EMAIL OF THE DAY II

“Your description of the real faultline in American politics is right on the money. What’s troubling is that so many people on the left have lined up with the Theocrats on the same side of the faultline without even realizing it. By deeming empirical and inferential truth as ultimately subjective, the postmoderns and multiculturalists have essentially conceded that all values constitute a leap of faith. Logic and reason have been effectively removed from public debate. This plays right into the hands of fundamentalists, who are perfectly willing to wage the battle on these grounds: If the left is only willing to offer a kind of watery faith in a secular welfare state, the religious right is happy to rebutt them with a profound faith in Judeo-Christian tradition. Individual freedom then becomes a kind of collateral damage: In arguments of faith, neither side brooks heretical points of view. The real key, as you suggest, is a return to the healthy skepticism of liberal democracy. Damned if I know how to accomplish that, however. There are so few of us on this side of faultline. Every time I try to steer discussions over to skeptical ground, the two faith camps accuse me of spying for the other side.”