Conservatism
GT105 in 1986 was assessed by two assignments of 10% and 30% and a 60% examination.
The first assignment was due in May 1986 and had three alternatives. We had an extensive bibliography for each question, which was needed for external students away from the library databases in a preinternet world. It looks like I just asked the Thatcher library for the first ten or so suggested books as most of them turn up in the bibliography.
Topic C
Roger Scruton has defined conservatism as : “The political outlook which springs from a desire to conserve existing things, held to be either good in themselves, or better than the likely alternatives, or at least safe, familiar, and the objects of trust and affection.” (A Dictionary of Political Thought) Discuss, making some reference in your discussion to the opposing socialist view that conservatism is an ideology of class privilege and class exploitation.
… and what an angry little snot I was. The lecturer gently pointed out the many flaws in my arguments and kindly ignored most of my typos and referencing lapses. Having got my wife to type this from my execrable handwriting, I was at fault as a lousy proof reader and remain so to this day. ( I know she typed it from the absence of correction fluid.)
Apart from a lamentable tendency to repetition, I noted on rereading this as I typed it into Word that I dropped in some religious matters. Later when doing more advanced government subjects I gravitated to the Christian thinkers and eventually I recall that I switched to studying the history of Christian thought instead.
