FFRF and Jerry Coyne: Atheists for human rights, or atheists for the religious right?

Once again, the secular community has been split by Deep Rifts. In a pattern we should all be familiar with by now, the clash is between a younger generation that’s more enlightened than the past, versus an ossified old guard, blind to their own prejudices, that joins hands with the religious right to oppose moral progress.

The story began when the Freedom from Religion Foundation published a column by legal fellow Kat Grant, “What is a woman?“, pointing out that society’s views on gender have been shaped by Christian dogma:

In much of the modern United States, gender is viewed through the lens of the religious traditions that were brought by European colonizers. Missionaries often viewed gender systems outside of the strict sexual binary to be a mark of a “less civilized” nation, and imposed views of both gender and presentation (such as forcing boys in residential schools to cut their hair) onto the indigenous communities. Catholic explorer Jacques Marquette wrote in 1674:

I do not know by what superstition some Illiniwek, as well as some Sioux, take on women’s clothing while still young, and keep it all their lives: there is some mystery, as they never get married, and lower themselves by doing everything that women do… they are called to the council, where nothing may be decided without their advice; finally, their claim of living an extraordinary life lets them pass for manitous, that is to say great spirits, or important people. (Translation by Hamish Copley)

In response, Jerry Coyne, a member of the FFRF’s honorary board, asked and received permission to publish a rebuttal. In it, he argues that sex isn’t a spectrum but a binary (not true). He acknowledges the existence of intersex people, but insists they don’t count:

Nowhere else in biology would deviations this rare undermine a fundamental concept. To illustrate, as many as 1 in 300 people are born with some form of polydactyly — without the normal number of ten fingers. Nevertheless, nobody talks about a “spectrum of digit number.”

Can Coyne really not see why sex and gender are of concern to progressives but digit number isn’t?

If the religious right was claiming that only people with ten fingers are normal, and that anyone with a different number of fingers is a freak who shouldn’t be allowed to teach children (“it will confuse them!”) or get married, or hold elected office… then yes, we’d be justified in pointing out that digit number is a spectrum and not a fixed value! Until then, we’re arguing against the harmful beliefs that people really hold, not merely hypothetical forms of prejudice.

Most shocking, Coyne argues that transgender people are more criminal than cisgender people:

Transgender [sic], then, appear to be twice as likely as natal males and at least 14 times as likely as natal females to be sex offenders.

This is Bigotry 101. It’s exactly the same as racists saying that Black people are all criminals because more of them are imprisoned than white people, or Trumpist tabloids shrieking about every crime committed by an immigrant, or Christian conservatives demanding that every mosque be put under police surveillance because fundamentalist Muslims have committed acts of terrorism.

Coyne makes this argument without considering confounding factors – like the fact that minorities tend to get singled out for biased enforcement and unjust prosecution. For example, transgender people have been arrested for prostitution just for carrying condoms.

Publishing this article was a mistake on FFRF’s part. However, they realized this quickly and made it right by taking down Coyne’s article and publishing an unequivocal statement of support for LGBTQ rights.

In a snit, Coyne, as well as Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins, quit the FFRF’s honorary board. So be it. If they want to consign themselves to crankery and irrelevance, that’s their choice.

Dawkins and Coyne are biologists, and perhaps they think that gives them special authority in this area, but it doesn’t. This isn’t a debate about biology, but about the social roles we assign to gender and the way we should treat people who don’t conform to stereotypes. Should your chromosomes, or gametes, or genitals be the determining factor for what careers you’re encouraged to pursue, or how you’re expected to dress, or what your role is in the household? I say no.

As I’ve written before, you’d think these big-name atheists would feel disquiet that their view on sex and gender is exactly the same as the religious right’s. But they don’t. In fact, Coyne airily dismisses the idea – “the FFRF has a remarkable ability to place any kind of antiwoke ideology under the rubric of ‘Christian nationalism'” – which demonstrates willful blindness to the fact that this is a crusade by Christian nationalists.

Anti-transgender bathroom bills and bans on gender-affirming therapy are top agenda items for the religious right. Coyne can’t admit that obvious fact, because then he’d have to recognize whose side he’s on.

In fact, Coyne and others aren’t just echoing the opinions of the religious right, but their priorities. Whatever you think about transgender people, a fair assessment would have to conclude that they’re not a threat to anyone, certainly not the way that religious fundamentalism is. Yet by making opposition to transgender rights their shibboleth, Coyne, Dawkins and Pinker are signaling that they consider it a cause more important even than atheism or church-state separation.

As any freethinker should know, religious conservatives have a long record of whipping up mob panic against minorities to advance their own agenda. It used to be gay people. It used to be atheists. But both those groups have won greater social acceptance, so bigots have moved on to the next disfavored group they can sow prejudice against. The FFRF recognizes this, but Coyne and others don’t. Instead, they’re adding their voices in support of this regressive and hateful brand of fundamentalism.

Threads of 2024

A vertical arrangement of multicolored threads

At the end of each year, I do a roundup of the stories and ideas that I kept revisiting over the previous twelve months. Here at Freethought Blogs, I’m carrying on the tradition.

OnlySky Dies… and Rises Again

At the beginning of 2024, I was a regular columnist for OnlySky, a media site founded by Shawn Hardin to advance the secular perspective through journalism and storytelling. I had great hopes for OnlySky, but it ran out of funding at the worst possible time. In March, it shut down, and Freethought Blogs graciously extended me an invitation to come on board.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. Later in the year, OnlySky returned to life with a new, more focused mission of exploring possible futures. I’m contributing regularly again (here are my OS 2.0 columns) while continuing to publish my own musings on other topics here at FTB.

AI Is Eating the Internet

For better or for worse, AI is all the rage this year. On FTB, I wrote about “Justin” the Catholic chatbot, and how AI makes the perfect religious apologist because it contradicts itself with no shame but never changes its mind. I noted that social media has become a wasteland thanks to spammy AI and algorithmic garbage.

On OnlySky, I followed up with a column on how AI slop may destroy the internet as we know it, and how AI itself may be headed for a crash because of a problem called model collapse.

The Horseman of War Rides On

Israel’s indiscriminate destruction of Gaza hasn’t ended. In April, I wrote that Israel briefly had the world’s sympathy, but squandered it. I criticized politicians who think the First Amendment has an “Israel exception”, and rhetorically asked what the right way to protest is.

Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is approaching its third year. I wrote about how Russia is cannibalizing its own future by persecuting scientists, engineers and basically anyone educated, while sending the rest of its population to die in the trenches.

Where are they going to replace these massive losses? From American right-wingers, perhaps. In August, Putin threw open the doors to volunteers for the meat grinder. He’s also been busily recruiting useful idiots. At least some of these efforts are bearing fruit, as in my post about what kind of Westerner voluntarily moves to Russia.

The 2024 Eclipse

In a year with so many low points, one of the high points was the total eclipse in April. I mused about why we’re lucky enough to get these on Earth.

On the date, I made the long drive north to see it. Although I was concerned about the weather, I was lucky: upstate New York had perfect clear blue skies, some of the best weather in the nation for sky-watchers. The eclipse was an awe-inspiring sight, like a hole in the sky. Seeing it was one of the greatest experiences of my life, without question.

Capitalism, Religion and American Decline

The 2024 election is one giant leap down the road of American decline. The hemorrhaging of red states, and especially the slow dying of West Virginia, could be a glimpse of what’s in store.

In December, the assassination of a healthcare CEO shone a spotlight on the cruelties of unchecked capitalism and the evils it wreaks on our lives. It’s the perfect illustration of my maxim that capitalism (and religion) are their own worst enemies.

All this poses the question: Does living under capitalism inherently make us unhappy? My answer: no, but also yes.

Atheist Demographics

There’s one bright spot for freethinkers to take heart in: the nonreligious are still growing, while religions are shrinking across the board. And, in a massive shift that I’m sure we’ll hear more about, more women than men are shucking off religion for the first time.

Coming Soon

It’s been too long since I’ve done a review of a libertarian political novel. In 2025, I’m going to do a new one: The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith. This book is as gloriously deranged as anything that ever came from Ayn Rand’s pen. It’s going to be great.

I’m planning to publish the reviews first on my Patreon, so if you want an early look, subscribe today! They’ll appear on FTB at a later date, never fear.

Living in the dark

A lantern glowing in the dark

A secular sermon for the 2024 solstice season

We’re living through a time of darkness, both literally and metaphorically.

This is the season of the winter solstice, when the nights are longest, the earth is dead and frozen, and cold winds howl at the door. Our distant ancestors built up rituals around this season, lighting fires and decorating their homes with evergreens. It was both a reminder and a petition to the gods, ensuring that light and warmth would return and crops would grow again.

Thanks to astronomy, we know that this is a natural cycle. Prayers and sacrifices aren’t necessary to bring the sun back. However, those ancient rhythms still echo in us, and many people find their mood sinking into depression when the world is darkest.

Of course, there’s another reason to feel melancholy. As a new year dawns, America is right back where we were in the waning days of 2016. Once again, we’re dreading the next four years and the chaos and disaster they’re sure to bring. Once again, we’re facing the prospect of a long darkness ahead.

It’s hard to believe we’re back here. We’ve enjoyed four years of generally competent and decent government. The Biden administration was far from perfect, but it could boast a long list of genuinely meaningful accomplishments. It was respectful of science, concerned for protecting democracy, willing to treat all Americans equally.

Most of all, I’d say, there was the intangible sense of peace of mind that came from having adults in charge. The world was still turbulent, but you could open social media or check the headlines without fearing what you might see. There wasn’t that constant, low-grade anxiety at the back of your mind about the next nightmare about to fall upon us.

But it didn’t last. Given the chance to have four more such years, or to return to the previous era of blundering incompetence, gleeful cruelty, and anti-democratic authoritarianism… we know what Americans picked. A foolish nation has returned to its folly, just as a dog returns to its vomit.

Where does this leave those of us who look for the light?

It’s no challenge to be a secular humanist when times are good. Ours is an ideology of optimism. We want to believe that humanity is flawed but has the capacity to improve, that we’re leaving the follies of the past behind and growing wiser. Admittedly, it’s easier to believe this when the world plays along.

But that can’t be the only guidance that our philosophy offers. If secular humanism is a fair-weather ideology – if it only works when people are good and the world is peaceful – then there’s no value in it.

People have never been all good. The world has never been peaceful. We’ve always suffered from poverty, war, oppression, unfairness, toxic superstition, corrupt institutions and bad rulers. Humanity has been afflicted by selfishness, short-sightedness, stupidity, bigotry and violence throughout the span of our existence on earth. The times and places when peace reigned, democracy flourished and justice was upheld are the exception and not the rule.

Our morality has to be built on an unflinching recognition of that fact, like solid bedrock beneath a house. If it isn’t, then it’s a thing of straw – flimsy, insubstantial, incapable of offering advice for the world we live in. It’s no better than Christian morality, which proclaims that people are evil to the core and the world’s problems are unfixable, so the only thing we can do is wait for death.

To our credit, we have examples who prove that this is possible. The roll call of history lists countless freethinkers who lived in darker, more violent, more ignorant times than ours. If you look only at the facts of their eras, they had even less reason for optimism than we do. Nevertheless, they persisted.

There were philosophers like Voltaire, who lived in the dark ages of theocracy and monarchy; orators like Robert Ingersoll, who grew up with slavery and saw the U.S. torn apart in civil war over it; scientists like Carl Sagan, who lived in the shadow of nuclear war; feminist pioneers like Frances Wright or Mary Wollstonecraft, who refused to bow to patriarchy; civil-rights activists like W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston or A. Philip Randolph, who dreamed of a world free from both religious and racist oppression; and many, many more I could name.

These past ambassadors of enlightenment didn’t give up or give in, however dark or hopeless the world seemed. They didn’t compromise their principles to fit in. They spoke out boldly, regardless of whether they found a receptive audience. They persisted in preaching that humans could do better. They carried the torch onward, keeping the flame of those ideals burning, preserving them until the next generation could take them up and improve on them.

That’s our task as well.

The principles of secular humanism are the right ones: reason, empathy, justice, equality. They’re better for the people who follow them and better for humanity and the world as a whole. I truly believe that, and that belief doesn’t depend on the outcome of elections or the results of opinion polls. I won’t give it up no matter how many people say otherwise.

In fact, our secular ideals are more vital and more powerful when the world is against us. When the majority of humanity chooses cruelty, a humanist morality that’s based on compassion and decency burns brighter and clearer by contrast. In times of darkness, it stands out like a lantern lighting the way.

However long this dark season lasts, we should carry that light proudly. We should preserve it for the future, just as our ancestors preserved it for us. The time will come when the world is ready for it again.

New on OnlySky: The balkanized future of cyberspace

I have a new column today on OnlySky. It’s about a discouraging trend: the fragmentation of the internet across national borders. Just when we’re the most connected we’ve ever been, we’re choosing to disconnect.

Totalitarian states like Russia and China are trying to ban foreign social media, forcing their citizens onto domestic platforms where they can more easily be surveilled and monitored for disloyal sentiments. But even the United States isn’t immune to this digital isolationism, as we see with the bipartisan TikTok ban. Whether or not you agree with it, it’s the first time in recent memory that the government has argued a platform can be banned based on the ideas it might be used to promote.

Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but paid members of OnlySky get some extra perks, like a subscriber-only newsletter:

These bans, as well as others imposed by other countries for similar reasons, are creating what some call the Splinternet: a splintered internet, fragmented across national borders, where your access to information depends on where you live. It seems as if every set of authorities wants to censor the web for their own reasons: to prevent a resurgence of hateful ideologies, to promote domestic companies over foreign competitors, to advance propagandistic myths of national superiority, to cover up an embarrassing history, to monitor popular sentiment so as to nip rebellions in the bud, or simply to deny their citizens knowledge that there are alternatives to the way they’re being governed.

Technically, the planet is still connected. All these net blocks are implemented in software; so far, no country has physically cut itself off. As long as that’s true, VPNs allow technologically savvy users to get around most censorship regimes. But that will never be more than a small minority of people.

Continue reading on OnlySky…

Why I taught my son about Santa Claus

An old-timey illustration of Santa Claus holding toys and smoking a pipe

In 2018, when my son was two, I wrote about what I, as a secular parent, was going to tell him about Santa Claus. I have an update on the outcome of that experiment.

As a summary of what I wrote back then, I didn’t teach him about Santa myself. He picked up the idea from pop-cultural osmosis, and he adopted it eagerly, with very little encouragement from me. (I admit I might have brought it up a few times as an incentive for good behavior.)

I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to disillusion him, but I wasn’t going to lie to him either. If he asked me if Santa existed, I wouldn’t say yes or no. Instead, I would use the Socratic method: “That’s a good question. What do you think?”

My goal was to use Santa Claus as an early-life lesson in critical thinking. I wanted my son to learn that it’s important to know why you believe what you believe, and that you shouldn’t blindly trust any authority figure (even your parents – or maybe I should say especially your parents) to tell you what’s true and what’s not. You should always reserve the right to make up your own mind.

As he grew up, I did my best to lay the groundwork of skepticism. I taught him about the scientific method, about evidence and experiment, and about the long history of bad ideas that were replaced by better ones. I taught him about the world’s many religions, both the ones that are practiced today and the ones that are extinct, and their varied and contradictory beliefs about the supernatural. I taught him that there will always be people who lie for their own reasons, and you should ask yourself what someone has to gain by getting you to believe what he says.

For whatever reason, he figured out the Tooth Fairy immediately. But Santa Claus proved a tougher nut to crack. We had several of those Socratic conversations over the years, which ended inconclusively. Despite everything I tried to teach him about critical thinking, he wasn’t old enough to distinguish reality from fantasy. It’s hard to argue with all the books, TV shows, storefronts and commercials with depictions of Santa that you see around the holidays.

It’s a kind of benign gaslighting for children. The whole world conspires to mislead them. Nothing in their experience prepares them to resist such a consistent and widespread deception. It makes me think of how ancient civilizations didn’t have a special activity they called “religion”. The existence of gods and spirits was just part of their catalogue of beliefs about the world, something that “everybody knows”, like animals or weather or seasons. Santa Claus is the same thing for kids.

But this year, it turned out differently. It was in the fall, around my son’s eighth birthday. We were at home on a wet, rainy afternoon.

He said to me, with the air of a question that’d been on his mind for a while, “There are millions of houses in the world where kids live. How could Santa visit them all in one night?”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “Even if his sleigh could fly faster than the fastest jet plane, there wouldn’t be enough time. It would have to be magic.”

My son gave me an exasperated look, as if he couldn’t believe he had to tell me something so obvious.

“Daddy, magic isn’t real.”

In the moment he said it, the realization hit him. I could see it in his eyes.

My wife chimed in, “How would you feel if we told you that Santa does exist, and how would you feel if we told you that he doesn’t?”

He said, “If he does exist, I’d be confused. If he doesn’t exist, I’d be happy, because that would make sense.”

“In that case, you’re right. Santa isn’t a real person. It’s a game that grownups play with children, and now you’ve figured it out.”

I said back then, and I still believe, that it does a kid infinitely more good to come to a realization like this on their own. If we tell our children that Santa is make-believe and expect them to take our word for it, that denies them the opportunity to hone their critical thinking skills. Any parent, religious or secular, can feed their kids a list of propositions to memorize. There’s no challenge in that.

Figuring out what’s true, using your mind as a tool, is a very different skill. It’s harder to teach and harder to learn. But, once acquired, it’s far more valuable.

That’s especially true when the belief is as widespread as this one. Like I said, the culture conspires to mislead children about Santa’s existence. To arrive at the truth, they have to swim against this tide. They have to rely on their own judgment, even when the whole world is telling them otherwise. That makes it an especially valuable lesson in trusting yourself and resisting peer pressure.

This is an essential skill for finding the good life. Kids who think of truth as something that’s handed to them by an authority will be vulnerable to people who want to deceive and control them: advertisers, religious evangelists, cult leaders, abusive partners, lying politicians, and more. Kids who think of truth as something they have the power to discover for themselves will be ready to fight through that thicket of falsehoods. That’s a power I want to ensure my son has, and knows that he has, before I send him out into the world on his own.

New on OnlySky: Democracies fall, but so do dictatorships

I have a new column today on OnlySky. The next four years in America promise ongoing outrages against decency, the rule of law, and competent governance. But even as the United States fails the democratic test, other countries seem to be doing better.

In South Korea, a would-be autocrat came close to seizing power and turning the country into a military dictatorship, but South Korean society stood up to the attempted coup and prevailed. Meanwhile, in Syria, after decades of brutal dictatorship and years of violent civil war, the Assad dynasty has dramatically fallen. While knitting the country back together will be an immense task and the rebels may still fail to establish a new government, the Syrian people have the chance to choose their own destiny for the first time in a long time.

The lesson to draw is that, while democracy can fail, autocracy doesn’t necessarily do better. Neither is inherently stable. Both kinds of states can fall, and both can rise, for reasons of their own.

Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but paid members of OnlySky get some extra perks, like a subscriber-only newsletter:

That democracy depends on the consent of the governed is both its weakness and its strength. When it works well, democracy is the best form of government. It creates stability, peace, freedom and opportunity. But every generation has to choose whether to renew the democratic compact, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll choose well.

People can come to take democracy for granted, ignoring threats out of complacency or normalcy bias, and support strongmen or fascists who have designs on seizing power. Alternatively, they can grow disillusioned and come to believe it’s incapable of solving their problems, electing candidates who promise to burn the system down. When these things happen, democracy can rot from within or turn on itself.

But autocracy can also fail. It happens all the time.

Continue reading on OnlySky…

The UnitedHealthcare CEO killing: Broken promises create violent men

As you’ve doubtless heard, Brian Thompson, the CEO of insurance giant UnitedHealthcare, was assassinated this month. Thompson was gunned down in broad daylight outside a shareholders’ meeting in midtown Manhattan in a premeditated attack. The most Hollywood-esque twist is that the fatal bullets had words engraved on them: “delay”, “deny” and “depose”. After a massive manhunt, police claim to have caught the shooter in Pennsylvania.

Most gun violence in America is an occasion for grief, despair, and the rote offering of “thoughts and prayers”. But this shooting has given rise to celebration. If you’ve been on social media, you’ve probably seen people praising the shooter and hailing him as a folk hero. There was even a lookalike contest.

In case it needs to be said, I don’t endorse assassination as a means of change. I’m not an accelerationist. I don’t cheer for anyone’s murder or encourage others to do violence.

Even so, Thompson’s killing should be the least surprising thing imaginable. It’s an eruption of the rage that’s long been building against a cruel and broken system that’s thwarted every effort at reform.

Every American has experience with the infuriating illogic and inhumanity of our for-profit healthcare industry. Insurance companies throw up one hurdle after another: stalling, denying vital care, burying patients and doctors in a landslide of paperwork.

UnitedHealthcare in particular has been a rich vein of horror stories. Even in an industry that’s so widely despised, they stand out, and not in a good way.

They deny claims at more than twice the industry average. In 2021, they announced that they wouldn’t pay for emergency room visits if, in their opinion, the visit wasn’t a true emergency (as if people are supposed to diagnose themselves and figure out whether their complaint is serious enough to justify the ER). They scheme to deny care to people with expensive conditions. In 2023, they were sued for using an AI model to auto-reject claims, kicking elderly, sick and disabled people out of nursing homes. The plaintiffs claim the AI has a 90% error rate – but of course that’s not an error, it’s the intended result.

My family has personal experience with UnitedHealthcare. My wife Elizabeth has insurance through them. I’ve written about the time when, after a routine operation, they tried to charge us $32,000 for an “out-of-network” technician in the operating room. They only relented when she quoted New York’s surprise-billing law to them. Obviously, they knew what the law was; they were just playing dumb and hoping that we didn’t know our rights.

All this byzantine bureaucracy might be a worthwhile tradeoff if it guaranteed high-quality care at an acceptable price… but it doesn’t even do that. Americans pay twice as much for health care as other developed countries, and yet we have the worst outcomes.

For-profit insurance companies are the reason. In the name of profit, they’ve murdered tens of thousands of people: coldly, slowly, a little bit at a time, shaving off a few years of their lives with each denial. An estimated 68,000 Americans die each year because they can’t afford medical care. Those deaths may not be as sensationalized as this one, but they’re no less real and no less meaningful.

Brian Thompson didn’t have sole responsibility for this inhumane system. But in any list of who benefits from the status quo, his name would be near the top. We don’t know what specific grievance his killer had, but it’s not even a little surprising that someone eventually snapped. The only surprising thing is that it hasn’t happened before now.

The expectation of fairness is the thread that knits society together. The only reason anyone would want a society is because it protects their rights and treats them fairly, as opposed to an anarchy where the powerful can abuse others as they please. If people perceive that society isn’t keeping that promise, they’ll grow angry and aggrieved, and they’ll be more willing to take the law into their own hands.

In opinion polls, supermajorities of Americans express a preference for universal public health care. But the American political system has frustrated that wish for decades, thanks to rivers of lobbyist money and an antiquated, anti-democratic structure that permits minority rule. Obamacare reined in some of the worst abuses, but people feel with justice that it didn’t go nearly far enough, and soon even those modest gains could be wiped away.

When pledges of justice and fair treatment ring hollow, when people feel they have no recourse and their voices go unheard… then their sense of frustration transmutes into rage. They rightfully conclude that if the law doesn’t protect them, then the law is a sham that doesn’t deserve their allegiance. They want to avenge wrongs done to them by any means necessary. Again, what right do we have to be even a little surprised?

Whether this is going to bring about any real or lasting reform… I doubt it. More likely, insurance executives will just use their vast wealth to surround themselves with bodyguards, and carry on as before. However, if this story sticks in their mind – if they start looking over their shoulders more often; if they feel nervous and frightened, even just a little, the next time they propose a new way to get between human beings and the medical care they need – it’s not inconceivable that it will have some positive effects.

There’s some evidence of this. Another insurer, Anthem, recently put forth a horrible proposal to not pay for anesthesia if an operation takes longer than an arbitrary time limit. Anthem was already under fire from doctors and politicians over this… and, right after the shooting, they backed down. It’s not a leap to imagine that someone at Anthem didn’t want the next target to be on their back. Even if Thompson’s killing was only a small grain of extra weight, it might have been the grain that tipped the scale.

Again, this isn’t a question of right or wrong, justified or unjustified. It’s a question of cause and effect. You can only push people so far, you can only take so much from them, before they rise up against you. That’s the lesson from every revolution in history. It’s a lesson that America’s ruling class seems determined not to learn, and there will be more bloodshed because of it.

America has chosen acceleration

To be clear, I’m not an accelerationist.

Accelerationism, as you may know, is the ideology which argues that our present political system is corrupt and broken beyond redemption. According to this theory, which has advocates on both the left and the right, small improvements are like band-aids on an infected wound – they cover up the problem without curing the underlying rot. Accelerationists oppose all half-measures and compromises because, to their minds, at best they do nothing, and at worst they allow rotten institutions to stagger on just a little longer, prolonging their evil.

Instead, accelerationists believe we should root for things to get worse. They want people’s lives to be unbearable, so that they hit their breaking point and rise up in revolution. That way, we hasten the time when the whole rotten system collapses so something better can rise from the wreckage. (That “something better” might be a socialist utopia or a fascist ethnostate, depending on who’s espousing this idea.)

Like I said, I’m not an accelerationist. I don’t want people to suffer. More often than not, misery doesn’t lead to glorious revolution; it only leads to more misery. Even when revolutions happen, they create more chaos, pain and death. They can collapse into perpetual war, or harden into a junta seizing power and turning into a dictatorship that’s worse than what came before. I believe that incremental progress, as slow as it is, is a greatly preferable way to create a better world. Democracy is always superior to violence, if we have the choice.

However, it’s not my personal views that are relevant. The question arises: What happens when people choose acceleration for themselves?

We don’t know for sure what’s coming in the next few years, but we can make some educated guesses.

If Trump keeps his promises – which is never a sure bet – of slapping high tariffs on imports and engaging in mass deportations, the consequence will be sudden, dramatic inflation. There will be supply shocks, shortages and skyrocketing prices, especially food (because American agribusiness absolutely depends on undocumented workers to harvest crops and process meat, no matter how politicians try to ignore this reality). Consumer goods we take for granted will become scarce or impossible to find. The empty shelves of COVID days may make a return.

American businesses that depend on exports will go bankrupt as other countries impose retaliatory tariffs. Immigrant and minority communities who voted for Trump, believing they would be spared because they’re the good ones, are going to be unpleasantly surprised when they’re swept up in racist dragnets.

With control of Congress, Republicans will be free to pass their agenda of tax cuts, union-busting and deregulation, which will result in a massive upward transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich. Corporate profits will soar and the rich will get much richer, while people who work for a living are exploited more, treated worse, and paid less.

If they repeal or weaken Obamacare, it’s their own voters who will suffer the worst, as doctors flee red states and underfunded rural hospitals shrivel up and die. If they take a chainsaw to the safety net, older voters and rust-belt communities (both of whom depend on these programs for most of their income) will regress to Dickensian poverty and squalor.

If they pass national restrictions on abortion, women everywhere will find their access to health care drastically curtailed. Their freedom of movement may be restricted. They may lose the ability to get a divorce and to escape abusive spouses. Even if those laws don’t get passed, it’s certain that violent, misogynist men will feel free to be their worst, most hateful and nastiest selves.

Whatever Republican voters thought they were voting for, this is what they’re going to get. And, in a black irony, the best hope for America’s future may be that all these things happen as soon as possible.

All the policies I’ve described are deeply unpopular, for good reason. Our best chance is that, given unfettered power, conservatives so immediately and thoroughly wreck the country that the public rises up in revolt. That doesn’t have to mean violence – it could equally well be a massive popular movement to throw the bums out in the next election.

There’s precedent for this. California used to be a swing state, until the hardline anti-immigrant Proposition 187 sparked an uprising from immigrant communities and turned the state solid blue. I could imagine a scenario where America follows a similar path.

Granted, this would be a form of political shock therapy. There will be violence, chaos and pain. Millions of innocent people are sure to suffer, no matter how it turns out. It’s not the path to change that anyone should rationally prefer. But this is what America has chosen, whatever I might think about it, and Americans will have to live with the consequences of that choice.

New on OnlySky: The United Cities of America

I have a new column today on OnlySky. It’s a modest proposal for a novel solution to our intractably divided politics. Just think of it as a two-state solution for America.

It’s based on the observation that big cities are reliably liberal, while rural areas are reliably conservative. This holds true in both the “red” and the “blue” states. Trying to jam these two polarized regions together into one nation, with both battling to pull the nation onto drastically divergent courses, is the cause of our national bitterness and malaise. What would happen if, instead of engaging in this warfare every election cycle, we let the urban and rural parts of America both go their own way and see who does best?

Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but paid members of OnlySky get some extra perks, like a subscriber-only newsletter:

The last time America was this balkanized was in the lead-up to the Civil War. In that case, the separation was more or less geographical, between the free industrialized states of the North and the slaveholding agricultural states of the South.

Some have suggested a similar split today, but instead of North and South, it’s blue states seceding from red states (or vice versa), creating two nations, each with their own politics. But this won’t work because, unlike the Civil War era, our national enmity can’t be divided along such neat lines.

The line of demarcation isn’t between states, but between urban and rural areas within each state. Every large state has liberal cities and a conservative countryside. This is true in deep-blue states like New York and California and blood-red states like Texas. The only thing that differentiates the states is which region dominates its overall politics.

Continue reading on OnlySky…

Abuse in the Anglican church: An all-too-familiar pattern

It feels almost quaint, in this era where politicians openly break the law and boast about getting away with it, for a religious figure to do wrong and suffer consequences for it. Nevertheless, that’s what today’s story is about.

We know well that religion often functions as a cloak for sexual predators to abuse the vulnerable. Whether it’s the Amish, Mormons, the Southern Baptists, evangelical Christians, or, of course, the Roman Catholic church… the details always sound familiar.

There’s one predator, or a small number of them, who preys on women, children, or any other disempowered group that they believe won’t speak out or won’t be listened to. There’s a larger circle of people who know about the abuse but do nothing. Often, they take active steps to cover it up, reasoning that the harm suffered by the victims matters less than the harm to the church’s reputation of godliness if the news got out. This emboldens the predator to keep assaulting people for years or decades, until the accumulated weight of their evil becomes too great to ignore. When the predator is finally exposed, the scandal is much bigger and more damaging than it would otherwise have been if the church had just done the right thing from the start.

Today’s story fits that pattern in all particulars. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the ceremonial head of the Church of England, is resigning, after proof emerged that he knew about a prolific child abuser and did nothing:

An independent investigation last week released its long-awaited report into the late John Smyth, who sexually, psychologically and physically abused more than 100 boys and young men at Christian summer camps in the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe and South Africa over five decades.

The 251-page report concluded that Welby failed to report Smyth to authorities when he was informed of the abuse in August 2013, soon after he became Archbishop of Canterbury. Had he done so, Smyth could have been stopped sooner and many of his victims wouldn’t have been abused, the report found.

… “It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatizing period between 2013 and 2024,” Welby said, announcing his resignation.

John Smyth, the abuser in question, was a volunteer leader at the Iwerne camps from the 1960s to the 1980s. These were Christian summer camps aimed at privileged children from private schools, with the goal of preparing them to become future leaders of the church. However, like many religious retreats, they also served as a hunting ground for predators lurking in the religious power structure.

According to an independent report commissioned by the church, Smyth abused over a hundred boys and young men. He brutally beat them with a cane for minor or invented infractions, displaying a streak of violent sexual sadism:

Smyth used a cane to punish campers for “sins” that included “pride,” making sexual remarks, masturbation or, in one case, looking at a girl too long, according to the report. The victims and Smyth were at least partly, if not fully, naked during the savage beatings.

…Eight of the victims received about 14,000 strokes of the cane and two reported 8,000 lashes over three years. Eight men said they often bled from the whippings and others reported bruising and scarring.

As is always the case, Smyth’s behavior was an open secret. Many people knew about it and covered it up to protect the church from scandal:

A secret report of the abuse was compiled by a minister in 1982 and other church officers were aware of it, but police were never contacted.

“I thought it would do the work of God immense damage if this were public,” the now-deceased Rev. David Fletcher told people who worked on the new report.

Eventually, Smyth’s abuse became too well-known to keep hushing it up. Just like the Catholic predators who were quietly transferred to new parishes, he was encouraged – and financially assisted by church officials – to leave the UK. In 1984, he moved to Zimbabwe, where he continued to run children’s summer camps. He ultimately escaped justice, dying of natural causes in 2018.

Although Welby worked at the Iwerne camps in the 1970s, the same time that Smyth was preying on children, he claims he was unaware of it. This may or may not be true, but it’s not in dispute that he was informed about it by 2013. However, he didn’t report it to the police or take any other steps to see that it was investigated.

Finally, in 2017, the UK’s Channel 4 News blew the lid off Smyth’s past with an expose. This spurred an independent investigation, the Makin Review, which was published this month and sparked the outcry that led to Welby’s resignation.

What remains to be seen is whether this means real reform in the Church of England, or whether it’s just one leader throwing himself on his sword without making any institutional changes. If experience has taught us anything, it’s that where there’s one predator, there are almost always others. When the next one comes to light, that will be the real test. Will the church act promptly to bring an offender to justice as soon as their misdeeds are known? Or will they persist in hushing it up until an outraged third party does the right thing?