Elon Musk, in a recent conversation with Jordan Peterson, suggested that he was ‘probably a cultural Christian.’ Without being particularly religious, he claimed he was a ‘big believer in the principles of Christianity’, among which he named forgiveness. He also said that the Christian pronatalist presumption would probably ‘lead to a better society.’ Richard Dawkins, who is famous for being notoriously anti-religious, recently suggested that he does not wish for an end to Christian traditions in England because ‘I love hymns and Christmas carols and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos.’

In this article, I want to explain why I am a ‘cultural non-Christian.’ This does not necessarily mean that I am a non-Christian. It just means that, culturally, I am a non-Christian. Furthermore, though I can understand why somebody would see their embeddedness in a historic Christian culture as a fact, I understand much less why this cultural experience should be transformed into a political movement or an ideology.

The term ‘cultural Christian’ is shorthand for an attitude that rejects the supernatural claims of Christianity but still admits to being culturally determined by a historical context shaped by Christianity. Many people have embraced what Christian critics call ‘Christianity lite’, that is, Christian culture without miracles and divinity. Some people value moral ideas like humility or the sanctity of the individual, which they believe makes them ‘somewhat’ Christian in a cultural way. This leads to paradoxical labels. Slavoj Žižek has called his most recent book Christian Atheism, and French President Emmanuel Macron identifies himself as an ‘agnostic Catholic.’ Jordan Peterson adhered to a similar line when he said on television ‘I act as if God exists’ (emphasis added).

First, I wonder how deeply these people have actually examined their cultural contexts. In my own cultural environment, I find little that can really be identified as Christian. Instead, I notice that it is replete with almost anti-Christian elements. I might find a few secularized cultural components that were formerly Christian, but there is nothing powerful enough there to lead me to conclude that I am a cultural Christian. As a European or as a Westerner, I am culturally determined by secularism, the Enlightenment, the freedom to speak up against religion, and the overcoming of religion.

Cultural Christians tend to list qualities like respect for the individual, loyalty, or self-control as core Christian values that they still believe in. However, beyond the fact that such values can be found in practically any religion, these cultural principles have reached most of us in already highly secularized forms. Human rights and equality are secular ideas. Why should one insist on their Christian origins (a highly debatable proposition, anyway)? Many such principles could just as well be traced back to the ancient Greeks, and I could thus declare myself a cultural Greek. A kneejerk reaction might suggest that it is simply a difference in temporal distance that makes such an idea less feasible, but is the legacy of Greek philosophy really that much more distant than the Biblical origins of Christianity?

In my opinion, many non-practicing Christians are not as culturally influenced by Christianity as they think. They might imagine they are, and they may even want it to be true; but often, it is a highly secularized form of ‘Christian culture’ that they have experienced. The libidinal and subliminal reasons why these people attribute secular phenomena to Christianity might be interesting for their own sake, but they are irrelevant here.

We appreciate European culture, but to what extent is this culture actually Christian? Churches and their distinctive architecture can be used to illustrate a broader point here. When the Notre Dame of Paris burned in 2019, plenty of non-religious people were sincerely struck by this cultural loss and expressed a desire to have this monument quickly repaired. But this outpouring of emotion cannot simply be attributed to some kind of latent religiosity. It is more likely that the structure as a historical monument and a great example of Gothic architecture were what mattered to many, rather than its religious significance.

I appreciate much of the architecture that has been built by Christians, but I do not appreciate it as ‘Christian architecture.’ I appreciate it in the same secular way in which one might appreciate any architecture. The same goes for ideas and concepts that might once have been the preserve of Christian theologians but are no longer used in a Christian sense. Perhaps one of the most obvious examples is Christmas, which many celebrate without celebrating it as a Christian event. One could even go to Mass and enjoy it as a spectacle without it meaning that one is Christian in any way.

Theoretically, one could build a new Gothic cathedral and make it non-denominational, that is, build one that can be used by Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians alike. Many who think of themselves as ‘cultural Christians’ might not be dissatisfied with such a monument in their city and might even view it as an example of foreign ideas being well integrated into their own culture. They are cultural Europeans rather than cultural Christians. In a similar vein, Dawkins mentioned that he enjoys listening to Christian hymns, and I believe that it is rather the music than the religious lyrics that he appreciates. He too is arguably a cultural European more so than a cultural Christian. How many people who enjoy Bach can actually relate to the lyrics of the St. Matthew Passion?

What we are really influenced by as Europeans and what really gives us an identity as Westerners is not religion but the liberty to act against obscurantism and religion. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in a recent speech, suggested that Europeans should look to Christianity in order to reinstall meaning and purpose in a European society that has lost its moral compass. He does not seem to be aware that he suggests something that is deeply alien to a European culture that was born out of a revolution against religious authoritarianism. Unknowingly, by insisting on archaic Christian roots, Orbán, Peterson, and Musk push the West towards a worldview with which Christianity bears strong similarities: Islam.

Islamic societies continue to be much more strongly influenced by religion, and the idea of a ‘cultural Muslim’ is unnecessary because Islam is the only cultural reference point available: religion and culture almost entirely overlap, or are at least perceived to. Simultaneously and paradoxically, when the religious reference point is so strong that non-religious cultural aspects quasi-disappear, the idea of a ‘cultural Muslim’ becomes nonsensical and practically synonymous with the notion of a ‘cultural non-Muslim.’ A cultural Muslim is de facto a non-Muslim.

This is also the case for Christians, but for them, this paradox is less obvious. Westerners tend to have many more non-religious reference points, with the result that the concept of ‘cultural Christianity’ assumes a stronger connection to the religion than would exist if one identified more strongly with other cultural referents. Because one could choose another identity, the choice of Christianity holds more weight. Typically, when a Muslim says that they are only ‘culturally’ Muslim, the assumption is that they are in fact no longer Muslim. When a Christian says that they are ‘culturally’ Christian, the emphasis is that they are still somehow Christian. In Western societies, culture and religion can be more naturally perceived as two distinct things, and Musk et al plead not for a distinction but for a further confusion of cultural and religious aspects. It remains a strange choice. For example, Musk could simply talk about family policy boosting birth rates; why does he need Christianity to make his point?

I concede that the idea of being a ‘cultural Christian’, with which I personally cannot empathise, might be genuinely felt by some. However, there is no reason to turn this vague feeling into a movement or an ideology. This is precisely what Musk et al are doing. And when Dawkins values cultural Christianity as a ‘bulwark against Islam’ he is clearly missing the point. The only bulwark against Islam would be secularism.

I feel that you want to ask me now if I am a Christian or a non-Christian without the prefix ‘cultural.’ But this is not the topic of the article. Here I merely wanted to explain why, in cultural terms, I cannot be a Christian.

Related reading

Do we need God to defend civilisation? by Adam Wakeling

The Enlightenment and the making of modernity, by Piers Benn

The case of Richard Dawkins: cultural affiliation with a religious community does not contradict atheism, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

New Atheism, New Theism, and a defence of cultural Christianity, by Jack Stacey

Against the ‘New Theism’, by Daniel James Sharp

Can the ‘New Theists’ save the West? by Matt Johnson

A reading list against the ‘New Theism’ (and an offer to debate), by Daniel James Sharp

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Much of the philosophical and religious thought that may very loosely be categorised as ‘Eastern’ endeavours to show people how to ‘liberate themselves’ both from the ego and from step-by-logical-step thinking. This is a deliberate abdication of precisely our most valuable attributes. Of course, it does not do this because it is stupid—it isn’t. It chooses this path because those attributes are admittedly imperfect. Unfortunately, this is like giving up entirely on going to the doctor because medicine, too, is imperfect.

But this is not a solely philosophical matter. It is also illuminating to look at it from a political perspective. Oriental philosophy by and large enjoins accepting things as they are, going along with the flow—as exemplified by the key Taoist concept of wu-wei, ‘not striving’ (among other translations), since any striving is regarded as counter-productive and surely destined to fail. It hardly seems coincidental that this is a philosophy arising among, and especially suited to, people who politically and socially lacked much agency for change and, hopefully, improvement.

To state it more bluntly: in this regard, it is a philosophy tailored for vassals who are to be kept in their place, and for political systems that see evolutionary change as inherently bad. A dynasty may be toppled and followed by another dynasty, but the idea itself of being ruled forever by dynasties (kingly or even of a modern, more corporate type) is not to be questioned. Give me stasis, or I’ll give you death.

The above qualifications ‘very loosely’ and ‘by and large’ reflect the obvious fact that Oriental religio-philosophical thinking is not monolithic but varied. Yet, even granting this diversity, it would be inattentive not to notice overall patterns. At the same time, parts of this thinking are not exclusive to the East, either. For one example, just turn to the US’s late grand old man of geopolitics, Henry Kissinger, the heart of whose political philosophy, as he made clear in his book World Order, was that something is good if it keeps a lid on things. (He regretted the French Revolution, for example, not on any grounds related to whether people were better or worse off because of it—that was largely immaterial to him—but because it swept away a self-correcting European order that had held since 1648.)

But again, the general pattern is that the preference for immutability is more of an Eastern than a Western thing; the West tends to see stasis as stagnation. The major exception to this dichotomy is in religion—specifically, religion defined not in association with a general system of philosophical thought, but with an organised, hierarchical structure. Religion in this form is always a tool for social control and a belligerent guardian of the status quo in West and East alike. (For social control, much of the East hasn’t even needed it where a non-religion, Confucianism, has been there to perform that role.)

The West stands for a never-ending struggle for change for the better, despite stumbles and setbacks. A lot of bad things can be said about the West (although such rather widespread impressions as that imperialism or slavery are uniquely Western traits are grotesquely misinformed). But the notion that it is better to seek progress than to preserve existing conditions at all costs is one that should genuinely be cherished. This idea has allowed the West to achieve progress in many areas—and to keep working on its own, and others’, problems.

It is logical that populations which see no chance of ever escaping a preordained hard lot or severely subservient position will seek evasion in mystical doctrines that take them away from themselves and their reality. Conversely, their adherence to such thinking helps keep the systems that preordained their miserable position in business. It’s a loop.

The West is also the birthplace of the self as associated with an individual who is more than a cog in the whole. That clearly doesn’t mean that otherwise people don’t know who they are; it means that they don’t define themselves only in relation to a community which they form part of and must, above all other considerations, serve. Of course, a balance needs to be struck between the individual and the group, between the ego and the collective. (It should be clear that ‘ego’ is herein used simply in the sense of self-awareness, not in the Freudian sense or that of an excessive self-regard.) But the moral and practical imperative to be solidary with others need not and should not mean giving up the self. According the ego its proper place is one of the triumphs of Western thought. Having a self-aware ego is our most basic treasure.

Wild, to-hell-with-the-others individualism is bad—and so is the opposite extreme position, that hell is me. (And that thus, I need to abandon or ‘transcend’ my ego. By the way, what a contrast, quite coincidental of course because the context is different, from Sartre’s ‘Hell is other people.’) Every person born comes with an ego. The alternative to coming to life, with the attendant ego, would be to remain in nothingness forever; the birth and the ego are a win in a cosmic lottery that offers staggeringly low chances. To throw the ego away is therefore an appalling waste.

Why does Eastern philosophy want to jettison it? Because it says the self—what Hinduism calls atman, although equivalences in these matters are seldom complete—stands in the way of realising the true nature of reality. Two points about this. First, it takes it for granted that the ego could not, by being made aware of the danger, in some way hold itself in check and see things straight after all.  

Second and more seriously still, what is that true nature of reality which the ego allegedly clouds? In that worldview, it is that we, along with everything else, are just part of, or emanations from, a mystical supreme entity or unchanging ultimate essence, whose existence it posits (Brahman, in Hinduism; Buddhism doesn’t give it a name but believes in it). There are many nuances to all this but in any case, making a prior assumption of what is the ultimate reality isn’t at all what we understand by searching for reality. So, sacrificing the ego to facilitate this ‘search’ is pointless.

Another reason that Eastern philosophy, Buddhism in particular, asserts that the self is an impossibility is that it is in eternal flux: our ego of a moment ago is gone with the moment itself. (This goes for everything else; nothing then really exists except in the actual now.) This is in a way comparable to Zeno’s paradoxes of motion and to the solipsist’s failure to prove the existence of anything outside his or her own mind.

As I have intimated in an earlier article on persistent philosophical errors, in these matters the shortcomings belong to philosophy, not reality. In actuality, even as the philosophers with such proclivities tie themselves into knots, Achilles does catch up with the tortoise¹. Things outside solipsists’ heads do exist and would do so whether solipsists themselves existed or not. And our self does manage to hold on to itself despite being presented with the notion that it was a different thing a moment ago. (Let’s face it, worse things have happened to our sense of self. We thought our organism was singular, and it turns out that we are symbionts with bugs, countless bugs, inside us. Yet here our ego still is. The question of whether the minute creatures have their own little egos remains open. But if they do, they should prize them.)

Next comes the decisive matter of rational, careful, step-by-step thought. The Oriental religio-philosophical persuasion—again, loosely defined—actively works to undercut or at least bypass it. Instead, it puts its faith in a direct apprehension of reality.    

Rational thought is one of our greatest properties as individuals and as a species. For someone in the Western tradition, it feels silly merely to state something so obvious. The fact that increasing numbers of animals are finally winning the acknowledgement that to varying extents they too can think rationally, and not just instinctively, and that they have degrees of self-awareness that could be likened to an ego, does not in any way diminish the paramount importance of these gifts for us.

It is the West (why not say it more precisely? Greece) that is the birthplace of the espousal of linear, rational thought for pursuing any line of enquiry and even for its own sake—and not mainly to create, justify, and extend religious or quasi-religious systems.

Why does the Eastern tradition distrust rational thinking? Because it feels that the latter’s way of categorising and labelling things destroys their wholeness. It may have a point—as long as this wholeness is understood only as a possible complex and fragile inner connectedness, and not as some mystical attribute. But it goes too far, not least with its underlying assumption that only the wholeness is worth considering, not the inner workings.

Oriental thinking, with Buddhism to the fore in this, also holds that the reality of the world is simply too elusive, too full of complexities for rational thought to stand a chance with it. From this elusiveness and complexity—and this is the crucial point—it reaches the conviction that it’s useless to try; Buddhism calls the attempt to do so trishna, ‘grasping’.

Actually, that something is difficult does not mean that it is necessarily impossible or that it isn’t even worth attempting. Attempts to show the inherent uselessness of ‘grasping’ via analogies, like that of a fist trying to get hold of itself or a net trying to catch water, beg the question of whether those analogies are the appropriate ones. Rational, ordered thought does lead to greater understanding in many cases—and even in cases in which ultimate success is not reached, much may anyway be learned during the attempt. Meanwhile, the difficulty of the attempts is made greater by the defeatist attitude inherent in ideas of trishna and the like.

As usual, what is needed is to find a balance (even if that itself may be difficult). Eastern thinking could be less of a quitter when it discovers that the world makes no effort to be readily understandable. And the Western line of approach could be more welcoming of lateral thinking and a hunch here and there. Reason is indeed limited in several ways (it needs to be tempered with compassion, we aren’t all that good at it anyway, it should sometimes stay out of the bedroom, and so on). And yet our ability to be rational, or at least as rational as we can manage, remains our best resource. Pace Oriental philosophy, no, it isn’t doomed from the start.

A word (all right, a paragraph) about any claims that Oriental thinking is a source of superior ‘spirituality’ or ‘wisdom’. The very idea that people were or are spiritually better off when under the thumb of superstition or religious establishments or essentially escapist philosophies is nonsense. However one may feel about that, the proof is in the results: the claims in question ring hollow in populations provenly just as subject to brutal spasms of violence as those in the West.

One should abandon neither one’s self, nor rational thought, nor the rational world—instead, if able and willing to do anything about them, one should work on improving them.

Related reading

Two cut-the-nonsense thinkers who overcame the philosopher’s curse(s), by Nicholas E. Meyer

Religion and the decline of freethought in South Asia, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The rise and fall of god(s) in Indian politics: Modi’s setback, Indic philosophy, and the freethought paradox, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

1. Corrected 14 September 2024. It originally read ‘hare’ rather than ‘tortoise’. ︎

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Introduction 

Brian Cox was born in Dundee in 1946 and has been a star of stage and screen for decades. His stage roles include Titus Andronicus and King Lear, and his film and TV credits include Sharpe, Manhunter (in which he played the first on-screen Hannibal Lecter), Rob Roy, Braveheart, Troy, X2: X-Men United, Churchill, and Succession. At the time this interview was conducted over Zoom (21 August 2024), Brian was in Glasgow about to start work directing on a new project. He couldn’t tell me much about this, except that it was something he had wanted to do for a very long time.  

Although we were pressed for time and the discussion could have gone on for much longer and in many directions, we covered a lot of ground, including Brian’s views on religion, acting as a form of humanism, the conflict in Gaza, sectarianism in Glasgow, Johnny Depp, Ian McKellen, Irn Bru addiction, and Scottish independence. All of this and more appears in the edited transcript of (and selected audio excerpts from) our conversation below.  

Interview 

Daniel James Sharp: Earlier this year, you caused a bit of a stir by labelling the Bible ‘one of the worst books ever’ and full of ‘propaganda and lies.’ But you also acknowledged the need people have for comfort and consolation. For you, though, theatre is the ‘one true church…the church of humanity.’ Is acting a form of humanism, then? 

Brian Cox: Yes. I don’t believe in churches, but if you need a church, theatre is the church of humanity. Acting is absolutely humanism. It’s based on who people are, what their belief systems are, how they’re plagued by their belief systems, and how they have to reconcile themselves to these belief systems—and when you think about it, in my view, that means reconciling themselves to something which is completely fictitious.  

It’s understandable that people need to believe in something because we live in an age where we’re so confused. What nobody ever talks about is where we are in our own state of evolution, because we’re clearly not fully evolved beings. If we were, we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing again and again. We wouldn’t have a Putin situation. We wouldn’t have a Netanyahu situation. I feel that we have to be evolved. We are evolving, but we are not there yet. We’re a long way off, and we are in danger of destroying ourselves because of our own stupidity. At the root of a lot of our problems is tribalism. Am I Islamic? Am I Jewish? Etcetera.  

The Jews were treated appallingly by Nazi Germany, and they then founded their own state. But now they have all sorts of problems there. There’s a great division among Jewry, including some great friends of mine, about what is happening in Gaza and elsewhere right now. Because of what happened on 7 October last year, a lot of them are very afraid, and we have to understand that. But the genocide that is being committed is inexcusable on any level, and you have to put it down to the extreme right-wing Jewish government—which is not wholly representative of the Jewish people. That’s very important to note. A lot of the Jewish people do not like what’s going on in Gaza. And anti-Semitism is not the answer, of course. Anti-Semitism is what gave rise to fascism and we have to be very careful about that.  

That is just one example of the danger of being beholden to belief systems. They trap us, they don’t liberate us. They may give us comfort, they may give us what they call faith, but at the end of the day, they are not helpful. They are not ultimately helpful to the human spirit, at all.

Just on the point about Israel and Palestine, I think it is also worth keeping in mind that it’s the same with the Palestinians as it is in Israel: Hamas is not necessarily representative of the Palestinians as a whole. 

Exactly, nor are the Yasser Arafats necessarily representative. It’s awful how they are using Gaza for their own ends. When it comes to these situations, I always feel for the children. They live in these conditions created by the mistakes of adults. I just cannot stand what’s happened to the children in Gaza. How many children have been killed? A disproportionate number of children have been killed because of these adults’ mistakes.  

I don’t in any way excuse Hamas at all. I do not excuse people who hide behind law-abiding citizens, innocents, because of their own disharmony with the system. Yes, I understand that Palestine has suffered a lot of persecution—psychological persecution as much as anything else—but I don’t excuse Hamas. I certainly don’t excuse what happened on 7 October, not at all. That was horrendous.  

But what has happened in Palestine as a result is also just appalling. This is where belief systems do not support you. They support your view over that view, but they’re not about harmony.  

I compare it with Glasgow, where I am right now. If you come to Glasgow, it’s quite ecumenical with its Islamic and Catholic populations. It’s quite free. Of course, it has its streaks of racism, and that is always going to be there—that fear that man has about his fellow that he can’t quite understand. But on the whole, Glasgow is doing well. 

I feel that we’re in such a state of setback at the moment. We are failing to understand how we’re evolving. We’re going through such horrific things at the moment, and the thing that stops us from evolving is being stuck in these belief systems.  

Could you explain a little more what you mean by these external belief systems being inimical to the human spirit? What is the human spirit? 

What is the notion of a freethinker? It means a person who thinks freely, without any trammelling of any kind. Their thinking is of a sense of liberation, the liberation of the human spirit (their actions might be a different matter, of course). I’m not a classified ‘freethinker’, but that’s what I would have thought a freethinker is. I rather admire and respect that.  

I’ve been thinking about why I’m talking to a freethinking magazine. I think because there is a problem at the moment with the cancel culture that we live under. There’s not a lot of free thinking going around. … Cancel culture is offensive and damaging to the human spirit. 

I believe in the human spirit. We don’t understand our own mystery. We try to codify it. ‘Say your prayers and it’ll all get better and then you’ll have something at the end of your life.’ But that’s a mystery, and nobody knows anything about that. All we know about is what we’ve got to deal with now, with our two legs, two arms, and two hands, and a head that can, perhaps, function. I feel quite passionate about that. We should give it the respect it deserves and not fall into these systems. 

My sister was a strong Catholic. She cleaned the church. But at the end of the day, when she was dying, I said to her, ‘Where do you think you’re going to end up?’ And she said, ‘It doesn’t really matter, does it?’ That was her conclusion after 90-odd years of life. And that’s the truth. It doesn’t really matter when it comes to those elements which are definable, but it does matter to something else that we don’t even know about. 

I did want to ask a little about your background. You’re from a working-class Scots-Irish Catholic family. And you’re in Glasgow right now, which, historically, was torn apart by sectarianism. 

Oh yes, Glasgow has always been sectarian, because of the Orange Order. The Glorious Twelfth. ‘Our father knew the Rome of old and evil is thy name…And on the Twelfth, I love to wear the sash my father wore.’ [Lines from Protestant anti-Catholic songs, the latter celebrating the ‘Glorious Twelfth’, the victory of the Protestant King William III over the deposed Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.] All in service of William of Orange, and what was he, except a good Proddie? 

The Catholics are good survivors because they’ve been hacked about ad infinitum. But there are also the acts that have been committed under the guise of Catholicism—the [Magdalene Laundries in Ireland], for example, and all those poor, misbegotten women who worked for them—so there is a lot of questioning there and nobody is exempt.  

And my sister, in the end, said that it doesn’t really matter. What does matter? We matter. Not our religion, not our faith, not our belief systems. We matter. Let’s try and understand who we are as a herd animal and as an individual animal. But we don’t even go there. Instead, we come up with all these stories that justify certain things.

And art is a way to understand ourselves. 

Yes. Art is the way I do that. Art is a way of looking at the world, and of looking at everybody in the world. From a dramatic point of view, we are looking at how human beings behave. What screws them up? What are their ambitions? What do they want? Why do they want it? Is it necessary? No, it’s not. Well then, why do they want it? Is it some kind of neurotic force at work or is it something else? That’s what actors do when we work on a role, we’re examining what’s going on. And that’s where all the belief systems can come into it. ‘Oh, I see, he’s Jewish, he’s got that kind of belief. Oh, but he doesn’t like being Jewish. Why does he not like that?’ Do you see what I mean? You’re creating an exploration of the human psyche, which to me is the great gift of acting.  

Who are your favourite actors? 

Spencer Tracy, for me, was the greatest screen actor ever, by far. He was extraordinary. He was very tormented, very Catholic, very guilt-ridden, but a great artist. The ease and the flawlessness and the way he negotiates stuff—tremendous. And he and [Katharine] Hepburn were extraordinary together. So, I think Hepburn is another of my favourite actors. 

Another is Cary Grant, who was a construct of a personality because of his horrific background, and he played all these wonderful, mysterious kinds of characters who just said, ‘I really don’t give a fuck.’ And of course, there’s [Marlon] Brando and Jimmy Dean, even though he didn’t live all that long. 

There are a few actors who grew better over time. Paul Newman got infinitely better as an actor as he got older. As a young man, he was a bit more confused.  

It’s a great craft, acting. And it is a craft. It’s a craft of human sensibility. Where are we coming from? Why are we doing it? What is it? What does it mean? What are we trying to achieve? And the truth is, we don’t know. We don’t know, because we’ve got all this other stuff that we have to deal with, that we’ve got to get through. 

That’s why I was interested in talking to somebody from a freethinking magazine. What is free thinking, and how free can thought really be these days? Or is there some impediment that makes it non-viable to think freely?  

I think it’s difficult to think freely at the best of times, but especially now. There’s so much pressure to conform to certain standards and ideologies.  

That’s right. And that’s why you’ve got to say, ‘Fuck it! I’m going to think freely.’ When the pressure is great, you don’t give up. It reinforces who you are. It looks as if you’re in doubt, but you’re dealing with a shit storm of meteors coming at you, and it’s very important to be able to think freely. I’m grateful because I think I’ve been able to do that for most of my life, and I didn’t even know I was doing it, and I did it because I didn’t have the usual constricts of family and parents and what have you. 

‘Fuck it, think freely!’ should be our new motto. You are well known for speaking your mind about politics, religion, and even fellow actors.  

I’ve got to shut up about fellow actors. I’m a bit naughty about that. It’s a hard game, and I sort of regret saying anything. And even if I did say something, it wasn’t meant as a damning criticism. It’s a question of taste. Not everybody likes everything other people do. I sort of regret calling Johnny Depp ‘so overblown, so overrated’ in my autobiography because he is fine in many ways. There are some things he isn’t fine at but, on the whole, he’s fine. He’s certainly very popular. It’s an imperious thing of me to do, to shoot on about somebody like that, because it’s a tough job.  

The best actors are children, and the greatest actors are the ones who can still be doing it at my age. I’m not saying I’m the greatest, just to be clear, but you know what I mean. I have great respect for people of my generation who are still doing it. 

In your autobiography, you talk about your and Ian McKellen’s different philosophies or styles of acting. I have a lot of admiration for both of you as actors.  

I love Ian, I really do, and I love him even more as he’s got older. He’s just a different style from me and naturally, I’m going to prefer my style, but that’s not about saying I’m any better. I’m not. I just prefer the way I work to the way he works.  

But he is a very special man in so many ways. He’s been a great champion, especially in the homosexual rights movement, standing up to Clause 28 and everything. He’s done phenomenal things in that way, so I have total respect for him. 

He’s a very sound man, in terms of his politics. I’ll still argue about the acting a wee bit. But as a man, I love him. We’ve known each other for a long time. We were neighbours recently. When I was doing the play Long Day’s Journey Into Night, he was next door doing Falstaff, where he sadly fell off the stage. I think that was a big shock for him.  

I was impressed that he was back on stage so quickly after that fall.  

Well, they gave that out, but he didn’t go back to do the job because it was too dangerous. The production should have taken into account the danger of being that far out on the stage. The upside of the accident is that it woke something in Ian. A shock like that is bound to wake something in you. He’s considerable, he’s absolutely considerable. He’s continued on his path and you can’t help but respect him.  

That’s the nice thing about getting older. You’re not beating tambourines anymore. You’re actually looking at people and saying, ‘Oh, well, I disagree. But my God! I respect that person.’  

It’s also great for viewers and audiences to have these different styles of acting. 

Of course. 

What do you make of the critique that actors should refrain from intervening in politics and the like—that they should stay in their lane? 

I think that’s a nonsense. Actors more than anything have an acute sensitivity to politics. If you’ve been in the game, you know that you can’t depend on it. It’s very fleeting.  

It took me a long time to come around to speaking up about things like Scottish independence, which I’m very interested in. I have never liked the name ‘Scottish National Party’, but I love the notion of the independent nature of Scotland.  

But I think that what we really require in these islands is federalism. We need each country to be self-standing on its own. These islands are a community. You can’t just say, ‘Oh, there’s Scotland, forget about the rest.’ 

Actors have a sense of that, of how they belong, and they also have a sense of not belonging. When you don’t belong in any one place, you get a broad view of what things are.  

Oh, you’re drinking Irn Bru!  

[Cue Irn Bru interlude. See audio excerpt.] 

I think that actors are very right to talk about stuff. We also have to talk about politics as it relates to our work. I think some of the practices that are happening to young actors now are despicable. Things like self-taping, where they’ve got to be their own technician and so on. They do these tapes and nobody even responds to them at the end of it. I find that appalling, so I will speak up about that, and I wish some of my fellow actors of my generation would also speak up about it. It’s our responsibility as the old regime of actors to say that what is happening to our young actors is not right. It’s not right that they lose the intimacy of a casting director.  

Some casting directors don’t work that way, of course. There’s a great casting director in Scotland, Orla O’Connor, who doesn’t do that. She believes in the relationship between people. But there’s a lot who do work like that. They used the excuse of Covid, and now they use the excuse of there being too many actors, and I say, that doesn’t matter. Common respect costs nothing.  

Do you think practices like self-taping will affect the quality of acting in future? 

I don’t think so. Actors are survivors, and you’ll get the talent no matter what. It’s just the battering that you get. It’s very wearing after a while, when you’re constantly not getting any response for what you’re doing. Young actors need some kind of response, even if they’re told they’re bad. And usually, they’re not bad, they just don’t fit into a particular project. But you’ve got to tell them, ‘Sorry, you’re not right for this project, and I’ll explain to you why you’re not right for it.’ 

Going back to politics, by advocating federalism, have you moved away from Scottish independence?  

No, not at all. I think federalism is the development of independence. We need to have a vision of how we live within these islands. We’re still a community, we’re still an island, like it or not. The border is a piece of land that’s flexible either way. At one point lots of people in the north of England were keen to be part of Scottish independence.  

I’m still pro-independence. I just think we’ve got to have a broader view of it, and federalism does that. We’re still very class-conscious in this country. I want to move away from that, to have a vision of what we want our country to be.  

We have to think about what an independent spirit means. To me, it means shaking off what we’ve suffered and endured for centuries. And we did it to ourselves, the Scots: we sold our Parliament out from under our feet in 1707 and became part of the United Kingdom. But that made us second-class in a way. For example, why did Prince William only go to see England at the Euros? That’s not very ‘United Kingdom’, is it? I think there’s still that attitude of, ‘Oh, the Scots are so tiresome.’  

When I was young, I couldn’t give a fuck about any of this. Now that I’m getting older, though, I think, ‘Hang on a second.’ In the project that I’m working on right now, my job is to honour the unity and the talent I see. People are delivering amazing work. And I want people to see that this is what Scotland can do. We can create stuff at a very high artistic level. But we don’t get that right now, we get reduced constantly. Our own culture is much older and more consistent than any other culture in these islands, because of the Celts that we all are.  

When I was younger, I was too ambitious. I didn’t care about any of this stuff. I just cared about me, but after a while, you get sick of that. And now, coming up to Scotland again, I see a kind of depression. It’s very difficult to describe but it’s there and it’s to do with permanently being defeated. We don’t need that. We can live through our defeat and learn from it. It shouldn’t make us depressed. It should do the opposite. It should free us more. It should make us think, ‘On, on.’ That’s how we’ve survived for centuries. We haven’t been browbeaten by it. It should make us think that maybe we could actually decide things for ourselves. That’s all I’m asking.  

Keir Starmer is absolutely against the breakup of the Union. It’ll never happen under a Labour government. He’s a stupid man—no, that’s not right, I’ll withdraw that. He’s very intelligent, but he’s very unspontaneous as a man. He’s limited in that sense. He doesn’t understand people’s feelings in Scotland and how necessary it is to nourish them, to make them blossom, to make them bloom.  

We’ve become so thwarted so much of the time, and that makes me sad because it is unnecessary. That’s why I believe in a United Federation, because I do think one of the things we are good at in Scotland is being very kind and considerate to others. All of those riots in England [in August], that would never happen in Scotland. We don’t do that. That’s not who we are. We are inclusive of our brothers and sisters who are Sikh and Islamic and so on. Of course, there will always be the headbangers. There will always be those who are afraid, who are intrinsically racist. You can’t avoid that. That’s something underdeveloped in the human spirit again. But on the whole, we’re really rather good at being inclusive in Scotland.  

For example, there was a meeting in Glasgow recently and what happened was quite stunning. About 30 right-wing people turned up. And against them you had the Indian, Irish Catholic, Scottish Presbyterian, and other communities all coming together. I think that is Scotland’s great gift. We’re good hosts. And that generosity of spirit is what I think could make us the nation that we should become.  

We’re out of time but thank you very much for talking to me. And good luck with your new project. 

My pleasure, it’s been nice to talk to you. Thank you very much. Take care. 

Related reading

‘Nature is super enough, thank you very much!’: interview with Frank Turner, by Daniel James Sharp

Israel’s war on Gaza is a war on the Palestinian people, by Zwan Mahmod

Is the Israel-Palestine conflict fundamentally a nationalist, not a religious, war? by Ralph Leonard

Religion and the Arab-Israeli conflict, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Bloodshed in Gaza: Islamists, leftist ideologues, and the prospects of a two-state solution, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Young, radical and morally confused, by Gerfried Ambrosch

Britain’s liberal imam: Interview with Taj Hargey, by Emma Park

Can Religion Save Humanity? Part One, by Brian Victoria

Can Religion Save Humanity? Part Two: Killing Commies for Christ, by Brian Victoria

The far right and ex-Muslims: ‘The enemy of my enemy is not my friend’, by Sara Al-Ruqaishi

Reflections on the far right riots: a predictable wave of violence, by Khadija Khan

Free speech and the ‘Farage riots’, by Noel Yaxley

The post ‘F*** it, think freely!’ Interview with Brian Cox appeared first on The Freethinker.

I put the incident behind me, but only four days later at an all-boys grammar school, the same thing happened—except social media stardom was replaced with professional gaming and esports. In the space of five days, I had sat with some of the brightest young minds in STEM from my town, yet their ambitions lay elsewhere.

I shared the stories with my wife, wondering how this could happen. The incidents jarred me tremendously, sapping much of my energy and causing me to consider stepping away from education.

It is a fact that we do not produce enough scientists or engineers in the UK. We also have an NHS shortage, relying on overseas recruitment of doctors and nurses. Compared to China and India, we do not prioritise or glorify STEM as a noble career—or at least not in the same way. If anything we glorify the opposite, sending a message of ‘be who you are’ rather than ‘imagine what you could be’. We celebrate the individual in such a way that no one can tell anyone that they are wrong, that their dreams are too small, or that it is their responsibility to contribute meaningfully to society.

There is far too much that can be said on this issue than space affords me. We have serious issues of science scepticism, mistrust of expertise, conspiracy theorising, echo-chamber thinking, ideological capture, and religious fundamentalism. All contribute immensely to an unprecedented level of anti-science bias that I see in students, reflecting society as a whole.

But how can we stop the next generation of engineers and scientists from quitting young? Briefly, let me discuss what can be done in five areas of concern.

We must generate more excitement about research

When addressing grammar school students on behalf of the Mars Society or the Genetics Society, I typically find that most of them are passively moving towards medicine. This is to be applauded to an extent, and we certainly need more doctors. However, these students attend my talks because they are excited about science in general; they have taken a path towards medicine seemingly by default. We must generate passion for research in young minds.

Research needs to be emphasised as an exciting career path. Living on the frontiers of discovery is a wonderful place to be, although not glamorous and sometimes mundane. Collaborating with others around the globe to answer problems, probe the unknown, and push the boundaries of knowledge is a wonderful way to live your life. Problem-solving and critical thinking need to make a strong comeback in schools where students can now ask ChatGPT to do their homework and Google the answer to everything.

Science bodies need to recruit under-18s

I am amazed at how many of the science societies, including those I belong to, act as if life begins at university. Recruitment to bodies is made at university fairs, and for all of them, one can only become a member at 18. We must start recruiting under-18s as opposed to just university students.

When I ask science bodies why recruitment starts at 18 the response is usually blank, as they have never been asked the question before. What if we allowed students to join at 16 instead? It could revolutionise the pursuit of STEM careers for students if they could join science and engineering societies before they apply to university.

It could also guide young people into careers in niche sciences rather than relying on chance. For example, many biology students will have little exposure to genetics as a career option in high school, so genetics bodies must hope that students accidentally stumble onto their discipline and decide for themselves on a future there. This is not a winning strategy.

Generate more inspiration

Many schools would love to do more to engage and inspire in STEM, but the staff have neither the time nor the budget to do more. Inspirational programmes have the most potential to radically change a child’s future.

The finest example of such programmes is the International Space School Education Trust’s Mission Discovery programme, which sees 13-18-year-olds work in teams alongside astronauts, professors, researchers, and NASA personnel for five days to design an experiment that fits strict parameters. The winning team has their experiment flown to space by SpaceX to be performed on the International Space Station by astronauts in their research rotation. Everything about the programme is life-changing for the student.

I run a program in my town called ‘Frontiers’, which simply brings inspirational researchers to the schools of Aylesbury to speak to students in the hopes of exposing them to the possibility of a STEM future full of excitement and discovery.

If we can pump our schools full of STEM inspiration, then we could see a huge uptick in those who dream of shaping the future of science and technology. Ultimately, young people rely heavily on inspiration for their future. They need their imagination to be captured, as most (especially the boys) are not proactive in thinking about their futures unless prompted. I meet very few dreamers (although I meet more and more idealogues), but the ones you do meet you never forget. When it comes to a brighter STEM future, we shall only reap what we sow.

Combat useless, ideological courses

One outstanding student I met two years ago was on track to study medicine at university off the back of incredible STEM A-level results. She came to a Mars Society event and I asked her about her plans. ‘I’m planning on studying medicine, hopefully at Oxford or Cambridge…’ she started, before shyly adding, ‘but I’m thinking about doing gender studies too.’ This caught me off guard, and I asked her to strongly consider picking medicine.

Sitting with a foot in both the sciences and the humanities, the differences are starkest at academic conferences. I try to be fair and objective, but while sitting through humanities lectures, I often find myself quietly asking, ‘How does this contribute to knowledge?’

It is more than fair to advise young people to avoid a gender studies degree. Two of the top jobs that graduates go into are schoolteacher and HR professional. These jobs are open to students from any other degree. The practical applications of STEM degrees stretch far beyond their discipline, and graduates are highly sought after across the vocational landscape.

Furthermore, many humanities courses are now ideologically laden and far from objective. Someone can earn a PhD in STEM or off the back of an ideological reflection on Shakespeare, and both will end up with the title ‘Doctor’ before their names. One researcher commented to me in June that she felt this cheapened her PhD and left her feeling despondent. We must sell truth to our students, and push them to push themselves, for everyone’s sake.

Show young students an exciting future rather than a depressing one

Recruiting STEM students and avoiding the drift away from these essential disciplines will require building excitement for the new world, rather than anxiety about the current one.

Space entrepreneur and activist Rick Tumlinson has condemned the message so often pushed on young people these days that all they have is a mission to save a planet we have screwed up. Instead, they should be inspired to build an exciting, spacefaring future. I agree. We have sold our students short by not providing an adventurous, inspiring vision. Instead, we present a depressing one.

Young people must hear the rallying call to a glorious future of green, renewable energy, space-age technology, and interplanetary travel. They need to hear about the potential of genomics and genetic engineering for maximising nature’s gifts and the possibilities of personalised medicine. There has never been a better chance than right now for humanity to realise a future brighter than any that has come before—and yet so often our young people are distracted by the flash and dazzle of social media and made anxious by dystopian visions.

We can retain our brightest minds in STEM and inspire a host of students who may never have conceived of themselves having a future in STEM fields by presenting young people with a better vision than what they are currently being sold. When we do this, perhaps we will also lose fewer minds to fundamentalism, conspiracy theorising, political nonsense, and fruitless ideologies.

Related reading

80 years on from Schrödinger’s ‘What Is Life?’, philosophy of biology needs rescuing from radicals, by Samuel McKee

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It’s not uncommon to hear religious people refer to faith as a source of comfort. In fact, there are numerous studies in the fields of cognitive neuroscience and behavioural psychology which have evidenced how individuals are capable of biasing their reasoning enough to accept a religious concept if they believe it will adequately alleviate their negative emotional state.

I, on the other hand, cannot see the utility in false consolation and find the notion of embracing a supernatural belief system simply for its well-being or anxiety management benefits to be regressive and infantilising. Comfort is unreliable if it cannot be justified epistemically.

Instead, when you don’t have to allocate any mental storage space to or worry about a celestial dictator or imaginary friend in the sky repressing and micromanaging your every move—well, it frees up a lot of time to get to grips with the true nature of one’s existence through a scientific lens.

The story of human existence is not just a tale of biological evolution but a series of fortuitous events—from the cosmic lottery that determined the parameters of the universe to the dice rolls of DNA that define our unique identities. In simple terms, life has been evolving on Earth for close to four billion years. During the first two billion years, there were single-celled entities called prokaryotes. Thanks to a chance collision of a bacterium and an archaean, the eukaryotic cell was born.

Eukaryotes were the key ingredient in making possible multicellular life forms of all varieties. In fact, every living thing big enough to be visible to the naked eye is a direct descendant of the original eukaryotic cell.

It is truly fascinating how evolution is typically an interwoven fabric of coevolutionary loops and twists: our origin story is essentially processes composed of processes.

What’s more, the odds of you being born were so staggeringly low—every single one of your ancestors had to survive countless challenges, reach reproductive age, and find the particular mate to give rise to the next generation of your particular ancestors, while every tiny detail had to align perfectly out of 70 trillion possible combinations of complex genetic variations.

The chances of the exact sperm cell and egg cell meeting to create you with the DNA sequence that encoded you and brought you into existence? Around one in 250 million. Mutations and meiosis crossovers in the DNA of each of your ancestors also had to occur. That needed to happen each time in an unbroken string for millions of generations of your ancestors, going back to well before they were human beings or even hominids of any type.

As Dr A.E. Wilder-Smith notes: ‘When one considers that the entire chemical information needed to construct a human can be compressed into two miniscule reproductive cells (sperm and egg nuclei), one can only be astounded.’ That Wilder-Smith was a young earth creationist does not detract from the genuine wonder of our existence that he so concisely captures.

Other unlikely events necessary for our existence: multicellular life forms had to come into being on Earth, the formation of the stars and galaxies in the Milky Way had to create the environment in which Earth formed, Earth needed to form as a habitable planet with the right ingredients for life, the laws of physics needed to be such that they created the serendipitous density conditions to permit life, and the universe itself had to have come to exist 13.8 billion years ago in a hot, dense Big Bang that made all this possible.

How could one not be grateful? How could one not live in an eternal state of astonishment and bewilderment at one’s very own existence and consciousness?

In addition, the Buddhist concept of ‘interbeing’ demonstrates how we must see ourselves not as isolated, static individuals, but as permeable and interwoven selves within larger selves, including the species self (humanity) and the biospheric self (all life).

For instance, you are not one life form. Your mouth alone contains more than seven hundred distinct kinds of bacteria. Your skin and eyelashes are equally laden with microbes, and your gut houses a similar bevvy of bacterial sidekicks. All in all, the human body possesses trillions of bacterial cells in addition to trillions of human cells: your body is home to many more life forms than the number of people presently living on Earth; more even than the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

Energised by sunlight, life converts inanimate rock into nutrients, which then pass through plants, herbivores, and carnivores before being decomposed and retired to the inanimate earth, beginning the cycle anew. Our internal metabolisms are intimately interwoven with this earthly metabolism; one result is that many of the atoms in our bodies are replaced several times during our lives.

Owing to all this, each of us is a walking colony of trillions of largely symbiotic life forms—we are akin to a brief, ever-shifting concentration of energy in a vast ancient river that has been flowing for billions of years.

There is truly so much solace to be found in knowing and understanding the evolutionary processes behind our existence, as well as the interbeing theory, which proves that we are not outside or above nature—but fully enmeshed within it. 

I carry these scientific ideas with me through every moment of every day because they foster an overwhelming sense of gratitude within me. The improbability of any one of us being here is so astronomical that it staggers imagination. Above all else, it invites us to explore the laws of nature and the essence of what it means to be alive. From simple organic molecules to the first replicating cells, the sheer wonder of our existence ought to create a rich appreciation and sense of gratitude for the tapestry of life.

The post From stardust to sentience: How scientific literacy can improve your ability to foster gratitude appeared first on The Freethinker.

After three years, every print issue of the Freethinker published between 1881 and 2014 is now available to read, free of charge, in our digital archive. So it seems justified to do a little navel-gazing: our image of the week is the very first page of the very first issue of the Freethinker from 1 May 1881. You can read a stirring introduction to the archive from Bob Forder here and the archive itself can be found here. Enjoy!

The post Image of the week: the first issue of the ‘Freethinker’—to mark the opening of our digital archive appeared first on The Freethinker.

For the past three years, GW Foote & Co. Ltd have been working on a project to digitise the complete run of print versions of the Freethinker from 1881 to 2014. This project has now been completed and everyone can access this extraordinary back catalogue free of charge here.

In the first instalment of this series, I explained my own interest in freethought literature and my continuing career as a part-time bookseller for over 40 years. I have had the privilege of handling thousands of freethought books, pamphlets, journals, and other ephemera. However, the occasions when I have come across past issues of the Freethinker have been remarkably few. I have handled early bound volumes just twice and even later examples are rare, with dealers often demanding prices best described as speculative. I have asked myself why this is and guess that the attitude to newspapers is generally that you read them and then throw them away.

What is more, the printed Freethinker was always published in a relatively large format—the first copies were foolscap size (approximately 34 x 20 cm). This lasted for many years and made them difficult to store. The copies I have come across have almost always been bound volumes sold at the end of the calendar year. There were two types of these, one leather bound and one bound in sturdy green cloth. The former did not age well, with the leather cracking and the boards detaching, but the latter stood the test of time. I am delighted to say that one of the two sets I have handled still adorns my bookshelves and continues to provide me with hours of instruction, distraction, and entertainment.

If you agree that the Freethinker has been the dominant voice of British secularism and freethought for 143 years, and that secularism and freethought are central to a free and democratic society, then the Freethinker is precious, and it is troubling that up to now the archive has been so difficult to access. For most, it has meant an arduous physical visit to a copyright library. This is why the conclusion of the GW Foote & Co. digitisation project is cause for cheers and celebration.

As a tentative pointer to what readers might enjoy about the archive, I offer the following comments on the Freethinker’s history and an indication of what I have discovered over the years in my own printed collection.

In a previous article, I wrote of George Willam Foote’s (1850-1915) early life, his founding of the Freethinker in 1881, and his year-long imprisonment for blasphemy. An additional matter that deserves recognition is that Foote’s actions involved a large element of self-sacrifice. He was a cultivated, bookish man, a librarian with refined literary tastes who wrote beautifully. For him, the abrasive, satirical, and outrageous style of the new journal was initially alien. However, he was so incensed by the treatment of the President of the National Secular Society (NSS), Charles Bradlaugh, and the deprivation of Bradlaugh’s right to sit as an MP for Northampton, that he determined to take the fight to the ‘bigots’.

He was also influenced by the established tone of freethought publications, epitomised by George Jacob Holyoake’s (1817-1906) writings which were thoughtful, worthy, totally lacking in humour, and, for many, rather boring. Foote reasoned that humour was a devastating weapon when employed against pompous authority figures in the established church and against religion in general. He reasoned that nobody takes seriously an individual or idea that has been laughed at and he also noted the satirical power of cartoons, which he was to employ with great effect and which led to his conviction for blasphemy. Some things never change; cartoons have not lost their power to provoke in the modern world.

Foote’s years as editor were not only characterised by his pungent attacks on the religious and religion. After his accession to the NSS Presidency in 1890, the Freethinker emerged as the NSS’s ‘in-house’ journal, acting as a type of noticeboard providing details of lectures, meetings, and publications. I particularly enjoy Joseph Mazzini Wheeler’s tightly written historical and biographical articles. Here was a man who grasped the significance of the intellectual and historical traditions of freethought. It is a great pity that his poor health and early death scuppered his plans to write a history of those traditions.

By the beginning of the First World War, Foote was ailing. Although he nominally remained editor, he had relocated to Westcliff-on-Sea for the sea air and occasionally commuted into London. Much of the actual editorial work and writing was being carried on by his sub-editor and loyal deputy, Chapman Cohen (1868-1954). Cohen formally took over the editor’s position and became President of the NSS when Foote died in 1915. He was known to a generation as CC, remaining editor until 1951. The Freethinker had had just two editors in its first 70 years. 

Like Foote, Cohen came to dominate the journal and make it his own, but there were differences in approach, substance, and style.  By the time of Cohen’s accession, the days when freethought was associated with radical political campaigns and working-class activism were long past. CC had little or no contact with politicians and always resisted political interventions in his many public meetings. His writings were characterised by a relatively sober critique of the illogicality, contradictions, and self-serving nature of religion and the religious. His arguments were rooted in philosophy, natural and social science, and literature. Foote’s biting satire was no more, and the cartoons long forgotten.

To my mind, Cohen’s greatest attribute was his ability to make the logical case for freethought in terms accessible to general readers. He never talked down, he just wrote logically and clearly in elegant, plain English that all could understand. Forty years ago, when I started book dealing, there were a few older customers who knew him. More than once I heard him described as ‘my greatest teacher’. To this, I would add that there was not a freethinking argument advanced by Bertrand Russell that CC had not made before. This is not to belittle Russell; rather, it is to recognise Cohen. For those who want to understand the case for atheism and the dangers of religion, just go to the Cohen years in the archive.

Before moving on, I must recognise CC’s sheer hard work. Each week through the 1920s and 30s he edited 12 or 16 foolscap pages, some of which he wrote. He corresponded with readers, provided the NSS with leadership, and spent his weekends speaking publicly. In the summer, that meant ‘outdoors’, in parks and public spaces. From September to April, he was ‘indoors’, travelling the country giving lectures (sometimes three in a single weekend). For example, during the 1919-1920 indoor season he spoke at no less than 34 venues on more than 50 occasions. This was a pattern and level of activity that he maintained throughout the interwar years.

One contributor whose writings will be enjoyed by those with an interest in freethought and radical history is Herbert Cutner (1881-1969), although he did not restrict himself to historical subjects. He began his contributions in 1920 and by 1959 had had his 1,000^th article published.

Since Cohen’s resignation the turnover of editors has been more rapid, at times too rapid, although an important exception was Barry Duke’s 24-year tenure beginning in 1998. One editor who had a particular impact on me was Bill McIlroy (1928-2013), who served three separate terms totalling more than 14 years. As well as commissioning some important historical essays, and networking with individuals such as politicians Tony Benn and Michael Foot and academics Edward Royle and David Berman, Bill had a talent for punchy, witty headlines. Here are some examples to whet the appetite. ‘Pious Indoctrinators Tighten Grip on Classroom Captives’ (July 1988); ‘Embryology Bill: “Pro-Life” Dirty Tricks Campaign Aborted’ (May 1990); ‘Patten Links Crime Rate with Decline in Fear of Fire and Brimstone’ (May 1992).

Another relatively recent contributor who should be mentioned is Jim Herrick (1943-2023), a stalwart of the freethought and secularist movement in general, editor of the Freethinker from 1977 to 1981, and contributor on a diverse range of subjects over many years. I have particularly enjoyed Jim’s theatre reviews and historical articles. An invaluable contribution is his centenary history of the journal, Vision and Realism: A Hundred Years of the Freethinker, published in 1982.

So, the Freethinker lives on as a contemporary digital magazine rooted in its historical archive. Not everything published in its pages over the past 143 years has been impressive, although much of it is. But for me, it is a kind of intellectual treasure trove hidden away for too long and unavailable to even its most fervent supporters. There is nothing quite like it, with its alternative and critical take on religious belief, contemporary events, and social developments. It is also a testament to those who have gone before and who have on occasion sacrificed their own interests rather than surrender their intellectual freedom. The digital archive will be invaluable in keeping this intellectual tradition, once termed ‘the best of causes’, alive for a long time to come.

Editor: The Freethinker digital archive is a great achievement, the work of many hands. Though it, like the Freethinker today, is free to read, many resources were put into it and donations from readers are much appreciated. Anyone who donates over £500 will not only have our immense gratitude but will be publicly recognised, with their name proudly displayed in the archive itself (if they so desire). For technical reasons, please get in touch with us if you wish to donate £500 or more rather than using our usual donation form. Meanwhile, enjoy the archive.

The post Books from Bob’s Library #4: The ‘Freethinker’—over a century of issues now available as a digital archive appeared first on The Freethinker.

However, shortly after this blooming, we find Richard Feynman expressing his contempt for philosophy of science as a discipline that had become dominated by non-scientists, a dismissal that rings even truer today.

What Is Life? is a fine example of philosophy meeting biology and producing quality interdisciplinary work. The molecular biology revolution was a practical outworking of the philosophical appetite of the time, well expressed by Schrödinger. Unless one credits Aristotle et al, philosophy of science as an academic discipline is little more than a century old. It aims to critically analyse and reflect on what science is, how it works, and the questions it asks. It puts another eye on the game, distinct from its partners, history of science and sociology of science. (I admit that I care little for sociology of science, which treats science more as a human activity than as a way of discovering actual reality ‘out there’ in nature.)

This brings me to Feynman’s distaste for the discipline. By the time he won his Nobel in 1965, it would be fair to say that philosophy of science was no longer the same field as it had been: now, it was full of musings from those in the humanities. ‘How dare these outsiders tell us what is really going on?’ was the attitude of those in Feynman’s camp. How can those who have not done any science critique what is being done by scientists, analyse what is wrong with it, and discuss its true value? It all added up to a waste of time and money for Feynman.

Fast forward to our modern challenges. Recently, I was shocked to read that the controversial postmodern ideologue Judith Butler is considered a philosopher of biology. Butler’s writings on gender, for those unfamiliar with them, have been fairly criticised for so severely underplaying the biological component of gender that you would be forgiven for thinking that biology plays no part in our development. She was also the winner of the 1998 ‘Bad Writing Contest’, hosted by the journal Philosophy and Literature, for an incomprehensible sentence in one of her articles.¹

But the characterization of Butler as a philosopher of biology is not (entirely) wrong. If an informed layperson were asked to name one modern philosopher of biology, they might well name Butler. But she is as far removed as someone in academia could be from the sciences. Her education is in literature, feminism, and philosophy, and she owes more to Hegel than to Schrödinger. Someone who believes that sex is assigned at birth rather than observed by a doctor has no business in philosophy of biology. (Other feminists who might be considered philosophers of biology, like the excellent Kathleen Stock, are much more worth listening to.)

There is a straight line to be drawn from Butler’s work to those in the humanities who now claim that biological sex itself does not exist—as anti-scientific a statement as one will ever hear. Eighty years on from What Is Life?, Feynman’s contempt is even more justified. Now, so-called experts from the humanities dominate philosophy of science and are boosting the cause of science denialism more than anyone else even as they claim to be working against it.

It is time to return philosophy of science to those who respect both philosophy of science and science itself. To be clear, there are a great many philosophers of science today who are intimately acquainted with the realities of science and who are doing first-class work in legitimate journals. They treat the discipline with the original, historical respect that it deserves. Their work would not be out of place amongst the reflections written by the giants of the field’s golden era. In other words, there is a universe of difference between Judith Butler and someone like Michael Ruse. As a whole, though, the field is in dire straits.

Let me share a personal anecdote to illustrate what is missing in philosophy of biology. Three years ago, during an interview for a PhD position at a major British university, my surprised potential supervisor halted the interview about thirty seconds in. ‘Hold on, it says here that you have an actual science degree?’ I could not hide my own surprise and affirmed that that was correct. She then put down her papers and remarked, ‘Well, that is a tremendous advantage for you. Do you have ambitions of working in academia?’ I told her that that was very much my dream, but I failed to hide the surprise still written across my face. The interview shifted and I became the one asking questions: Did most professional philosophers of science not have a science background? Apparently not—and it seemed that if I wanted to get ahead, I was in possession of a serious advantage.

One does not have to be a scientist to be a historian or philosopher of science, but today as much as ever, scientists are needed to contribute to philosophy of science. Otherwise, those who have no business speaking in the name of science are gifted large platforms to mislead a general public that might not know any better. This is also why skilled science communicators are so desperately needed.

When one looks at the great names who gave the twentieth-century Gifford Lectures or the Eddington Memorial Lectures, one sees an extraordinary array. There are prize winners and legends from some of science’s golden eras. They each speak philosophically about the questions or meanings of their work or reflect on what the future may hold. This tradition survives today, among the likes of Lord Martin Rees and Sir Roger Penrose, but it is attenuated. Rees and Penrose certainly deserve a greater platform than Butler et al.

Perhaps the problem is one of space as much as communication skills. The platforms for great philosophers of science, or scientist philosophers, are not proportionate to their contributions. Education is also lacking, as undergraduate philosophy programs hardly ever feature philosophy of science in their curricula. Unfortunately, I have also sat through many philosophy lectures that are anti-scientific, pseudoscientific, or just plain mistaken. In continental philosophy and postmodern departments, science is very much the enemy: it is an oppressive force invented by white Western men to establish the patriarchy and is unable to make any claims to truth or reality. This is a very serious problem at a time when science needs to be understood more than ever.

The solution may well be to give scientists a larger platform in society. Post-pandemic, distrust in science (and expertise in general) has increased, even as science—from developments in artificial intelligence to revolutions in cancer research—has become more important than ever for our present and future. Each Sunday morning as I drive through Beaconsfield’s old town on the outskirts of London, I see protestors clad in white inviting us to toot our car horns if we agree with them on the latest conspiratorial, anti-science propaganda they are spouting. At first it was amusing, but now it simply depresses me.

In the space of eighty years, and to an alarming extent, philosophy of science has degenerated. Once, it inspired revolutionary breakthroughs. Now, it is dominated by thinkers who have not seen a laboratory or an observatory since high school and who use their platforms to disseminate nonsense. They have helped to usher in a conspiratorial atmosphere laced with distrust of and cynicism about the sciences. To combat them, we need to recover our sense about science.

1. Take a deep breath:
   
   ‘The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.’ ︎

Related reading

On sex, gender and their consequences: interview with Louise Antony, by Emma Park

‘We are at a threshold right now’: Lawrence Krauss on science, atheism, religion, and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in science, by Daniel James Sharp

Consciousness, free will and meaning in a Darwinian universe: interview with Daniel C. Dennett, by Daniel James Sharp

‘When the chips are down, the philosophers turn out to have been bluffing’, interview with Alex Byrne by Emma Park

‘A godless neo-religion’ – interview with Helen Joyce on the trans debate, by Emma Park

‘An animal is a description of ancient worlds’: interview with Richard Dawkins, by Emma Park

The falsehood at the heart of the trans movement, by Eliza Mondegreen

South Asia’s silenced feminists, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Linnaeus, Buffon, and the battle for biology, by Charles Foster

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