Had some people doubting my assertion that the gnu atheists significantly contributed to the rise of fascism. My life is fucking microwaving my brain right now. I’m having a bad time in part because people around me are having even worse times. I shouldn’t be writing this right now. I should be helping people I care about get thru their shit. But I’m running out of queued posts and this is something I can generate a few words about. So here I am, really profoundly not fucking feeling it, but committed to the bit of daily posting.
Celebrities advertise the positions they endorse. Advertisement wins new converts, but importantly, it can reach the people who matter the most to global power – moneyed fuckoes who want to hear their power justified, who want a religion or belief system that exonerates them from the egregious injustice their privilege itself represents.
Remember the NYT puffing up the Intralectural Dork Web? The Yooniversity of the Intellectional Durk Werb at Austin dot org? Whatever that shit was called? If you’re a big enough asswipe, you can make a bank fulla money just saying the fuckshit you believe, because the kochs or millers or rockefellas can give u a shower of gold. A golden shower, if you will.
One thing feeds the other feeds the other feeds the other. The game goes like this: get famous, say evil things, watch evil men line up to pay you for promoting evil that benefits them. Via hyper-incestuous thinktanks and lobbies and yacht parties and media juntas, the thousand-headed hydra of conservative bobbleheads normalizes fascism and emboldens politicians to put that ideal into practice.
Dawkins et al were definitely part of that, and still are. They spend more time promoting fascism now than fighting against oppressive religion. He has become an absolute second stringer. Fuckin’ Candace Owens and any number of rappers and standup comedians have bigger seats at the table than Dawkins now. But I watched this happen. We all did.
I’m just gonna assert again what I did the first time around. Elevatorgate was one of a rapid-fire series of reactionary movements that helped convert misogyny into a broad tent fascist movement. Misogyny was the starting point, but it eventually incorporated conspiratorial thinking and fringe beliefs, racism and xenophobia. Amusing to think about old dicky wondering why o why his side includes the flat earthers. Keep thinking about it. Maybe you’ll figure it out before you die.
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Dawkins is 84 now. Well and truly in his dotage.
Yet Sam Harris is a mere 58… 🙁
I don’t know how much influence which specific incident had, how much which contributed to what, etc., but I’ve seen a lot of similar tactics, and some of the same names popping up in these relatively minor niches.
“Elevatorgate/Dear Muslima”
The Hugos “puppies” debacle
“gamer gate”
And I’m probably forgetting a couple, but I feel there is definitely a pattern…