What I've read
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So, you think reason guides your politics? Think again | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian
Tribes of left and right tend to buy the shop. They take their politics table d’hôte, not à la carte. Those on the left are for more public spending, higher taxes, no war and a tolerance of scroungers, those on the right the exact reverse. Once they have opted for Labour or Conservative (or the obscure freemasonry of liberal democracy), they surrender their political virginity to the party line, lie back and enjoy it – usually for life.
These debates always turn into pleas for liberal tolerance, for a respect for other people’s opinions, drawing strength from Stephen Pinker’s thesis that, whatever else is amiss, the world is becoming a less violent place. But tolerance is itself a privilege of security. Intellectually it is appeasement. I do not want to tolerate those who disagree with me, I want to persuade them they are wrong. Haidt may cry, “Why can’t we all just get along?” The answer is we can’t. The best we can do is not murder each other in the process.
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”Only nine people actually voted in last week’s local elections. Nine. And three of them only followed the signs to the polling station in the hope it was some sort of knocking shop euphemism. The low turnout has been blamed on bad weather, which was almost certainly a factor – but on the other hand, if you won’t vote because of drizzle, you weren’t that arsed in the first place. People will queue in the rain to see Kasabian in concert. They’ll queue in the rain to enter Abercrombie & Fitch. They’ll queue in the rain for any old shit, as long as it isn’t democracy.
