An idiosyncratic review of 2024
Personal
Bit of a strange year, this one, full of loss and change.
On my birthday in February, I had a hospital appointment with a specialist in hernia repairs and was put on a waiting list to receive corrective surgery for the ugly abdominal protrusions with which I’ve been afflicted for several years now (thank you, appendicitis). Still waiting, but no surprise there. They said six months to a year so we’re still within the timeframe. If I haven’t heard by then, in February 2025, I’ll celebrate my birthday by trying to contact someone (anyone) who might be able to give me an update. An easy task that’ll be, I’m sure. Just the way to spend one’s birthday (better than morosely reflecting on ageing and mortality, I suppose).
In April there came the news of the death of Granny Ina. In May, the funeral. I was surprised that it was a humanist celebrant who conducted it; as far as I’d always known, Ina was a believer. But then, we hadn’t been as close in recent years. She must have changed her mind long after my youthful ‘debates’ with her on the subject. Time and tide.
In August, I moved house, a hellish experience which I hope never to repeat (but will have to, one day). I’ve settled in now, and a friend has come to live with me temporarily. The house is in a small village, which is taking some getting used to. I’d thought the place I previously lived was small, but at least it was a town!
Another loss in October, this time of someone I had never met and had barely spoken to lately. An online American friend, with whom I’d exchanged tons of messages about all sorts of things—being gay, mental health, religion—more than a decade ago but with whom I’d since had only sporadic and infrequent contact was found dead in his home. He was so young. He’d had a troubled life (fundamentalist parents) and addiction problems. Whether it was suicide or an accident is still unclear, and I’ll probably never know. He’d tried to call me a few times in recent months, but I hadn’t answered, and we had a brief exchange not long before his death. I wish I’d spoken to him more. What a shock it was to open Facebook and see the news of his death. When we did message all those years ago, the conversations were meaningful, and he helped me more than I think he knew. I hope I helped him a little, too.
And now, December, and the year’s end. Why is my mood melancholy of late? Maybe it’s the state of the world (how nice it would be to blame the world!) or maybe it’s just me. I’ve been in a bit of a rut recently. I keep going with my work and everything else, but sometimes it’s difficult. I can barely even be bothered to bring myself to write this, let alone anything else. This is one of the reasons for my recent absence here; apologies. (Others include busyness and illness.)
Oh well, Christmas soon. Wine and chocolate. Then off to the Highlands for New Year’s Eve and then—on to 2025. It’s not all sad and bad. I just happen to be writing this in one of my lower moments, it seems. Sorry for any gloominess. It probably doesn’t help that two of the above items concern death and loss.
‘I must live until I die, mustn’t I?’ Or: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’
Political
What a year, though, for the big, wide world. The corrupt Tories booted out of government; the rise and fall and possible rise again of the French far right; exploding pagers and the near-annihilation of Hamas amid the expansion and escalation of the Israel-Hamas war; Ukraine invading Russia and assassinating Russian generals; the toppling of the House of Assad; the return of the vile Donald Trump after assassination attempts and convictions; the disgrace and possible disintegration of the Church of England; and a million other things, good and bad.
Right now, in my pessimistic mood, it all feels hopeless. Fascism in the White House, the likely abandonment of Ukraine by the US, Islamists ruling from Damascus, Hindu nationalism still in power in India… Still, let’s try for a bit of optimism. It was nice to see the monster Assad slain regardless of the circumstances, and there is still a tiny bit of hope for a free Syria in the near future. The resistance of the people of Ukraine and Iran to tyranny and theocracy continues to hearten. There are forces mobilising to stave off the worst of Trump. The disestablishment of the Church of England is nearer than ever. Oh, alright then, pessimism is a great motivator and optimism, however forced, a great inspirer: let’s keep buggering on, shall we?
Professional
On 1 April, of all days, I became the editor of the Freethinker, an old and eminent radical/secularist journal (est. 1881). I was honoured and humbled to have been entrusted with the job by my predecessor Emma Park and the good people at G.W. Foote & Co/Secular Society Ltd who publish the magazine. (G.W. Foote was the founder and first editor of the Freethinker. He was imprisoned for blasphemy for nearly a year because he published cartoons satirising religion. How times change, eh?) I can only hope my efforts have repaid that trust. While we’re on the subject, might I ask you to sign up for the Freethinker’s fortnightly newsletter and perhaps even make a donation? Every little helps for a small publication such as ours.
(For those of you with a historical interest, the Freethinker recently made available a near-complete digital archive of the magazine from 1881 to the present. See here.)
This year, I got to pontificate on stage a couple of times, which was very fun. First, at the Freethought History Festival in Conway Hall, and then at the National Secular Society conference in the Grand Connaught Rooms. Videos of my and others’ speeches from the conference can be viewed here.
Here, in no particular order, are some of the articles and interviews I’m proudest to have produced this year:
Letter From The Editor (The Freethinker, 1 April)
‘Nature is super enough, thank you very much!’: interview with Frank Turner (The Freethinker, 9 April)
Against the ‘New Theism’ (The Freethinker, 19 April; originally published on 7 February on this Substack)
Rushdie’s victory (The Freethinker, 22 April)
Donald Trump, political violence, and the future of America (The Freethinker, 15 July 2024)
‘Project 2025 is about accelerating the demise of a functioning democracy’: interview with US Representative Jared Huffman (The Freethinker, 3 August)
‘F*** it, think freely!’ Interview with Brian Cox (The Freethinker, 10 September)
Defending liberalism: interview with Helen Pluckrose (The Freethinker, 20 September)
‘The Genetic Book of the Dead’: A Dawkinsian Medley (The Freethinker, 14 October)
The radical atheism of the American revolutions: interview with Matthew Stewart (The Freethinker, 16 October)
By the Known Rules of Ancient Liberty: A Review of Masha Karp’s “George Orwell and Russia” (Merion West, 19 April)
The Triumph of Eros Over Thanatos: The Imperishable Beauty of “Holding the Man” (Merion West, 19 July)
Naturally, since my focus has been on the Freethinker this year, most of my highlights come from there. But Merion West continues to be one of the places for which I seem to produce some of my best work: the Holding the Man piece is one of my very finest. I’m just as proud of my New Theism, Trump, and Dawkins pieces.
Incidentally, I was also interviewed by Jonathan Church for Merion West’s Escaping Ideology podcast on 16 September; see here.
I’ve also been lucky in having had some truly excellent contributors to the Freethinker during my tenure thus far, too many to name here. But I just want to say that it is an honour to be able to publish such brilliant work. Go read it!
Finally, a couple of 2024 highlights from Daniel’s Den: a plea for America in the wake of that disastrous presidential debate and a lament for a model railway in Bo’ness. (Reconstruction work on the model railway seems to be going well, I note with a smile.)
Literary
In no particular order, some of the best books I read (or re-read) in 2024:
The Lord of the Rings ‘trilogy’ (1954-55) and The Silmarillion (1998 edition) by J. R. R. Tolkien (the latter edited by Christopher Tolkien). A long time coming, this read. I’ve been a fan since childhood of the Peter Jackson films. A testament to Jackson’s genius is that one notices places where he actually improves on Tolkien’s telling of the story (giving a more active role to Merry and Pippin in the uprising of Fangorn Forest, for example)—which is not to denigrate Tolkien or to deny that in other areas, Jackson falls short (one could instance his portrayal of Denethor, though that is still very good in itself). Geniuses both, in any case. The Silmarillion was difficult, but not quite as difficult as I’d been led to believe; wonderful, anyhow. I did a reading from The Return of the King here.
Darwin, God, and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Thought You Knew by Steve Stewart-Williams (2010). A convincing knockdown of theism and supernaturalism, and it contains very interesting arguments about evolution and ethics. Sometimes the style is to be desired, though. It inspired this Substack piece of mine about animal suffering.
The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve by Steve Stewart-Williams (2018). Much more stylistically accomplished than his previous, and just as stimulating. Doubtful of evolutionary psychology? Look no further.
Napoleon the Great by Andrew Roberts (2014). See my readings from this book here.
Various Sherlock Holmes story collections by Arthur Conan Doyle (various years). A comfort read for me, these stories. It’s always nice to revisit the rooms and mysteries of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.
A Higher Form of Cannibalism? Adventures in the Art and Politics of Biography (2005), Confessions of a Serial Biographer (2016), and Biography: A User’s Guide (2008) by Carl Rollyson. The great philosopher of the biographical art spills the secrets of his maligned and dangerous trade. Fascinating stuff. And there are lots of little-known stories about famous people in these pages, including Susan Sontag, Michael Foot, and Christopher Hitchens.
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie (2024). I reviewed this for the Freethinker (‘Rushdie’s victory’, above). In short: exceptional, moving, and a demonstration of resilience and love.
Lots of Thomas Paine stuff, which I frequently revisit. In particular here, though, let me mention The American Crisis (1776-1783), the series of pamphlets he authored during the American Revolutionary War to inspire the men on the front, keep backs stiff at home, hound British generals and statesmen, and set out his vision for the new nation. Thrilling stuff: a pen taken up amid war and revolution, and the words which spilt from it helped to win and shape both.
Nature’s God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic (2014) and An Emancipation of the Mind: Radical Philosophy, the War over Slavery, and the Refounding of America by Matthew Stewart (2024). Pantheistic, Spinozist, Epicurean atheism at the very foundation of the American Revolution and the later fight to end slavery? Oh yes. See also my interview with Stewart for the Freethinker, above. He is so right in believing it shameful that the main motivating force behind and bulwark of American slavery and all the racist systems that flowed from it has never been held to account. I speak of Christianity, of course.
The Genetic Book of the Dead: A Darwinian Reverie by Richard Dawkins, illustrated by Jana Lenzová (2024). See my Freethinker review, above.
Starborn: How the Stars Made Us - and Who We Would Be Without Them by Roberto Trotta (2023). A gift from a friend, and a very good one, too. Beautifully, and I mean beautifully, written, and endlessly fascinating. Science and history writing at their very best. I have some small issues with it, but they aren’t worth rehearsing here.
Holding the Man by Timothy Conigrave (1995). Of course. See my Merion West piece above.
This year, I have to add, I also saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in a cinema. It was my first time seeing the film, and thank goodness it was in the cinema: what an experience!
Lately, I have been re-reading The Guardians of Time trilogy (2002-2005) by Marianne Curley. I first encountered this series in the local library when I was a child. I loved it straight away. But then a couple of years passed, and I had a hankering to revisit it, only to realise that I’d forgotten the names of the books and the author. It took me a while to hunt them down, but I’m glad I did. Now, many more years later, I have my own copies, and I felt in the mood for some comfort reading. With an older, more trained (or more cynical) eye, I realise they’re hardly the stuff of great literature. But I’m still enjoying them. They’re a nice bit of escapism.
One aspect would not pass muster today, however. One of the main characters, Isabel, is fifteen years old in the first book, and it turns out she is soul-mates with Arkarian, who is…six hundred years old! He realises his love for her in that book but it’s not until the next one that they kiss (by now, she is sixteen). At least Arkarian looks eighteen, being magically ageless, and an immortal being grants Isabel the same gift, so that when she turns eighteen, she will stop ageing and she can be with Arkarian forever. I remember rooting for these two as a kid. But now, it makes for slightly uncomfortable reading. Oh well, that’s YA fiction for you. Seems a bit Twilight, doesn’t it? Though Curley’s series preceded Stephenie Meyer’s. (I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I am ashamed to say I also enjoyed the Twilight books as a kid; they hold no place, not even a nostalgic one, in my heart now, unlike The Guardians of Time.)
Finally, I just have to spit on this volume one more time, so my worst book of the year was The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger (edited by Daniel Cardó and Uwe Michael Lang, 2024). A rotten book about a rotten man. Wank. Sheer, unadulterated, irredeemable wank. I reproduce my verdict on this waste of time and paper from the Freethinker:
Yet more papal piffle
The above words could be applied to almost everything every pope has ever said, including Pope Francis’s recent intervention wherein he might as well have told the Ukrainians to surrender to annihilation (having forgotten his church’s historical complicity with fascism, Francis has now reportedly joined Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping in congratulating Putin on his recent election victory), but I have in mind a book released earlier this year: The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger. I read (though ‘endured’ might be a better word) this book, intending to review it more fully, but it is so bad that it is not worth the effort. Instead, I shall limit myself to a few reflections.
First, why is a respected university press publishing a book almost entirely composed of theological waffle written mostly by committed theological wafflers? They may as well publish a Cambridge Companion to Scientology written by L. Ron Hubbard fans. If Catholics (or Scientologists) want to publish this stuff, they are free to do so – and they certainly have the resources with which to do it. And there is no reasonable objection to the publication of historical-analytical volumes on religion and theology.
But a serious academic press printing what amounts to mumbo-jumbo? I look forward to a future Cambridge Companion to John Frum Worship consisting entirely of pseudo-sophisticated analysis by Melanesian acolytes of the eponymous cargo cult. (Again, anthropological study is an entirely different thing.)
The Ratzinger book opens breathlessly, with the editors placing their subject alongside Aristotle and Shakespeare in the depth of his influence (in his case, on Catholic theology rather than philosophy and literature). He is also compared with Augustine and Aquinas (of course), but at least that pair had the excuse of living in periods of relative ignorance. The editors and contributors clearly think of Ratzinger as a great and humane scholar. A useful tonic to this hero worship is Daniel Gawthrop’s 2013 book The Trial of Pope Benedict, which (so far as I am concerned, anyway) exposes Ratzinger as the nasty, authoritarian, reactionary old bigot and bully that he was.
Here is an example of theo-waffle from Joseph Ratzinger, as quoted by a contributor to the Companion, so that the reader can judge for him- or herself this towering intellect:
The truth cannot unfold except in an otherness open to God, who wishes to reveal his own otherness in and through my human brothers and sisters. Hence it is not fitting to state in an exclusive way: “I possess the truth.” The truth is not possessed by anyone; it is always a gift which calls us to undertake a journey of ever closer assimilation to truth… truth is disclosed only in an encounter of love.
As with so much theology, this babble is reminiscent of the worst stylings of the postmodernists. It is an irony that conservative theologians like Ratzinger, who abhor postmodernism and the like, sound so much like them—and carry about as much intellectual weight, assuming as they do all the things that they need, and have signally failed, to prove before they even begin and building an absurd and abstruse system on top of those assumptions. Change a few words here and there, and the most sophisticated Christian theology can be rendered into a postmodernist, or even a cargo cult, tract. (And it is beyond me how the above quote can be squared with another contributor’s statement that ‘the Catholic Church, for Ratzinger, is…the Spirit-filled infallible authority…’)
Here is another example, this time from one of the contributors, whose simultaneous pomposity and meaninglessness might make even Jacques Derrida scoff: ‘[F]or Ratzinger, communion is the fundamental figure of reality, created and uncreated, and historically mediated relationality is thus disclosive of the deepest meaning of being.’ Thus disclosive of the deepest meaning of being—magnificent.
According to Ratzinger and his Cambridge companions, Christianity is a pre-eminently and uniquely rational religion. Curious, then, that even its most ‘sophisticated’ defenders fall back on such fatuous language (all the better to befuddle, I suppose). There is also the awkward fact that Ratzinger himself, as discussed in the book, admitted that silly doctrines such as the Trinity can only be accepted on the basis of revelation—after all, they do not do very well under rational scrutiny. And what of the plain superstition that is literal transubstantiation? Or intercessory prayer?
Worst of all, the Companion barely deals with the thousands of child rapes that Ratzinger was arguably morally culpable for. When it does, it is to excuse him and to warp the record to portray him as a saviour rather than an enabler. On moral as well as intellectual grounds, then, this book is almost as rancid as its subject.
I cannot think of an excuse for Cambridge University Press here. Would they take an obvious work of fiction, complete with its own metaphysics and theology and imagined history, and allow deluded people who believe that the fiction is real to write so sincerely about it?
There is a Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, but, so far as I can tell, none of its contributors believes in Aslan or Gandalf or treats fantasy as reality rather than literature—and it now strikes me that the papal piffle that fills the pages of the Ratzinger companion would be much more at home in the back-end of some anthology of third-rate fantasy.
My earlier melancholy has lifted a bit as I’ve gone on writing. Maybe that should tell me something. Time to be cheerful again. Or—let’s not get too carried away—a little less uncheerful.
2024 has moved quickly, both for me personally and in the world at large. Who knows what its waning days might have in store for us? For now, though, be you friend or enemy, may you have a happy Christmas or Solstice (or whatever) and a magnificent 2025. May your 2025 projects go well (very subtly done, I’m sure you’ll agree). My own Project 2025 is to try and be a bit healthier, mainly by losing some weight. That I seem to say this every year is a good indication of my chances of success...
Or, as Thomas Paine once wrote to Thomas Jefferson: ‘I congratulate you on the birth-day of the New Sun, now called christmas day’.
