The World Turned Upside Down

Published 2010 by Encounter Books.

In her new book Melanie Phillips writes:

“What have the issues of anthropogenic global warming, the war in Iraq, Israel and scientism got in common? Not a lot you might think. But in fact a number of threads link them all. Most fundamentally, they all involve the promotion of beliefs that purport to be unchallengeable truths but are in fact ideologies in which evidence is manipulated, twisted and distorted to support and “prove” their governing idea. All are therefore based on false or unsupported beliefs that are presented as axiomatically true. Moreover, because each assumes itself to be proclaiming the sole and exclusive truth, it cannot permit any challenge to itself. It has to maintain at all costs the integrity of the falsehood. So all challenges have to be resisted through coercive means. Knowledge is thus forced to give way to power. Reason is replaced by bullying, intimidation and the suppression of debate.”

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