OXFORD FORUM

It has seemed to us for some time that there is a need for an independent publishing house which permits the publication of points of view that would be otherwise suppressed.

In this country, at least, there are very effective social and academic mechanisms which permit only the most fashionable points of view to be expressed, and research to be carried out only in a few selected areas. This state of affairs can easily pass unrecognised, as people who are exposed to constant expositions of certain aspects of things may easily come to assume that no other ways of looking at them are possible.

Our first book, The Power of Life or Death by Fabian Tassano, was a reprint. Serious criticism of the medical profession is, by now, almost unheard of in this country. Such debate as there is takes it for granted that by passing a medical exam people are transformed into paragons of benevolence and altruism, not to mention infallibility of judgement, high IQ, efficiency, forethought and responsibility. So no one seriously objects to the idea that these paragons should make decisions about all sorts of things on behalf of other people. The debate is only about the fine tuning of the guidelines to which they should be expected nominally to adhere.

We are producing high quality books, on the principle that it has taken so much effort to get them out into the world that, whenever we get a copy onto a library shelf, we want it to be there for a long time.

OXFORD FORUM needs funding. Publishing books which express unfashionable views is unlikely to be profitable, especially in the current publishing climate which is increasingly geared to the mass market. Freedom of speech, in reality, needs financial support and not just lip-service. (In modern society it doesn't even get much of the latter.) We should like to hear from financial backers.


Celia Green