Rationality can be an overrated quality in politics. Communism was, after all, so rational that it imagined humans as lumps of clay to be moulded at will – with unsuitable ‘elements’ consigned to the Gulag.
The attempt to apply rational political criteria to the actions of psychopathic movements has also historically led to erroneous political decisions at home: appeasement in the case of Nazi Germany and a frivolous desire to find materialist ‘root causes’ of Islamic extremism.
As the great documenter of Stalinism Robert Conquest put it:
Reliance on reason alone is itself irrational: It neglects the instinctual and deep-set elements of the real human being.
Perhaps it isn’t surprising to learn, then, that there has been something of a backlash of late against the so-called ‘new’ atheists. In some respects this is justified. Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens together with Sam Harris have at times come across as aggressive curmudgeons demanding complete ‘rationality’ from all – in the process turning off many would-be allies.
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