Dan Hind reads the Democrat's Diary

Dan Hind is an intelligent, educated man. A man of judgement. So while its gratifying to see that he reads and appreciates the Democrat's Diary, it comes as no surprise.

ahem

Actually, I've been meaning to draw attention to Hind's writing for a while. I hadn't done so because I wanted to read his book first (it sits on my ever-expanding Amazon wish list), but his recent articles on the Englightenment and its place in modern discourse make it clear that the book will be essential reading.

Hind adopts a theme very similar to the one that guides this blog. This is that Western power and its apologists neither adhere to nor even apparently understand the the Enlightenment ideals that they claim as justification for the "war on terror", the "Washington consensus" and other decidedly unenlightened phenomena.

In this article, Hind argues that apparent Enlightenment-advocates who supported the invasion of Iraq were actually engaged in nothing more than a "faith based initiative. In this article, he shows that if Richard Dawkins wants to take on the real enemies of reason then he has far bigger targets to focus on than homeopaths and faith healers.

Hind's book expands on these themes. Harry Eyres gave it a good review in the FT here. It sounds very much like a book that was demanding to be written. Given my own personal philosophical outlook I'm particularly intrigued. Traditionally, a socio-economic settlement is justified by a certain philosophy, and then those who oppose that settlement propose an alternative philosophy that justifies a change of course. The difference with people like myself, Hind, Noam Chomsky (another writer I admire), and indeed a great many people outside of the mainstream, is that we propose, at least as a starting point, that the socio-economic settlement simply lives up to the philosophical principles that it itself claims as its justification, recognising that this alone would produce substantive, positive change.

So its nice to know that Hind reads the Diary. However, I note that as well as being a writer, he also works in publishing. So surely if the man had any serious regard for my work he'd be offering me an enormous advance on my first book? Its all very well linking to my site, Hind, but come on. Be serious. Put your money where your mouth is.