The Second Discourseman In the dusk tonight, I sat in Chapel Court of Jesus College, my alma mater as of this day. I had just graduated a year after I had left, so that it was both a return and a farewell. Life played out across that court: couples walking together, students traipsing back andContinue reading “The Wicket Gate”
Author Archives: Four Discoursemen
Lessons from Meg
My uncle and aunt have a dog called Meg. I don’t know enough about dogs to be able to say if Meg is an odd dog, as in, odd as far as dogs go. But she seems odd to me: she gets easily hyped up and overexcited, she has an annoying (but sometimes funny) knackContinue reading “Lessons from Meg”
An Underdog God?
The Third Discourseman ‘The British love an underdog’ I don’t know whether this statement is actually true. Has there ever been any data or research (beyond anecdotal) to suggest that the British are more inclined towards the underdog than any other nationality? Is it even true that British people love an underdog more than anContinue reading “An Underdog God?”
One elephant in the conservative’s room
I I recently finished reading Patrick Deneen’s book Why Liberalism Failed. I hadn’t actually heard of it until recently, when it was pointed out to me that my claim that the big state is the close friend of individualism was already the central thesis of Deneen’s work. (Unsurprisingly, my ideas aren’t exactly original: and norContinue reading “One elephant in the conservative’s room“
God had a mum
I’m getting a little tired of attempting to find new ways to express the babies and bath water trope. But it does touch upon, rather aptly, that most human proclivity to flit between extremes. To those reasonably familiar with church history, the Protestant Reformation provides examples in abundance: a time when, so we Protestants claim,Continue reading “God had a mum“
A Song for Sunday Evenings
The Second Discourseman The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended,The darkness falls at Thy behest;To Thee our morning hymns ascended,Thy praise shall sanctify our rest. It is hard to pin down the feeling as I leave church into the Sunday evening’s darkness; a feeling which, though it presumably has its counterpart in all working folk,Continue reading “A Song for Sunday Evenings”
Top 10 Reasons to Sack off Santa this Christmas
The Third Discourseman That’s right, you read the title correctly. No figure- no matter how beloved- is safe from this Discourseman’s hard-hitting journalism. And no figure has escaped deserved scrutiny more than Santa, everyone’s favourite festive fable. For those unfamiliar, Santa Clause is the fictional lead at the centre of a nexus of lies, globalContinue reading “Top 10 Reasons to Sack off Santa this Christmas”
The Wisdom of Monster
The Second Discourseman ‘When I had done all that, I got him oats from the neighbouring bin; for the place knew me well, and I could always tend to my own beast when I came there. And as he ate his oats, I said to him: “Monster, my horse, is there any place on earthContinue reading “The Wisdom of Monster”
Lockdown and the common good
Here is a conundrum: if my last article was right, and westerners increasingly operate in an autonomian conception of things, then how do we explain widespread compliance with the authoritarian measures taken by governments in response to the pandemic? The rhetoric, at least in the early months of it all, was of pulling together, ofContinue reading “Lockdown and the common good“
Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover?
The Third Discourseman I’ve often found the phrase ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ a bit odd. After all, the cover is still part of a book, and has still had some sort of paid designer/artist behind it, who has hopefully put effort into making it grab people’s attention and compel them to readContinue reading “Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover?”
The Four Discoursemen 