Godless grifters how the new atheists merged with the far right salon.com

08/06/2021 Godless grifters: How the New Atheists merged with the far right | Salon.com
https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/?fbclid=IwAR… 1/20
Godless grifters: How the New
Atheists merged with the far
right
What once seemed like a bracing intellectual movement has degenerated into a pack of
abusive, small-minded bigots
By PHIL TORRES PUBLISHED JUNE 5, 2021 12:00PM (EDT)
Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)
I
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t was inspiring — really inspiring. I remember watching clip after clip of Sam Harris,
Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens debating Christians, Muslims and "purveyors
of woo," exposing the fatuity of their faith-based beliefs in superstitious nonsense
unsupported by empirical evidence, often delivered to self-proclaimed prophets by supernatural
beings via the epistemically suspicious channel of private revelation. Not that Harris,
Dawkins and Hitchens were saying anything particularly novel — the inconsistencies and ×

contradictions of religious dogma are apparent even to small children. Why did God have to
sacrifice his son for our sins? Does Satan have free will? And how can the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit be completely separate entities but also one and the same?
The "New Atheist" movement, which emerged from the bestselling books of the aforementioned
authors, was the intellectual community that many of us 15 or so years ago were desperately
looking for — especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which seemed to confirm Samuel P.
Huntington's infamous "clash of civilizations" thesis. As Harris once put it, with many of us
naively agreeing, "We are at war with Islam." (Note: This was a dangerous and xenophobic lie
that helped get Donald Trump elected. As Harris said in 2006, anticipating how his brand of
Islamophobia would enable Trump's rise, "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat
that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.")
New Atheism appeared to offer moral clarity, it emphasized intellectual honesty and it embraced
scientific truths about the nature and workings of reality. It gave me immense hope to know that
in a world overflowing with irrationality, there were clear-thinking individuals with sizable public
platforms willing to stand up for what's right and true — to stand up for sanity in the face of
stupidity.
Fast-forward to the present: What a grift that was! Many of the most prominent New Atheists
turned out to be nothing more than self-aggrandizing, dogmatic, irascible, censorious, morally
compromised people who, at every opportunity, have propped up the powerful over the
powerless, the privileged over the marginalized. This may sound hyperbolic, but it's not when,
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well, you look at the evidence. So I thought it might be illuminating to take a look at where some
of the heavy hitters in the atheist and "skeptic" communities are today. What do their legacies
look like? In what direction have they taken their cultural quest to secularize the world?
Let's see if you can spot a pattern:
Sam Harris: Arguably the progenitor of New Atheism, Harris was for me one of the more
entertaining atheists. More recently, though, he has expended a prodigious amount of time and
energy vigorously defending the scientific racism of Charles Murray. He believes that IQ is a
good measure of intelligence. He argued to Josh Zepps during a podcast interview not only that
black people are less intelligent than white people, but that this is because of genetic evolution.
He has consistently given white nationalists a pass while arguing that Black Lives Matter is
overly contentious, and has stubbornly advocated profiling "Muslims, or anyone who looks like
he or she could conceivably be Muslim," at airports. (When Harris believes he's right about
something, it becomes virtually impossible to talk him out of it, no matter how many good
arguments, expert opinions or hard data are presented to him. Like Donald Trump, he's pretty
much unteachable.) Harris has also partly blamed the election loss of Hilary Clinton on "safe
spaces, trigger warnings, [and] new gender pronouns," released a private email exchange with
Ezra Klein without Klein's permission, and once suggested that New Atheism is male-dominated
because it lacks an "extra estrogen vibe."
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His primary focus these days is boosting the moral panic over "social justice warriors" (SJWs),
"political correctness" and "wokeism," which he apparently believes pose a dire threat to
"Western civilization" (a word that has a lot of meaning for white nationalists). Consequently,
Harris has become popular among right-wingers, and the sentiment of solidarity appears to be
mutual. For example, he's described Ben Shapiro as being "committed to the … rules of
intellectual honesty and to the same principles of charity with regard to other people's positions,"
which is odd given that Shapiro is a pathological liar who routinely misconstrues his opponents in
service of a racist, misogynistic, climate-denying agenda.
Michael Shermer: The founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, which once published a
favorable review of Milo Yiannopoulos' book "Dangerous" and a defense of child-rapist Jerry
Sandusky, Shermer made a name for himself as a "skeptic." However, his legacy has been
overshadowed by, among other things, a protracted history of sexual harassment and assault
allegations, with James Randi once calling him "a bad boy" whom numerous people at atheism
conferences had complained about. In 2014, he was accused of rape, which he later flippantly
joked about on Twitter. Since then, he has dedicated an impressive amount of time belittling
"SJWs" and "the woke," often hurling ad hominem attacks and middle-school insults towards
those with whom he disagrees. For example, Shermer has referred to "SJWs" as "mealy-
mouthed, whiney, sniveling, and obsequious," and "a bunch of weak-kneed namby-pamby
bedwetters." He once tweeted, in Trumpian fashion: "Know this Regressive Lefters/SJWs — you
will lose. Those of us who believe in truth & justice will prevail. Yours is a failed ideology.
Losers." After I wrote a critique of Steven Pinker's recent book "Enlightenment Now!", which
contains many serious errors, Shermer took to Twitter to call me a "cockroach." None of this
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should be that surprising, since he describes himself as an anti-woke, anti-reparations libertarian
who thinks Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is "a remarkable book."
But be careful: Shermer has also acknowledged, in writing, that he's fantasized about murdering
people. "Or, if not actually killing the particular bastard," he reports, "at the very least I imagine
dislocating his jaw with a crushing roundhouse knuckle sandwich that sent him reeling to the
pavement." This comes from his book "The Moral Arc," which received an extended, glowing
blurb from Steven Pinker.
Lawrence Krauss: A world-renowned cosmologist who authored "A Universe From Nothing"
and ran the Origins Project formerly at Arizona State University, Krauss was among the most
academically accomplished of the New Atheists. In 2018, though, he was dismissed from his job
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as director of the Origins Project after an investigation found that he had violated the sexual
harassment policy of the university "by groping a woman's breast while on an ASU-funded trip in
late 2016." He has also repeatedly and vigorously defended his onetime friend Jeffrey Epstein,
the child sex trafficker, who "donated $250,000 to the Origins Project over a seven-year span."
According to a 2011 Daily Beast article, Krauss claimed, "I don't feel tarnished in any way by my
relationship with Jeffrey; I feel raised by it," adding that he didn't believe the "beautiful women
and young women" surrounding Epstein were underage. (Plenty of other people have said it was
impossible not to realize that, and Krauss himself has acknowledged that Epstein favored
"women ages 19 to 23," which surely should have been a red flag.) After a 2018 BuzzFeed
article detailing some of the sexual harassment allegations against Krauss was published, a
flood of further accusations emerged online, some of which I catalogued here.
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Richard Dawkins: Once a heavyweight within the world of evolutionary biology, Dawkins
energized atheists the world over with his book "The God Delusion." Over time, though, it
became increasingly clear that he's neither an adult-in-the-room nor a particularly nice guy. For
some bizarre reason, he obsessively targeted a Muslim teenager in Texas, who was arrested
after a homemade clock he brought to school was wrongly thought to be a bomb. He also flipped
out over what came to be called "Elevatorgate," which began with Rebecca Watson calmly
asking men to be thoughtful and considerate about how they make women feel at conferences
— for example, in the enclosed space of an elevator. This resulted in a flood of rape and death
threats directed toward Watson, while Dawkins mocked the situation by writing a shocking letter
addressed "Dear Muslima," in which the first line was "Stop whining, will you." More recently,
he's made it clear that he isn't bothered by the allegations against Krauss, and posted seemingly
anti-trans comments on Twitter. When asked why Twitter has caused him so much trouble, he
claimed: "I love truth too much." (For Dawkins' troubling views on aborting fetuses with Down
Syndrome, see this.)
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James Lindsay: Once a promising young atheist, Lindsay published "Everybody Is Wrong
About God" in 2015 and, three years later, "How to Have Impossible Conversations," co-
authored with Peter Boghossian (below). Referring to himself as "apolitical" but boasting a profile
page on the right-wing, anti-free-speech organization Turning Point USA, he is now one of the
most unhinged crusaders against "critical race theory" (CRT), an idea about which he seems to
have very little actual knowledge. (This is unsurprising, given that Lindsay has literally argued
that he doesn't need to understand "gender studies" to call for the entire field to be canceled.
See #10 here.) Over the past few years, he has teamed up with Christian nationalist and COVID
conspiracist Michael O'Fallon, and now rakes in plenty of cash via Patreon — proof that grifting
about "free speech" and "CRT" pays. Known for his social media presence, Lindsay has called
women he disagrees with "bitches," while — seriously — hurling "your mom" insults at
intellectual opponents who point out his mendacities. He recently argued that antisemitism is
caused by woke Jews (i.e., they're doing it to themselves), spread COVID conspiracy theories,
and claimed in 2020 that people should vote for Donald Trump (as he did) because Joe Biden is
a neo-Marxist, or will succumb to the influence of scary neo-Marxists like Black Lives Matter.
Last year, Lindsay co-authored the commercially successful book "Cynical Theories," which
received a glowing endorsement from Steven Pinker but repeatedly misrepresents the ideas of
those it hysterically, and incorrectly, claims are tearing down "Western civilization." And let's not
get into his wildly delusional conspiracy theories about the "Great Reset," which apparently, as
someone Lindsay retweeted put it, "aims to introduce a new global planetary diet"! If you want to
understand Lindsay's worldview, I suggest reading Jason Stanley's excellent book "How
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https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/?fbclid=IwA… 10/20
Fascism Works," which captures the anti-intellectual, anti-academic, anti-social justice spirit of
Lindsay's activism perfectly.
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Peter Boghossian: A "philosopher" at Portland State University and "longtime collaborator of
Stefan Molyneux" (a white supremacist demagogue who once declared, "I don't view humanity
as a single species …"), Boghossian wrote "A Manual for Creating Atheists" in 2013. A year
later, he tweeted: "I've never understood how someone could be proud of being gay. How can
one be proud of something one didn't work for?" This was followed by a defense of Nazis (no
one outside Hitler's Germany should ever be called a "Nazi"), and a stern rejection of the
historically accurate claim that "slavery … was not merely an unfortunate thing that happened to
black people. It was an … American institution, created by and for the benefit of the elites."
In 2017, Boghossian and Lindsay attempted to "hoax" gender studies by publishing a fake article
in a peer-reviewed gender studies journal (note: the journal had nothing to do with gender
studies). But it turned out this was based on a demonstrable lie, which they of course never
admitted. Their paper ultimately ended up in a pay-to-publish journal. That was followed by an
even more elaborate and even more bad-faith "hoax," which resulted in a response from
Portland State University professors alleging that "basic spite and a perverse interest in public
humiliation seem to have overridden any actual scholarly goals." Indeed, Boghossian and his
crew failed to get institutional review board approval for this experiment, resulting in serious
accusations of unethical actions. "I believe the results of this office's view of your research
behavior," wrote the vice president for "research and graduate studies" at Boghossian's
university, "raises concerns regarding a lack of academic integrity, questionable ethical behavior,
and employee breach of rules." On May 6 of this year, Boghossian — a vocal critic of "cancel
culture" — called for "the defunding of Portland State University," which he incorrectly described
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as promoting "illiberal ideologies." (See here for more.)
David Silverman: Silverman made a name for himself as a "firebrand" atheist, even appearing
on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show several times to take on "Papa Bear" himself. But "explosive …
allegations of sexual assault and undisclosed conflicts of interest" got Silverman fired from
American Atheists, where he was president. In the years since, he has given voice to a stream of
grievances about feminism, social justice and the like, referring to social justice as "a cancerous
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social movement" that "has to be undone," adding: "I have a lot of regrets for being in your
whiney culty immitation [sic] of feminism." The same day, he spoke with Sargon of Akkad (aka
Carl Benjamin, a member of Britain's far-right party UKIP) about "Feminist Tyranny." (More here,
here and here.)
Steven Pinker: To many of us early on, Pinker seemed to genuinely care about maintaining his
intellectual integrity. But, once again, high expectations only meant a harder crash. Consider that
Pinker has claimed that rape is often "over-reported." To support this, he cites right-wingers like
Christina Hoff Sommers and Heather MacDonald as primary sources. Over the past few years,
he has become unhealthily fixated on "political correctness," social justice and "wokeness," and
participated in the 2017 "Unsafe Space Tour" of college campuses, organized by the right-
libertarian magazine Spiked. It also came out, much to Pinker's chagrin, that he'd assisted the
legal defense of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, even appearing in photographs with Epstein taken
after the latter was convicted of sex crimes in 2008. Here's a picture of Pinker with Dawkins (and
fellow New Atheist Daniel Dennett) flying to a TED Conference with Epstein. Pinker's response?
It's hard to make this up: despite being a vociferous "opponent" of censorship — bad ideas must
be exposed to the light! Free speech must never be hindered! — Pinker blocked half of Twitter to
stop people from mentioning his past links to this rapist and pedophile. Of course this backfired,
drawing even more attention to the issue, a phenomenon that I call the "Pinker-Epstein Effect"
(which is nearly identical to the Streisand Effect but specific to, well, Pinker and Epstein).
Although Pinker was never as prominently connected to "New Atheism" as the others, his
influence within the movement, partly because of his advocacy for secularism, is undeniable.
(See here for more.)
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This is hardly an exhaustive list. But it's enough to make clear the epistemic and moral turpitude
of this crowd. There is nothing ad hominem in saying this, by the way: The point is simply that
the company one keeps matters. What's sad is that the New Atheist movement could have made
a difference — a positive difference — in the world. Instead, it gradually merged with factions of
the alt-right to become what former New York Times contributing editor Bari Weiss calls the
"Intellectual Dark Web" (IDW), a motley crew of pseudo-intellectuals whose luminaries include
Jordan Peterson, Eric and Bret Weinstein, Douglas Murray, Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro, in
addition to those mentioned above.
At the heart of this merger was the creation of a new religious movement of sorts centered
around the felt loss of power among white men due to the empowerment of other people. When
it was once acceptable, according to cultural norms, for men to sexually harass women with
impunity, or make harmful racist and sexist comments without worrying about losing a speaking
opportunity, being held accountable can feel like an injustice, even though the exact opposite is
the case. Pinker, Shermer and some of the others like to preach about "moral progress," but in
fighting social justice under the misleading banner of "free speech," they not only embolden
fascists but impede further moral progress for the marginalized.
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Another way to understand the situation goes like this: Some of these people acted badly in the
past. Others don't want to worry about accusations of acting badly in the future. Still others are
able to behave themselves but worry that their friends could get in trouble for past or future bad
behavior. Consequently, the most immediate, pressing threat to their "well-being" has shifted
from scary Muslim immigrants, evangelical Christians and violent terrorists to 19-year-old kids on
college campuses and BLM activists motivated by "wokeness." This is why Lindsay has teamed
up with a Christian nationalist and why Boghossian talks about the "Great Realignment" in which
anti-woke alarmists, like him, end up joining hands with "conservative Christians" in "Culture War
2.0."
What ties these people together is an aggrieved sense of perpetual victimhood. Christians, of
course, believe that they are relentlessly persecuted (note: they aren't). The IDWs similarly
believe that they are the poor helpless victims of "CRT," "standpoint theory" and other bogeymen
of woke academia. But really, if "Grievance Studies" studies anything, it should be how this
group of extremely privileged white men came to believe that they are the real casualties of
systemic oppression.
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An excellent example of this delusion comes from an inadvertently hilarious interview with
Boghossian for the Epoch Times, a media company associated with the Falun Gong movement
that is "fueling the far-right in Europe" and has spread COVID conspiracy theories. In it,
Boghossian warns that "woke ideology" has produced "a recipe for cultural suicide." This has led
him — the co-author of "How to Have Impossible Conversations" — to spout extremist rhetoric
like this:
I'm done playing. … I am waging full-scale ideological warfare against the
enemies of Western Civilization. … We must broker absolutely zero tolerance
with this ideology, and the only way forward at this point is full-scale ideological
war, and I will take no prisoners, … . I seek the complete eradication and
extirpation of the ideology from every facet of life.
That's scary, intolerant and even fascistic. And it's exactly where the New Atheism movement
has ended up, to the exasperation of those who still care about secularism.
To conclude, let me bring things full circle: At least some studies have shown that, to quote Phil
Zuckerman, secular people are "markedly less nationalistic, less prejudiced, less anti-Semitic,
less racist, less dogmatic, less ethnocentric, less close-minded, and less authoritarian" than
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religious people. It's a real shame that New Atheism, now swallowed up by the IDW and the far
right, turned out to be just as prejudiced, racist, dogmatic, ethnocentric, closed-minded and
authoritarian as many of the religious groups they initially deplored.
PHIL TORRES
Phil Torres is a philosopher and author whose work focuses on existential risks to civilization
and humanity. He has published on a wide range of topics, including machine
superintelligence, emerging technologies and religious eschatology, as well as the history and
ethics of human extinction. His forthcoming book is "Human Extinction: A History of Thinking
About the End of the World." For more, visit his website and follow him on Twitter.
MORE FROM PHIL TORRES
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Related Topics ------------------------------------------
Atheism Commentary Conservatives Far-right Intellectual Dark Web
Jeffrey Epstein Michael Shermer New Atheists Racism Religion
Richard Dawkins Sam Harris Secularism Sexism Steven Pinker
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