S14, E3: On Risk and Reward
S14, E3: On Risk and Reward
Series 14: Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the Bridge Between Wildernesses
This is a continuation of a series exploring the reactions to ’s 2023 open letter, Why I am now a Christian, where she announced her conversion to Christianity.
It should at least be understandable why Hirsi Ali, perceiving the increasing threat to Western civilisation might be disillusioned with whatever she thought New Atheism was, or perhaps became. The extent to which this is challenging can only be for want of reading what she made clear in her letter.
Part of the answer is global. Western civilisation is under threat from three different but related forces: the resurgence of great-power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia; the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilise a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fibre of the next generation.
“Why I am now a Christian”, Unherd, Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The key phrase to keep in mind is ‘different but related’. These three ‘forces’ are not linked in common cause but by having a set of similar asymmetric relationships with the West. They all conscript tolerance in the service of intolerance and use free-speech in an attempt to deny that right to others.
It seems that the main way to subvert what can be loosely called ‘Western ideals’ is to undermine public confidence and promote cynicism for some of the most basic concepts of justice. These are themes that seem to reoccur, so for example, accusations of white supremacy, cultural appropriation and colonialism are crafted into thought terminating clichés where even the most egregious and dishonest historical revisionism cannot be easily disputed.
Openness to criticism has been manipulated into pathological guilt and self hatred, while present-day oppression and slavery in Africa and Asia, are ignored. Electronic devices contain materials that are mined by those that are currently economically or physically enslaved and for whom there are no calls for reparations.1 Arguably, critical studies that are focused on judging history, distract us from seeing what we are all unwittingly a part of today.
Western values are not unimpeachable but within them there is a least a dominant aspiration for continual progress for everyone. Not only is it unnecessary to suppose our institutions are perfect, it’s counter to our values to allow ourselves to believe they might be - this rare quality should not be underestimated. However, it seems we have entered a period of stagnation, because these characteristics are no longer universally accepted as being valuable.
Authoritarian regimes, radical Islam and post modernist dogmatists, assume the infallibility of their own perspectives and feel able to be intolerant to everything that they consider to be wrong. Thus they tend to be inherently opposed to discussion that involves engagement with ‘subversive opinions’ i.e. views opposed to their own. This, coupled to the belief that speech can be deemed harmful, provides them with justification for selectively bullying people into silence. The underlying motivation is to put what they say themselves beyond the reach of criticism.
Over-earnest self-hatred on the left and complacent jingoism on the right are both enemies to the workings of democracy and both unwittingly collaborate in undermining centuries of continuous improvement. Western sympathies with authoritarian ideologies, particularly on the extreme right, see figures like Putin as strong leaders defending a culture against the barbarians at the gate.
It is easy to overlook that what is being maintained was built on a long history of oppression, propaganda, political crime. In Russia this was made stronger by the failure of their brief experiment with democracy, whilst highly centralised authoritarian power has been unassailable in what became China, after Mao Zedong eradicated political opposition, history, culture and people in its formation.
Meanwhile Western culture is an easy target for attacks because its characteristic openness, agreeableness and receptivity to criticism presents little retaliatory risk. The proposition that dramatic change is needed in Western society is tied to notions of blame that are often accepted as axiomatically true. To be in favour of change rather than simply open to it has become something to be celebrated, carrying with it no obligation to specify what is to be remedied or, the change that is mooted to achieve it.
Choose Your Champions Carefully
Linda Sarsour was the organiser of the women’s march in 2017, but she gained recognition before that and in 2016 was featured as a ‘Champion of Change’ on the White House website with this citation:
Linda Sarsour is a working woman, community activist, and mother of three. Ambitious, outspoken and independent, Linda shatters stereotypes of Muslim women while also treasuring her religious and ethnic heritage.
“Champions of Change”, the White House - (archived)
In a since-deleted tweet of 2011-vintage she said of Brigitte Gabriel and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (a victim of FGM as a child):
She's asking 4 an a$$ whippin'. I wish I could take their vaginas away - they don't deserve to be women. (sic)
Linda Sarsour
That was for the crime of claiming Islam was misogynistic. Whatever other stereotypes the Whitehouse supposed Sarsour was shattering, it wasn’t the one about Muslim intolerance or female subjugation. It was a sign of how deeply divisive perspectives would become lionised in the West. It’s ironic that free-speech is being reserved for some of the most hateful ideas, and if you think about it carefully, identity politics is just repackaged jingoism.
This conclusion that autocracies, fundamentalist religions, extreme political ideologies and critical post modernists (aka ‘the woke’) converge on, is that democracy and tolerance for ideas are not essential to progress. They believe that progress must be prescribed to the masses which also means it can be withheld. The sort of societal and judicial re-engineering advocated by certain philosophers is counter to democratic values and it would be remiss of us to allow self-appointed gatekeepers to fetter progress.
On Reward
Bringing secular humanism from under the shadow of atheism is just one way to build a bridge for those isolated by fundamentalist religion i.e., so they can access other ideas.
Many prominent new atheists have shown concern about Ayaan Hirsi Ali becoming a Christian but they too fall into the trap of identity politics. Sure, we can say that atheism is not about identity, but for as long it’s allowed to be a team sport what else can it be about? If you doubt this remember that the thing about teams is that people can be dropped from them.
The founder of the secular humanist movement, Paul Kurtz was ostracised from the organisations he created for staying true to his conviction that constructive dialogue with the religious was important. If there was any protest at this appalling treatment it doesn’t seem to have been recorded anywhere - perhaps no one had a pen. Yet Kurtz was certainly not an apologist for religion and we can be fairly confident he was braver than many of those who condemned him, viz.
''Islam desperately needs a Protestant-like Reformation,'' he continued. The Islamic system is the product of ''a nomadic, agrarian society, pre-modern and pre-urban, which they are trying to apply to the contemporary world.''
Mr. Kurtz is well aware of the dangers of criticizing Islam. ''Anything critical of Islam, you can get a fatwa,'' he said. But no matter, he said. ''My main interest is defending humanism as an alternative morality, of happiness here and now, of autonomy and individual freedom and dignity, and of the value of the exuberance of this life.''
Craven betrayal aside, what happened to Kurtz showed that even within organisations that were supposedly fighting for free and unfettered inquiry, non-conforming opinion could be suppressed without much comment.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemöller, German Lutheran pastor and theologian
In 2021, Richard Dawkins was stripped of the American Humanist Association award for ‘Humanist of the Year’, the year in question being 1996. What right did a committee have to remove an award that was bestowed in another era by a completely different set of people? It was a past transaction.
If your grandfather sold a house twenty-five years ago, you couldn’t go back, void the sale and move in. Any award that might be rescinded by people who are not yet born is to my mind worthless. ‘Standing for absolutely nothing’ may one day the only revision-proof accolade.
The Center for Inquiry presents the Richard Dawkins Award annually to a distinguished individual from the worlds of science, scholarship, education or entertainment, who publicly proclaims the values of secularism and rationalism, upholding scientific truth wherever it may lead.
… Since 2019, the award has been given exclusively by the Center for Inquiry of which RDFRS is a part. Richard Dawkins must approve the recipient and bestows the award with a personal tribute to the awardee.
“The Richard Dawkins Award”, Center for Inquiry (CFI)
This is not generally for people who are getting their hands dirty like Paul Kurtz. One of the few exceptions to that is Ayaan Hirsi Ali who took risks to tell the truth before becoming something of a celebrity. Dawkins has often said he is concerned with what is true, which I have always found to be admirable, but is the nearest crocodile to the canoe still the question of whether a god exists? Threats don’t remain static.
Isn’t it a more pressing case for humanists to make that killing and rape, genital mutilation, honour killings can never be justified by religion? It is up to the religious to reconcile the contradictions of good and evil with their god but that doesn’t mean society should have to accommodate these ‘cultural differences’ or the imposition of religious legal systems. At minimum we have be a better example of what is moral and good while holding up the mirror.
Of course, free expression in the entertainment world is under threat so it is right to acknowledge the push back. Mockery is a good antidote to a lack of humour but why is it in crisis in the first place? Who is it under threat from if not other entertainers? In the front-line against authoritarianism, there are more important things to worry about, than the terrifying wrath of the Hogwarts alum and their cosplay revolutionaries.
The destruction of the infidel is an objective built into the tenets of Islam and while I am not suggesting that the only reason people want to go to the West is to subvert it, we might ask how the interests of those fleeing oppression are served by us becoming the type of society they are trying to escape? What do we stand for if anything at all?
Secular-humanism can show its moral bona fides without suggesting that everyone who is religious subscribes to atrocity or is a moron. But it’s a mistake and an arrogance to suppose our societies are so robust that we can blithely tolerate and withstand imported bigotry with impunity. We need bridge builders like Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
The B-Side
I have switched on paid subscriptions but am in the process of flushing out my drafts. After that, on selected series I will provide some paid content, plus some companion pieces that will complement the free episode without being essential to it. The B-Side to this episode linked below is a free example of that.
Modern electronics are highly demanding of rare-earth minerals and exotic metals. 70% of the world’s cobalt comes from the Central African Republic (CAR). Cobalt is used in almost every type of device-resident rechargeable battery. They are mined by the poor, including those as young as four years old, who have no protective equipment. Child labour is not the worst of it because many children are enslaved by gangs, in mining, agriculture and the sex trade. This is not restricted to CAR but is prevalent across much of Africa and Asia.