Cultural relativism lets much that is reactionary and oppressive be justified
Category: Latest News
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
-
Sean Wilentz on Separation of Literature and State
Our politicians’ prose is reduced to hollow sentimentalism or manipulative semi-literacy
-
Flew’s Change of Mind
Because DNA is complex. Yes but the designer would be more complex, so what then?
-
The Argument is About Types of Liberty
The most fundamental liberty of all is freedom from harm by others.
-
Ian Mayes on Chomsky and Metacomplaints
Letter from Aaronovitch, Kamm and Wheen about Johnstone and Chomsky on Srebrenica.
-
Like All of Us, Experts Violate the Linda Problem
Plausible detail makes us believers.
-
Tolerance or Else
Defenders of many-fronted assault on free speech routinely tag critics of Islam as racists.
-
Dawkins Interview
The universe doesn’t owe us consolation.
-
Xians and Muslims Join Hands Against Materialism
How touching – ID brings God-huggers together.
-
Amartya Sen Receives Award from USAID
Thinking deeply about the age-old scourges of humanity: famine, disease, and poverty.
-
Oh Now What
Christians pitch a huge fit over baby Jesus, Xmas, Happy Holidays, whine fuss moan.
-
Secularists, Gays, Other Rowdies Fight Back
Sainsbury’s and Woolworths may have caved in too early.
-
UN Investigates Newspaper Cartoons
Arbour deplores any statement showing lack of respect towards other people’s religion.
-
Jane O’Grady Reviews Nicholas Fearn
This book is not for those who seek the easy and emollient mind-massage.
-
Scott McLemee on Althusser
Sartre’s radical freedom countered by Ideological State Apparatuses.
-
Roger Scruton Interview
‘Many of our most important forms of life involve withdrawing what we value from the market.’
-
Witch Hunts in Northern Ghana
Crops fail, someone is ill – must be the fault of elderly women, who must be witches.
-
Betraying the Left
In classic socialist terminology, we are seeing a fight between ‘anti-imperialists’ and ‘anti-fascists’.
-
Paul Mirecki of University of Kansas Assaulted
Religious studies professor fails to take ID seriously. Naughty.
-
Culture Wars More Serious Now Than in ’80s
Calls for reasoned debate can take away the role of academics in asking hard questions.