Given Tyson's predilections, I suppose it was inevitable he end up here. He has spent most of his celebrity fetishizing science-based reason, so it makes sense that one day he'd advocate governing a collection of people based on it. Superficially, it's a noble venture, like how Dawkins' "lifting of the burka of ignorance" is noble: it's high-minded, ambitious, and not in any way rational.
It's irrational in at least two places. First: you can't expect every society to toss away their religiosity or spirituality. History tells us the extremes to which people will cling to their philosophies, and why they exist (history doesn't seem to bother Tyson though). Second: there's no particular definition of "the rational." When it comes to how we should live, Tyson consistently provides answers that are barely even scientific. This is a problem with a lot of the New Atheists - their calls to action are far too broad and uninterested in moving an actual point forward.
There's a religious aspect to it, sure, in that Tyson uses vague language the way religious leaders often do. Look at John 14:6: "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Now I personally don't buy what Jesus is selling, or else I'd be heading back to church this Sunday. Just because he said it, doesn't mean it's true, or that every Christian has defined "Truth" the same way. But replace "way", "truth", and "life" with "evidence", "reason", and "rationality." Tyson 14:6: "I have the evidence, the reason, and the rationality. No one gets to make policy except through me." Just because you're smart and have a definition that works for you, doesn't mean everyone's going to buy into it, or agree on what it means. We know certain scientific theories very well, like evolution and climate change, and should teach that these are facts based on scientific evidence. But can we all agree on what to do about them? What about the Second Amendment? What about freedom of speech? What about political science, or economics, or philosophy?
At least theologians have pushed forward what the "Truth" is, and how it influences their worldview. There are many competing interpretations, but at least they're there. It's not found in the philosophy of the Four Horsemen. The Reason Rally people have made the drive to prove why religion isn't true, but atheists don't need these answers anymore. It's manifest to us why religion isn't true. #Rationalia, or any coherent movement of the secular, needs to make the case for why this is important for many different issues. Simply stating "evidence" isn't the answer to everything. Make an effort to say why it's unique, or accept that atheism is just a facet of something else, that it brings you to answers at which others can arrive through different means. Because the only thing that's changed is that now we're ignoring the differences. Libertarianism and Ayn Rand is at one end, Communism and Joseph Stalin at the other, and both are using atheism to push their broad extremist social philosophies. Something amorphous resides in the middle, attending the Reason Rally with Penn Jillette and Lewis Black.
What's worse is that it's hard to find what's what in the "main" atheist texts. Hitchens devotes the final chapter of God Is Not Great, a scant seven pages, to “The Need for a New Enlightenment”, which “will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man, and women.” Dawkins wants science to continue opening up our “burka of ignorance," which is to make people more aware of scientific processes. What we do after - eh. To Sam Harris, everyone should live by a scientism-based spiritualism, which sounds ludicrous to my secular ears. Society needs to do something - “If we cannot inspire the developing world, and the Muslim world in particular, to pursue ends that are compatible with a global civilization, then a dark future awaits us all,” says Harris – but there are no concrete answers, no alternative rooted in something like secular compassion. Much of it is based on using ridicule as a tactic.
Religion and superstition aren't the only things keeping humans from being rational. Science even tells us this. As Aristotle put it, "our senses can be trusted but they can easily be fooled." Even if you break down society to a purely secular state, with no basis in a higher power, your sensory inputs will still be taken for a ride. Tyson, Dawkins, et al know all about the tricks our organic parts can play on our beliefs. Memories can be doctored, massaged by time, or even created wholesale. Our eyes can see what isn't there, our ears hear what isn't making noise. The evolutionary processes that led to us have also made us paranoid, susceptible to the foreign, and gullible.
Which makes one wonder: who is providing the evidence that will be the basis of the policy in #Rationalia? Evidence can look sound, unbiased, and reasonable until history tells you it isn't. But by then you've invaded a country, turned an entire region upside-down, and helped create the conditions for a genocidal monster.
Maybe not, though. Maybe everyone in the Middle East will leave the ideas and beliefs they have nurtured and clung to for 1400 years, and decide on a definition of reason that coincides with Neil deGrasse Tyson's.
Maybe everyone will join #Rationalia. That's reasonable, right?
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