09.30.07
Atheist rhetoric to demonize Muslims?
Enlightenment wars
The real battle going on is between different kinds of enlightenment
By Michael Nenonen
I recently debated the subject of religion and imperialism with atheists on a progressive discussion board. While my debating partners were very knowledgeable, it seemed to me that they suffered from a curious myopia. They clearly saw the complicity of Christian fundamentalism in America’s “War on Terror,” but they had difficulty seeing that this religious propaganda was mirrored by appeals to atheism and the values of the European Enlightenment.
When I pointed out that people like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris use atheist rhetoric to demonize Muslims and justify American imperialism, I was told that unlike religious fundamentalists, Hitchens and Harris speak only for themselves. Whereas religious warmongers serve the interests of their authoritarian organizations, atheists obey only their own conscience, however misguided that conscience may be. Like true children of the Enlightenment, Hitchens and Harris were intellectually autonomous.
This individualization of atheism struck me as untenable. Surely atheism is as much a social phenomenon as religion is, and atheists have also been known to form authoritarian organizations. Marxists have often coupled atheism with authoritarianism, and Neoconservatism is a rabidly authoritarian mutant hybrid of the atheist philosophies of Leon Trotsky and Leo Strauss.