A Kelling Memory

 

Autumn and winter days at our cottage in Kelling were marked occasionally by the arrival of guests of the Kelling estate. These guests - paying guests - came for the entertainment offered by the regular pheasant shoots. Here is a reflection, written as the spent pellets rained upon our cottage conservatory. It was completed in Oxfordshire sunshine a few days ago.

The Reluctant Sportsman

The guns speak a fate. Keep 
Brave as the birds break cover.
Squeeze the trigger. The flock in disarray
Hovers then darts loose over the fields.
Shame hinges on a miss. This
Is what we expected. The land over stiles
Marks an escape. I am reptile.

The guns settle. Held, not fired.
Brave as the birds break cover.
Finger stays curled. The flock in disarray
Hovers then darts loose over the fields.
No one sees the stillness. This
Is not what was expected. The land over stiles
Marks a passage. I stay human.

The grass parts. A rustle speaks.
Brave as the sky calls danger.
Muscle recalls the flint of air
As bodies scatter, low and rising.
A crack behind. Not struck. This
Time, still breathing. The land over stiles
Means a distance. I am creature.

Kelling October 2015/Oxon July 2025

• Stanzas 2 and 3 developed with assistance of Co-Pilot AI

Treescape in Watercolour 2022

Tracks: A Revision after a Decade

 

The tracks hold signs of wisdom planted
Full deep in the way. Here a flame
Burns and flickers, flickers, burns
And lights rocks against rock,
Another shadow, a different shade,
A shiver of memory thrust to mind.

At the broken stile, a figure stood.
Not stranger, not guide.
He said:
What you carry was not gathered,
But given—before the path began.

To survive in this wild place
In this wilderness scaffold, simply face
The shades as they speak of times made strange
By current tread.

The dead speak in fire,
Not in voice or name.
Hold fast to that light. It shines
Miraculous, though too often maligned.

 

-          -    Kelling July 2015/Oxon July 2025

• Stanza 2 developed with  assistance of Co-Pilot AI, with reference to Eliot's "Compound ghost" in "Little Gidding"

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Inclusion as Evolution and Strength: An Alternative View

A critical enquiry into the moral and philosophical basis against boundary-making in post-liberal societies

Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed / For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse.  - Bob Dylan "Chimes of Freedom"

And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings / No voice can hope to hum. - Bob Dylan "Lay Down Your Weary Tune"

In contemporary political discourse, the concept of inclusion often finds itself under scrutiny. Critics argue that inclusion without boundaries leads to moral entropy and societal fragmentation. However, here, I offer some arguments that inclusion, far from being a surrender of values, represents an evolution of moral and civic strength.

Liberalism’s Moral Depth

Liberalism is frequently criticized for its emphasis on individual rights, which some interpret as a neglect of communal duties. Yet this dichotomy is misleading. Liberalism fosters civic duties such as participation, responsibility, and mutual respect. Philosophers like John Rawls and Martha Nussbaum have articulated a vision of liberal inclusion that demands engagement and justice, not passive permissiveness. Moreover, liberal universalism is grounded in human dignity, providing a moral foundation that has empowered civil rights movements to challenge unjust traditions.

The Misuse of Schmitt

Carl Schmitt’s friend-enemy distinction offers a compelling but dangerous framework for political identity. Historically, this binary logic has justified authoritarianism and exclusionary nationalism. Liberalism resists such framing not out of naïveté but from a recognition of the moral hazards inherent in defining identity through opposition. Pluralism, contrary to claims of fragility, thrives when institutions are robust and inclusion is paired with deliberation. Democracies such as the United States, Canada, and many European nations demonstrate that diversity can coexist with strong civic identity.

Tradition vs. Transformation

While thinkers like Roger Scruton and Alasdair MacIntyre rightly emphasize the value of tradition, it is essential to acknowledge that traditions can perpetuate injustice. Inclusion challenges traditions not to erase them but to refine them. Historical milestones such as the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and LGBTQ+ rights emerged from this tension between tradition and transformation. Furthermore, models of hospitality need not be conditional. Radical hospitality, practiced in various faith and secular communities, welcomes without demanding assimilation, trusting in shared humanity over shared doctrine.

Inclusion as a Practice of Virtue

MacIntyre’s concept of "practices" underscores the importance of narrative unity within communities. However, this unity need not be exclusionary. Communities can embrace diverse voices while maintaining coherence—much like jazz, which is improvisational and plural yet deeply structured. Inclusion does not imply the abandonment of standards; rather, it calls for the co-creation of expectations rooted in democratic norms, human rights, and civic responsibility.

Boundary-Making Reimagined

Liberalism does not reject boundary-making; it redefines it. Boundaries should be negotiated through dialogue, not imposed through coercion. Inclusion fosters resilience through diversity, and tradition must be continually tested by justice. Persuasion and participation are more effective tools than coercion in maintaining social cohesion.

Conservative View	Liberal Counterpoint
Boundaries protect identity	Boundaries must be negotiated through dialogue
Inclusion erodes cohesion	Inclusion fosters resilience through diversity
Tradition is moral anchor	Tradition must be tested by justice
Coercion may be necessary	Persuasion and participation are stronger tools

Conclusion: Inclusion as Moral Maturity

Inclusion is often dismissed as sentiment unchecked by reason. Yet, when rightly understood, it embodies reasoned compassion. It is not the refusal to draw lines but the refusal to draw them in fear. A community that includes does not lose its soul; it discovers its depth. To include rightly, we must sometimes expand. Inclusion, therefore, is not erosion—it is evolution.

To include rightly, we must sometimes expand.

• A thought experiment produced with assistance of Co-Pilot AI

 

 

When Inclusion Becomes Erosion: A Philosophical Case for Boundary-Making: One View

A critical inquiry into the moral and philosophical basis for boundary-making in post-liberal societies

"There is a point in the history of society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it."                                                                                   -   attr: Friedrich Nietzsche

 In the modern liberal imagination, inclusion has become synonymous with moral progress. From civil rights legislation to multicultural pluralism, the moral arc appears to bend always toward broader accommodation, deeper toleration, and the softening of boundaries. Yet the foundational question remains: Can a community endure if it refuses to draw lines around its values, identity, and cohesion?

While inclusion can be a moral good, it is not an absolute one. There comes a point at which the expansion of inclusion without corresponding commitment to shared values becomes not a sign of vitality but of erosion. Drawing from thinkers as diverse as Alasdair MacIntyre, Roger Scruton, and Carl Schmitt, these words which follow make the case for philosophical and practical boundary-making.

I. The Liberal Commitment and Its Limits

The liberal tradition, rooted in Enlightenment rationalism and Christian moral universalism, treats the individual as the fundamental unit of moral concern. Rights precede duties; inclusion is a default posture. Alasdair MacIntyre, in After Virtue, critiques this view as a fragment of older moral frameworks stripped of their ultimate grounding, the purpose they serve.  While he calls for the renewal of communities rooted in virtue traditions, he avoids advocating coercive measures against dissenters.

Roger Scruton, similarly, emphasises tradition, continuity, and the shared cultural inheritance of a people. In works like How to Be a Conservative, he warns against liberal overreach that tears down institutions in the name of abstract justice. Yet Scruton, too, remains committed to the language of law, civility, and constitutional restraint.

In both cases, the response to internal erosion is cautious and pastoral: re-educate, re-embed, rebuild. Coercion is viewed as a symptom of failure, not a strategy of survival.

II. The Post-Liberal Challenge

This reluctance to act decisively in defence of a community's identity reflects, arguably, a continued subscription to liberal moral instincts. Post-liberal and realist thinkers argue that this very posture allows for the slow undermining of social cohesion.

Carl Schmitt, in The Concept of the Political, asserts that the defining act of politics is the drawing of the friend-enemy distinction. For Schmitt, communities cannot survive without the capacity to name their enemies, including internal ones. Liberalism, by avoiding such distinctions, becomes unable to defend itself against existential threats.

From this perspective, a society that welcomes all without conditions eventually loses the ability to sustain the very virtues it wishes to preserve. Tolerance becomes self-liquidating. Inclusion, when unbound from reciprocal commitment, functions as erosion.

III. Virtue, Tradition, and the Limits of Hospitality

MacIntyre's emphasis on "practices" and "narrative unity" offers an important clue: a community is not a collection of strangers but a shared moral project. Outsiders who reject or remain indifferent to the purpose of the community do not simply extend diversity—they fracture intelligibility.

Hospitality, in traditional societies, is always bounded. The Benedictine model, for example, welcomes the stranger as Christ—but also expects the stranger to join the rhythm of the monastery. Inclusion is contingent on participation. A practice that accepts all but forms no expectations ceases to be a practice at all.

IV. Toward a Philosophy of Boundary-Making

What then constitutes a legitimate act of boundary-making?

Moral Deliberation: The community must define its values clearly, not abstractly. Without a defined ultimate goal or purpose, no inclusion or exclusion has meaning.

Reciprocity: Inclusion must involve commitment from both sides. A unilateral tolerance is not a moral victory; it is political suicide.

Proportionate Action: Coercive or exclusionary measures may be justified, but only when persuasion has failed and the integrity of the community is under sustained threat.

Cultural Self-Awareness: The community must discern whether its openness stems from virtue or from a lack of conviction.

V. Conclusion: From Sentiment to Survival

The liberal impulse to include springs from noble sentiments—compassion, openness, remorse for historical exclusions. But sentiment must be ordered by reason. Communities that refuse to name limits, set expectations, or defend their moral and cultural inheritance will not be more just; they will simply be more fragile.

Inclusion is not an absolute good. A political and moral order survives only by boundary-making: not the rejection of others per se, but the insistence that membership implies meaning. Without borders—moral, cultural, spiritual—a society becomes an open circuit, unable to hold energy, unable to pass on purpose.

To include rightly, we must sometimes refuse.

July 2025

• A thought experiment produced with assistance of Co-Pilot AI