Paraphrasing Orwell in the light of Freethoughtblogs

“Criticism is ‘silencing’, you know. Banning, though, is just maintaining ‘safe space’.”

“It is churchy. It’s the kind of behaviour that made me give up religion in the first place.”  — ‘tardbook friends comments. To FfTB’s horror, they’re female, and worse, don’t think I’m a monster.

“Where do you find these fanatics that most atheists don’t give a damn about?”

“Just saw this article at The Crisis Factory. You called it over a year ago. New, New Atheism.” — and the obligatory males have to stick stick their dicks in.

Though many will deny it, there is no such thing as a person that does not get a smug satisfaction rush out of the simple act of saying “I told you so…”

Yes, I called new, new atheism, but it was well over a year ago. At my best estimate, I was sounding the warning bells as far back as 20081. It was only here, over the last year, that I have started pushing the point that the rabble that now hogs the public spaces of the godless have little, if nothing, in common with the in-your-face, out-of-the-closet new atheism pioneered by what has come to be known as the Four Horsemen – Dawkins, Dennet, Harris and the late, dearly missed Hitchens.

Not only does new, new atheism have nothing in common with these fine minds, it is openly antagonistic to them, and this antagonism has fueled noxious new entities, foremost of which is secularism’s sewer, freefromthoughtblogs. Those that doubt this divorce from, and contempt for, the big 4 who basically beat the path for them are directed to peabrains like FfTB‘er Sikivu Hutchinson who only recently proclaimed that they were –

super-star, white male atheists who’ve institutionalised a very narrow prescriptive, white supremacist, patriarchal version of atheism

This extraordinarily clueless, not to mention racist, outburst can be seen here. This is FfTB style “inclusivity”, born of their perpetually self-flagellating, quasi-religious, professional victim brand of “liberalism”2. Such words are the product of an absolute intellectual degenerate mind which has spent a lifetime wallowing in self-hatred and self-pity and is projecting itself on a planet that conspires to “keep the woman down”. Naturally, her barfing was met with very serious nods of synchronised agreement from the rest of the FfTB panel – with one lone point of dissent, that of the Talking Prune who countered that it was unfair to accuse Dawkins of “scientism“. Seriously.

New, improved new, new Atheism+ (click to embiggen)

The engine that drives this new, new atheism is populism, and the problem with populism is it’s not fussy about it’s membership, providing whatever orthodoxy that drives it is adhered to. Populism is essentially anti-establishment, mindlessly partisan and intolerant, and though it may deny it, anti-intellectual. Populists hate elites – those that have earned positions of trust and respect through hard work and integrity – and by extension, they hate the organisational structures that form around these elites. The populist wants to tear down these structures without even giving a thought as to what to replace them with. That’s a secondary consideration; not important like say, coming up with new slogans or spiffy logos and stuff…

Given that this is the essential nature of populism, it is hardly surprising that it is populated almost exclusively by unwashed detritus from the far left of the smarts bell curve – a reality that makes itself painfully apparent on observation, especially if you spend any time browsing the output of some of the loudest freefromthought bloggers. It’s one long protracted stream of consciousness whine about others’ privilege and how unfairly they are treated. Out in the real world, mediocrity is what it’s dictionary definition states – that which is average or below, a level of achievement that roughly half the population attains. But within the sheltered workshops of the FfTB community, mediocrity by external standards is the absolute apex of achievement given their talents.

I think that the silent acknowledgement of this grim reality is the wellspring of the bitterness, or ressentiment, that continuously oozes out of FfTB and attacks anything that is not them, especially that which belittles them by exhibiting self-actuated achievement with no crutches or props or special considerations. It burns. Outside of the US in the English speaking world this resentment is described as tall poppy syndrome, within the US as crabs in the bucket. I think we are zeroing in on the nature of their oppression and harrassment problems – and it is the simple jealousy of the smarter kids in class and the emotional immaturity to deal with it. These are spoiled children, and if you can’t beat them, throw a tantrum. FfTB and Skepchick in a nutshell.

This is where we find ourselves this week – with lots of baboon burbling about something that has been christened AtheismPlus –

Hundreds of you are excited about Atheism+. I’m excited about A+. This is our chance for a new wave of atheism – a wave that’s more than a dictionary definition about not believing in gods. This is our chance for progressive atheists to come together and deal with issues that we see as a natural part of our godlessness.

But we need more than just a catchy name and a logo. We need to get shit done.

Or so the marketing blurb goes from Jen McCreight/Blag Hag. This is some kind of branding exercise, one presumes, in response to the bulk of the godless community not only ignoring them, but beginning to treat them with much deserved contempt. This Atheism+ concept seems to have been birthed in an earlier blog entry from McCreight –

How I Unwittingly Infiltrated the Boy’s Club & Why It’s Time for a New Wave of Atheism

Though it’s not expressly stated, I suspect this was probably inspired by this piece of gibberish (which I have no inclination to even begin to dissect) from Amanda “suspend habeas corpus and presumption of innocence for boys” Marcotte, conflating atheism and feminism in that dubious and psychedelic manner only she knows how.

McCreight’s outpouring is of the to-be-expected stream of consciousness slap together potpourri of unsubstantiated mis- and disinformation spiced with hyperbolic fear mongering about how being a female in the godless community is more perilous than being in downtown Kabul –

I don’t feel safe as a woman in this community – and I feel less safe than I do as a woman in science, or a woman in gaming, or hell, as a woman walking down the fucking sidewalk.

Of course there’s also the obligatory rape threats that never get reported (for reasons only known to baboonettes) and have no evidence. Need you even ask? As for the pretence that Atheism+ is actually about atheism, McCreight let that cat out of the bag the following day –

It’s not about atheism at all, it’s about co-opting atheism to promote the blatantly obvious FfTB gender feminist agenda. Not as if we didn’t know that, but it’s nice to see some candor for a change, even if it was inadvertant. But the real money shot is this bit –

But the reason I’m not throwing my hands up in the air and screaming “I quit” is because we’re already winning… I’m working with others to hopefully start an atheist/skeptical organization specifically focused on issues of equality. And although the response from the haters is getting louder and viler, they’re now vastly outnumbered by supportive comments (which wasn’t always true). This surge of hate is nothing more than the last gasp of a faction that has reached its end.

FfTB’s Iraqi representative, Comical Ali, also declares victory over the haters

I think this is what psychologists would call “a cry for help”. Really, how can anyone arrive at this conclusion? The boycott of TAM by all except Sulky Amy3 was greeted by one of three responses –

  1. Who are they?
  2. Yawn
  3. Relief at having substantially less crap to deal with

In fact, outside of FfTB / Skepchick, I don’t think anybody really gave a shit.

McCreight’s hubristic braggadocios is a perfect example of the consequences of extended isolation inside the FfTB echo chamber, quarantined from actual reality.

While McCreight’s incoherent preachings are good at least for comedic value, this Atheism+ meme takes a decidedly more sinister turn in an item where Richard Carrier jumps on the bandwagon. His entire post needs to be read to be believed, I am just quoting the more disturbing excerpts. Though unfamiliar with Carrier myself, I am told by quite a number of folks he carried some fairly decent credibility in the community; and that he’s managed to blow it all away in one fell swoop –

The New Atheism +

There is a new atheism brewing, and it’s the rift we need, to cut free the dead weight so we can kick the C.H.U.D.’s back into the sewers and finally disown them, once and for all… to start a blog series building a system of shared values that separates the light side of the force from the dark side within the atheism movement, so we could start marginalizing the evil in our midst, and grooming the next generation more consistently and clearly into a system of more enlightened humanist values…

but it paralleled my more private thinking about the evil among us. Then I read Lousy Canuck’s account of the whole abuse of Surly Amy at TAM and elsewhere, which enraged me (I had previously only known parts of that story). It shows the dregs will now publicly mock humanist values, and abusively disregard the happiness of their own people. Well, that starts drawing the battle lines pretty clearly then…

And so I am declaring here and now, that anyone who acts like this, is not one of us, and is to be marginalized and kicked out, as not part of our movement, and not anyone we any longer wish to deal with. In fact it is especially important on this point that we prove that these vile pissants are a minority in our movement, by making sure our condemnation of them is vocalized and our numbers seen. We must downvote their bullshit, call it out in comments, blog our outrage…

And this very much is an us vs. them situation. The compassionate vs. the vile. You can’t sit on the fence on this one. In a free society, apathy is an endorsement of villainy…

We must integrate this ideal of personal integrity into our very self-identity. Those who don’t, those who aren’t shamed by being exposed as liars or hypocrits, those who persist in being dishonest or inconsistent even when their dishonesty or inconsistency has been soundly proven, is not one of us, and is to be marginalized and kicked out, as not part of our movement, and not anyone we any longer wish to deal with…

In the meantime, I call everyone now to pick sides (not in comments here, but publicly, via Facebook or other social media): are you with us, or with them; are you now a part of the Atheism+ movement, or are you going to stick with Atheism Less?

Then at least we’ll know who to work with. And who to avoid.

Whoa. You can almost hear Wagner in the background. This is really pretty scary stuff. In fact, it’s exactly the kind of rhetoric I have seen elsewhere. Compare for yourselves –

If we divide mankind into three categories – founders of culture, bearers of culture, and destroyers of culture – the Aryan alone can be considered as representing the first category. It was he who laid the groundwork and erected the walls of every great structure in human culture. — Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, CHAPTER XI: RACE AND PEOPLE

If a movement proposes to overthrow a certain order of things and construct a new one in its place, then the following principles must be clearly understood and must dominate in the ranks of its leadership: Every movement which has gained its human material must first divide this material into two groups: namely, followers and members. 

It is the task of the propagandist to recruit the followers and it is the task of the organizer to select the members. The follower of a movement is he who understands and accepts its aims; the member is he who fights for them.

The follower is one whom the propaganda has converted to the doctrine of the movement. The member is he who will be charged by the organization to collaborate in winning over new followers from which in turn new members can be formed.

To be a follower needs only the passive recognition of the idea. To be a member means to represent that idea and fight for it. — Mein Kampf, Vol. 2, CHAPTER XI: PROPAGANDA AND ORGANIZATION.

Carrier has gotten drunk on the FfTB Kool-aid. This has lost all amusement value. The assertion that FfTB is cult may have been made in half-jest before – now it can be stated with deadly seriousness. The delusions of the baboon echo chamber are now actually deforming rational minds into ones that are using the language of war, of enemies, of purges. Similarly, previous half-jesting comparisons of FfTB to Manson’s Spahn Ranch, or Jim Jones’ People’s Temple prior to their exodus to Guyana are also crystallising into ugly reality.The baboons are occupying the same psychological space – isolated from reality and echoing nonsense to each other until it becomes immutable truth.

FfTB is no longer like a cult. It is a cult. It is becoming Pol Pot’s Year Zero – where all that is impure and against the people shall be purged, in it’s place a new Utopia will be formed from scratch.

These ideas always end well don’t they?

Yes, as I said earlier, there is a fair degree of smug satisfaction in “I told you so”... In being right far more often than being wrong. It is the sin of pride.

But there are also times when you would much prefer to have been proven wrong and gladly eat humble pie. This is one of those occasions.

I had many critics early on who, while agreeing with my general assessments of the baboons, thought I was exaggerating with the parallels I was drawing. Well, I did not make any of the comparisons lightly; I maintained then as I do know that my assessments were entirely valid. The baboons are now proving it openly and blatantly. Similar accusations of exaggeration have been levelled at Paula Kirby – she too is now vindicated. I might add that this situation is now spiralling in directions that surprise even me – and probably Kirby too.

Interesting times. On a lighter note –

Addendum 24th August – This propaganda piece just showed up today in New Statesman, barf bag recommended –

Atheism+: the new New Atheists

Addendum 25th August – Quite brilliant. It’s not really a Godwin when it is so creepily familiar. All words lifted exactly from Carrier’s Master Race rant –

.

INGSOC image credit – Tigzy

1 – Anyone who thinks the current insanity began with Elevatorgate is either new to the godless world, or has not been actively involved with it online. The current campaign to undermine godlessness with identity politic derangement has been a long time brewing. My first encounters with it were are a rather prominent atheist social site probably 5 years ago. I warned the site owner of what was happening and that if he did not nip it in the bud early, he would eventually lose control of the situation and be held hostage. He called me crazy, ignored my advice and now has no control of his site and is effectively held hostage. In very many respects, it was a prototype of what FfTB/Skepchick are attempting to pull now, and a number of the current faces were involved then. (Hi Richard! What’s life without balls like?)

2 – “liberal” only insofar as it accurately lives up to the vulgar parody of the term as preached by the likes of Glen Beck and Ann Coulter. Zero commonality with actual liberalism.

3 – Surly Amy, “who kicks ass on a daily basis”, is now also making her play for headline freakshow amongst the baboonettes. You can read about her performance at TAM 2012 here –

http://phawrongula.wikia.com/wiki/TAM_2012_T-Shirt_Manufacturversy