---
title: "Derrida vs. the rationalists, truth in the age of bullshit, and the politics of humanism"
date: "2017-03-13T11:58:16+00:00"
modified: "2017-03-13T11:58:16+00:00"
url: "https://newhumanist.org.uk/2017/03/13/derrida-vs-the-rationalists-truth-in-the-age-of-bullshit-and-the-politics-of-humanism/"
post_id: 6629
categories: ["Uncategorised"]
---

# Derrida vs. the rationalists, truth in the age of bullshit, and the politics of humanism

1\. [The age of bullshit](/articles/5155/the-age-of-bullshit)

We’ve all done it. You say what you have to say to get things done, with little regard for the truth. Louis Brooke asks: does it matter?

2\. [Derrida vs. the rationalists](/articles/5143/derrida-vs-the-rationalists)

Derrida’s famously difficult thought is often dismissed as “post-modern” nonsense. Is there is more to it than might first appear, argues Peter Salmon.

3\. [A politics of humanism can help build a just, free and more equal world](/articles/5158/a-politics-of-humanism-can-help-build-a-just-free-and-more-equal-world)

Intolerance and bigotry are in the ascendant. In the cover feature from our Spring issue, part of a special package on democracy and its discontents, Owen Jones surveys the challenges ahead.

4\. [Is it too soon to laugh about apartheid?](/articles/5140/is-it-too-soon-to-laugh-about-apartheid)

In post-apartheid South Africa, comedy has become the expression of a new democratic energy, writes Caroline Crampton.

5\. [The legacy of Islamic philosophy](/articles/5128/the-legacy-of-islamic-philosophy)

Although they worked within a religious framework, many philosophers in the Islamic world were pioneers of rational thought.

*[Previous selection of long-reads ](/articles/5145/leaving-the-priesthood-trouble-at-sea-and-the-nuclear-war-that-never-was)*

*[More on our Spring issue – out now](/articles/5151/age-of-extremes-the-spring-2017-new-humanist)*