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....creo que podeis disfrutar leyendo este artículo....
Saludos, Eduardo
The Bright Stuff
July 12, 2003
By DANIEL C. DENNETT
BLUE HILL, Me.
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.''
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/12/opinion/12DENN.html?ex=1059008218&ei=1&en=0bfb33e6600255cc
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