History tells us that ideological ‘purity spirals’ rarely end well
Iconoclasm: the beheading of the English king, Charles I, in January 1649. Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart, for his purity, by definition, is unassailable. Author James Baldwin’s words, written in the America of the late 1950s, captures perfectly a feeling in the air that is currently troubling public discourse in many Western countries. Increasingly, questions once treated as complicated inquiries requiring scrutiny and nuance are being reduced to moral absolutes. Just look at Trumpism. This follows a now dismally familiar pattern: two camps are identified, the acceptable “for” and the demonised “against”. The latter are cast beyond the pale, cancelled and trolled. Identity politics has become a secular religion and, like any strictContinue Reading
