The Moot

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The Moot was a discussion group concerned with education, social reconstruction, and the role of culture in society. It was convened by J. H. Oldham, editor of the Christian Newsletter, and its participants were mainly Christian intellectuals. Karl Mannheim was a central figure in the group. Others who attended included T. S. Eliot, John Middleton Murry, Sir Fred Clarke, Michael Polanyi, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Sir Walter Moberly, John Baillie, Sir Hector Herrington, Geoffrey Vickers, A. R. Vidler, H. A. Hodges, and Adolph Lowe. Catholic historian and independent scholar Christopher Dawson also contributed numerous written submissions, although he was able to attend only two meetings.^[1]

The discussion group grew out of a Conference on Church, Community and State held at Oxford in 1937.

More than anything else, the discussions of the Moot revolved around the topic of order and, more particularly, around the problem of how order might be restored in British society and culture in the context of a "world turned upside down". (Mullins and Jacobs, 2006)

The discussions influenced T. S. Eliot's works of cultural criticism The Idea of a Christian Society and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture.