timberwraith
If people form a common group identity, in concert with feeling threatened by people outside of the group, they will find *some* way to form a body of ideology and a subculture which serves to respond to outsiders with violence and oppression.
New Atheism formed a group identity that centered "Western Culture" (read: whiteness) and accrued more and more trappings of right wing ideology over time. Eventually, many of its proponents embraced the rest of the right wing.
timberwraith
This was a group of secular people who drifted toward far right ideation, embracing multiple forms of bigotry, and eventually, politically violent ideologies because their sense of cultural "rightness" was threatened by groups of people who frightened and enraged them.
A bunch of frightened, angry secular/atheist white people, who felt threatened by the world's cultural shifts, eventually banded together with the political forces of white religious fascism to form the mess we see today.
timberwraith
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timberwraith
I would posit that any group of human beings is capable of embracing the violent social patterns and reactionary ideation that undergirds fascism under the right circumstances: strong group identity, commonly perceived external threat, conformist thinking, and access to some form of structural, material, social, and/or political power/privilege.
If you mix those key components into a group setting, bad things can and will happen.
New Atheism was a microcosm of a much larger human pattern.
timberwraith
I keep on pointing out to others that religion is not necessary for turning toward bigoted violent ideation.
White atheists have proven this quite well by embracing and merging with the larger political milieu of contemporary fascism.
timberwraith
"But atheists are a marginalized/disempowerd group."
Ah, but in actual practice, New Atheism centered whiteness and maleness in its cultural and political patterns. It found its center of power/privilege, as a group, in those key access points to power and it used them accordingly.
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