Liberal... and Puritan – Carl Scerri

‘Puritan’ is not a label that one would generally give to contemporary society. Puritanism was a movement of reform in 16th- and 17th-century Britain which sought to purify society from the remnants of Catholicism. This seems to be light years away from the situation in which we live and one would need to stretch one’s imagination beyond breaking point in order to associate Puritanism with contemporary society.

Or perhaps not. Although appearances may suggest otherwise, we live in a Puritan society.

As its name suggests, Puritanism attempts to introduce, by force or persuasion, a state of purity. It endeavours for a ‘pure society’. This is not simply a morally pure society, where everyone does good and avoids evil, but a society purified from all forms of impure philosophies, ideas and practices.

It is a society founded on a monolithic world view that allows no room for diversity. Everyone has to think and behave in the same way and those who dare go against this ideal of purity have to be shut down.

It would be wrong to think that Puritanism is a thing of the past and its place limited to history books. In his 2021 ‘Roger Scruton Lecture’ at the University of Oxford, the...