.... For years, a dizzying gulf has stretched between the principles most good and responsible liberals say they hold — beliefs in reasoned argument, democracy, and equal rights for women, gays and people of all colours and creeds — and their practical failure to oppose radical Islam. A few of us tried to persuade them to mean what they say and behave accordingly.
Some of us have stayed on the Left. Others have given up on what looks an irredeemably compromised movement and attacked liberal-left orthodoxy from the right. I will not pretend that any of us have had a great deal of success.
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light," said Max Planck, "but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." [Standpoint] Read more
