I must first apologise for not posting anything in quite some time. Although I have not been posting, I have certainly been doing allot of reading, and I intend get a few reviews/thoughts of each piece of literature I have read up by the end of the week. After finishing the life of Enoch Powell I went straight onto the Abolition of Britain and finished it within a few days. The Abolition felt like it was an extended essay in comparison to the book of Enoch, but a brilliant one at that. The book is a critique of government policy between the set goalposts of Churchill and Princess Diana’s funerals, and reads more like philosophy than the standard non-fiction I expected it to be.
The version I read was the revised edition that includes a chapter about homosexuality, which was previously kept out of book for fear the overall message may have been lost in the likely outrage towards the chapter. The theme of the book focuses mainly on the damage done to schooling and religious institutions, and touches far less on immigration – book released in 1997 – as one might have thought. A particularly interesting chapter covers the advent of television and the negative effects it has on children. As seen in the clip below, Hitchens refers to the Telly Tubbies as being unique in children’s shows, as one of the staple parts in each episode is essentially a television show within a television show.
My favourite chapter of the book was about the teaching of history in comprehensive schools, mainly because I could empathise with every word. Hitchens even gave an example that was identical to the experience I had when learning about the Spanish Armada. Instead of learning about the heroes that saved England from conquest, we got hours of learning based around the living conditions of sailors and how they battled with the rigging in torrential weather without any safety harnesses. Only a small amount of the tuition ever touched upon the heroes or genius battle manoeuvres from our rich and glorious history, but of course the whole point of modern schooling is to avoid instilling any form of patriotism into the next generation.
The largest chunk of the book is dedicated to religious institutions and ordered liberty. Although the book states early on that it is focusing on the events between Diana and Churchill’s funerals, it also brings up two exceedingly important events in the downfall of Britain. The first one is that the Church of England decided to support the Great War, a decision of which it has never recovered and most likely never will. The other event is the Suez crisis, which showed the moment when confidence in Britain was shattered, and authority along with it. These two events have contributed in a double edged sword that has seen our law and order deteriorate, and the special ability the British had at restraining itself. This liberal attitude towards the freedom we hold so dear will result in a huge expansion of the state and opens up the possibility of a Brave New World scenario.
The Abolition of Britain is a fantastic book, and should be the first Hitchens book that you start with. As Hitchens himself has said, most of his following books are supplements to this one, but he has also said in recent years that it needs rewrote. As much as I love the book, it would be nice to see a more present version, but I would recommend to Peter that he waits until the coronation of Charles as the new goal post before writing it. As for the chapter involving homosexuality, it was as Peter suggested in his pretext, that it was measured and reasoned, but I can understand why it was initially left out. I will conclude by saying that I have also finished reading Jesse Norman’s book on Edmund Burke, and the parallels between Burke and Hitchens are very much there, showing the true genius within The Abolition of Britain.
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