| Line 2: |
Line 2: |
| | | | |
| | She is also president of the British [[Secular humanism|Humanist]] Association. | | She is also president of the British [[Secular humanism|Humanist]] Association. |
| | + | |
| | + | == Criticism of Toynbee by The Week == |
| | + | |
| | + | ''The Week'' published an article entitled ''Toynbee: the great comic figure of our age'' which declared: |
| | + | {{Cquote| None of us," boomed Polly Toynbee the other day, in her now famous attack on the super-rich, "like to feel guilty about our comfortable lives." Like much of what she writes, this is not altogether true. It probably is true of many of the super-rich, but as the Guardian's leading columnist - as the living embodiment, indeed, of the Guardianista spirit, of whom even that paper's editor is said to be terrified - Toynbee knows perfectly well that her painfully liberal readers like nothing better than to feel guilty about their comfortable lives. |
| | + | |
| | + | One suspects that what she really means by "None of us" - which is properly a singular, by the way - is "I". Thanks to her guilt-inducing journalism and books, she is herself comparatively rich and comfortable, with a house in Clapham and a villa in Italy. And, as a daughter of Philip Toynbee and granddaughter of Arnold, she is also quite posh. But - unless one takes a psychoanalytic approach, and views her entire oeuvre as an act of expiation - she stoutly refuses to feel guilty about it. |
| | + | |
| | + | There is in this a strong whiff of smugness and hypocrisy which, combined with an almost heroic lack of any sense of humour, has made her widely disliked. |
| | + | |
| | + | Her enemies are actually legion. As a devout atheist, and President of the British Humanist Association, in 2004 she was voted Most [[Islamophobia|Islamophobic]] Media Personality by the Islamic Human Rights Commission.<ref>[http://www.theweek.co.uk/26243/toynbee-great-comic-figure-our-age Toynbee: the great comic figure of our age], ''The Week''</ref> |
| | | | |
| | == Toynbee pulling out of debate with William Lane Craig == | | == Toynbee pulling out of debate with William Lane Craig == |