Gray's Anatomy

John Gray who appears on Radio 4 Point of View is typical of the Left wing intellectual establishment in his use of low dishonesty in public discourse by deploying the technique of subliminal insinuation to smuggle across his views rather than direct explicit exposition.He was at it again last night in a rambling piece ostensibly about the enduring appeal of the fictional character Sherlock Holmes but this was a mere pretext to launch an assault on reason and to denigrate its role in civlizational progress.

To mount his argument agasinst reason he bizarely cited Communism and Capitalism and their respective failure re Soviet Union and the present banking crisis to support his case that reason has fallen down on the job of directing man to the bright sunny uplands of progress.Bizarre because the idea that Communism was based on reason is absurd.Lenin railed against reason at every opportunity referring to 'miserable reason' in his contempt and excoriation of it.Hitler too the other Socialist based his philosophy on blood lines,irrationalism and mysticism.

Then we come to Capitalism which has allegedly failed according to Gray but if we examine our present pass what emerges is the failure of government in bailing out the banks thus making it doubly likey that they will not learn their lesson and will comitt similar follies again figuring that they can play it deuces wild with their reserves and the tax payer will bail them out again.The whole point about Capitalism is that if it screws up it pays the price and suffers the consequence of failure,not that the State steps in and gives it corporate welfare and a bailout.

I do not know the name of the philosophy the likes of Gray peddals,it could be called skepticism for all I know but it involves the argument that reason cannot soley guide a man's actions because it is inadequate. What I do know however is the implication of it,namely that we rely on some non rational entity,be it faith,or intuition,or hunch which can only lead in one direction -back to the Middle Ages,where reason was unknown and gargoyles and mystical beings ruled man's actions with all the horrific consequences that flowed from that abandonment of the mind.

I have no problem with the likes of Will Self and John Gray appearing on Points of view.It would just be nice if the BBC would invite on intellectuals from across the aisle so that the other side of things can be aired.