Nigel Biggar: Fighting Back Against “Decolonisation”

The Sceptic

Welcome to this special episode of the Sceptic, with Professor Nigel Biggar.

Nigel Biggar is Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford and the author of Colonialism: a Moral Reckoning. Nigel recently delivered the second lecture of Modern Dissent, a London lecture series challenging established ideas run by the Sceptic’s host, Laurie Wastell.

The title of that lecture was “Deconstructing Decolonisation” and that’s the jumping off point for today’s episode. Laurie speaks to Nigel about what’s driving the decolonisers, both as a social movement and as an ideology; their unacknowledged Eurocentrism; the importance of patient, reasoned argument in the face of woke dogmatism; the influence of Christianity on the decolonise movement; whether a liberal-humanitarian defence of the British Empire can successfully counter the woke decolonial narrative, and the merits of a purely self-interested appraisal of colonialism; his views on how to improve the culture in our universities; and the difference the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act (now halted by the Labour Government) would have made to campus cancel culture.

Watch Nigel’s full Modern Dissent lecture here.

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Produced by Richard Eldred.