The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

by Andrew Doyle

The outright denial of what we can plainly see has become so common that we barely notice it. Consider a recent argument between broadcasters Piers Morgan and Alex Beresford on the current affairs television show Good Morning Britain, in which the latter took issue with the former’s scepticism over the truth of some of the claims made by Meghan Markle in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Midway through the discussion, Morgan pointed out that one of Markle’s most incendiary claims – that her son Archie had been denied the title of ‘Prince’ because he is mixed race – was demonstrably false. ‘Do you know what?’ said Beresford. ‘It’s their lived experience’. Morgan countered by repeating that it simply wasn’t true. ‘It’s their lived experience’, Beresford intoned once more, as though the recital of a cliché was any kind of adequate surrogate for the facts.