{"id":11434,"date":"2010-07-26T19:02:05","date_gmt":"2010-07-26T19:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/07\/26\/douglas-hyde-from-communist-to-catholic\/"},"modified":"2010-07-26T19:02:05","modified_gmt":"2010-07-26T19:02:05","slug":"douglas-hyde-from-communist-to-catholic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/07\/26\/douglas-hyde-from-communist-to-catholic\/","title":{"rendered":"Douglas Hyde: From Communist to Catholic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Douglas<\/font><\/a> I am now reading Archie Brown, The Rise and Fall of Communism<\/em> (HarperCollins 2009).  Over 700 pages.  The author's name is hardly donnish, but he is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University.  There is a chapter entitled "The Appeals of Communism," and in it I came across a reference to Douglas Hyde:<\/font><\/p>\n

For some who joined the Communist Party, a search for belief and a craving for certainty were important parts of their psychological make-up.  One English Communist, Douglas Hyde, moved from being a young Methodist lay preacher, with an interest also in other religions, to becoming a Communist activist for twenty years, finishing up as news editor of the CPGB party newspaper, the Daily Worker<\/em>, before resigning from the party in 1948 to become a proselytizing member of the Catholic Church.  Although Hyde's political memoir, I Believed<\/em>, written in the late Stalin period, is also a reasoned attack on Communist Party strategy and tactics, it holds that a majority of those attracted to Communism in those years were 'subconsciously looking for a cause which will to fill the void left by unbelief, or, as in my own case, an insecurely held belief which is failing to satisfy them intellectually and spiritually.' (p. 125)<\/font><\/p>\n

People have strong doxastic security needs.  They need a system  of belief and practice to structure their lives. Few can tread the independent path.  In the 2oth century many bright and earnest young people sought meaning and structure in Communism.  In the 21st century radical Islam fills a similar need.  Both snares and delusions, of course.  It is arguably better to have no ideals rather than the wrong ideals, no beliefs rather than false and pernicious ones.<\/font><\/p>\n

More<\/a> on Douglas Hyde.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am now reading Archie Brown, The Rise and Fall of Communism (HarperCollins 2009).  Over 700 pages.  The author's name is hardly donnish, but he is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University.  There is a chapter entitled "The Appeals of Communism," and in it I came across a reference to Douglas Hyde: For some who joined … Continue reading “Douglas Hyde: From Communist to Catholic”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,203],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communism","category-questers-and-other-oddballs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}