• Elizabeth Dangerfield wrote on the attack on 'woke-ness', and explored the importance of being 'woke' in black American history.
• Paul Monk reflected on the debate over whether the West needed a religious revival.
• Peter Ellerton wrote on how to understand critical thinking and provided some tips for becoming a better thinker.

There is a war on the word ‘woke’. It is now used in a derogatory way to dismiss concerns about lack of social justice. Yet, it is a simple word to warn the marginalised and disadvantaged to maintain constant vigilance in a world that is often hostile to them. Labelling something as ‘woke’ is a cheap tactic to discount a whole movement and a history of discrimination and abuse by demeaning the name that represents it. It is an easy way of removing threats to the status quo and to maintaining privilege.

Bari Weiss’s highly successful Substack site, The Free Press, hosted a debate in March. All good rationalists would do well to watch. The debate was between Ross Douthat and Ayaan Hirsi Ali on one side, and Michael Shermer and Adam Carolla on the other, on the topic: ‘Does the West need a religious revival?’ What’s your prior, or your instinctive, reaction? Note it and proceed. The debate was held in the Paramount Theatre, in Austin, Texas, and was attended by 1,300 people. Those people were asked, before the debate began, whether they believed the West needed a religious revival.

I served in the Australian Army for close to thirty years. I joined at the age of 17 years and went to Duntroon. My family was proud, middle-class and conservative. We had a good, loving home. My family didn’t really understand, though, that I had to leave to escape stifling religion. The excellent public school education they had given me had also made me realise that religion was irrational and evil. I read Nahum 1:2 about the age of nine and got fobbed off when I asked questions. I was there well before Dawkins.

There is a Fox News headline that goes like this: ‘Transgender female runner who beat 14,000 women at London Marathon offers to give medal back’. Read about the event elsewhere and it turns out the athlete was also beaten by thousands of people and it was a participation medal. While the Fox News headline is true, it is framed to potentially elicit a negative reaction. Misinformation is on the rise. We’re told we need to think critically when we read things online, but how can we recognise such situations?