As stated in our manifesto, Heresy Central is not an ideological site. What is chronic in venues that are highly ideological is that they take very dubious narratives at face value simply because said narratives support their ideological position.
A very egregious recent example of this is all the false narratives regarding a rape epidemic allegedly going on in Europe that is attributed to refugees, predominantly from Muslim countries. The ideological sites pushing this narrative fail to point out things that really should be quite obvious to any moderately competent critical thinker. Specifically, to all intents and purposes, it is impossible for hundreds of women to be sexually assaulted in a place like Cologne’s central railway station on a New Year’s Eve without any of this being caught on camera. Certainly not in recent years. Therefore the event simply did not happen.
We reject any analysis of immigration (or anything else) that is built on top of things that we know to be synthetic events and narratives.
NOTA BENE: The above does not mean we are ourselves supporters of mass immigration. And it certainly does not mean that we reject an analysis of the situation that is from a strongly anti-immigration perspective. What it means is that you can make that case but said case cannot be based on top of synthetic hoax events. Nor can you cherry-pick data in a blatantly dishonest manner to support your case. In short:
Practically any position can be argued as long as it is done in an intellectually honest manner.
Thus, as another example, consider the (potentially very heretical) topic of so-called “gay rights”. We are not really interested in some emotional rant about how you, the author, find sex between two men to be unnatural, repulsive, or whatever. Now, you can hold that view and we will not condemn you for it particularly. As stated, we are very self-consciously heretical and not at all in the business of upholding political correctness. The point is that our own personal views about homosexuality, and sexual morality in general, are bound to be of relatively limited interest.
On the other hand, if you have a deep analysis of why certain political/ideological factions are promoting homosexuality or the normalization of homosexuality, and you can back it up with facts and logic, that could be quite interesting!
As stated in the manifesto, our position is based on the centrality of factual truth, which definitely implies a commitment to discerning which narratives are true and which are false. However, that a false narrative is false is typically only the beginning of a serious analysis. We want to look at who is really behind a false narrative and why they are pushing it.
All of this remains a nuanced issue. On the one hand, we have a strong preference for analysis that is rooted in facts, i.e. statements that are unambiguously, demonstrably true, such that good-faithed people of any philosophical current would be obliged to accept them. However, on the other hand, Heresy Central is not an academic journal. We want intellectual rigor but we also want writing that is lively and engaging. So we don’t absolutely reject personal, opinionated, emotional writing — writing that is peppered with a bit of ranting here and there. However, probably a little of that goes a long way. Well, in short:
Follow the rules except when it makes sense to break the rules…
Perhaps needless to say, we want writing that is grammatically and stylistically sound. Also, we assume that it is your original writing and not plagiarized from somewhere else! (Such things ought to go without saying…)
As of now, there is no set limit on article length. There are no topics that are off-limit (if dealt with tastefully). We discourage anonymity, but if you want to write under a nom de plume you may do so and we will respect your privacy.
Contributions can be sent by email to: *contributions (at) heresycentral (dotcom)*.