(Goose-)stepping over the line...

I'm not one of those atheists who thinks everybody ought to be an atheist.

Indeed, I think diversity of human thought, action and wider culture is an essential pillar of existence that should be diligently preserved, and that this should be one of the key 'progressive' ideals along with the protection of biodiversity.

In my book — one I'd hesitate to have printed — if you think you are right and everyone else is wrong, you are by definition, wrong.

And therewith the problem: this is not an entirely inclusive ideal, and I am going to have to stray into mildly hypocritical territory here when I suggest that certain mindsets do still need to be actively discouraged.

 

These tend to involve a codification of a more limited worldview.

It all starts with opinions that have gunboats in inverted commas, so to speak. From mild censure we go from lists of individuals who might be 'first against the wall' in some unspecified future, onward to those over-energised late night knockings on the door.

The lines are never quite as clear as anyone lucid would like them to be. Yet who can honestly deny that we now find ourselves in a society built on liberal principles which fewer and fewer seem to instinctively understand and where the goose-steppers once again pretend to be working in the best interests of the under-represented, marginalised and downright oppressed.