Our inability to have a rational debate, the utter refusal of one side to listen to the arguments of the other, is in itself a fatal flaw in the way that Western civilization now functions. And it may be that we can’t fix this. Maybe we’ve just lost the basis for reasoned debate and we’re reverting back to where we were back in the 16th and 17th century, where instead of reasoned debate we just accused one another of heresy. I think we kind of got to that point again.

Niall Ferguson