Controversy comes naturally to Selbourne, a veteran of ideological and cultural wars. He used to teach at Ruskin College, Oxford, the trade union college, and was assumed to be a man of the left until he began writing about the breakdown of civil society and morality in essays and books such as The Principle of Duty.
He is wary of libertarianism and the cult of the individual and considers Milton Friedman, apostle of the free market, to be the “evil genius of our age”. With such views, he was always going to be at odds with the Thatcherite right. Yet his arguments against loosening the bonds of family and community led him to be labelled a reactionary sell-out by the post-Sixties left.
Selbourne’s holiday home in Italy became his refuge and, eventually, his permanent base: “I needed a cordon sanitaire between me and the seething world of competitive English intellectuals.” From there he remains engaged in the war of ideas in the English-speaking world, eagerly scanning British and American newspapers and magazines on the internet and fighting every ideological battle as if the barbarians were at his gate.
“I consider myself to be highly progressive,” he says with a touch of indignation and weariness. “I consider it highly progressive to be against fascism and there are elements of Islamic society which are fascist. People are cowed, and it has to be resisted.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1631924,00.html
Thanks again.
Sort of a Byronesque Progressive Tory would be if he were from Doctor Johnson's era and hostile to Whiggish industrialization. (Ain't that a hoot of a metaphor?) Likely a bit dissolute in his younger days and feeling guilty about it. Probably has some Latin. (Wish I did.) Italian probably quite good but with an accent. Middling French. Poor mathematics, maybe?
Now I'm really far out on an imaginary limb!!
That's it, signing off. Goodnight.