The Neomedievalist

Language, territory, culture, tradition, and history are elements that unite individuals, transforming them into a community that shares common interests, rights, and obligations. This social connection, developed as a political concept throughout the history of human civilization since its genesis has been and continues to this day to remain closely connected with the desire for freedom and self-government of a people. This desire, transformed throughout history into political ideas, has been and remains the source of the ancient virtue of patriotism – a virtue developed especially in the Greco-Roman civilization, from antiquity, the Middle Ages to the present day. The majority agreed with this opinion, but after the catastrophe of the middle of the 20th century, continuing until today, the views on the nation and patriotism have changed radically. A significant number of intellectuals and influential politicians share diametrically opposed opinions regarding the concept ...

Conservative writer and philosopher Roger Scruton, photographed in London in March last year © Greg Funnell (www.ft.com) Remembering Sir Roger Scruton, the profound English philosopher, writer and artist who, unlike his contemporary colleagues, was a thinker as much as a doer; and to me, a Professor and mentor whom I never had the chance to meet in real life, but only through his writings and virtual lectures. The news of his passing away last year touched and saddened me, among many other people, who valued him, his cause, and thinking. Therefore, today I'm writing a short reflection, as a sign of gratitude and to honour his memory. I began reading Sir Roger Scruton, for the first time in 2016; it was for my political ideology class at University. Back then, I have to say, my views were much different than now. More or less, liberal-left-leaning, like most Humanities' students. I was warned to be careful, and I had prejudices not only towards him, but the conservative philos...

  L'Allegoria della Virtù e del Vizio by Lorenzo Lotto Recognizing the disastrous history of totalitarian regimes, R. Reagan and M. Thatcher minimized the government and promoted the free market, thinking they would give more liberty to the individual and prevent the rise of totalitarianism. But evidently, they had 'forgotten' about the existence of mega-corporations—that grew big enough to fill up the governments' place/role, in which they systematically impose certain ideologies, and of course, exploit and oppress the Middle and Working classes. Their idea of individualism, of course, had gone too far, at a point which one may think they had forgotten about the existence of common good and society—whose existence Thatcher and a few neoconservative thinkers and politicians had begun to deny. If one thinks deeply, the concept of the neoliberal Free Market is quite nihilistic and indifferent in its nature. The idea of ethics, common good, and culture doesn't seem t...