Thursday 9 August 2012

Thought Prison - complete text version now online

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Now it's a year post-publication, I've posted a text version of my book Thought Prison, online at

http://thoughtprison-pc.blogspot.co.uk/

If anyone notices any typos or other errors, I would be grateful if you could leave a comment here or e-mail me at hklaxnessatyahoodotcom. 

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4 comments:

Stephen S said...

This well thought out critique is a rare resource and is much appreciated.

Being a "weak" Christian my worldly reaction to this "cult of PC" is often, I fear, sinful in nature.

Having been solely reliant on the writings of Peter Hitchens to ensure a Christian perspective is maintained when seeking an informed critique of the perils of PC, this is a welcome addition.

Samson J. said...

Thanks for posting this; I had heard much ado about it but lacked any portable reading device on which to read the thing.

It reminds me of a not-entirely-unrelated thought that I had recently, which I will share with you in the hopes that you appreciate it:

Some time ago, a couple of years, maybe, I read an interview with Robert Plant, whom you may know as the former singer for Led Zeppelin, arguably (and in my opinion accurately) called the greatest rock band of all time. Zeppelin used to feature quite a number of songs (I often play them for my family!) that were softer and more acoustic in nature, evoking the history and bucolic feel of Olde Englande. Some of these songs, in the lyrics, made reference to Tolkien's works, of which Plant was once a big fan.

Well, in the aforementioned recent interview, Plant more or less disclaimed those Tolkien-inspired lyrics, saying, more or less, that he was "embarrassed" by them and "couldn't believe he ever wrote such nonsense". He regarded them as youthful silliness, not something he was interested in any longer as a "mature" adult.

At first, when I read this, I was disappointed - "Et tu, Plant?" But I thought about it and I realized something that I can articulate better now, which is that *of course* Plant feels embarrassed that he ever drew inspiration from Tolkien. His empty, secular worldview leads nowhere else! *Of course* a person who doesn't understand the spiritual context of Tolkien's work is going to eventually reject it as "childish". By and large, to continue to enjoy Tolkien as an adult you have to believe in, or at least long for, or at least appreciate in some way, the transcendental worldview that underlies his opus.

Anno Domini said...

Typos found:
"so long as they do do encroach on other victim"
"I suggesting that in doing this"
"dead
- so we kill it." (is that crlf intended to be there?)

Insightful!

Bruce Charlton said...

@AD - Thank you. I've fixed them.