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

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Repeated claims to be on the side of reason and evidence also begin to grate a little. As if the social sciences can be governed by controlled experiments, spreadsheets and equations! As a product of the eighties I am pleased to see Doyle make the case for the much maligned PC culture that he argues “achieved some genuinely progressive outcomes in terms of social consciousness without having recourse to the kind of censorial police intervention or the mob-driven retributive ‘cancel culture’ that we see today.” There is no parallel to the ideology of tday. I think the author made some beautiful connections and explained some things well that had mystified me for a long time. For instance, given the extent of the bullying I received for being an atheist while growing up and seeing how people who embraced Christianity were lauded, the narrative that Christians are persecuted in the US always mystified and enraged me. I often wished the Christians who embraced the persecution narrative would try to live as an open atheist for one day so they could learn that people do not laud those they are persecuting and what it really feels like to be persecuted. Doyle's observations about the persecution of a perfect man leading to salvation were very helpful for me to understand the role this plays in their faith.

Andrew Doyle — How the Skeptic » The Michael Shermer Show » Andrew Doyle — How the

Another factor here, many disbelieve that this is happening in the first place and many are so captured by their political or social affiliations that they simply don’t see it (typically till it happens to them)They just don’t see the bad faith behaviour or believe this irrationality is real. They want to be seen as caring and virtuousness people who “do the right thing”, and yet that tendency is being abused and many people are being siloed into ideological prisons, unable to speak out against injustice.In The New Puritans, Andrew Doyle powerfully examines the underlying belief-systems of this ideology, and how it has risen so rapidly to dominate all major political, cultural and corporate institutions. He reasons that, to move forward, we need to understand where these new puritans came from and what they hope to achieve. Written in the spirit of optimism and understanding, Doyle offers an eloquent and powerful case for the reinstatement of liberal values and explains why it’s important we act now. I wasn't aware of him prior to a friend recommending this book - but in both positive and negative ways Andrew Doyle reminds me of Owen Jones. When writers like Reni Eddo-Lodge publish books announcing that they are “No Longer Talking to White People about Race” every reasonable person's response is to say: this is hardly going to further racial understanding. This is then denounced as: “white fragility”.

The New Puritans by Andrew Doyle | Hachette UK The New Puritans by Andrew Doyle | Hachette UK

A sober but devastating skewering of cancel culture and the moral certainties it shares with religious fundamentalism’ Sunday Times The first thing to be said about this book is that Andrew Doyle can write. He writes fluently, with examples, with an amusing sense of irony, and he writes convincingly . . . fine prose, razor sharp wit, and insight— European ConservativeIn this lucid, important book, the satirist and commentator Andrew Doyle zeroes in on the religiosity of these movements . . . He is supremely erudite and writes beautifully. Anyone with an interest in contemporary culture and politics should read this book.— Matthew d'Ancona, Tortoise Media I wanted to give this book 5 stars upon juts finishing it, but decided against it. It’s still a fantastic read, I learned so much new facts and I greatly enjoyed Andrew Doyle’s writing style. I loved the subtleties, the complexities, the irony, the structure, the references to history and art, the overall politeness with occasional imho justified and literary bluntness… Yeah, it’s very nicely written, and it’s definitely a much needed dose of rational thought for so many. A broadcaster and stand-up comedian, Doyle is also a recovering academic with a PhD in “Renaissance discourses of gender and sexuality ”, which takes some recovering from. It has, however, gifted him an intimate insight into a political insurgency that, in just a few years, has seized the commanding heights of government, law, medicine, education, journalism, the arts and private enterprise. In Is everyone Really Equal? (2017), Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo emphasize that the mainstream understanding of ‘social justice’ is not the aim of their movement. This, after all, would be a liberal humanist approach, one that the ‘woke’ ideology explicitly seeks to undermine. Rather, a ‘critical approach to social justice refer to specific theoretical perspectives that recognize that society is stratified (i.e. divided and unequal) in significant and far reaching ways along social group lines that include race, class, gender, sexuality and ability.’ Critical Social Justice, therefore, ‘recognizes inequality as deeply embedded in the fabric of society (i.e. as structural) and actively seeks to change this.’” [26,27] Andrew Doyle highlights how the issue in higher education goes onto to permeate in corporate institutions. higher education students he highlights how students are being taught that reality is constructed through language and language is a tool for oppression, a generation of arts and social science graduates “have taken this ideology into adult life and the institutions they now occupy.”