Christopher Harvie > Quotes

“A society beset by terrifying social problems was threatened by realism... exacerbated by the deep-seated evils of poverty and overcrowding generated by Scotland's pell-mell industrialisation. To expose these would be revolutionary; it would also break the discipline of puritanism by mentioning the unmentionable... The Kirk enforced silence out of conviction, the middle class out of fear. The bogus community of the Kailyard was an alternative to the horror of the real thing.”
― Christopher Harvie, Scotland and Nationalism: Scottish Society and Politics 1707 to the Present

“A combination of policies to attract work to areas of unemployment and to disperse the congested population of the Glasgow conurbation has created a new Scotland, neither urban or rural, which straggles westwards from the fringes of the Firth of Forth to the lower Clyde. It is this unknown Scotland, not in the guidebooks, away from the motorway, seen fleetingly from the express, that holds the key to the modern politics of the country.”
― Christopher Harvie, Scotland and Nationalism: Scottish Society and Politics 1707 to the Present

“Even for the unbeliever, this journey to the heart of the mystery, coupled with the appreciation and intoxication of the tradition - be it the Book of Kells or the Bruckner Te Deum, the austere cells of the Celtic monks or the treasury of hymns and psalms which remain intriguingly common to both traditions - this tradition can recharge resources. If commercialised faith in the USA is probably the nearest we can get to devil-worship, we have to save Christianity from the Christians.”
― Christopher Harvie, Dalriada: A Romance of Invention