Our skeptical doctor reviews an insignificant and mediocre book on grandstanding by two typical American academics over at Law & Liberty.
Cant matters for a number of reasons that the authors enumerate. It destroys moderation. It is cruel and intolerant towards those who think differently. It divides people into the saved and the damned. Because it is one-sided and does not recognise the complexity of life, let alone the tragic dimension of life, it encourages bad policy in the name of some supposedly immaculate principle. People who cant are often willing to decimate a countryside because actual results as experienced by others do not interest them. What they are interested in is how they appear morally to others, and that only as a means to advancement. Cant is careerist.
Another aspect of cant is that it often creates a sort of backlash against the cause for which we are canting (causes which are often legitimate at some level).
It ends up hurting its cause, in other words – assuming there is some genuine concern buried beneath the layers of cant.