When what appears to be the latest fake news story turns out to be true, Theodore Dalrymple’s Takimag column is there yet again to shine a light on the absurd era we live in. Next item on the culturally-destructive, tradition-shattering, politically correct hit list: banning the use of the term “Ladies and gentlemen.”

Freedom of opinion is a very good thing, but so is freedom from opinion—since a very high proportion of opinions, especially among publicly funded academic intellectuals, do not even rise to the value of drunken barroom talk. Oh for a world free from opinion!—or at least freer from opinion.

Alas, the social media have provided an echo chamber for cranks, monomaniacs, extremists, psychotics, enthusiasts of every stripe, the unheard whose prior muteness was their greatest virtue and highest quality, the echo chamber being the whole world.