A lot of the times, that anger, that smugness, the long rants on the internet, are all just some kid trying to work through grief/confusion/whatever, and I think that's valuable.
I think that's actually the hallmark of what's so destructive about this attempt at a movement-- it's mostly about the grief/grievance of the individual. There appears to be little to no concept of a genuine collective good, a collective good for which individual desires sometimes need to be muted or sacrificed. Seriously, every time that damned post goes around downplaying America's terrible vacation and holiday policies "because some people don't want to spend time with their families" I just see a bunch of pissy children who can't envision anything beyond their own needs.
But none of these communities seem big enough—yet, at least—to really form the whole value-system-pillar thing.
My husband and I have channeled all that into the astronomy club. It's not a Trojan Horse organization for secularism (at least one member is an ordained minister) but it fills the social & do-gooder hole in life in a pro-science and rational way.
My husband did attend a Meetup mixer intended to bridge divides between atheists and some Protestant group but he reported back that the attempts at dialogue only demonstrated how wide the gap really is on stuff like abortion and capital punishment.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-12-18 04:42 am (UTC)I think that's actually the hallmark of what's so destructive about this attempt at a movement-- it's mostly about the grief/grievance of the individual. There appears to be little to no concept of a genuine collective good, a collective good for which individual desires sometimes need to be muted or sacrificed. Seriously, every time that damned post goes around downplaying America's terrible vacation and holiday policies "because some people don't want to spend time with their families" I just see a bunch of pissy children who can't envision anything beyond their own needs.
But none of these communities seem big enough—yet, at least—to really form the whole value-system-pillar thing.
My husband and I have channeled all that into the astronomy club. It's not a Trojan Horse organization for secularism (at least one member is an ordained minister) but it fills the social & do-gooder hole in life in a pro-science and rational way.
My husband did attend a Meetup mixer intended to bridge divides between atheists and some Protestant group but he reported back that the attempts at dialogue only demonstrated how wide the gap really is on stuff like abortion and capital punishment.