How To Be Right… in a World Gone Wrong

by James O'Brien

true liberal is cursed with a desire, even a duty, to understand other points of view.

hardly anyone is asked to explain their opinions these days; to outline not just what they believe, but why.

correctness’ as they often prefer to describe it) to keep their most vile views to themselves, now feel free to shout them

The problem is that you have to strip their arguments right down to the bone to determine where they come from.

media stoke those fears because it has always been easier and more lucrative to sell tickets for the ghost train than for the speak-your-weight machine.

undiluted, often inflammatory nonsense without being contradicted or called out is currently more popular on both sides of the Atlantic than at any other point in living memory.

psychology professor and author Jordan Peterson – who, whether by accident or design, is something of a hero to both the so-called ‘men’s rights’ and ‘alt-right’ movements – has called ‘enforced monogamy

like Donald Trump, he offers men an excuse for their own failures and absolves them of responsibility

for their own behaviour.

you won’t reduce harassment and abuse until you wipe out institutional objectification,

philosopher John Rawls’ famous ‘veil of ignorance’ posits the idea that a just system can only be constructed by people completely ignorant of their position within it. In other words, you’re not going to endorse a system of law (or, by extension, of tax or government) that unfairly discriminates against a section of society you could conceivably be in yourself.

introducing ‘fake news’ to the national vocabulary had already allowed Trump and his team to write their own reality.

Take an angry person, tell them you feel their pain, give them a target for their anger and help them to switch off their brain.

If you can’t play the ball, as all bullies know, you try to play the man.

We need a complete reversal of the idea that every argument has two equal sides, that every question is debatable and that every story needs to be ‘

Leaving the EU will be like trying to get the eggs out of a baked cake