If, as the eighteenth century philosopher Immanuel Kant had noted, the hatred of reason is “misology,” then he who is guilty of misology is a misologist.   While this language is no longer in vogue (if it ever was), there can be no question that the misologist remains as salient a figure in our day as he was in Kant’s.  Upon reading some of the comments made to my postings on this blog, anyone with any doubts on this score would have them decisively, irrevocably, put out to pasture.

Due either to the lack of ability or will, some people are indisposed to reason.  Argumentation gives way to misrepresentations and, especially, insults.  Because, to my great shame, I am not above repaying harm with harm, I am going to remove the temptation to do so.

Tomorrow is the first day of a new month.  Beginning tomorrow, I will not permit ad hominem attacks against either myself or any other contributor to the discussions that unfold on this blog.  What this means is that in addition to banning ordinary apolitical insults—“idiot,” “moron,” etc.—such choice terms of abuse as “racism,” “sexism,” “homophobia,” “fascist,” “Nazi,” “Islamophobia,” “anti-Semitism,” and all such standard Politically Correct weapons of mass character destruction will also be proscribed.  We can discuss these conversation-stoppers, these spoilers of the well of discourse; indeed I have every intention of so doing.  But in the interest of clear thought and constructive and civil discourse, I will not allow them to any longer be enlisted in the service of intimidating and bullying those with whom the bullies—i.e. the misologists—disagree.    

Those lacking in intellectual prowess will doubtless find this ban on name-calling intolerably restrictive.  Fortunately, for their sakes, they are free to start their own blogs where misology can run wild. But as for At the Intersection of Faith and Culture, it is a misology-free zone.    

Jack