“If the test of liberalism is how it confronts its illiberal adversaries, some of the liberal intelligentsia seem to have fallen at the first hurdle. Writers such as Martin Amis and Hitchens do not just want to lock terrorists away. They also tout a brand of western cultural supremacism. Dawkins strongly opposed the invasion of Iraq, but preaches a self-satisfied, old-fashioned Whiggish rationalism that can be wielded against a benighted Islam. The philosopher AC Grayling has an equally starry-eyed view of the stately march of Western Progress. The novelist Ian McEwan is a freshly recruited champion of this militant rationalism. Both Hitchens and Salman Rushdie have defended Amis’s slurs on Muslims. Whether they like it or not, Dawkins and his ilk have become weapons in the war on terror. Western supremacism has gravitated from the Bible to atheism.”

He doesn’t actually deal with their arguments. I’m not even sure I know what he means by Dawkins preaching “a self-satisfied, old-fashioned Whiggish rationalism that can be wielded against a benighted Islam.” Camouflaged Ad Hominem is still Ad Hominem. His ultimate argument is that these authors reduce Islam to a barbarous cult in their arguments (setting up a strawman) and that in doing this they undermine liberal values which is on the slippery slope to supremacism.

My response would be, that each of the authors goes to some length in describing the difference between moderate believers and fundamentalists. Their arguments then encompass each differently using examples and often with cited evidence. Eagleton in making his point doesn’t come to the table with any in context examples instead he does exactly what he’s accusing them of, reducing them to caricatures.

I guess not all David’s are good with a slingshot.