In a recent post our friend Bill Vallicella sticks to his guns regarding what he considers the “mistake” of looking at the missionary leftism of the modern West as a religion. He prefers to use the alienans expression “ersatz religion” to describe it, while I’ve said all along that it really is a religion — not only by function and form, but also by pedigree and historical lineage. (And not just any religion, mind you, but a very particular religion, transplanted to New England in the seventeenth century, that gradually took on the pestiferous, secularized form in which it has infected the modern world.)

I’ve nothing new to say about it today, but I thought it might be worth re-linking a series of posts that explores this little disagreement (which might, I admit, seem hair-splitting to some of you) in detail.

First, I posted this discussion of an essay by William Deresciewicz identifying the religious takeover of our colleges and universities. (A couple of days later, I added this.)

Bill replied, at his place, with a detailed counterargument.

I then offered this in response.

Bill then posted this brief item (but without having first read the post just above).

Finally, I added a brief post quoting Moldbug.

All of this is a year old, and probably not of much interest to very many people; I realize that this may seem a pointless and pettifogging dispute. But given the pervasive and pestilential effect of this modern mind-virus in our ideological ecosystem, I think it’s important to get its taxonomy right.