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New Atheism and the Alt-Right

New Atheism and the Alt-Right

FromOn The Very Idea - A Philosophy Podcast


New Atheism and the Alt-Right

FromOn The Very Idea - A Philosophy Podcast

ratings:
Length:
35 minutes
Released:
Apr 27, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

In this one-off episode, I take a look at whether the Alt-right are the unintended offspring of the New Atheism movement that emerged online in the early days of Web 2.0. I argue that Web 2.0 created a unique environment where both atheists and the religious felt both emboldened and victimized leading to some very uncivil discourse. In the course of this battle, prominent New Atheists like Richard Dawkins celebrated a style of ‘naive empiricism’ where anything theoretical was seen as suspicious due to its status as theory and only facts were credible. Though Dawkins knew better than to call evolution a fact, he did so for political purposes and this led to a group of mainly young men overvaluing empirical factual content with a lack of understanding how theoretical understandings of phenomena balance, check and support that empirical content. Hence, ‘naive empiricism’.
Released:
Apr 27, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (61)

A self-indulgent vanity project of a man with a microphone in hand, each episode explores a philosophical theme hopefully with a certain degree of accuracy. I try to keep it pretty light. More philosophy nerd than academic, it sprung out of free time during the pandemic. @KMaca5