San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities

by Michael Shellenberger

The loosening of traditional morality widened the possibilities available to many people, but it also created a moral and spiritual vacuum. Where major religions had viewed humans as having souls that had some continued existence after the death of the body, the new secularism tended toward the view that consciousness was the result of material processes. Humans had no spirit independent of the biological processes inside the physical brain. Once we died, nothing in us lived on. Such hard secularism created anxiety. Whereas people on the political right tend to adhere more closely to traditional religions and moralities, whether Christianity, Judaism, or Hinduism, progressives are more secular, atheist, agnostic, and more open to alternative religions. Research suggests that progressives are more existentially anxious, neurotic, and unhappy, which some researchers attribute to lower levels of religiosity.20 One of the long-recognized benefits of religion is that it helps people to cope with their fear of death. If we follow a certain code of conduct, or morality, religions around the globe say, we can transcend death, and live on in a new world, whether heaven or a future world through reincarnation.