Michael Oakeshott, The Philosopher Ploughman

Graham A. MacDonald reappraises the ideas and impact of the 20th-century political thinker, Michael Oakeshott.

Michael Oakeshott painted in 1985 by Paul Gopal-Chowdhury. By permission Master & Fellows of Gonville & Caius College Cambridge"Almost overnight, a world of ungracious fact had melted into infinite possibility; we who belonged to no ‘leisured class’, had been freed for a moment from the curse of Adam, the burdensome distinction between work and play. What opened before us was not a road but a boundless sea; it was enough to stretch one’s sails to the wind. The distracting urgency of an immediate destination was absent, duty no longer oppressed, boredom and disappointment were words without meaning; death was unthinkable."

Michael Oakeshott, The Idea of a University (1950)

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