Why don't we just bring back the Crusades, auto-da-fés, and the Spanish Inquisition while we're at it?

In a post-fact, post-nuance, post-complex world, where only opinions and blind allegiance seem to matter, why don't we just go all in on faith-based views of the world and bring back the Inquisition?

In a persistent theme, I have ranted here on Howlin’ about the corrosive effects of tribalism on human civilization ad infinitum, ad nauseum. I’m not even close to being the only member of the commentariat who views this as the actual “existential threat” to our existence. Yet tribalism is on full display everywhere around the world right now, though not necessarily along traditional lines. Modern tribalism drives nearly everything. Including me, nuts.

Perhaps the worst part of the otherwise gratifying implosion of traditional media over the past four years is that hardly anyone immediately believes them about anything anymore-including the few things that they occasionally get right. Even NPR understands the role that tribalism plays in politics (even if they are confused about attribution). This is unfortunate because the worst aspects of tribalism—the promotion of faith over reason, the get-out-of-jail-free card for egregious offenses against children of lesser gods, and the disregard for the complexity of human affairs—could now be productively addressed by the media if they hadn’t so thoroughly disgraced themselves over the past decade. Even the average twenty-something reporter for The New York Times should be able to comprehend tribalism and why it’s less than great.

During coffee klatch this very morning, the destructive nature of modern tribalism was the issue du jour at our table. Specifically how 21st-century tribalism has emboldened powerless political minorities wandering in the wilderness, like progressives in the era of Trump, to double down on the lunacy that got them exiled in the first place. Now, being a lost soul wandering the face of the earth is something I happen to understand more than I wish that I did. Try being a political conservative in 21st-century America who doesn’t believe in religion. People stand in line, I assure you, to bask in the radiance of my mere presence. Riches and fame are surely just a few more Substack pieces away.

But, as it turns out, I know exactly one other person in my neck of the woods who shares my perspective on this, and this morning, while we were talking about how the left now thinks that it’s OK to burn Teslas, he exclaimed, “Because they are made by a heretic!”

Before I dig a deeper hole for myself with many of you, my standard disclaimer. I am, as I have written here many times before, irreligious. But I’m agnostic when it comes to the practice of religion by others. Some people, in my view, benefit from faith. I wish that they could learn to benefit from adopting a rational and forgiving view of humanity and of appreciating all that we have in a world that can be wonderful, but that’s on me. If you are one of those folks who find succor in faith, go forth, do as much good as you can, and above all, be happy. Just try to leave everyone else out of it.

As I have written here before, there are three great tribes in contemporary America: the left, the right, and the evangelicals. There are more, to be sure, but those are the big three. The things that unite the folks in these tribes are belonging, exclusion, and ready-made excuses for not having to think about things that are difficult or uncomfortable. Being in a tribe means never having to say you’re sorry.

Modern-day progressivism essentially functions as a full-fledged religion. All the characteristics of inviolable religious dogma are present in it, such as sacrosanct ideals and ideas, deliberate ignorance of facts or evidence that contradicts the faith (like communism doesn’t work), denigration of critics as apostates and Pharisees, and extreme intolerance towards other ideas, even to the point of crimes and violence (just ask Tesla owners). The only things missing right now are auto-da-fés and the Inquisition. Had Trump not been elected last year, anyone right of Liz Cheney might right now be getting the opportunity to atone for their lack of proper devotion like Derek Chauvin. The manner in which the left has managed to marry McCarthyism with the Crusades to promote postmodern communism is, from a purely tactical perspective, a matter of some wonder.

Modern-day conservatism in this country is two things: not really conservative and just as concerned with ignoring freedom and liberty by rooting out and punishing heretics as progressivism. Modern-day conservatism, quite a misnomer, actually, is more rooted in populism and cults of personality than in conservative principles like limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, free markets, etc. People like me felt comfortable among traditional conservatives who knew how to agree to disagree, when necessary, yet be able to work productively on the 80% of remaining issues that united us and still be friends.

To wit, right now, here in Idaho, a bill to require the prominent display of the Ten Commandments in all Idaho public schools has been introduced in this year’s legislative session. House Bill 238 would require public schools and universities to conspicuously display a poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments that is at least 16 inches wide by 20 inches tall with typeface that is legible. This is a direct violation of Idaho’s Constitution, which prohibits government entities, including schools, from using public funds “in aid of any church or sectarian or religious society, or for any sectarian or religious purpose ...” This, of course, does not seem to be slowing down the bill’s sponsors in the least bit.

Traditional conservatives understood that an inconsistent defense of freedom and personal liberties was a hollow, duplicitous, self-righteous exercise in virtue preening. One either believes in freedom or they don’t. If you support only the personal liberties of which you approve, you really don’t support freedom at all; you support an essentially religious exercise in your way or the highway.

Traditional liberals got all of this as well. I remember when the ACLU defended the right of Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois. Now the ACLU defends the right of progressives to target anyone they don’t like as Nazis, then burn their cars. That’s the new progressive version of free speech. That’s some mission creep for you.

The interminable great battle between the American tribes on the left and the right contains strong overtones of the Crusades. Instead of trying to be good neighbors with our fellow citizens, understanding that accommodation is a fact of life in a diverse, free country of 380 million, who, felons aside, have the same rights as everyone else, let’s just dispatch the infidels from our holy land. None of those people over there with the riff-raff deserve this country anyway. Exterminate all the brutes.

Then there are the evangelicals. Currently, Christianity is the dominant religion in this country, but its days appear numbered. Younger people in this country are increasingly irreligious, and to the degree that some still are, their numbers skew towards other faiths. Yet, like progressives, they insist on doubling down on the things that make them unpopular instead of rational introspection. The reason that public education in this country is in a doom spiral has nothing to do with the lack of God in classrooms and everything to do with lack of reasonable educational standards and personal responsibility.

Almost every major religious denomination of which I’m aware holds, as a basic tenet, that their view of the world is right and everyone else’s is wrong. That no one is going to heaven, paradise, the celestial kingdom, or getting their 78 virgins and a goat unless they get with the program. This despite the fact that there are hundreds of major religious denominations in our country, and they can’t all be simultaneously right. Again, this slows down the acolytes not one bit. Not in this tribe or either of the other two.

So here’s where I’m coming from: a pox on all of your houses. In various sweats that meet nearly every definition of religious fervor, and among many other sins, you nimrods on the left took science, the best tool ever invented for advancing the human condition and tempering some of our worst instincts, and turned it into a buttfuckathon over COVID, climate change, gender nonsense, and green bullshit. You nimrods on the right never met a rule of law or a part of our Constitution that you couldn’t find a way to ignore if it suited your purposes (though, in all fairness, you learned a lot of this from the left). And you nimrods hoping that your residence in the first row of worship every week makes up for a lifetime of being a smug, sanctimonious dipshit had maybe better hope that I’m right about what comes next and you are not. Because if there is a rule-obsessed higher power waiting to collect souls, based on what I’ve seen, your odds may not be as good as you have imagined.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com