A bright's worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements.
The ethics and actions of a bright are based on a naturalistic worldview.
Currently the naturalistic worldview is insufficiently expressed within most cultures. The purpose of this movement is to form an Internet constituency of individuals, the Brights, having social and political recognition and power. There is a great diversity of persons who have a naturalistic worldview. Under a broad umbrella, the Brights can gain social and political influence in a society otherwise permeated with supernaturalism.
A. Promote the civic understanding and acknowledgment of the naturalistic worldview, which is free of supernatural and mystical elements.B. Gain public recognition that: persons who hold such a worldview can bring principled actions to bear on matters of civic importance.
C. Educate society toward accepting the full and equitable civic participation of all such individuals.
Think about your own worldview to decide if it is indeed free of supernatural or mystical deities, forces, and entities. Check the wording in the definition and description (above). If you would like more information on the important terms used in the definition, you can go to the FAQs.
If you decide that you fit the definition, then you can simply say so and join with us in this extraordinary effort to change the thinking of society--the Brights Movement. If successful, these early efforts of ours could have far-reaching effects.
If you are in fact a bright, please tell us, so we can count you. Tell others, so we can count them. We are forming a constituency of Brights (persons who fit the definition and sign in on this Web site) for social and political action. This constituency of Brights includes many who are members of existing atheist, agnostic, freethought, humanist, rationalist, secularist, or skeptic organizations and many more who are nonreligious and are not associated with any formal group.
Can we Brights impact society's outlook by putting just one new word to popular use? That remains to be seen, but if you are intrigued by the idea, we invite you to explore this Web site and learn more about The Brights Movement.
A bright is defined as a person whose worldview is naturalistic (free of supernatural and mystical elements). There are lots and lots and lots of persons who have such a worldview. They are different in many ways, but they share a common outlook on the world, one free of supernaturalism.
Of course, not all these brights know they are brights, since this terminology has only recently been introduced.
In many societies in the world, potential brights maintain a low profile regarding their worldview. All too many of them just don't mention their outlook to others, and and hence the worldview of brights is insufficiently expressed within a given culture.
There are far more brights than seem to exist, and society would benefit greatly from the full civic participation of these people. We hope to build a national constituency of individuals who see themselves as fitting the given definition of a bright and who will use the term to self-identify as occasions may present. In other words, these Brights, by personal use of the new label as they themselves wish, add to the visibility of brights within society and increase the likelihood of other brights also coming forth.
Side note on capitalization: You will find both upper and lower case forms of "bright" on this site. A temporary technique involves using uppercase in regard to persons who have signed up as part of the Internet constituency, with lowercase for generic use. (We have previously extensively capitalized the B as an interim modus operandi to help delineate the noun form from adjectival. As the neologism has appeared in more media, however, we are phasing out this practice as unnecessary.)
This Web site (http://www.the-brights.net/) allows brights to sign themselves into the "Internet Constituency of Brights." [If you sign, you will be in on the ground floor of a movement.]
Note: For now, the U.S. is the focus, but the movement itself has no boundaries. All brights are welcome to the Internet constituency. There are already Brights in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, and South Africa.
The-Brights.Net will be a corpus of individuals who can and will speak their minds (as brights, free of "sundry supernaturalism") and vote their consciences accordingly. By their visible example, they can help other brights to step forward and take on the challenge of more firmly expressing their worldview. There will be greater social and political action by brights as more persons take on the identity of brights.
The Brights Movement is an endeavor to unite brights under the umbrella of a common name.
The primary focus of the Brights Movement is the marginalized situation of brights in the political and cultural landscape of society.
Today's brights are all too invisible. They are ignored by most and their philosophical perspectives are disparaged by many. Unlike their fellow citizens whose worldviews are more culturally accepted, all too many brights are reluctant to engage themselves fully and openly in civic concerns and the business of the nation.
Having a naturalistic worldview means that brights are not themselves religious, although they may (for social reasons, for example) participate with family or others in organized religion's institutions and practices. By their presence and contributions, they augment those institutions.
If brights are candid about their personal perspective on ultimate beliefs, nature of and origins of the universe and life, and so on (revealing their own outlook in ways that fellow citizens do theirs), they may find themselves considerably less welcome at the "civic table" where decisions are made. Brights are hampered by existing labels loaded with cultural and historical "baggage." To avoid using such terminology, they simply stay silent, or inactive. The Brights Movement hopes to facilitate more open and active civic participation by persons whose worldview is naturalistic.
If we are successful with this movement, then before we are done everyone (politicians, media, do-gooders, religionists, clergy, friends and family, acquaintances and employers, etc.) will acknowledge and justly attend to the voices of the many and diverse brights.
The brights--all the varied persons whose worldview is naturalistic--can speak out within our society. They can combine voices and begin candidly to self-identify and thus foster a social climate that allows and encourages religious individuals to similarly identify the nonreligious as brights.
The more brights we have speaking out with identity as brights, the louder will be the voice for reason in our faiths-flooded high religiosity politics and culture. Our society very much needs the full civic participation of brights.
Many individuals have already declared themselves to be brights. Each of these "pioneer Brights" has wanted to be counted as one in the constituency of Brights. When the cyber-population count is large enough, we can start to use our power as brights to influence legislators and the public, and to help build better civic understanding of the naturalistic worldview and of the full right of citizens to hold that worldview.
If you decide that you are a bright, please sign up to be one of the new Internet constituency so that you can be counted.
While all Brights are encouraged to join local and national organizations to express solidarity with the "community of reason" or "freethought community," this Brights Movement is not and never will be an organization. It can, however, and should (given the tenor of the times) become a constituency, and when it grows large enough, it will be heard by society and politicians!
One long-term goal is to change the vocabulary of mainstream society" such that bright is used in a new way, somewhat analogous to the use of the word gay. (The end results can be similar, even if the etymology is different.)
A Noun?--Yes! What we have learned from the term "gay"--which took on new meaning in the vernacular within less than two decades--is that society can indeed learn to give a different connotation to an existing term.
"Bright" in customary usage is of course a modifier (adjective), so we are introducing a new use for a familiar word.
This "bright" (as a noun) has a rigid meaning: A bright is a person whose worldview is naturalistic (free of supernatural and mystical elements). Brights base their ethics and actions on a naturalistic worldview, one free of any deities, fairies, angels, ghosts, demons, sprites, etc.
Meme?--Maybe. A meme is a word, idea, or behavior that spontaneously spreads through a given social group. Memes are analogous to viruses. Once a meme gets started, perhaps by someone on TV, or in some song or some joke, it spreads from person to person somewhat like the flu. No one really plans for memes, they just seem to happen, and they can spread swiftly.
The noun "bright" may or may not be a meme that catches on and spreads spontaneously, but we can "make bright happen"! The vocabulary can take hold if and when enough of the brights of the nation use the word to identify themselves.
What are the advantages to those of us who do hold a naturalistic worldview to pursue this sort of action to change vocabulary? Here are benefits we would suggest for consideration":
By adopting and using the new noun term, we collectively surmount a diverse "philosophical lexicon" which blurs and disguises what is actually a critical cultural commonality.
The umbrella term makes more visible in society our mutual life stance and garners greater capacity for all our fellow citizens who share a naturalistic worldview to translate their outlook into positive social and political action.
Having this term in the lexicon and using it in the public sphere lets us break free from the "comparative terminology" of the dominant culture, which so capably casts a dark shadow over those who do state publicly their naturalistic beliefs, tying up their identity and social standing with negative labels in such a way that they all too commonly avoid disapproval by way of civic silence.
Right now, we are putting forth to all the various persons who have a naturalistic worldview, this proposal regarding the new "umbrella term" [bright]:
(1) add it to your linguistic repertoire
You can use this new noun, as circumstances seem conducive, to identify yourself by your generic worldview.
(2) help to establish it within society
By strict adherence to its simple definition, and by following a general usage protocol, you can by example spread the meaning in a positive way to persons with whom you interact. You can tell others there is a national constituency of Brights.
There will be a series of interim steps to pursue to promote adoption and correct usage of this new umbrella term [bright] within our broader society. These steps are expected to evolve based on progress of the movement.
The nation can learn to think of "bright "as a term for an individual with a naturalistic worldview. (What a nice, clean dictionary entry!)
A later movement goal would involve facilitating political and social action. The first step, though, is linguistic and interpersonal--Brights spreading the word about the bright idea.
We must succeed in getting lots and lots of brights comfortable with using the noun identifier (in correct syntax) and signing up as Brights. Brights can increase awareness:
By far the priority focus is spreading awareness to those persons who already have a naturalistic worldview and freely say so. The reason is simple, those involved in the community of reason are easily identifiable using existing organizations. These "just might become Brights" could certainly benefit from simple exposure to the new term, followed by direction to this Web site, to learn more and to decide if they would themselves find the term useful.
A secondary awareness focus involves alerting those nonreligious individuals who have a naturalistic worldview but are not affiliated with any group. This group will be influenced mostly by media accounts during the initial growth of the movement.
Bright activists are those who wish to engage energetically in efforts to spread the name and cultivate its "meme potential." If you would like to be part of a cadre of such activists, Email to The-Brights@the-brights.net and say so. Creative people with talents in art, media, and web building are more than welcome to contribute their ideas, talents, and products to the early stages of this movement. Activists--together with the Brights themselves (individuals)--will hope to "Brighten" society.
The long-term goal of the Brights Movement (a ways down the path for now, just like that billionth hamburger of McDonalds was once far to the future) is to establish a clear and welcome "place at the civic table" for people whose worldview is naturalistic, whose understandings are conceptually free of supernaturalism and mysticism, whose values and morality are grounded in the natural world, and whose conduct proceeds from such a basis. In their civic participation, we feel, lies hope for a free and democratic society in the world, and perhaps for the real world in which we all reside.
The Brights' Network will seek social and civic influence generally in three stages:
1. Grow the Brights numerically to increase general visibility and raise awareness (current priority)2. Call for and/or facilitate individual actions by Brights in specific situations (future)
3. Arrange for actions by cadres of constituents in explicit circumstances (future)
The noun, Bright, refers to a person whose worldview is naturalistic--free of supernatural and mystical elements.A Bright's ethics and actions are based on a naturalistic worldview.
worldview: the overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world; a set of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or group.naturalistic: conceiving of reality as natural (no supernatural)
On the whole, the notion refers to an individual's belief system related to concepts such as the meaning and purpose of life, existence after death, the presence of deities, nature and origins, morality and human nature, rituals, and other major life stance considerations. You can find an extensive discussion and example definitions on http://www.teachingaboutreligion.org/.
Anyone who fits the definition and says, "I am a Bright" is a Bright.This web site is a way a Bright lets us know, so that we can count that person as one among a growing constituency of individuals who consider themselves (among other things, of course) Brights.
The Brights' umbrella is large, very large. For example, Brights can be agnostics, rationalists, skeptics, atheists, objectivists, igtheists, and so on. There are any of a number of self-identity labels they might apply to themselves. No label at all need apply...just plain "nonreligious" or "uninterested in religion" without any real consideration beyond that might be how a person is seeing himself/herself.
What counts is that the person's worldview is naturalistic. If it is, then that person falls within the purview of the Brights.
Nothing. This not a membership organization. The Brights are individuals. The sum total of the Brights "out there" makes a constituency.
Just say you are and you are.We hope you will want to be counted and be on the list for possible subsequent contact by us. If you do, then fill out the form to be part of the internet constituency of Brights. Signing up means providing us your name and e-mail, along with your state and zip code.
The internet constituency (those who ask to be counted as Brights and provide contact information) is composed of diverse people, all of whom are adding the word to their linguistic repertoire. They will make use of the term if/when they regard it as relevant. We hope they will take advantage of occasions to employ it when conversing on related topics within the company of people they feel likely to have similar beliefs about nature, deity, mortality, etc.) so that others can become acquainted with the term and its meaning and consider whether or not they, too, might wish to be counted among the constellation of Brights.
For now, the number one purpose of this Web is simply to help get the word out about Bright (n.)--both the term and its definition--cultivating awareness of the Bright idea within "the community of reason."To that end, we here on The-Brights. Net accumulate a data base of Brights whom we can contact at key junctures along the way ahead. We provide information to supporters (including facilitating presentations by individuals to their local groups). We send out occasional notices to varied organizations (we will seek their support of the movement by their acceptance and use of this umbrella word, Bright). We solicit ideas for ancillary items helpful to that purpose (e.g., such as logos).
General usage by sundry Brights can help to get the term into the general vocabulary of those who are associated with the existing community of reason. A longer-term endeavor involves educating folks about the likely civic advantages of an "umbrella" that extends well beyond these people. That is, the broader intent is inclusive of the many-varied persons whose worldview is naturalistic who are in the general population. These unaffiliated exist in numbers far larger than those who are part of the politically and socially marginalized community of reason.
It is estimated (American Religious Identification Study, 2001) that there are potentially 29,000,000 Brights in the U.S. Not all have signed up to be Brights just yet.
The goals are simple and straightforward, and range from current to far-reaching as follows:1. To get the word out (about the new umbrella noun) to as many persons as possible who do fit its definition, inviting those who like it to begin to self-identify as Brights.
2. To have the noun, Bright, in wide use as an identity label among those persons who are free of the supernatural and mystical
3. To gradually bring together under the name, the Brights, large numbers of the supernaturalism-free individuals and begin to form an identifiable and visible civic constituency.
4. To, have the noun, Bright, gain recognition in broader society as a useful label to describe those who have a naturalistic worldview, in other words, those "beyond the faith community."
5. To gain "a place at the civic table" for the Brights, and a capacity to transmit to religionists, politicians, media, and society in general educational information on key topics that affect the interests not only of the Brights (e.g., discrimination, the separation of church and state), but the welfare of all the individuals of the nation and world.
By DANIEL C. DENNETT
Originally published in The New York Times, July 12, 2003
http://the-brights.net/dennett_nyt.htm
The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet. What is a bright? A bright is a person with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view. We brights don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny or God. We disagree about many things, and hold a variety of views about morality, politics and the meaning of life, but we share a disbelief in black magic and life after death.
The term "bright" is a recent coinage by two brights in Sacramento, Calif., who thought our social group which has a history stretching back to the Enlightenment, if not before could stand an image-buffing and that a fresh name might help. Don't confuse the noun with the adjective: "I'm a bright" is not a boast but a proud avowal of an inquisitive world view.
You may well be a bright. If not, you certainly deal with brights daily. That's because we are all around you: we're doctors, nurses, police officers, schoolteachers, crossing guards and men and women serving in the military. We are your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters. Our colleges and universities teem with brights. Among scientists, we are a commanding majority. Wanting to preserve and transmit a great culture, we even teach Sunday school and Hebrew classes. Many of the nation's clergy members are closet brights, I suspect. We are, in fact, the moral backbone of the nation: brights take their civic duties seriously precisely because they don't trust God to save humanity from its follies.
As an adult white married male with financial security, I am not in the habit of considering myself a member of any minority in need of protection. If anybody is in the driver's seat, I've thought, it's people like me. But now I'm beginning to feel some heat, and although it's not uncomfortable yet, I've come to realize it's time to sound the alarm.
Whether we brights are a minority or, as I am inclined to believe, a silent majority, our deepest convictions are increasingly dismissed, belittled and condemned by those in power by politicians who go out of their way to invoke God and to stand, self-righteously preening, on what they call "the side of the angels."
A 2002 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life suggests that 27 million Americans are atheist or agnostic or have no religious preference. That figure may well be too low, since many nonbelievers are reluctant to admit that their religious observance is more a civic or social duty than a religious one more a matter of protective coloration than conviction.
Most brights don't play the "aggressive atheist" role. We don't want to turn every conversation into a debate about religion, and we don't want to offend our friends and neighbors, and so we maintain a diplomatic silence.
But the price is political impotence. Politicians don't think they even have to pay us lip service, and leaders who wouldn't be caught dead making religious or ethnic slurs don't hesitate to disparage the "godless" among us.
From the White House down, bright-bashing is seen as a low-risk vote-getter. And, of course, the assault isn't only rhetorical: the Bush administration has advocated changes in government rules and policies to increase the role of religious organizations in daily life, a serious subversion of the Constitution. It is time to halt this erosion and to take a stand: the United States is not a religious state, it is a secular state that tolerates all religions and yes all manner of nonreligious ethical beliefs as well.
I recently took part in a conference in Seattle that brought together leading scientists, artists and authors to talk candidly and informally about their lives to a group of very smart high school students. Toward the end of my allotted 15 minutes, I tried a little experiment. I came out as a bright.
Now, my identity would come as no surprise to anybody with the slightest knowledge of my work. Nevertheless, the result was electrifying.
Many students came up to me afterwards to thank me, with considerable passion, for "liberating" them. I hadn't realized how lonely and insecure these thoughtful teenagers felt. They'd never heard a respected adult say, in an entirely matter of fact way, that he didn't believe in God. I had calmly broken a taboo and shown how easy it was.
In addition, many of the later speakers, including several Nobel laureates, were inspired to say that they, too, were brights. In each case the remark drew applause. Even more gratifying were the comments of adults and students alike who sought me out afterward to tell me that, while they themselves were not brights, they supported bright rights. And that is what we want most of all: to be treated with the same respect accorded to Baptists and Hindus and Catholics, no more and no less.
If you're a bright, what can you do? First, we can be a powerful force in American political life if we simply identify ourselves. (The founding brights maintain a Web site on which you can stand up and be counted.) I appreciate, however, that while coming out of the closet was easy for an academic like me or for my colleague Richard Dawkins, who has issued a similar call in England in some parts of the country admitting you're a bright could lead to social calamity. So please: no "outing."
But there's no reason all Americans can't support bright rights. I am neither gay nor African-American, but nobody can use a slur against blacks or homosexuals in my hearing and get away with it. Whatever your theology, you can firmly object when you hear family or friends sneer at atheists or agnostics or other godless folk.
And you can ask your political candidates these questions: Would you vote for an otherwise qualified candidate for public office who was a bright? Would you support a nominee for the Supreme Court who was a bright? Do you think brights should be allowed to be high school teachers? Or chiefs of police?
Let's get America's candidates thinking about how to respond to a swelling chorus of brights. With any luck, we'll soon hear some squirming politician trying to get off the hot seat with the feeble comment that "some of my best friends are brights."
Daniel C. Dennett, a professor of philosophy at Tufts University, is author, most recently, of "Freedom Evolves.''
Richard Dawkins
Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23(4), July-August, 2003.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_23_4.htm
I once read a science fiction story in which astronauts voyaging to a distant star were waxing homesick: "Just to think that it's springtime back on Earth!" You may not immediately see what's wrong with that comment, so ingrained is our unconscious Northern Hemisphere chauvinism. Unconscious is exactly right. That is where consciousness-raising comes in.
I suspect it is for a deeper reason than gimmicky fun that, in Australia and New Zealand, you can buy maps of the world with the South Pole on top. Now, wouldn't that be an excellent thing to pin to our classroom walls instead of the Ten Commandments? What a splendid consciousness-raiser. Day after day, children would be reminded that North has no monopoly on up. The map on the wall would intrigue them as well as raise their consciousness. They'd go home and tell their parents.
The feminists taught us about consciousness-raising. I used to laugh at "him or her," and at "chairperson," and I still try to avoid them on aesthetic grounds. But I recognize the power and importance of consciousness-raising. I now flinch at the phrase "One man, one vote." My consciousness has been raised. Probably yours has, too, and it matters.
I used to deplore what I regarded as the tokenism of my American atheist friends. They were obsessed with removing the recently inserted "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, whereas I cared more about the chauvinistic nastiness of pledging allegiance to a flag in the first place. They would cross out "In God We Trust" on every dollar bill that passed through their hands, whereas I worried more about the tax-free dollars amassed by bouffant-haired televangelists, fleecing nice gullible people of their life savings. My friends would risk neighborhood ostracism to protest the unconstitutionality of Ten Commandments posters on classroom walls. "But it's only words," I would expostulate. "Why get so worked up about mere words, when there's so much else to object to?" Now I'm having second thoughts. Words are not trivial. They matter because they raise consciousness.
My own favorite consciousness-raising effort is one I have mentioned many times before (and I make no apology, for consciousness-raising is all about repetition). A phrase like "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should clang furious bells of protest in the mind, just as we flinch when we hear "One man, one vote." Children are too young to know their religious opinions. Just as you can't vote until you are eighteen, you should be free to choose your own cosmology and ethics without society's impertinent presumption that you will automatically inherit those of your parents. We'd be aghast to be told of a Leninist child or a neo-conservative child or a Hayekian monetarist child. So isn't it a kind of child abuse to speak of a Catholic child or a Protestant child? Especially in Northern Ireland and Glasgow, where such labels, handed down over generations, have divided neighborhoods for centuries and can even amount to a death warrant?
Catholic child? Flinch. Protestant child? Squirm. Muslim child? Shudder. Everybody's consciousness should be raised to this level. Occasionally a euphemism is needed, and I suggest "Child of Jewish (etc.) parents." When you come down to it, that's all we are really talking about anyway. Just as the upside-down (Northern Hemisphere chauvinism again: flinch!) map from New Zealand raises consciousness about a geographical truth, children should hear themselves described not as "Christian children" but as "children of Christian parents." This in itself would raise their consciousness, empower them to make up their own minds, and choose which religion, if any, they favor, rather than just assume that religion means "same beliefs as parents." I could well imagine that this linguistically coded freedom to choose might lead children to choose no religion at all.
Please go out and work at raising people's consciousness over the words they use to describe children. At a dinner party, say, if ever you hear a person speak of a school for Islamic children, or Catholic children (you can read such phrases daily in newspapers), pounce: "How dare you? You would never speak of a neo-conservative Republican child or a liberal Democrat child, so how could you describe a child as Catholic (Islamic, Protestant, etc.)?" With luck, everybody at the dinner party, next time they hear one of those offensive phrases, will flinch, or at least notice, and the meme will spread.
A triumph of consciousness-raising has been the homosexual hijacking of the word gay. I used to mourn the loss of gay in (what I still think of as) its true sense. But on the bright side (wait for it), gay has inspired a new imitator, which is the climax of this article. Gay is succinct, uplifting, positive: an "up" word, whereas homosexual is a down word, and queer, faggot, and pooftah are insults. Those of us who subscribe to no religion; those of us whose view of the universe is natural rather than supernatural; those of us who rejoice in the real and scorn the false comfort of the unreal, we need a word of our own, a word like gay. You can say, "I am an atheist," but at best it sounds stuffy (like "I am a homosexual") and at worst it inflames prejudice (like "I am a homosexual"). Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell of Sacramento, California, have set out to coin a new word, a new gay. Like gay, it is a noun hijacked from an adjective, with its original meaning changed, but not too much. Like gay, it is catchy: a potentially prolific meme. Like gay, it will offend sticklers for punctilious rectitude such as me, but it might be worth it nevertheless. Like gay, it is positive, warm, cheerful, bright.
Bright? Yes, bright. Bright is the word, the new noun. I am a Bright. You are a Bright. She is a Bright. We are the Brights. Isn't it about time you came out as a Bright? Is he a Bright? I can't imagine falling for a woman who is not a Bright. http://www.celebatheists.com/ suggests that numerous intellectuals and other famous people are Brights. Brights constitute 60 percent of American scientists, and more than 90 percent of those scientists good enough to be elected to the elite National Academy of Sciences are Brights. Look on the bright side: though at present they can't admit it and get elected, the U.S. Congress must be full of closet Brights. As with the Gays, the more Brights come out, the easier it will be for yet more Brights to do so.
Geisert and Futrell are very insistent that their word is a noun and must not be an adjective. "I am bright" sounds arrogant. "I am a Bright" sounds too unfamiliar to be arrogant: it is puzzling, enigmatic, tantalizing. It invites the question, "What on earth is a Bright?" And then you're away:
"A Bright is a person whose worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements. The ethics and actions of a Bright are based on a naturalistic worldview."
"You mean a Bright is an atheist?"
"Well, some Brights are happy to call themselves atheists. Some Brights call themselves agnostics. Some call themselves humanists, some freethinkers. But all Brights have a worldview that is free of supernaturalism and mysticism."
"Oh, I get it. It's a bit like 'Gay.' So what's the opposite of a Bright? What would you call a religious person?"
"What do you suggest?"
Of course, even though we Brights will scrupulously insist that our word is a noun, if it catches on it is likely to follow gay and eventually re-emerge as a new adjective. And when that happens, who knows, we may finally get a bright president.
You can sign on as a Bright at http://www.the-brights.net/.
Richard Dawkins is the Charles Simonyi Professor of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. An evolutionary biologist and prolific author and lecturer, his latest book is a collection of essays, A Devil's Chaplain (Houghton Mifflin, 2003).
Richard Dawkins defends the godless among us.
Wired Magazine, October 2003
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.10/view.html?pg=2
How is a meme created? You can sit back and observe the spread of a new fashion, a new slang word, a new way of walking or talking - and let a meme burst onto the scene in its own good time. An example would be the current epidemic of basically, which, as a synonym for er, has infected a ludicrously high proportion of sentences now uttered by English speakers. But the ultimate test in science is experiment: You don't just wait for something to happen and observe it, you make it happen.
I don't know whether gay - meaning homosexual - just happened, or whether it was launched. Either way, it has been a successful meme. The new definition is in the dictionary, and it is used more or less universally by heterosexuals. Did some syndicate deliberately release gay into the memosphere? Or did it spring up spontaneously, then take off as a brush fire? I don't know how, or when, gay got its start, but 2003 is seeing the deliberate launch of a new meme. It is bright, and we are at its birth. The bright meme is intentionally imitating gay's provenance in the explicit hope of copying its success.
The gay meme improved the image and, I dare add, the happiness of a once unpopular minority. Similarly, bright is intended to come to the aid of another beleaguered community in the US: those who, in the most religiose country in the Western world, have no religion, who are variously labeled atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, philosophical naturalists, secularists, or humanists. A Gallup poll in 1999 asked American voters the following question: "If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be an X would you vote for that person?" X took on the following values: Catholic, Jew, Baptist, Mormon, black, homosexual, woman, atheist. Six out of the eight categories secured better than 90 percent approval. But only 59 percent would vote for a homosexual, and just 49 percent would vote for an atheist. Bear in mind that there are 29 million Americans who describe themselves as nonreligious, secular, atheist, or agnostic, outnumbering Jews tenfold and all other religions except Christianity by an even larger margin.
The same questions had been asked by Gallup in 1978, and there are revealing differences. In 1978, only 26 percent of the American electorate would contemplate voting for a homosexual. Is it possible that the word gay, and the gay pride movement that came with it, has been partly responsible for the improvement to 59 percent by 1999? If so, all the more reason for the despised 29 million to seek their own "gay."
I am a bright. You are (quite probably) a bright. Most of the people I know are brights. The majority of scientists are brights. Presumably there are lots of closet brights in Congress, but they dare not come out. Notice from these examples that the word is a noun, not an adjective. We brights are not claiming to be bright (meaning clever, intelligent), any more than gays claim to be gay (meaning joyful, carefree). Whether there is a statistical tendency for brights (noun) to be bright (adjective) is a matter for research. I would dearly like to see such research undertaken, and I know the result I am betting on, but it is no part of the definition of the noun.
The noun bright was coined in March by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell of Sacramento, California. In April, I heard them give a presentation on the new word in Florida, and they launched The-Brights.net soon after. The new meme was almost immediately given a boost by two enthusiastic articles in large-circulation newspapers. On June 21, I wrote "the future looks bright" for the Guardian, one of Britain's leading national dailies. And on July 12, the distinguished philosopher Daniel Dennett followed up with "the bright stuff" for The New York Times op-ed page.
So, the bright meme is launched. Will it spread, like gay, and basically, and 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.
Richard Dawkins is a professor at Oxford University. His books include The Selfish Gene and, most recently, A Devil's Chaplain.
BY DINESH D'SOUZA
Sunday, October 12, 2003
The Wall Street Journal
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004153
"We have always had atheists among us," the philosopher Edmund Burke wrote in his "Reflections on the Revolution in France," "but now they have grown turbulent and seditious." It seems that in our own day some prominent atheists are agitating for greater political and social influence. In this connection, leading atheist thinkers have been writing articles declaring that they should no longer be called "atheists." Rather, they want to be called "brights."
Yes, "brights," as in "I am a bright." In a recent article in the New York Times, philosopher Daniel Dennett defined a bright as "a person with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view." Mr. Dennett added that "we brights don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter bunny or God." His implication was clear: Brights are the smart people who don't fall for silly superstitions.
Mr. Dennett, like many atheists, is confident that atheists are simply brighter--more rational--than religious believers. Their assumption is: We nonbelievers employ critical reason while the theists rely on blind faith. But Mr. Dennett and his fellow "brights," for all their credentials and learning, have been duped by a fallacy. This may be called the Fallacy of the Enlightenment, and it was first pointed out by the philosopher Immanuel Kant.
The Fallacy of the Enlightenment is the glib assumption that there is only one limit to what human beings can know, and that limit is reality itself. In this view, widely held by atheists, agnostics and other self-styled rationalists, human beings can continually find out more and more until eventually there is nothing more to discover. The Enlightenment Fallacy holds that human reason and science can, in principle, unmask the whole of reality.
In his "Critique of Pure Reason," Kant showed that this premise is false. In fact, he argued, there is a much greater limit to what human beings can know. The only way that we apprehend reality is through our five senses. But why should we believe, Kant asked, that our five-mode instrument for apprehending reality is sufficient for capturing all of reality? What makes us think that there is no reality that goes beyond, one that simply cannot be apprehended by our five senses?
Kant persuasively noted that there is no reason whatsoever for us to believe that we can know everything that exists. Indeed what we do know, Kant said, we know only through the refracted filter of our experience. Kant argued that we cannot even be sure that our experience of a thing is the same as the thing-in-itself. After all, we see in pretty much the same way that a camera does, and yet who would argue that a picture of a boat is the same thing as a boat?
Kant isn't arguing against the validity of perception or science or reason. He is simply showing their significant limits. These limits cannot be erased by the passage of time or by further investigation and experimentation. Rather, the limits on reason are intrinsic to the kind of beings that humans are, and to the kind of apparatus that we possess for perceiving reality. The implication of Kant's argument is that reality as a whole is, in principle, inaccessible to human beings. Put another way, there is a great deal that human beings simply will never know.
Notice that Kant's argument is entirely secular: It does not employ any religious vocabulary, nor does it rely on any kind of faith. But in showing the limits of reason, Kant's philosophy "opens the door to faith," as the philosopher himself noted.
If Mr. Dennett and the rest of the so-called brights have produced refutations of Kant that have eluded the philosophical community, they should share them with the rest of us. But until then, they should refrain from the ignorant boast that atheism operates on a higher intellectual plane than theism. Rather, as Kant showed, reason must know its limits in order to be truly reasonable. The atheist foolishly presumes that reason is in principle capable of figuring out all that there is, while the theist at least knows that there is a reality greater than, and beyond, that which our senses and our minds can ever apprehend.
Mr. D'Souza, a scholar at the Hoover Institution, is the author, most recently, of "What's So Great About America" (Regnery, 2002).
By Chris Mooney
October 16, 2003
http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/brights/
Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett are smart guys, but their campaign to rename religious unbelievers "brights" could use some rethinking.
When I first read that leading evolutionary thinkers Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett were trying to get the world to stop calling religious unbelievers "atheists" or "agnostics" and start calling them "brights," I had my doubts. Granted, I didn't dispute the basic premise of the Dawkins-Dennett media campaign -- announced in Wired magazine, Free Inquiry, and on the New York Times op-ed page -- namely, that atheists have to put up with a lot of flack in our heavily religious society and that their reputation could use a new shine. As Dawkins noted in Wired, a 1999 Gallup poll found that only 49 percent of Americans would vote for an atheist for president. That's a big problem. But it's not at all clear that this problem can be solved simply by coining a new name (the word "bright" was actually introduced by Paul Geisert and Mygna Futrell, but Dawkins and Dennett have been its most prominent publicists). Moreover, I wasn't convinced that the word "bright" would have the positive and uplifting effect that Dawkins and Dennett seemed to expect that it would.
Now, a recent attack on the "brights" movement in The Wall Street Journal by the conservative thinker Dinesh D'Souza confirms my worst fears. The article blithely ignores a key caveat that the "brights" defenders have explicitly laid out -- namely, that the label isn't meant to suggest that religious doubters are smarter than everyone else. But I actually think this misrepresentation ought to be blamed more on Dennett, Dawkins, and the original "bright" movement founders than on D'Souza -- for reasons I will explain.
In his original New York Times op-ed announcing the "brights" label, Dennett wrote, "Don't confuse the noun with the adjective: 'I'm a bright' is not a boast but a proud avowal of an inquisitive world view." That's certainly nice in principle. But who did Dennett think he was kidding? How could anyone hear the label "bright" and think anything but that atheists were claiming to be smarter than everyone else? As ABC News.com commentator John Allen Paulos remarked of the "brights" campaign, "I don't think a degree in public relations is needed to expect that many people will construe the term as smug, ridiculous, and arrogant."
From the start, the "brights" label reinforced a longstanding stereotype. Atheists already have a terrible rap for being cold-hearted rationalists who attend Mensa gatherings and dismiss religious believers as simple-minded fools. Remember the public outcry that resulted when Jesse Ventura told Playboy magazine that he considered organized religion to be "a sham and a crutch for weak minded people who need strength in numbers"? I actually don't think that most atheists look down on or sneer at their religious compatriots, but that's beside the point. Given this backdrop of strongly held negative preconceptions about atheists in our heavily religious society, how is renaming atheists "brights" supposed to burnish their image?
Sure enough, in his Wall Street Journal reaction to the "brights" campaign, D'Souza reverts to the standard anti-atheist stereotype. Dennett's "implication was clear," observes D'Souza. "Brights are the smart people who don't fall for silly superstitions." D'Souza then ventures into some questionable territory, arguing that atheists aren't really so "rational" after all. I disagree: While all people have their foibles, I do think there's at least one obvious sense in which atheists are more "rational" than religious believers. Atheists don't accept supernatural claims on the basis of faith -- apractice that cannot, in my opinion, be defended by rational argument. In this sense, at least, atheists do have a leg up in the rationality department (though I'm not sure how much good it does them).
But leaving philosophical points aside, the fact is that D'Souza, writing in the most prominent of conservative outlets, made precisely the attack on the "brights" movement that its proponents should have expected from the outset. (Indeed, quite a similar critical approach was taken by a non-conservative, Steve Waldman of Beliefnet, on NPR.) Given this tactical vulnerability, D'Souza could actually have made a far more devastating criticism of Dawkins and Dennett than the one he does make. After all, if atheists really are so smart, how could two leading atheists -- and brilliant evolutionary thinkers -- fail to see that the "brights" label would backfire?
My guess is that Dennett, Dawkins, and the original "brights" proponents simply didn't realize that in order to introduce a concept like this, one needs to do polling, message testing, focus groups, the works. You can't just go on ungrounded inspiration. Yet the idea of championing "brights" appears to have a very cerebral origin: It's closely tied to the Dawkins-Dennett theory of memetics. In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins coined the term "meme" to describe an infectious, self-replicating idea or concept. Dennett then jumped on the bandwagon with his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Now, by promoting the "brights" concept in the media, it appears that Dennett and Dawkins think they can start a memetic idea infection and watch it catch on. As one savvy communications expert observed to me by e-mail: "once you've coined a term like 'meme,' I guess you hanker for that big follow-up."
But though Dawkins and Dennett may know a lot about evolutionary biology, the packaging and marketing of ideas -- what we might call the science of "framing" -- might not be their strongest suit. A basic lesson of framing is that you have to avoid promulgating messages that reinforce negative stereotypes, because these stereotypes tend to be too deeply held to defeat head-on. I provided a good example of such well-intentioned stereotype reinforcement in an article about framing guru Susan Bales:
Some of the failures of well-intentioned groups to understand the power of frames would be comical if the stakes weren't so high. For instance, teenagers have a terrible reputation among the adult public because of the general perception of endemic teen violence, promiscuity, drug use and sloth. Thanks in part to the media, which frequently depicts teens in the context of crimes, accidents or frivolous pursuits, this stereotypical view of adolescents is deeply embedded....Most young people are not, in fact, out trashing the neighborhood. But how to change public perceptions? In 1997 the National Crime Prevention Council and The Advertising Council ran an ad campaign that proved too clever by half. Titled "Prove Them Wrong By Doing Something Right," the ads sought to inspire teenagers to subvert anti-youth stereotypes by becoming active in opposing crime among their peers. But the advertisements used harsh stereotypes, such as an image of a young skateboarder with his hat on backward and the words "Vandal," "Heroin Addict" and "Purse Snatcher" superimposed over it. Only in smaller print could one read "... all kicked out with the help of kids like me." The problem, Bales and company say, is that once you conjure a powerful and negative stereotypical frame such as troubled teens, you can't just suppress it again.
I think this example runs closely parallel to the brights/atheists case, and clearly demonstrates the shortcomings of the "brights" frame. And note: It doesn't matter whether Dawkins or Dennett or anyone else actually is claiming to be super smart. Simply by announcing the label "brights," the damage has already been done. When people -- most of whom are religious believers -- hear that word, the vast majority will likely revert to the stereotypical atheists-as-arrogant frame, which has already been burned into their psyches. That means the "brights" label will have failed. In fact, it will have backfired, making the anti-atheist stereotype even harder for future atheists to defeat or dislodge in the future.
What would be a better way to polish the atheist image? I have no studies to point to, but there may be a lesson in the "brights" episode. I suspect that what atheists really need is for people to believe that they're likeable, and not so different from everybody else. So perhaps future atheist message crusaders should describe themselves and their brethren as humble, rather than angry or sneering or super smart. In addition, perhaps atheists should associate themselves more with universal human feelings of sympathy, joy, and even vulnerability, rather than cold rationality and relentless inquisitiveness. I'm not sure, but I do know one thing -- something that we all learned in high school. The "bright" kids aren't always the ones with the most friends, and nobody -- nobody -- likes a smart ass.
Michael Shermer
E-SKEPTIC, October 17, 2003
http://www.skeptic.com/BIG%20BRIGHT%20BROUHAHA4.htm
Introduction
In 1999 a Gallup poll inquired of Americans: "If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be an X would you vote for that person?" X represents Catholic, Jew, Baptist, Mormon, black, homosexual, woman, or atheist. Although six of the eight received more than 90 percent approval--showing that America has become a more tolerant and ecumenical society--only 59 percent said they would vote for a homosexual, and less than half, 49 percent, would vote for an atheist.
Words matter and language counts. "Feminist" is a fine word that describes someone who believes in the need to secure the rights and opportunities for women equivalent to those provided for men. Unfortunately, thanks to certain conservative commentators, it has also come to be associated with sandal-wearing, tree-hugging, postmodern, deconstructionist, left-leaning liberals best scorned as "Femi-Nazis."
Likewise, "atheist" is a descriptive term that simply means "without theism," and describes someone who does not believe in God. Unfortunately, thanks to religious fundamentalists, it has also come to be associated with sandal-wearing, tree-hugging, postmodern, deconstructionist, left-leaning liberals who are immoral, pinko communists hell bent on corrupting the morals of America's youth.
Speak the scorn into existence.
The "Brights" Are Born
At the April, 2003 conference of the Atheist Alliance International in Florida, at the behest of the organizer I spoke about this labeling problem in the context of what "we" should call ourselves: skeptics, nonbelievers, nontheists, atheists, agnostics, heretics, infidels, free thinkers, humanists, secular humanists and the like. Apparently there was some discussion amongst the organizers about whether or not I should be invited to speak because in my book, How We Believe, I defined myself as an agnostic instead of atheist, by which I mean, as Huxley originally defined the term in 1869, that the question of God's existence is an insoluble one. I suggested, rather strongly, that dividing up the skeptical and humanist communities because of a disagreement over labels was not dissimilar to the Baptists and Anabaptists squabbling (and eventually splitting) over the appropriate time for baptism (infancy v. adulthood).
My lecture was followed by a formal PowerPoint presentation introducing a "new meme," by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell, from Sacramento, California, who noted that, by analogy, homosexuals used to suffer a similar problem when they were called homos, queers, fruits, fags, and fairies. Their solution was to change the label to a more neutral term gay. Over the past couple of decades, gays have won significant liberties for themselves, starting with gay pride and gay marches that have led to gay rights. Analogously, instead of calling ourselves skeptics, nonbelievers, nontheists, atheists, agnostics, infidels, heretics, free thinkers, humanists, secular humanists, and the like, it was suggested that we call ourselves brights.
What is a bright? As defined by its creators, "A Bright is a person whose worldview is naturalistic--free of supernatural and mystical elements. Brights base their ethics and actions on a naturalistic worldview." At present there is no brick-and-mortar brights headquarters, no brights secret handshake or decoder ring. This is a cyberspace phenomenon that "seeks unification of these many persons into an Internet constituency that will grow to have significant social and political influence." Given our "severe linguistic disadvantage," the co-directors state, "The Brights movement asks those with a naturalistic worldview to join hands (in a metaphorical sense) and to begin to view themselves and speak in civic situations as Brights." As such we must unite against the prejudice that as nonbelievers we are not qualified to be full participatory citizens. "Brights have as full a spectrum of beliefs as any other citizens. We, as Brights, reject entirely societal imposition of a set of distasteful negative labels (unbelievers, godless, irreligious) that hamper us unfairly as we work to present our views in the civic arena."
The Reaction to "Brights"
The feedback from audience members was difficult to read, but immediately following the presentation, myself, the Oxford University evolutionary bioloist Richard Dawkins, the magician and skeptic James Randi, and many others all formally signed up to be brights. In the months following the conference Dawkins penned an opinion editorial for the June 21 issue of The Guardian in London, and the Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett announced in the New York Times on July 12 that he too was a Bright. At a June conference in Seattle for gifted high school students at which both Dennett and I spoke about being nonbelievers and brights, there was an enthusiastic reception that generated a buzz among both students and speakers the rest of the weekend. It seems that lots of teenagers, and even many adult professionals from all walks of life, are nonbelievers but have been reluctant to come out as such for fear of retribution.
In his commentary, Dawkins opined that "As with gays, the more brights come out, the easier it will be for yet more brights to do so. People reluctant to use the word atheist might be happy to come out as a bright." Dawkins admitted that the phrase "I am bright" rings with arrogance, so he hopes that "I am a bright" will solicit inquiry. "It invites the question, 'What on earth is a bright?' And then you're away: "A bright is a person whose world view is free of supernatural and mystical elements. The ethics and actions of a bright are based on a naturalistic world view."
Dennett, in turn, announced "The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet and admit publicly that we don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny...or God." He too avered: "Don't confuse the noun with the adjective: 'I'm a bright' is not a boast but a proud avowal of an inquisitive world view."
Where Dawkins observed that "brights constitute 60% of American scientists, and a stunning 93% of those scientists good enough to be elected to the elite National Academy of Sciences" (referring to a study conducted in 1996 by Edward Larson), Dennett added that brights are "all around you: we're doctors, nurses, police officers, schoolteachers, crossing guards and men and women serving in the military. We are your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters. Our colleges and universities teem with brights. Wanting to preserve and transmit a great culture, we even teach Sunday school and Hebrew classes. Many of the nation's clergy members are closet brights, I suspect. We are, in fact, the moral backbone of the nation: brights take their civic duties seriously precisely because they don't trust God to save humanity from its follies."
How many brights are there? Officially there are several thousand from 79 nations. Unofficially, Dennett cited a 2002 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which concluded that 27 million Americans are atheists, agnostics, or claim no religious preference. "That figure may well be too low," Dennett suggested optimistically, "since many nonbelievers are reluctant to admit that their religious observance is more a civic or social duty than a religious one--more a matter of protective coloration than conviction."
Reactions from public intellectuals came swiftly. A number of people reported that they heard Rush Limbaugh comment on his syndicated radio show heard by tens of millions of people that brights think they are "brighter than those who believe in God." In The Times (of London) Ben McIntyre confessed on July 19 that "I shall not be coming out as a Bright just yet. For a start, the term secular humanist may be old-fashioned but it is still serviceable, and mercifully doesn't sound like something dreamed up as an advertising gimmick." He noted, with classic British humor, "It has the added advantage that the Religious Right in America already loathes it, so it must be just fine." More seriously, McIntyre observed "The term Bright seems too all-embracing for so many shades of doubt and certainty. Why, in rejecting the extravagant claims of organised religion, would one want to be part of a group organised around the absence of religion? Almost by definition, Brights would be opposed to joining any club clamouring to have them as a member, and for that reason alone I suspect the Brights may dim pretty quickly."
Even National Public Radio--one of the last liberal bastions left on the airwaves and long supportive of the ACLU and other secular causes--red a critical commentary. On September 4, NPR's Steven Waldman asked, "Are atheists and agnostics smarter than everyone else?" and answered with the already oft-quoted antonym: "I'm not sure what the image buffers were aiming for, but the name The Brights succinctly conveys the sense that this group thinks it's more intelligent than everyone else. The rest of us would be The Dims, I suppose." Waldman admits "Our political culture has increasingly marginalized atheists, agnostics, and secular humanists--whether it's ten commandments in the courtroom, or a president who invokes god continuously," and that "any rationalist" would be perfectly justified in thinking society views them as second class citizens whose views are not worthy." Indeed. But then he sets up a straw-man argument by claiming that brights have asserted "that people who believe in god or the supernatural are just not as, well, bright." To my knowledge no bright has made such an assertion, and if they did they would be wrong since survey data show (as Waldman notes) that over half of all Americans with post-graduate degrees believe in the Devil, Hell, miracles, the afterlife, the virgin birth, and the resurrection. As I have demonstrated elsewhere (Why People Believe Weird Things), smart people believe weird things because they are better at rationalizing beliefs they arrived at for non-smart (psychological and emotional) reasons.
Dinish D'Sousa, in an October 6 Wall Street Journal editorial, began by noting that our movement claims a heritage dating back to the Enlightenment, then argued that our fundamental belief in the power of science and reason to encompass all knowledge about the world was thoroughly debunked by the Enlightenment German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who demonstrated that no system of human knowledge could be complete, and thus there will always be epistemological limits beyond which such entities as God might exist. That is, of course, possible, and no scientist or skeptic ever claimed that science is omnipotent or omniscient. But the possibility that the divine may exist in some realm beyond the reaches of science by no means proves that it does, and D'Sousa offers no enlightenment, as it were, on this front.
For my part I wrote a new ending to my next book, The Science of Good and Evil, and an opinion editorial based on that section, in which I said: Bright is a good word. It means "cheerful and lively," "showing an ability to think, learn, or respond quickly," and "reflecting or giving off strong light. Brights are cheerful thinkers who reflect the light of liberty and tolerance for all, both brights and non-brights. It is time for brights, like other minorities in our country, to stand up and be counted, either literally at www.the-brights.net, or figuratively the next time a politician kowtows to the religious right with a gratuitous slam against those of us who do not believe in God or are nonreligious. Just as it is no longer okay to woman-bash or gay-bash, it is now unacceptable to bright-bash. Saying so may not make it so, but all social movements begin with the word. The word is bright.
Study 1: Unsolicited Feedback on "Brights"
At the behest of my publisher I decided to hold off submitting my opinion editorial until my book arrived in stores in February, 2004. Instead, I "cam e out" to the 25,000 readers of our electronic e-Skeptic newsletter. To my astonishment I received hundreds of e-mails, the vast majority of which were emphatically negative about the term. Most strongly indicated that under no circumstances would they call themselves brights. The primary reason given was that the word sounds elitist, especially since the natural antonym is "dims." One correspondent, Joseph Giandalone from Conway, Massachusetts, wrote:
"I'm a 55-year-old scientist/humanist/atheist since my early twenties and I've thought about these things for many years and I am pained to tell you that your choice of the term Bright as the one to promote is a horrible one. I agree entirely and enthusiastically with your enterprise and the reasoning that goes into it, but I am dumbfounded that you would choose a term that will do nothing more than expose us to ridicule and engender hostility in those who do not agree with our worldview. Consider two facts: (1) In the popular lexicon, bright as applies to people means smart. (2) Believers in God (and etc.) really resent us already because we have the gall to reject their most cherished beliefs and to imply that people like them must be morons if they believe as they do. Put 1 and 2 together, please!
Since I had not kept track of how many positive and negative responses were received, and because I had not even invited feedback and commentary, I decided to initiate a slightly more formal study by posting the above letter in a second e-Skeptic, this time asking for feedback and commentary from readers. We received many thoughtful letters, such as this one from Ralph Leighton, the co-author, with the Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, of the book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman:
"'Rationalist' is the closest word to describe my beliefs. What's missing is the deep emotions that one can get from a rational belief. In fact, the awe that one feels for the universe is deeper, in my view, when one looks at the universe rationally, than when one views it irrationally, i.e. as a folk belief or religious story. That's why I came up with the term "Passionate Rationalist" to describe this seeming contradiction--but I concede that it is too long an expression to be practical. By the way, when it comes to whether there is a god, I think I remember Feynman describing himself as a non-believer. When I asked him what he meant, he said, 'You describe it; I don't believe in it.' Feynman was not saying he didn't believe there was a god; he was saying that any god that you can describe is too limiting for him to believe in. Michael, I strongly agree with the writer that there is a danger of setting back the cause. I wouldn't just let it go and see if it sticks. I would try to retract the term ASAP.
The actress (Clock Stoppers) and comedian (Saturday Night Live), Julia Sweeney, whose one-woman show, My Beautiful Loss of Faith Story, chronicles her journey from Catholicism to skepticism, also disliked the brights label, explaining that it sounds nerdy and unsexy. "When people ask, I say I'm a cultural Catholic and a philosophical Naturalist, natural being the opposite of supernatural."
Study 2: Solicited Feedback on "Brights"
In all we received 89 letters. Eight were clearly positive, the rest ranged from neutral to highly critical. Six of the eight positive letters included commentary, all of which are included below. Of the remaining letters, I include excerpts from 22 of them below.
Positive Reactions to "Brights"
First of all, I think trying to solicit alternatives to the word bright is an exercise in futility. There will always be a small vocal minority who cant stand any particular word for one reason or another. The point, oh clueless ones, is not the stupid word. The point is that together, we (being those of us with a naturalistic worldview) can be a force to be reckoned with. The point is, dear fellow atheists/skeptics/humanist/free-thinkers/hummingbirds, the Canadian Parliament is not going to take, say, 500 Canadian Humanists seriously (who can't even get their shit together among all the individual chapters). But add up all the Canadian humanist groups, skeptic groups, and all those folks who checked no religious affiliation on the last census, and you've got at least a million Canadian Brights. In Canada, that's a lot of votes.
I like the term Bright. I think it is interesting and proper and those arguments against it are unfounded and based on fear of what others (like believers) think. Cowards. The term Bright will stick. It should. It sounds good and I liked it since I had first seen it associated with James Randi. I didn't know what it meant at first, until you sent me your e-Skeptic, but now that I know, my instincts of it were confirmed and the term fits Randi and others who I think are truly Brights. This term is distinguished and even curious for those who might not know what it means at first, but can only speculate until they find out. But one thing is for sure, they will know they aren't Brights if they aren't in the category of James Randi and yourself and others who know how to debunk their collective jargon with good science. Stick with the term, for I think it will stick. It is naturalist and free of metaphysical claims and jargon, but full of just plain and simple common sense reality. Be well and be a Bright.
I think that Bright is quite neutral compared to some of the other options. As far as the argument that bright makes us sound like we think we are smarter than them, so what? I'm sorry, and I certainly don't mean to suggest that atheists are necessarily smarter than theists, but the resentment that a person aims at others who challenge his sacred beliefs will not be mollified because the challenger calls himself a humble or apologist.
I loved the term when I first read about it. I felt a bit of joy, thinking that I could take that label for myself, my worldview, and share it with other individuals. Hell yeah! I thought.
I would like to weigh in with a tepidly positive vote. In fact I went ahead and signed up as a Bright. The point of the whole exercise is not to go around proclaiming that we are Brights and doing battle with evangelicals at every corner. My interpretation is that if we atheists, agnostics, skeptics, etc., want to join together as a more solid and cohesive voice, we must do so under one name. Unfortunately, if we are to have any kind of say in what is going on in our communities and the world, then we really must come together as one informed voice and presence. If the best way to begin this process is to take on the name Bright, than so be it.
Anyone who has endorsed the meme is not likely to write to say "me to," or right on bro." I know that the idea has stimulated a lot of lively discussion in humanist/atheist/freethought fora and that there are a lot of people who are downright threatened by it. Your involvement and that of Randi, Dawkins, Dennett and others, in print and on the radio, have really helped to get the idea about Bright into the open. In addition, it has made people realize that nontheists are not content to be negatively defined (or defiled) by believers.
Even negative feedback spreads the meme. I don't know how successful the Bright constituency idea will be in the long run, but I think that the discussion it has stimulated both within free thought community, but also in the main stream, has been a good thing.
Negative Reactions to "Brights"
The response to the "bright" meme proposal immediately put me in mind of what happened here in Canada with the yearly conference of social scientists known as The Learned Societies Conference. The conference was colloquially known as The Learneds, but the society has recently changed after a backlash in many host cities had the locals referring to the conference attendees as The Stupids.
Let me add my voice to the myriad of others who have expressed opposition to any attempt to promote Bright as a popular euphemism for nontheist. While I would be delighted to be publicly proclaimed as a Bright, there is not a snowflake's chance on the sunny side of Mercury of the ignorant godworshippers (tautology) ever accepting a word commonly understood to mean brainy as a description of persons who disagree with them.
The name "Brights" sounds too much like happy shiny people sort of hippie-dippie, brain dead. And just like "child-free" in the 70s, it sounds smug. What' s wrong with unbeliever? You can't be a bigger atheist than I am, yet I'm thrilled to tiny bits to handle money that says In God We Trust and I cheerfully sing Christmas carols. I just don't believe in anything. I'm walking, talking electric meat.
As a skeptic myself, I find this name "brights" ludicrously conclusionary and almost pitifully self-aggrandizing to the point where it calls into question in my mind--your basic common sense. I suggest you try to swallow your pride, admit your error and drop the thing ASAP if not sooner.
Why don't we simply call ourselves "smart-people-unlike-you-dumb-people"? How to win friends and influence people.
Before I saw your piece in E-Skeptic, I had already signed up and sent this to the "Brights" themselves: "I signed up yesterday, because I believe fully in what you are doing. However, you have to come up with a better name for the movement. I did a quick web search, and already Rush Limbaugh is vilifying the group as thinking they are "brighter than those who believe in God." This makes it difficult for me to admit to my family that I'm part of this movement, since they listen to Limbaugh and will immediately take it as some sort of superior statement, which doesn't seem at all your intention.
In the 19X0's my aunt was already one of the highest ranking women in the State Department a time and a place where women in authority were rare and ungodly Communists were persecuted. When asked about religion, she would simple say, "I am of a scientific mind."
Lets just keep this plain and simple and out front: atheist. This bright stuff is just dumb. We shouldn't let others change our name because they have slandered it. Atheist is not a bad word, we should not be ashamed to use it.
Although nothing is certain, some things come close. The sun will rise and set tomorrow. An apple will fall from a tree. A birth will occur. And "bright" will remain a terrible name for us non-believers. Its in-your-face connotation is obvious to me and everyone I talk to about it. Surely you are bright enough to see that.
Actually, I am liking the term skeptic more and more as time goes by. It doesn't seem to evoke the anti-christian connotations you get when you use atheist. Maybe it is because it seems more scientific, as opposed to relating to religion. You can be skeptical about many things, but you can only be atheist in regard to religion.
From the very first time I heard this "bright" idea a couple of months ago I thought it was dumb. After thinking about it some more, the conclusion I've come up with is that it's even dumber than I originally thought.
Register another vote against "Bright," mostly for the reason cited by the reader-response you included. The retiree's association of the company I worked for (TRW) could not agree upon a name for their newsletter. So, for over twenty years it has been known as The No-Name Gazette. I respectfully submit that we are better served by No-Name than by "Bright."
In the May 2003 Atlantic Monthly, Jonathan Rauch suggested apatheism. The modern flowering of "apatheism"--a disinclination to care all that much about one's own religion, and an even stronger disinclination to care about other people's" is worth getting excited about, particularly in ostensibly pious America." It isn't a synonym for the all-encompassing term "bright" but, due to a summer backlog in reading, I encountered apatheism and brights on the same day. Of the two, I like apatheism since it expresses my own views on religion very well--don't bug me with your religion and I won't bug you with mine. On the other hand, I don't much like "brights." It requires explanation, and since I am an apatheist I don't really care to get into explanations.
I can't believe you folks are this out of touch. You are, despite your worthy intentions, doing all of us a great disservice and can only wind up setting our cause back, which we do not need. I find the fact that a number of you have decided to label People Like Me "The Brights" to be embarrassing. I haven't thought of a better term to use, but there have got to be many. Can't you instigate some kind of retraction and make an effort to get some kind of input from a large number of us? Get a larger sampling of opinion on this???! It's too good an idea to screw up with that horrendous choice of a label.
For God's sake (and for Gould's!) please don't call us "Brights."
Just wanted to throw in my 2-cents on the suggested rechristening of skeptics as "Brights." Bad. Bad. Goofy. And bad.
First, I don't think that re-branding is a solution. There are already a plethora of accurate terms in popular use (atheist, humanist, secularist...) and anyone sympathetically inclined won't have any trouble wearing one. However, anyone opposed certainly won't be placated by a cuter, cuddlier name. These are people that curse words like "science, tolerance, liberal, and establishment clause." Many of them look down on the term "lovers."
We're not going to get anywhere looking for a new label. Second, it would be hard to come up with a less hip, goofier name than "Bright." It's kind of like calling your band, "The Sunshines" (unless it was death metal and the irony palpable). Ever know a wimp who changed his name to "Bruce?" Or a plain-jane rebranding herself Roxanne?" Could you look at them without thinking, "Ridiculous?" And those are both cooler names than "bright."
I agree 100% with Mr. Giandalone's letter. Life is hard enough for atheists these days without some wise guyer, I mean, Bright guy--deciding that all of us should be labeled as Bright. I am insulted and outraged that somebody else should decide to label me as such.
Please please, please do not set this trial balloon afloat. Rather, please let the hot air out of the balloon--pronto. We don't need yet another label.
We need to find pro-atheistic arguments that inspire people, which instill hope, which motivate people to be good and productive members of society.
I was intrigued by your search for a word to describe me and I looked at the Bright's website. After giving it some thought I reached the same conclusion as Mr. Giandalone, although I wouldn't express myself so robustly. The trouble with "bright" is that it is self-congratulatory and carries a strong flavour of superiority; I can't imagine myself using it without embarrassment. I really don't see much wrong with "agnostic." It has religious connotations but the meaning of a word can change and broaden and perhaps it's easier to retrain a horse than breed a new one.
The term "bright" (in my humble opionion) is like a "kick me" sign on my back.
I'm so glad someone (finally) asked! I don't really like the word "Bright" being foisted upon me and I would much prefer something less offensive such as "freethinker." True, it is sometimes possible to believe in God and still be a freethinker but it's still a better word than "bright," and it's popular.
I conducted my own poll. I deliberately put the terms in the plural (brights, freethinkers, secularists, etc.) in order to give the term Bright a fair shot. It's at: http://ankrumschultz.tripod.com/ As you can see, Freethinkers wins for 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice, which shows that even people who would not make it their first choice still like it. Meanwhile, "Secularists" looks fairly strong for second place and would be a good alternative to those who think freethinkers" is too broad. Also, although 12% of people in the poll are not Freethinkers (or Brights, etc.) Freethinker ranked among one of the least offensive terms at 2%, Secularists even better at 1%, (all of them were deemed offensive by someone), while 8% thought "Brights" was offensive, the second highest score for offensiveness just behind "Enlightened Ones."
Discussion
Admittedly, there is a built-in bias in this study since people are more likely to respond when they are disgruntled. To their credit, Paul and Mynga sent me all of the comments people had submitted when they signed up. Of the 64 presented to me, 17 made specific reference to the potentially offensive nature of the word "brights." That is a hefty 27%, a number that strikes me as rather high coming from those most positive about the concept.
I had originally suggested to Paul and Mynga that we solicit feedback from various sources before settling on a new label, but they convinced me that sometimes social movements are best driven not by committee and excessive discussion (free thinkers, humanists, and skeptics have been talking about the labeling problem for decades) but by simply moving forward with the goal of making it happen by momentum, will, and force of personality. Since much of what I do gels with this philosophy, I was initially receptive.
But then the Associate Director of the Skeptics Society, Matt Cooper, pointed out (based on his experience as a marketing consultant and political activist) that it is not the philosophy of the movement under debate, but the brand name. This is a branding issue, not an ideology issue. And the scientific approach to branding is to conduct focus groups and market tests to see what works. Unfortunately, this was never done for the bright brand, and as a consequence we are now embroiled in a big bright brouhaha. Thus, Matt and I analyzed all of the e-mails we received in response to the second e-Skeptic that solicited feedback, and followed that up with a focus group study. Table 1 presents the attitudes of the 89 e-Skeptic respondents.
Table 1: Attitudes Toward the Label "Brights" by 89 e-Skeptic respondents
# e-mails/Percent
Totals
89/100%
Suggested alternatives to "Brights" numbered 124 and are presented in Table 2. As a quick perusal will show, compared to most of these "Brights" is a vastly superior label.
Table 2: Suggested Alternatives to "Brights"
Study 3: Focus Group Feedback on "Brights"
On September 7, following the Skeptics Society Distinguished Science Lecture Series at Caltech, we assembled a focus group of 13 first-time lecture attendees. Without knowing the purpose of the focus group, the volunteers were asked to describe the audience they had just been a part of. Their suggestions are presented in Table 3.
Table 3. Suggested Descriptive Terms for Attendees at the Skeptics Society Caltech Lecture
The focus group was then asked for words that might describe all such-minded people worldwide. They offered iconoclasts, rationalists, nonbelievers, open-minded, determinists and skeptics.
The focus group was then given a list of names culled from the 124 provided by our e-Skeptic correspondents. They were asked which names they liked most, which they liked least, and which would be acceptable to them. The results are in Table 4.
Table 4. Alternative Names Liked Most, Least, and in Between by Focus Group
Most Between Least
The most polarizing name was Freethinkers. It was expected to be offensive or embarrassing by 32% of the focus group, yet was chosen as a favorite by the remaining 68%. Table 5 presents the same data in a different breakdown.
Table 5. Focus Group Rankings of Alternative Names for "Brights"
Top 5 Most Offensive Names
Rank Name Cited by
Top 9 Least Offensive Names
Rank Name Cited by
Top 9 Most Favored Names
Rank Name Cited by
Top 9 Most Acceptable Names
Rank Name Cited by
The focus group session ended with a general summary of the brights controversy. The room was polled as to how many thought the public would be offended by the label "Brights." Nine of the 13 raised their hand. This was followed by a moderated discussion regarding the reactions of the participants to this and other suggested names. Some of their thoughts included:
What is in a Name?
The next stage in this research project would be for someone to formally market test the bright brand name with a large sample size, comparing it to the most popular alternatives suggested by the focus group, then run a statistical test on the results to determine which, if any, of the names will create a positive initial impression of the movement for the greatest proportion of unaffiliated individuals. Such market tests are not difficult to conduct, but they can be expensive if done properly. I hope that this preliminary empirical investigation stimulates just such a market study.
What is in a name? Unfortunately, a lot. For the most part I avoid labels altogether and simply prefer to say what it is that I believe or do not believe. However, at some point labels are unavoidable (most likely due to the fact that the brain is wired to pigeonhole objects into linguistic categories), and thus one is forced to use identity language. Whether the bright meme succeeds or not I commend Paul and Mynga for their courage and conviction and if, in a decade or two, the brights label has the same level of social acceptance as the gays label, we will all be better off for it. Although I like the top-down strategy of attempting to impose some order on this linguistic chaos, in the end I suspect that a type of Darwinian selection will drive the most natural name to general acceptance. Or perhaps diverse linguistic species will peacefully co-exist within their own niches.
Until then, since the name of the magazine I co-founded is Skeptic, and my monthly column in Scientific American is entitled Skeptic, I shall continue to call myself a skeptic, from the Greek skeptikos, or "thoughtful." Etymologically, in fact, its Latin derivative is scepticus, for "inquiring" or "reflective." Further variations in the ancient Greek include "watchman" and "mark to aim at." Hence, skepticism is thoughtful and reflective inquiry. Skeptics are the watchmen of reasoning errors, aiming to expose bad ideas.
Perhaps the closest fit for skeptic is "a seeker after truth; an inquirer who has not yet arrived at definite convictions." Skepticism is not "seek and ye shall find"--a classic case of what is called the confirmation bias in cognitive psychology--but "seek and keep an open mind." What does it mean to have an open mind? It is to find the essential balance between orthodoxy and heresy, between a total commitment to the status quo and the blind pursuit of new ideas, between being open-minded enough to accept radical new ideas and being so open-minded that your brains fall out. The virtue of skepticism is in finding that balance. Skeptic is a virtuous word.
MORE BRIGHTS FEEDBACK
This will be my final posting on e-Skeptic about the Big Bright Brouhaha. Here is the unsolicited feedback on the brights label as a descriptive moniker for us skeptics, nonbelievers, et al. My favorite suggested alternative is Spocks. Live long and prosper. In the end, I suspect, one name will emerge on the cultural landscape--or it won't. Either way, I am skeptical that a top-down command "by fiat" strategy will work, especially for a group of individuals who are not particularly enamored of top-down fiat commands, and we'll continue doing what we have been doing lo these many centuries--picking and choosing among the potpourri of names that best describes each of our unique beliefs.
Question: How many Brights does it take to change a lghtbulb? Answer: "Look, it's not that I have anything against lightbulbs in general, in fact I think they're a good idea -- but changing it is going to be counterproductive, and simply implies to the public that we just can't handle the darkness."
Bright works for me, but I am not sure we need a new brand. After all "gay" 50 years ago would imply that all non-gays were unhappy or boring. But in the end, I am proud to tell people, even people I go to church with, that I am a Skeptic. I politely explain what it means ala Hume, and many (even very devote Christians) are not offended by it. Surprisingly, many feel that Skeptic describes them too. I would suggest a continued campaign to make sure Skeptic means in the public mind, what we all know it to mean in the scientific/philosophic mind. I love your magazine and the emails, but mostly I love the community. After all, all we really have is each other, and that is enough. Perhaps that is the message we really need to convey to everyone else.
I am a 69-year old retired exec with a lifelong interest in philosophy and its problems and I'm a new subscriber. The referenced thoroughly satisfying article points up some of the problems encountered by one who is trying to figure out "what's going on." The dark force of the "preconceived conclusion" and the "inadequacy of language" come quickly to mind. My reaction to the Brouhaha: combine the search for truth with politics (or is it the other way around) and, PRESTO, you get a new religion concerned with identity, ideology, differentiation, conversion of the unwashed, influence over mores and laws, the education of children, and finally, the ever popular "collection plate." We can't help it. It is the way we're wired. But it is a dangerous game particularly for the best players, who end up becoming what they despise. I like the word Bright and will act accordingly. Natch many of your eggheads will want to talk the subject to death, but it they don't like it, ask me if I care.
I think the label "bright" is dumb. I'm an atheist and proud of it. This "bright" crap is making fools of you, and by implication, anyone else who happens to have a scientific or skeptical point of view. I'm ashamed of you. Do you think George Bush, Pat Robertson and their kind give a shit what you call yourselves? They'll still call you atheists. And they'll be right.
After you find or invent an acceptable name for your group, will members get shiny capes with 12 inch tall collars? I like ' Thinkers ', except spelt in a real spelling system, i.e.' XINKRZ '.
I joined the 'Bright' movement out of respect for you and Richard Dawkins, but it is a horrible appellation. 'Atheist' has too many negative connotations to be viable and we do need a new adjective, just as 'gay' superceded 'queer'. But 'Bright' isn't it. It does sound elitist.
Any news release by the "Brights" would have more attention called to the name than the topic of the news release. While I would find a lot in common, I could never refer to myself as a bright. It would offend any non-bright with the least sensitivity. In fact the more non-bright, the greater the offense will be taken. I suggest finding an acronym which would not create it's own impression when spoken of. Atheistic Secular Scientists - well maybe a different order and a few other terms. Let me know if you would like me to work on this; I'm pretty bright.
Read your e-article and appreciate the focus group efforts and stats. Thank you for all the hard work. As a feminist first (my mother was an early NOW local organizer) and lesbian second, I feel I know a little something about labels. Or rather, about being labeled. The folks who started this bright meme used "gay" as an example of a label that came to defuse, to a certain extent, the difficulty of talking about or identifying oneself as homosexual. One person mentioned gay as an originally derogative term that was embraced by the movement and held as a source of pride. Very true. So was the pink triangle, though I wouldn't want the challenge of starting with something that horrible again, no matter how wonderful it became later. But I notice, too all the words that don't become symbols of pride, or that have very particular restrictions on their use. Lesbian is one, oddly enough. I've heard many women refer to themselves as "gay women" rather than lesbian, because the term remains so negative (and just get me started on the gender connection that makes both 'feminist' and 'lesbian' negative terms!). Consider 'nigger.' Such an awful word for so long, now embraced by the former victims of it, but limited to use within that community or those closely associated with it. As another person mentioned, and I think is more important, these terms were not chosen by the recipients. I think that matters more than what the term might originally have meant. Feminists chose that label for themselves, yet it got turned into something even actually feminist-thinking folks are uncomfortable with. True, no matter what term is chosen, the Limbaughs of the world will try to turn it to their advantage and against ours. The degree of their success will be in part measure of our failure to promote the correct interpretation, but we don't need to hand them the ammunition to slaughter us linguistically right at the start! "Bright" simply already has too much baggage. True, what doesn't? And starting a new made up word would be worse. But think of how elegantly you defined "skeptic" at the end of your article. Yes, skeptic does convey a whole set of connotations, but I feel it is more amenable to correction, to being brought back to its original denotation, than is "bright." I never imagined I could come out of the closet a second time (and so much better prepared, too!) but I would love to. The kind of uncritical thinking that you are struggling to correct is as strangling to me here in Sacramento as the issues I face as a lesbian (well, of course they are difficult to extricate). And I'm no scientist. But I do work in medicine, and the critical thinking skills outside the defined professional areas are abysmal. I would love an opportunity to be another example (it isn't hard enough trying to be the best possible lesbian these folks could imagine, right?) and "come out" as a member of a defined group. If nothing else, that does tend to stimulate discussion. But I cannot imagine doing so as a "bright." (By the way, examine the difference between being lesbian and being "a" lesbian -- see how that might compare to "bright" and "a" bright). I remain a skeptic and a fan.
I, after 40 plus years as a "bright, free thinker, atheist, etc." have had the best results with something on the order of "Anti-Mystic", "Amystical" or a term that just tells people that I don't believe in anything that is mystical. When people ask me what mystical means, I give them the accepted dictionary term, and they seem to respond positively. Maybe something as simple as "non-mystic" could explain our beliefs without offending theirs.
I agree whole-heartedly with the concept of all of us banding together politically, however I have a hard time supporting the term "Bright". It's nearly impossible to find a label that will suit everyone who is not a certain thing, and fault can be found with any chosen term. Still, "Bright" is nowhere near self-explanatory. I'm pretty comfortable with the term "heathen". It's a deliberately insulting term used to describe someone viewed as inferior because they do not proscribe to the same set of beliefs and prejudices as the person describing them. As far as I can tell, that's us. Why try to think of a new term that the "true believers" will not find offensive? They don't worry about offending me when they want the ten commandments in courthouses or prayer in schools. I say we use the term they've already coined and throw it back in their faces. What fault can they find with a term they created? "Infidel" works equally well, by the way, but "heathen" is much more catchy. And there won't be any doubt about what it means.
Just for fun, and quite unscientifically, I used Excel to rank the long list of Brights alternatives. I put an html page up with the results (minus the dozens that got a score between 1 and -1). For the calculation the best possible score would be 10 and the worst something like -4 (I did that so the several dozen unranked names would zero out). So if you're curious about my results: http://users2.ev1.net/~switchtech/BrightsExtreme.html Personally I prefer Skeptic.
I don't suppose you will care one way or the other, but to me you are a heathen. In any case, the general public will refer to you by a group name only if they *perceive* you as a group. Unlike homosexual "activists" who parade about making sure that everyone knows what they are, the population at large probably cares not one whit what you choose to believe in or what you want to call yourselves and will pay attention to you only if you persistently and continually make a lot of public fuss about your position. Even then, I doubt anyone will be interested. Can you see your movement being featured on the TV news? Shall you hold massive rallys and "out" any closet "Xs" that you find? Your movement is, after all, inherently negative insofar as you appear to be people who don't believe in...something or other.
I nominate the word provers or something analogous because we draw a sharp distinction between ideas that can be proven to a reasonable degree of certainty and those that cannot. The term "Bright" does more to discredit the whole Skeptic gig than any other single thought I have read in your missives. If you cannot see the elitist under and overtones of this term I strongly suspect you do not qualify to apply it to yourself in any context. On the other hand, the recent tendency for Skeptic to take itself a bit too seriously will doubtless be negated by the term, so press on. There is a definite line between healthy 'skepticism' and skepticism as elitist philosophical bigotry. Using the term "Bright" will be a constant reminder to the public at large that E-SKEPTIC is to be placed in the recall banks of the mind under "National Lampoon Wanna-be's"
I suggest the word 'Spocks' rather than 'Brights'. The word being, of course, after that fabled character on the Star Trek series who, although exhibiting ALL the characteristics the Brights opt for, fetched nary a negative peep from anyone, anywhere, anytime. And still doesn't.
Personally, I think we should avoid the term "Bright" because of its usual connotation as "smart", while in fact I have met brilliant orthodox theologians (Lutheran, in my training) and some pretty dumb unbelievers. To me it has an elitist, "brighter than thou" implication. I like "Skeptic", or "Secularist" best. Sometimes I think I am an apatheist, as the Atlantic writer says, because in our current political climate so many who call themselves unbelievers or humanists identify it with a left wing deconstructionist approach to life. Of all unbelievers with whom I agree, I like the stance of Steven Pinker in his Blank Slate best, perhaps because it allows me to be a conservative and still be an unbeliever.
I must admit that I hated the word "bright" at first but the more I think about it the more I think that maybe we need a word to put us all under the same umbrella to protect ourselves and show a bit of unity. I still haven't warmed up to the word entirely but your email has me thinking about it all. Maybe the best way to look at this would be that we need a word not to describe what we are but what we are not. Part of what swayed me was the previous email you sent about the FOX survey. Those numbers gave me the creeps. I kept thinking about what Bertrand Russell said: "As long as people believe in absurdities then they will continue to commit atrocities." I think maybe it's time to make ourselves and our views even more known and better represented. If that means marketing then maybe it must be done. I'm an agnostic myself so I often don't feel part of the atheist crowd either but I sure as hell feel closer to them in my views than most groups. My point is that most of us have a revulsion against this kind of labeling but maybe it's the first step to better representing ourselves in a world that is less than rational. I'll give it some further thought before I sign my name to that list as a bright.
Hacker is another term that has taken on very bad connotations. It originally defined someone who loved computers and finding new and creative ways to use them. Amongst themselves, geeks still call themselves hackers and are proud of it. I learned all this from my nerd/geek/hacker/computer whiz genius nephew.
I hope that Bright as a noun goes away fast, and gets replaced by Skeptic. No label is perfect, but Skeptic will do, and, as you pointed out, it already has its own society and magazine. Perfect.
I signed up as a bright and I'm aware this is just a grass roots movement with no funding or organization yet. Recently, an idea came to me that I thought might be interesting should funding ever come. I'd like to see a bright or skeptical counter to the religious pamphlets found laying around in restaurants and other places. Of course, these pamphlets would present views such as "the evidence for evolution", "psychics and cold reading", or "who wrote the gospels?". This may be a bit aggressive for a group trying to be accepted, but I like the idea of spreading the facts around.
In my opinion it is a bad choice of words and will cause the secular humanist movement more harm than good which can hardly be considered a bright thing to do. My term of choice is 'rationalist'. It conveys the purpose,=20 method and goals of the movement in a single word without insulting anyone.
I am beginning to warm to Brights already if Rush Limbaugh finds it offensive. It is interestingly analogous to the Pro Life movement who clearly want to paint the rest of us as Anti Life or worse still Pro Death! The liberal response was of course to come up with Pro Choice forcing the opposition to be Anti Choice. I'm sure the architects thought they were being very clever but today the antonym meanings are really glossed over. In my opinion it always better to use a term that will cause a stir and generally piss people off as this will have more chance of becoming a powerful meme. I love the fact that people think that Brights are taking the position that they are smarter than those who believe in God. They generally are. I don't know of any Brights who think that condoms are a greater threat to society than AIDS for example.
Just wanted to add my vote re the use of the term Brights. I signed up as a member but absolutely loathe the name. I can't conceive of choosing a more pompous, condescending name. We "non-theists" already have a bad image, and now we pick a name sure to raise the hackles of the world's believers. Those involved in choosing the name should be expelled from the organization on the grounds that they are not "bright" enough to be members.
I don't recall any request for my opinion on whether or not I would like to be called a "bright", or what my opinion might be about joining an organization of persons who are not participating in the belief of 'God' or gods. If it makes any difference, I say NO to the "bright" label. I'm uncomfortable with the idea that I need to call myself anything to begin with, and certainly not a "bright", which seems such an unfortunate choice in so many ways. 'Skeptic' still seems to be the closest as an expression of my personal evaluation system when I want to describe my way of thinking.
You've put in hours of work that you could have spared yourself. There's no philosophy involved, just linguistics: the word "bright" was ill-chosen. In the English language, its dominant meaning as an adjective for a person is "intelligent". By borrowing the word as a synonym for "atheist", we atheists now have to waste time explaining a word instead of explaining our position, as well as reassuring people that we aren't bragging. A few men, mostly in England, are named "Lynn". 15% of their lives is devoted to correcting misconceptions about themselves. Words matter.
You are probably fed up to your back teeth with this "Bright" business, but can I just say that it seems to me that the most relevant remark in your last email was: Words such as gay and big bang were coined by opponents and embraced by advocates. Why do Christians use the symbol of the cross? I think they chose various other symbols for themselves, fishes, chi-rho etc, but they didn't stick. There are many other examples. You can't decide these things by committee - they just happen, or in the case of sceptics, apparently don't happen. You say that we can't just say "what's in a name" because it is important, but while there may be some point in having a name for an official organization, there is no need for a movement as disparate as scepticism, unless an opponent chucks one at us that we can pick up and hit him back with.
"bright" sounds like something coined by the bush admin. about as bright as "home land defense," and "operation iraqi freedom." dumb, dumb, dumb.
Thank you for taking a more systematic approach to evaluating the name Brights. You already have enough evidence from your research that it is a bad name. In any group of professional naming experts you would get the following immediate responses:
Brights -- drop this name from consideration. It is offensive and does not describe the product. It's silly, and tries too hard. Freethinker -- drop this name. It has some descriptive quality, but it has too many negative associations such as "free love."Skeptic -- by far the best. Descriptive, if not all-encompassing, connotes a questioning attitude, minimal negative associations. In many attempts to name companies, products and services I have seen what I shall henceforth call "the Brights syndrome." Someone has an "aha" moment, feels they've really nailed it this time, gets all excited, champions the idea, and enthusiasm carries the day until rational evaluation or research take over again. A hypothesis often causes excitement (and should). One should never stop there.
In all this discussion, which certainly well documents the question, there is one point that stands out for me, and which seems to get generally overlooked in the arguments. As pointed out in the beginning of your article, "gay" has become a term widely accepted and used successfully in the fight for fair treatment and acceptance of homosexuals - and none of the terms which have labeled "us" has. Of course, one could argue how much difference the label makes, but presumably it does make a difference given the controversy and attention that "bright" has generated. "Bright" may make us susceptible to being labeled as arrogant. But let's face it, we (those who use science and rational argument as the basis for their philosophy of life) are already viewed as arrogant by most "believers." This seems to be a common human reaction, at least in the Western world, when one is faced with overwhelming evidence countering his/her position and cannot find a way to win the argument. And, in fact, we often behave that way -- anyone who has been active in our organizations can clearly see this.