I saw a video clip on Twitter, an extract from an interview of Richard Dawkins by Piers Morgan. Dawkins is asked whether he thinks former “ISIS bride” Shamima Begum should be allowed to return to Britain. He appears literally terrified by being asked this question, and refuses to answer it.
"Somehow argue that, despise this evidence, he has been right. This would preserve his pride and his worldview, but would be irrational."
I'm reminded of Sam Harris, Dawkins' fellow atheist evangelist, insisting that even though he'd been wrong about COVID and the vaxx, and Brett Weinstein had been correct, in fact Harris had been correct and Weinstein wrong at some sort of higher level of principle. Completely incoherent, the flailing about of a mediocre intellect convinced of his own genius and desperate to avoid confrontation with the evidence that he'd been completely and catastrophically mistaken the entire time.
I couldn't help but comment that Dawkins' trajectory mirrors the lore of Warhammer 40K. A trite point to make, but hear me out.
In Warhammer 40K the Emperor sends out his legions to conquer the galaxy, destroying all aliens, recapturing all of humanity and, most importantly, imposing a purely and rational scientific order on the galaxy. Ruthlessly purging any religions and any notion of metaphysics or superstition.
The problem, is that it's a lie and the Emperor knows it's a lie, that ''Chaos'' is a very real and dangerous threat. Chaos then pushes back, enacting an old plan to corrupt the Emperor's sons and thereby proving the lie. So monumental are the threats and dangers posed by literal hell that humanity is forced back into a mode of religious fundamentalism focussed on the Emperor as a God through sheer terror.
Chaos, irrationality and religion are the norms, not rationalism and Enlightenment values. This was perhaps on Richard's mind during the interview. That in the end irrationality will prevail over your secularism, the other option is to embrace your own brand of it.
"It is a trait typical of the intelligentsia but perhaps best expressed in Dawkins: the assumption that inside every pleb is an aristocrat just waiting to burst out; inside every ignoramus, a glorious scholar; inside every superstitious fool, a man of reason. This is the apex “luxury belief”, for one can only hold it if one is largely unacquainted with the lower classes, and with the dull conformists of all backgrounds. A lot of trouble in the 20th Century could have been avoided had inquisitive men accepted that their lessers could never be their equals. Even more trouble could have been avoided had inquisitive men accepted that they themselves were fallible. For example, the man who prides himself on cool rationality often has an unexamined predisposition towards its opposite."
He's like every other academic, thinks on paper in theory. Very little of which works in the real world.
In his big brain way of working out that if we all stopped believing in different religions and our silly little national differences, everything would be wonderful utopia where we all joined together as "the human race".
Unfortunately a lot of people in the West have listened to him and others like him, we have now deconstructed our will and our walls, whilst no one else did and he is now surrounded by Islamists that will happily kill him.
Apr 9, 2023·edited Apr 10, 2023Liked by Millennial Woes
This is definitely your best Substack piece yet. I watched the 4-minute section of that awful interview, as you advised. He is indeed reduced to the role of the abused child who has been threatened with much greater violence should he tell his parents what has taken place.
What the interview really made me think of was the general boomer-cope that I feel my father is currently going through. A lifelong progressive liberal, he is still I believe intellectually gifted enough to recognise the possibility (however small) that he has actually been wrong about everything of importance in his entire life and that he has been indoctrinated by men smarter and more-ruthless than himself. I sense a nagging realisation of this that he refuses to voice but I don't expect him to break his silence on it before he dies. I also feel that he knows I am aware of this. I think this is a fairly common dynamic between certain boomer fathers and their gen-X sons at the the moment. Fathers who brought their sons up to live in a world that no longer exists.
Men who used to pride themselves on their grasp of logic and rationality no longer wish to, because the actual facts are too painful. So they cling to the ongoing feminisation of society, as it enables them to respond emotionally to the uncomfortable issues that modern life throws up. Like women, they can verbally parry the swords of sense and objectivity with sentences that begin with "Well, I just feel that...". Telling people that their feelings simply aren't relevant just ends the conversation, as most of us have learned.
This can't go on for long, as our aging parents will soon die. I would like to think that at least some are finally accepting that they may not have been right about humanity and that they were also misled into their casual atheism which has yielded crops as withered as the arm Salmon Rushdie now forlornly looks upon with his remaining eye (he was never a shepherd, but the biblical nature of the retribution finally delivered to him is difficult to ignore).
Liberal boomers now stagger around the desert, confused as to how they got there when the map to an enlightened utopia seemed so clear. Let's hope that God is still there to sympathise, forgive and embrace them and that they can recognise this before it is too late.
Masterfully and compellingly written. Your analysis of the Dawkins interview and your use of Dawkins as an archetype of the hubris and madness infecting Western intelligentsia is absolutely perfect. Crazy how these pillars of rationality spearheading the "new atheist" movement could not transcend their own quasi-religious thinking, with Dawkins and Sam Harris brazenly ignoring mountains of contrary evidence rather than ever admit they were wrong about some of the biggest issues of our time.
Absolutely brilliant essay.
I’m sure Dawkins would appreciate its publication on Good Friday.
Nobody as stupid as an intellectual.
Written like a slasher scene
Group selection, duh!
"Somehow argue that, despise this evidence, he has been right. This would preserve his pride and his worldview, but would be irrational."
I'm reminded of Sam Harris, Dawkins' fellow atheist evangelist, insisting that even though he'd been wrong about COVID and the vaxx, and Brett Weinstein had been correct, in fact Harris had been correct and Weinstein wrong at some sort of higher level of principle. Completely incoherent, the flailing about of a mediocre intellect convinced of his own genius and desperate to avoid confrontation with the evidence that he'd been completely and catastrophically mistaken the entire time.
I couldn't help but comment that Dawkins' trajectory mirrors the lore of Warhammer 40K. A trite point to make, but hear me out.
In Warhammer 40K the Emperor sends out his legions to conquer the galaxy, destroying all aliens, recapturing all of humanity and, most importantly, imposing a purely and rational scientific order on the galaxy. Ruthlessly purging any religions and any notion of metaphysics or superstition.
The problem, is that it's a lie and the Emperor knows it's a lie, that ''Chaos'' is a very real and dangerous threat. Chaos then pushes back, enacting an old plan to corrupt the Emperor's sons and thereby proving the lie. So monumental are the threats and dangers posed by literal hell that humanity is forced back into a mode of religious fundamentalism focussed on the Emperor as a God through sheer terror.
Chaos, irrationality and religion are the norms, not rationalism and Enlightenment values. This was perhaps on Richard's mind during the interview. That in the end irrationality will prevail over your secularism, the other option is to embrace your own brand of it.
Good stuff
Really fantastic piece of writing. Bravo.
I loved this paragraph:
"It is a trait typical of the intelligentsia but perhaps best expressed in Dawkins: the assumption that inside every pleb is an aristocrat just waiting to burst out; inside every ignoramus, a glorious scholar; inside every superstitious fool, a man of reason. This is the apex “luxury belief”, for one can only hold it if one is largely unacquainted with the lower classes, and with the dull conformists of all backgrounds. A lot of trouble in the 20th Century could have been avoided had inquisitive men accepted that their lessers could never be their equals. Even more trouble could have been avoided had inquisitive men accepted that they themselves were fallible. For example, the man who prides himself on cool rationality often has an unexamined predisposition towards its opposite."
He's like every other academic, thinks on paper in theory. Very little of which works in the real world.
In his big brain way of working out that if we all stopped believing in different religions and our silly little national differences, everything would be wonderful utopia where we all joined together as "the human race".
Unfortunately a lot of people in the West have listened to him and others like him, we have now deconstructed our will and our walls, whilst no one else did and he is now surrounded by Islamists that will happily kill him.
Dawkins is an expert at missing the point of religion
Congrats on your best article on here yet.
This is definitely your best Substack piece yet. I watched the 4-minute section of that awful interview, as you advised. He is indeed reduced to the role of the abused child who has been threatened with much greater violence should he tell his parents what has taken place.
What the interview really made me think of was the general boomer-cope that I feel my father is currently going through. A lifelong progressive liberal, he is still I believe intellectually gifted enough to recognise the possibility (however small) that he has actually been wrong about everything of importance in his entire life and that he has been indoctrinated by men smarter and more-ruthless than himself. I sense a nagging realisation of this that he refuses to voice but I don't expect him to break his silence on it before he dies. I also feel that he knows I am aware of this. I think this is a fairly common dynamic between certain boomer fathers and their gen-X sons at the the moment. Fathers who brought their sons up to live in a world that no longer exists.
Men who used to pride themselves on their grasp of logic and rationality no longer wish to, because the actual facts are too painful. So they cling to the ongoing feminisation of society, as it enables them to respond emotionally to the uncomfortable issues that modern life throws up. Like women, they can verbally parry the swords of sense and objectivity with sentences that begin with "Well, I just feel that...". Telling people that their feelings simply aren't relevant just ends the conversation, as most of us have learned.
This can't go on for long, as our aging parents will soon die. I would like to think that at least some are finally accepting that they may not have been right about humanity and that they were also misled into their casual atheism which has yielded crops as withered as the arm Salmon Rushdie now forlornly looks upon with his remaining eye (he was never a shepherd, but the biblical nature of the retribution finally delivered to him is difficult to ignore).
Liberal boomers now stagger around the desert, confused as to how they got there when the map to an enlightened utopia seemed so clear. Let's hope that God is still there to sympathise, forgive and embrace them and that they can recognise this before it is too late.
Masterfully and compellingly written. Your analysis of the Dawkins interview and your use of Dawkins as an archetype of the hubris and madness infecting Western intelligentsia is absolutely perfect. Crazy how these pillars of rationality spearheading the "new atheist" movement could not transcend their own quasi-religious thinking, with Dawkins and Sam Harris brazenly ignoring mountains of contrary evidence rather than ever admit they were wrong about some of the biggest issues of our time.
I'm not sure what you are arguing for or against in this essay. Was the point merely to attack Dawkins?