Note / SH: Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and Harold Laski were prominent members of the Fabian Society, which aimed to promote socialism, abortion and euthanasia through gradual reform rather than revolution. They were influential intellectuals in the early 20th century, contributing significantly to political and cultural discussions of their time. Their legacy impacts us… Read More The Great Liberal Death Wish. Malcolm Muggeridge.
“We went [to Bethlehem] early in the day, and I sat by myself in the cave underneath the Church of the Nativity where Christ is supposed to have been born… Overhead are numerous silver and bronze lamps, and the stone walls are covered with silk and damask, now mostly threadbare. Seated there in the half-light,… Read More Malcolm Muggeridge in the Holy Land; and “snatching fantasy from the jaws of truth”
Malcolm Muggeridge. A watery, wintry dawn seen across London roofs is exceedingly lovely. It is as though the old Thames were once more flowing through deserted, desolate marshes. In the stillness, London seems only a dream, a shadow, with no corporeal existence. Seeing it thus, I reflected that the greatness of Christian civilization, of which… Read More The Hunger and the Light
Are the hegemonic fields of politics and sex destroying us? “English Literature no longer makes the top ten of A-level subject choices. English departments at universities are regularly closing. Studies show dramatic drops in literacy and reading, particularly amongst teenagers. A book and a discussion. Stefan Collini’s new book explores why such a prestigious academic discipline… Read More English literature’s last stand
“The Russian intelligentsia produced a faith based upon a strange syllogism: Man is descended from the apes, therefore we must love one another.” — Vladimir Solovyev — On Lenin’s desk in the Kremlin there stood, for most of the years he worked there, a strange bronze statue of an ape gazing with an expression of… Read More Lenin, the Ape and the Skull
John Reith, the first ever Director General of the BBC, talks to Malcolm Muggeridge about his time at the corporation. He explains the thinking behind his decision to instruct BBC broadcasters to speak in the rather artificial manner – which became known as the ‘BBC accent’ – as opposed to their own local dialects. Lord… Read More John Reith to Malcolm Muggeridge on the BBC’s Effects on the Language
Right-Wing Extremism, Gov’t Report Warns… Feb. 2023. Author Douglas Murray published a scathing review of the British government’s counter-terrorism Prevent program, which has apparently reported that authors like George Orwell, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis can radicalize readers. In his column, Murray described how Britain’s Prevent program was founded to support counter-terrorism efforts, but has gradually… Read More Reading ‘Lord Of The Rings’ And ‘1984’ Could Lead To…
Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones (13 August 1905 – 12 August 1935) was a Welsh journalist who in March 1933 first reported in the Western world, without equivocation and under his own name, the existence of the Soviet famine of 1930–1933, including the Holodomor. In mid-October 1932 (less than a month after Malcolm Muggeridge had arrived in Moscow on the… Read More Gareth Jones, Malcom Muggeridge, and the Holodomor
Du Bois: “Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature. He was simple, calm and courageous. He seldom lost his poise; pondered his problems slowly, made his decisions clearly and firmly; never yielded to ostentation nor coyly refrained from holding his rightful place with dignity. He was… Read More W.E.B. Du Bois and Khrushchev on Stalin
“And fate made everybody equal Outside the limits of the law. Son of a kulak or Red commander, Son of a priest or commissar . . . Here classes were all equalized, All men were brothers, camp mates all, Branded as traitors every one . . . —Alexander Tvardovsky, “By Right of Memory” It all… Read More Lenin’s Pure “Equality”. Three Weeks Before the October Revolution.
And Frankenstein. “…Jesus is approached with the offer of a worldwide TV network, and “The Dead Sea Videotapes,” in which archaeologists centuries hence discover a cache of tapes, films, and other evidence of our contemporary society, and reach shocking conclusions. “Future historians,” says Muggeridge, “will surely see us as having created in the media a… Read More Malcolm Muggeridge on The Fourth Temptation
McLuhan, 1969: “There’s nothing at all difficult about putting computers in the position where they will be able to conduct carefully orchestrated programing of the sensory life of whole populations. I know it sounds rather science-fictional, but if you understood cybernetics you’d realize we could do it today. The computer could program the media to… Read More Marshall McLuhan on media manipulation of peoples and nations
By Malcolm Muggeridge. Some eight decades ago I came into the world, full of cries and wind and hiccups; now I prepare to leave it, also full of cries and wind and hiccups. Whence I came I cannot know, least of all in the light of contemporary myths like Darwinian evolution, Freudian psychology, situational ethics,… Read More As daylight hours draw to a close
“God did not retreat back into Heaven when the fateful words “It is finished” were uttered on Golgotha. The Word that became flesh has continued and continues to dwell among us, full of grace and truth. There are examples on every hand; we have but to look for them. For instance, the man in Solzhenitsyn’s… Read More Malcolm Muggeridge on Suffering and Spiritual Growth
Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire “In the arid wasteland that is academic writing, amid the wider desert that is modern secular thought, R. J. Snell’s book on acedia is an oasis of flowers and fruit and fresh water. Professor Snell reminds us that man must never be made subordinate to work, nor even to the empty… Read More Acedia and Its Discontents
by Malcolm Muggeridge The coming of Jesus into the world is the most stupendous event in human history. Is our [modern] skepticism one more manifestation of our having–in Bonhoeffer’s unhappy phrase–come of age? It would be difficult to support such a proposition in the light of the almost inconceivable credulity of today’s brain-washed public, who… Read More Jesus the Man Who Lives, And the Credulity of Our Age
Muggeridge on the Media.June 19, 2017. “IN the 1970s, British journalist and author Malcolm Muggeridge insisted that television news involved deliberate deception. During lectures on the media in London in 1976, he stated: “I remember once returning to my hotel in New York and noticing on the way that a crowd had assembled outside what was… Read More Muggeridge on the Media [and Control].
… of Traditional Religious Belief into the Pathological. Observing the not so subtle subtexts in media and their impact in our lives. This Dr. Thomas Hibbs lecture was titled Religious Liberty and Popular Culture Thomas S. Hibbs (November 3, 1960) is an American philosopher and the 9th President of the University of Dallas, a Catholic liberal arts… Read More U.S. Media Framing Belief as Pathological
‘The West believes man’s destiny is prosperity and an abundance of goods. So does the Politburo.” –Whittaker Chambers “…What is happening in the world is that this view that scientific materialism, that men can by means of science solve all their problems and create for themselves a happy, fulfilled life by their own efforts, and… Read More Malcolm Muggeridge: Has America Had It?
This piece by Whittaker Chambers appeared in the December 28, 1957, issue of National Review. Chambers titled it Big Sister is Watching You. Several years ago, Miss Ayn Rand wrote The Fountainhead. Despite a generally poor press, it is said to have sold some four hundred thousand copies. Thus, it became a wonder of the… Read More Whittaker Chambers and William F. Buckley Jr. on Ayn Rand, 2003
For his honest reporting on the Stalinist show trials Malcolm Muggeridge lost his job and was blacklisted for a time. The following is from 1979. (Drawing by a former Gulag prisoner) “The Great Liberal Death Wish” is a subject that I’ve given a lot of thought to and have written about, and it would be… Read More The Great Liberal Death Wish. Malcolm Muggeridge.
“World-renowned philosopher, humorist, newspaper editor, and university rector, British writer Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) is best known to American audiences for his book Something Beautiful for God (a classic biography of Mother Teresa that essentially introduced her to the West) and for his frequent appearances on Firing Line. A tart-tongued agnostic, Muggeridge was fascinated by the… Read More Malcolm Muggeridge. A Third Testament.
“I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has.” Malcolm Muggeridge, The End… Read More Malcolm Muggeridge on Darwinism — Evolution
Catholic Critique 