No.155643
Europeans and Asians, and even Canadians will never understand how absolutely christcucked America is EVEN TODAY. EVEN NOW, the average american, according to polls is more religious than the average IRANIAN. yes, you heard me right. The average burger is more religious than an average citizen of a theocratic republic, and the literal only thing stopping it from having been a theocracy long ago was that secularism was built right into the constitution and a bunch of civil rights/free speech litigation by atheists in the late 20th century.
Europeans see american hollywood movies and TV and new york and LA and just assume thats all of America when in reality that’s just a little bit of it. Outside the major cities, it starts getting deliverance-y. In small town, “real” America 90% of the population is dominated by conservative christian white boomers who are still living like its the early Bush era, if not even earlier like the 80s. Lil Nas X’s satan video or w/e may seem trite and noncontroversial to jaded urbanites who listened to Marilyn Manson in the 90s, but to “real” America, this shit is still controversial. These are the people who take their kids to church to be screamed at by some crazy preacher doing fox news rants about how the ‘left is demonic’ and shit.
Today, it is fashionable to shit on new atheism as just “a bunch of white guys shitting on muslims” and shilling for imperialism which granted, it did sort of become. But that doesn’t detract from the earlier positive movements. It would be as reductive to characterize new atheism as “white guys crapping on muslims” as it would be to characterize second wave feminism as “just a bunch of bored middle class white women”. Yes, there is a grain of truth to that, but its only in the hindsight of the world that created, that we can even be in a position to make that argument. Same for new atheism, its only because now we dwell in a borderline post christian America, that we can say that.
Imagine some alternative universe where “Ch.uds” are like 80% of young male population and everyone else is apolitical except 1-2 isolated chomsky style libs that no one really pays attention to anyway. Well that actually existed and it was called the Bush era(‘01-’06/7 mainly), complete with abstinence based sex education, guys with pencil thin beards making vaguely christian doucherock, and mandatory patriotism about the troops doing imperialist invasions of Iraq.
New atheism needed to happen and I don’t give a FUCK if you say its idealist. Zoomers don’t remember the Bush era, the 2000s, esp. the early 2000s were just as overwhelmingly conservative as today is culturally liberal. If you said anything about Bush, or the wars, citizens of the ‘greatest country on earth’ would jump down your throat and call you a CHINNY PRICK WHO HATES AMERICA AND GOD AND LOVES SADDAM. You almost had cancel culture but in the other direction which is why I can’t take rightoids seriously when they whine about cancel culture: I’ve seen what they do when they are the ones in power.
The term “new atheism” itself was originally a pejorative neologism coined to make fun of what was, in my opinion really a CIVIL RIGHTS movement for non religious people. In a context of islamic terrorism and Bush’s evangelical schizoism, it was worse than Trumpism because 75% of the country took it seriously, actual leftists were isolated and basically unknown, you had liberals literally watching fox news and unironically saying it was fair and balanced.