It’s all quite alarming, as Paul Krugman points out.

Democratic societies have a hard time dealing with extremists in their midst. The desire to show respect for other people’s beliefs all too easily turns into denial: nobody wants to talk about the threat posed by those whose beliefs include contempt for democracy itself.

Doesn’t it just. Which is one reason I keep nagging so relentlessly at this ‘desire to show respect for other people’s beliefs’ – asking why we have it for some kinds of beliefs and not others, and why we have it at all, and the like. I mean, seriously – one reason I don’t have desire to show respect for other people’s beliefs is because people … Read the rest

Just in case you’re interested. Yet another argument about the French hijab ban at Crooked Timber, in which CT frames the issue as if all Muslims and people from majority-Muslim countries were opposed to the ban and only honky imperialists and totalitarian secularists were in favour of it. I shouldn’t be rude; the intentions are good; but there always is so much left out of this discussion, it gets up my nose. Never so much as a mention of Ni Putes ni Soumises, or the fact that a majority of Muslim women polled in France favour the ban – which you would think would be relevant to a discussion that’s premised on the idea that the ban is humiliating because … Read the rest

I mentioned Rorty. Well I’ve been reading him lately. I knew he had a habit of saying strange things – but he says even stranger things than I realized he had a habit of saying. That is, he says some things that are so strange I find myself surprised that he says them. Taken aback, disconcerted, astonished, amazed. Maybe that’s why he says them – so that people will have such reactions. That is one reward of saying things, of course. I know people who tell absurd lies for that very purpose – the fun of causing their interlocutors to splutter and wheeze and argue. Maybe that’s what Rorty is doing. He only does it to annoy, because he knows … Read the rest

It’s one of those peculiarly gorgeous days here, when it’s difficult to stay at the desk tap-tapping. You know the kind of thing. After several days of rain, an interval, of scrubbed translucent dazzling blue sky and white clouds. So I gave up the struggle and went out for a walk along The Wall overlooking the water, islands, mountains, all that. And got a bonus. I was half-aware (my mind was elsewhere – probably musing on Richard Rorty) of hearing bird calls overhead, but I paid no heed – but then I noticed a couple of people ahead of me gazing upwards, so I looked, in plenty of time to see two large Vs of snow geese flying north. The … Read the rest