Posted by
TheIdeologicalDyslexic on Saturday, September 20, 2008 3:07:31 AM
Mass-Market Atheism
Okay, so atheism isn’t
exactly a new idea; indeed, it’s humanity’s oldest or second-oldest
theological theory, depending on how you play the chicken-and-egg game
with belief and unbelief. But you have to go all the way back to
late-Victorian scoffers like Robert Ingersoll and Mark Twain to find a
moment when celebrity skeptics enjoyed the sort of mass-market success
that ours—from Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris to Daniel Dennett
and Richard Dawkins—are enjoying in America today.
In part, the vogue for atheistic tracts reflects the talents of the
tractarians in question. But it also reflects the slow but steady
growth of America’s secular demographic, and its newfound
self-consciousness. The post-9/11 moment, in particular, seems to have
made unbelievers feel unexpectedly embattled, besieged by
fundamentalists both abroad and at home. And there’s nothing quite like
a feeling of embattlement to forge solidarity—and sell books.
In this sense, the new mass-market atheism is following the same
pattern as the Christian Right before it, which likewise drew strength
from a sense of embattlement and persecution. These mirror-image
movements can be seen as backlashes against the genteel secularism of
mid-century, with its faintly condescending respect for the idea of
Religion, and its studious indifference toward actual belief. This
backlash has made debates over religion more polarizing than they used
to be—and also more interesting.