Kenneth Minogue | |
|---|---|
 Minogue,c. 1980s | |
| Born | Kenneth Robert Minogue (1930-09-11)11 September 1930 Palmerston North, New Zealand |
| Died | 28 June 2013(2013-06-28) (aged 82) |
| Other names | Ken Minogue |
| Spouses |
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| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Influences | John Anderson |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Political science |
| Sub-discipline | Political theory |
| School or tradition | Conservatism |
| Institutions | London School of Economics |
Kenneth Robert Minogue (September 11, 1930 – June 28, 2013) was an Australian academic andpolitical theorist. Long residing in the United Kingdom, Minogue was a prominent part of the intellectual life ofBritish conservatism.
Associated for much of his career with theLondon School of Economics, where he was Professor of Political Science from 1984 to 1995, he was described as a central figure in a group of prominent conservative philosophers and commentators at the LSE that includedMaurice Cranston,Elie Kedourie, andWilliam Letwin.[1]
Minogue was born on 11 September 1930 inPalmerston North,New Zealand.[1] He was educated inAustralia, attendingSydney Boys High School and theUniversity of Sydney.[1] Graduating with aBachelor of Arts degree in 1950, his time there was influenced byJohn Anderson, who had built up a reputation on campus for his firm belief infree speech,secularism, andanti-communism.[2] Minogue was involved in student journalism – which he admitted was to the detriment of his studies – and wrote forHoni Soit and a short-lived free-thinking broadsheet,Heresy.[2] Friends includedMurray Sayle andPeter Coleman.[2]
Deciding to move to England, Minogue made his way there by working as acabin boy on a ship bound forLondon viaOdessa andPort Said, and, once arrived, soon found himself lodging at a hostel inRussell Square.[2] After a brief stint as a freelance writer, he found steadier income by working as asupply teacher with the London Education Authority for eighteen months.[2] Turned down for a master's degree at the LSE, he instead enrolled for a second undergraduateevening school course in economics at the same institution. Following graduation he spent a year teaching at theUniversity of Exeter, and in 1956 at the invitation ofMichael Oakeshott returned as assistant lecturer to the LSE, where he would spend the rest of his academic life.[2]
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| Conservatism in Australia |
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Minogue wrote academic essays and books on a great range of problems in political theory. He first came to public attention with his 1963 bookThe Liberal Mind, which criticised the 'drift' towardcollectivism andprogressivism in Britain'spost-war consensus, which he believed acted as a 'prop to the mediocre' and deprived individuals of personal initiative.[3] A running theme in the book was Minogue's distaste for the 'melodrama of oppressors and victims' that he saw as constituting liberalhistoriography.[2] Minogue, who describedliberalism as the first 'modern ideology', also reflected on what he argued was the second –nationalism – in his 1967 book of the same name.[2] As far as Minogue was concerned, if the liberal view of history tended to the ahistorical, then nationalist ideology was guilty of reducing it tomythology.[2]
In 1986 Minogue presented a six-part television program onChannel 4 aboutfree-market economics calledThe New Enlightenment. He was Senior Research Fellow with theSocial Affairs Unit in London. He wrote a study onMāori–Pākehā relations (the latter is the Māori term for New Zealanders of European descent) for theNew Zealand Business Roundtable which was published in 1998 asWaitangi - Morality and Reality.[4]
From 1991 to 1993 Minogue was chairman of theeuro-scepticBruges Group.[3] From 2000, he was a trustee ofCivitas. He served as president of theMont Pelerin Society from 2010.[3] In 2003, he received theCentenary Medal from the Australian government. He was also involved with theCentre for Policy Studies and theEuropean Foundation.
He married firstly, Valerie Pearson Hallett, with whom he had a son and a daughter, in 1954. This marriage was dissolved in 2001.[1] Minogue was later married to Beverly Cohen, who predeceased him.[1] He was reportedly a member of theGarrick Club and a keentennis fan.[3]
Minogue died on 28 June 2013, aged 82, inGuayaquil,Ecuador, after apparently sufferingcardiac arrest on a flight returning fromSan Cristóbal Island in theGalapagos, where he had been hosting a meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society.[5][6]
On Minogue's legacy, James Philbin inThe American Spectator suggested that Minogue was "no mere academic" but "a model of the conservative activist" because "he was in the business of defending old-fashioned civility against ideological rage, and he believed this was the real meaning of the freedom that theEnglish-speaking peoples have created and enjoyed."[7]
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| Preceded by | President of theMont Pelerin Society 2008–2010 | Succeeded by |
