Carol Tavris
Yes, of course, secularism will survive. As long as there are people thinking, and thinking freely, there will be people questioning any dominant ideology or religious belief. There have always been skeptics, humanists, doubters, and atheists; today, at least, society doesn’t burn them at the stake, though it often tries to silence them.
Will secularism survive as the guiding principle of American democracy, that is, as a commitment to the separation of church and state? I don’t know. Certainly, we are in the midst of a gathering storm, a dark age, in our nation’s history, with fundamentalism, religious zealotry, blind patriotism, scientific illiteracy, and social hysteria ascendant. Because the perpetrators of this madness have seized control of the major institutions, from the media to the judiciary, I think secularism will face some rough sailing ahead in the seas of intolerance.
But if we take the long view, say by reading Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror or The March of Folly, we can see that humanity does lurch forward, even as it zizgags and temporarily retreats. Secularism is paramount in almost all of the social democracies of Europe, yes, even in the countries that gave us the Inquisition and the Nazis. Perhaps, when the United States is again in a depression; when the lack of health care for children, the poor, and the elderly finally raises enough hackles; when incomes drop too low and gas prices rise too high; when this greedy administration has turned back the New Deal too far and citizens finally realize what they have lost—then, people may decide that a secular government can do more for them than a pious one. Until then, humanists and nonreligious activists must do what we have always done: hitch up our trousers, pick up our lances and pens, choose our battles, and never let our voices fall silent.
Carol Tavris, a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, is a social psychologist, writer, and lecturer specializing in the promotion of critical and scientific thinking in psychology. Her books include Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, The Mismeasure of Woman, and, with Carole Wade, two leading psychology texts.
CFI SUMMIT
OCTOBER 24-27 2013
TACOMA, WASHINGTON
Joint Conference of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
The transnational secular humanist magazine
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