John Casey (born 1939) is a British academic and a writer for ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
''. He has been described as "mentor" to
Roger Scruton
Sir Roger Vernon Scruton, (; 27 February 194412 January 2020) was an English philosopher, writer, and social critic who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of Conservatism in the United Kingdom, c ...
and is a former lecturer in English at the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
and a former lecturer and a Life Fellow of
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Gonville and Caius College, commonly known as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and ...
. In 1975, along with Scruton, he founded the
Conservative Philosophy Group. Though not a member of
Peterhouse
Peterhouse is the oldest Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Peterhouse has around 300 undergraduate and 175 graduate stud ...
, he has been considered part of the ''Cambridge Right'', which included scholars from
Selwyn College, Gonville and Caius College and
Christ's College as well. He was editor of ''The Cambridge Review'' between 1975 and 1979.
Cambridge
John Casey was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers at
St. Brendan's College, Bristol and subsequently at
King's College, Cambridge
King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...
, where he received a First in both parts of the English Tripos. He later returned as a lecturer in English at Gonville and Caius College.
Richard Cockett
Richard Cockett (born 1961) is a British historian, journalist and author.
He is a regional editor of ''The Economist'', with experience in Mexico, Central America, Africa and Singapore. He was previously a senior lecturer in politics and history ...
described Casey as a mentor to a whole generation of young Conservatives at
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
.
The Language of Criticism
''The Language of Criticism'' was originally Casey's doctoral thesis. Casey argued that critical judgement is objective because critical arguments are rational. They are rational due to considerations which, though they are not necessarily judgements of value, "criteriologically" imply them. For example, if a poem is sentimental "criteriologically" this implies that it is immature.
Christopher Ricks
Sir Christopher Bruce Ricks (born 18 September 1933) is a British literary critic and scholar. He is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University (US), co-director of the Editorial Institute at Boston ...
wrote of this book, "provided this gets clearing from the philosophers, we shall at last have a compact, cogent and humane justification of criticism as a rational process."
Pagan Virtue
Casey identified "pagan virtues" as those included in the "assertive, proud ethical tradition" of classical Greece and Rome. Pagan virtues, in contrast to Christian ones, included self-regard, worldly values and success in life. Casey also identified physical courage as a pagan virtue, "the chief motives of which are patriotism and the love of honour". These elaborations of pagan virtue were designed to strengthen the moral tradition and challenge
Kant
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, et ...
ian ideas that idolised Good Will.
Journalism
Casey has been a regular contributor to ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...
'', the ''
Sunday
Sunday (Latin: ''dies solis'' meaning "day of the sun") is the day of the week between Saturday and Monday. Sunday is a Christian sabbath, day of rest in most Western countries and a part of the Workweek and weekend, weekend. In some Middle Ea ...
'' and ''
Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...
'', the ''
Daily Mail
The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...
'' and the ''
Evening Standard
The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...
''. His special interest is foreign commentary, writing from ''Japan'', ''
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
'', ''
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
'', ''
Syria
Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
'' and ''
Burma
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...
''. His articles have included interviews with
liberation theologians in Latin America,
Hezbollah
Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...
in Lebanon and
Grand Ayatollah
Marja (; plural ''marājiʿ''; ) is a title given to the highest level of Twelver Shia religious cleric, with the authority given by a hawzah (a seminary where Shi'a Muslim scholars are educated) to make legal decisions within the confines of Sh ...
s in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
. He has often written explanatory articles sympathetic to
Islam
Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
. A chance meeting with the Taliban in North West Pakistan led to their inviting Casey to be their guest in Afghanistan, with the implication that he might be introduced to Osama Bin Laden; but he did not take up the invitation.
During his editorship of ''The Cambridge Review'' Casey expressed his conservative philosophy on politics, religion and culture. In 1976 he protested against social engineering and the egalitarianism of contemporary education policy, claiming that the fulfilment of the ideal of equality of opportunity meant the destruction of the family. In 1977 he defended single-sex colleges and also resisted the government's right to change a university's educational policy on political grounds. Casey also expressed his conservative
Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
views by vigorously criticising the suppression of the
Tridentine Mass
The Tridentine Mass, also known as the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite or ''usus antiquior'' (), Vetus Ordo or the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) or the Traditional Rite, is the liturgy in the Roman Missal of the Catholic Church codified in ...
and condemning the New Rite as liberal and imposed on the conservative faithful from above. Upon the death of
Pope Paul VI
Pope Paul VI (born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding John XXII ...
in 1978, Casey opposed the suggestion that the Church should elect a Third World pope. After
Norman St John-Stevas
Norman Antony Francis St John-Stevas, Baron St John of Fawsley, ( ; born Norman Panayea St John Stevas; 18 May 1929 – 2 March 2012) was a British Conservative politician, author and barrister. He served as Leader of the House of Commons in th ...
in 1979 claimed that "part" of Christ was embodied in
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005.
In his you ...
, Casey attacked this by claiming that the Pope's power did not depend on human characteristics but upon his office. Casey also claimed that "There is no such thing as "moral authority" independent of a precise system of belief. The Pope can have authority only over those who recognise his authority and share his beliefs".
Writers he published for the first time in The Cambridge Review included
Gavin Stamp
Gavin Mark Stamp (15 March 194830 December 2017) was a British writer, television presenter and architectural historian.
Education
Stamp was educated at Dulwich College in South London from 1959 to 1967 as part of the "Dulwich Experiment", then ...
,
Roger Scruton
Sir Roger Vernon Scruton, (; 27 February 194412 January 2020) was an English philosopher, writer, and social critic who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of Conservatism in the United Kingdom, c ...
,
Charles Moore,
Oliver Letwin
Sir Oliver Letwin (born 19 May 1956) is a British politician, Member of Parliament (MP) for West Dorset from 1997 to 2019. Letwin was elected as a member of the Conservative Party, but sat as an independent after having the whip removed in ...
and
Adair Turner
Jonathan Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchinswell (born 5 October 1955) is a British businessman and academic who was Chairman of the Financial Services Authority during the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession, serving from September ...
.
The Salisbury Review Controversy
In 1977 Casey attacked the
Race Relations Act 1976
The Race Relations Act 1976 (c. 74) was established by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to prevent discrimination on the grounds of race. The scope of the legislation included discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, eth ...
for removing the requirement of "mischievous intent" in inciting racial hatred. He claimed that the requirement was a safeguard of freedom of speech and that the racial issue was a political issue with the "possibilities and limitations of rational discussion" much like "all other political issues". In 1978 Casey attacked the ideology of
anti-racism
Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate ...
as a liberal myth that was inspired by the liberal tradition, a tradition that had culminated in
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick (; November 16, 1938 – January 23, 2002) was an American philosopher. He held the Joseph Pellegrino Harvard University Professor, University Professorship at Harvard University,[The Salisbury Review
''The Salisbury Review'' is a quarterly United Kingdom, British "magazine of Conservatism, conservative thought". It was founded in 1982 by the Salisbury Group, who sought to articulate and further traditional intellectual conservative ideas.
The ...]
'' titled 'One Nation: The Politics of Race' discussed the repatriation of Commonwealth immigrants. In 2011 Leo Robson of ''The Observer'' noted that "Casey long ago renounced the kind of ideas communicated in his lecture 'One Nation: The Politics of Race'." Writing in ''The Spectator'' Casey disavowed the article, describing it as "crazy and inhumane".
The rescue of Pascal Khoo Thwe
In February 1988 Casey met a student in
Mandalay
Mandalay is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. It is located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631 km (392 mi) north of Yangon. In 2014, the city had a population of 1,225,553.
Mandalay was founded in 1857 by Ki ...
,
Burma
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...
, because he had been told he loved
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...
. Shortly after the student,
Pascal Khoo-Thwe (a member of a remote
hill tribe
Hill people, also referred to as mountain people, is a general term for people who live in the hills and mountains.
This includes all rugged land above and all land (including plateaus) above elevation.
The climate is generally harsh, with s ...
), was forced to flee into the jungle along with thousands of others involved in a failed uprising. He sought help from Casey who travelled to the Thai border with a bodyguard and managed to get Khoo-Thwe to England. Khoo-Thwe went on to gain a place at Cambridge University and later wrote an account of the story in his book ''From The Land of Green Ghosts''. The book won the
Kiriyama prize
The Kiriyama Prize was an international literary award awarded to books about the Pacific Rim and South Asia. Its goal was to encourage greater understanding among the peoples and nations of the region. Established in 1996, the prize was last awar ...
for non-fiction (2002) and the French translation won a prize for the best foreign non-fiction book published in France in 2009.
After Lives: A guide to Heaven, Hell and Purgatory
The book reviewed theories of the after life from the ancient Egyptians, through Mesopotamians, ancient Greeks and Romans, Christians and Muslims to the twentieth century. Literary critic
James Wood, described the book in his review as having "relaxed obsessiveness of the magnum opus" and Casey as writing "like a Pagan" presenting "the interesting spectacle of a man who has been getting steadily less conservative with age."
[The London Review of Books, 14 April 2011]
Books
* ''The Language of Criticism'' (London: Methuen, 1966).
* (editor), ''Morality and Moral Reasoning'' (London: Methuen, 1971).
* ''Pagan Virtue: An Essay in Ethics'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).
* ''After Lives: A Guide to Heaven, Hell and Purgatory'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
* ''The Language of Criticism'' (London: Routledge Revivals, 2011).
Articles
* “Hegel's Aesthetics”, ''TLS'', Jan 1976.
* “Oxford Marxists and Cambridge Critics (on Terry Eagleton)”, TLS, May 1977.
* 'Tradition and Authority' in Maurice Cowling (ed.), ''Conservative Essays'' (London: Cassell, 1978), pp. 82–100.
* T.S. Eliot: Language, Sincerity and the Self, British Academy Chatterton Lecture, 1979
* 'One Nation: The Politics of Race' in ''The Salisbury Review'', Vol. 1 No. 1, October 1982, pp. 23–28.
* 'How Can We Have a Duty to the Dead?' in ''The Salisbury Review'', Vol. 2 No. 3, April 1983, pp. 4–6, reprinted in Roger Scruton (ed.), ''Conservative Thoughts: Essays from The Salisbury Review'' (London: The Claridge Press, 1988), pp. 173–180.
* “What is wrong with the Times?”, ''The Spectator'', March 1987.
* “A Burmese evening”, ''The Spectator'', Sept 1988.
* “Gazza and other gods”, ''Evening Standard'', August 1990.
* “Among the Believers (Nicaragua)”, ''Sunday Telegraph'', April 1991.
* “Sanctimonious: It is – are you?”, The Independent, Nov 1991.
* “Enemies on the lake (Burma)” Independent Magazine, 1991.
* “Michael Oakeshott”, TLS, March 1991.
* “Look no further than the mouth”, The Spectator, Nov 1993.
* “Cuba – yes but”, Sunday Telegraph, 1993.
* “Why fear Islam?”, Daily Telegraph, July 1994.
* “The roots of Classics”, Sunday Times Culture, March 1994.
* “Warriors without remorse (Japan)”, Telegraph, 1995.
* “Legalise hard drugs”, Daily Mail, May 1995.
* “Canon to right of them”, TLS, Nov 1995.
* “Art in an age of fundamentalism”, TLS, June 1996.
* “John Casey enjoys a chat with Hezbollah”, The Spectator, May 1997.
* “Egypt after the Hatshepsut massacre”, Daily Telegraph, Jan 1998.
* “Memories of a Catholic boyhood”, Daily Telegraph, April 1998.
* “Cuba's real religion”, The Spectator, Jan 1998.
* “Gays in Havana August”, The Spectator, 1998.
* “The far pavilions (meeting with Taliban)”, The Spectator, April 2000.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Casey, John
Living people
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
English male journalists
Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
English male non-fiction writers
1939 births