*On Atheism 2.0

Alain de Botton proposes "Atheism 2.0"; the next step of atheism: learning from religion.

As noble as I think de Botton's proposal of an Atheism 2.0 is, I think it becomes problematic once we begin thinking about what this means. I think it's great for the romantic and to fluff up the mind with vague ideas about what a new atheism might do. But if we sparse out the components, their entailments, and a few semantic issues, 2.0 needs updates and troubleshooting. 

Let's begin with his first premise. "Of course, it's ridiculous," of course, religion can't be true, of course God is the equivalent of fairies and the doctrines are all fairy tales of lands far far away. I think this brushing off of religion is unnecessary. The question of the existence of God largely depends on what God is, in order to make any claim to "of course, it's ridiculous." Evolution does not exclude any form of creator. It does put into question the 7 day theory but this is based on the Bible and also depending on what kind of reading/interpretation one has of it. So the ridicule is really directed at a particular form of religiosity and presumes it to be the case for all religions. But let's put this aside and grant atheism its legitimate place, although atheism is a reactionary formation contingent upon the form of theism that one is exposed to that informs one's ideations of religion and its contents.
   
The first issue with Atheism 2.0 is well...what is Atheism 1.0? Is this a definitive group? Is it just the scientists and the secularists? Or...are we just talking about people who don't believe in any organized religion? Because there is a gray area of the "spiritual but not religious" who can be equally as ridiculous as the religious zealots. Or...by the atheists are we just talking about those who believe in evolution? This category of atheism is still somewhat elusive. For de Botton's sake, let's just qualify it as those who think religion is a bad idea and for those who think that religion has done more harm than good; it's the "opium of the masses" as Marx said and leave it there. Although, this will prove to be a bigger problem later on as we go through his suggestions.

De Botton's first suggestions is that we use culture. More specifically, he suggests literature as a substitute for scripture. He uses the example of Plato, Shakespeare, and Jane Austen. Contemporary society is wrought with existential problems and filled with people "just barely" holding it together. Even if we accept this, that we all have existential problems and "just barely" holding it together and don't get me wrong I love literature but, tastes will differ. Not everybody is a fan of Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, or Plato. The question of various secular taste is also an issue for de Botton's suggestion of Art to be divided into conceptual categories (which is a modern art project in itself). Again, paintings aren't so singular. Many are complex in their portrayals and what they represent. Love itself is not a standalone category. A lot goes into 'love'; a lot goes into 'hate' and etc. They are far from clear cut. So this becomes a question of organization.

But returning to the point about existential angst and literature. Yes, we do find guidance of how to live and how to make sense of things from literature. But are these books sufficient for sanctification? A secular canon? Can we canonize Moby Dick or the Brother's Karamazov? Great as they are, I'm not sure about this. And I'll return to these later on in my conclusion of what it is he seems to be suggesting...

The next suggestion is for the atheistic world to structure time or rather give significance to certain events as days of remembrance to remind us of our insignificance. But don't we already have something like this? February is supposed to be 'Black History Month,' if this works out then everybody should be conscientious about "Black History", or Cinco de mayo, or whatever, Independence day, Lunar New Year, etc. But we have these. Have they done anything? I'm not sure. Rascism is still rampant. Immigration procedures have become even more focused and directed at the latino community. The idea of a "black", or "half-white", president has caused waves of fear and tremor amongst the U.S. The thought of Islam is too often equated with terrorism. It hasn't changed.

The next suggestion is putting action and ideas together in forms of ritual...aren't social gatherings a kind of ritual? People put the ideas of gift-giving and family into action and call it Christmas or Thanksgiving. People do all types of annual rituals. I'm curious what kind of ideas and what kind of action de Botton is thinking about here.

Then he says to organize, give poets, philosophers, artists, and let's corporatize the arts, wisdom...

Is it possible to corporatize these things? Can we make an industry for wisdom? In a way, I think we already do all this. We do praise the works of culture, we already do have calendars for remembrance, we already put actions and ideas together, we already do all of these things that de Botton is suggesting. Atheism 2.0 is really contingent upon what the atheists of this category are willing to agree, organize and then sanctify. Is this a call to make atheism into a religion? I think this is wrought with some problems that will recreate the same issues people have with religion. 2.0 is not really 2.0 but a call to a bandwagon for a certain kind of atheism as a religion. If atheism is to sustain itself in the arena of the secular and the realm of reason and science, I don't think atheism can feasibly turn into another religion. Which authors do we turn into saints and canons of wisdom? Which artists? And how will this organization happen? The idea, although romantic, falls apart in its pragmatics and specifics. And as much as I like the idea that the poets, artists, philosophers, should get more money and be valued higher in terms of their production, I don't think corporatizing and pumping out the same message is really going to help progress society any further. The problem is not the message. Nor is it really religion per se. But how religions manifest attitudes within the current economic and political system. And turning a form of atheism into the same category of religion will not do anything else but become a similar entity to religion in the economic political sphere. If atheism is to turn into a new paradigm, a new way of thinking, a new way of structuring society, it needs a lot more thought. 2.0 will just crash without the logistics.

“Since the liberal state depends on a political integration of the citizens which goes beyond a mere modus vivendi, the differentiation of these various memberships must be more than an accommodation of the religious ethos to laws imposed by the secular society in such a way that religion no longer makes any cognitive claims. Rather the universalistic legal order and the egalitarian societal morality must be inherently connected to the fellowship ethos in such a way that the one consistently proceeds from the other.” 

 -Jurgen Habermas

*'Urbanism'

After listening to a talk on 'Religion and Urbanism as a New Way of Life' I was struck with the construct of 'Urbanism.' The speaker, a professor from Nottingham, discussed the complexity of identity and the role of religion in an inner city area of Birmingham called Alum Rock. An area that has been labeled as a "no-go" area and where the dramatized notions of "terrorism" has given tangibility and reality as an immediate threat to homeland security in the UK. The area is composed of south-east Asians, Pakistani, and a small demographic of Irish. According to the media, there have been several "terrorist" related arrests in the area and it has been labeled as a brooding ground for the radicalization of Islam. Upon hearing these things, two things struck me initially. How "ghetto" could this area be? The "inner-city" has been a phrase to describe the areas of American cities that were truly insulated areas of African-American and Latino-American communities. Namely, Harlem in the 70s, 80s, Crenshaw, Oakland, South side of Chicago, and other areas where it was truly dangerous to walk around at night. Giving lables such as "little Vietnam" and times when police truly turned around once the trail led into the area. This was the "inner city" associations that I was familiar with. The birth place of Hip-Hop, break-dancing, and a culture that has now become trivialized as pop music. And secondly, the term "radicalization" was problematic. But I will return to these initial thoughts later on. The phrase "Urbanism" came from the Chicago school in Sociology. And now, being revived in a different by the "Los Angeles" school. The professor was utilizing the term "Urbanism" as an operative term for a "glocalizing" context and a "globalizing" world. However, I couldn't help but think that the paradigm and operative utility of the concept of "Urbanism" was useless when extending to a broader global context.


So three things: How "ghetto" can it be here in the UK? Is radical really radical? And thirdly, how useful is this term "urbanism" especially when we are looking for a paradigm that can constructively consider a "globalizing" world, either in terms of a westernizing process or an economical one. 

My first, is really my own skepticism of the school of hard knocks in the UK. The grits and ghettos of the US was a product of socio-political processes that insulated people in such a post-colonial manner that it gave rise to a culture stemming from a history of oppressive violence, racism, and social insulation. One of its major products is hip-hop. When I think of the UK, I think of the gritty nature of the north where workers work hard at a mine and enjoy a pint at the pub contrasted with the "tea time" and seemingly refined elocution of the south. The Irish, the Scottish, the English, and later on with post-colonialism, an incorporation of Indians and Pakistanis. However, the culture does not strike any resonance in the same way that is evoked when we hear about the hard knocks of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Chicago, Watts, and so on. It just isn't "gangster." Now, this isn't to say that there aren't forms of thugs in these other cultures of Pakistan, India, the Irish, and so on. But it's a different type, if you will. A different kind of "thug," a different kind of "gang," I am talking about a qualitatively different way people have reacted and formulated systems of localized gangs and criminality. And now to use the term "inner-city" to Birmingham, England simply does not strike the same kind of resonance. Although there may be similar patterns in which authority reacts to them and in turn how they react to authority, politics, and religion, it is simply not the same kind of rebellion. But nevertheless, I understood why the phrase of "inner-city" is being used. We are seeing similar phenomenas, which are products of socio-cultural and political influences in shaping socially insulated communities. Kids are still going to be kids, the anger of the adolescents are still going to be there in any culture and society. Rebellion against the system will be there in all shapes, sizes, and forms. So I can accept the term "inner-city" with a grain of salt but acknowledge what it is that they are getting at.

My next reaction is to the term of "radicalization." Is it really "radical"? To have a group of people through their religion to get angry and violent because of what they see as injustice and oppression? The term "radicalization" is from a particular standpoint and interpretation of religion, one that regularly forgets its own history. Radicalization today has meant a return to a fundamental interpretation of religious texts and mobilizing it for political purposes and justificatory acts of violence. In this the radicalization of Islam is very much like the radicalization of the evangelicals. Both have committed violence against what they think is wrong and have used their religious/sacred text to find justification for these acts and support for them. We see the dangerous application of the classic of Sophocles and the beginning of Antigone: God's law vs. Man's law. Where the law of convention and society is negated for what is interpreted and believed to be "God's law." But apart from this phenomena of justification. The labeling of something as radicalized is only used for Islam. It has never been referred to for the Evangelicals. Is this not a politically laden word to pacify? To divide and distinguish from the "bad muslims" and the "good muslims"? Oh, yes they've been "radicalized." This comes from a perspective of white christian pacifism. The radicalization is really a reaction and interpretation of sources to combat against modernity. What they think is "wrong" or "unjust" with contemporary society. The evangelicals did it, and now the muslims are doing it. And of course I am thinking of specific groups that have rallied around these forms of reasoning and justifications from religious texts. But what I am saying is that this "radicalism" isn't really that radical. Perhaps, even typical.

The third thing was this notion of "urbanism." I will keep this in brevity. How useful is this term? And can it be applied outside of the U.S. and, in stretching it's semiotic content to, the UK? Does "Urbanism" still apply when we talk about China? India? Korea? Brazil? The middle-class "suburban sprawl" doesn't translate so well to some of these other areas. The poor tend to be pushed to the outskirts away from the city. So in what sense are we talking about "the inner-city" and "urbanism"? Does it refer to the insulation of communities within big cities? Or are we talking about the insulation of the poor? If it is, then doesn't "urbanism" simply denote the culture that rises out of these socio-politico forces that have created these insulations? Is it referring to the creative growth that come out of these communities? Is U.S. urbanism the same as the country folk? Or the "slums"? Do the Native American reservations count as the same "urbanism"? The concept simply does not translate well as a sociological paradigm for interpretation. If anything, it denotes a particular socio-political spatial product that is particularly in the U.S. and arguably, some parts in the U.K.

For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerned efforts and thoughts can do. As megatons of water shape organisms on the ocean floor. As tides polish stones. As winds hollow cliffs. The beautiful supermachinery opening a new life for innumerable mankind. Would you deny them the right to exist? Would you ask them to labor and go hungry while you yourself enjoyed old-fashioned Values? You-you yourself are a child of this mass and a brother to all the rest. Or else an ingrate, dilettante, idiot. There, Herzog, thought Herzog, since you ask for the instance, is the way it runs.

-Herzog, Saul Bellow 1964