Positive Disrespect (Squib #33)

Squib #33
Positive Disrespect (Abstract)

This paper argues that views that flourish only by virtue of a principle of general respect for every view and would otherwise be consigned to the flames should be consigned to the flames. It is not just that we should not be tolerant of intolerance, but we can and are required to be intolerant of stupidity, weak-mindedness, falsehood, ignorance, obfuscation, and deliberate lying. Every charge laid against Reason, against the Enlightenment, is in the service of a deeper understanding of freedom and truth. Respect for persons requires positive disrespect for their deeply held personal commitments to folly. Allowing freedom of speech to the deluded imposes an absolute obligation on the rest of us to press for more light. Those who would game freedom and truth must be exposed.

There are those who imagine that these remarks would rain down most heavily on the shoulders of postmodern sceptics. My argument however is that these ruffians (Nietzsche, Foucault, Adorno, Derrida) are heroes of enlightenment, and that the contest for true villainy in the modern age is between those who lie through their teeth (e.g. about climate change), and the true believers (e.g. in creationism). I would suggest that they be sent/invited to help establish the first human colony on Mars were it not to replicate – centuries from now - the problem Europe bequeathed to America when it so sensibly persecuted and expelled its Puritans.