, and we must use race and racism now as a means of correcting the past (Kendi, 2019). This, of course, expressly goes against the “dream” of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (who certain sections of today’s woke movement nevertheless claim as an inspiration). It also goes against what many other social scientists would advocate. Not only is it unnecessary to see race first, but it is also rather dangerous because it encourages tribalism and resentment. Again, Haidt (2012) points out that “confirmation bias” is a powerful emotion in all humans, even among minds that are trained to disavow it (like those of scientists). In the case of scientists, Harris refers to this as “belief bias” (2010: 132). We are all capable of being mistaken, and if belief bias is

104  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy a reality even for scientists whose training is supposed to help them guard specifically against it, then what could it mean for those of us not trained in such ways? According to Haidt, “people care about their groups, whether those be racial, regional, religious or political” (2012: 85, original emphasis). But this does not mean that such prejudices ought to be encouraged; if anything, it means that they should not. As Lasch-Quinn has put it, this way of seeing everything through a racialised and historicised prism “traps everyone in . . . a ‘harangue-flagellation ritual’ ” which is depressing, destructive and highly dangerous (cited in Williams, 2022: 160). Haidt (2012) discusses something that psychologists have called “the hive switch,” which is based on a neuro-chemical response in the brain and is a product of humanity’s evolutionary past, a result of psychological developments forged within our grouped lives. Unlike postmodernists, who read most phenomena in terms of politicised racialisation, then, Haidt is pointing to a tendency that is not exclusive to one “race” or another, but one which is universally human. The “hive switch” can function either for the good or for the bad; it is what explains the potential for both virulent hatred on the one hand, and a sense of groupishness, togetherness and/or belonging on the other. “Oxytocin, the very ‘love hormone’ that binds us together into groups, is the same hormone that makes us wary and suspicious of the ‘other’ ” (Kisin, 2022: 42). This is why woke ideology – which emphasises and teaches that racism and discrimination are necessarily unidirectional and ubiquitous phenomena – is so mistaken and so perilous. It fosters hatred and legitimates the dehumanisation of certain targets in society, expressly on the basis of identities. But as Haidt continues, “There’s nothing special about race. You can make people care less about race by drowning race differences in a sea of similarities, shared goals, and mutual interdependencies” (2012: 239). Today’s activists are clearly not doing any of these things. Exaggerated and deeply self-contradictory, woke is becoming a danger to the fundamentals of public life as it undermines social cohesion and even basic interactions between people in various social contexts, and it is not absurd to assume that that is precisely its primary goal. The “microaggression,” for example, has been defined by the sociologist Frank Furedi as “an assault on everyday life” (cited in Campbell and Manning, 2018: 39). Instead of simply engaging one another in conversations and equal exchanges of various kinds, the people of the social world are now required to remain mindful of their “positions” in a predetermined social hierarchy according to the “intersectional” matrixes of identity politics. For “white” people, this primarily means being aware of one’s “privilege” (which apparently exists automatically on account of skin colour, not individual circumstances), while for black and non-white people, it means remaining vigilant with regard to the routine offensiveness and “oppression” that apparently surrounds them. Meanwhile women, and especially white ones (or “Karens”) need to remain quiet while their sports competitions are being systematically destroyed by bigger and stronger trans-gender athletes (as a result of having been through male puberty), and while their spaces are being invaded even by pre-operative, biological males who wish to live their lives as “women” (even as biology itself is being erased as a concept). But if anybody objects for any reason, an insult or label shall be used immediately to discredit them, and the risks are potentially

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy  105 catastrophic in social terms: loss of reputation, “friends” and livelihood. Compassion towards those with conditions like, for example, gender dysphoria, and compromises reached for the good of all concerned (including women), are apparently off the table because such conciliations would be akin to “erasing” a certain ­person’s identity or invalidating their “lived experience”; thus “Transgender ­activists, in particular, are notoriously hostile to discussion” (Williams, 2022: 240). “No ­debate!” comes the dogmatic cry from our “tolerant” progressives: “Trans women are women!” The instruction to all of us (but principally white people) is to “stay in your lane” as you try to navigate your way through a now thoroughly awkward and differentiated social world. Many have argued that wokeness is the contemporary manifestation of what Shelby Steele referred to as “white guilt” (1990). It represents one aspect of a collective self-loathing in Western societies that has been developing for decades – the Germans call it “Anti-Deutsch” (see Nagle, 2017). Racism is no longer treated as a concept; it’s treated as a category of person, particularly in America, but also in other Western contexts (Harker, 2002). “To be white is to be racist, period!” (an Oklahoma high school teacher cited in Campbell and Manning, 2018: 133). Now internalised and disseminated by multiple generations of people, it does indeed seem that American society, in particular, is dealing with the psychological trauma of its own internal social history in a very public way (some white Americans were even observed kneeling before BLM protestors, crying and begging for forgiveness during the protests in 2020). “Woke” is primarily a white obsession; and, having its origins on university campuses, it derives, ironically, from those of genuine privilege. What wokeness is essentially about is a fringe of mostly white people (wracked by guilt or pressured by peers) trying to outdo one another in their efforts to show how righteous they are. This is why the notion of “virtue signalling” has been applied to their behaviour (see McWhorter, 2020). In the new “culture wars,” wokeness is simply a means by which certain members of the educated classes can punish, and set themselves apart in new ways from, the “riffraff” beneath them. To be “white” now is to embody evil, and even the sitting American President is apparently getting behind the notion (Athey, 2021). In 2021, one of Prince Harry’s staff, Genevieve Roth (herself a white woman), suggested that white people are all racists and are infected with racism at a “cellular level” (Ward, 2021). It is simply impossible to imagine this kind of claim being made sincerely against any other group in society, regardless of who makes it. “White people” (and only white people) are assumed to have inherited the sins of their fathers, as in the case of Augustinian “original sin” – passed down the generations via insemination. It has been noted that Saint Augustine casts “long-shadows” over Western culture (Warner, 2010: 94; see also Bruckner, 2010). Much of what we are witnessing appears to be a new and even more bizarre manifestation of his doctrine, being imposed now in racialised and secular, even scientific, terms. Millions of white people are interna­ lising this self-loathing as the height of virtuousness while demanding that others do likewise (see Goad, 2018). Claiming a sense of shame, those participating in this cultish behaviour are apparently attempting to promote their own virtuousness, taking to social media

106  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy platforms to reach the largest audience possible when making a show of berating others for not accepting their share of the sin. But as the novelist Lionel Shriver has pointed out, genuine shame is a crushing emotion, leading its sufferers to isolation, depression and even suicide. Genuine shame would probably not lead to virtuesignalling behaviour on such a wide scale. There is no genuine sense of shame in any of this, only a kind of vanity and arrogance in the name of a novel and dubious moral supremacy; “shame” has therefore become “the new ostentation” (Shriver, 2021). The sentiment itself is not quite so new, as Nietzsche once observed well over 100 years ago: “He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted” (see Graham, 2014: 44). But either way, woke is most unlike certain other religions we could name because, in its case, “[t]he aim is not forgiveness, but perpetual penance” (Williams, 2022: 161). The Grave Threats of Woke Politics Having rights, and fighting for them, never came easy. As A.C. Grayling points out, free expression is the cornerstone of all other rights and privileges in civil societies because it gives a voice to everyone (2007: 19). No government of any stripe has ever needed much of an excuse to restrict and control such freedoms in one way or another. As Trevor Paglen (2013) recognised a decade ago, given our dependence on digital technologies today, the preconditions for what he referred to as the “turnkey tyrannies” of the future have been in place for some time. The recent Covid-19 global pandemic was a perfect excuse for governments around the world to introduce, or at least experiment with, such digital surveillance technologies, literally at the flick of a switch (QR codes to be scanned; “track and trace” systems; colourcoded “traffic light” Covid passports denying and allowing entry into restaurants and other places). Alongside these potential restrictions on our movements, we have already noted that the self-proclaimed “left-wing-liberal” dominated digital and non-digital spaces (social media, academia and the mass media) have become heavily policed and increasingly intolerant and censorious over that same timeframe. Although by no means alone in these exploits, an ever more authoritarian left is therefore now firmly part of this perennial problem, particularly in its relentless campaign against free expression, demanding the “cancellation” and punishment of those who fail to comply with woke principles. All of these encourage big government and play into the hands of any authority that wishes to tighten its grip on control. And one could be forgiven for fearing that it may already be too late for us to alter our course, especially as Kisin puts things into alarming perspective: In 2017, a total of 3,300 people in the UK were arrested for things they said on social media. For the benefit of contrast, the equivalent number was just 400 in Russia, a place everyone (quite rightly) thinks is authoritarian. Worse still, the definition of hate speech is constantly evolving and expanding across Europe, covering more areas of contention, meaning it’s inevitable that things will get worse before they get better. (2022: 70)

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy  107 How could this be possible? Well, in Britain today, you can be reported to the authorities for having “offended” someone, and, if reported, you will be investigated for hate crimes, regardless of evidence. This kind of “safetyism,” based on “hate speech” policies and “microaggressions,” along with a total disregard for the value of evidence, comes straight out of left-wing-dominated campus culture. Given the primacy of subjective interpretation or “standpoint theory,” all that an accuser has to do is find what you say or do offensive, regardless of intent, and you could find yourself in serious trouble in a host of European countries now (see Coleman, 2016). In Britain, for instance, websites exist which people can use, even anonymously, to provide your information to the authorities. The police could then show up on your doorstep to tell you that they need to “check your thinking,” as Harry Miller discovered in January  2019, following tweets he’d sent that some other Twitter users had apparently found “transphobic” (Lovett, 2020). (“Checking” a person’s “thinking” is expressly Orwellian.) Even if not charged because of insufficient evidence, your name will be permanently linked with a “hate crime” investigation, and it will show on a criminal record background check, potentially affecting your life chances significantly thereafter. In Scotland, at the time of writing in 2021, the government is presiding over the most draconian speech code laws ever discussed in modern British history. Included in the bill is the suggestion gleefully made by “Justice secretary Humza Yousaf” that “people could even be prosecuted for words spoken in their own homes” (Jayanetti, 2021). Again, these are not historical testimonies from the Soviet Bloc or other parts of the East, but recent developments in twenty-first-century Britain, and “identity politics” has been the catalyst. As noted in the previous chapter on campus culture, the internet has also undoubtedly been a telling factor in the culture wars, often literally rendering our interactions in the public square instantaneous. The speed and super-abundance of the internet, and the potential benefits it can bring, are almost the stuff of magic, which is why the technology was hailed as a new kind of Guttenberg press when it first emerged. But these same traits have also had negative consequences, which are actually quite ironic. One need only think of a platform like Twitter, which allows only for 280 characters in a single message, as the perfect example of an internet platform that is hardly built for a prolonged and intelligent treatise on life (which is probably what explains its popularity with virtue-signalling media personalities and some academics). With its short messages and “re-tweets,” not to mention its long-term control by woke elites prior to Elon Musk’s takeover in October 2022, Twitter has in fact been the perfect platform for group-think; it is really nothing better than an echo-chamber for activists and trolls. This makes the internet a sort of hotbed for the kinds of moral panics we see erupting on it almost on a daily basis. It is important to realise that the internet, like every other medium before it, has certain reciprocal effects on us, its users, at the level of the brain, but it also adapts in turn and doesn’t just exist in a passive state. These dual processes are discussed in detail in Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows (2010), which refers to a range of scientific data showing that the internet actively changes the human brain at a neurological level through our interactions with it. Owing to the sheer ubiquity and

108  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy variety of information now available at our fingertips and the fierce competition for our attention (a multi-billion-dollar global industry), online information becomes, by design, increasingly simplified, efficient and narrow. In turn, this drives demand towards ever-greater speed, familiarity and concision in a symbiotic relationship. Our cognitive abilities are affected; our attention span and memory are weakened; we are distracted by a dizzying array of attractions, like a child in a toy shop. So we want more rapid results in our searches; we are less likely to read anything in depth; we are less likely to read a whole book; we only want to dip our feet; we seek confirmation biases; and we want bitesize chunks of information, images, slogans and soundbites, as opposed to deep immersion in a complex and challenging experience: “the Net,” Carr writes, “seizes our attention only to scatter it” (2010: 124). This makes us less likely to be able to process complex data, and much less likely to actually want to engage with it. We are therefore primed for our interactions with the ephemeral online world, and we are only too ready to accept the popular opinions it disseminates. This is how we get our “news” now; this is how we “learn” about the world, past and present. Lukianoff and Haidt (2018) have also emphasised the potential risks associated with over-exposure to the internet, but this time in reference to younger people, and particularly girls, who may become the targets of internet trolls who wish to abuse them. But the authors have also cautioned against excessive mollycoddling (Haidt and Lukianoff, 2017). They have pointed out that, however well-intentioned our culture of “safetyism” might be, it is not going to benefit anybody in the long term. It is important to point out that Lukianoff and Haidt (2018) are unequivocal in that they are not adopting an insensitive stance and simply telling young people to “man-up” or “pick themselves up by their bootstraps,” but they do caution those in positions of responsibility that teaching our young people to be mortally afraid of mere words is precisely what we should not be doing: “Speech is not violence. Treating it as such is an interpretive choice, and it is a choice that increases pain and suffering while preventing other, more effective responses” (Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018: 97). Referring to the example of food allergies, they argue that exposing young people to potential irritations is a way of helping them to build up immunity to them. The very same thing is true when it comes to interactions on the internet. Lukianoff and Haidt adopt a mantra which emphasises the need for a dose of adversity in life: “Prepare the Child for the Road, Not the Road for the Child” (2018: 236). Greg Lukianoff knows this from first-hand experience, having had his own traumas in his life and having been a recipient of the cognitive behavioural therapy that he now champions. Yet the advice of experts like Lukianoff and Haidt is not being heeded. The general trend in Western societies is moving towards increasing censorship, and the feelings of the vulnerable are being used as an incontestable excuse. This inevitably hurts the ability to discuss any important topic openly because the topic would not be “important” in the first place if it were not potentially controversial or political in some way. This means that we lose a crucial component of the democratic process, and we risk universal infantilisation. But, as Lukianoff puts it, “the idea that we can truly tackle hard issues while remaining universally

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy  109 inoffensive  –  an impossible pipe dream even if it were desirable  – seems to be growing increasingly popular” (Lukianoff, 2014: Location 198). New controls on speech are being demanded all the time, producing a proverbial race to the bottom (both for our levels of tolerance and for our rights) across sectors. Some refer to the repression of online information as “the Streisand effect,” named after the famous singer who filed a lawsuit against a photographer for creating publicly available images that incidentally featured her home in a study on the effects of soil erosion on the Californian coastline; additionally, a term coined by the Ukrainian-American legal scholar Eugene Volokh, “censorship envy,” is used to describe the tit-fortat tendency of demanding bans on speech by one side in a debate in response to the banning of speech belonging to one’s own side (see Lukianoff and Weiss, 2020). It is mechanisms like these that perpetuate the downward spiral that we currently find ourselves experiencing when it comes to our rights. Ironically, no thanks to woke politics, free speech is once again becoming the preserve of the wealthy and privileged (BBC, 2020). One of the greatest threats posed by woke is the notion of “cultural appropriation,” which is an extension of the microaggression. It is defined as “taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions or artefacts from someone else’s culture without permission. This can include unauthorised use of another culture’s dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine or religious symbols” (cited in Williams, 2022: 34–35). In the woke world, it therefore seems that cultures are the new NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria). The notion of “staying in one’s own lane” is directly relevant to cultural appropriation. But apart from being a racist and divisive idea in and of itself (in that cultures must never mix), cultural appropriation is extremely corrosive as well. It damages the potential of interpersonal exchange; it denies the power of imagination; and tragically, it is terminal for free thought, free expression, and the cultural category of fiction. The novelist Lionel Shriver had a well-publicised run-in with a Sudanese-Australian lady after she gave a speech in Brisbane on the concept of cultural appropriation. When asked about whether she regards the campaign against fiction as an issue of power, Shriver replied: “Oh, this is definitely about power. But a lot of this is about the performance of injury rather than the injury itself. And that is an assertion of power: We can shut you up” (in Hopper, 2016, original emphases). One argument made by the woke is that white actors and others in cultural productions have exploited the race of others, such as “the black minstrel artist of 1830s America” (Convery, 2016). But Shriver points out that nothing in her speech, or in her work, says anything racist; it simply attacks an idea, which she should be perfectly at liberty to do (Hopper, 2016). In fact, if Shriver’s fiction does anything, it allows her and her many readers to try to bridge divides and experience the lives of others. Yet there are even more fundamental problems with the idea of cultural appropriation. What does it mean to “own” a culture based on heritage or ethnic appearances? As sociologists should very well know, the idea that there is any pure culture that can be “owned” by a people is in itself a highly dubious (and dangerous) one: “societies do not invent their entire culture; much of it comes to them from diffusion” (Kunin, 2003: 9). For tens of thousands of years, humans have shared

110  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy goods and ideas; it is ridiculous to think that we ought to have been “staying in our lanes” exclusively for that whole time. Perhaps Starbucks should shut down all of their coffee shops, except those in Yemen and Ethiopia (the two countries in which most experts believe the first coffee was brewed), and should hand over their shops in those countries to the locals. And more to the point, perhaps white “progressives” should stop being hypocrites themselves: that is, stop being “woke,” since, as we’ve already discovered, the irony of ironies is that this kind of activism was started by African Americans in the 1950s. Just as Jesus may “giveth” to, or “taketh away” from, the people of this world (St. John 1:29), so the power of woke ideology may do likewise. In its efforts to “include” the marginal by systematically removing (or at least severely compromising) the rights of everyone else, woke creates even more trouble than it solves, and it is not at all clear why the quest for “equality” necessarily has to be such a zero-sum game. The new attacks on free expression that have been prevalent for some time now are the most obvious example (see Lukianoff, 2014; Dimbleby, 2015; Watson, 2020; Hunt, 2021), and it is commonly acknowledged that attacks on free speech will always disproportionately affect those who need it most in the long run; the dangers entailed by the admittance of pre-operation transwomen into female prisons, toilets and changing facilities amount to the effective erosion of women’s spaces (Joyce, 2021: 163); the casual misandry that many believe now generally infuses Western societies (see https://avoiceformen.com/category/misandry/); the “viewpoint discrimination” (Verber, 2021), epitomised in the “cancel culture” on our universities, and now widespread in mainstream culture, promotes clear left-wing biases when it comes to who can and cannot say what, making those with conservative opinions less likely to speak up (Cohen, 2020; Clarence-Smith, 2022). Again, none of this does anybody any favours because it discourages debate and robs all of us of the chance to assess a range of viewpoints, which might help us to constantly revise and refine our own perspectives. As the sociologist Steve Bruce points out: If everyone shares the same beliefs, they are not beliefs; they are just how the world is. Any world view is most powerful, not when it is supported by aggressive propaganda but when it is so much taken for granted that it does not require such promotion. (2011: 37) Although the woke perspective regularly flies in the face of liberties and reason itself, and is certainly not shared by everyone – in fact being a most unpopular trend (see Campbell and Manning, 2018: 39; Savage, 2020)  – it is nevertheless rapidly becoming precisely this kind of worldview in Western societies: a “how the world is” kind of dogma that is considered unassailable. Perhaps, in addition to the persuasive intimidation tactics already discussed, it is simply a tragedy of the commons, or yet another symptom of the inertia attributed to what Baudrillard referred to as “the silent majorities” (1983) in democratic systems. Whatever the explanation, a relatively small group of empowered people are clearly carrying

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy  111 the day, because woke has become so ubiquitous now. “The Italian political scientist Gaetano Mosca said that an organised minority can control the disorganised majority” (Husain, 2021: 242). This observation is certainly applicable to the woke agenda, especially as it causes disorientation among the uninitiated and takes many by surprise with its capriciousness. Williams observes the sociological implications contained in the fact that “demonstrating woke opinions allows its members to differentiate themselves from the masses. Expressing such views is how a would-be member advances” (2022: 53). The reader is reminded that language is crucial to the postmodern activist, as per the teachings of figures like Lyotard (1979) and Derrida (2001). And the changeable nature of word meanings in woke ideology and cancel culture is the way in which the tight membership of the movement is monitored. The constantly shifting language ensures that “trip wires” are regularly laid for the unwary (Murray, 2019: 153). One can find oneself expressing wrong-think in the seminar room, the workplace, at the dinner table and certainly on social media platforms like Twitter. Any uttering of “wrong-speak” is sure to provoke an instant response and a moral reprimand. Words that were once politically correct, such as “transexual”, are now considered outdated or even offensive. In this way, language is used to demarcate an in-group of acceptable people and an out-group considered to have transgressed the norms set out by activists. (Williams, 2022: 180) This kind of behaviour, which determines entry and exclusion on the basis of lan­ guage and opinion, is what I refer to as an ideological pat-down. A way of checking people out at a kind of imaginary security barrier, the ideological pat-down is a most shallow means of identifying the “good” people from the “bad”, a postmodern way of separating the sheep from the goats based on the latest trendy terminology deemed acceptable by those in the know. Most importantly, though, this kind of exclusionary tactic now determines whether jobs may be kept or lost, “friendships” maintained, social media accounts retained and so on, and this does not bode well for the future of liberal-democratic societies in which free thought and expression, sincere differences of opinion, and challenges to all kinds of authority, should be cherished above all else. Such timeless values are now in grave danger. The left typically likes to represent woke as “the new villain of the right” (see Hutton, 2022). But this simplistic, political compartmentalisation of ideas and their necessary alignment with certain groups is all-too-typical of the left itself. Woke is not the “villain” of the right at all, but of anybody who cares about liberties and critical thinking. It is no wonder that the Lebanese-Canadian Professor of Marketing, Gad Saad, has wittily used the acronym “DIE” (meaning “diversity, inclusion and equity”) to refer to the onedimensional “cult of diversity” and the “ideological conformity” of woke culture (2020: 60). All of these stem from a particular way of thinking and a very focused sense of morality, but the road to Hell is often paved with good intentions.

112  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy Morality and the “Liberal” Mindset An important thread throughout this book has been the centrality of morality to various systems of belief. The woke phenomenon is no different in this, and woke morality has to do, again, primarily with such concerns as “inclusion” and the “identities” of various groups. With this in mind, it is worth considering some recent trends in certain opinions that might be relevant to the discussion. Back in 2014, The Guardian reported on a finding in the British Social Attitudes Survey, which suggested that racism was “on the rise” in Britain on the basis of “self-evaluations” made by men and women from across the country (see https://diversityuk. org/british-social-attitudes-survey-racism-rise/). Men were more likely to admit to racial prejudice: 32% in 2013 (falling from 37% in 2002). But the gap between men and women had narrowed following a 4% rise in women admitting to racial prejudices (25% to 29%) over the same timeframe. The same survey showed that “77% of the British public want to see a reduction in immigration and a significant in the number who want immigration reduced ‘a lot’, up from 51% in 2011 to 56% in 2013” (see https://diversityuk.org/british-social-attitudes-survey-racism-rise/). Some of the key concerns were raised by the survey related to issues such as strain on the economy and the “undermining” of British cultural values. It is also worth adding some context regarding the unprecedented levels of immigration into the UK in recent decades, which could legitimately ignite such fears: To put things in perspective, I should point out that more people settled in England during the height of the New Labour movement than had arrived between 1066 and 1950. Let me say that again: more people came in a decade than had come in nine hundred years. (Kisin, 2022: 149) Given that The Guardian is of course a very left-leaning publication, the article interpreted the survey figures on immigration as automatically reflecting “rising racism” among the British public. But on the whole, this is a rather hasty conclusion based on the data. It is worth remembering that the figures show that around onethird of men admit to racial prejudice. Although this would rightly be regarded by many as a considerable figure, it did show a 5% drop over about a decade. Somewhat surprisingly, it was only women who showed an increase in racial prejudice over the same period, but even then only by 4% (and although I’m no mathematician, by my reckoning that would equal an overall fall of 1% after adjustment, not a rise). The 2014 article also predicted a rise in intolerance in the future, yet this was contradicted in the British Social Attitudes Survey of 2021, which showed a general rise in positive attitudes towards immigrants that were deemed “beneficial” to the British economy and culture. But there has apparently also been a dramatic rise in compassion towards those in need more generally: “The proportion of people who agreed that most people on the dole are fiddling fell from 41% in 2004 to 18% in 2019. In our most recent surveys 25% and 22% express this view” (see https://bsa. natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-38/new-values-new-divides.aspx).

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy  113 Returning to the survey of 2014, a rise in racist attitudes is of course never desirable at any time among any section of the society, but a sense of perspective is still necessary: the change among the women was hardly emphatic. As for the figures reflecting high levels of dissatisfaction on the issue of immigration into the UK (which, incidentally, came without information on the ethnicities of the respondents), the news article is, again, rather quick to cast the participants in the survey as “immoral” in my view, for two reasons. First, that judgement ignores the concerns of those among the working classes, who might depend on government assistance for already stretched resources at the same time as they would be the ones most likely to have to compete with most of the new arrivals for jobs (it certainly won’t be the academics and politicians). But even more fundamentally, the judgement is based on a particular understanding of what it means to be “moral” in the first place. And this brings us to an important point on the issue of the differences between the outlooks that necessarily comprise a liberal-democratic system with varying points of view. Citing studies in Moral Foundations Theory, the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt notes “that there are (at least) six psychological systems that comprise the universal foundations of the world’s many moral matrices” (2012: 181). These foundations are as follows: Care/harm, Liberty/oppression, Fairness/cheating, Loyalty/betrayal, Authority/subversion and Sanctity/degradation. Haidt explains that these moral foundations reveal a great deal about the mindsets of “liberal” and “conservative” voters in Western societies. He notes that the “ideals of social justice” are supported particularly by the Care/harm and Liberty/oppression dualisms, and usually entail “compassion for the poor and a struggle for political equality among the subgroups that comprise society” (2012: 181). Everyone in democratic societies (right, left and centre) has a tendency to care about the Care/harm and the Liberty/oppression foundations, though with certain nuances here and there. All voters also tend to care greatly about the Fairness/cheating foundation. However, at this point things begin to get interesting because this is where “proportionality” comes into play. On the “fairness” side of the dualism, conservatives would be more inclined to reward what they see as greater endeavour, citing the need for everyone to contribute to the society; the liberal, on the other hand, has a tendency to be ambivalent towards this. Similarly, when it comes to the “cheating” side, the conservative is more likely to advocate punishment for wrongdoers (the punishment should fit the crime, as it were), whereas “liberals are often uncomfortable with the negative side of karma – retribution. . . . After all, retribution causes harm, and harm activates the Care/harm foundation” (2012: 183). The liberal, then, experiences a kind of cognitive moral impedance. Notwithstanding the fact that such values as “fairness,” “cheating” and “punishments” are necessarily held by individuals with competing political interests within varying social realities, this observation can still explain why today’s “progressives” often appear to have puzzling moral values themselves when they stick so doggedly to particular moral principles. It explains many of the double standards that we have encountered in this chapter and the previous one, particularly in the context of the new “victimhood” narrative and its rigid perpetuality (the marginal

114  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy are permanently helpless; black people cannot be racist; women cannot be sexist, etc.). It is why “being a victim or acting on behalf of victims can justify almost any action” (Williams, 2022: 190). It is what leads to “non-white students” in British universities being “given less work than their white peers” (see Stokes, 2020), or why professors can get suspended for not providing special treatment to nonwhites (see Varney, 2020). It is the reason why employees like James Damore can be fired from his job for the outlandish claim that there are such things as biological men and women and that sex categories might map onto typical male and female behaviours sometimes. It is why, in 2020, the Smithsonian Museum included such traits as “rugged individualism,” “family structure,” “aesthetics,” “the scientific method,” and even timekeeping, on a list of problematic “white” attributes that non-white people should reject or resist. It explains why the convicted violent sex offender and “transgender woman” “Karen White” was able to enter a women’s prison and attack and rape two female inmates (Parveen, 2018). It explains why, in 2021, teachers at Brauer College in Australia forced 12-year-old boys to stand up in assembly and apologise to the females for being born male (Lambert, 2021). All such cases do indeed confirm that many “liberals” and their principles are often perversely misguided on the concepts of fairness, cheating and punishment, but this has been a well-known issue for quite some time (Nagel, 1987). As for the remaining three moral foundations – Loyalty/betrayal, Authority/subversion and Sanctity/degradation – liberals, once again, “are ambivalent about these foundations at best, whereas social conservatives embrace them” (Haidt, 2012: 183). Haidt concludes that left-wing liberals therefore tend to have an incomplete moral matrix, possessing only three of the foundations, whereas conservatives have a full set of all six. There is no specific combination of any of these foundations that comprises the one “perfect” formula, but the point is simply that humans do rely on all of them, to a greater or lesser extent, for a more rounded appreciation of what morality is. Given that liberals are typically missing half of them, this means that their moral toolbox is fundamentally ill-equipped. There is much talk today of “blind spots” caused by the tendency towards cognitive biases that all humans have (see, e.g. Shatz, 2022). And the liberal left are often the first ones to accuse others of this on account of their indifference to the plight of certain kinds of people. However, the irony that emerges from the discussion earlier on moral matrixes is that liberals themselves tend to have a fundamental and literal “blind spot” because one half of the moral foundations available to them are eclipsed by the other half. This is because liberals generally subscribe to “a heroic liberation movement” in which “[a]uthority, hierarchy, power, and tradition are the chains that must be broken to free the ‘noble aspirations’ of the victims” (Haidt, 2012: 284). What they do not realise (or simply dismiss) is that each of these concerns can also have a role to play in moral frameworks to varying degrees and that there is more to morality than just caring about specifically selected others. These kinds of insights are able to explain much about the fractious and volatile nature of our societies today. “The moral matrix of liberals, in America and elsewhere, rests more heavily on the Care foundation than do the matrices of conservatives” (Haidt, 2012: 134). Conversely, conservatives are often very insensitive

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy  115 towards the needs of the less well-off and the powerless, campaigning for such things as tougher laws on those without jobs, for example, or immigrants, in a social world that is only getting harsher and more competitive all the time. In addition, Lukianoff and Haidt point out that global shifts have altered the face of Western politics. “From the 1940s to around 1980, American politics was about as centrist and bipartisan as it has ever been” (2018: 129), and the reason for this was simply the presence of a succession of “common enemies” around which the people could rally. The end of World War II and the fall of Soviet Communism have led only to greater internalised conflicts. A second reason is that Americans, in particular, have started to self-segregate more since around the 1970s. Third, the proliferation of media technologies, including the internet, has facilitated yet more independence and division since the early 2000s, particularly as the TV was all but replaced by websites like YouTube. Fourth, there is now a much more bitter and hostile environment in Congress, making bipartisan politics harder to find in the corridors of power. This combination of factors goes some way towards explaining our current disputes, but it can never explain away the distortions, exaggerations and downright lies which can originate from either side of the political divide. Speaking Power to Truth In this chapter, I have argued that woke is essentially a quasi-religious belief system that cultural elites are now imposing on everybody else, but particularly on the bemused working classes in Western societies. Woke is a dangerous movement which, in true postmodernist fashion, happily rejects, or even deliberately distorts, certain scientific facts when it has no political use for them or when they seem unpalatable (rather like the Christian right in America who deny Darwinian evolution or uphold young-Earth Creationism); woke rejects reason and truth, but then asks us to “understand” its perspective by lending a sympathetic ear and being an “ally” to the cause; it proclaims to care about the vulnerable, but then viscously turns against certain members of our societies purely on the basis of their own immutable characteristics, which they have no control over either (whiteness, womanhood, heterosexuality and so on). Woke is a vengeful and thuggish political project that highjacks much of the terminology of genuinely liberal values for its own ends. “White Silence is Violence,” so the snappy little epithet runs. But white silence is violent only when certain people say it is. At any other time, it is a requirement. The new “Social Justice” movement sees itself as “speaking truth to power” in the classic sense, but it does no such thing (or hardly ever does); in fact, it has a habit of doing precisely the reverse: speaking power to truth in a self-defeating manner. This is how sensible people are intimidated and reasonable opinions routinely silenced. If the Social Justice movement really is attacking the hub of power, then why is it that the very powerful remain largely unscathed by such efforts while those who try to maintain a regular life and existence are the ones who really have to look over their shoulders, fearful of losing their jobs lest they say something outrageous like men and women are real, binary entities? It is quite telling that a

116  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy culture dominated by identity politics and gender ideology – which now affirms the self-harming of many desperate and confused young girls in their unilateral decisions to go to a clinic and have needless and life-altering double mastectomies and other surgical procedures, instead of helping them to fight an illness which is a new manifestation of dysphoria (see Shrier, 2020) – is the very same culture that is also harming itself on the grandest scale. But what is particularly interesting about the “Social Justice” movement is the spate of new frictions that it has introduced. It is not just capitalists and proletarians or blacks and whites or men and women who are seen as adversarial now, but anybody who, for whatever reason, refuses to accept the dogmatism of an ever-more esoteric identity politics. This has been demonstrated particularly strongly in the push-back by certain feminists and academics against the trans and gender narratives (see Soh, 2020; Stock, 2021; Joyce, 2021). It simply cannot go without mention that, as a result of the expansion of “Social Justice” and CRT campaigns, we are now seeing in our schools and other institutions a growing resegregation of people according to race (see Steele, 1990: 55; Schlesinger, 1998; Harris, 2016; Schow, 2020; Miller, 2021) and a desegregation of the two biological sexes (particularly in public spaces and sports) on account of the politics of gender. This is extraordinary. Furthermore, it appears that using a religious perspective in order to protest against such policies is likely to be successful, especially if it is a minority religion, as when groups of mostly Muslim protestors successfully stopped lessons on LGBTQ parenting at schools in the UK in 2019 (see Parveen, 2019a, 2019b). In this instance, it was decided that “The programme discriminates against the beliefs of Muslim children, parents, family values and undermines parental rights” (Parveen, 2019b). Yet if someone uses a scientific perspective to challenge the contradictions and absurdities, they are almost certainly going to be labelled “bigoted” or “ignorant” in some way and thus cancelled, as the biologists Colin Wright and Richard Dawkins have both discovered in recent years (see Kabbany, 2020; Flood, 2017). This is also extraordinary. As Williams points out, the effects of woke are too complicated to simply lay the blame at any single individual’s feet. She notes this with reference to Foucault, much of who’s “writing actually challenges the contemporary logic of cancel culture and censorship” (2022: 200–201). Yet, at the same time, there is a troubling legacy because ideas that emerged from poststructuralism and critical theory more broadly have seeped into popular consciousness. The notion that language shapes our understanding of the world and that truth is not simply a measure of objective reality are important insights. But when transformed into a left-wing political project that is entirely separated from the real interests of working-class people, the result is a set of ideas that bears little relationship to the material circumstance and everyday concerns of most people’s lives. (Williams, 2022: 200–201) This is because our academics in the humanities, like so many preachers, mostly speak in tongues. The vast majority of the general public are not schooled in the

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy  117 esoteric studies of postmodernism and have no way of ever relating to them. Such bodies of discourse, like most others, may take lifetimes to fully “master” – but even then, the problem with poststructuralism is that it often makes little sense anyway. Lyotard argued that playing with language is a method of resistance, but if the expressed intention is to help the disadvantaged (which usually means those with less money, opportunity and educational credentials), then the postmodernists are going an odd way about it. Sociologists have, even among themselves, often pointed out the wordy and elitist way in which some social scientists have tended to write (see Becker, 1986; Billig, 2013). Following the sophistry of Derrida, few theorists demonstrate this trait better than Judith Butler, who won first place in Philosophy and Literature’s Bad Writing Contest in 1998 for a now notoriously baffling sentence (see Nussbaum, 1999). But the tactic of distorting language is also a dangerous one that can backfire on everybody. Nobody expressed this concern better than Orwell, when he noted back in 1945 how so many people were misusing words like “Nazi” to describe somebody with a conservative or nuanced opinion (see Orwell, 2013). This very same word has been used in recent times to describe Brexiteers, for example, or those who merely vote Conservative. Postmodernists and “Social Justice” advocates make such distortions constantly with phrases like “Silence is Violence,” chillingly echoing some kind of Orwellian “newspeak” language from 1984. Orwell’s protagonist, Winston, also stated in 1984 that “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four” (2019: 158), yet contemporary postmodernists are even challenging the straightforward logic of mathematics in the name of “Justice Scholarship” today without so much as a hint of irony (Slater, 2022a). (And then they call mainstream society and politics “Orwellian.”) This distortion and exaggeration of words and concepts only exacerbates the problem of our failure to discuss issues honestly in contemporary societies that are supposedly democratic, open and secular. But this is not the only problem with such scholarship, even when people do claim to understand it. As Pluckrose and Lindsay have stated, another big problem with applied postmodernism that has given rise to what we now call “woke” culture is that it “undermines public trust in the academy, which is generally a guardian of what is, by making it more like a church, which conveys that which people ought to think and believe” (2020: Location 1570, original emphases). Gad Saad has noted that this kind of sentiment is reflected now in the mission statements of many universities in Western systems. For example, Palo Alto University, a private institution in California, lists its top three values as: 1) “Social justice, cultural competency and diversity; 2) A student-centred and culturally responsive environment; and 3) High quality research and scholarship that advances the state of knowledge and practice” (Saad, 2020: 100). Saad sardonically concludes that placing “high quality research” in third spot on this list is a good first indicator of what is going wrong in the Western university today. Indeed, many believe that the new attacks on academic integrity are mostly deliberate. “In the woke university, both staff and students share the same intention: to disrupt the Western intellectual tradition in favour of teaching content that is superficially diverse but completely lacking in intellectual diversity” (Williams, 2022: 99). In short, “Universities serve as the

118  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy training ground of the politically correct thought police and their social justice warriors” (Saad, 2020: 92). Consequently, in the world beyond the academy, everyone is becoming subject to the rules of this new mutual policing of the devout in a world in which feelings now regularly hold sway over certain cold hard facts. Nevertheless, “Descartes’ general point remains correct: We discover objective reason by discovering that we run up against certain limits when we inquire whether our beliefs, values, and so forth are subjective, culturally relative, or otherwise essentially perspectival” (Nagel, 1997: 23). And I believe this kind of frustration is what fuels the activism. People find the nature of logic and reality difficult to take. Sometimes, reality simply dictates what is possible and what is not; it determines what is true and what is false, and woke culture is a vain reaction against things beyond our control. Logic has its very own laws; these are not imposed by human beings, they just belong to logic. Misreading the nature of reality and logic and their internal consistencies and inflexibilities, wrongly understanding them (a la Foucault) as belonging exclusively to external power regimes which simply impose them via discourses for the benefit of a few in society, the woke crowd and the “Social Justice” advocates have set about trying to counteract them by trying to impose new rules based purely on language. However, “it is, to put it mildly, rather implausible that language should be available to refer to itself and, in particular, to its own limitations and to no other referent in the world” (Tallis, cited in Sayer, 2000: 39, original emphases). As Thomas Nagel points out: [T]he denial of objective truth on the ground that all systems of belief are determined by social forces is self-refuting if we take it seriously, since it appeals to a sociological or historical claim which would not establish the conclusion unless it were objectively correct. Moreover, it promotes one discipline, such as sociology or history, over the others whose objectivity it purports to debunk, such as physics and mathematics. Given that many propositions in the latter fields are much better established than the theories of social determination by which their objectivity is being challenged, this is like using a ouija board to decide whether your car needs new brake linings. (Nagel, 1998) And attacks on Western values such as free expression and free thought are breathtakingly unwise (and totally unoriginal) ways to try to rectify the problem of social injustices. Since the mid-twentieth century in particular, women and minorities have been striding forward, fighting to assert themselves on equal terms. Neither of these movements would have even got started had they not been based in constitutional and legal systems that allowed them to fight and find self-expression in the first place. To quote Congressman John Lewis, “without freedom of speech and the right to dissent, the civil rights movement would have been a bird without wings” (cited in Stokes, 2020). Indeed, it was also necessary for such movements to call on the support of those from across the supposed boundaries of identities and politics at the social level; had such people stayed “in lane” and stuck rigidly

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy  119 to their “own kind,” then there might never have been any sort of groundswell for any kind of justice movement at all. Woke promotes the exact opposite of that kind of unity (Njoya, 2020). Given the cultish nature of woke today, many of my fellow sociologists will be sceptical, perhaps even concerned, about my argument in this chapter. After all, as Howard Becker (1967) once suggested, sociologists have a tendency to support the underdog in this world. Such critics might point out that my “real enemy” is the rich and powerful. To these people I would simply say that it is you who appear to have forgotten this fact as you engage in proxy wars against the nearest available targets who vaguely match the description of the political leaders and entrepreneurial moguls you seek to bring down but cannot get close to. In short, there is clear evidence of continuing polarisation between the haves and the havenots today, along with the exploitation, corruption and pollution that goes with it (Sayer, 2015). However, it is not clear to me how the problem of the super-rich will be solved by regular people turning against one another along the lines of various “identities” rather than against the exclusive group that we used to call “the 1% (or, in reality, a fraction of the 1%). If the rich and powerful wanted a grand scheme by which to finally win the class war, they could hardly have dreamed up anything better by themselves than the social implosion of wokeness. The perfect “divide and rule” tactic has been handed to them on a silver platter – ironically enough, by the political left. Contemporary identity politics clearly builds on Theory and postmodernist literature. What it produces, with its expressed aims of “destruction” and “demolition,” is a mindset which “braces itself for a life without truths, standards and ideals” (Bauman, 1992: ix). Social Justice activists therefore appear to be striving for a kind of utopianism at the same time as they appeal to a postmodernist perspective which Jameson, using decidedly Christian-sounding language, admits is shot-through with “an inverted millenarianism” (1984: 13). Postmodernism is, by definition, “a movement of deconstruction” (Dobbelaere, 1993: 29). Everything that is lauded in postmodern Theory therefore seems to hail “the end” of something: history, aesthetics, social class, reason and anything else that had been touched by modernity. Zygmunt Bauman also clearly appeals to religious sentiments, reminiscent of the story of the fall of humanity in the book of Genesis, when he laments the “withdrawal of God” and the “triumphant entry of Man” with the dawning of the Enlightenment under the auspices of Western power and domination (1992: xii). This is a curious observation which all but assumes the existence of God while ignoring the fact that religion itself has been, and still is, an effective ideological means of control, wealth-accumulation and domination, influencing both “knowledge” and anti-knowledge around the world. Following Foucault, Lyotard and the rest, the main purpose of postmodernism is claimed to be the deconstruction of grand narratives, but the irony is that the postmodernists are simply replacing one grand narrative, or set of grand narratives, with a bunch of new ones. However, having rejected reason and logic as their foundation or rationale, the postmodernists have no way of convincing the rest of us that the new narratives are worthwhile. What this leads to is the necessity of trying to

120  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy shoehorn them into existence by coercion and, if necessary, violence, because they are either nonsensical or insisted upon for ulterior motives. In turn, forcing such revolutionary ideas into being produces a whole host of repressive and confusing social effects. And it is not as if this kind of observation is even particularly new. Former professor of politics at Princeton and Oxford, Alan Ryan, pointed out the futility and nihilism inherent to Foucault’s philosophy decades ago: It is, for instance, pretty suicidal for embattled minorities to embrace Michel Foucault, let alone Jacques Derrida. The minority view was always that power could be undermined by truth. . . . Once you read Foucault as saying that truth is simply an effect of power, you’ve had it. Those with power have “truth” on their side, and the old radical hope that we can undermine power with truth is incoherent. But the American departments of literature, history, and sociology contain large numbers of self-described leftists who have confused radical doubts about objectivity with political radicalism, and are in a mess. (Ryan, 1992) For many, this “mess” is just the most recent phase in the process of secularisation. In Chapter  3 of this book, we considered secularisation thesis in sociology, and how a number of commentators have represented it as “Eurocentric” and Western-oriented. The sociologist Steve Bruce (1996, 2011) has often stood almost alone as an opponent of this interpretation, for reasons that were outlined in that earlier chapter. Although Bruce is by no means defending what others may see as “Western” secular imperialism or hegemony, some of those who argue against secularisation theory do have these kinds of issues in mind when they engage in such debates (and they thereby miss the main points made by secularisation theory advocates like Bruce). But the ironic thing for me about woke culture is that, if it is anything, it is a continuation of a Western-centred worldview by our contemporary elites, because there are plenty of territories and countries who still appear not to care as much as we do in the “white” West about the morality of gender issues, decolonisation and gay rights (at least not in their own domestic contexts anyway). Indeed, the very fact that these remain concerns at home at all says much about the gentler side of our very own societies. While “woke” presents itself as the heroic antidote to Western hegemony, then, it is nothing other than the newest version of that kind of power, as it seeks to blaze new trails that many others – whether from within or without – may find eccentric or do not wish to follow. The postmodernists had a penchant for analysing surrealism, on account of its subversive nature, but ironically their legacy has led to perhaps the most absurd social “reality” that we in the West have ever known. And the irony of ironies now is that it appears to have inspired a number of religious commentators to suddenly support the idea that we should “oppose identity politics and ‘live in truth’ ” (Carl, 2019). As Francisco Goya warned so perceptively, “The sleep of reason produces monsters.” For Gross and Levitt, these are “the monsters of human pride, foolishness,

The Rise of a New Orthodoxy  121 malice, and cruelty,” which “emerge to do their worst” (1994: 215). Despite its good intentions, woke ideology is just the latest manifestation of the kind of destructive inanity that figures like Bertrand Russell and Sir Karl Popper warned us about in the context of Western democratic societies. With its fanaticism, its antiWesternism, its anti-intellectualism, its censoriousness, and its relativistic morality, woke has been described by the women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2021) as “a gift” to the hardest and most radical of religious sensibilities. In the next chapter, we shall discover why.

6

Pardon the Expression Islam, Media Representation and Censorship

In September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons depicting Muhammad, the so-called prophet of Islam. This incident, which began as an internal affair within a small democratic nation in northern Europe, soon became headline news around the world, leading to the evacuation and burning of embassies and the boycotting of Danish and Norwegian consumer goods in several countries in the Middle East. It led, once again, to the spotlight being thrown uniquely on Islam, and to questions concerning the successful integration of Muslims into European and “Western” countries, where certain contemporary principles are often thought to jar with incoming “traditional” ones. There was also political jousting between those across the spectrum of opinion, but particularly between those on the hard-left and the far-right. In sum, the incident re-ignited a range of significant debates, such as those pertaining to racism and xenophobia, immigration and mass immigration, individual and group rights, pluralism, secularism and fanatical theism, but also, and particularly, the meaning of democracy itself, which ultimately hinges on the rights and limitations relating to freedom of expression and its concomitant toleration in liberal societies (Hensher and Younge, 2006; Whitaker, 2006; Bowcott, 2012). The individual who commissioned the cartoons to be drawn and published was journalist Flemming Rose. Apparently, the idea was hatched after it came to light that Kåre Bluitgen, a Danish author, had written a book on the life of Muhammad and had mentioned in passing that he had experienced difficulties trying to find an illustrator for it. The book was later illustrated (by an artist who remained anonymous) with “ten representations of Muhammad” and “became a best-seller” (Keane, 2008: 858). Bluitgen apparently received threats as a result, but the focus soon shifted away from him by what was to happen next as Rose, intrigued by this story and a number of other instances of self-censorship, was prompted to write to “members of the association of Danish cartoonists” and openly invite them “to draw Muhammad as you see him” for the purposes of publication in JyllandsPosten (Rose, 2006: 131). Twelve out of 25 cartoonists answered the call. The most controversial of the drawings, by Kurt Westergaard, depicted Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. The exact explanation of how the crisis was able to get so far out of c­ ontrol depends upon who you consult. However, a rough timeline provided by Lindekilde et al. DOI: 10.4324/9781003039822-6

Pardon the Expression  123 (2009) divides the saga into four key stages: phase one, which they refer to as the “initial response” (30 September to December 2005); phase two, the “internationalization” of the affair (26 December 2005 to 3 February 2006); phase three, its “violent escalation” (4 February 2006 to 25 February 2006); and phase four, “re-domestication” (26 February 2006 to 20 March 2006) (see Lindekilde et al., 2009). The “initial response” has been portrayed as involving a number of peaceful protests in Denmark (though two of the cartoonists were forced into hiding in October 2005, after reports that a psychologically unstable man was already hunting them down). Then, “On October 19 2005, a group of Muslim ambassadors ­requested a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to discuss the cartoons. The request was refused” (Keane, 2008: 859), though ­Rasmussen’s foreign minister (Per Stig Møller) did meet with the ambassadors. Nevertheless, shortly after that, a delegation of imams – The Community of Islamic Faith or “Det Islamiske Trossamfund” (see Olesen, 2009)  – travelled to various Muslim countries in an effort to garner external support and to raise awareness about what was happening; this series of visits was seemingly initiated by Egypt’s ambassador to Denmark. It was these two events which, according to Lindekilde et al. (2009), led to the “internationalization” phase. In a show of solidarity with Denmark, the press in a number of European countries responded by promptly ­re-publishing the cartoons, beginning with “the Norwegian newspaper Magazinet” in January 2006 and then, in February 2006, “a wave” of further re-publications in “Italy’s La Stampa, Germany’s Die Welt, Spain’s El Periodico, the Netherlands’ Volkskrant and France’s France Soir” (Keane, 2008: 860). These actions appear to have sparked the “violent escalation” phase, during which there were attacks on Danish embassies in Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Indonesia. Again, some reports have suggested that Denmark was also roundly supported at this stage by the E.U., NATO and other Western political organisations and governments. But this claim has been rubbished by Flemming Rose, who has suggested that the Danish government wanted to give the impression of having greater support than they actually had (private correspondence). Eventually, after some diplomatic negotiations, the Danish embassies re-opened around the world and the whole episode is assumed to have reverted back to Denmark in the “re-domestication” phase. However, this presumption of a “return” to the confines of Denmark is at risk of oversimplifying the episode as a momentary political and social tremor because the apparent re-stabilisation phase has not come without certain reverberations or a lasting sociological legacy. Furthermore, for reasons that will be explored in this chapter, debates around the Denmark case have a tendency to ignore a range of other, pre-existing social, political and theological factors (including Islamic outrage) that had a bearing on the local and global reactions to the cartoons, both religious and non-religious. The nature of the illustrations has divided opinion. The American atheist Sam Harris has described the cartoons as “utterly benign” (2010: 74), whereas a number of other commentators have described them as “sacrilegious” and “blasphemous” (see, e.g. Zafar, 2008). In between the two ends of this continuum we find a range of legal, sociopolitical and ethical considerations regarding the decision to publish the images and the effects that it has had, and might yet

124  Pardon the Expression have, in both a Danish and a global context. In what follows, then, I first discuss some of the issues around representation before going on to address other wider concerns, and particularly the impact of fanatical religious faiths and other ideologies in contemporary Western contexts. But ultimately, I argue that there is more to the controversies over censorship than meets the eyeball. Following on from the previous two chapters, I argue, in short, that outrage culture is being weaponised as a means of undermining the Western way of life, and that the long-standing alliance between the political left and political Islam share many common traits and goals. The Danish Cartoons As Cerone notes, the Danish cartoons were apparently objectionable to some on a number of counts: “Not only are images of Mohamed prohibited in many religious communities, but the depiction of Mohamed as a terrorist is alleged to promote discrimination against Muslims by likening them to terrorists” (2006: 135). Levey and Modood (2009) add a third layer to this: the “defamation” of Islam itself as an inherently violent religion. Fourth, others have pointed out that the political climate in Denmark – apparently one of hostility towards immigrants and immigration at the time and for years prior to publication – needs to be considered when evaluating how and why the cartoons caused such consternation among Muslims and non-Muslims alike (see Zafar, 2008). With reference to Danish political and social attitudes towards Muslim immigrants, for example, Kublitz notes a shift in focus from a concern in the 1960s and 1970s with the “culture” of “visitors” and “temporary workers” who were expected to one day return to their native homes; to a concern, in the 1980s, with groups of “immigrants” and ethnic minorities as settled citizens; and then finally, in the 1990s, with Islam itself as representative generally of immigrants and the way that “Muslims think” (2010: 112 original emphasis). Finally, according to Rostbøll, over a number of years “Jylland-Posten has been a main contributor to this hostility” towards Muslims (2009: 627). There are numerous sociological perspectives to consider in relation to the publication of the cartoons, particularly from the point of view of theology, ethnicities, media studies, visual culture, propaganda studies and politics. For many of those who take the “anti-free speech” stance towards the Danish cartoons, if we may call it that, the clincher in this whole episode was that it involved a minority group in a majority-white, non-Muslim country. In an interesting article on the history and effects of cartooning, Keane (2008) discusses the various episodes in which a range of ethnic minority groups, including German Jews, European Africans, American blacks and Irish immigrants, have been represented previously in publications, leading to negative stereotypes and/or hostility. Yet it is not entirely clear why ethnic concerns are taking precedence over theological ones. Such arguments are therefore open to charges of “Islamophilia” (Murray, 2020), since a more relevant comparison would surely be to compare satirical representations of Islam with those of Christianity, for example. Nevertheless, it has been suggested by some that Jyllands-Posten acted irresponsibly by failing to acknowledge the potential dangers that their actions might have caused in a society in which, it is claimed,

Pardon the Expression  125 “Muslims in general are being marginalized, disproportionately targeted and made vulnerable” (Levey and Modood, 2009: 433). It was apparently within this allegedly hostile context that the Arab nations responded to events in Denmark. As Keane writes, “A meeting by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Mecca in December 2005, which was intended to examine sectarian violence, was dominated by the cartoons” (2008: 860). In fact, the OIC has been intentionally trying to meddle in Western laws and politics since at least the Rushdie affair (more of which later) (see Warraq, 1995), and the Danish cartoon controversy led to a new intensification of such activities, with calls for UN intervention and the introduction of new blasphemy laws. Many nations, including Denmark, have to a greater or lesser degree adopted the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), a UN statute which was adopted in 1964, coming into force in 1969. Although states may be party to the legislation, they may alternatively make “interpretative statements” on them, as the UK did in 1969 in the case of Article 4 of ICERD with the aim of balancing its commitments to “freedom of expression and freedom of association” (see Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2015: 7). Denmark, on the other hand, has had additional speech legislation since 1939 in response to Nazi antiSemitism in Germany. Furthermore, according to Keane, Denmark “amended its Penal Code to fulfil the requirements of Article 4” in 1971, and included religion on its list of protected categories (2008: 862). These details have led some commentators into wrongly assuming that Denmark was somehow duty-bound to act more decisively in relation to the publication of the cartoons. However, as Flemming Rose has put it to me in a private correspondence, the original speech laws of 1939 have in fact mutated from being understood as “semi-libel laws” (which would have demanded proof in a court of law for any ridiculous or discriminatory statement made against a given ethnic or religious group) to now being understood as much more open, subjective and independent of truth. This is in keeping with the dictates of contemporary “Social Justice” politics whereby “crybullies” (Campbell and Manning, 2018: 38) are allowed to set the pace of what is and is not deemed to be acceptable. This makes a big difference, and is much more dangerous, as it privileges subjective sentiments over reasoned arguments. However, it has been suggested by Saba Mahmood that it wasn’t so much the “blasphemy” in the Danish cartoons that hurt Muslims, but “the sense of moral injury” that resulted at the core of their being: that is, in sociological terms, injury at the level of what Pierre Bourdieu called the “habitus” (cited in March  2011: 806). This is very similar to the way in which Critical Race Theorists describe the effects of “hate speech” on black and minority individuals in American society, as noted in the previous chapter (Delgado and Stefancic, 1999). Bourdieu defined the habitus, basically, as the collection of personal characteristics (race, social class, sex, gender, etc.), as well as internalised biographical and experiential factors that combine to create the constitution of the individual. The habitus, understood in these terms, is therefore the hub of an individual’s identity. Overall, the reason why the cartoons caused the level of revulsion they did, according to Mahmood, is that Muslims hold Muhammad in the highest regard and believe that he was the

126  Pardon the Expression personification of perfection in moral terms (March 2011; see also Ahmed, 2003: Location 3805). According to Levey and Modood, it was the combination of image and word in the Westergaard cartoon which made the associations between Islam and violence unequivocal because it showed an “image of Muhammad with a lit bomb in his turban and the shahadah (Islamic creed) inscribed on the bomb” (2009: 428). In visual sociological terms, this imbedding of words as part of the picture (as opposed to captioning, which is external to the image) is what is sometimes referred to as “nesting” (see Mitchell, 1994). Such negative associations, in combination with Islamic opinions on idolatry (see Warraq, 2017: 63–64), appear to account for the sense of grievance among Muslims. Finally, it seems clear that twenty-first-century technologies played a role in accelerating the outrage. With the concept of “porous publics” in our new media age, Olesen (2009) discusses the increasing capacity for information to spread across the globe and across or within cultures and societies. In this regard, he calls our attention to a neglected area of media research today: the “transnational” nature of religiously motivated “activism.” Olesen’s point seems to be that such technologies aid not only the dissemination of messages and images but also the greater organisation of activism itself at the same time. By extension, external organisations and even states can be, and often are, the “beneficiaries” of politically motivated activism of this kind, a point which is likely to increase the involvement of powerful organisations and hostile regimes with vested interests in strategic activism, both now and in the future. He writes: “Studies of transnational activism are often sociologically poor in the sense that they rarely use the empirical prism of transnational activism to address transformations of the public sphere” (2009: 410–411). In short, when such events take on an international significance, it is not possible to ignore the lasting damage that they necessarily cause to the internal political fabric of democratic nations like Denmark; this debate is therefore unavoidably linked to those pertaining to globalisation and its potential impact not just on religions but also, more globally, on the influence of religions and other ideologies on open political systems with liberal values as well. The “Clash of Civilisations” Argument It has often been suggested that the migration of Islamic peoples into Europe and other parts of the “Western” world has resulted in a “clash of civilisations” (Lindekilde et al., 2009: 296). The phrase is often attributed to American political scientist Samuel Huntington (1996), which probably explains the tendency to associate it exclusively with Western (particularly “white”) intolerance. For example, Kublitz argues that the Danish press had, over many years, constructed several dichotomies in order to differentiate between “Ethnic Danes” and “Immigrants” in discourses on immigration, which are as follows: “Western/Muslim,” “Secularism/Islam,” “Modern/Medieval,” “Democratic/Totalitarian,” “Freedom of speech/ Censorship,” “Human rights/Religious dogma,” “Gender equality/Oppression of women” and Peaceful/Violent” (2010: 116).

Pardon the Expression  127 Accordingly, Doudou Diène, a former human rights lawyer with the UN, asserted that the publication of the cartoons in Europe implied a “clash of civilisations” in which the countries of the Islamic world are represented as necessarily “backward” whereas those in the secular Western world are “civilised” and modern countries which value free expression and democracy (cited in Keane, 2008: 870). In other words, Diène is invoking Said’s notion of “Orientalism” (2014/1978), a popular thesis on the left which argues that the West constructs its own representation of the East and defines itself in contradistinction with it. However, it also seems, to Diène and others, that the fanaticism of the Muslim (whether an extreme case or not) is simply a figment of the European’s racist imagination. More provocatively still, one of Diène’s conclusions is that the secular world is bullying the religious one, as he notes the “precedence of political and ideological considerations over religious factors” (cited in Keane, 2008: 870). But Diène is implying here that religions are helpless and/or apolitical by definition, and this is a massive error of judgement because, as we have seen, and as we shall see further, religions can be – and often are  – both unequivocally ideological and politically aggressive/influential at the same time. This has demonstrably been the case with Islam historically. Indeed, a sense of hubris regularly comes across in the words of Islamic commentators in this context, as does the promise of violence: “Islam is the top religion with respect to politics and governance. Waging war is permitted only to make Allah’s word prevail” (Abdul-Mohsin, 2006: 82). Interestingly, in this “civilisations” debate, it is always considered the role of liberal-democracies to examine their principles, rather than religious traditions examining theirs (see Levey and Modood, 2009). It is simply assumed that liberaldemocracies should, by definition, possess the capacity to accommodate anything. Apparently, relativistic thinkers like Levey and Modood believe that all views are equally worthy of respect simply because people hold them. But unfortunately, many others do not share such frivolity with their sense of respect, the giving of which has to be justified rather than just expected or demanded. Again, it is interesting that the emphasis is always on the relatively open and absorbent liberaldemocratic system to adapt and change, not the eternal and dogmatic belief system. Given that religious doctrines are necessarily based on faith alone and are, by definition, often rigid and uncompromising, it is doubly provocative to argue in this way. To assert this privileging of religious rights is to necessarily elbow secularists and atheists (whatever their ethnicity or background) out of the equation, just as the monotheistic faiths have had a tendency to do for many centuries. As Lee puts it, “to focus solely on people’s lived lives in relation to religion, or religious cultural diversity, or religious pluralism, is to discount those lives in which religion is conspicuously absent or conspicuously ‘othered’ ” (2015: 3). Western hegemony, currently in the shape of American political dominance on a global scale, is a factor in this privileging tendency for many commentators, most notably Noam Chomsky (2002, 2003). The meddling of the British in various parts of the world during its age of empire; the rise of the United States as a new superpower, rapidly displacing its ally the UK as the world’s most powerful nation after World War II; the creation of the state of Israel; American foreign policy and

128  Pardon the Expression its war on Communism; the situation in Palestine; America’s various escapades in the Middle East; Bush’s “war on terror” and his “axis of evil” in the Islamic world. All of these (and many others) are often referred to in debates over the “clash of civilisations” thesis. But no amount of attention to these matters will change the fact that Islam has its own essential (and centuries-long) problems, as we shall see; nor will it change the fact that the vast majority of people under the cosh in Islamic countries are themselves victims of Islam, not the “West” or the Anglosphere. It is all-too-often assumed that the Islamic world is simply reacting to Western aggression (see, e.g. Sadar and Davies, 2002). It is assumed that the Muslim world would never dream of attacking Western targets had it not been provoked or humiliated by its Western foes at various junctures. And it is assumed that the West is uniquely evil, the scourge of the world, and deserving of any retribution that comes its way. But these kinds of perspectives are inaccurate. In fact, they hide and often feed an ignorance (and an agenda) all of their own, particularly with regard to the nuances of history and the philosophical heirlooms of Western cultures. For all of their faults and chequered history, it is in fact the traditions of “­Western” civilisations which allow for an open discussion concerning the n­ otion of a “clash” in the first place. Despite my overall critique of religious faith in this book, it needs to be acknowledged that the debate about divergent cultures therefore rests partly on the heritage (and transformation) of Christianity in ­European societies (Russell, 1935). According to Warraq, there are three central values or “Golden Threads,” which underpin the Western mindset, as it has been broadly influenced by a Greek legacy. These are “rationalism, universalism, and self-criticism” (2007: Location 639). Now, of course, it has been pointed out that Western documents like the American Constitution took at least part of their inspiration from, for example, the Cyrus Cylinder, which dates back to ancient (and preIslamic) Persia. In addition, not all of the “Golden Threads” have been shared to the same extent, or at all times, by all European or “Western” nations or societies. However, they are the general values that tend to define the Western viewpoint, and they are quite unique in their own way. These principles are so deeply imbedded that they have often provided a kind of touchstone in times of crisis. To be clear, the general emphasis, since the time of the ancient Greeks, has been on the cultivation of ideas over cultural and national identities and prejudices; the notion of a collective humanity over and above racial distinctions and sociopolitical statuses; and the ability to reflect ethically and reasonably on one’s thoughts and actions in accordance with such a universal and equal outlook. True scholarship into the real values and purposes of these liberal, ethical and democratic principles, as laid-down and largely realised during the course of Western history, reveals a more compassionate and inclusive side to the Occident. Even in other Eastern contexts – namely Japan and China – there is an unapologetic and unwavering insistence on “ethnocentrism” in their foundational narratives, which are overtly racist by Western standards (see Dikӧtter, 1997a, 1997b). More­over, nothing even vaguely equivalent to the widespread tradition of the West’s “Golden Threads” can be said to have ever existed in the entire history of Islamic societies (see Warraq, 2007).

Pardon the Expression  129 Finally, according to Rostbøll (2009), there exists a fundamental distinction between “Enlightenment value” and “Reformation value.” To be clear, the rights of individuals to critically reflect on anything of their choosing is paramount among “Enlightenment liberals,” whereas “Reformation liberals” emphasise the importance of the rights of diversity in a broader sense, which tries to include the rights of groups and individuals in their interpretations of what a “good life” means and how it may be defined by certain traditions (such as reason vs. faith) (Rostbøll, 2009: 626–627). Each of these perspectives has existed in dialogue for centuries. Western frameworks therefore facilitate the perspectives of various individuals and groups, any of which can, in principle, be discussed, analysed, co-opted, accepted and of course rejected. Presently, however, as we also saw in the previous chapter, it appears that we are overwhelmingly privileging the rights of groups over individuals at the same time as we are, curiously, privileging subjectivism (as pertaining to members of groups). This leads to the stifling assumption that such groups always necessarily represent the views of all the individuals supposedly contained within them. This, for me, is one of the key errors in debates over “Islam” in particular. So, before returning to the inner complexities of Islam, and to debates on “offensive” speech and censorship, it will first be worthwhile exploring some of the main characteristics, and history, of Islam itself. The “Real” Islam? For the sake of harmony between people, it may seem understandable that some commentators would like to counteract criticisms of Islam and its assumed “incompatibility” with Western value systems. Those who wish to downplay the concerns as nothing more than “Islam-bashing” in a post-9/11 world (see, e.g. Alexander, 2019) are of course free to protest in such ways. But they are also free to learn a little more themselves, as there are numerous tenets of Islam which, it seems, all of us will need to confront and reconcile sooner rather than later, regardless of whether or not this leads to a change in general perceptions about a very obstinate religion with a significant and growing presence in our societies. We are regularly reminded that Islam, like many other religions, is not a monolithic thing. This is fine. However, it should also be borne in mind that those who defend this religion and its tenets regularly do so by invoking the word “Islam” themselves without qualification. And as any fair reading of this chapter will confirm, the main traits of Islam are often discussed and agreed upon in or by sources of all persuasions, including scriptural translations, current adherents, ex-Muslims, highly respected Islamic and non-Islamic scholars, defenders, critics and both women and men alike. So what are some of these key features? The first thing to say of Islam is that, despite its inner complexities, it consi­ ders itself to be, effectively, a nation of people without borders (see Armstrong, 2011: 103; Warraq, 2017: 233). In Islam, the Qur’an itself, the literal word of God, is generally considered to be “miraculous” on account of its alleged perfection

130  Pardon the Expression (Warraq, 1995: 5). Aside from being flawless, the Qur’an is also “the final word of God,” which is a provocative statement in itself, as Hitchens has argued (2008: 226, original emphasis; see also the Qur’an, 5:48). The Qur’an was “intended” for everyone and “for all times and all places” (Haleem, 2010: ix, emphases added). Those who follow the faith, wherever in the world they may be, are referred to collectively as the ummah (the global community of Muslims). The decision-makers whose role it is to direct the lives of this community are known as the ulama (the global legislators) (Giron, 2003). Those who reject the Qur’an are, by contrast, “lawbreakers” (Qur’an 47:72). Islam is therefore not simply a religious faith, but an obligation and a complete way of life – socially, culturally and politically – with no ethnic or geographical boundaries. Moreover, the concept of bid‘a (the rejection of doctrinal innovations) is very deeply rooted in Islam, dating back to the hadith, the collection of sayings and deeds of Muhammad himself (see Al-Bukhari, 2017: 969; Manji, 2005: Location 1968). Islam is therefore fundamentally hostile to change, and all Muslims are bound by the principle of tawhīd, which roughly translates into English as “monotheism” (Warraq, 2017: 63). However, Islamic monotheism doesn’t simply refer to the singularity of the deity, but to a totalising and totalitarian system that governs every thought and action of all of its people: “The Quran spoke of unification (tawhid) of the whole of human life, which meant that all the actions of the individual and all the institutions of the state should express a fundamental submission to God’s will” (Armstrong, 2011: 69). According to Sultan, Islam, properly understood, “micromanages” the adherent’s “every activity and regulates the most private moments of his life – to the point of commanding him to put his left foot before his right when he gets into the bath” (Sultan, 2009: 155; see also Bin ­Abdulla, 2003). From an administrative point of view, “The Quran says there can be no government without God; the Quran is Allah’s book of laws for the conduct of worldly affairs” (Ali, 2007: 239). Or, as Armstrong puts it, it is considered “idolatrous to bow before a human system or an established religion rather than before God himself” (2011: 46). For radical clerics like Ibn ‘Ab al-Wahhāb, there are two primary conditions that underpin the faith: First, true belief necessitates ikhls, which is the sincere devotion, loyalty, and total allegiance owed to God. Its opposite is shirk, sometimes translated as “polytheism”, or “idolatry”, and is the unforgiveable sin of ascribing partners to God. It is the worship of any other being than God. (Warraq, 2017: 63–64) This explains, in large part, the Muslim aversion towards any kind of visual art or iconography, and particularly anything involving Muhammad. But again, the ­instruction to “kill,” “besiege” and “seize” “the idolators” is not the misapprehension of some crazed imam or Ayatollah, or a figment of a “racist” white imagination but is found right there in the scripture itself (see Qur’an, 9:5–6). Even more worryingly, Armstrong points out that “salvation” for Muslims does not revolve around the “redemption of an ‘original sin’ committed by Adam,” like

Pardon the Expression  131 it does for the Christians, “but in the achievement of a society which puts into practice God’s desires for the human race” (2011: 51). Warraq adds: Because of its universality, and because God intended the world to follow Islam, it is the duty of all Muslims and especially scholars to disseminate knowledge of Islam to the world. It is a Muslim’s duty to preserve Islam, and to this end, blood must sometimes be shed. (2017: 297) What Warraq is addressing here is Islamic evangelism, especially the concept of “jihad” (see also Shaik, 2003). Many Muslim commentators, including Tariq Ramadan (2017), have pointed out that “jihad” is a word that has two main strands of meaning. The first is often translated as “inner-struggle” or self-betterment, while the second meaning – the notion of “holy war” – has become well known in the common vernacular, especially in a post-9/11 context. Ramadan is keen to emphasise that “spiritual jihad” is much more important in Islam than the “combative” kind, which does involve violence. Yet Ramadan’s peace-loving message, while reassuring to some extent, is not altogether very convincing. The problem is that commentators like Ramadan typically think that they ultimately have the most accurate interpretation of Islam, whereas many other influential Muslims do not share that same view. For Sayyid Qutb, for instance, jīhad and faith are fundamentally linked, and those “persons who attempt to defend the concept of Islamic jīhad by interpreting it in the narrow sense of the current concept of defensive wars . . . lack understanding of the nature of Islam and its primary aim . . . to spread the message of Islam throughout the world”. (cited in Warraq, 2017: 271) Of course, some people will predictably dismiss Qutb, a key member of the Muslim Brotherhood, as an “extremist,” and will therefore try to discount his words as “un-Islamic.” But these people would also need to bear in mind that some prominent commentators, like Armstrong (2011), have gone so far as to argue that the Brotherhood was not necessarily an extremist organisation at all. In any case, it really doesn’t matter whether individual Muslims are peace-loving people or whether they personally take up arms against non-Muslims because jihad is an aspect of sharia (Islamic law), which has its roots in zealous doctrines that date back to the time of Muhammad himself. As Warraq insists: The aim of jihād is the expansion of Islam, and it is an incumbent religious duty of all able-bodied Muslim males. The goal is to submit the world to Islam, and spread a gospel of unmitigated, uncompromising monotheism spelled out in the Koran. By its nature jihād is a permanent state, and can only fall into abeyance when all of mankind submits to Islam – when the last

132  Pardon the Expression Dar al-Harb, a country that has not yet been subdued by Islam, becomes Dar al-Islam, a territory where the edicts of Islam are fully promulgated – where the Shari’a reigns supreme. (2017: 98) So, the Dar al-Islam (“House of Islam”) and the Dar al-Harb (“House of War”) (see Armstrong, 2011: 57) are in perpetual conflict until the whole world becomes Islamic. And that’s not all – it gets worse. According to Bernard Lewis, once a territory becomes part of Dar al-Islam, it “can never be finally renounced” (cited in Harris, 2006: 115). But Harris, being a neuro-scientist, has the insight to recognise a pertinent analogy of colonisation in an inward direction, too: “We might also say that no mind, once added to the realm, can ever be finally renounced – because, as Lewis also notes, the penalty for apostacy is death” (Harris, 2006: 115, original emphasis). These are the main reasons why the Islamic world often seems so defensive, so volatile, and why individual Muslims themselves – especially males – feel so strongly about protecting territories and preserving the faith, especially in those around them. They are also the main reasons why people are likely to have legitimate anxieties regarding the aforementioned clash of civilisations. Many Muslims are keen to promulgate the idea that Islam is nothing but a peaceful religion, which only reacts to provocation in self-defence. But with the best will in the world, this is just simply not the case. This, by definition, cannot be the case if it is the duty of Muslims (and particularly eager and perhaps angry young males) to spread Islam around the world, even where it is not wanted; it cannot be the case if territories, once won, can never be given up; and it cannot be so if Muhammad is presented as the final messenger of God whose words are imperative, perfect, unalterable and intended for all humankind at all times (and all of these while the world continues to change rapidly in many ways that Muslims themselves may find personally disagreeable). This combination of factors will necessarily create unavoidable tensions. It is therefore no wonder that Islamic extremists have been responsible for the overwhelming majority of terrorist atrocities since 9/11 in 2001, notching up in excess of an astonishing “35,000 attacks across the globe” in that time (see Saad, 2020: 129). Meanwhile, while even the most well-reasoned argument made by a “white” person might be categorised as “violence” on account of its use of words and evidence, some in the social sciences will get upset at the mere association of “violence” with “faith” in a book title (see Murphy, 2017). Muslims will often say that “Islam” literally means “peace” (see Mohamad, 1997), just as they are also fond of quoting the Qur’an by proclaiming that “there is no compulsion in religion” (2:256). Now, of course, the tree-hugging non-Muslim in the Western world, ignorant of Islam and understandably seeking harmony, is eager to accept these notions uncritically, at face value. But this, again, is an error of judgement because, like so many phrases in religion, these pronouncements really amount to clever sleights of hand. What does “peace” actually mean? And “peace” for whom? According to other translations, the word “Islam” derives from “the verb aslama (submit, subject)” (Volk, 2015: 7); indeed, believers are regarded as the “slaves” of Allah (Abdul-Mohsin, 2006: 62). And it necessarily follows,

Pardon the Expression  133 according to any utopian vision of society, that wherever there is total and willing “submission” to any given set of principles, “peace” will automatically prevail. Surprise, surprise! But not everybody wants to be a slave and to “submit” willingly to Islam, so this is a rather egotistical and presumptuous way of conceptualising “peace” for all. Islam as peace is therefore a contradiction. As for the “no compulsion” claim, if one really thinks about it, what this refers to is predestination; and, as we saw in Chapter 1, this is a central belief in Islam. The point is that, by definition, there necessarily cannot be “compulsion” in a religion if an individual has been chosen to be a believer (or not) by “God” in advance of their conception on Earth. In such instances, there is therefore only apparent (mis)fortune. The “no compulsion” cliché is therefore a vacuous phrase at best, duplicitous at worst. If there is no compulsion in religion, then why is there “honour violence” throughout the Islamic world? Why was a Christian woman hunted “house to house” in Pakistan in 2018 after being accused of “blasphemy” (Sherwood, 2018)? Why are Malaysian women being “investigated” by the police for even discussing “dehijabbing” (Ellis-Peterson, 2019)? Why was an Iranian woman recently murdered by religious police for not wearing a hijab (Rothwell, 2022)? Why was a poet in Saudi Arabia sentenced to death for renouncing Islam (Batty, 2015)? Why does Tunisia put bloggers on trial for blasphemy (Aliriza, 2020)? Why does Allah himself say “fear me!” (Qur’an 2:256)? The fact is that there is compulsion in Islam, if one only cares to be honest and acknowledge it, and it is traceable to its very origins, despite the protestations of disingenuous community leaders (and many Western “liberals”) today, who may try to claim otherwise. In the words of Muhammad himself, “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (The Hadith, Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57, Al-Bukhari, 2017: 2599). Islam is regularly described as somehow “misunderstood,” both by Muslims and by non-Muslims (see, e.g. Mohamad, 1997; Benlahcene, 2021). But this lack of understanding is not helped by the fact that genuine attempts at understanding – such as critical analysis – are themselves often strictly forbidden. This kind of prohibition is the real problem, and it is the result of not just theological doctrine and social structures which protect and perpetuate such ideological positions from within, but also excessive Western diplomacy and (self-)censorship (see Mohammed, 2019; Ali, 2021). The root of the “misunderstanding” is that neither Islam nor Western liberals are actually prepared for an honest and serious conversation about what Islam really is, even as they overtly claim otherwise: as soon as non-Muslims and critics take the doctrine at face value according to its own tenets, it is they who, bizarrely, are invariably decried as cynical or perhaps even bigoted. The point is that there are strict rules regarding what anyone can say about this particular religion: it is absolutely necessary for you to understand Islam, but Islam is never what you think it is, even if, indeed especially if, you accept it on its own terms and hold a mirror up to it. It is therefore not “racist” at all to pose the “clash of civilisations” question; indeed, it seems entirely necessary. Why is ethnicity hyped up while beliefs are ignored when the latter are more generalisable to Muslims? (Of course, sociologists and policy-makers like to pluralise racism now to encompass such things

134  Pardon the Expression as religions, but this won’t do because beliefs and values, the real issues at hand, are powerful and potential threats, especially in the context of faith; furthermore, anyone can join or leave a religion, at least hypothetically, so it cannot be a “race” as such.) Based on the evidence of scripture and its uncompromising nature, Islam really is at the very cutting edge of regress today, and sharia (Islamic law) is not simply a relic of some distant past that Muslims have long since abandoned. Rather, sharia is a system that underpins Islamic societies to this day, and it is rapidly establishing itself in contemporary Western societies as well. An Observer article reported that there are now at least 12,000 tax-exempted charities in the UK that actively promote religious values at the expense of core British values (Doward, 2019). There are more than 100 Islamic courts in Britain today, and the idea of Islamic laws has become more appealing to young British Muslims (Bates, 2007); one American poll also discovered “that 40 percent of Muslims in America believe that they should not be judged by U.S. law and the Constitution, but by Shari’a” (Warraq, 2017: 66). This should hardly surprise us given that sharia itself is defined as “a system of duties that are incumbent upon all Muslims by virtue of their religious belief” and that it “represents a divinely ordained path of conduct that guides Muslims toward a practical expression of religious conviction in this world and the goal of divine favour in the world to come” (El Shamsy and Coulson, 2019). And again, the sharia-based “penalty for apostacy” in the Islamic world is “death” (Anthony, 2015). Islamic law is based on four principles or ‘roots’ (usūl, pl. of asl): the Koran, the sunna of the Prophet, which is incorporated in the recognized traditions, the consensus (ijmā’) of the scholars of the orthodox community, and the method of reasoning by analogy (qiyās). (Warraq, 2017: 69) It “is concerned as much with ethical standards as with legal rules, indicating not only what an individual is entitled or bound to do in law but also what one ought, in conscious, to do or refrain from doing” (El Shamsy and Coulson, 2019). In other words, sharia can even convict you of thought-crime. With this in mind, imagine the immense psychological strain that must come with really believing incessantly that God knows everything and can even read your mind: “whether you reveal or conceal your thoughts, God will call you to account for them” (Qur’an 2:284); “No leaf falls without His knowledge” (Qur’an 6:59). Imagine the effects of this on the young or the least well educated or the most impressionable. Some Islamic laws are based directly on Koranic references. For example, in dealing with thieves: “Cut off the hands of thieves, whether they are man or woman, as punishment for what they have done – a deterrent from God” (5:38); dealing with infidelity: “Strike the adulteress and the adulterer one hundred times. Do not let compassion for them keep you from carrying out God’s law” (24:2); matters of sexual comportment: “If any of your women commit a lewd act, call four witnesses from among you; then, if they testify to their guilt, keep the women at home until death comes to them or until God shows them another way” (4:15); and

Pardon the Expression  135 domestic disputes: “If you fear high-handedness from your wives, remind them [of the teachings of God], then ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them” (4:34). Remember, these edicts come from a timeless and “perfect” book, which all Muslims on Earth are duty-bound to follow. Representation, Violence, Censorship and Apologetics What should be clear from the foregoing exposition is that a fuller appreciation of what Islam really “is” is therefore indivisible from the debate about cartoons and other forms of representation. If, after becoming acquainted with this religion, some of us feel inclined to reject, criticise or even mock it, then we are entirely justified in doing so, even if it claims perfection. But just like the wider “Social Justice” campaign into which it fits today, Islam generally enjoys the benefits of the vindictive protectiveness afforded it by the apparently well-meaning (yet often poorly or ill-informed) Western “liberals” who typically, even when disabused of their ignorance, will simply deny what is right in front of their faces. The “progressives” of our time who engage in such behaviour thereby do not protect or empower “minorities” as they claim to do, but rather support the already oppressive global and local leadership factions of Islam itself (who, ironically enough, could hardly be more patriarchal, “toxic” or bigoted if they tried). Just like other aggressive ideologies that the far-left and the activists tend to romanticise or make apologies for in blissful ignorance (namely actual Communism), “Islam” (however defined) is always somehow given a free pass. The classic “no true Scotsman fallacy” is usually wheeled out whenever the going gets tough: “Well, we’ve never really seen true Marxism enacted in this world,” they protest; and [insert any objectionable Islamic regime here] “That isn’t the real Islam! You ignoramus!” Such obvious denialism might be rooted in an understandable fear that the liberals themselves have in relation to Islam (which they probably would not admit to anyway); alternatively, perhaps they fear the wrath of other liberals; or it might be that they are simply fixated on bringing down what they already perceive as the great “evil” in our world – namely Western civilisation – by whatever means necessary. So nothing else matters anyway. In truth, it is quite disingenuous to invoke the emotive debates over historical examples of cartoons and visual representations that might have led to inter-ethnic hostilities, and for a number of reasons. First, those Muslims who protest about the cartoons are fanatically concerned more with their spiritual leader, Muhammad, rather than individual Muslims, and there is no agreement among Muslims that depictions of Muhammad are “blasphemous” anyway; in fact, there is a long history of artwork from the Islamic world involving depictions of Muhammad (see Warraq, 1995; Gruber, 2022). Second, related to this, the emphasis is on “Islamophobia,” not the protection of people, some of whom are often the very first victims of Islam itself (Shia Muslims, e.g. or women and children in some communities). In short, some religious leaders seek to exclusively protect the predominant ideas of Islam from any form of criticism, and they co-opt and exaggerate the emotive “-phobia” suffix as a convenient ploy to close-down debate (Sherwood and Nardelli, 2015;

136  Pardon the Expression Webb et al., 2019). Third, this addresses the whole notion of freedom of expression per se, which is designed precisely to protect criticism of ridiculous or dangerous or threatening ideas and ideologies by definition; it was not designed with the hurt feelings of those who may claim to be “offended” in mind. Fourth, “offence” is rich coming from Muslims, given that Islam has a very long history of destroying other religious relics and cultural traditions wherever it has had dominance. For “if, as Muslims believe, all that pre-dates Islam is a form of jahiliyya – barbarism and unbelief – then it has no worth in the eyes of Allah and must be obliterated as a religious obligation” (Freedman, 2016: 40). This has continued unabated into the twenty-first century: “In Bangladesh . . . the statues of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists are singled out for destruction. Bangladesh is a democracy – on paper” (Manji, 2005: Location: 2085). Indeed, few statements could sum up Islam’s routine disdain for other beliefs than the kinds of prayers that get repeated in public places of worship, even in non-Muslim majority countries today, as Ed Husain witnessed from an imam in a mosque in Northern Ireland: “O Allah, dignify Islam and Muslims, humiliate polytheism and the polytheists” (2021: 174) (for the record, to the Muslim mind, this would include Christians, since they believe in the Trinity). Fifth and finally, the particular form of offensive representation (such as a visual caricature) is rendered a red herring because Muslims also have a centuries-long history of attacking anyone who is even simply suspected of having slandered or questioned their faith (see Warraq, 1995, Chapter 1). The case of Sir Salman Rushdie highlights this perfectly. Given its notoriety, a full description of the Rushdie affair should not be necessary. However, for the purposes of context, it refers to the publication in September 1988 of Rushdie’s surrealist novel The Satanic Verses, which was partly inspired by the life of Muhammad. The book incorporates a number of dream sequences which take place in the mind of one of its main characters, Gibreel Farishta (Djibril is the Arabic name for the archangel Gabriel, and “Gibreel” is a reference to this). The dream sequences are concerned mainly with religion. The first tells the story of God’s revelation to the prophet Mahound and how the new religion of Submission swept through Jahilia, a city built entirely of sand. This is a fictionalized, satirical account of the creation of Islam. Mahound is an ancient Christian derogatory name for Muhammad. (Malik, 2017: Location 180). As we have already discussed, “Submission” is a well-known translation of the meaning of “Islam,” and “Jahilia” is a reference to the Arabic word for “ignorance” or barbarism. In another sequence Mahound initially declares the holiness of a number of polytheistic deities, but later renounces them as errors mischievously brought to him by the devil. It is this particular dream sequence from which Rushie’s novel takes its name, and these two sections have often been identified as the most “blasphemous” in Rushdie’s book. Publication of The Satanic Verses caused outrage, initially in Pakistan. This was followed by riots in other parts of the world, particularly in Britain, where

Pardon the Expression  137 protestors burned effigies, flags and a copy of Rushdie’s book. Such behaviour contained ominous echoes of Nazi Germany and Hinrich Heine’s observation that this “is only the prelude; where one burns books, they ultimately burn people” (cited in Grimes, 2019: 392). Then, in February 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini, the then supreme leader of Iran, issued a fatwa (in this case, a death warrant) against Rushdie, offering a handsome financial reward for any successful assassin. For Ibn Warraq, “Spring 1989 will always remain as a kind of watershed in intellectual and world history” (1995: 9). As Warraq’s words indicate, this event was so seismic that it really did represent a pivotal moment for Enlightenment traditions and their future in Western contexts and beyond. Christopher Hitchens referred to it as “the opening shot in a war on cultural freedom” (Hitchens, 2009). In other words, if all Muslims are obliged to feel Khomeini’s sense of outrage (as we are regularly told they ought to), then the fatwa was confirmation of a “clash” of civilisations. And as the journalist Kenan Malik (2017) has stated in his excellent study of the Rushdie affair, the whole thing was whipped up in sheer ignorance of what was actually contained in Rushdie’s novel (which had less to do with religion and more to do with postcolonialism and the experiences of the Indian and Islamic diaspora existing between nations and identities). Khomeini only issued the fatwa in a bid to assert his religious credentials and, as usual, only a minority of the loudest voices around the world took “offence” to the book, simply because they had strategically decided to. Most of the protestors had never even laid eyes on the novel, partly because they feared its blasphemous nature and partly because it was banned in many countries anyway, even including Turkey. The whole stunt was based on opinions rooted mostly in hearsay rather than heresy. As a number of other commentators have pointed out, perhaps even more shocking than the fatwa itself were the responses of so many in the supposedly freedom-loving societies of the West, and especially the various representatives of Rushdie’s own fraternity: writers and artists who vilified him and seemed to conclude that he got what he deserved because he had upset the sentiments of Muslims (Warraq, 1995: 9–10). But this is objectionable on a number of counts. For one thing, it completely ignores the case of Ali Dashti, for instance, the Iranian author of Twenty-Three Years (1994), an account of the “prophethood” of Muhammad. “Dashti died in 1984 after spending three years in Khomeini’s prisons, where he was tortured despite his age of eighty-three” (Warraq, 1995: 5). It also ignores the stories of scores of other artists who are now dead, or living in hiding, as a result of Islamic theocracy. As Slater (2022b) has argued, the automatic “offence” argument feeds into the soft bigotry of low expectations; it says that Muslims are a different breed, that twenty-first-century values are not for them. But more fundamentally than that, my question is: if we are told that the (highly dubious) religion of Muhammad is intended for all people at all times and in all places, then why are we (the people, the intended recipients) not permitted to challenge it? Put another way: if the Qur’an makes no distinction between types of people – if everyone is effectively supposed to be a “Muslim” whether they realise it or not – then why are we getting caught up in present-day concerns over sensitivities around multiculturalism? These kinds of contradictions will simply not register with those committed

138  Pardon the Expression to the double standards implied by multiculturalist principles, though, which, as Gellner has phrased it, typically involve being “liberal at home and conservative abroad” (cited in Sayer, 2000: 76). It should not surprise us that some of the most blatant treachery against free speech advocates like Rushdie has come from the left because the radical left, along with the Christian right, has a history of aligning itself desperately with any old movement or ideology that might help it advance its own cause (see Orwell, 2020/1941a: 22; Thaler, 2021; Lindsay, 2022). We have seen already that today’s CRT contains an Islamic strand, which is accommodated alongside LGBTQ+ perspectives (Delgado et al., 2017) (an alliance I find most curious given the clear and present dangers posed by Islam’s traditional, and eternally binding, pronouncements on sex and various sexualities). Indeed, this alliance has been confirmed again in the alarming new book by Asra Nomani (2023), which provides details of an entire network of activists and their supporters at various levels of American society: a “Woke Army” that includes bloggers, academics, politicians and even media personalities. Susan Buck-Morss, a very prominent figure among left-wing intellectuals, also helpfully spelt-out this affinity between the New Left and Islamism some years ago by adopting an almost celebratory tone at the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001; by claiming that “tolerance” is a quintessentially Islamic ideal (Buck-Morss, 2003: 50–51) and that the terrorism we have seen from the Islamic world is not religiously but politically motivated in response to Western domination. She even refers to Edward Said’s Orientalism (2014/1978) for inspiration, apparently in blissful ignorance of the fact that Said’s thesis has been obliterated by experts on the true history of what Orientalism was as a scholarly practice. For an example of this, see Robert Irwin’s study, in which he severely criticises the popularity of Said’s polemic in Western contexts and how it compromises the standards of intellectual rigour: [I]t is a scandal and damning comment on the quality of intellectual life in Britain in recent decades that Said’s argument about Orientalism could ever have been taken seriously. Obviously I find it impossible to believe that this book was written in good faith. (2006: 309) Buck-Morss therefore not only demonstrates a highly selective understanding of Islam (I wonder if she is really familiar with the scripture at all if she sees it as a byword for “tolerance”), but she is also totally ignorant of the devastating criticisms that have been levelled at Said’s Orientalism thesis, though this is rather standard among stubborn Western academics. In addition, she makes excuses for terrorism and extremism by valorising figures like Sayyid Qutb, a man who “hated democracy” and “is seen as the primary influence on contemporary Islamic terrorists” (Warraq, 2017: 267). Similarly, Karen Armstrong, addressing Khomeini and his fatwa against Rushdie, has stated that it had been rejected overwhelmingly by the Islamic Conference a month after it was issued and that it was officially revoked in 1998 (Armstrong, 2011: 178). (Oh! Well, that’s OK, then!) Armstrong

Pardon the Expression  139 must have forgotten that the fatwa also included calls to bring about the deaths of not only Rushdie but also all of those associated with the publication of his book (Hitchens, 2009). This led to widespread terror in various parts of the world and even resulted in the murders of vendors and translators, including Hitoshi Igarashi, who was stabbed to death on the Tokyo university campus where he taught in 1991. Indeed, the danger has still not passed for Rushdie himself, as was made shockingly clear in August 2022 when he was attacked as he gave a speech in New York State. Rushdie received life-threatening and life-altering injuries having been stabbed multiple times before his attacker was eventually overpowered and arrested; Rushdie was subsequently air-lifted to hospital and his life, at least, was saved (Elamroussi and Morales, 2022). But of course, whether or not anybody had ever been hurt or killed because of Khomeini’s fatwa, the fact that it was made in the first place was a game-changer. Described as “signalling the birth of Muslim identity politics” (Black, 2022), the fatwa has cast a long shadow, and it has been internalised by all people in the world today, but especially Westerners. Moreover, violence is just assumed to be the standard reaction of a Muslim now, which is itself rather unfair, even though many would gladly tell you that to insult Muhammad is to cross “a red line” (Kublitz, 2010: 110). But all of these come back to people’s interpretations of their faith. Who, in the end, really does speak for this religion? One sure thing is that those on the political left appear happy to endorse the most radical elements of it, or to make excuses for it, and this has been true for quite some time. In 1978, for example, Foucault wrote a piece praising the Ayatollah Khomeini and his revolution as he tortured and murdered people in Iran. Foucault excitedly referred to a “political spirituality” that he felt the West had forgotten and could learn from. In response, Warraq notes that one “Iranian girl wrote an eloquent letter complaining of Foucault’s fatuous admiration for Islam,” and it is worth quoting in full. She writes: After 25 years of silence and oppression do the Iranian people have the choice between the Savak [the Shah’s secret police] and religious fanaticism? Spirituality? A  return to the popular source of Islam? Saudi Arabia is gorging itself at the same source. Lovers’ heads and robbers’ hands are falling. For the Left in the West . . . Islam is desirable – but elsewhere. Many Iranians like me are confused and in despair at the idea of an Islamic government. [These Iranians] know what they are talking about. In the countries surrounding Iran, Islam is sheltering feudal or pseudo-revolutionary oppression. Often in countries like Tunisia, Pakistan, and Indonesia, and in my own country, Islam, unfortunately, is the only means of expression for a muzzled people. The Liberal Left in the West should realise what a dead weight Islamic Law can be for a society that is desirous of change, and ought not to be seduced by a cure that is worse than the disease. (cited in Warraq, 1995: 31) How did Foucault, the great moral darling of our current “woke” activists, respond to this letter? By basically dismissing it. Even when he had the opportunity to

140  Pardon the Expression recognise his mistake and atone for his error of judgement, Foucault was “unrepentant and unapologetic” in what is described by Warraq as “an incomprehensible ‘reply’  – incomprehensible in that his reply did not address itself to any of the charges levelled against the Left’s romanticizing of Islam” (Warraq, 1995: 31). So much for the poor girl’s “lived experience” in this case. It is therefore interesting that Foucault continues to be popular today among those who would normally advocate the “cancelling” of anyone on Twitter who they deem to be guilty of a past transgression against some or other victim, even if the “transgressor’s” comments were comparatively benign, or if they simply failed to recognise the need for “allyship” in a given situation. Warraq puts Foucault’s blindness here down to the left’s hatred of the West, as the site of all that is wrong with the world: Enlightenment, colonialism, capitalism, the Anthropocene. It has been said by sociologists themselves that they have a tendency to root for the “underdog” (Becker, 1967). This might often be the case, but the episode with Foucault suggests otherwise; it demonstrates how the left’s obsession with the West and America can easily warp their sense of who the “underdog” really is in some cases. Some Western academics are more upfront about this obsession, as when Buck-Morss cites the “hegemonic signi­ fiers of Western capitalism, Enlightenment modernity and national sovereignty” as the great evils of the world that survived the cold war and now apparently stand ­opposed to Islam (2003: 22). Similarly, Armstrong describes “colonialism” as “a tenet and enthusiasm of modernity” and regards “an aggressive secularism” as the cause of wars and even terrorist atrocities owing to Muslims’ resistance towards such Western influences (2011: 174, 185). Buck-Morss and Armstrong therefore try to argue that Western secularism has forced itself on the Islamic world, but Bruce argues that “no Middle Eastern country was secular before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the 1981 assassination of President Sadat of Egypt, or the 1990s career of Osama Bin Laden brought radical Islam to our attention” (2011: 190). In short, amid the smoke and mirrors, the dangerous element of religious faith simply gets lost in the admixture of Western guilt, political-academic agendas and intellectual haughtiness. The Significance of Faith, History and Politics Western hegemony, racism, neo-colonialism, “Islamophobia” and Said’s notion of “Orientalism” are almost always the favourite explanations as to why Muslims engage in terrorism (see also Kunin, 2003: 10). Religion is either overlooked completely or, alternatively, invoked in a kind of idyllic fashion as something “spiritual” and noble, and thereby contrastable with the evils of godless Western materialism and predation. But this simplistic interpretation will not do because it totally ­ignores historical Islamic violence, oppression and intra-Islamic conflicts over many centuries. As Warraq puts it: The trouble with Western liberals is that they are nice – they are pathologically, terminally nice. They think everyone thinks like them, they think all

Pardon the Expression  141 people, including Islamic fundamentalists, desire the same things, have the same goals in life. For liberals, the terrorists are but frustrated angels forever thwarted by the Great Anarch, the United States of America. (Warraq, 2007: Location 3805) But when it comes to imperialism and the subjugation of others, Islamic history more than holds its own. Contemplate a map of the world and locate the Arabian peninsula. Then compare the size of that land area to the sheer immensity of the Islamic world surrounding it. As Bruce notes, “Although the Arabs created Islam, they now form only some 15 per cent of the world’s Muslims” (2011: 185). How was such a thing possible? Warraq is unequivocal about it: “The conquests of holy war were essential in the growth of Islam, from Morocco in the West to India in the East, and all the lands in between, all of which remain Muslim to this day” (2017: 100). Many commentators will try to peddle the myth of a tolerant “golden age” of Islam in which people of all faiths lived in harmony (see Armstrong, 2011: 49; Rehman, 2011), but Muhammad and his followers were certainly not handing out flyers on his new religion to interested parties in Medina any more than they were asking people to scan a QR code for more information. In fact, we know that those who came under Islamic rule faced three stark choices: conversion to Islam, payment of a crippling and humiliating tax (jizya), or death. Both before and after Muhammad’s death in June  632, the Muslims did exactly what one might have expected of any group of warriors of the time: they slaughtered and raped and pillaged. On more than one occasion, it has also been said of Muhammad that he “conveniently ‘received’ a revelation ‘justifying warfare even in the sacred months as a lesser evil than hostility to Islam’ ” (Warraq, 1995: 92). Muhammad also made it his business to dispose of significant political enemies in Medina, and particularly Jewish tribal leaders, mainly because the Jews of Medina “rejected his claims to prophethood,” which caused tensions (Warraq, 1995: 92). This explains the origins of the long-standing rivalry between Muslims and Jews, at least in part. There is insufficient space here for a thoroughgoing analysis of these points. But before one wishes to join Said in condemning “every European, in what he could say about the Orient,” as “a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric” (Said cited in Warraq, 2007: Location 5476), consider the following brief observations from the opposite side as well. First, one of the most notorious actions undertaken by Muhammad, in 628, was his “cold-blooded execution of the Banu Qurayza (between six hundred and nine hundred men) and the expulsion of the Nadir and their later massacre (something often overlooked in the history books)” (Warraq, 1995: 216–217). These were two Jewish tribes then living in northern Arabia. Warraq also details Muslim attacks on Jerusalem between 634 and 638, where they “burnt churches, destroyed monasteries, profaned crosses, and horribly blasphemed against Christ and the church” (Warraq, 1995: 219). They followed this up with invasions of Syria, Gaza, Caesarea and Mesopotamia between 635 and 642.

142  Pardon the Expression On greater Islamic expansion, Webb writes: Between the years 642 and 708, Arab armies conquered the whole of North Africa from Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean and imposed Islam upon the region. The Berbers were crushed and most converted to Islam. In the course of the 70 years or so which it had taken to subdue this vast area, hundreds of thousands of slaves had been acquired. (2020: 47–48) A vulnerable Africa was ripe for the taking: “With the irresistible enthusiasm of a new-born faith, Islam advanced against, and over, a divided and helpless community, largely Christian – and left behind something worse, not better” (Atterbury, 1969/1899: 57). “It has been estimated that between 80,000 and 100,000 Africans died each year as a direct result of the Arab slave trade” (Webb, 2020: 212). The Arabs also regularly plundered and massacred parts of India, starting in the eighth century, before finally conquering it completely late in the tenth century under Mahmud of Ghazni, controlling it with a succession of other ruthless generals over several hundred years (Warraq, 1995, ch. 9). By the early eighth century, Islam had likewise claimed the whole of Spain and Portugal. About a decade later, a massive army of 90,000 men entered France in 720. Over the next few years, the invading Arabs occupied a number of cities and thrust into the heart of the country. Then, in 732, they were halted at Poitiers and defeated by a Christian army. It was a turning point in world history, because it prevented Europe becoming Muslim. (Webb, 2020: 50) Still, during the Ottoman period, the Muslims of North Africa were a constant scourge to the Europeans and then later the Americans. Trading with the Vikings who worked in collaboration with Ireland, they raided the shores of England for centuries looking for fresh blood, kidnapping men, women and children in the thousands, while also taking slaves from as far afield as the Balkans and Russia. It has been “estimated that a million white slaves were traded in Islamic lands between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries alone” (Fernández-Morera, 2016: 77). For centuries, the various powers of Europe had each been paying the North African Muslims their own share towards what was essentially a long-standing protection racket to appease the Muslims and prevent them from continuing their raids (which didn’t completely stop anyway). For the most part, it was more costeffective to pay regular tribute than to pay for expensive wars. America was paying too, for a time. But this soon changed when the Muslims’ demands became so excessive that the Americans realised the false economy of paying out one-fifth of their annual budget (plus goods) in protection money and decided that such sums would be better served financing an expansion of their own navy and engaging the Muslims in battle instead. This period is known to history as the Barbary Wars. At the start of these wars, even before it became a force to be reckoned with, the

Pardon the Expression  143 American navy inflicted a humiliating defeat on that of Libya in 1801, and other victories followed in 1805. Rightly or wrongly, these events have echoed down the centuries as America has used its power to protect two of its strategic interests, chiefly free-trade and liberties. As an aside, then, one might wonder whether it’s not more appropriate to say that, rather than America giving rise to Al-Qaida and ISIS today, it was in fact the old Islamic world that first gave rise to a powerful and determined America (its ultimate nemesis to this day). The enslavement of people of all kinds was central to the activities of the Libyan, Moroccan and Egyptian Muslim outposts, all of which were Ottoman provinces, and control of the high seas was significant in this. But when the British oversaw the world’s first organised assault on global slavery, using their own navy in very costly and risky operations off the coast of West Africa (Webb, 2020: 211), opposition to the policy from Islamic chiefs was made precisely by appeal to Islamic law: “Sharia” (Manji, 2005: Location 1988). Indeed, there are still slaves in Africa and the Middle East presently. With reference to the Yazidis, a religious minority in Iraq who have been massacred mercilessly by Muslims over hundreds of years, Freedman has noted how IS (Islamic State) still continue this warrior culture today, with the buying and selling of sex slaves in open markets (2016: 43). Far from being “anti-Islamic,” this bears a very close resemblance to the world that Muhammad and his medieval successors controlled for many hundreds of years. Indeed, as long as the children involved are non-Muslims, many Muslim males even engage in sex slavery today in Western countries while the authorities look the other way for fear of accusations of “racism” (see McLoughlin, 2016, for a truly shocking example). Given all of these factors, it is positively absurd for any Muslim, or defender of Islam, to refer exclusively to Western aggression or greed or ambition, while presenting Islam as purely and simply the innocent victim of Western colonisation. This modish point of view has come largely from the work of Said and other “postcolonialist” writers. But as Warraq puts it with regard to Egypt and Europe, Said’s use of emotive language concerning Western imperialism with all its supposed evils conceals the real overall historical background of the entire region. Where the French presence lasted fewer than four years before they were ignominiously expelled by the British and Turks, the Ottomans had been the masters of Egypt since 1517, a total of 280 years. Even if we count the later British and French protectorates, Egypt was under Western control for sixty-seven years, Syria for twenty-one years, and Iraq for only fifteen – and, of course, Saudi Arabia was never under Western control. Contrast this with southern Spain, which was under the Muslim yoke for 781 years, Greece for 381 years, and the splendid new Christian capital that eclipsed Rome – Byzantium – which is still in Muslim hands. But no Spanish or Greek politics of victimhood apparently exist. (2007: Location 296–302) The simplistic take on East-West relations extends to the Middle East and the socalled “Holy Land,” the histories of which are far more complicated than many of

144  Pardon the Expression those on the left would have you believe. Again, pointing to the massacres of the “Banu” tribes mentioned earlier, Saad notes that Saudi Arabia was Jewish land long before it became Arabian (2020: 58). Moreover, [a] great number of Sephardic Jews ended up in Israel fleeing from Muslim persecution, so that they now constitute about 50 percent of the Israeli population. It makes no sense to talk of Israel as a European colony, or to reduce everything to the East versus West anti-imperialist struggle, as Said does. (Warraq, 2007: Location 3670) And with all of the Western moralising that goes on nowadays, especially in our universities, one wonders whether places like Pakistan or Egypt will also implement a “decolonising” of their own curricula, since children in these countries are still forced daily to read an ancient book in a language they often do not understand (Ahmed, 2003; Ismail, 2003). For some liberals and left-wing radicals, the sheer awfulness of the West can justify anything that gets done against it, even terrorism. According to Buck-Morss, “Islamism is not a religious discourse, but a political one” (2003: 43). She therefore does not remotely understand Islam. Given how necessarily intertwined Islam is with politics at any and every level, as we have seen, it is hard to imagine a more mistaken or disingenuous statement than this one. It is perhaps fitting that one of Buck-Morss’ most famous books (not on Islam) is called Dreamworld and Catastrophe, since her banal thought processes on Islam seem to hover loosely between either one of those extremes at any given moment. Buck-Morss lauds the writings of Sayyid Qutb, whose greatness was apparently to be found in his insistence on a return to a literal reading of the Qur’an as an antidote to Western influence (2003: 98). But if this is the case, it means that she is effectively admitting to a kind of perverted joy that comes with taking the Qur’an as a document that readily lends itself to a hostility towards the West (perhaps in its overt hatred towards non-believers, one assumes), which necessarily means that the sentiments she mentions must be original to the Qur’an, a book which preceded the rise of Europe and America by about 1,000 years. And this is really the crux of the issue. The problem is not the far-fetched claim that the West is the “oppressor” of the Islamic world (which would, of course, be perfectly peaceful and prosperous otherwise), but that the Islamic world is playing second fiddle to the West and has been doing since approximately the start of the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution. Of course, again, some liberals would say that this is precisely the problem: that Islamic values feel threatened. However, I am of the opinion that religious supremacy, religious faith, death by stoning, dogmatism, death for apostacy and other core values associated with Islam should feel threatened today. And we should also remind ourselves that, but for an historical turn here or there, we in the West ourselves might, today, be under the yoke of Islam and therefore unable to answer back at all. Commentators like Armstrong are very fond of citing the crusades as evidence of the West’s inherent evil and hatred towards Islam, but then she suddenly

Pardon the Expression  145 remembers her sense of perspective when it comes to the crimes of the medieval Muslims: “The massacre of Qurayzah was a horrible incident, but it would be a mistake to judge it by the standards of our own time. This was a very primitive society” (Armstrong, 2011: 49). This is bizarre given the prevalence of presentism in today’s woke morality, which routinely judges the people of the past by today’s moral standards. Many Western historical figures are having their statues torn down for not being as angelic as today’s activists, but Muhammad (a man who allegedly had a hotline to God and therefore should have had the most perfect morality imaginable) was simply a man of his time. The double standards regarding opinions on Islamic and Western histories are everywhere, and they could not be more blatant. Turner, for example, writes: “The covering of female bodies and the exclusion of women from public roles in antiquity under the impact of Pauline theology represented a major diminution of those freedoms which women had enjoyed in pagan Rome and Greece” (1991: 235). This makes interesting reading from a prominent sociologist writing on religion in the late twentieth century, because, predictably, as soon as the conversation switches to the veil in the case of Muslim women today, who are also routinely segregated and subjugated, what we find is a pure and grovelling Islamophilia – these women love their veils (see Armstrong, 2011: 175). And the mythology is supported widely in our culture (Mohammed, 2018). How about supremacy, insults and ignorance? Well, the Qur’an describes Muslims as the best of all people (3:110). Moreover, according to Abdul-Mohsin, “Arabic is the most perfect language” and Islam is the perfect religion (2006: 122). Based on a content analysis, the three main sources of Islamic scripture contain more references to anti-Semitism than Hitler’s Mein Kampf (Saad, 2020: 161). “The word yahoodi or Jew is used as a curse word reserved for the vilest of people. Among Muslims this word was generally blasé” (Mohammed, 2019: 53, describing her childhood). Wafa Sultan describes a routine “hatred of Christians by the Muslim community” in Syria, as experienced by her husband-to-be when he was a child (2009: 34). Ayaan Hirsi Ali recalls attending an Islamic girls’ school in Kenya in which ethnic hierarchies were rife and where “[a]ny kind of Arab girl considered herself superior to anyone else: she was born closer to the Prophet Muhammad” (2007: 68). A 2014 news article reported that “Most Arab states share ISIS’ ideology” (Whitaker, 2014). In some Muslim communities in the UK, “ ‘Gora’ is a pejorative word for a white person” (Husain, 2021: 181), while Somalians use another word: “gaalo” (Ali, 2007: 133). Non-Muslims in Muslim states are clearly made aware of their inferior status, having fewer rights than the Muslims (Warraq, 2017: 70). And what about being inward-looking? Citing the Arab Human Development Report of 2003, Warraq writes: “Greece, with a population of fewer than 11 million, translates five times as many books from abroad into Greek annually as the 22 Arab countries combined, with a total population of more than 300 million, translated into Arabic” (2007: Location 724). To quote Manji, “over the past 1,000 years, . . . the entire Arab world [has] translated as many books as Spain translates every year” (2005: Location 2451). One wonders whether Said would have admitted that these examples are conceited, racist or “ethnocentric” as well.

146  Pardon the Expression It is therefore absurd to assert that discrimination, imperialism, violence and conquest are exclusively Western, or that they are “un-Islamic” traits. Indeed, with reference to disbelievers, the Qur’an itself even boasts about “shrinking their borders” (21:44). And the next time a Muslim wishes to jump on the CRT bandwagon in a Western country where they enjoy rights unimaginable to the vast majority of their “brothers and sisters” in various parts of the world today, perhaps they’d like to begin by “checking” their own privilege first (including that of being able to talk about ordinary “white” people however they like with impunity). This is no spurious link back to CRT and the “Social Justice” campaign of our time; it is a very palpable development because, while everybody has internalised Khomeini’s fatwa by now, the very same process is well underway regarding the new oppressor/ oppressed dichotomy in which, as we have seen, all white people may be looked upon by all “people of colour” as the legitimate targets of their abuse and retribution for certain historical events over which they had no control and in which they had no involvement. And at the same time, while the eternal Qur’an forbids Muslims to make friends with “Jews and Christians” and unbelievers (5:51), there is no revered book or creed of “Western-ness” or “whiteness” which might instruct its devotees to do anything likewise. Multiculturalism has been criticised roundly by most of the commentators I have cited in this chapter, because it fosters this kind of skewed outlook. Under the guise of a new “inclusion” and “equality,” multiculturalism has in fact cultivated a climate of division and, ironically, the very “Othering” that the liberals allegedly despise. This is not the view of “racist” white Westerners, but rather many second and third generation Asians and (ex-)Muslims in Western countries (Warraq, 1995; Manji, 2005; Malik, 2017; Mohammed, 2019; Husain, 2021). Multiculturalism is unfair and ill-conceived for a number of reasons, but mainly because it reinforces stereotypes of minorities and majorities. Malik (2017), for example, notes the tendency of politicians in Britain to show a preference for Islamic garb to be worn by Muslims whenever there is a photo opportunity with local community leaders – both because the Muslims thereby present the appearance of being “authentic” and because the MP in question can therefore be seen as actively engaging in community relations. But why are we proceeding along such divisive lines in the first place? It is not necessary for a Muslim to wear a hijab or a kameez in order to be a Muslim. Malik also describes how local community projects are more likely to be endorsed (and therefore receive funding) if they are presented as serving the needs of some or other minority than if they are serving the needs of all in the community. This kind of financial reward has incentivised local community leaders to define themselves along identarian lines, as per the vision of our new cultural elites who have legitimated separatism instead of togetherness. All of these play into the hands of Islamists and Islamic leaders in Western societies, who seek to emphasise and preserve the “glory” of Islam and to actively resist peaceful assimilation into a host culture. Interestingly, Islamic teachings include the notion of taqia (literally, “caution prudence”), which allows a Muslim to conceal his true feelings and cherished beliefs

Pardon the Expression  147 when he feels that non-Muslims around him have the upper-hand, while at the same time working secretly to achieve his great objective, so that he can attack them when the time is ripe. (Sultan, 2009: 242) This comes across in Ed Husain’s chilling recollection of a conversation he had with one Bradford-based imam, who makes it clear that the allegiances of all British Muslims ought to be with the global caliphate, whenever it arrives, and not with Britain; he instructs his students to be patient and “do your part” until the time comes (2021: 121). (But earlier, when we analysed the Danish cartoons, we saw that sections of the Danish press and society were admonished as “racists” for thinking that Muslims are of one mind.) As Simon Cottee has suggested, despite the complexities and the legitimate grievances regarding such things as Western foreign policy in recent times, we must also begin to recognise the faith component that makes some Muslims so prone to volatility. In his words, we need “to talk about Muhammad” and we need to acknowledge religious violence as a legitimate theme of analysis in contemporary criminology (Cottee, 2014). However, in typically disappointing academic fashion, Cottee has also written elsewhere that Islam itself is not the problem when it comes to such things as violence against apostates in Western contexts (see Cottee, 2015). The myth that terror attacks and violence have nothing to do with Islam itself began immediately after 9/11 (Ali, 2007: 268), and this fluffy little delusion desperately needs to be put into perspective, just like any other kind of faith. Although anti-Muslim bigotry is a real phenomenon in certain parts of the Western world today, the alleged widespread victimhood of Muslims is a massive over-exaggeration. It amounts to a strategic ploy that relies on the good will of lovey-dovey Western elites and only a rather selective reading of “imperialism” and “conquest” in historical terms. It has less to do with some kind of “atheistic” or secularist impoliteness in Westerners and more to do with the age-old problem of censorship and ideological intimidation, which has historically come, overwhelmingly, from religions and extreme political regimes, not genuinely secular contexts. As Rose puts it: Nowhere do so many religions coexist peacefully as in democracy where freedom of expression is a fundamental right. In Saudi Arabia, you can get arrested for wearing a cross or having a Bible in your suitcase, while ­Muslims in secular Denmark can have their own mosques, cemeteries, schools, TV and radio stations. (Rose, 2006: 132–133) The assault on speech is a deliberate political move designed to weaken Western principles and to preserve Islam (and other ideologies) in a changing world, and Muslims have a kind of “censorship envy” (Volokh in Lukianoff and Weiss, 2020). To argue that that changing world has to draw its own line at the bounds of Islam is an afront in itself because “To accept that certain things cannot be said is

148  Pardon the Expression to accept that certain forms of power cannot be challenged” (Malik, 2017: Location 4264). Citing ethnicities and prejudices as excuses, the contemporary left is onboard with such authoritarianism because, as we have seen, apart from previously courting murderous and revolutionary causes that could be beneficial to its own ambitions with regard to power, it also in fact shares the same disregard for logic and reason, along with the same passion for censoriousness and prudishness, that we have come to expect from most religions. The most archaic form of Islam therefore becomes, in the short term at least, the perfect “ally” for an equally fanatical left. A great way to paralyse a whole culture is to take away something that is central to its identity. For most Western people, this means the right to free enquiry and expression, but to a true Muslim, these things can only be regarded as sinful and dangerous innovations. The two are therefore undeniably on a collision course. As Malik puts it: The willingness of Western liberals to restrict speech in the name of pluralism has not simply helped strengthen the culture of censorship in Western societies and beyond, it has also weakened the authority of Western societies to challenge illiberal sentiments. (Malik, 2017: Location 4085) Or, to conclude with Flemming Rose, The moment we begin to restrict people’s right to tell their story – the ­moment we begin to monitor and control speech, either to spare the reader discomfort or to safeguard the state – then freedom no longer prevails and from then on, the only question is how much unfreedom we will accept. (Rose, 2014: Location 3881) With an emphasis on the growing rise of relativism in all spheres today, the next and final chapter will therefore analyse the importance of the real premises that lie behind the roles of reason and science in liberal-democratic contexts.

7

Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism

As we have already seen in Chapters 4 and 5, an atmosphere of relativism prevails in the humanities today. The aim in those chapters was to show that uncompromising and disingenuous ideological perspectives – the archetypes being those belonging to organised religions – can become the unworthy beneficiaries of such often well-meaning outlooks, particularly when they may be lent unwarranted credibility from political, academic and popular sources (see the case of Islam in Chapter 6). In addition, along with a distrust, even disdain, towards science, there is also much evidence of a long-standing and unwarranted respect for various forms of mysticism, pseudoscience, new-age spirituality and superstition in popular culture in the contemporary world (see Sagan, 1996; Shermer, 1997; Dawkins, 2006b). The main purposes of this chapter, however, are (1) to explore some of the deeper-lying reasons as to why this unfortunate state of affairs has taken hold in academia, (2) to consider its implications and (3) to critique it. In order to do this, the chapter will switch its focus towards more general epistemological concerns and away from the rather subjective arguments of identity politics and popular culture, which are downstream of the various philosophical perspectives that allegedly provide them with their foundations. A long-running saga concerning definitions of “scientificity” has ensued in the academy, with commentators on opposing sides of the debate making ­various claims and counter-claims relating to standards and legitimacies of knowledge. In contemporary Western culture, “science” has tended to set the benchmark, and the notion of “demarcation criteria” refers to the particular characteristics by which philosophers of science attempt to distinguish the scientific from the non-­ scientific. I  am not a trained scientist and therefore will not comment with any personal experience on the relative merits of competing theories and methods in, for ­example, the fields of physics or chemistry. However, with reference to a range of informed accounts on science and the philosophy of science, what I can provide is a detailed overview of some of the most important developments in this area in order to assess the impact that these arguments have had, and continue to have, on academic discussion and social life more generally. Indeed, engaging in such routine acts of assessment of available evidence (even in the absence of expertise) is not only a privilege but perhaps even a duty of all individuals in the free world. ­Overall, I shall therefore argue in favour of reason because, as Pinker points out, it DOI: 10.4324/9781003039822-7

150  Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism is “non-negotiable” (2018), and it conditions all of our sense- and decision-making judgements, whether we accept that fact or not. Reason is, then, an objective condition which poses a problem for relativism, while it also plays a crucial role in the functioning of any sincere society. Yet the modern humanities have occupied a central position in debates on science and relativism. Part of the reason for this has to do with the deep connections between modern science and, for example, the advent of the discipline of sociology, a discipline which has struggled for prestige at some stages and has been at the forefront of critiques of power and knowledge structures at others. Indeed, this is undoubtedly one of the main reasons why a rather vain hostility towards science still tends to persist (and appears to be intensifying) in the social sciences to this day. It is therefore with this fundamental connection that we shall begin. Modernity and the Development of Sociology It is commonly accepted that sociology, at least as the established discipline we know today, has its roots in the period of history generally referred to as “modernity.” ­Although modernity itself is a contested term, in the interests of concision, we might say that, temporally speaking, it roughly spans a 300-year period from around the mid-seventeenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, give or take a few decades. Some would no doubt stake a claim for Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) and Galileo Galile (1564–1642) given that their combined achievements – namely, the establishment of the heliocentric view of the cosmos and various advancements in optics and physics – were also greatly influential in producing a radical shift of mindset towards the more “modern” form that ours takes today. A mindset is fundamental, no doubt, but more tangible features tend to provide us with the real social “stuff” of modernity and how that concept has come to be defined experientially for most people. To the sociologist, “modernity” is likely to be characterised by a number of crucial changes that had tumultuous and lasting impacts on not just minds but also world history and the meaning of “society” itself. The most crucial developments were a series of revolutions (the scientific, the industrial, the American and the French). The fallout from each of these produced great alterations to the way that societies would come to be regarded and organised. Self-determination and liberty became the orders of the day, and knowledge became the principal manifestation of human empowerment. Through the work of the great scientists and inventors of the time, nature was seemingly giving up its secrets one-by-one and yielding to the sheer tenacity of human curiosity and intellect. A new age of discovery, the Enlightenment, had gradually taken hold of the collective imagination; it was apparently all intended for the greater good, and the sky, it seemed, was the limit: “From the start . . . the concept of modernity was indissociably allied to the idea of historical progress. It was precisely from the prospect of infinite future improvement that the new age sought its legitimacy” (Callinicos, 2007: 14). In Chapter 2, we noted that a concomitant process – urbanisation – was also rapidly altering the nature of societies during this time, as more and more people

Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism  151 began to make their way from rural locations to settle permanently in towns and cities, particularly in countries like Britain and France. It was within this general atmosphere that the discipline of sociology, in its now conventional sense, emerged. French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857), a pioneer in the philosophy of science, turned his investigations towards “society” as a scientific phenomenon in and of itself. It is commonly acknowledged that it was in fact Comte who coined the term “sociology,” combining the Latin word “socius” (“companionship”) and the suffix “-ology” from the Greek “logos” (or “study of”) in naming the new discipline. Comte was a “positivist” – indeed, again, he is considered to have introduced the term and to have developed its approach. Drawing on the empiricist tradition (exemplified by figures such as David Hume), positivism asserts that nothing can be confirmed as true except that which is observable or directly amenable to the senses. This ethos dominated scientific thinking in Comte’s era, and he attempted to apply its conventions to the study of society, just as physicists had done with nature. Indeed, Comte also used the term “social physics” to refer to sociology. The reader is reminded that Comte theorised three phases in human history: the religious, the metaphysical and the scientific. Under its spirit of “progress” (a morally significant notion shared by most thinkers at the time), the primary purpose of the scientific phase was to enable humanity to finally gain mastery over nature, rather than being at its mercy. The more we understood, it was believed, the greater were the benefits and the fewer were the dangers. The chaos, disharmony and suffering wrought by the advent of modern society were what drove Comte to turn his attention towards the systematised organisation of human social relations. Just as with the natural sciences, prediction and solution were preferable to speculation and contingency. By “knowing” the nature of society inside-out and understanding its assumed laws, Comte reasoned that we could anticipate its capriciousness more effectively. We could finally dispense with endless speculations about how society ought to be and focus instead on what it is in its essence, thereby being better placed to maintain order and equilibrium in the present and future. The influence of positivism is also detectable in the work of J.S. Mill, Herbert Spencer and that of Comte’s compatriot, Émile Durkheim, a central figure in sociology’s development. The primary goal for Durkheim was to identify and define just exactly what sociology is concerned with. He wanted to distinguish sociology as a unique and credible discipline in its own right, but to do so without thereby dismissing all other sciences and assuming that sociology could or must have all the answers. Durkheim wanted sociology to have its place among the other sciences, not to displace them. As we have seen in previous chapters with regard to such perspectives as “social constructionism” and the generally dismissive attitude of many in the humanities towards perspectives in the natural sciences today, contemporary sociology appears to have gone in the opposite direction to somebody like Durkheim, which is somewhat ironic in itself given the levels of imagination (and perhaps excessive ambition) often attributed to the “founding fathers” of the discipline. Ian Craib (1997) makes this point against what he calls “sociological imperialism” as he acknowledges the clarity and modesty in Durkheim’s outline for sociology, which we “would do well” to bear in mind today. He writes: “Some

152  Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism modern writers seem to think that sociology must explain everything or it can explain nothing, and that there is no alternative in between” (Craib, 1997: 27). It is these kinds of attitudes that are of interest in this chapter. Nevertheless, positivism has itself been characterised as imperialistic (Hacking, 1983: 43), and it is discernible in much of Durkheim’s work. Its influence can be gleaned from his general definition of society and, therefore, his approach to the study of it. Society, Durkheim argued, predominantly consisted in a collective moral conscience. This, he held, was expressed in religion, in law, in the division of labour, in institutionalization itself. Yet, like the true child of positivism, he wanted to show that the fact that society was primarily a moral reality did not detract from the idea that it should be studied by the same methods as those of the natural sciences which were demonstrably superior to other methods of conjecture and speculation. (Hughes and Sharrock, 1990: 31) Every science needs to have its own objects of enquiry, and it was Durkheim’s definition of society that led him to develop the concept of the “social fact,” one of the major contributions for which he is well-known. By one definition, in terms reminiscent of the effects of gravity in the natural realm, Durkheim describes the social fact as an independently existing “external” force which enables and restricts the individual in the same moment (1962: 10). Basic examples of social facts include laws, languages, moneys, customs and moral codes (which includes religions). Each of these is consistent, yet nuanced, across societies. If I want to participate in any given society, I have to accept the reality of its particular manifestations of social facts and acclimatise accordingly (e.g. if I wish to buy something with cash in the United States, I must use American dollars). All social facts are to be thought of as entities (or “things” as Durkheim would say) which, just like natural phenomena, exist in the world independently of our perceptions about them. Moreover, all social facts have two main criteria. First, they must be explained by other social facts (they are based in certain consistent realities relating to time, place, customs, circumstances and so on, and they are definable by such features). Second, as alluded to above, social facts are characterised by various “constraints” which push “the individual towards a particular action” (Craib, 1997: 30). But some social facts are not as obvious as currencies or languages, and these require sociological expertise and investigation in order to be uncovered and appreciated properly. One example of such a social fact is that of suicide, to which Durkheim dedicated a renowned and impressive study (see Durkheim, 1952). Though it may seem rather odd to talk about “constraint” in relation to suicide, it is the earlier references to collective psychology and varying levels of social integration that hold the key to understanding how Durkheim attempted to define its numerous types and the effects of what he called particular “suicidogenic currents” on individuals according to social and historical circumstances. These factors, Durkheim argued, caused people to commit suicide in identifiably unique ways, and this enabled him to discuss the phenomenon in exclusively sociological

Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism  153 terms. Given the importance of collectiveness and religious affiliation in Durkheim’s work, one general conclusion of his Suicide thesis was that “the more embedded someone was within social networks, the less likely they were to commit suicide” (Warner, 2010: 23). Not unlike a physician relating to a medical condition, Durkheim’s sociology was concerned with a kind of diagnostic and remedial approach to society and its problems, and this is certainly reflected in his study on suicide. According to his general schema, “it was vital to demonstrate the scientific status of sociology as a means, not only of understanding the origins of the various pathologies that society was heir to, but also to justify corrective intervention” (Hughes and Sharrock, 1990: 37). For Durkheim, that status of sociological knowledge about the world as “scientific” legitimated and perhaps even obligated the researcher towards social reform. In its turn, Durkheim’s work set the tone for much of Western sociology during the first half of the twentieth century, particularly via the “functionalist” and “role theory” perspectives exemplified in the work of figures like Robert Merton and Talcott Parsons. As Keat and Urry note, “the system of classical mechanics” is, “for positivists,” the exemplar of what form scientific explanation should ideally take. Interestingly, then, we find Parsons arguing that there are four generalized laws of equilibrium, that the first three of these are identical to Newtonian mechanics, and that the fourth is of the same type. (1980: 93) Observations such as these emphasise the hold that positivism had for so long on all sciences. Moreover, again with an inclination towards policy and intervention strategies, they demonstrate the lengths to which some of the most important sociologists have gone in order to make sociology fit neatly into a unified model of what the “unified” family of sciences had been deemed to be. Despite the ongoing dominance of positivism into the twentieth century, debates as to the suitability of positivist approaches towards the study of societies and the individuals within them had been around since at least the late nineteenth century. The philosophical concept of verstehen, for example, which is concerned with understanding the lives of people from their own perspective in order to relate those experiences to a greater social, cultural and historical context, was endorsed by Weber and introduced into his sociology. With time, the work of various other figures, including Wittgenstein and Peter Winch, in addition to the phenomenology of Husserl and the rise of hermeneutics (a method originally applied in the decoding of religious scripture and later adapted towards the a focus on language as the key to understanding “Other” cultures and worldviews), had influenced “the linguistic turn” in the social sciences by the mid-twentieth century (see Hughes and Sharrock, 1990). All of this impacted the social sciences and gradually destabilised the hold that positivistic approaches had generally maintained, opening them to more subjective and culture-centred perspectives. But it was not until the 1960s and 1970s that debates in the philosophy of science took a seemingly decisive turn

154  Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism from the point of view of the humanities. As Bohman points out, however, “the impetus” for such a debate came not from the social sciences themselves but “from the side of the natural sciences, in the challenges to the ‘received view’ of naturalism by post-empiricist philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn, Mary Hesse and Paul Feyerabend” (1991: 2). The works of these and other philosophers of science posed new questions, sparking fervent dialogue between disciplines with regard to epistemological standards across the entire range of sciences and fields, whether deemed natural, sociological or theological. It is to this enduring set of debates, and principally the work of Kuhn, that we now turn. Kuhn and Scientific Revolutions Originally published in 1962, no other single work in the philosophy of science has had quite the impact as that of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn (1996). This book challenged our perceptions of science in every significant way, beginning with a despoiling of the traditional romanticisation of science and its practitioners in Western cultures. The stereotypical image of science, presented in its textbooks, is of the individual innovator, a (typically male) genius isolating himself, making sacrifices and heroically pursuing his goals as he probes the boundaries of accepted knowledge, which are expanded in largely unproblematic and incremental ways. Contrary to this image, Kuhn presented science as a much more mundane and collaborative, even industrial, endeavour undertaken by teams of specifically trained personnel on research programmes. This was the real hard labour of the scientific process, and Kuhn called it “normal science.” Far from being innovative and ground-breaking, then, normal science is routine, even banal. Normal science takes place in structures of practice and tradition based on exemplary models of precursive innovations (such as Newtonian physics), which light the way for further study. Kuhn referred to such models as “paradigms.” While providing exemplars, paradigms nevertheless also leave many unanswered questions and areas for further enquiry within their bounds: this is the very stuff of normal science. The teams of scientists, rather like worker bees, become members of communities and occupy themselves with the day-to-day tasks of “puzzle-solving,” as Kuhn called it. Normal science and the paradigms they serve are therefore largely self-referential, with no obvious social or even academic benefits. However, the ongoing routine also produces what Kuhn called “anomalies” (new problems that the existing theory is ill-equipped to explain). At first, the anomalies are ignored or cast aside for attention later. Eventually, however, the anomalies accumulate to such an extent that they become an intolerable burden, and the result is a period of “crisis.” After some time, a solution is found in the creation of a new paradigm which supersedes, and is (allegedly) wholly different to, its predecessor (e.g. Einsteinian physics succeeding Newtonian physics). After incorporating the anomalies into the new paradigm, normal science is able to resume, and the cycle continues repetitively in the same way. Thus the history of science is characterised not so much by a smooth transitional evolution, if you will, but by a series of difficult and controversial revolutions.

Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism  155 The consternation created by Kuhn’s book derives not only from its description of how science typically gets done, then, but principally from its description of how science has changed historically. A transition from one paradigm to another might not seem remarkable in itself, but Kuhn’s thesis asserted that this process happens for reasons that are decidedly less than scientific, as we shall see shortly. Also, the “doing” of normal science is ultimately bound up with the eventual paradigm shift itself. For Kuhn, the “puzzle-solving” of normal science is something more like a distraction from “progress” rather than the key to it: solving the puzzles themselves is what drives the individual on; this is how both personal and paradigmatic “successes” are to be measured. Moreover, drawing on Wittgenstein’s work in linguistics, Kuhn asserts that the trainee scientist typically internalises the enabling characteristics of a paradigm without even realising how, in much the same way as children might acquire accurate language skills without requiring any familiarity with its “rules” in a technical sense. But most damningly of all, Kuhn suggested that the transition from one paradigm to another happens for political reasons rather than intellectual ones. The key to understanding how this happens lies in the stubbornness of certain anomalies which “refuse to be assimilated to existing paradigms” (Kuhn, 1996: 97). The presence of such anomalies exposes the limitations of the existing paradigm, to which older members of the scientific community in question usually remain loyal. When attempts to maintain the existing theory ultimately fail, and as the older scientists gradually die off or retire, a fresh band of scientists uses the resistant anomalies as a basis for the establishment of a new paradigm which is capable of accommodating them. In order for the new paradigm to be able to do this, Kuhn argues, it must be radically different from its predecessor, comprising a completely new conceptual framework. It is for this reason that Kuhn describes competing paradigms as “logically incompatible” with one another: they are, as he puts it, “incommensurable” (1996: 103). For Kuhn, given that the paradigm, based in concepts and language, is the self-contained hub of the scientist’s understanding of reality, it is the source of their entire “world view” (and therefore professional existence). This is why changes can sometimes be resisted fiercely by certain factions, even as a new paradigm starts to become dominant. But resistance to the turning tide is ultimately futile and one paradigm will eventually fully succeed another so that the business of “normal science” can recommence. Ultimately, Kuhn argues that the scientists who are wedded to the competing paradigms therefore inhabit different worlds, and their own transition from one perspective to another, when that does happen, is therefore based fundamentally in their need to be part of a relevant and functioning community. Kuhn’s Paradigms: Some Consequences and Responses With Kuhn’s thesis fresh in hand, many social scientists of the era had come to realise an apparent irony. Having been judged since its origins according to the standards and achievements of the natural sciences, the discipline of sociology had faced the tiresome burden of continually trying to justify itself as a credible endeavour

156  Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism in accordance with the dictates of positivism. Now, however, given the collaborative nature of “normal science,” the political wranglings of “paradigm shifts” and the waxing and waning of generational transitions, it seemed more appropriate to ask not whether sociology was scientific, but whether the whole business of science itself was mostly sociological. In short, Kuhn’s thesis had implications for the conventional perceptions of science and the question of how (or indeed whether) it could even be considered to be a cumulative and “progressive” epistemological enterprise, as it often is. Science, it seemed, had therefore been taken off its pedestal. Kuhn’s book has been described as one of the most important in the philosophy of science, and it has polarised opinion across the spectrum of disciplines. Demonstrating their professional admiration for Kuhn while maintaining a commitment to good science, Gross and Levitt argue that “[o]nly the most superficial reading of this work and of subsequent commentary by Kuhn on his critics can lend support to strong forms of relativism, a position that Kuhn is at pains to most energetically deny” (1994: 139). This appears to be the case when we read Kuhn’s responses to his critics (see Kuhn, 1970), yet his Structure book does also provide plenty of incentive for those who would wish to read it in relativistic terms. For example, he suggests that paradigms are ultimately language based and that “there can be no scientifically-neutral system of language,” meaning that “theories must proceed from within one or another paradigm-based tradition” (1996: 146). This is what leads to the suggestion that scientists of different persuasions live in different worlds. It means that scientists are effectively under the spell of a given paradigm and are necessarily incapable of escaping or seeing beyond its confines. However, these claims have been emphatically refuted by a number of commentators, including prominent sociologists, as exaggerated, too simplistic, or just plain wrong (see Watkins, 1970: 34–35; Popper, 1970: 56–57; Keat and Urry, 1980: 57, 63; Couvalis, 1997: 14). Nevertheless, for Kuhn, paradigms dictate what scientists see. This is the assertion that “observation” is always “theory-laden” (Hanson, 1981). According to Kuhn, it is this paradigmatic trap and the routines of “normal science” which, ironically, generally prevent genuine scientific discovery (what Kuhn would call “extraordinary science”). For Kuhn, in science, critical engagement is traditionally the exception, not the rule, leading him to refer to the scientific profession as nothing other than an “ideology” (1996: 138). Ultimately, Kuhn’s view thereby inverts our basic assumptions about science as a process and institution: Normal Science (in which there is not really any testing of theories), is genuine science; Extraordinary Science (in which genuine testing of theories does occur) is so abnormal, so different from genuine science, that it can hardly be called science at all. (Watkins, 1970: 29) What this means is that, for Kuhn, science is nothing special and is, in fact, ordinarily unproductive by nature when conducted properly – a rather bizarre conclusion.

Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism  157 Kuhn insists that the only way to break the spell is for a scientist to experience a “switch” in their psychology, provoked by a fresh paradigm. He makes reference to gestalt images, which are well-known thought experiments or visual devices that aim to show how one still image can be seen in two different ways. The most famous example is that of the duck-rabbit drawing: it is possible for a viewer to see the drawing as a duck or as a rabbit, especially after being prompted to do so. In other words, it is the psychological apparatus of the brain that alters instantaneously, not the picture itself, and this causes the viewer to see something different immediately. Despite expressing concerns about using the gestalt-switch example, Kuhn concludes that it represents a useful analogy for the different ways of seeing relating to paradigm shifts. It should not need pointing out, but gestalt-switch images are contrived specifically as thought experiments; deliberately vague, they are only created for that sole purpose and are much too simplistic a device for demonstrating how scientists might decide between two sophisticated theories (see, e.g. Masterman, 1970: 76). (Moreover, it is also still possible for the viewer to alternate between “duck” and “rabbit” even after switching.) Yet Kuhn goes even further than this by suggesting that the written accounts of the history of science are no more special or impressive than those in theology; he even makes the provocative claim that the switch between paradigms by the individual scientist may be likened to a “conversion experience” in religion (1996: 151). It has since been argued by neurological scientists that religious conversions happen precisely in spite of reason, not as a result of it (see Sosis and Bressler, 2003). Advocates of Kuhn’s position therefore have some serious explaining to do if they wish to uphold the idea that trained scientists experience “conversions” in this way. Popper and Falsificationism According to Gross and Levitt, “Kuhn’s work, well known as it is, is regarded with considerable skepticism by a majority of contemporary philosophers of science” (1994: 139). This is no doubt because, in the time since the publication of his Structure thesis, a significant number of powerful arguments have been made against it. One of Kuhn’s most prominent opponents around the time of publication was Sir Karl Popper. Given that Popper regards science as essentially progressive, even if imperfect, Kuhn’s book was geared, at least in part, towards critiquing Popper and his approach to science: the “hypothetico-deductive” method. This method, the most common one found in science, proceeds through a number of stages in which hypothetical statements are laid out and rigorously tested under certain conditions with predictions made; following observations, the predictions are either fulfilled or not, and this provides a foundation for initial conclusions and further testing. Shermer describes three “generalizations” that pertain to the scientific method: “Hypothesis: A testable statement accounting for a set of observations; Theory: A well-supported and well-tested hypothesis or set of hypotheses; Fact: A conclusion confirmed to such an extent that it would be reasonable to offer provisional agreement” (1997: 19). The word “provisional” is crucial here, because the scientific

158  Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism “fact” is always tentative and subject to further scrutiny. Kuhn was warning against dogmatism in science, and Popper agreed with him on its ever-present menace in principle (see Popper, 1981). But Popper also noted that a certain degree of dogmatism is necessary in science if it is to have any kind of structure at all: “If we give in to criticism too easily we shall never find out where the real power of our theories lies” (1970: 55). In other words, any criticisms have to be valid, and scientific theories have to be given every opportunity of proving their worth before being abandoned. This is why they provide the basis of good science. In science, then, at least for Popper, we might say that it is more the method that is dogmatic, not the inferences based upon it – and this is a crucial difference between science and religion. The main principle by which Popper distinguished the scientific from the nonscientific was that of falsificationism: that is, a statement may be deemed “scientific” if it is sufficiently bold enough and capable of being refuted. Furthermore, there is no room for sentiment: we should be prepared to ruthlessly give up our commitment to propositions or beliefs that have been refuted. Any statement that cannot be tested in this way is non-scientific and belongs, at best, to metaphysics or philosophy. Scientific statements, then, as defined by Popper, necessarily put themselves at risk because they can be disproved, and this is what distinguishes them from certain other kinds of propositions that human beings are often wont to try to protect from scrutiny or attack. For Popper, the testing of theories is concerned with what he calls corroboration rather than confirmation. Many earlier positivists lived according to what is known as “the logic of confirmation,” which regards scientific evidence as cumulative on the basis of successive observations. But Keat and Urry explain why the logic of falsification is preferred over the logic of confirmation: No finite amount of observational evidence (and this is all we ever have) can finally establish the truth of a law which is held to apply to all times and places, and whose instances are therefore potentially infinite in number. This difficulty is, in effect, one version of the “logical problem of induction”, of how one can justifiably argue from past events to future events, from the known to the unknown, and so on. (1982: 15) By contrast, “The notion of corroboration is a comparative notion. Roughly speaking, a theory is more corroborated than its rival if it is more falsifiable and has undergone more severe tests, but has not yet been refuted” (Couvalis, 1997: 66). Falsificationism has been attacked by some of those in the humanities as “a self-referential concept in science” which nevertheless claims to be objective; it has been dismissed in this way as no different to judgements over “aesthetic” taste (Ross cited in Gross and Levitt, 1994: 90). Although scientists would themselves be among the first to admit that falsificationism is not perfect (see Haack, 2007; see also Sokal and Bricmont, 1998: 62–66, who argue that repeated falsification, in essence, amounts to a kind of confirmation), this kind of attack is unwarranted and quite ridiculous, not least because it rejects reasonably effective scientific processes as no different from other methods of judgement while offering no equivalent

Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism  159 system by which to test those other judgement claims. The basic idea behind falsificationism is pretty simple and relates precisely to debates over the alleged validity of unworthy religious/faith-based and political or ideological claims: as humans, we are capable of believing all kinds of things, but what we should generally strive to do, if we want to be rational and wish to survive or be successful or self-respecting, is to disbelieve as many dubious or unfounded claims as possible. The point of falsifiability is that it provides us with an efficient means of discounting certain propositions, thus streamlining the range of beliefs that we might accept – albeit cautiously – as being true. But that’s not all. As Steven Pinker has pointed out: In reality, science doesn’t much look like skeet shooting, with a succession of hypotheses launched into the air like clay pigeons and shot to smithereens. It looks more like Bayesian reasoning. . . . A theory is granted a prior degree of credence, based on its consistency with everything we know. (2018: 393) In other words, scientific knowledge is not just a series of isolated claims or tests; it forms part of a larger, mutually supporting network of theories, findings and facts. Feyerabend and “Anarchism” Unlike Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend makes no attempt to deny or hide his relativism: he freely admits to believing in the existence of equally valid “truths” for each “group” and “individual” in society (2010: xxvii). In addition, “Feyerabend is a relativist in terms of the truth of theories, and he does not think that they can be objectively justified” (Couvalis, 1997: 7). Feyerabend claimed that the basis of his criticisms were humanitarian, though he did also comment prolifically on scientific knowledge and methods. He regarded Western science as corrupt, dogmatic, hegemonic, destructive of plurality and therefore compromised in many ways. With his selfstyled “epistemological anarchism” (Keat and Urry, 1980: 60), Feyerabend was no defender of science; he was “interested only in the fall of [modern science]” (Masterman, 1970: 68). Consequently, he adopted what he called an “anything goes” approach to knowledge (Feyerabend, 2010). “Rejecting the distinction between observation and theory, as well as philosophical rumination, as having any relevance for the operation of science,” Feyerabend, anticipating the constructivism of much of sociology over recent decades, “regards science as a social institution located within a specific set of cultural, political and social concerns, just like any other institution in society” (Hughes and Sharrock, 1990: 87). Modern science, he suggests, is an “ideology” which “inhibits freedom of thought” (Feyerabend, 1981: 158); and he makes the most explicit and regular comparisons between science and religion. In fact, Feyerabend provocatively called for the “separation of state and science just as there is a separation between state and religious institutions” (2010: xviii). By contrast, Feyerabend advocates what he describes as a “pluralistic methodology” in which scientists should compare different theories with one another (2010: 27).

160  Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism This indicates his general endorsement of Kuhn’s “incommensurability” thesis (indeed, the two apparently collaborated and devised the concept together) (see Hacking, 2010: xi) with its paradigm-centred view of “normal science” producing an ideological, domineering and uniform system of knowledge. He therefore “accuses Popper and other rationalists of being ‘ratio fascists’ who want to impose a particular type of rationality on other cultures but disguise their imperialism with fine phrases” (Couvalis, 1997: 7). Feyerabend discusses what he calls “the consistency condition” (2010: 17). This is a principle in the hypothetico-deductive model which demands that any new or ad hoc hypotheses that are introduced with the aim of maintaining a given theory must themselves be consistent with that theory. He asserts that this demand represents a fundamental limitation that hinders science by closing off existing theories from external influences and therefore genuine enhancement. Again, the effects of this culture, which produces a “unanimity of opinion,” are likened to those found in “a rigid church” (2010: 25). (A case of “Popper, don’t preach!”, as we might find ourselves singing along with Madonna.) As a solution, Feyerabend argues for a “counterrule” permitting the introduction of new ideas that would facilitate what he calls “counterinduction.” Again, his criticism is closely linked to the notion of mutually exclusive paradigms which allegedly rule out communication within fields. However, as Popper and others have consistently maintained: “in science, as distinct from theology, a critical comparison of the competing theories, of the competing frameworks, is always possible” (1970: 57). Notwithstanding any particular sociological claims made in his analyses, Feyerabend is fundamentally mistaken when he constantly compares science with religion. As many a scientist will attest, the very business of doing science is underpinned by certain ethical standards with regard to procedure and accuracy of information: “Science is such that there is a great deal of kudos to be gained from exposing the faulty data collection or faulty arguments of other scientists and from having a reputation as a careful researcher” (Couvalis, 1997: 149). This is, I  think, a crucial point of comparison between “science” and “religion” as institutions. The two are in direct opposition in terms of their respective influences on beliefs. In science, there exists “an established framework in which any scientist can prove another wrong and make sure everyone else knows about it” (Sagan, 1997: 255). Individual practitioners in science find themselves in competition with each other in a healthy way, as they look to outdo one other and disprove each other’s conclusions. Individuals in religious communities might also be regarded as being in competition with each other, but this time the rules are precisely the opposite, with the aim generally being to demonstrate one’s devotion towards not questioning things and resisting or challenging established rules and authorities. Through various social engagements and rules, then, the aims for the members of each of these communities of knowledge are, in general, completely divergent. In fairness to Feyerabend, his arguments are allegedly concerned with democratic representation and the overall role of science in societies, though, ultimately, he was even grossly naïve about this (as we shall see in the next section). It should

Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism  161 never be denied that we do need to remain wary of unfettered scientism. For example, as has often been pointed out by philosophers, “[t]hat science gives us truths does not tell us whether seeking those truths is worthwhile” (Couvalis, 1997: 123). This is an important point, which has led to the suggestion that science has no way of policing itself ethically; and certain snooty and/or dangerously protective cultures can form within some sub-sections of the scientific community. However, in the wider scheme, these kinds of claims have themselves also been placed into perspective by any number of prominent scientists and philosophers (including Sagan, 1987, 1997; Denett, 2007b; Shermer, 2015; Pinker, 2018). In fact, the cosmologist Carl Sagan not only advocated rationality and reason as being crucial components to democratic processes, just like Popper argued, he also concluded that scientific and democratic thinking are very much alike in and of themselves. This is because each of them, being open and essentially inclusive in the search for answers when practised properly, can “illuminate the possible consequences of alternative courses of action” (1997: 27). Whatever Feyerabend meant by “science” or “democracy,” then, he was at odds with what many others in his discursive community have argued. More recently, Haidt (2012) has discussed what he calls “the rationalist delusion,” which is, for him, the mistaken belief – held by rationalist philosophers and the “New Atheists” (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett) – that rationality can necessarily make us more ethical. But importantly, in taking this stance, Haidt is not arguing against reason and reasoning per se, as Feyerabend and others have done. Rather, what he is saying “is that we must be wary of any individual’s ability to reason. We should see each individual as being limited, like a neuron” (2012: 90). The reason why Haidt uses this analogy is that a “neuron isn’t by itself very smart. But if you put neurons together in the right way you get a brain; you get an emergent system that is much smarter and more flexible than a single neuron” (2012: 90). Again, Haidt’s analogy invokes pluralistic and democratic principles. It is a system – like a computer system, or a network of brains – that is most effective at processing and verifying any given data most efficiently and accurately but rationality remains indispensable all the same. Overall, according to Couvalis, “[i]n so far as Feyerabend’s arguments have any force, they do not raise any problems for the objective testing of theories” (1997: 33). But in any case, if Feyerabend ultimately regarded science as nothing special – that is, if it has no superior explanatory power or technical benefit – then why did he feel the need to write so prolifically about it? Feyerabend’s concerns about the need to monitor and regulate science seem reasonable on a certain level, but he surely cannot take a moralistic stance on the implications regarding the dangers of science (based in the genuine success and power of scientific accuracy and advancement) and then also argue that science is no more effective (or powerful or important) than any other available form of knowledge. The relative pros and cons of such effects should be debated, but Feyerabend’s basic position on science is contradictory and confusing. Like many other postmodernists and anarchists we discussed in previous chapters, then, Feyerabend ultimately terminates his own position by tossing out the baby with the bathwater.

162  Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism Some Responses to Relativism Regardless of the sophistication of their arguments and their lasting significance to the philosophical canon, perspectives such as those presented by the likes of Kuhn and Feyerabend are endorsements of relativism, whether explicitly or otherwise. Such a standpoint might seem heroic or well intentioned, but it ultimately provides no good epistemological reason for us to support those who would argue in such terms. Thomas Nagel makes the point in the following way: Those who challenge the rationalist position by arguing that what it appeals to at every stage are really contingent and perhaps local intuitions, practices, or conventions may attempt to apply this analysis all the way down the line. But I do not see how they can terminate the process with a challenge that does not itself invite rational assessment. (1997: 25) Indeed, if one really thinks about such claims carefully enough, it becomes easier to spot the traps that they often lay for themselves. For example, in one passage in Against Method, Feyerabend refers to what he calls the “natural sense of humour” of a trained scientist, which he distinguishes from “the inbred and always rather nasty kind of jocularity one finds in specialized professions” (2010: 3, original emphasis). What does Feyerabend mean by “natural” here, especially so emphasised, given that he apparently had very little time for such concepts? In another passage, decrying scientific conventions and structures as he goes, he suggests that he does not wish to “impose” his opinions on the reader “about what is good and what is bad in the sciences,” concluding: “Everyone can read the terms in his own way and in accordance with the tradition to which he belongs” (2010: 11, original emphases). However, just like thinking logically or scientifically, understanding language itself necessarily depends upon conventions and structures that both enable and restrict us at the same time. The obvious conclusion, then, is that if no child was ever taught any such conventions in the first place, then he or she would not possess the ability to read Feyerabend’s words in any particular “terms” whatsoever. Feyerabend therefore wishes to argue only against the merits of some logical systems, while wholeheartedly endorsing certain others according to his needs. Kuhn falls into similar traps. For example, “anomalies” are, by definition, the “untruths” of science (Masterman, 1970: 82). If one accepts that Kuhnian anomalies exist, as he obviously does, then this necessarily means that there must be some way of identifying them and of ascertaining what makes them anomalous (distinguishing them from the truth), yet Kuhn provides no clear understanding of how this happens; he simply asserts that it does. Appealing to “incommensurability” only makes matters worse since, if paradigms and the phenomena they comprise are mutually exclusive, then how is it at all possible that a new theory can thereby take up the challenge of eliminating the anomalies built up under a previous system? If the properties of theories are supposedly paradigm-dependent and “incommensurable,” they would thereby be non-transferable and unusable by definition.

Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism  163 It is as a result of our “post-truth” era that subjectivist accounts of knowledge are also burgeoning and sociologists have been at the forefront of promoting such notions, particularly, as we have seen, on the basis of “understanding” various identities (see Alcoff and Potter, 1993; Taylor and Spencer, 2004). This is very much part of what has been dubbed “the subjective turn” in the humanities (Taylor, 1992). Of course, such perspectives are not to be dismissed as completely unimportant, particularly in the social sciences. But again, Nagel demonstrates how subjective ­approaches are ultimately compromised if leaned-on too heavily or taken as gospel: To put it schematically, the claim “Everything is subjective” must be nonsense, for it would itself have to be either subjective or objective. But it cannot be objective, since in that case it would be false if true. And it can’t be subjective, because then it would not rule out any objective claim, including the claim that it is objectively false. (1997: 15) In other words, arguments which state that everything is subjective as a new standard of truth, are in themselves logically impossible, with or without appeals to so-called “evidence” deriving from the world. As Couvalis puts it: The claim that all beliefs are equally true implies that the belief that not all beliefs are equally true is as true as the belief that all beliefs are true. Thus, the claim is incoherent: the belief that all beliefs are all equally true must be false if it is true. (1997: 142) On a more serious note, however, again no matter how well-intentioned they may claim to be, the perspectives of Kuhn and particularly Feyerabend ultimately provide ammunition to bad faith actors who may have no intention of conducting any epistemological enquiries with any degree of integrity at all. Popper (1970) made this point emphatically, and his commitment to the scientific method was based in his commitment to good, honest debate and academic integrity: indeed, the one is the true reflection of the other; and again, both of these principles underpin the very structures of liberal democracies. As Sayer puts it, “In practice, the problem of incommensurability, making what is a difficulty appear as an impossibility, looks suspiciously like a way of protecting favoured discourses from external criticism. Contrary to initial appearances, relativism encourages closed rather than open minds” (2000: 47–48). As we have seen in a number of examples cited in this book, this is why relativism appeals to uncompromising ideologies, social “justice” movements, religions, autocratic political regimes and pseudo-sciences. The sociological implications arising from Feyerabend’s (1981, 2010) arguments are spelled out in more chilling terms by Couvalis, and they are worth quoting at length: Feyerabend does not merely raise philosophical problems for a view of scientific knowledge. He argues that science should have no special place in our

164  Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism lives: it does not give us an understanding of the world which is worthy of deep respect; its ideals and methods are not particularly worthy of emulation; and it should not have a special place in the education system, in medicine and in the legal system. Further, funding for science should be under direct democratic control. If some citizens want voodoo taught to their children rather than physics, scientists should not be able to prevent it from being taught. If some citizens think faith healers can heal illnesses better than doctors, then faith healers should be able to practice medicine. If most citizens think that particle physics is dangerous and should not be funded, then particle physics should not be funded. If most citizens think that mystics know about distant events they have not seen, then mystics should be treated as expert witnesses in court. (1997: 112) What Couvalis is referring to here is the hypothetical democratic panels that Feyerabend envisaged, supposedly for the “protection” of society against science (Feyerabend, 1981). While such a concept seems worthy of exploration, even if a little idealistic, I would certainly not go as far as Feyerabend did by suggesting that any such panels should contain no scientific experts at all. I could well imagine, say, a 50/50 split between laypersons and scientists, but having such panels completely devoid of any time-served expertise at all seems to me many times more misguided and dangerous than having them comprise only scientists. Furthermore, even if such panels existed, those laypersons would necessarily have to be scientifically literate to some degree (indeed, they couldn’t but be scientifically informed anyway, since, as a result of the general dissemination of scientific edification in modern times, even the most mundane knowledge expected of the average highschooler today is clearly many times more sophisticated than that of even the most prominent and original ancient philosopher of yesteryear). To be clear, in raising objections to this kind of extreme relativism, my wish would not be to silence any individual or group in society. Rather, in accordance with the views of Mill in On Liberty (2006/1869), my preference would be quite the contrary: all opinions should have the potential to receive an airing in the public realm, and they should not be censored unless they make explicit threats of physical violence or directly threaten security in other ways. Feyerabend makes regular appeals to Mill himself, also apparently on a democratic basis, but he seems to fundamentally misunderstand Mill’s point. By granting that all ideas should be heard, Mill was not advocating that they are all necessarily of equal value (indeed, such a suggestion is patently absurd). To my mind, what Mill meant was that some ideas do in fact make more sense than others, and it is precisely the openness of the liberal society that helps us to see that; it is the mundane principle of the toing and froing of opinion in a marketplace of ideas that really counts, not necessarily the ideas in themselves. Mill’s perspective makes no commitment at all to any form of relativism: it simply acknowledges not only that any idea, no matter how seemingly unpalatable or unworthy at first glance, could contain a greater or lesser degree of truth and that nothing is ever final but also that the

Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism  165 process of debate in and of itself keeps the “truth” of things alive. As soon as that process of dialogue ceases, we have before us not a living, breathing commitment to the (perhaps ever-elusive) truth, but a “dead dogma” in its place (Mill, 2006/1869). The processes relating to the kinds of debates that are the lifeblood of liberal-democratic societies, and the liberal science that underpins them, are the very processes by which the blade of reason is sharpened against the stone of the natural (or social) realities that surround us. And realism, even in social science, is an important principle. Following the introductory work by philosopher Roy Bhasker (1975), the concept of critical realism has become very influential in recent decades (see Benton, 1981; Collier, 1994; Sayer, 2000). Originally using the term “transcendental realism” to refer to the ontological basis of all knowledge, Bhasker (1975) argued that observations obtained via experimentation using the theories of science would make no sense at all without the concept of an independent reality as an underlying premise. He suggested that what scientists are involved in, through their theories and experiments, is the continual process of better understanding the causal mechanisms that give rise to phenomena in the world. And just because scientific knowledge often changes, it does not follow that our concept of reality is thereby compromised, because Bhaskar also makes a distinction between what he called the “transitive” and “intransitive” features of knowledge. As Sayer explains: When theories change (transitive dimension) it does not mean that what they are about (intransitive dimension) necessarily changes too: there is no reason to believe that the shift from a flat earth theory to a round earth theory was accompanied by a change in the shape of the earth itself. (2000: 11) The links between signifier (the word), signified (the concept) and referent (the real object or thing) have, in postmodern discourses, become a dualism (signifier/ signified) in which the object has been removed owing to the intertextual (multiplicated) nature of the world in the “post-” era and apparent concerns over naïve notions of objectivity in relation to knowledge. (This is interesting in itself, given that postmodernist writers often berate modernism for its use of binaries.) But critical realists reject the notion that our words and ideas are now free-floating and completely or necessarily disconnected from reality, as many postmodern theorists have tried to assert with their linguistic constructivism. Relativists like to present themselves as the paragons of tolerance and modesty, but in fact they lay themselves open to even greater charges of androcentrism: “Fact-constructivism would seem to run into an obvious problem. The world did not begin with us humans; many facts about it obtained before we did. How then could we have constructed them?” (Boghossian, 2006: 26). And as Sayer points out, “we are also influenced by physical processes extra-discursively – for example, as in catching a virus. We are involved in the world, as one of its forces” (2000: 37). The way that key scientific terms acquire the central part of their meaning is sometimes called “the causal theory of reference” because it holds that causal links to

166  Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism the items in the world, and not human beliefs or conceptions, importantly determine the reference of physical quantity terms like “mass” and natural kind [sic] terms like “water”. (Couvalis, 1997: 105) Critical realism therefore acknowledges that there is a relationship between signifier/signified/referent (creating a triangle between them instead of a straight line between signifier and signified) and that they are not necessarily fixed but may switch positions: “what is a signifier or signified in one triangle may become the referent of another” (Sayer, 2000: 37). For Bhasker (1975), the fact that our scientific theories (and lexicons) evolve is not a sign of their weakness or arbitrariness, but rather the best indicator possible that they map-onto an underlying ontological reality, which exists regardless of our methods of representation. Offering a means of navigating the pitfalls of naïve empiricism on the one hand and the pessimistic relativism of postmodernism on the other hand, critical realism provides a much more commodious, rigorous and liberatory approach to contemporary social science. With its ontological basis, realism can accept the premise of a socio-historical context in the formation of knowledge without falling into the trap of pure subjectivism and constructivism; it acknowledges that our understandings of the world are necessarily both situated and discursive without leading to the absurd conclusion that there is only language and no such thing as an external reality; critical realism pays attention to important details, nuances and complexities; it seeks to avoid stereotypical assumptions and sweeping statements by carefully sifting through the messiness of the world, particularly the social world, on a point-by-point basis. Indeed, it is the ontological basis which, Bhasker argues, gives critical realism its very emancipatory purchase in social science. If our criticisms of injustices are not based in a sense of what is real and sharable, then we do not take them seriously by definition (Nussbaum in Sayer, 2000: 99). Reason is not an enemy, but a friend, to the sociologist, because underlying structures can also apply to the social world, producing their identifiable effects. Marx himself perceptively acknowledged this long before contemporary sociologists did. Critical realism supports such a viewpoint, but it does so while guarding against the perils of jumping to conclusions with simplistic generalisations and bald assertions. Critical realists and other defenders of scientific reasoning have identified the various features and arguments of poststructuralism as particularly damaging and counter-productive. Brian Fay (1996) has outlined a number of these effects, including solipsism (the idea that “one has to be one to know one”). Solipsism is unmistakeable in something like, for example, “standpoint theory” in feminism, which, as we have seen in previous chapters of this book, has now been extended to all other spheres of identity. The personal/identarian equivalent of Kuhn’s paradigm theory, it has been taken up by Critical Race Theorists and others now to the extent of becoming uncontestably de rigueur without any proper or sober analysis of its limitations. As Fay (1996) points out, notwithstanding the importance of identities on some level, the greatest contradiction of such perspectives is that they

Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism  167 render science – including social science – impossible because science depends, more fundamentally, on similarities and accessibility. It is important to point out that similarity does not imply, or need to imply, exact sameness: humans are sentient beings who have access to the natural world via their sophisticated methods of analysis, understanding and communication. It seems to me reasonable to claim that marine biologists, for example, therefore “know” more about dolphins and sharks than dolphins and sharks do. If one simply has to be one to know one, then ethnography and sociology are equally, by definition, defunct and should be phased out, put out of business forever. This should be regarded as anything but a positive development in sociology or society because it erects unnecessary barriers and rehabilitates or legitimates prejudicial reasoning and partisan politics. If we were not all human first and then “white,” “black,” “scientists,” “sociologists,” or whatever, second, it would make no sense whatsoever to try to understand and transcend any minor differences. And finally, such arguments can never be confined purely to the “scientific” sphere. As Lionel Shriver and others have argued, we have recently seen the effects of solipsism in all areas of social and cultural life, including in media, literature, film and pedagogy, as it sets about destroying the very basis of mutual understanding between various “identity” groups (see Hopper, 2016). Faith, Science, Pseudo-Science and Politick Many in sociology have evidently learned very little about the dangers of obscurantism and political sabotage in education. Perhaps no other saga encapsulates these dangers better than the arguments that have ensued between the scientific community and creationists, particularly in America (Godfrey, 1983). It therefore serves as an ideal case study of the importance of scientific standards in pedagogy. As if to contradict Foucault on the necessary connections that allegedly exist between “power” and “knowledge” in social and cultural contexts, the fight to afford evolution by natural selection the respect and acknowledgement it deserves as a universal touchstone began in the lifetime of Darwin himself, in his battles with the Church (Numbers, 1992). And abuses of such raw power are not simply relics of a distant past either: “A number of states [in the US] banned the teaching of evolution for decades, with Tennessee only repealing this ban in 1967” (Grimes, 2019: 268). Yet mischievous arguments and false equivalences are still very much peddled today, with some commentators likening Darwinian evolution itself to a “religion” (Midgley, 2002). (For a particularly relevant exposition of how biblical and scientific truths are understood in contrasting ways today, see Jones, 2013.) Again, although there are legitimate reasons to be wary of untrammelled scientism, arguments such as that by Midgeley do much to apparently excuse the simplistic inversion of scientific theories and religious faith positions on the assumption that they are essentially the same thing. This only emboldens a range of individuals and organisations (such as creationists) who might wish to denigrate the achievements of scientific rigour while elevating nonsense or superstition for their own mischievous purposes.

168  Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism Thus, we often hear theists assert that Darwinian evolution is “just a theory.” But this all-too-common quip merely emphasises our everyday misunderstandings about the meaning of the word “theory” in a scientific context. In everyday English, we use the phrase “in theory” to refer to assumptions about the relationship between ideas (or actions) and outcomes. (“In theory, it will take us about four-anda-half hours to drive from Manchester to London.”) In the scientific sense, when we make such remarks, we are actually using hypothesis rather than theory, so scientists usually do not use the word “theory” in this way. As Scott points out, most people would probably place scientific words or principles in the following order of importance (from left to right): “Facts, Laws, Theories, and Hypotheses.” But scientists would place these words in a different order of importance. Again, with emphasis from left (most important) to right (least important), the prioritisation for the scientist would be: “Theories, Laws, Hypotheses [and then] Facts” (Scott, 2009: 11–14). Thus, our use of the common quip “it’s just a theory” couldn’t be more mistaken. In science, facts are important (yet potentially changeable) pieces of information (the Earth orbits the sun); hypotheses are testable statements that scientists use in order to confirm or disconfirm relationships between things under observation; laws in science are generalisations that have been established as a result of empirical observations over time, though, like facts, they are also subject to modification under certain conditions; and finally, theories are the general frameworks into which everything fits, the basis of scientific procedures. Returning to the supposed row over evolution, in reality, as any number of commentators have noted, “no theory is better founded, more closely examined, more critically argued and more thoroughly accepted, than the theory of evolution. If it is ‘only’ a theory, that is all it has to be” (Asimov, 1984). Evolution has been established as a scientific fact on account of the rigorous processes in science which, again, although by no means perfect, provide mechanisms for filtering out junk; aside from falsificationism, another example of such a mechanism is the peer-review process. By contrast, creationism has no such mechanisms; it merely wants to establish parity with evolution and be taught as “science” in the classroom alongside evolution without earning the legitimate (epistemological) right to do so. In their efforts to achieve this, creationists have been quite creative themselves by attempting to cloak their religious fundamentalism in scientific garb under the new title of “Intelligent Design” (often shortened to ID). Where academic validation fails, the creationists try other methods and go to extraordinary, even aggressive, lengths to try to establish recognition, including appeals to First Amendment rights and legal proceedings (see Berra, 1990; Numbers, 1992). In this way, they treat scientific knowledge (à la Feyerabend) as simply ideological and therefore as being open to mere political debate or legal dispute. But science is not just dependent on argumentation, and this is why scientists object to (and fight) the notion that creationism can be taught as “science” like biology can (see Leigh, 2008). Sure, scientists may point out the simplicity or “poetry” or “elegance” of a particular perspective, as Richard Dawkins (2006b) has often done in relation to evolution by natural selection, but ultimately they still realise that the explanations also have to withstand rigorous examination and

Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism  169 correspond with phenomena in the real world. As Hacking puts it, “the ground for believing a theory is its predictive success, and so forth, not its explanatory power” (Hacking, 1983: 53). And evolution has passed every test and has confirmed things even Darwin himself was unaware of, such as genetics and DNA sequences. This is why it is important to understand exactly what it is that many scientists actively condemn  – the deliberate mislabelling of ideological perspectives as “scientific” – when they confront creationism as passionately as they do. For example, in ­response to ­Richard Lewontin’s suggestion in a book review that scientists “cannot allow a Devine Foot in the door,” Jerry Coyne argues that Lewontin (who was Coyne’s Ph.D. supervisor, incidentally) “was mistaken. We can in principle allow a Devine Foot in the door; it’s just that we’ve never seen the foot” (2015: 93, original emphasis). Coyne’s response demonstrates the true principles of science. It has nothing to do with science simply trying to bully others or possessing a monopoly over truth, but everything to do with a respect for the painstaking, messy and very gradual emergence of whatever the “truth” can be taken to mean. The creationism/ evolution argument is therefore not just a “free speech” issue. This is the main reason why the “strong programme” of relativism in sociology – which excludes natural explanations and reduces all knowledge to sociological interpretation – is so damaging (see Sokal and Bricmont, 1998: 85–92). It emboldens disingenuous ideologues of all kinds and undermines trust in the very institutions that underpin our societies. The inspiration for the “strong programme” in sociology can of course be traced right back to the 1960s and 1970s and to the arguments of Feyerabend, Foucault and Kuhn. Strangely enough, Darwinism is the one “paradigm” that Kuhn hardly discusses at all in his Structures thesis. Kuhn’s book, remember, was all about the supposed folly of paradigms, but it is surely telling that he devotes almost no space in his critique to the most successful paradigm in scientific history. More interesting still is the fact that, when he does mention Darwinian evolution, he utilises it as the best model for supposedly corroborating his own thesis about the survival and replacement of paradigms themselves over time (see Kuhn, 1996: 172–173). As Popper (1981) has pointed out, the works of Kuhn and Feyerabend, in particular, have clearly inspired generations of sociologists in their attacks on science and the promotion of relativism. The rationale behind the campaign has always been that science is supposedly a pillar of “Western” history and civilisation, facilitating its domination over “Other” cultures and ways of knowing. What this has led to is the emergence of an extreme political correctness that is now imposed, usually without recourse to any kind of debate or exchange, on entire populations of people by an evangelical left whose influence has grown exponentially since the 1990s. This has been enabled by expansions in the education sector by which greater numbers of young people have been exposed to imbalanced radical opinions that are often disingenuous and overtly political rather than reflexive and genuinely critical or scientific. As Couvalis has pointed out, rooted in a campaign that is openly anti-science, “Sociologists, literary critics and historians are amongst the worst offenders” when it comes to the dissemination and defence of “outrageous claims” (Couvalis, 1997: vii). This tendency has only worsened in recent years, as

170  Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism demonstrated emphatically in Chapter 5 of this book. Its effect has been to sow a general distrust in science, to mainstream anti-scientific sentiment, and to elevate nonsense and superstition while denigrating useful scientific principles: logic and the sceptical or critical disposition that generally underpins scientific enquiry. At the same time, ironically, theists and relativists are very fond of utilising scientific discoveries in an attempt to undermine the authority of science. They are also often both equally keen on claiming great scientific figures as believers in the Divinity themselves (even when they were not), particularly because they wish to claim that seeking verification of the existence of God is itself a rationalistic pursuit. Tellingly, perhaps no other great thinker has been co-opted in such ways more often than Albert Einstein (a man whose very name has become a byword for reason); and even some peace-making scientists themselves have irritatingly continued to commit this error (see, e.g. Jack, 2015). The persistence of the mistaken belief that Einstein himself was a man of God, just because he invoked the term “God” to refer to the deep mysteries of the cosmos, is in itself extraordinary and ignorant because it has been addressed time and time again by many scientists (see, e.g. Dawkins, 2006a: 36). Let it be very clear: Einstein was most definitely not a theist in any way. And besides, if “anything goes” and if science is nothing special, as Feyerabend insisted, then it seems rather odd and disingenuous to wish to claim Einstein for your own team. Whereas Einstein forwarded his general and special theories of relativity, Feyerabend offered his special and general theories of relativism. And make no mistake about it, tragically, relativism really is now being generalised on an increasing scale in Western societies, by force, and this has been happening for quite some time: “What perhaps started out as a justified protest against arrogant technocratic reason has now become, in many quarters, a pretext for the crudest, most wholesale forms of cultural-relativist dogma” (Norris, 1997: 2–3). In ways not dissimilar to religious zealots, then, contemporary sociologists, obsessed with notions of “power” and such nebulous concepts as “offence,” have attacked the liberal principles of open enquiry and civilised discourse that good science necessarily depends upon (Rauch, 2013). This has now had effects beyond the social sciences. There has been an increasing emotionalisation of education, which, notwithstanding a legitimate place for emotion as a human trait or an object of study, has started to overwhelm all other areas of life and scholarship to the point of infection. Like the theists before them, some sociologists (even as they hold contradictory opinions on the relativistic and discourse-centred nature of knowledge) tend to concern themselves obsessively with the dangers of language, as if it were like some quantity of uranium that must be prevented from falling into the hands of the “wrong” people. One campaign that they might have focused more effort on challenging and countering is the exact opposite of that concerned with upholding free expression – namely, that of censorship – as the true enemy of liberal societies. Nevertheless, in their infinite wisdom  – in deliberately and stubbornly attacking liberal science, evidence, language and the right to object as just outdated “white guy stuff” – cultural theorists and sociologists have only helped to offer a new legitimacy to all kinds of mendacious, religious and politically motivated perspectives

Sociology and Its Special and General Theories of Relativism  171 (both internal and external to Western cultures) that could, eventually, overthrow the liberal principles that have made “Western” social systems, despite their inevitable faults, typically the most tolerant and desirable environments in which to live (Shriver, 2020, 2021; Williams, 2022). Once you deny the possibility of an independent truth, the only recourse you have left at your disposal is a conflict between political attitudes imposed by sheer will and force. Citing the influence of Kuhn, Lakatos spells out the problem in the following way: The clash between Popper and Kuhn is not a mere technical point in epistemology. It concerns our central intellectual values, and has implications not only for theoretical physics but also for the underdeveloped social sciences and even for moral and political philosophy. If even in science there is no other way of assessing a theory but by assessing the number, faith and vocal energy of its supporters, then this must be even more so in the social sciences: truth lies in power. Thus Kuhn’s position vindicates, no doubt, unintentionally, the basic political credo of contemporary religious maniacs (“student revolutionaries”). (Lakatos, 1970: 93, original emphasis) And Lakatos’ words have never been more relevant or urgent than they are today, over 50 years after they were first written. In the end, it seems that many sociologists are themselves obsessed with a simplistic association between modernity and “science,” as it is understood today. The standardisation and exactitude of the scientific method may well be attributable to developments in modernity. But some scientists point out that, far from being a kind of “Western ideology” that has been imposed upon people by certain nations or groups, rational thinking in fact appears to be innate to all humans (Sagan, 1996: 310–311). Although it is accurate to say that “critical thinking” (in a way that is in keeping with the scientific method) is rather special and has to “be learnt” (Grimes, 2019: 21), the ability to reason is innate. Reasoning is what almost all humans do, in one way or another; it is not a nefarious identity-based system that was deliberately invented out of thin air a few hundred years ago with the aim of dominating others. When sociologists champion “Other” ways of knowing and seek to destroy science on account of its association with “Western” history, they thereby not only invite unintended dangers relating to politically motivated subversions of knowledge but they do a disservice to other cultures and to the human mind itself. If one does not believe that there may indeed be a hierarchy of ideas based on reason and logic, then it makes no sense at all to be involved in the pursuit of knowledge or the promotion of education in the first place. It is therefore peculiar that sociologists – especially being assumed “educators” by trade – should wish to characterise “rationality” and “science” only in such negative and often defamatory ways.

Conclusion The Persistence of Intuitions and the Fear of Knowledge

On the evening of 31 December 2020, I sent an ironic New Year message to a set of close friends of mine in a private group chat on a well-known messaging app. It read: Remembering those we lost in 2020 . . . Barbara Windsor Jack Charlton Sean Connery Nobby Stiles Dave Prowse Kobe Bryant Diego Maradona Ennio Morricone Kirk Douglas Honesty Conversation Humour Freedom Truth Common sense The message was of course intended as a joke – and it did raise a laugh from the members of our group at a jovial moment. Yet it was prompted in the first place by something much more serious: the sheer levels of shock that had been collectively felt during a truly astonishing year, particularly concerning the general crisis of confidence engulfing our societies as a result of the catastrophic failure of our institutions in a time of significant need. Two events, in particular, seemed to announce the urgency of the situation. First, in January 2020, a mysterious novel pathogen (now known to us as “Covid-19”), first detected in China, started to spread rapidly around the world and resulted in the deaths of millions of people, but particularly the elderly and the vulnerable; this in turn resulted in unprecedented and ill-advised “lockdowns” of entire DOI: 10.4324/9781003039822-8

Conclusion  173 populations in March, which largely confined people to their homes, altered the taken-for-granted rules of social engagement, ended or caused damage to countless businesses and livelihoods and affected the physical and mental well-being of untold numbers of people the world over. And second, amid the chaos of the lockdowns, in May  2020, came the death of a black man, George Floyd, at the hands of a white police officer (Derek Chauvin) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The killing of Mr. Floyd sparked protests around the globe but also riots in the United States and Great Britain, apparently against the “systemic racism” that is said to be all-pervasive in those countries, and particularly in law-enforcement. Yet each of these stories revealed more about the low value of truth and honesty in our societies today than much of anything else, with lasting implications for both. Beginning with the former story, the exact circumstances surrounding the origins of Covid-19 are as yet (officially) unknown; despite the devastation that it has wrought, we are, today, still awaiting satisfactory answers to these questions. In the case of the latter, despite the sadness and the injustice of it, the specifics of the actual incident have been massively overshadowed by years, even decades, of exaggeration and hyperbole, particularly in academia and the media, with regard to the issue of race in America. To be clear, first, Chauvin appears to have been an over-zealous or thuggish cop, and Floyd could just as easily have been a white man, especially when one considers the killing of Tony Timpa in similar circumstances in Dallas, Texas in 2016 (Mills, 2021). Second, the level of coverage and the emphasis on race in America is always greater when reporting on cases of police brutality involving black people (Zuckerman et al., 2019). Third and finally, a simple five-minute check is enough to show that in a country in which there are typically some 50+ million interactions between adults (16 years+) and police officers every year, only a miniscule fraction of them result in arrest-related deaths (a total number of 65 in 2020); and when deaths do occur, they are overwhelmingly those of white males (69% in 2020) (see Brooks and Goodison, 2022). But these kinds of statistics were either ignored or actively avoided by most people with any level of responsibility in the media, academia or politics. Indeed, it was as if we were actively prevented from saying or hearing such things lest we override a manufactured “reality” – a “hyperreality,” as Baudrillard (1994) would have it – which is somehow considered far preferable to the actual and more nuanced one. It was, then, quite clear to anyone who was paying attention that there really was something very concerning about 2020 – indeed, it was described, with deliberate “British understatement,” by the American novelist Lionel Shriver as a “weird year” in her superb audio essay “Just because we’ve been OK, doesn’t mean we’ll stay that way” (Shriver, 2020). But regardless of whether it was to be found in an internationally significant piece of literature by an acclaimed novelist or a simple witty text message on a communications app, the sentiment was the same: 2020 felt like a tipping point for truth, honesty, freedoms and reason in particular. To put it politely, it wasn’t a vintage year for evidence or proportionality. The situation was symptomatic of the effects of two viruses – one of the body and the other of the mind – and we ought to have been better prepared for the dangers of the latter by comparison with the former, but we were not.

174  Conclusion If an “occasion” is therefore typically required, or at least expected, for the publication of a book on any given topic and at any given time, then what was happening in and around 2020 was certainly providing one (if indeed one didn’t exist already). In short, although I had already been working on this book for over a year at that point, it was becoming increasingly obvious that blind faith is now once again in the ascendency in our culture, and it is by no means confined to the realms of the established religions anymore. The reader is reminded at this point that what I mean by “faith” is “the belief in the truth of something despite the fact that there is no evidence for that belief – or even when there is evidence to the contrary” (Krueger, 1998: 208). But the situation is made even worse when we also start to insist on the untruth of something when there is overwhelming evidence in support of it, which has of course also been a tactic of religious faith historically. Sadly, we are now seeing routinised assaults on truth in both of these directions in our societies. As I have argued, faith is regularly accompanied by a whole series of other inclinations, including wilful ignorance, a sense of moral superiority among adherents, relativism, dogmatism, censorship and of course a willingness to embrace reason and science, but only when convenient (see, e.g. Metaxas, 2014). Not surprisingly, then, we have also seen a rise in each of these concomitant tendencies in the general sociopolitical climate of recent times, and this book has attempted to provide a backdrop as to why. In Chapter 1, we began by taking a new look at the archetypal example of special pleading – religious faith – and considering what might be wrong with it from a sociological perspective. We noted that there remains a stubborn insistence on the supposed “virtue” of religious faith in our cultures today, despite the fact that faith, in general, is anything other than a reliable means of acquiring truth; and we saw that this unwarranted respect is even academically rooted in a decades-long “detente” between theology and sociology. Engaging with the notion of belief in a religious sense, the chapter considered the meaning of “faith” from the monotheistic perspective, acknowledging its links to attendant concepts such as “morality,” “community” and “belonging”, which are undoubtedly important from a sociological point of view. But we also addressed the equally persistent tendency in many commentators to try to uphold some kind of clear distinction between the “atheistic” (i.e. “certain” and/or “hostile”) and “agnostic” (i.e. “doubtful” and/or “tolerant”) positions when these are by no means necessarily mutually exclusive at all. Foreshadowing more detailed discussions to follow, the chapter also analysed some of the historical developments around religious faith, and particularly the relativising effects of the Reformation, which inadvertently weakened the traditional legitimacy of faith in Europe. But ultimately, religious faith remains the key component that underpins traditional belief systems which, while demanding a right to partake in the “inclusiveness” of today’s enlightened societies, themselves maintain, to a greater or lesser extent, arbitrary boundaries for exclusion and discrimination that the rest of us are simply expected to continue to excuse or overlook for the sake of multiculturalism and understanding. In Chapter 2, we explored the multi-faceted area of morality, a perennial question for theists who very often insist that it is impossible without a concept of faith. Religious scripture makes well-known references to actions or deeds, and

Conclusion  175 this seems reasonable, but those deeds are essentially meaningless in the absence of God, according to monotheistic perspectives. That said, we also noted that religious doctrine and hard-nosed faith can lead all too easily to the very opposite of what is good – as in the case of honour violence or the waging of wars on the “divine command” of one’s God. To quote Sam Harris, “Just as people are often less than rational when claiming to be rational, they can be less than moral when claiming to be moral” (2010: 88). In addition, we discussed the significance of taboos around sex and the body amid the influence of such institutions as the family and indeed the Church, which have been prominent concerns in sociology, particularly in relation to gender, (re)production, and wealth. We drew on the works of sociologically influential figures like Foucault, who provided over-arching perspectives on the relationship between institutions, individuals and the production of various kinds of knowledge that many see as giving form to the very concept of modernity itself. But the chapter concluded that, ultimately, both religions and the social sciences have a tendency to still uphold an unwillingness to entertain the legitimacy of biological explanations – a common and senseless taboo – which renders their respective accounts of morality incomplete. In Chapter 3, we analysed the process of secularisation, first in Europe and then in the “Western” societies beyond it. With reference to certain moralistic, epistemological and existential challenges, the chapter presented some of the pros and cons of secularisation via the writings of six modern figures: Auguste Come, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Weber. The chapter then considered, and upheld, “secularisation theory,” which remains a contested perspective among sociologists of religion today. Returning to Weber, and his concepts of the “iron cage” of bureaucracy and “disenchantment” in particular, the chapter focused again on some of the lasting effects that are said to have accompanied the process of secularisation but also argued that these are by no means universally accepted claims (in fact, the “disenchantment” concept is precisely a back-to-front view of how we ought to conceptualise science, if we are utilising it sincerely – see Benson and Stangroom, 2006: 180; Dawkins, 2006b). Finally, it was argued that faith-based opinions on morality are certainly not superior to those made in the absence of faith and that they should generally not be permitted to claim the kinds of social and political superiority that they have generally been granted historically. Overall, the process of secularisation has in many ways removed God from the equation, but it has resulted in empowerment and anxiety in equal measure. With the decline in the influence of religious faith as an all-pervasive, organising principle in Western contexts, Chapter 4 discussed the rise of postmodernity, a period of Western history which is defined by subjectivity, new perspectives and radical philosophical uncertainty. Following the women’s movement, postcolonialism and the civil rights movement in particular, postmodern theory has come to be most closely associated with the empowerment of the traditionally marginalised, particularly by way of reconceptualisations of political power and the role of language in such contexts. In other words, preceded and aided by neo-Marxist perspectives, postmodernity is associated with the rise of identity politics and the struggles of various groups against a capitalistic system which is often unequal and

176  Conclusion oppressive. Given the significance of philosophical and academic perspectives to postmodern thinking, the university has generally been the site of the movement, which emerged most strongly out of the writings of the New Left during the 1960s. Yet any analysis of such writings confirms that they actively promote a set of antiscientific and illiberal principles which deny the premise of objective reason and therefore, rather like the established religions themselves, permit only a competition between rival groups vying for power on the basis of faith, bald assertion, and sheer numbers of believers. Indeed, the moralistic force of postmodern thinking is directly relatable to its rejection of such things as evidence and objective reason in favour of “standpoint” narratives. The chapter therefore emphasises the growth of such ideas and their reliance on subjectivity, emotion and raw power, as they have gone from being a rather marginal and eccentric set of ideas to now becoming an established yet destructive gospel in Western universities. Chapter 5 analysed the relatively recent emergence of “woke” ideology as a quasi-religious movement that is currently overtaking Western societies. As a synthesis of Marxism and postmodern Theory, woke is essentially a new kind of moralism that has incorporated the radical identity politics that developed principally in Anglophone universities during the post-war era. According to Williams (2022), the woke perspective has been disseminated and put into practice throughout the Western world via successive generations of cultural elites who have now populated the upper strata of Western institutions and organisations, apparently with the aim of demolishing them from within. Woke is therefore contradictory, in many ways: it clearly draws on neo-Marxism (replacing “social class” with “race” as its central concept in what is now seen as an intersectional matrix of oppression), and it is certainly a movement with revolutionary aims. And yet it is also clear that woke is in no way a “bottom-up” phenomenon. Instead, it is being orchestrated primarily by the upper-classes against the lower classes, and it appears to be an opportunistic ideology which frequently capitalises on confusions, emotions and sensationalised political incidents. Rather like the organised religions which preceded it, woke has its own concept of original sin, a guilt complex (based primarily on slavery and racial segregation in America); it rejects reason and evidence in favour of unfalsifiable faith-based positions (such as “standpoint epistemologies”); it has its canonical texts (those of Marx, Marcuse, Foucault, Derrida, Butler, Crenshaw and so on); it has its victims (non-whites and other “minorities” or “powerless” groups) and martyrs (e.g. those killed in acts of “systemic oppression” or violence); it has its scapegoats (white people and anybody belonging to a “majority” or “powerful” group); it has its rituals (e.g. taking the knee); and it has a moralistic zeal (the “Social Justice” campaign). The apparent urgency of this campaign is what provides woke with its uncompromising dogmatism. Anybody not onboard with the extreme project is automatically branded a “racist” or “-phobe” of some kind and is to be banished from good society. The situation then calls for a fresh series of overtly biased (usually racialised) approaches to social organisation, based on a policy that Marcuse (1965) called “repressive tolerance,” whereby certain voices are silenced and certain others are amplified in the name of redemption. Woke has, in short, become a new orthodoxy.

Conclusion  177 According to Marcuse and the woke set that have followed his lead, it was apparently necessary to introduce illiberal policies in order to “level things up” in the power stakes. The alleged beneficiaries of woke policies – which are now becoming more and more prevalent – would also include religious minorities in Western societies, and this is one reason why Islam was the focus of Chapter 6. A  significant problem we are left with as a result of wokeism, however, is that Islamism has also benefited, and Islamism is notoriously anti-Western, authoritarian and aggressive. Indeed, these are traits that Islamism shares with sections of the political and academic left, and it is therefore unsurprising that the two have enjoyed such a long association, as the chapter emphasised. But the chapter also pointed out that the distinction that is commonly made between Islam and Islamism is, to say the very least, misleading. Islam remains the most uncompromising monotheistic religion in the world today, as many in Western and non-Western societies have found to their cost. But those “liberals” of today who champion Islam either don’t realise this problem, or they don’t care about it. Apart from being a rigid faith system, Islam is also much more evangelical than many people often assume: it is a compulsion and a way of life for those who follow it, and its main mission is to grow. Moreover, the inflexible tenets of Islam often find themselves at odds with the core principles of Western societies (such as free thought and expression), and this inevitably leads to conflicts and violence. From the fatwa of Khomeini in the 1980s to the Danish cartoons controversy in 2005 and Charlie Hebdo in 2015, many adherents of Islam have attacked the core principles of Western life, and these have had devastating impacts on our freedoms. Given all of these points, the chapter concluded that Islam and the radical left make ideal bedfellows and that they have combined to deliberately cause lasting damage to Enlightenment values and the Western-liberal societies underpinned by them. Many Western countries, including the UK, now face the serious prospect of new blasphemy laws, in some cases with their own Muslim politicians openly calling for them in the most menacing fashion (see Sloggett, 2021). If such laws are (re-)introduced in unequivocal form, much of the heavy-lifting for them will have been done by an authoritarian left via its own obsession with such things as power, identities and censorship. And all of these return us to the set of issues that were the foci of Chapter 7: reason, science and relativism, and their underlying social and political implications. Again, the primary purpose of the chapter was to engage sociologically with questions of science and relativism. With reference to Comte and Durkheim, we began by discussing the origins and development of modern sociology in the positivistic tradition, which is now roundly regarded as naïve. But modern sociology was first introduced within that same context; it was first imagined as a means of understanding, and therefore better controlling, the complexities of history and society as objects of scientific enquiry. The influence of Durkheim, in particular, held sway well into the middle of the twentieth century with the remedial “functionalist” sociology of such figures as Talcott Parsons in the United States. All of these changed with a set of debates that emerged between a number of philosophers of science in the 1960s, and particularly those involving Thomas S. Kuhn, Karl Popper and Paul Feyerabend. These debates had a particularly

178  Conclusion influential effect as their apparent implications radically undermined not just the credentials of sociology but also those of science more generally. Given the rebellious and subversive nature of that era – amid social and political unrest and the rise of postmodernism – the arguments of Kuhn and Feyerabend had a lasting impact. Both of these theorists were respected philosophers of science, and their writings lent themselves powerfully to the relativistic turn taking place in the post-war social sciences. Indeed, Feyerabend (1981) was apparently motivated by a kind of “justice” politics or multiculturalism, the ultimate aim of which was to equalise the claims of minorities, theists and scientists. But I have argued that such an approach is ultimately mistaken and fraught with dangers. If we can accept “Afrocentric” and “feminist standpoint” approaches to history or science, what is it that might prevent us from accepting Nazi science, Soviet science or Intelligent Design? Although I began this concluding discussion with reference to the strange events of 2020, then, it should be clear that there is in fact nothing new at all about faith-based distortions of reality and/or politically motivated attacks on reason. Rather, they have simply been reinvented and repackaged at various times to suit different purposes. There is essentially very little to distinguish between the kinds of exaggerations that have been levelled at Western-democratic systems over many decades, and we should be increasingly wary of them now that they are becoming de rigueur on an ever-larger scale. It may seem tempting to assume that one’s “identity” should form the basis of one’s politics and opinions, and this can have some level of legitimacy up to a point, but we should also be mindful of the limits entailed by this way of thinking and its potential to do damage to the basic integrity of objective knowledge and the institutions that depend on it. As soon as we start allowing personal politics or groupthink to override reason and truth on a full-time basis, we then place ourselves at even greater risk of living exclusively by the “lies” that Solzhenitsyn (1974/2021) warned us about. For if we are allowed to indulge in our prejudices a little too much, it might then become only a question of whose lies have the most force behind them, and that would be anything other than “liberating” for anybody concerned. Writing many decades before the rise of postmodernism, intersectionality, the internet and the greater democratisation of education with its new commitment to “standpoint” epistemologies, in an essay on the ancestry of fascism, Bertrand Russell had this to say about “power politics,” as he called it: In eighteenth century England, only the opinions of the aristocrats and their friends were important, and these could be presented in a rational form to other aristocrats. As the political constituency grows larger and more heterogenous, the appeal to reason becomes more difficult, since there are fewer universally conceded assumptions from which agreement can start. When such assumptions cannot be found, men are driven to rely upon their own intuitions; and since the intuitions of different groups differ, reliance upon them leads to strife and power politics. (Russell, 1935: 55)

Conclusion  179 Now, it would be very easy to simply dismiss this quotation with a shrug of the shoulders and a flippant remark about gendered and elitist viewpoints. But such a response, although I would expect it from many onlookers today, would be to miss the point, because what I think Russell laments in this passage is not the process of democratisation itself (which, of course, I would not be willing to throw into reverse either), but rather our disappointing, all-too-predictable and catastrophic inability to retain or sustain a sense of common reason as a backstop in our intellectual and political engagements with one another. In truth, Russell’s observation says more about the tragedy of the commons and the enduring obstacles of our political biases than it might do about the momentary reflections of a pipe-smoking white-British philosopher living in the early twentieth century. His reference to our troublesome “intuitions” describes the chaos of contemporary identity politics rather well. As we have seen, neo-Marxist and postmodern theorists have often been inclined to describe liberal and democratic systems as “fascistic” in themselves (Marcuse, 1965). But again, long before they became standardised, these kinds of exaggerations were already acknowledged by yet another celebrated commentator on fascism: George Orwell. While recognising the difficulties, frustrations, exploitations and limitations that can come with life in capitalistic and democratic societies, Orwell understood the stark differences between such ongoing yet rectifiable grievances and the permanence of a hellish existence in a genuinely authoritarian and dangerous society elsewhere. Writing during the Western world’s darkest period and amid the very real prospect of an invading totalitarian threat from within the borders of Europe, Orwell (1941a: 3) emphasised the exaggerations of “Fascists and Communists” in his own time (which would have included the likes of Marcuse himself), who were wont to blithely compare their own societies with those of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. And one cannot help but recognise that Orwell’s observations on the attitudes towards knowledge and liberties in authoritarian societies bear an uncanny resemblance to the kinds of reactionary sentiments and policies that are currently threatening our own: The peculiarity of the totalitarian state is that though it controls thought, it doesn’t fix it. It sets up unquestionable dogmas, and it alters them from day to day. It needs absolute obedience from its subjects, but it can’t avoid the changes, which are directed by the needs of power politics. It declares itself infallible, and at the same time it attacks the very concept of objective truth. (Orwell, 1941b: 17) Given how Marcuse felt inclined to distinguish “Communists” from “Fascists” in his own way, the resemblance of these words to the whimsical, anti-scientific, dishonest and illiberal sensibilities of contemporary “woke” ideology inspired by his writings could not be more ironic. Marcuse’s concept of the “Great Refusal” is currently being realised in woke ideology. As the name suggests, its main purpose is anarchy, chaos. In Marcuse’s terms, the point is to make trouble for the establishment (the upper classes and elites), creating a revolution by whatever

180  Conclusion means necessary, including a kind of passive aggression. But, as we have seen, there is little or no evidence that it is the “establishment” who are currently suffering at all as a result of today’s neo-Marxist intervention strategies (Neate, 2020; Roa, 2021). Indeed, the university professors of our day form part of a new and expanded establishment now (Williams, 2022). The “Great Refusal” is therefore not so great after all. It is just a new haughty power-politics tinged with disdain and spite against majorities and especially “white” people in Western societies who failed to bring about a Marxist revolution, which the neo-Marxists insist must be correct and must be pursued until realised (and then even beyond that, since the insatiable neo-Marxists believe in perpetual revolution). The Great Refusal is, then, simply a refusal to engage honestly – a refusal to be reasonable, to accept the non-negotiable rules of logic and reason. This is why today’s activists are so dogmatic and regularly anti-intellectual, and it is why their moral indignation and tactics are indistinguishable from those of a committed person of religious faith. Indeed, James Lindsay has described Marcuse’s “Great Refusal” as an “overtly theological concept” (2022: 176). If, therefore, the kind of intellectual and political fanaticism we have begun to see escalating over the last five to ten years is indeed evidence of the increasing propagation of Marcuse’s “Great Refusal” mantra, then I’m refusing. In the words of Benson and Stangroom, “Being trapped in a world where lies can’t be countered seems a strange idea of emancipation” (2006: 172). Forcibly controlling what can be said and thought just doesn’t seem like a convincing pathway to “liberation” to me either; it merely smacks of a new religious dogmatism and bullying. And this is what the left’s “utopian” vision would partly entail: a reimagining of human and social potential that must begin with a complete rejection of any and all existing modes of thought, including those that belong to Enlightenment philosophy. And if you’re not onboard with that, then you can just perish! This is why Audre Lorde famously suggested that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” (1984). It is why reason and science, as central components in modern history (and therefore Western history), have come under sustained yet often misguided attacks in recent decades. On the left, science is simplistically regarded as just another tool of colonialism and oppression, and for decades many academics across disciplines have become more committed to such moralistic questions than scientific ones. As Pinker notes, “the political paranoia and moral exhibitionism that characterized university life in the 1970s” was “the era in which the current opposition to the sciences of human nature took shape” (2002: 106). Given that sociology takes its place within that (largely “Western”) scholarly tradition, however tentatively or awkwardly, the general sentiment towards it too among our self-absorbed academics is hardly surprising, if consistency is to be applied: “From the perspective of postmodernism, social science, as a science, is just another mechanism for objectifying and oppressing people, and it is, therefore, to be resisted” (Benson and Stangroom, 2006: 159). But then perhaps this guilty conscience from the self-described academic left has some degree of internal justification to it, owing to the further observation that “contrary to the belief spread by radical scientists, eugenics for much of the twentieth century was a favorite cause

Conclusion  181 of the left, not the right” (Pinker, 2002: 153). Whatever the case, like the highpriests of established theology who preceded them, the concerns of today’s intellectual classes therefore do appear to be fuelled by a curious combination of two opposing emotions: first, an absolute certainty in their own esoteric, barely accessible and language-based authority, which produces the all-too-familiar fanaticism and dogmatism; and second, a general trepidation around the temptations of the forbidden fruit of knowledge per se. Tough questions and the harsh realities of scientific advances have always had a tendency to increase our anxieties. The transition from a geocentric to a heliocentric view of the cosmos provides a fitting metaphor for this, especially as it troubled the theologians much more than it did the scientists and free-thinkers of the time: there we were, happily anchored securely at the centre of a universe that was made specifically for us, safe in the knowledge that there was at least the chance, depending on our behaviour, of an everlasting life with a “Creator” who just happened to be on our side. But now those kinds of certainties have been greatly undermined, if not totally destroyed. Modern science has now not only confirmed the heliocentric observations of Copernicus and Galileo, but, as Carl Sagan (1994) pointed out, our tiny Earth has in fact been shown to be literally adrift in the black voids of space, a mere pinprick once observed from the edges of our own solar system. Panning out even further, it becomes clear that we live somewhere on the outer fringes of a spiral arm of an unremarkable galaxy about 106,000 light years in diameter, a galaxy which is itself one of many trillions (based only on current calculations). Why are we here? We might just as well ask: why there? Our capacity to dream and to search for an ultimate meaning may therefore only result in our worst nightmare – the inconceivable realisation that there may not in fact be any obvious meaning at all. Perhaps this is why there is, as Paul Boghossian (2006) has phrased it, a profound “fear of knowledge” in our species, even though it is a fear that is ironically twinned with a desire (and a capacity) to know. When we do discover certain truths, they can often seem so unbearable that we simply recoil, at least at first. The narratives of ancient scripture testify to precisely this deep sense of discomfort more than they do to anything else. “Knowledge and understanding and wisdom were forbidden to us in this story. We were to be kept ignorant. But we couldn’t help ourselves. We were starving for knowledge – created hungry, you might say” (Sagan, 1994: 53). However, metaphorically speaking, our inquisitive eyes often turn out to be much too big for our intellectual bellies, and we frequently lack the stomach for that which confronts us. The all-too-common reaction to such a realisation is to deny the reality, ignore the facts or attack the mechanisms that are capable of making us see them – namely, logic, reason and science itself. And so those who can make a career out of such a tactic in a “post-truth” era (a truly “privileged” existence, if ever there was one) are well placed to become the new heroes of the hour: the ones with a boundless “understanding” (of anything but logic and science); the ones with a heightened sense of morality and imagination (except, apparently, when it really matters). These are the “new puritans” (Doyle, 2022), the “kindly inquisitors” (Rauch, 2013), who apparently claim to be promoting liberty even as they censor, or preach

182  Conclusion peace and harmony even as they stir up tensions and create new divisions by confronting misogyny with misogyny (as well as misandry) or indeed by fighting racism with yet more racism. And so, with Feyerabend, they declare that “anything goes” in an ultimately self-defeating kind of narcissism. But if it really is the case that anything goes, then Erving Goffman was a German biologist born in 1857 and Jesus Christ was born in sixth-century Arabia and is the revered prophet of Islam. In short, “The Left has no more reason to want to live by lies and mistakes than anyone else has” (Benson and Stangroom, 2006: 64). Contrary to the prevailing (but completely unoriginal) censorious tendency now alarmingly being promoted in our universities and other institutions, then, “the cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas” (Sagan, 1996: 429). This is the case today, just as it always has been. It should also be clear, dear reader, that my aim in this book has not been to compel you but to convince you with an appeal to evidence and argumentation, as should be expected in the academic spirit. It should also be pointed out, lest I be misunderstood, that I am not arguing that reason and science are necessarily the answer to every problem or that science itself is perfect. Nor do I not pretend for one moment to have all of the answers to the many great questions facing our species and the future of our societies. However, I do know that actively engaging in the circulation of propaganda, obfuscation and lies, for whatever reason, does not represent our best chance of dealing with those challenges; that will only make things worse. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that those who are wont to engage in fantasies of one kind or another are typically the very same people who are likeliest to hold the most unrealistic and disproportionate expectations of science, or to misrepresent it by assuming that its practitioners claim an infallibility on its behalf. But no respectable scientist that I have read has ever claimed any such thing, regardless of their levels of confidence. Rather, “a fact in the scientific sense” is “something Steve Gould defined as an observation ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional ascent’ ” (cited in Coyne, 2015: 31). Provisional ascent: a kind of modest and cautious acceptance. This is what is meant by the words “science” and “fact” – and access to sophisticated reasoning is not dependent on any given identity or ideology. Instead, it comes instinctively (if imperfectly) to pretty much any human being, and it needs to be nurtured and encouraged, not demonised and discouraged. This is why the now vilified marketplace of ideas is precisely that – a marketplace, not a closed shop. Everyone should feel at liberty to browse there and to select and take ownership of its best products. And the currency in circulation in that marketplace really is available to all who earnestly invest in it. Yet some of today’s activists are fond of routinely using labels like “Nazi” to describe (and thereby silence) those who believe in such things as free thought and expression, suggesting that they in fact have no idea what a “Nazi” really was or is. In any case, their aim is to control speech in the strictest ways possible, confiscating words from the public domain as if removing weapons in some kind of knives or guns amnesty (though certainly not without the usual exemption from the threat

Conclusion  183 of prosecution in return). Meanwhile, the “Nazi” hunters are, of course, the good guys, absolutely convinced that they alone know what is right and what is wrong; what is to be banned and what is not; confident that their speech and their rights will always be protected (because of course, they are good!). And so they employ all manner of tactics: censorship, the gamut of logical fallacies, deflection, misrepresenting views, straw-manning, telling blatant lies about the characters of their opponents, de-platforming or spreading misinformation about scientific facts – in short, anything to win by attrition or by force. As Ray Bradbury once put it, “There is more than one way to burn a book. . . . And the world is full of people running about with lit matches” (cited in Minick, 2021). There is also more than one way to burn a witch, the aim being to ceremonially destroy not just the person but the spirit, the evil embodied therein. Censorship and intimidation take many forms, but they are always self-defeating and ultimately destructive in the long run: If we’re absolutely sure that our beliefs are right, and those of others wrong; that we are motivated by good, and others by evil; that the King of the Universe speaks to us, and not to adherents of very different faiths; that it is wicked to challenge conventional doctrines or to ask searching questions; that our main job is to believe and obey – then the witch mania will recur in its infinite variations down to the time of the last man. (Sagan, 1996: 413) Those who do not care for ideas and for genuine knowledge have no need of sincere and universalised thought processes like reason, and they have little respect for communicative faculties like speaking and writing; indeed, as fanatics with nothing other than rhetoric and ideology, they are the ones most likely to be afraid of such abilities. So, given the favoured authoritarian and censorious tactics of our current “culture wars” and the collateral damage caused to liberties and integrity along the way, even if one group emerges victorious from these battles, what would be left standing for the rest of us? Nothing useful whatsoever, I  would suggest (remember, “the master’s tools will not dismantle the master’s house,” as Lorde arrogantly decreed on behalf of everyone). However, as Pluckrose and Lindsay have responded to this kind of sentiment: [W]e concede that we are far less interested in dismantling liberal societies and empirical and rational concepts of knowledge and much more interested in continuing the remarkable advances for social justice that they have brought. The master’s house is a good one and the problem has been limited access to it. Liberalism increases access to a solid structure that can shelter and empower everyone. Equal access to rubble is not a worthy goal. (2020: 20) To the extent that we are still talking about a “master’s house” at all (as opposed to a house that has since been entrusted to a property management company setting

184  Conclusion new and arbitrary rules while inadvertently working in the service of the same old “master”), I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with these sentiments. For me, the new attacks on speech and Western traditions should actually be taken as an invitation for us to reassess who we really are and what we stand for, without apology. That means restoring the universal principles of the Enlightenment, ­re-embracing science, rediscovering logic, respecting knowledge, trusting evidence, nurturing critical thinking, engaging in civilised debate and being kind enough to proudly pass all of these precious gifts on to the future generations who are certainly going to need them.

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Index

abortion 28 – 31, 46, 68 Adorno, Theodor 74 – 75 Afrocentrism 84, 94, 178 Ahmed, Arif 101 Ali, Ayaan Hirsi 121, 130, 133, 145, 147 American Revolution 55 ancien régime 55 Andrews, Seth 9 anomy 8 Answers in Genesis 24, 46 Anthony, Louise 4, 16, 17 Armstrong, Karen: on the Ayatollah Khomeini and fatwa 138 – 139; on the crusades 144 – 145; on the Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb 132; and the “golden age” of Islam 141; on historical Muslim violence 145; on Islam as nation 129; on Islam and “salvation” 130 – 131; on “modernity” and “colonialism” 140; on the Muslim Brotherhood 131; on the Qur’an 130; on women and veils 145 Asimov, Isaac 168 Atheism: and belief 17 – 18, 64; see also religious belief atheist, definition of 3 – 4 Barbery Wars 142 Barker, Dan 10, 27, 43 Barrett, Amy Coney 28 – 29 Baudrillard, Jean 110, 173 Bauman, Zygmunt 13; modernity and classifications 94; Modernity and the Holocaust 60; on postmodernism 119 Becker, Howard S. 117, 119 Berger, Peter: on “disenchantment” 62; on the role of modern religion 58;

on the “sacred canopy” 8, 62; on secularisation 48; on secularisation and rationalisation 62; and secularisation theory 54 – 55; on “world-building” 8 Bergsen, Albert 91 Bhasker, Roy 165, 166 Bible: on adultery 32; on faith 4 – 5, 6, 10; and genocide 32; on God’s omniscience 43; on knowledge xviii; on owning slaves 46; on secularity 65; on the sheep and the goats 18; on the Ten Commandments 26; and theodicies 46; on ultimate justice 50 “Big Gods” see Norenzayan, Ara Blackburn, Simon xi Boehm, Christopher 41, 42 Boghossian, Paul 165, 181 Boghossian, Peter 87, 98 Bourdieu, Piere xii, 76; and fields 79; and habitus 125; and social class 79; and symbolic capitals 78 Bruce, Steve: on Arabs and Islam 141; on beliefs 110; on church attendance 56; on faith and religiosity 23, 53; on the Reformation 11 – 12; on religious charitability 9; on scientific truth 54; on secularisation thesis xv, 120; on secularism in the Middle East 140; on upbringing and “religious capital” 9 Brunei 30 Bruno, Giordano 62 Buck-Morss, Susan 138, 140, 144 bureaucracy: “iron cage” of 60, 175 Bush, George W. 31, 128 Butler, Judith 80, 117, 176

210 Index “call-out culture” see Lukianoff, Greg; Haidt, Jonathan Calvin, John 11 Calvinism 60 Campbell, Bradley and Manning, Jason: on “dignity culture” and “honour culture” 90; on the effects of “social atomization” 93; on “hate crimes” 90; on Social Justice and “crybullies” 125; on “trigger warnings” 92; on “victimhood culture” 97; on “whiteness” 105 Carr, Nicholas: on the neurological effects of the internet 108 Catholic Church: and secularisation 54, 55; and sexual molestation controversies 43 “censorship envy” see Volokh, Eugene censorship x, xiv, xvii, 71; in education and society xviii; and “iGen” 92; as one-sided 89, 94; in Western society 108 CFR (College Free Speech Rankings) 86 China 34, 67, 128, 172 Christianity: and faith 5; and “Golden Rule” of morality 43; and “grand narratives” 80; and heterosexual marriage 29; and “Love thy neighbour” 43; and political influence 18; and rationality 62; and satire 124; and secularism 65; and slavery 46; and Western societies 53, 56, 69, 128 “clash of civilisations” see Huntington, Samuel Comfort, Ray 44 Communism xvii, 67, 97, 115, 127, 135 Comte, Auguste: and positivism 151, 177; on secularisation 49; and sociology 151 “conflict theory” see Marxism Copernicus, Nicolaus 24, 62, 150, 181 Copson, Andrew: on French Revolution 55; on secularism 68 – 69 Costly signalling theory 44 Cottee, Simon 18, 147 Covid-19 100, 106, 172, 173 Craib, Ian: on Durkheim 7; on Marxism and postmodernity 72; on “social facts” 152; on sociological imperialism 151 – 152 creationism x, 115, 168, 169 Crenshaw, Kimberlé 83, 176; see also intersectionality criminal statistics and modernity 38

CRT (critical race theory): and the First Amendment 82, 84; and Islam 138, 146; and “Social Justice” 116; and wokeism xvi Cuba 67 “cultural appropriation” 91, 97, 109 Damore, James 102, 114 Danish cartoons 124, 125, 147, 177 Darwin, Charles 62, 167; On the Origin of Species 56; theory of evolution 169 Dashti, Ali 137 Dawkins, Richard x, 7, 149, 161, 175; on atheism 20; on atonement 44; on Einstein 171; on faith as a virus 14 – 16; on human morality and evolution 42; on morality and religion 26; on morality and reputation 41; on scientific writing 168; on social Darwinism 23 De Botton, Alain 20 Dee, Jeff xviii Dennett, Daniel C. 7, 14, 16, 20 Derrida, Jacques: and “binaries” 93; on language and meaning 76 – 77, 111; and “radical scepticism” 85; sophistry of 117; and woke ideology 177 De Waal, Frans: on church attendances 6; on “prosociality” and morality 41, 42, 43 DiAngelo, Robin 86 Doyle, Andrew 92, 97, 181 Du Gay, Paul 61 Durkheim, Emile 4, 49, 53, 177; on “collective effervescence” 7; on faith 6; and functionalism 6; on “organic solidarity” and “mechanical solidarity” 59; on religion and cohesion 8; the sacred and the profane 7; on shared meaning 22; on “social facts” 152; on society and “collective conscience” 152; on the sociological method xii; and sociology 151; on suicide 153; and “the totemic principle” 51 Elias, Norbert 34, 90 Engels, Friedrich: History of the Family 33 – 34 Enlightenment value: definition of 129 Enlightenment xiii, xiv, xv, 137, 140, 144, 177; and capitalism 59; and modernity 35, 36, 150; and

Index  211 philosophy 55, 75, 79, 180; and postmodernism 80, 119 Eucharist 62 “Euthyphro dilemma” see Plato “fact constructivism” see Boghossian, Paul faith: absence of 27; biblical definition of 4 – 5; and bigotry xi; as exclusion 12 – 13; general concept of xiv, 174; and Islamic history 140 – 142; and morality 9, 10; morality and politics 63 – 64, 68; and “moral licencing” 43; and moral standards 44 – 45; and “Othering” 17 – 19; as personal conviction 23, 66; power of 6; and predestination 12; and the Protestant Reformation 11, 174; as rational belief 20; rejection of 63; religious x, xi, xii, xiv, 1 – 2, 4, 174; and science 167; and the scientific method 62; and sociology x, xi, xii, 2 – 3, 4; and truth 3; and violence 132, 147; and viruses 14 – 17 Feyerabend, Paul 150, 163, 164, 177 – 178; and “anything goes” mentality 170, 182; on “the consistency condition” 160; on “counterinduction” 160; on democracy and knowledge 160 – 161; and “epistemological anarchism” 159; on logical systems 162; Against Method 162; on modern science as “ideology” 159; and “pluralistic methodology” 159; and relativism 159, 162; on science 161; on “the separation of state and science” 150; and the “strong programme” of relativism in sociology 169 FGM (female genital mutilation) x, 44 FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) see Lukianoff, Greg First Amendment see CRT (critical race theory); Lukianoff, Greg Foucault, Michel xv, 43, 96, 118, 169, 176; on Ayatollah Khomeini 139 – 140; on “the dangerous individual” 37; on “descending individualism” 57; Discipline and Punish 36; on discourses 78; on “docile bodies” 37; and “epistemes” 78; and knowledge 167, 175; Madness and Civilization 35 – 36; on modernity 34 – 39, 93; on the panopticon 39; and postmodernism 76 – 77, 85, 119; on power 78; on

“power-knowledge” 37; and Social Justice 102; on “sovereign power” 36; and woke 116 Frankfurt School 74 French Revolution 12, 55, 56 Freud, Sigmund: as atheist 50; on the “id” and community 50; on morality and civilisation 41; and secularism 49 Furedi, Frank 104 Galilei, Galileo 24, 54, 62, 150, 181 Gates, Bill 73 Ginsburg, Ruth Bader 29 “Golden Rule” of morality 43 Gould, Stephen Jay: on “NOMA” 21; on scientific facts 182 Goya, Fransisco 120 Grayling, Anthony 31, 54; on human rights 106; on “the moral argument” for God’s existence 26; on secular charity 10; on secularism and reasoning 64 Great Chain of Being see Pinker, Steven Grimes, David Robert on scepticism 66; on Darwinism in the American education system 167; on “identity-protective cognition” 87 Gross, Paul and Levitt, Norman: on the academic left 96; on postmodernism and science 82, 84; on “the sleep of reason” 120 – 121; and “standpoint theory” 81; on Thomas S. Khun 156, 157 Habermas, Jurgen xi, 96 Haidt, Jonathan: on confirmation bias 103; on the “Durkheimian model” of religion 8; on the elephant and rider analogy 39; on “the hive switch” 104; on Moral Foundations Theory 113 – 114; on race 104; on “the rationalist delusion” 161; on social and political groups 104 Hamilton, Malcom 97 Harding, Sandra and feminist “standpoint theory” in science 81 Harris, Sam 20; on “belief bias” 103; on Christianity and sex 28; on the Danish cartoons 123; on mind colonisation 132; on morality and rationality 175; and New Atheism 7, 161; on religion vs. science 21; on stem-cell research 32 Hartung, John 42, 44 Heine, Hinrich 137

212 Index Henry VIII 54 heterosexuality 30, 96, 115 Hicks, Stephen 89 Hitchens, Christopher: on abortion 31; on atheism 20; on atonement 44; on Ayatollah Khomeini and fatwa 137, 139; on Martin Luther King Jr. 10; on morality 26; and New Atheism 7, 161; on the Qur’an 130; on theodicies 46 Hobbes, Thomas 35, 55 Holocaust 60 – 61 homosexuality 28, 29, 30, 32, 46 Hopper, Edward 57 Horkheimer, Max 74, 75 Hughes, Coleman: on Ibram X. Kendi 87; on “intersectionality” 83 Hume, David 55, 151 Huntington, Samuel 126 Husain, Ed 136, 145, 146 “ideological pat-down” 111 Igarashi, Hitoshi 139 industrial revolution 144 intersectionality xvi, 83, 85, 103, 178 ISIS 143, 145 Islam: and the academic left 139 – 140, 144, 148; and apologetics 135, 147; and bid‘a 130; and censorship 147; and the “clash of civilisations” thesis 126, 128; and the Danish cartoons 124; and Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb 132; “golden age” of 141; and imperialism 141, 142; and “jihad” 131; and media representation 122, 126; and “misunderstanding” 133; as nation 129; and non-believers 16, 19, 144; and offence 136; as “peace” 132, 133; as “perfect religion” 145; and the political left xvii, 124, 177; and politics 127; in the Qur’an 129; and satire 124; and secularism 140; and Sir Salman Rushdie 136; and submission 132 – 133; as “victim” of Western aggression 143; and the views of Muslims 124, 129; and the West 128, 129 “Islamophilia” 124, 145 Jack the Ripper 38 Jefferson, Thomas 55 Johnson, Benton: on religion and sociology 21 – 22; on religious faith 20; on

value-laden sociology 22; on value neutrality 3 Kafka, Franz 60, 101 Kakutani, Michiko xiv Kendi, Ibram X.: on How to be an Antiracist 86; on “racist and antiracist” bifurcation fallacy 87; on seeing race in everything 103 Kenya 30, 145 King, Martin Luther 104; see also Hitchens, Christopher Kisin, Konstantin 95, 104, 112 Krueger, Douglas xiv, 4, 174 Kuhn, Thomas S.: on “anomalies” 154, 155, 162; on Darwinism 169; on dogmatism in science 158; on the “gestalt-switch” concept 157; on “incommensurable” paradigms 155, 162; on “normal science” 154, 156; on “paradigms” 154; and periods of “crisis” in science 154; and philosophies of science 177 – 178; on “puzzle-solving” 154, 155; and relativism 156; on science 156; The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 154 Ku Klux Klan 70 Kurtz, Paul 69 Labour Party, UK xviii Lefkowitz, Mary 84 Lindsay, James: on Bidol’s concept of “prejudice plus power” 89; on Derrida and binarism 93; on gender in the Justice Scholarship hoax papers 87; on “identity Marxism” 83; on Marcuse’s “Great Refusal” concept 180; on Marxism and woke 97; on neo-Marxism xix; on Race Marxism xvi; on whiteness as wealth and privilege 89 Lindsay, Ronald A. 65; on religion and political views 67, 68; on secularism 66 – 67 Locke, John 55, 66 Lorde, Audre 180, 183 Lukianoff, Greg: on cognitive behavioural therapy 92, 108; and FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) 70 – 71; on politics and “offence” 108 – 109

Index  213 Lukianoff, Greg and Haidt, Jonathan: on anxiety among American youths 92; on “Bias Response Teams” and “microaggressions” 90; on “binary thinking” and polarisation 93; on “call-out culture” 94; on “cognitive behavioural therapy” 92; on the First Amendment 83; on “Gen-Z” or “i-Gen” 91, 92; on “institutionalized disconfirmation” 94; on “safetyism” 91; on “social validation feedback loops” 92; on speech as “violence” 91, 108; on “vindictive protectiveness” 94; on Western politics 115; on white males 85; on youth and the internet 108 Luther, Martin 11, 12, 13, 59 Lyotard, Jean-François: and “grand narratives” (or “metanarratives”) xv, 96, 119; and the influence of language games in woke ideology 111, 117; and postmodernism 76; and postmodern knowledge as politicised 85; on truth and “language games” 77 Madonna 73, 160 Magna Carta 54 Malik, Kenan 136, 146, 148 Manji, Irshad 130, 143, 145, 146 Marcuse, Herbert: and dichotomies 93; the “Frankfurt School” 74; the “Great Refusal” 75; and identity politics 85; and liberal democracy 179; One-Dimensional Man 75; and “Repressive Tolerance” 75; and woke ideology 176 – 177 marketplace of ideas 164, 182 Marxism: and “conflict theory” 72; influence on postmodernism 76; and the “No true Scotsman fallacy” 135; and sociology of religion 21; some key concepts of 72; and woke ideology 176 Marx, Karl xii, 21, 34, 176; 11th thesis on Feuerbach 73; on capital 73 – 74, 78; The Communist Manifesto 72, 76; on ideology 73; reason and realism 166; on religion as “the opium of the people” 50; and secularisation 61; and secularisation theory 53; and Social Justice 71 – 72

McGuire, Meredith xii, 6, 7, 22 McWhorter, John 84, 97, 105 Mein Kampf 88, 145 “microaggressions” 89, 90, 91, 107, 109 Mill, John Stuart 75, 151, 164 – 165 Mohammed, Yasmine 132, 145, 146 morality: and abortion 31; as “absolute” 45; and Enlightenment xv; evolution of 46; and faith and policy 65 – 68; and “in-group” mentality 44; and the “liberal” mindset 112, 114; and marriage 33 – 34; and modern punishment 37; and monotheism 25 – 27; and nature 40 – 43; and philosophy and science 39; and presentism 145; and the Protestant Reformation 12; and religion and science 25; and sex 32; and Social Justice ideology 89 – 90; and society 6 – 10, 24; and the Ten Commandments 28 Morgan, Lewis H. 33, 34 Muhammad (prophet of Islam): on apostacy 133; and “blasphemy” 135; and the Danish cartoons 122, 125 – 126; as final messenger 132; and hadith 130; and “idolatry” 130; and “insult” 139; and Islamic law 131; and morality 145; and religious violence 147; and “revelation” and war 141; and The Satanic Verses 136; and the “superiority” of Arabs 145; see also Dashti, Ali Murray, Douglas 111 Nagel, Thomas 114; on objectivity 118; on relativism 162; on subjective approaches to knowledge 163 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) 21 Neanderthals 42 Neo-Marxism: and faith xiv – xv; and the “Frankfurt School” 74; and “grand narratives” xv; and identity politics 175; and Islamism xvi; and “Justice” xix; and perpetual revolution 180; and postmodernism 71, 95; and postmodernism xvi New Atheists 7 – 8, 20, 161 New Testament 4, 13, 32, 46 Nietzsche, Friedrich: on Darwinism and morality 40; The Genealogy of Morals 51; and secularisation 49, 175; on virtue signalling 106

214 Index “NOMA” (non-overlapping magisteria) see “cultural appropriation”; Gould, Stephen Jay Norenzayan, Ara 42, 43 – 44 North Korea 67 objectivity see Nagel, Thomas; Williams, Joanna “offence archaeology” 103 Old Testament 32, 62 Orwell, George 117, 138, 179 Paine, Thomas 55 Parsons, Talcott 22, 153, 177 Pascal, Blaise 68 Paul, Gregory S. 47 Pierce, Chester see “microaggression” Pinker, Steven: on the “Blank Slate” 25; on the concept of nature 25; on determinism 40; on Enlightenment xiv; on eugenics and politics 180 – 181; on the “Left Pole” 94; on moral exhibitionism in education 180; on moral order 24; on reason 149 – 150; on science 159, 161; on society as “super organism” 39 Plato 45 Pluckrose, Helen: on secular society 67 Pluckrose, Helen and Lindsay, James: on “applied postmodernism” 80; on the evolution of the concept of racism 82 – 84; on the four key themes of postmodern Theory 85; on Jacques Derrida 77; on “phallogocentrism” 81; on the postmodern knowledge principle 84 – 85; on the postmodern political principle 85; on “reified postmodernism” and “Social Justice scholarship” 86, 89; the “Social Justice hoax papers” stunt (with Peter Boghossian) 87 – 88; on “standpoint theory” 84 Popper, Sir Karl 95, 121, 177; on “falsificationism” 157 – 158; on science and democracy 161; on science and theology 160; on the scientific method 163; on sociologists and relativism 169 positivism 56, 151 – 152, 153, 156 “post-truth” see Kakutani, Michiko praxis xvi

“pro-sociality” see De Waal, Frans Putnam, Robert 57 Queen Elizabeth II 103 Qur’an: on conquest 146; on the Day of Judgement 19, 28; on disbelievers 14, 16, 18, 27, 146; and endorsement of slavery 46; and fear of God 133; as final word of God 130; and God’s omniscience 134; on Heaven and Hell 19; as literal word of God 129; and monotheistic scripture 5; on Muslims 145; and the “no compulsion” claim 132; on predestination 13 – 14; as universal 130 Ra, Aron xviii Ramaswamy, Vivek 100 rationality: and democracy 161; and modernity 61; in politics and society 66; and science 62; see also Frankfurt School relativism: and dogmatic ideologies 163, 174; and Foucault 78; and John Stuart Mill on truth 164 – 165; and Paul Feyerabend 159, 162, 169, 170; and postmodernism 166; in postmodern thought 71; and the “strong programme” in sociology 169; and Thomas S. Khun 156, 162, 169 religious belief i, x, 2, 7, 10 – 11, 19 – 21, 51, 54, 64, 68, 115, 134 “respect creep” see Blackburn, Simon Roe vs. Wade 29, 31, 68 Rushdie, Sir Salman 125, 136; and Khomeini’s fatwa 137, 138 – 139; knife attack on 139; and the political left 138; on secularity and religious pluralism 65 Russell, Bertrand x, 128, 178, 179 Saad, Gad: on anti-Semitism in Islamic scripture 145; on “biophobia” 40; on “DIE” (diversity, inclusion and equity) in academia 111; on Islamic terrorism 132; on left-right ratios in academia 94; on mission statements of Western universities 117 – 118; on Saudi Arabia 144; on “unconscious bias training” 101 “sacred canopy” see Berger, Peter

Index  215 “safe spaces” 91, 92 “safetyism” 91, 93, 97, 108 Sagan, Carl: on abortion 30; on censorship 182; on claims and evidence 23; on the position of Earth in space 181; on rational thinking 171; on science and knowledge xviii, 24, 66, 160, 161, 181; on science and politics 95; on the “Silver Rule” 43; on superstition and pseudoscience 149; on witch-hunts 183 Said, Edward 145; on Europeans 141; Orientalism 17; and “postcolonialism” 143 Scruton, Sir Roger 72 secularisation theory xv, 49 – 53, 54, 120 secularisation xv, xvii, 48, 175; key developments 53 – 59; and rationality 62 – 63; and reason and politics 63 – 69; and sociology 48 – 49; and woke ideology 120 Seltzer, Mark 38 Shermer, Michael 15, 157, 161 Shrier, Abigail 116 Shriver, Lionel: on censorship and power 109; on “shame” and woke ideology 106; on solipsism and identity politics 167; on the year 2020 173 “Silver Rule” see Christianity; “Golden Rule” Simmel, Georg: individuality and the Renaissance 57; on “the stranger” 35 Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter 42, 66 Smith, Adam 52, 56 Smith, Joseph 5 Snow C.P. 79 Sokal, Alan 87 Sokal, Alan and Bricmont, Jean: on falsificationism 158; on “moderate” postmodern perspectives 79; and the “science wars” 79; on the “strong programme” in sociology 169 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander 178 Soviet Union 67, 93 Spencer, Herbert 22, 151 “standpoint theory” 93, 107, 166, 178; see also Afrocentrism; Harding, Sandra Steele, Shelby 86, 105, 116 Stock, Kathleen 81, 91, 116

“Streisand effect” 109 Sue Derald Wing see “microaggression” Sullivan, Andrew 97 Sultan, Wafa 14, 130, 145 “surrogate religiosity” see Hamilton, Malcom Ten Commandments 26, 28 Tester, Keith: on civil society and morality 36 theodicy (the “problem of evil”) 46, 50, 55 Torah 45 “trigger warnings” 91, 92 Trump, Donald 16, 29, 69, 93 Turner, Bryan S. 11, 40; on the covering of women’s bodies 145; on human bodies and social bodies 32, 38 – 39; on the materialist approach to religion 35 “turnkey tyrannies” 106 Twenge, Jean M. 91 Twitter 103, 107, 111 urbanisation 35, 49, 150 “victimhood culture” see Campbell, Bradley; Manning, Jason “viewpoint discrimination” 94, 110 “vindictive protectiveness” see Lukianoff; Greg; Haidt, Jonathan Volokh, Eugene 109, 147 Warner, Rob 53, 56, 57, 105, 153 Warraq, Ibn: on Ali Dashti 137; on Ayatollah Khomeini fatwa against Rushdie 137; on depictions of Muhammad 135; on the “Golden Threads” of Western philosophy 128; on ikhls (true belief in Islam) 130; on Islamic conquest and imperialism 141 – 143, 144; on Islamic scripture and “context” 46; on Islam as insular 145; on Islam as nation 129; on “jihad” 131; on “kafir” 19; on Michel Foucault 139 – 140; on the Qur’an 130; on Sayyid Qutb 138; on sharia 134; on tawhīd (Islamic monotheism) 130; on universality of Islam 131; on Western “liberals” 140 – 141 Weber, Max: on “disenchantment” 61; on the “Protestant Ethic” 11, 52;

216 Index on Protestantism and the “Iron Cage” of bureaucracy 59 – 61; on Protestantism and science 62; on the Reformation and modernity 11; on religious kindness 9; and secularisation theory 49, 53, 59, 175; and verstehen 153 Weinberg, Steven 45 Weinstein, Bret 91 Williams, Joanna: on contemporary elites 99; on “cultural appropriation” 109; on poststructuralism and objective truth 116; on transgender activists

105; on “victimhood” 114; on “woke” 99, 102, 176; on “woke” membership and language 111; on the “woke university” 117, 180 Wilson, Bryan 9, 54, 58, 62 Wilson, E. O. 41 witch-hunts see Bergsen, Albert; Sagan, Carl Wittgenstein, Ludwig 153, 155 Yousaf, Humza 107 Zuckerman, Phil 10, 26, 65