The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

America is being torn apart. Amid growing strife, many people are experiencing angst concerning the future of this country, a country once renowned for its exuberant spirit of discovery, progress, liberty. From across the increasingly tribal political landscape, one can observe attacks on the ideas that fueled America’s spectacular rise: reason, individualism, and political freedom. From the illiberal left the “woke” phenomenon has emerged, rising to dominance in cultural institutions and calling for “canceling” those institutions, symbols, and even thoughts it deems heretical. Standing in opposition to it is another new movement that promises to reunite us and rebuild a society true to the American vision. That latter promise calls for embracing the ideology of nationalism. This article explores this growing problem in the context of the larger theme covered in the pages of Skeptic 27.4: Nationalism Matters.

Political theorist Yoram Hazony argues that the best hope for Western democracy is a return to the empiricist, religious, and nationalist traditions of America and Britain. Shermer makes the case for Enlightenment liberalism, with its focus on science and reason, as the primary driver of moral progress over the centuries.

In episode 156 of The Michael Shermer Show, Dr. Shermer speaks with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born women’s rights activist, free speech advocate and New York Times best selling author, about her new book Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights.

Why are so few people talking about the eruption of sexual violence and harassment in Europe’s cities? In episode 156 of The Michael Shermer Show, Dr. Shermer speaks with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born women’s rights activist, free speech advocate and New York Times best selling author, about her new book Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights.

The United States today is hopelessly polarized; the political Right and Left have hardened into rigid and deeply antagonistic camps, preventing any sort of progress. Amid the bickering and inertia, the promise of the 1960s—when we came together as a nation to fight for equality and universal justice—remains unfulfilled. Shermer and Steele discuss: what has changed in race relations in America in the past 30 years, and why “The promised land guarantees nothing. It is only an opportunity, not a deliverance.”

In Science Salon podcast # 139, Michael Shermer speaks with Shelby Steele about his book Shame: How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country and about his new film What Killed Michael Brown?

Dr. Michael Shermer explains how we arrived at the Left-Right spectrum, both historically and evolutionarily, and the numerous metaphors used to wrap our minds around such complex systems as politics and economics.

Dr. Michael Shermer explains how we arrived at the Left-Right spectrum, both historically and evolutionarily, and the numerous metaphors used to wrap our minds around such complex systems as politics and economics. This Chapman University lecture is based on chapters in his books The Believing Brain, The Moral Arc, and Giving the Devil His Due, along with the books of Christian Sith, George Lakoff, Alan Fiske, Jonathan Haidt, Thomas Sowell, and Steven Pinker.