George Walford |

George Walford: Oedipus, Come Home

September 6, 2012

OEDIPUS, ALL IS FORGIVEN; COME HOME – MOTHER. OVER MY DEAD BODY – FATHER. Following the classical pattern of rebellion against the father-figure some of the more enterprising people with serious interest in psycho-analysis are questioning the bases of Freud’s work. When starting on psycho-analysis Freud found a surprisingly high number of his female patients… read more »

George Walford: Do You Sincerely Want to be Poor?

September 6, 2012

By one standard definition the poor are those who have to work for a living. In a socialist society everybody would have to work for a living. So, if you sincerely want to be poor… from Ideological Commentary 12, August 1984.

George Walford: On Control

September 6, 2012

Does the government control society? Not: Can Mrs. Thatcher beat the miners? but: Does any government control any society? In one sense, yes: decisions are made by the government with which the society complies. Examples of this are the exact rate at which taxation shall be levied and the precise date on which a new… read more »

George Walford: Local Boy Makes Good

September 6, 2012

A main theme of systematic ideology is that the major ideologies form a determinate series, in the sense that the people who move along the range develop the successive ideologies in a predictable order. But in doing this they do not abandon the earlier ones; these are, so to speak, carried along with them so… read more »

George Walford: Systematic Ideology

September 6, 2012

In ordinary and academic usage ‘ideology’ refers to a system of ideas adopted or set up in furtherance of some interest, usually the interest of a social group playing or believed to be playing a political role. It is a conception which minimises the significance of ideology and the importance of ideological study. If an… read more »

George Walford: Up With Prejudice

September 6, 2012

IC shuns impartiality, holding that it can never be realised; to attempt to exhibit it is to display a partiality for impartiality. The five p’s go together – prejudice, partiality and preference produce all progress – and the object of IC is to promote the view of ideology which derives from the work of the… read more »

George Walford: Education Determines Ideology

September 6, 2012

We are often asked: “What determines a person’s ideology?” The established answer (so far as anything about systematic ideology is established at all) has been that so far as each individual person was concerned it was a matter of chance. The relative size of the different ideological groups are determinate, but it is a matter… read more »

George Walford: Dragooned Dragoons

September 6, 2012

The intellectuals of the left commonly take it for granted that an authoritarian social system must have been established against the will of the general body of the people. The overwhelming evidence, that the general body of the people (which includes most of the poor) find such systems to be well within their range of… read more »

George Walford: War and Peace

September 6, 2012

In one’s more optimistic moments it is tempting to think that the “ban-the-bomb” movement, the resistance in America against the Vietnam war, and the widely expressed opposition to war indicate the growth of a substantial and determined movement for peace, a movement that will prove an effective barrier against war. But if one is to… read more »

George Walford: The Price of Precision

September 6, 2012

Exact science is able to be exact only by excluding inexactitude. In Euclidean geometry (paradigmatic of exact science) a proposition will begin: “Let ABC be a triangle… ” This establishes that what follows relates only to figures which are, exactly and without qualifications, triangles, figures bounded each of them by three lines (possessing length but… read more »