THE FOURTH PHILOSOPHY 2

Since Richard Dawkins has forged for himself a profitable new TV career out of atheism and evidence-based scientific rationalism (or something), I'd say he's fair game to have another pop at. And especially after seeing his smug Enemies Of Reason series made for Channel 4, where he scoffs at perfectly inoffensive people who enjoy astrology, tarot, dowsing, alternative medicine, and so on.

An intellectual bully that likes to pick the easiest softest targets to 'prove' his points, Dawkins conceals a more bitter intent. I remember being suspicious of him several years ago at a lecture on his notion of 'memes'. He derogatorily cited the example of kids wearing baseball caps backwards and Ninja Turtles as examples of a 'harmless' thought virus or meme (it's right at the end of the YouTube clip), then contrasts that with a fucking Hitler speech. (Why not his appallingly naff stripey blue shirt and green tie combination?) On another occasion he spuriously claims that Bach would have been just as inspired to compose his oratorios by looking into space, as by a belief in God.

This sophistry and these academic rhetorical stratagems, honed straight from the Oxford University Debating Society, and which he's so fond of employing, reveal a deeper truth about the man's zeal. The clue lies in what Dawkins himself opines as harmless and harmful beliefs. Rather than reason, it's a question of aesthetics, and he desperately wants to demonstrate how his are better than yours.