Looks like my reply was eaten... (sorry for the double-post if you're just moderating comments.)

The short of it was, I'm looking forward to your new book, and don't want to distract you from it, but I would welcome nonfiction writing from you as well.

I've recently learned, in part from reading your fine The Star Fraction how much Americans don't know about the real Left.

Earlier today, Charlie Stross pointed out in Jay Lake's blog that the American government is essentially a hereditary nobility... these are the sorts of things which are sometimes invisible to those too close to them (though I -have- managed to figure out the breadth of the worldwide political spectrum, the closeness of the Democrats and Republicans, that both are to the right of center, etc.).

Sincerely,

B. Dewhirst

By  B. Dewhirst, at Friday, November 30, 2007 10:48:00 pm  

Ooh! Ooh! I have to say, that sounds intensely cool.

Admittedly, I'm unusually in the centre of the demographic Venn diagram, as an atheistic Scottish New Zealander who likes crime and science fiction novels, as well as discussions of religion, but even if I weren't that, I think it sounds like a cool book for you to have written.

By  Anonymous, at Saturday, December 01, 2007 1:05:00 am  

So when can I trade money for those words?

Also, I'm completely out of shelf space, so could I please just buy the words, without the paper?

By  gumi, at Saturday, December 01, 2007 3:42:00 am  

You're all very kind. The book's due to be published in August 2008, just as long as I finish it real soon.

By  Ken, at Saturday, December 01, 2007 7:07:00 am  

You are forgiven for not posting. Continue the cool writing.

By  Frank Partisan, at Saturday, December 01, 2007 7:29:00 am  

A couple things.

First, if you follow the links in my post, you will notice that I argue that both Dawkins and Harris take the "acultural view" of modernity based on comments they've made. I think Harris' recent "don't use the term atheist" speech shows this view.

Second, it was Stephen Roberts who coined the phrase, I believe.

Third, I agree that that is what many atheists are trying to do when they use that phrase. But that doesn't really affect what I'm saying since my point is that the phrase doesn't really make sense unless one holds to an acultural view of modernity. Furthermore, the fact so many atheists seem to think it is a good "crowbar" (it isn't) suggests to me that many of them hold to an acultural view of modernity, too.

By  Macht, at Saturday, December 01, 2007 8:31:00 am  

Two points, Macht.

One: where are the divergent modernities? All societies that modernise become more like the West. North Korea is more like South Korea than either is like the Korea of 1807, say. And this isn't just economic or superficial. An Ayan Hirsa Ali or a Jung Chang can go into a library and stumble upon the works of Jefferson, and find that the wicked old slaveholding patriarch (etc) is speaking to their condition.

Two: I still don't see why that particular atheist argument, as I've stated it (and you seem to agree mine is an accurate statement of it), depends on an acultural view of modernity. Would it not be just as much to the point if it had been applied (I don't know if it was) in a conversation with a Muslim philosopher in Andalusia, back in the glory days of Islam?

On the more general point, the view that reason is what you have left when tradition is strip-mined and fire-hosed away does have some truth in it. As was said in 1847: 'All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.'

On the other hand, if you're arguing that Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are not the world's most sophisticated thinkers on cultural matters, you won't find much disagreement from me.

By  Ken, at Saturday, December 01, 2007 9:57:00 am  

Looking forward to the new book. As for the acultural whatnot, either:

1. Belief is a culture-dependent construction, and hence can be criticized as such.

or:

2. Evaluation of belief must not refer to cultural embedding, since the believers would claim that it is somehow either true or false regardless of culture. Well? In that case, the believer has to extend that courtesy to other beliefs as well, and answer why he is one god less atheistic than the "pure atheist".

That said, the epistemic issue is all a sidetrack. I don't know whether God exists or not, but if he does, He must be fought by any possible means. Ken, you probably know the exact Baknin quote.

By  Anonymous, at Sunday, December 02, 2007 10:07:00 am  

Late last night, after a busy day, I read acultural modernity as agricultural modernity, and was having some difficulty imagining the group of atheists in question.

As for religion, well, if the impulse is built into the structure of human brains (which certainly appears to be the case), trying to get rid of it isn't likely of success. Making a mighty distinction between public and personal relevance, with accompanying changes in tax law, though, that seems to me worth doing.

By  Anonymous, at Sunday, December 02, 2007 12:21:00 pm  

If the tendency is (entirely) inbuilt, why do different countries (Japan, England, Sweden, Poland, the United States) have such varied extents of religiosity? Even a genetic component can't explain this varied distribution, as it has changed over a relatively short period of time without an underlying change in the genetic composition of the public.

And, even if it is shown to be 'fundamental' and 'ineradicable' that does not mean that the extent of religion in public life need be what it is today.

-- Brian

By  B. Dewhirst, at Sunday, December 02, 2007 2:40:00 pm  

Brian --

The brain wiring -- which is very probably there -- is the thing I'm suggesting can't practically be got rid of.

I'm not sure the utility of Imperial religions -- since that started with Hammurabi at the latest! -- can be got back into the bottle, either, but that there is some hope of doing.

I would say that the essential difficulty is that the default assumption, in the Protestant Christian cultural fan, is that when one discovers one's head is full of gods, that the significance is necessarily and inherently general, rather than personal.

A default assumption of personal would remove pretty much all that is problematic; it would also require major cultural change.

Ken once remarked something to the effect of "oh, great, we're up against Milton and Tolkien" in terms of the necessary re-imagination of cultural mythology. It's not a trivial problem and rational responses, however necessary, aren't sufficient, either. Finity and mortality need a response that works when people are five years old and first asking those questions, and at fifteen, twenty, twenty five, fifty, and ninety, too. It's not going to be the same question or the same answer, but it had better have some kind of consistent cultural pattern.

By  Anonymous, at Sunday, December 02, 2007 10:15:00 pm  

While religion has influenced culture in its greedy grab at every human enterprise it could get its hands on, to call the abandonment of religion acultural is a bit of a stretch.

Culture is not defined by religion. If that were the case, there wouldn't be a nationalist movement threatening to tear my country apart. Great Britain wouldn't treat drinking as a competitive sport and there wouldn't be a massive discrepency between the American and Romanian definitions of Freedom.

The abandonment of religion is not, in short, the abandonment of culture. On the contrary, I think it may just enrich it, as without a common thread partially homogenizing so many different cultures, we may see further divergence and more and more interesting cultural phenomena.

By  Steven Alleyn, at Monday, December 03, 2007 1:41:00 am  

Ugh, am I alone in wishing that I had a gun to reach for when I see phrases like "acultural modernity". Maybe if I knew what the hell it actually meant...

ps. Looking forward to the book Ken!

By  Anonymous, at Monday, December 03, 2007 1:57:00 pm  

The best way to find out what the writer meant by 'acultural modernity' is to follow the link, and the links from that.

By  Ken, at Monday, December 03, 2007 2:45:00 pm  

Near as I can tell from following the original link, 'acultural modernity' is a postmodernist strawman fallacy.

-- Brian

By  B. Dewhirst, at Monday, December 03, 2007 9:43:00 pm  

Ah, I'd missed this, probably because you don't update enough. Kind of Martin to mention me.

By  ejh, at Tuesday, December 04, 2007 2:10:00 pm  

your latest book sounds really interesting.

looking forward to seeing it in the shops :)

By  Moonbootica, at Tuesday, December 04, 2007 5:02:00 pm  

Yeah, I always give your books a quick flick when I'm in the shops. I've even been known to borrow a few from the local library.

Are plans afoot for a promotional tour when your latest is done and dusted?

By  Phil, at Wednesday, December 05, 2007 11:56:00 am  

Thanks, Moonbootica.

Phil, no plans as yet. We'll see.

By  Ken, at Wednesday, December 05, 2007 12:39:00 pm  

Acultural blah blah blah.

To paraphrase from a blog somewhere, "When outing the Emperor’s nudity one should not be admonished for ignoring learned tomes on ruffled pantaloons and silken underwear."

If you're over 10 years old: There's no magical man in the sky who grants you wishes. There is also no Santa Claus. Live with it.

For those religious people who attempt to escape into the labyrinthine corridors of complex philosophical quandaries, there's still the issue of those silly thousand-year-old books of yours. You know, the ones full of bigotry and violence that are held up to be the Absolute Truth...

By  Anonymous, at Saturday, December 08, 2007 4:29:00 pm  

anonymous, it will be my policy to disallow anonymous comments like this Real Soon Now ... if you want to say stuff like that, say it with at least a pseudonym.

By  Ken, at Saturday, December 08, 2007 5:03:00 pm  

Ken,

Please, write more books. I was in local shoppe looking to stock up for the festive reason, and was simple ytaggered by the lack of output from my favourite mob of sf writers. Apart from Iain, I think ye are all spending too much time on your fecking blogs :)

This latest sounds like twas worth the wait mind. Keep pushing the revolution outwards, and if you run into China leafletting someplace for the Trotters give him a shove up the rear end from me.

By  Anonymous, at Saturday, December 08, 2007 11:46:00 pm  

Okay.

Can't say I see why the "stuff" I said necessitates a pseudonym though ... you aren't one of those nutty Santa-Clausists, are you? ;)

I mean, its perfectly fine to appreciate and participate in Santa-Clausian culture, but if you actually believe it, it fosters ignorance, and you could end up stoning people to death (with coal), starting Holy Wars (at the North Pole)...

By  Frenetic, at Sunday, December 09, 2007 3:38:00 am  

I think one point that isn't mentioned enough in discussions regarding religion, and especially whether religion is 'hard-wired', is the fact that very few people get to come to religion on their own. All currently popular religion requires that people are very young when they are first introduced to the teaching (indoctrination? brain-washing?) of said religion. This must make later analysis almost impossible I would have thought.

As a fellow Scot (originally from Edinburgh but now in Highland Perthshire) I must say how much I enjoy your books - I'm looking forward to the new one already!

By  Anonymous, at Monday, December 10, 2007 4:56:00 pm  

Frenetic - one point you might like to bear in mind is that it's not really helpful if the project of Reason becomes mixed up with the project of Superiority.

By  ejh, at Thursday, December 13, 2007 9:35:00 am  

looking foward to your next novel ,,but as your devout fan and as an americn I hope you can keep the anti-american scenarious to a minimum

By  Anonymous, at Wednesday, December 26, 2007 6:24:00 am  

Anti-American? Moi?

By  Ken, at Wednesday, December 26, 2007 3:05:00 pm  

As an American, and a fan, I hope you hit us in the face with it. It is time to wake up and smell the colonialism.

I hope you've been following the Lakota business with some interest. They're to indicate the territory they're claiming on the 29th (117th anniversary of Wounded Knee.)

[The above all said, I found myself grasping for a primer on leftist political thought whenever I read your stuff. Some of us don't have the advantage of a 1970s pub-tour trawl through greater Marxism and Anarchism... I found what I was looking for in Wikipedia, as it turns out, but you've made quite clear to me the perspective most Americans lack on these subjects.]

By  B. Dewhirst, at Wednesday, December 26, 2007 3:28:00 pm