The New Puritans

Description

‘A sober but devastating skewering of cancel culture and the moral certainties it shares with religious fundamentalism’ Sunday Times

Engaging, incisive and acute, The New Puritans is a deeply necessary exploration of our current cultural climate and an urgent appeal to return to a truly liberal society.

The puritans of the seventeenth century sought to refashion society in accordance with their own beliefs, but they were deep thinkers who were aware of their own fallibility. Today, in the grasp of the new puritans, we see a very different story.

Leading a cultural revolution driven by identity politics and so-called ‘social justice’, the new puritanism movement is best understood as a religion – one that makes grand claims to moral purity and tolerates no dissent. Its disciples even have their own language, rituals and a determination to root out sinners through what has become known as ‘cancel culture’.

In The New Puritans, Andrew Doyle powerfully examines the underlying belief-systems of this ideology, and how it has risen so rapidly to dominate all major political, cultural and corporate institutions. He reasons that, to move forward, we need to understand where these new puritans came from and what they hope to achieve. Written in the spirit of optimism and understanding, Doyle offers an eloquent and powerful case for the reinstatement of liberal values and explains why it’s important we act now.

Andrew Doyle is a writer, broadcaster and satirist whose commentary on political and cultural issues is regularly published in the national press. He is the author of Free Speech and Why It Matters and has also written two satirical books as Titania McGrath – Woke: A Guide to Social Justice and My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism. He is the presenter of Free Speech Nation, a weekly television show on GB News, and was formerly a panellist on the BBC’s Moral Maze. He has a doctorate in Renaissance Literature from the University of Oxford where he also worked as a stipendiary lecturer.The ongoing culture war, whose existence is often denied by its chief antagonists, is no longer something that any of us can afford to ignore. In this age of unreason, we must find a way to learn again how to talk to each other. Our civilisation might just depend on it. If future historians were to recommend only one book to help readers understand the “Critical Social Justice” madness that consumed the West in the early twenty-first century, it would be The New Puritans. Written by one of the ideology’s most articulate and effective critics, Dr. Andrew Doyle’s timeless perspective detailing the ideological takeover of venerable institutions also provides an impassioned defense of liberalism. A must read.—Peter BoghossianA sober but devastating skewering of cancel culture and the moral certainties it shares with religious fundamentalism—Sunday TimesDoyle writes exceptionally well and he backs up his j’accuse with copious illustrations of ideological excess . . . University no-platformers like to say that ‘words are violence’. If so, Doyle’s are rapiers.—Herald

Additional information

Imprint	Constable
Format	General Trade
ISBN-13	09780349135328
ISBN-10	0349135320
Author	Andrew Doyle
Audience	General / adult