Faith, Reason, and Secular Fanaticism

This is a concise version of an article that I’ve published in full here.

Columbia linguist John McWhorter has been arguing that anti-racism is America’s newest religion since 2015. This framing certainly makes sense in light of the nation’s Puritan tendency to envision politics as a moral venture: a pilgrimage towards a “more perfect union.” It also goes a long way towards explaining the…