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This isn't right: progressive activists are more than happy to accept converts, as long as they abase themselves completely and become zealous true-believers. If you continue to challenge their authority or their most important commitments, you have not actually repented in a meaningful way.
Consider Peter Boghossian's one-time collaborator Émile P. Torres, turned dogged antagonist of rationalism and BFF of Timnet Gebru. Hanania didn't do this: he merely renounced some of his earlier beliefs. It's as if Martin Luther trimmed his sails a bit and decided he would only stand behind sixty-three of his theses after all, and, by the way, the Pope still isn't legitimate.
It was a big change for him, but as far as progressives are concerned, he hasn't even started to repent.
Torres never said anything even 1/10th as radical as what Hanania writes today, let alone under the unearthed pseudonym. Also, New Atheism was orthogonal rather than hostile to 'the left' or progressive consensus until GamerGate, and by that point (2014/2015) the movement had largely already died, a full six years into the Obama administration.
I actually do think there are counterexamples, even radical ones, but they tend to be working class, 'prison gang' type tattooed neo-nazis who undergo a full ideological conversion and then join progressive charities as public speakers to at-risk kids or whatever, they're not intellectuals.
I agree with you, without reservation. Moreover, I loved reading your post I was responding to - the historical perspective is useful and relevant in Hanania's case.
But I stand by my point, which is that while Hanania has come a long way, I don't think it's reasonable to describe him as a convert. Moreover, as you observe, progressive activists would welcome converts - from whatever ideological distance. But the price of conversion is complete submission, not apology or even renouncing myriad specific offenses. I don't think any American intellectual is willing to pay that price, whether it's because of pride, tribal instincts, or the manifest philosophical defects of the social justice worldview, which means we may never see CCP-style conversions. (At least I'm crossing my fingers that it never comes to that.)
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