Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought

by Jonathan Rauch

Someone was offended, therefore someone must be guilty of something, because among the freshly minted entitlements is the new right not to be annoyed or otherwise distressed.

The Liberal Principle: Checking of each by each through public criticism is the only legitimate way to decide who is right. The argument of this book is that the last principle is the only one which is acceptable, but that it is now losing ground to the others, and that this development is extremely dangerous.

As to the claim that ancient Egypt was a black nation, the essayist John Leo reported that he “phoned seven Egyptologists at random around the country, and all seven said it is completely untrue, then asked that their names not be used. ‘It’s politically too hot to say this [in public],’ said one.”

Liberal science does not throw its opponents in jail, but it does deny their beliefs respectability, and to deny respectability is to cause anguish and outrage.