When to laugh at the ridiculous? Reviewing an atrocious book
Adam J. MacLeod | February 12, 2016
Today it seems that cultural and political elites are racing break-neck toward the outrageous. The outrages of Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Bernie Sanders would be hilarious if they weren’t dragging us along with them. (Not Hillary. There’s nothing funny about Hillary.)
As bad as the politicians are, academics are even worse. The next generation of minds is being molded by an elite cadre of people who get paid to think thoroughly ridiculous ideas and who think that all right-thinking people agree with them because they have insulated themselves from those who possesses common sense, not to mention elementary formal logic.
Take this book, for example. The thesis is that liberal democracies should not tolerate religion because religion is intolerant. The logical fallacies, absurdities, self-contradictions, libels, and made-up-stuff leap off nearly every page.
I was asked to review the book. What to do? A straight-forward review would be unequivocally negative.
When reviewing other atrocious books, I have done my best to be charitable, omitting to mention the truly embarrassing bits and doing my best to find something positive to say. But this book is truly ridiculous. Early on the author makes the claim that not all human beings are rational, moral agents. He would place the burden of proof on religious people to show that they possess the most elemental aspect of human agency and dignity.
So, since nothing I wrote would be positive, and on the theory that the Devil hates most to be mocked, I decided the only just course was to ridicule the book, treating the book as if it were an intentional parody. My review is titled, A Catechesis for the Tolerant.
Adam J. MacLeod
Adam J. MacLeod is a member of the Maine and Massachusetts (inactive) bars and an Associate Professor at Faulkner University, Jones School of Law. He is the author of “Property and Practical Reason” (Cambridge University Press) and dozens of articles in journals in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, many of which can be accessed at his website.
