Astral Codex Ten

atheism

4 min read

atheism

Article

atheism is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between May 10, 2021 and May 12, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “If you wanted to sound cool on Reddit ten years ago, you talked about atheism”; “you talked about atheism”; “certain ideas everyone knew were off limits - atheism, communism, marijuana legalization, gay rights”. It most often appears alongside cancel culture, Gawker, respectability cascade.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: May 10, 2021
  • Last seen: May 12, 2021

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

The Rise And Fall Of Online Culture Wars
May 10, 2021 · Original source
[Followup to: New Atheism: The Godlessness That Failed]
Inline links: New Atheism: The Godlessness That Failed
A warning: I was mostly sympathetic to Internet atheism, but mostly unsympathetic to Internet feminism. I think these histories are easier to write from a sympathetic position - any study of Internet culture is basically a study of crazy people, and the failure mode is to point and laugh at them without looking for real understanding. Sometimes pointing and laughing is unavoidable (the New Atheists probably could have done without the Malachi 2:3-related-merchandise) but I think it should be tempered by an attempt at charity. All I can do is try my hardest, and trust readers to keep me honest if I screw up.
Inline links: Malachi 2:3-related-merchandise
II. New Atheism, New Feminism, New Anti-Racism
Theses On The Current Moment
May 12, 2021 · Original source
If we zoom out a little, we find that most of human history involved enforced ideological conformity, censorship, and repression. Maybe the most available reference point for this sort of thing is the US in the 1950s. There were certain ideas everyone knew were off limits - atheism, communism, marijuana legalization, gay rights. If you supported those things, you might not go to jail, but you'd be excluded from most good careers and most of polite society. This system was very stable - everyone knew the limits, and people generally didn't push against them unless they really wanted to and knew what they were getting into.
This isn't to say the 1950s US was good! I think atheism, marijuana legalization, and gay rights were correct! It was an ethical disaster that their progress was held back for decades, and immensely unjust that the few people who spoke out for them got punished! My point is that the 1950s cultural regime was good at censoring things quietly and through general social pressure, with a minimum of Red Guards breaking people's kneecaps. This is good, insofar as getting your kneecaps broken sounds painful, but bad insofar as the repression was so subtle that it was hard to convince anyone that anything was wrong.