With witch-burners and flat-earthers on the one side and dour identity absolutists on the other, it is becoming difficult to maintain one’s moral equilibrium. Concepts and designations that I once thought immutable – left-wing, progressive, humanist – have now become porous and threatening.
The conservatives, whose myth-based self-images, fears and prejudices have led them to knowledge-denial and irrational flights of fancy, are not my concern here. Not that I doubt the danger they pose – their idiocy could well lead us to climate catastrophe and other nightmarish scenarios – but there is nothing about them that causes me to question my own values.