“Wretchard is generalizing from exceptional examples.”

Sorry, but you read about insanity like this almost everyday. Thus, these ‘exceptional examples’ are becoming non-exceptional, which I believe is Wretchard’s point.

One has to expect a certain amount of craziness in an imperfect world occupied by imperfect humans. However, when the logic and common sense and the accumulated wisdom of the ages is tossed overboard, sheer chaos must follow.

Reason with a capital ‘R’ used to be revered as the way to temper the irrationality of mankind, to improve his natural state, which Hobbes described as ‘nasty, brutish and short’.

Now Reason is just one more artificial construct of our society used to oppress the masses, or, you know, something like that…