James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science journalist based in western North Carolina, where he tries to put degrees in marine biology and journalism to good use.
Going on four years back, a couple of Californians decided the secular/atheist/agnostic/skeptic community needed a catchy name in the same way the homosexual community purloined the term "gay" as part of its evolution toward mainstream acceptance. They came up with "bright," as in "I'm a bright" and quickly won qualified endorsements from the likes of atheist/agnostic/skeptic luminaries Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. A website was thrown together, and a brief flurry of media attention from the few journalists who pay attention to such things followed. But after that, a whole not of nothing. At times it would seem that the idea was as dead as John Cleese's parrot. But wait -- it could be just resting...
Daniel Dennett is having another kick at the can. In a column just posted on the WaPo/Newsweek On Faith site (the one that gives anti-intellectuals such as Cal Thomas bandwidth; the one that suffers from the absence of an "On Reason" companion), Dennett suspects that "the movement to encourage brights to identify themselves (in whatever terms they like) is on a roll."
There are many more atheists and agnostics in the country than is generally recognized. For instance, we atheists and agnostics are as numerous as Southern Baptists, and we are also the fastest growing category--faster even than the Mormons and the evangelicals.He's not advocating "outing" anyone still in the closet. Such action would mean certain ostracism and/or bankruptcy from many red-state brights, after all. But he does want to rally the troops because "we can be a powerful force in American political life if we simply identify ourselves."Why, then, are we atheists in general so unnoticed, and why is this changing? Since atheists, in general, think there are much more important and interesting topics to discuss than whether or not God -- which God? -- exists, we seldom raise the issue.
But recent trends in America have suggested to many of us that this diplomatic reticence has been exploited by sectarian ideologues, evangelists, politicians, and others intent on maintaining the illusion that we are a negligible fringe community, so we are encouraging those who agree with us to come out of the closet .
That's almost certainly true. The question remains, however, as to the wisdom of the choice of the word "bright" to propogate this particular meme.
In its favor is the experience of homosexuals, who encountered resistance at first, but eventually managed to redefine the word gay, an achievement that I agree was a key factor in pulling up acceptance levels to the point where complete legal and social equality is now inevitable.
Working against it is the major problem that, for those who hold to superstitious beliefs, "brights" comes off as rather arrogant, invoking as it does a level of superior intelligence. Dennett suggests countering this problem by appealing again to gay history. Why not "super" as the antonym of bright? It's shorthand for "superstitious" and, says Dennett, people are no more likely to object to being called a "super" than they are "straight."
My own take is that "super" stands even less of a chance of catching on as does "bright." I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea. But I also recognize that stranger cultural ideas have taken root. Besides, if silly names such as Google and Yahoo can enjoy staggering success in the marketplace, it would seem names are less important that what they're selling. So I'm not writing off "bright" just yet.
In the meme's early days, Richard Dawkins asked:
Will it spread, like gay, and basically, the backward baseball cap? Or will it nose-dive into the sand? I'm hoping it will take off. I'm even betting that it will, despite the hostility of those who misunderstand the humble noun as an arrogant adjective, and those who, notwithstanding the success of gay, resent all such coinings out of hand. But mostly, I am simply curious, as a disinterested scientist, to see what will happen.
It occurs to me that this is exactly the kind of thing that we SciBlogging types should be thinking about, and I'm hoping my colleagues here jump in with their opinions. Contrary to what Chris Mooney and some others have argued, it's less important at this point what non-brights think of the term than how the secular/atheist/agnostic/skeptic community feels about it. (Chris wrote in 2003 that "in order to introduce a concept like this, one needs to do polling, message testing, focus groups, the works," but I think that's too cynical. Gays did quite well without the benefit of pollsters and message testing. They just knew what they wanted.)
So let's have at it. What say you? Will 2007 be a Bright Year?
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Comments
Ugh. I so utterly detest the name "Bright" that I certainly hope that 2007 is not a "Bright" year. On the other hand, I certainly do hope that reason and skepticism make some headway in 2007 against the rampant credulity so ingrained in our culture.
Posted by: Orac | December 31, 2006 1:48 PM
Honestly, what's so bloody wrong with "skeptic" or "atheist"?
Posted by: Joshua | December 31, 2006 2:22 PM
How about "Free"? That lacks the seeming arrogance of "Bright", and while it's shorter and perkier than "freethinker" (and it seems that short and perky was part of the aim of the label "Bright"), it still shows its origins. Plus it plays nicely off the term "saved", as in, "I used to be a prisoner of theocracy, but then I was Freed."
Posted by: Kurt | December 31, 2006 3:13 PM
Orac sez:
And I couldn't agree more.
Posted by: John Lynch | December 31, 2006 3:29 PM
I agree with Orac and Kurt. Frankly, I don't really like the name "bright." I don't "utterly detest" it, but I still don't like the term. "Free", on the other hand, sounds so much better. I think I'll start using it around the house now.
Posted by: JD Kolassa | December 31, 2006 4:26 PM
Bright is an arrogant term. But, I am not sure whether there can be a less arrogant term because it all boils down to "you are wrong, delusional, etc. and we are not." Skeptic lacks conviction. Perhaps we should just make up a brand new word.
Posted by: Koray | December 31, 2006 5:41 PM
Why bright is a terrible idea, but inf (like gay, it is cute and modern sounding) works,
in: RU12?
Posted by: Phil | December 31, 2006 6:32 PM
I've also always despised "bright" -- it has no history, no style, no cultural heft, and it's a hammy attempt at doing a cosmetic makeover. I'm with Joshua: we've got a perfectly good word, "atheist", and we should just use it. If you want something more inclusive that encompasses agnostics and deists, too, use "freethinker". We didn't need "Brights", and I think part of what rankles is the way a few people decided to artificially insert this absolutely useless term into our vocabulary.
I should mention, though, that I am an old fart. My daughter ran across the term independently, and liked it very much -- it might have more weight with a younger generation.
Posted by: PZ Myers | December 31, 2006 10:07 PM
'Brights' sounds like a family surname to me, and not very easily identifiable to someone who isn't very familiar with the term... as opposed to atheist, freethinker, skeptic, humanist, etc. I don't find the term arrogant, just imprecise.
Posted by: Brett | December 31, 2006 11:38 PM
Actually, I don't particularly like the term "freethinker" either, for many of the same reasons I don't like the term "bright." I don't detest the term the way I do the the term "Bright," but it always grates on me to hear someone describe himself as a " free thinker," because it implies that everyone else is not (and I've come across my share of atheists and agnostics who don't deserve the appellation). I do confess, though, that I'm at a loss to come up with a better term.
Posted by: Orac | January 1, 2007 10:16 AM
naturalist (in a metaphysical sense)
I think everything falls under the heading of naturalist.
Posted by: sL|De | January 2, 2007 1:01 AM
I think "gay" is how gays referred to themselves at first and it spread to the straight lexicon as acceptance led them to use a neutral term to refer to their friends.
As for us, I kind of favor "scientist". It has the right "ist" ending already, and describes what we believe quite nicely.
Posted by: TomDunlap | January 2, 2007 7:51 PM
Yeah, but to be a scientist you have to have some graduate degree, lots of work in an academic environment, and a presence on Scienceblogs. Lots of people don't have that and yet still don't believe in gods. Humanist is the best term, as it is a "human-centered existence" rather than a "fake deity-centered existence."
Oh, and where I come from, "gay" is a derogatory term; it doesn't have much positive connatations with it anymore. You see something break, and you say, "Dude, that's gay!" But that's high school, not the real world, so maybe it is positive in some way.
Posted by: JD Kolassa | January 3, 2007 11:08 AM
Well, while I don't hold an advanced degree, I do think of myself as a scientist (little 's'?) because that's the way I look at the world and life. Anyway, who says you have to hold yadda, yadda...? I'm not applying for a job.
And yes, the "that's gay" epithet is unfortunate. It seems to fall into that crack where Gyp and Jew and Indian giver fell and never got fished out.
Posted by: TomDunlap | January 3, 2007 12:39 PM
Let's celebrate our commitment to rationality and call ourselves rats!
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | January 3, 2007 10:27 PM
I thought of two suggestions, one on my pre-caffeinated bus commute to work this morning, and the other while writing this comment.
"redoubt", "redoubter".
Sure, it doesn't have the single-syllable-soundbite that "gay" possesses.
But it is good, strong word - able to withstand any assault from the superstitious!
Plus it encompasses the root of our concept: one of a free-thinking seeker of natural truths.
In addition, its etymology is from middle latin: "reductus", which has its own proud scientific paradigm.
Now how about "seeker"?
Wouldn't it be fun to steal away the word from its current usage and evolve it into our own? The right-wing has been doing this with many concepts during the days of pre-Iraqi politics.
Imagine, it would no longer refer to a wandering pilgrim searching for a megachurch firebrand revivalist, but for a humanist, natural philosopher: one who observes, learns, teaches and understands.
Seeker. Redoubter.
A whole heck of a lot better than Bright.
I really, utterly, loathe that word.
Posted by: Pierre Caron | January 4, 2007 4:39 PM
"Redoubter" may indeed be, er, redoubtable - but your other suggestion would likely fall victim to (among other unkind comments) an observation I first encountered while observing "new agers" in California:
There's a seeker born every minute.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | January 4, 2007 7:30 PM