David Hurst

David Hurst is a writer and philosopher. His best-known books are "The London Dialogues" by Tiresias (David Hurst)(published 1986), "And so on..."(1988) and "On Westernism"(2004).
Biography
David John Hurst was born on the in Blackpool. He has gained an imparted education at Blackpool Grammar School, Harrow, Eton College and graduated from Merton College, Oxford . He has degrees in History and Mathematics, and has practiced for some years at the Chancery Bar and as a lecturer in law at Reading University, from which he was forced to resign following the publication of two controversial articles in a national newspaper. He had taught Mathematics at many prestigious schools including Eton, Dulwich College and the girls' Sherborne. He now lives a quite pension in Reading, spending most of his free time on two feet or on two wheels. He has one son aged 15 (2009).
On Westernism
On Westernism lies in the mainstream of political science, following the tradition of Aristotel, Hume and Mill at least in claiming a comprehensive treatment of the subject. Its central theme is that the subject-matter of politics in states: just as medicine is the science of the human body, so that although the cells that make up a living body need to be described and their workings understood, it is the body as a whole, somehow "emerging" from a suitable assemblage of cells, which is the proper subject of medicine, so politics, and policies (which correspond to medical treatments) need to be analyzed, in the first instance , with regard to the state itself, the body politic. Any benefits that citizens can take are dependent on the benefits accruing to the state.
The state is then shown to have the characteristics of a Darwinian individual, the government of the state acting rather like the brain of an animate animal. But intertwined with states is another set of Darwinian individuals, the ideologies, such as Christianity and communism and humanism, which colonize the brains of citizens, and hence states themselves, in the manner of parasitic creepers. Westernism is identified as the compound ideology formed by the accretion to humanism of several other ideologies, such as liberalism, socialism, democratism, demoticism, feminism, multiculturalism and globalism. Westernism is nationally observed from outside , as we now examine the religion of an ancient civilization or the theory of a Renaissance scientist, and like other ideologies is seen to be capable of channelling both theories and emotions in ways conducive to its own advancement.
As a scientist, the author concludes that for all engaged in politics, whether as academics , or ministers, or voters, there is need for what Kuhn called a "paradigm shift" in both analyses and attitudes, and the shift can only be made by looking afresh, without prejudice or preconception, at the foundation of politics. Nothing less will do. It is possible that, in the course of the book, offense may be taken; it is not given, and certainly not desired, by the author, any more than by Galileo, a scientist, who found himself in trouble with the authorities, or as we would now say with the Establishment, of his day for declaring rationally, and as it turned out correctly, his honest opinion how things were. Unfortunately for him, that opinion carried out implications which affected repute, and power, and wealth, and livelihood.
There is, certainly, a positive correlation between an accuracy, of new factual propositions, and their acceptability, a lively skepticism is needed when meeting any kind of heresy. Nevertheless, it was the child who shyly said that the Emperor had no clothes who turned out to have had the better view of the matter.
The book was published by G. Hartley & Co., 24 Kidmore road, Reading, RG4 7LU
==Contents of "On Westernism"==
The essay is divided into 6 related but independent sections:
Section 1: The first section, by way of introduction, is entitled On Coercion, and it describes the ways in which any dominant ideology contrives to suppress criticism and repel attacks. Ideologies are presented as entities having having many of the properties of Darwinian individuals, in particular in their being subject to natural selection.
Section 2: The second section, On Communities, examines the primary social units which ideologies colonise and exploit for their own purposes, each having its own assets of positive or negative utility for it, and its own parasites and cancers. A community is seen as a potential matrix for a language, a religion and a currency, and for civility and culture.
Section 3: The third section, On Westernism, is a critique of a Westernism based on its allegedly inconsistentassumptions and aims.
Section 4: The fourth section, On Policy, describes what qualities a policy in a state might need to have in order for it to be a good or bad policy. Some general principles are adduced, and then applied to particular fields of government activity, industry by industry.
Section 5:
Section 6:
Descriptions
Two of his books were very recommended by Sir Peregrine Worsthorne (ex-editor of "The Sunday Telegraph"). Talking about "The London Dialogues" he wrote in The Spectator :"The book in short is a tour de force...".
Sir Colin Welch :"read this remarkable book..."

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