12 research outputs found
Secular Fundamentalists? Characterising the new atheist approach to secularism, religion and politics
The ‘new atheism’ has become an established cultural reference point in Britain. The anti-religious texts of authors such as Richard Dawkins have fuelled much media discussion concerning the public role of religion in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The new atheism has also been politically controversial, with a government minister recently criticising ‘secular fundamentalism’ for threatening religious identity and seeking to remove religion from public life. Many commentators have argued that new atheism effectively mirrors the features of religious fundamentalism, evincing an intolerant and absolutist worldview that may damage social and political relations. This article seeks to examine the extent to which new atheism possesses features that echo those of the religious fundamentalist. It is contended that while the new atheists display strong anti-religious convictions, they generally do not adopt stances of absolute certainty. New atheists promote uncompromising arguments for depriving religion of institutional and political privileges, yet maintain liberal tolerance for the practice of religion itself. It is suggested that while new atheists ought not to be considered secular fundamentalists, they do proselytise for radical secularism and atheism in a way which could be considered ‘evangelical’ in certain respects
Culture and order in world politics
This chapter sets out the central argument of Culture and Order in World Politics. It provides definitions of cultural diversity and international order, and makes the case for an expansive conception of the latter. It then revisits four key propositions from Reus-Smit’s On Cultural Diversity (2018), on which this volume builds. It goes on to detail four elaborations of these propositions, informed by the analyses provided in contributors’ chapters. These concern the productive power of diversity regimes, the connection between cultural diversity and legitimacy crises, the complex relationship between political centralization and intolerance, and the plural and multiscalar nature of diversity regimes