Geoff wrote me up:

Arguments and relativism

Step 1. Go to Alec’s blog and read this fine piece on the frustrating tendency of people to turn arguments about substantive issues into debates about how we feel about these issues.

Step 2. Go to Edge.org and read through the pieces that were submitted in response to this year’s Edge question: What is your dangerous idea? Note how a number of the pieces address the question of relativism. On a radical relativist view, how can we have a substantive discussion about anything, since my “truth” is as good as your “truth”. (Ugh!) Note also how many of the contributors chose to talk about the concept of a “dangerous idea”, often expressing reservations that seem to be rooted in the same fear that real argument is becoming impossible.

Step 3. Pour yourself a stiff single malt Scotch and contemplate the futility of the world. Or go ride your bike down the M3. Or grab an axe and split a few cords of firewood. Or write a Zen koan. (Don’t try to combine these activities.)

…and I posted a comment; I feel like sharing it more widely:

I’ve skimmed the first couple of pages of submissions, and aver that most of the “ideas” are actually observations or theses, and are not actually ideas at all.

Here’s a practical idea which I consider highly desirable, and dangerous. Wed the United Stated Government to Christianity, preferably a mundane Protestant religion of the sort practiced by (of course) the WASPs who run the country.

Britain has never had much truck with separation of Church and State – chiefly due to the whole monarchy thing – and the Church of England does a marvellous job of acting as an air-brake on political religious posturing (“Why preach when there’s a convenient Bishop next door who gets paid to do it for you”) – plus: look at the number of Atheists and Agnostics in the UK! They’re (we’re) everywhere! And it’s OK. Nobody complains. We’re allowed to have an opinion without being pilloried and/or have to adopt the same evangelical tactics that the God-Squad use.

Now, consider the USA: ostensibly secular, yet somehow the currency puts trust in God (in so many ways), the President makes an even bigger show of being pious than does the British PM, and debates flame back and forth in the manner of a turf war for the souls of the populace.

Rejoin American Church and State. It’ll do more for Atheism and Free-Thinking than any number of Southern Democrats.

No? The impact upon Middle Eastern politics would be seismic, to say the least…