In last week’s Takimag, our troubled doctor compares former communist countries with our own liberal democratic societies and finds an uncomfortable level of similarities.

I do not think anyone in the West would have equated personal rectitude with adherence to a single ideological vision, but I think it quite common now. If you want to know whether a person is good or bad, ask what his opinions are. If they are correct, he is a good man; if they are wrong, he is a bad man.