Theo Hobson is co-editor of Created for Love: Towards a New Teaching on Sex and Marriage.
Michael Gove makes a semi-persuasive case for patriotism in The Times this week. Brexit and Trumpism are largely just assertions of the basic, healthy human impulse to love one’s homeland, and to defy the international structures, and liberal sneering, that denigrate this impulse. The reality is that the moral status of patriotism depends on which nation
It is time to bother thinking about the tricky terms ‘liberal values’ and ‘liberalism’. ‘Liberal values’ is what unites us in Western democracies; it means a broad, vague belief in equality, human rights, the rule of law. Liberalism, on the other hand, is a political and cultural agenda. It claims to express liberal values in
It’s time to consider Nietzsche’s view of liberal democracy. It couldn’t work, it couldn’t bind a nation together, he said. Why not? Because of its excessive moral idealism. The belief in equality and social justice, which he rightly saw as deriving from Judaism and Christianity, would lead to fragmentation. For politics would be dominated by
The essence of Trumpism is vitalism, the belief that energy is the key political virtue. Don’t worry about my specific plans, he says, just believe that I will shake things up, even smash things up. Hillary ‘lacks energy’ he keeps saying. This should worry us. For this approach to politics was the seed of European
Say what you want about Owen Jones – and I might well agree with you – but he is admirably big-picture. He dares to link current affairs to the largest moral questions. In a piece about refugees on Friday he supplied a sketch of his form of humanist idealism. Empathy, he explains, is a natural
There is an important article in this week’s New Statesman. It addresses the big (embarrassingly big) issue of what our most fundamental values are in the West. The historian Tom Holland explains that his study of the classical world has made him realise that a huge gulf exists between the values of that era and
There are two articles in yesterday’s Guardian that are critical of something called ‘liberalism’. Giles Fraser vents his irritation at an advertisement for a hotel chain, aimed the global business elite. It celebrates the idea of the individual’s freedom from boundaries, constraints – be a ‘beautiful nomad’ it urges. This epitomises the worst sort of ‘liberalism’,
The Church of England’s relationship with state education seems simple enough. Its schools have been a major source of strength, significantly slowing its rate of decline over the past few decades. Many congregations have been swelled by parents seeking a better-than-average state education for their offspring. From an Anglican point of view, what’s not to
I see that Geoff Dyer has a new book out. I’m sure it’s brilliantly written, devilishly witty, and as shallow as a mirror. He sums up, for me, the literature of today. The most critically lauded writers of our day are writers of stylish non-fiction. Or of fiction that looks like non-fiction, that presents itself as
I happen to like the new Tate Modern building. The content’s the problem. The art currently on show there sums up some of the worst defects of the art world. Just when it should be exuberant and joyous it is pious, timid, cold – like a sparky young woman who goes all bluestocking on you.
Let’s say that a man kills a few people at random in your neighbourhood – on the street in broad daylight. Is it better or worse if he justifies his killing spree as part of a holy crusade? In other words, which is worse – terrorism or meaningless psychotic violence? I am aware that this
One of our main political parties is at an immense disadvantage. Labour is tied to a form of idealism. Socialism is a strong form of idealism. It can only gain and hold power by diluting this idealism, mixing it with realism. This is psychologically difficult, existentially unstable. When it finds a way of gaining power, it is
Andrea Leadsom presumably considers her aggressive pride in her maternity to be something to do with her Christian faith. To quote her heroine (who now seems wonderfully subtle): No, no, no. Pride in procreation is dull, banal, pagan stuff, not completely unrelated to fascism. Christians ought to steer clear of it. Did Jesus or St Paul
Blair’s great mistake was his desire to believe the best of America. It must know what it’s doing in invading Iraq, he thought. And in 2002, for once, this mighty superpower was hurt, needy – he felt needed by the leader of the free world. Which must be an intoxicating experience. Many of the rest
I voted Remain. I felt that the arguments for and against Brexit were pretty evenly balanced, except in terms of economic risk – and maybe geopolitical risk. So why risk it? But we did risk it. A reckless move, but not a morally indefensible one, as most Remainers are now saying. Let me explain why
This is not something that we are keen to discuss, for we are pretty sure that we have become far less puritanical, and that this is a good thing. But try this experiment. Imagine a slightly different version of Boris: funny, human, brilliant, a bit chaotic-seeming, and so on – but without any hint of sexual
Perhaps the most important pundit to have emerged from the earthquake is Giles Fraser. As a left-wing vicar and longstanding anti-racism campaigner, he makes it harder for people to depict the Brexiters as closet racists. He disrupts the defeated Remainers’ assumption that they represent progressive values, humanism. The same applies to the handful of pro-Brexit
Alain de Botton, to judge from his new novel The Course of Love, is trying to be the Freud for our day, the Facebookers’ Freud. For a book that presents itself as an affirmation of married love, it is rather bleak. And the bleakness echoes that of the Viennese know-it-all. Freud, remember, said that our sex
When there’s a story about Christianity in decline, or in crisis, you always get a few loudmouth lifestyle columnists gloating – sorry, imparting their secular wisdom. Barbara Ellen was not very surprised that a new report says that Christians (at 44 per cent) are now outnumbered by ‘Nones’ (at 48.5 per cent). After all, the
There’s an interesting article in the Guardian by Julian Baggini. Now that nearly half of Britons say that they have no religion, he observes, some believers are saying that atheism is also a sort of faith. Though an atheist, he is not of the Dick Dawkins school, and so does not respond with Dickish bluntness.
