Phillip Blond
Phillip Blond | |
|---|---|
| File:Phillip Blond at Warwick Economics Summit 2012.jpg Phillip Blond at the Warwick Economics Summit 2012 | |
| Born | 1 March 1966 |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
| School | Political Philosophy, Theology |
Main interests | Red Toryism |
Phillip Blond (born 1 March 1966)[1] is an English political thinker, Anglican theologian, and director of the think tank ResPublica.[2]
Early life
Born in Liverpool and educated at Pensby Secondary School for Boys,[3] Blond went on to study philosophy and politics at the University of Hull, continental philosophy at the University of Warwick, and theology at Peterhouse at the University of Cambridge. At Peterhouse, he was a student of John Milbank, founder of the theological movement Radical Orthodoxy and a noted critic of liberalism, philosophically understood. Blond's first work, Post-Secular Philosophy: Between Philosophy and Theology, is very much in the Radical Orthodoxy line of thought, and includes essays by many of that group's members. Blond won a prize research fellowship in philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York.[citation needed]
Career
Blond was a Senior Lecturer in Christian theology at the University of Cumbria[4] and was a lecturer in the Department of Theology at the University of Exeter.[citation needed]
He was the director of the Progressive Conservatism Project at the London-based think tank Demos, but left due to 'political and philosophical differences'[5] to establish his own think tank, ResPublica.
He gained prominence from a cover story in Prospect magazine in the February 2009 edition with his essay on Red Toryism,[6] which proposed a radical communitarian traditionalist conservatism that inveighed against both state and market monopoly.
According to Blond, these two large-scale realities, while usually spoken of as diametrically opposed, are in reality the two sides of the same coin. As he explains it, modern and postmodern individualism and statism have always been connected of the hip, at least since the advent of Rousseau's thought, if not well before that in the work of Hobbes.[7] In a series of articles in both The Guardian[8] and The Independent he has argued for a wider recognition of the merits of civic conservatism and an appreciation of the potentially transformative impact of a new Tory settlement.[9]
In 2010, The Telegraph called him "a driving force behind David Cameron's 'Big Society' agenda."[10]
References
- ^ Walters, Simon (9 August 2009). "On His Dave's Secret Service: Daniel Craig's stepbrother appointed as 'philosopher king' to Cameron". The Daily Mail. Retrieved 18 June 2010.
- ^ ResPublica
- ^ Derbyshire, Jonathan (19 February 2009). "The NS Profile: Phillip Blond". The New Statesman. Retrieved 18 June 2010.
- ^ "MA in Theology, St Martin's College, Lancaster (UK)". Ucsm.ac.uk. 28 September 2006. Retrieved 27 April 2012.
- ^ Harris, John (8 August 2009). "Phillip Blond: The man who wrote Cameron's mood music". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 November 2009.
- ^ Blond, Phillip (28 February 2009). "Rise of the red Tories". Prospect. Retrieved 31 March 2010.
- ^ Blond, Phillip (April 10, 2010)."Red Tory: The Future of Progressive Conservatism?". "Royal Society for the Arts". Retrieved 18 October 2011.
- ^ Blond, Phillip (30 May 2008)."The true Tory progressives". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
- ^ Blond, Phillip (26 November 2009). "The Future of Conservatism". ResPublica. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
- ^ Hennessy, Patrick (13 November 2010). "Minister backs plan for massive state sell off of assets". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 11 February 2011.
External links
- Interview in The Guardian, 8 August 2009
- Phillip Blond and Adrian Pabst: The roots of Islamic terrorism, International Herald Tribune, 28 July 2005
- Phillip Blond and Adrian Pabst: The problem with secularism, International Herald Tribune, 21 December 2006
- BBC Radio 4 Profile