And speaking of fundamentalists v liberals, this piece by Stuart Jeffries is truly disgusting. It’s a whole new level beyond the usual mewling Guardian drivel about religion. It’s really contemptible.

Today, it’s the religious on one side, and the secular on the other. Britain is dividing into intolerant camps who revel in expressing contempt for each other’s most dearly held beliefs. “We are witnessing a social phenomenon that is about fundamentalism,” says Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark. “Atheists like the Richard Dawkins of this world are just as fundamentalist as the people setting off bombs on the tube, the hardline settlers on the West Bank and the anti-gay bigots of the Church of England.”

That’s a revolting, outrageous, immoral … Read the rest

Prospect’s Big Question is interesting in parts. The question is ‘Left and right defined the 20th century. What’s next?’ My answer of course is some version of reason and faith, or reason and supernaturalism, or open thinking and closed thinking, inquiry or dogmatism, revisability or certainty, fallibilism or authority. Thinking or obedience, you could call it; thinking or submission. Or you could call it liberalism or authoritarianism. Or, the Enlightenment or the Counter-enlightenment. You get the idea – and you’re certainly not surprised. What else would I say?

Human rights, is one thing I could say, but I take that to be subsumed under all the first terms. It’s all the second terms who say human rights are good except… Read the rest