What’s the matter with Skeptics?
I have for a long time considered myself to be a skeptic. Not a skeptic in the absolutist sense of questioning absolutely everything to the point of absurdity. Rather, a skeptic in the sense of belonging to a political movement that championed reason, logic, and evidence. I believed, and still do, that such a movement is absolutely vital to our public discourse and education system. In fact, in today’s environment of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’, I doubt such a movement with a simple laser like focus on weeding out bullshit, has ever been more necessary.
Unfortunately however, in recent years, many of the people in prominent positions in the ‘skeptic’ movement have not conducted themselves with the care and due diligence that I would have expected of them. They have, largely for political reasons, aligned themselves with certain forces that are antithetical to their professed ideals. Although many of these skeptics are not necessarily on the right politically, they have made it clear that they view hostility to the left, and to ‘SJWs’(social justice warriors) in particular, as a prime objective of their movement. Towards this end, they have made alliances with popular internet figures who can variously described as cranks, racists, and conspiracy theorists.
Now by far the worst offender in this category has been the internet’s arch ‘Classical Liberal’ Dave Rubin. He has given a platform to such nutjobs as Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars, pick up artist Mike Cernovich, Anti Islam activist Tommy Robinson, and quasi Alt Right commentator Lauren Southern (Southern is not technically Alt Right but is extremely close and friendly with the movement). Rubin has had these people on his show, had them air their views largely unopposed, all while claiming the mantra of liberalism and skepticism. But Rubin has been extensively criticised elsewhere and I will direct readers to check out the content of Alex Katz who has been one of Rubin’s most effective and scathing critics online. In the meantime I wish to focus on another figure in this community I have lost a great deal of respect for.
Michael Shermer edits a magazine called Skeptic that has generally been great for promoting critical thinking and in particular has been excellent at calling out and debunking conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorists often put a great deal of time and effort into their theories, and for a layperson it can be difficult to know how to respond to arguments such as ‘what happened to building 7?’ or ‘why doesn’t this door at Auschwitz lock properly?’ That’s where Skeptic comes in. They have done the work for you of diving into and debunking all the bizarre popular claims made by conspiracy theorists.
Now, Michael Shermer is a libertarian. There’s nothing inherently incompatible about being both a libertarian and a skeptic, but it has been clear for a while that Shermer has been playing a team game of promoting his ‘side’ in the latest spat of culture wars. He comes down hard on the ‘anti SJW’ side of the fence and this has led him to make some bizarre media appearances over the past few months. He has appeared on Stephan Molyneux’s show, a man who was until recently an anarcho capitalist but has since been drifting towards the Alt Right. He has a record of extreme and provocative statements including recommending his listeners break off relationships with their family members who do not support anarcho capitalism. Molyneux’s list of offences against decency and common sense is too long to get into here, but let’s just say that anyone with 10 minutes of research time and a computer could find out that Molyneux is not a remotely credible or ethical guy.
So it was shocking for me to see Shermer appear on Molyneaux’s show (disclaimer: in do not hate myself enough to have sat the thorough the entire video) lending his credibility to this fraud. Rubin also appeared on Molyneux’s show but by that point Rubin had already shown his true colours to me so I was hardly surprised.
Then beyond those two there is the cesspool of YouTube Skeptics such as the Amazing Atheist and Sargon of Akkad. I won’t go into much detail on them either because this post is getting too long but lets jus say that both endorsed Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election(although for the purposes of fairness, in neither case were they enthusiastic). Sargon in particular has allied himself if not explicitly then implicitly with the alt right and even endorsed Marine Le Pen in the recent French presidential campaign. He even Tweeted out an anti-Semitic dog whistle when Le Pen lost, accusing French voters of ‘cucking for the Rothschilds’.
So where does all of this leave skepticism? A movement I value in principle and still believe is vitally necessary to our debate in the internet era. What can be salvaged from the shipwreck of the modern skeptic movement and what should be left to sink to the bottom of the sea? But most importantly, what can be done to reclaim the mantle of skepticism from those phony skeptics who have hijacked it? All of these questions will be the subject of my next post.
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