Melanie Phillips on the destruction of reason #clips

this is all part and parcel of a substitution of knowledge for of knowledge by ideology ideologies of various kinds ideologies meaning the idea holds sway absolute sway nothing can challenge the idea uh why because the ideas we're I'm talking about the ideas that are now the absolute Orthodoxy on the left are ideas which are said to embody goodness virtue they're said to embody the betterment of humanity so if you stand against any of these ideas if you say there's something fundamentally wrong with any of these ideas you're not only wrong-headed but you are evil because you are standing in the way of the betterment of humanity therefore you want bad things for human beings you want bad things for the Earth for the planet and consequently you can't be argued against you must be stopped you must be stifled you must be refused a platform nobody must hear what you say so what are these ideologies there are many ideologies multiculturalism the idea that you cannot say Western Society or any society is better or worse than any other lifestyle Choice the idea that you cannot see any kind of Family household Arrangement is better or worse than any other and so on and so forth now the point about an ideology as I've just said is that the idea is absolute it cannot admit to any dissent or challenge whatsoever so they actually do believe in a truth and an absolute truth well rather like the Catholic church or medieval period believe in the absolute truth but the fact is this the idea the the an ideology is therefore inimical to reason itself because if you come along with a set of facts and you say here are facts uh which challenge your idea or whatever it is um uh here are facts which show that children are better off with a father and a mother here are facts which shows that the Earth was warmer many Millennia ago here are facts which show whatever and they contradict the governing idea of the ideology you are told no no we cannot have this these cannot be facts you are lying you must be lying and we won't even hear these facts in other words we're in a situation now where ideology says evidence is nowhere now if evidence is nowhere then rationality and reason are nowhere because you cannot have reason without evidence and without the idea of Truth and lies being different from each other and so we have this really horrific and terrifying situation in which the brightest and the best of us in our universities the people entrusted with the education of our young people the people entrusted with the transmission of our culture the people entrusted with thinking great thoughts are themselves promulgating a culture which has become inimical to reason itself and they believe that they stand for a reason they believe and they tell us that anyone who objects to any of this is stupid is an imbecile their imbecility demonstrated by the fact that they believe in something as ridiculous as objective truth but they themselves are presiding over and have made our universities into crucibles not of knowledge but of the destruction of Reason itself and so what we're living through in Britain and the West in my view is even worse than the potential destruction of political Liberty even worse than the destruction of the very idea of the western nation and national identity we're living through the destruction of reason and all around us we find that rational argument discussion civil discourse encompassing ideas which may compete with each other we may have disagreements and be civil to each other all gone replaced by insult insult design not just to wound but to silence silence to shut down the argument silence yeah [Music]

Channel: John Anderson

Views: 102,489

Keywords: John Anderson, John Anderson Conversation, Interview, John Anderson Interview, Policy debate, public policy, public debate, John Anderson Direct, Direct, Conversations

Id: uL8gw1T3yo0

Length: 4min 53sec (293 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 08 2022