From a clinical psychological perspective, one of the things you often see in a therapeutic setting is that people fall prey to behavioral patterns they don't fully understand. Often, they don't understand them because they're deliberately ignoring them.
I've found people who build an identity around hyper-rationality (e.g. logical positivists) to be -- on average -- some of the most emotionally-driven people. For example, they will have scathing, visceral, passion-fueled outbursts against religion (often despite knowing very little about it, save for the New Atheist talking points). When you try to point out that they're getting impassioned, they deny it. I think this denial is earnest; they might notice their heart-rate increasing, but they will tell you that there is a rational reason for it to be doing so, and that it is therefore not clouding their judgement nor stunting their curiosity for the subject of discussion.
In exactly the same way, I suspect the people running from "American Protestantism" hardly know what it is and hardly pay attention to it, hence your observation.
"There are none so blind as those who will not see."
It is usually a case of "the lady doth protest too much". They project their own emotionality onto others while professing to follow logic and restraint. I'm not a trained psychologist by any means but is the modern cultural obsession with image a kind of widespread narcissism? I see these self-professions of rationalism as just another flavor of the same thing "look at me, I'm special, I'm very logical". Furthermore I speculate if the modern world with the gray dullness of equality, democracy, and mass culture drives people to find ways to differentiate from the rest. I'm interested on what's your take as I too have seen religious thought in the loudest atheists.
One interesting essay on the history of some philosophies and worldviews you might like is Eric Vogelin's Science, Politics and Gnosticism (1968). Here he traces a lot of modern thought back to the early Gnostic religion. The lack of self-reflection and particularly the righteousness I see today makes me think his point is very accurate.
>I'm not a trained psychologist by any means but is the modern cultural obsession with image a kind of widespread narcissism?
I agree to the point where I'd rather hold my tongue than risk creating an echo chamber :P
I will say one thing, though. I grew up in the US and spent about a decade in Europe, and one thing that seems apparent to me (though I can't quite articulate it) is that our short view of history produces a shallow view of culture, and that this in turn inhibits the development of a truly meaningful form of conservatism from emerging. Conserve what, exactly? There are obviously good answers to that question, but nobody seems know them, here. All we have is a narrow, shallow and intellectually stunted slogan of "America was founded on Christian values!". It certainly was, and much of that is worth preserving. So why is it that nobody seems to have a deep understanding of (1) what these values are, (2) their philosophical, theological, historical and political origins, and (3) their absolute singularity? And why isn't anyone talking about these things (except, arguably, someone like Jordan Peterson)? With such a soft target in its sights, it's no surprise that progressives have fallen to the same level of hollow, saccharin discourse. Calling Christianity a fairy tale is a good counter-point when arguing with fundamentalists, but it's literally no smarter than that. It ignores that fairy-tales are informative, universal, and incredibly resilient to the the passing of time. They're actually useful.
I don't know how to fix this. I don't even know how to properly express it. My point seems to be devolving into a ramble, but hopefully you kind of see what I mean.
Reading recommendations are welcome. :)
>One interesting essay on the history of some philosophies and worldviews you might like is Eric Vogelin's Science, Politics and Gnosticism (1968).
I've found people who build an identity around hyper-rationality (e.g. logical positivists) to be -- on average -- some of the most emotionally-driven people. For example, they will have scathing, visceral, passion-fueled outbursts against religion (often despite knowing very little about it, save for the New Atheist talking points). When you try to point out that they're getting impassioned, they deny it. I think this denial is earnest; they might notice their heart-rate increasing, but they will tell you that there is a rational reason for it to be doing so, and that it is therefore not clouding their judgement nor stunting their curiosity for the subject of discussion.
In exactly the same way, I suspect the people running from "American Protestantism" hardly know what it is and hardly pay attention to it, hence your observation.
"There are none so blind as those who will not see."