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The Work of Mourning

Roger Scruton

In a significant essay entitled “Mourning and Melancholia,” Freud wrote of “the work of mourning,” meaning the psychic process whereby a cherished object is finally laid to rest, as...

Living with a Mind

Roger Scruton

I was brought up in a culture that made no special place for the “intellectual” as a distinct human type, and which regarded learning in the same way as...

The End of the University

Roger Scruton

Universities exist to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and culture that will prepare them for life, while enhancing the intellectual capital upon which we all depend. Evidently the...

Is Sex Necessary?

Roger Scruton

E. B. White and James Thurber’s prescient satire of the sexual revolution in America, Is Sex Necessary?, was published in 1929, just before things really got going. It reminds...

The Good of Government

Roger Scruton

In his first inaugural address, President Reagan announced that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” and his remark struck a chord in the...

Pop Imperialism

Roger Scruton

Through a Screen Darkly: Popular Culture, Public Diplomacy, and America’s Image Abroadby martha baylesyale, 336 pages, $30D uring the Cold War the United States government madeimportant attempts to manage...