(If you are thinking, 'What the hell is he going on about? I only come here to read the anecdotes about the crazy people that drink in the pub ," thanks for stopping by, but this isn't one of those weeks.)

Still here? Cool. Let's begin by defining some more terms.





Why, you might do very well ask, do we need a term like 'anti-rational' at all? Surely the opposite of 'rational' is 'irrational'?





As previously stated, a person who is rational rejects logically inconsistent ideas. A person who is irrational does not or cannot reject logically inconsistent ideas. An anti-rational person happily disseminates ideas with no regard for their consistency, logical or otherwise. The anti-rational person has no desire to establish truth (or at least eliminate falsehoods). They wilfully choose to ignore truth in favour of provoking an emotional reaction.



We are living through an age where anti-rationalist rhetoric is being used to gain political ground. In Europe, the last great age of anti-rational rhetoric was the 1930s and it culminated in events that led it to become rather unfashionable for quite some time.





George Santayana's quote is apposite here: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The generation who fought Fascism in Europe are mostly too dead to give their great-grandchildren the clip round the ear they deserve for joining the English Defence League and Le Front National .





In his essay, The Ancestry of Fascism, Bertrand Russell describes three characteristics of reason:

Reason relies on persuasion not force. Reason seeks to persuade by the use of arguments that the user himself finds completely valid. Reason values observation and induction over intuition. You only have to look at the recent American election and the plebiscite on Britain leaving the European Union to see that the second and third characteristics have been abandoned in much political discourse. If President Donald Trump carries out his threats to the American Moslem population, then the first characteristic falls as well.

The Ancestry of Fascism is included in the collection In Praise of Idleness



The Ancestry of Fascism makes for sobering reading. It was written in 1935 and presciently predicts both the Second World War and America's decisive involvement in its termination. Russell also points out that: "Rationalism and anti-rationalism have existed side by side since the beginning of Greek civilisation, and each, when it has seemed likely to become completely dominant, has always led, by reaction, to a new outburst of its opposite."

The latest anti-rationalist discourse is extremely dangerous at a time when the world needs to address the threats posed by anthropogenic climate change.

We are in dire need of an outbreak of rationalism.