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Liberalism and the left in the New Atheists' blindspot.

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What you see with New Atheism from the beginning - and in new forms that have merged with what we call the 'intellectual dark web' - is this idea that liberalism, meaning everything from Hillary Clinton through Bernie Sanders and further the left of that, in their minds, has abandoned 'real' liberal principles - individual rights, freedom of speech and so forth. And a lot of these positions people take in the name of being objective or scientific actually lead to fairly profound breaks with fundamental liberal philosophic principles.

Writer Jacob Hamburger traces New Atheism's shifting relationship with liberal ideology - from the movement's origins in opposition to perceived Bush-era religious irrationality, to today's centrist reactions against campus politics and the emerging socialist left that often contradict the core liberal values the New Atheists claim to uphold.

Jacob wrote the article What Was New Atheism? for The Point.

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Guest

Jacob Hamburger

Jacob Hamburger is a writer based in Paris. He is the editor of Tocqueville 21, a bilingual blog that focuses on contemporary democracy.

 

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