![]() The Germany that we know from art, music and literature – the Germany of the Gothic cathedrals and the gingerbread cities, of Dürer and Grünewald, of Luther's Bible, of Goethe, Schiller, Kant and Hegel, the Germany of the romantic poets and of the greatest continuous musical tradition that the world will ever know – that Germany had been poisoned in people's thoughts by Hitler. Germans after the war felt this about their country. But what if the departed person cannot be forgiven? What if his vices are an immoveable obstacle to all attempts to accept him? Then mourning becomes impossible. Mourning is a process of reconciliation, a work of forgiveness, in which the dead person is retrospectively granted the right to die. All funeral rites and all elegies for the dead are designed to highlight the virtues and to minimise the vices of the departed person. The work of mourning, as Freud conceived it, is a work of redemption, in which the lost figure is blessed in the memory of the one he leaves behind. And if it is true that Richard Strauss was mourning, in Metamorphosen, the Germany that he had known and which had been destroyed by the Second World War, then there is an added problem that he must certainly have encountered, which is the great difficulty we all have, in mourning what we condemn. But there are no clear precedents for the work of mourning when what is mourned is a nation, a civilisation or a place. Religions, laws and customs all provide for the ritual mourning of beloved people. Such losses leave us helpless, and even if we find a way of healing the wounds that they make, the scars will remain. The loss of a spouse can be equally traumatic, as is the loss of children, who take with them into the void all the most tender feelings of their parents. The loss of a parent, especially during one's early years, is a world-changing experience, and orphans are marked for life by this. After such a loss, we are in a new and unfamiliar world, in which the support on which we had depended – perhaps unknowingly – is no longer available. But in this matter, it seems to me, he was on the right lines. I am not, in general, persuaded by Freud's psychology. ![]() This is the explanation of the state that used to be known as melancholia – as he sees it – a kind of willed helplessness in which the world is seen as alien and unmanageable. Until the work of mourning has been accomplished, Freud argues, new life, new loves and new engagement with the world are all difficult if not impossible. He is an associate editor at The Spectator.In a significant essay entitled "Mourning and Melancholia", Freud writes of "the work of mourning", meaning the psychic process whereby a cherished object is finally laid to rest, as it were buried in the unconscious, and the ego liberated from its grip. He was a fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the British Academy.ĭouglas Murray is the bestselling author of six books, including The Madness of Crowds and The Strange Death of Europe. He specialized in aesthetics with particular attention to music and architecture. Roger Scruton (1944–2020) was a philosopher, public commentator, and the author of more than forty books, including Notes from Underground and Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. In his introduction, the bestselling author and commentator Douglas Murray writes of what it cost Scruton to express views considered unpalatable, and of the importance of these ideas after Scruton's death. In this selection, covering subjects from art and architecture to politics and nature conservation, Scruton challenges popular opinion on key aspects of our culture: What can we do to protect Western values against Islamist extremism? How can we nurture real friendship through social media? Why is the nation-state worth preserving? How should we achieve a timely death against the advances of modern medicine? This provocative collection seeks to answer the most pressing problems of our age. ![]() Each "confession" reveals aspects of the author's thinking that his critics would probably have advised him to keep to himself. ![]() ![]() A revised edition of the Notting Hill Editions essay collection by the late Sir Roger Scruton with a new introduction by Douglas Murray.Ĭonfessions of a Heretic is a collection of provocative essays by the influential social commentator and polemicist Roger Scruton. ![]()
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