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The real objection to Professor Gould...is more far-reaching. It is that under the banner of 'liberal values' he consecrates as desirable an anarchy … - Maurice Cowling
" "The real objection to Professor Gould...is more far-reaching. It is that under the banner of 'liberal values' he consecrates as desirable an anarchy of opinions which ought in no way to be desired. A society ought to have opinions about which there is no fundamental disagreement and in relation to which it is not the business of universities to adopt a liberalising or questioning attitude. If England is a liberal society in Professor Gould's sense, that ought not to be turned, as he turns it, into a matter of self-congratulation. It is a matter rather for gloom and regret that anyone as clever as he is should consecrate the unthought-out pluralism in which we live, and a matter for serious reflection that, so far as Marxists see this, they perform a valuable, destructive function to disclosing the gulf that divides the doctrinaire liberal from nearly the whole of the rest of the human race.
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About Maurice Cowling
Maurice John Cowling (6 September 1926 – 25 August 2005) was a British historian and a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge.
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Maurice John Cowling
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Additional quotes by Maurice Cowling
It seemed to me singularly ill-contrived for the British government to be going to war with Hitler when Hitler might have been about to attack the Russians, and even more ill-contrived that, when Hitler did attack the Russians, he had already defeated the French army. What I'm saying is that the war shouldn't have been started in September 1939... [F]rom the point of view of Britain, the war was really not a good thing and I would regard it as, in effect, a defeat.
The object of this volume is to suggest respects in which Mrs Thatcher's stance may be open to improvement. Its message is that a Conservative stance should not only be different from the liberal conservatism of the 1950s but should also avoid the class resentments of the converted socialists of the seventies. It should treat Liberalism and Marxism as similar sorts of doctrine and should approach the former more even that it approaches the latter with satire, ridicule and incredulity. It should feel impelled towards a diffidence, irony or detachment which, whether Christian or cynical, will enable it to avoid ethical earnestness; and it should do this not because ethical earnestness is dangerous but because it is earnest and, as Mr Heath discovered, provides no route to that unity of national sentiment for which Conservatives need to seek.
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This country is overtaxed and over-governed, and will be more so if the Prime Minister leads, or allows, the Labour Party to have its way. Taxation has got to be reduced, not as a bribe, but as a national necessity.
Serious damage will be done to the whole structure of British life from new, vexatious and unnecessary extensions of governmental power at the hands of a party which believes that government alone can make the decisions on which the national life depends.
Admire Mr. Wilson's manner as we may, these are things that need to be said. If the Conservative party will not say them, Mr. Wilson will be there (and there rightfully) with a large majority for a long time yet.
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