Defining yourself by what you're not

Attended TAM London this weekend - essentially a TED for the emerging Skeptics movement.

Leading lights include(d) Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry, Tim Minchin, James Randi and Cory Doctorow plus other cult figures from the blogosphere.

Actually, calling it a movement is a bit of a misnomer. It's a lot looser than that. More like an embryonic Tea Party for people who hate the kind of people who are in the Tea Party - especially creationists.

Among the eclectic crowd at TAM were geeks, astrophysicists, militant atheists, magicians and satirists. Mainly bound by two things: 1) a common belief in the supremacy of empirical evidence over faith or conjecture, and 2) a loose coalition of pet hatreds - priests, intelligent design, homeopaths, chiropractors...

As the Skeptics movement gathers pace nationally and internationally, fuelled by social media and local gatherings such as Skeptics In The Pub, it seems there's a growing recognition of the need to define what Skeptics are, what they stand for and what they have in common - without constraining diversity or independence or (heaven forfend) becoming a "creed." 

Yet, as a detached observer, I was amazed to see how successive speakers who had no problem dissecting other people's ideas with razor-like precision struggled to articulate their own shared vision and principles.

And then it struck me. Revolutionary movements tend to define themselves most easily by what they're not, rather than by what they are. The very act and process of revolution is often a rejection of dominant or established thinking and practice. Rejection provides the necessary impetus to galvanise change and often brings with it an internal culture of anger, contempt or demonisation of the existing hegemony.

This is as true of society and politics (Judaism had idol-worship and Pharaoh, Christianity had Jews and Romans, the French had the bourgeoisie) as it is of business (Apple had Big Blue and Microsoft, Virgin had BA).

To give birth to new companies and movements, all this is fine - and possibly essential - as far as it goes. The trouble is it's not sustainable. You get - quite rapidly these days - to a point where you actually have to define yourself by what you are, not by what you're not. Long-term success depends on it, especially when you yourself become the new establishment and new rivals come gunning for you. The problem is it's so much harder to do.

Perhaps that explains why this weekend the Skeptics were skirting the essential questions about what Skepticism is (applied critical thinking, empiricism, humanistic rationalism?) or a potential set of Skeptical core principles or values - and instead having peripheral debates about tone and manner (like should we be polite or mocking when tackling adversaries?).

Perhaps religion has something to teach the Skeptics after all? Empirically speaking, that is.