Take, for instance, Dawkins on what he calls 'Postmodernism', an intellectual 'philosophy' which he apparently 'skewers' in several of the essays here. The capital 'P' is enough to put one on guard, suggesting as it does that 'Postmodernism' is a singular intellectual entity. True enough, Dawkins is not interested in teasing out any of the complexities or varieties of postmodernism, or indeed its affinities with his own thought (his deconstruction of religion as a 'narrative' or 'story', for example). He prefers to dismiss it with sound-bite bitchiness. Thus 'cultural relativism' is 'fashionable nonsense', and 'Postmodernism' is 'metatwaddle' or 'low-grade intellectual poodling' ('Feminism', too, comes in for a couple of nasty and brutish sideswipes).
A similar crudeness of thought characterises the multiple attacks on religion reprinted here. By far the least likable of these is an article entitled 'Time to Stand Up', which was 'written in the immediate aftermath' of 9/11. Many writers will now be embarrassed by what they declared during those shocked days, and shouldn't necessarily be held to account (Martin Amis's repugnantly preening description of how the planes 'sharked' and then 'smeared' into the towers springs to mind). But Dawkins has reprinted this essay, and as such it demands consideration.
'It is time to stop pussyfooting around. Time to get angry,' the article begins. It is time to stop the mealy-mouthed euphemisms. 'Nationalists', 'Loyalists', 'Communities', 'Ethnic Groups', 'Cultures', 'Civilisations'. Religions is the word you need.
And so Dawkins bangs on, ever so usefully and constructively nominating 'Religion' as the sole cause of 9/11. This is, of course, a reductio so coarse and pointless as to be embarrassing: no less broad-brush in its approach than an 18”-roller. What is distinctive about this essay is not its contrarianism but its crudeness: 9/11 was due to a conspiracy and coincidence of innumerable ideological factors, each with their own complex genealogy. Blaming 'religion' helps neither to unpick the causes of that day, nor to predict its future repercussions.
The problem with many of these essays - and with Dawkins as polemicist in general - is that in its aggression and unfaltering stridency, his hatred of 'non- science' is itself a form of fundamentalism. His jeremiads against religion are guilty of the very crimes they denounce, and the qualities of science (its 'wonder', and its 'excitement') which he uses to browbeat unbelievers are themselves unexamined articles of faith.
There are some unmistakably accomplished essays here, admirable in their coolness and their logic. At its best, Dawkins's prose is invigorating stuff, offering a welcome jag of intravenous rationalism. At its worst, however, it can appear as mindless intellectual thuggery. The finest polemicists are smilers with knives, slipping blades between the ribs of their enemies. Too often in this volume, Dawkins comes across as science's hired muscle: the bruiser in the bad suit with the baseball bat, stepping forward to administer a messy and unnecessary quietus.
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