On this day Sir Roger Vernon Scruton passed away. He specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of traditionalist conservative views. He has left a very scrutable legacy. Here are some of his quotations.
On beauty
“There is a deep human need for beauty, and if you ignore that need in architecture, your buildings will not last, since people will never feel at home in them”
The Modern Cult of Ugliness
“The post-modern culture is a loveless culture, which is afraid of beauty because it is disturbed by love” Beauty
On the conservative world view
“Happiness does not come from the pursuit of pleasure, nor is it guaranteed by freedom. It comes from sacrifice: that is the great message that is conveyed by all the memorable works of our culture. It is the message that has been lost in the noise of false hopes”
“Monarchy was, for the English, not a form of political power, but a work of the imagination, an attempt to represent in the here and now all those mysterious ideas of authority and historical right without which no place on earth could be settled as a home” England: An Elegy
“Conservatives believe, with Burke, that the family is the core institution whereby societies reproduce themselves and pass moral knowledge to the young” Identity, family, marriage
“Conservatives recognise that social order is hard to achieve and easy to destroy, that it is held in place by discipline and sacrifice”
“Either you believe in limited government or you don’t. And if you do, you must recognise, with John Stuart Mill, that the business of government is not to mend our morals, but to protect our freedoms”
“We human beings live naturally in communities, bound together by mutual trust. We have a need for a shared home, a place of safety where our claim to occupancy is undisputed and where we can call on others to assist us in times of threat” Conservatism: Ideas in Profile
“Those who lose respect for their dead have ceased to be trustees of their inheritance. Inevitably, therefore, they lose the sense of obligation to future generations. The web of obligations shrinks to the present tense. Such, for Burke, was the lesson of the French Revolution”
“Societies endure only when they are devoted to future generations, and they collapse like the Roman Empire when the pleasures and fancies of the living usurp the inheritance of those unborn” A Political Philosophy
“Conservatives hold on to things not only because they are attached to them, but also because they do not see the sense in radical change, until someone has told them what it will lead to. You criticise the traditional family? Then tell us about the alternative”
“Moral questions are settled by thought, not emotion”
On Western criticism
“The constant stirring up of guilt about the Western past – which is the dominant theme of the modern humanities – is really a kind of flight from the present, a way of proving your morality without the trouble of adopting it” Treason of the Intellectuals
“The strange superstition has arisen in the Western world that we can start all over again, remaking human nature, human society, and the possibilities of happiness; as though the knowledge and experience of our ancestors were now entirely irrelevant”
“As Orwell perceived, the first target of every revolution is language. The need is to create a Newspeak that puts power in the place previously occupied by truth”
“Multiculturalism has always been animated by the left-wing resentment of, and hostility towards, the European inheritance”
“The work of destruction is quick, easy, and exhilarating; the work of creation slow, laborious, and dull”
“I myself have obviously got into an awful lot of trouble through defending Western civilization. It seems a strange feature of our times that the more you’re disposed to defend it, the more you are regarded as some kind of narrow-minded bigot” Final speech, September 2019
On the left
“The greatest enemy of the Left is reality”
“The Left is united by hatred, but we are united by love: love of our country, love of institutions, love of the law, love of family, and so on … what makes us conservatives is the desire to protect those things, and we’re up against people who want to destroy them”
“It is not the truth of Marxism that explains the willingness of intellectuals to believe it, but the power that it confers on intellectuals, in their attempts to control the world” The Root of Totalitarianism
“It is easy to feel resentment towards the successful, and easy to believe that, by depriving them of their advantages, we will benefit the remainder. That way we can turn a blind eye to our real motive, which is not compassion but resentment, not creation but destruction”
“Intellectuals are naturally attracted by the idea of a planned society, in the belief that they will be in charge of it” Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands
“We must recognize that liberty is not the same thing as equality, and that those who call themselves liberals are far more interested in equalising than in liberating their fellows” The Limits of Liberty
“Why is it that after a century of socialist disasters, and an intellectual legacy that has been time and again exploded, the left-wing position remains the default position to which thinking people automatically gravitate when called upon for a comprehensive philosophy?”
“People on the left don’t on the whole engage with their opponents. They dismiss and sneer at them, and, if they can, they will accuse them of things like racism or whatever the evil of the day might be”
“Left-wing people find it very hard to get on with right-wing people, because they believe that they are evil. Whereas I have no problem getting on with left-wing people, because I simply believe that they are mistaken”
“The socialist ideal of equality has led to the belief that patriotism is racism, and the attachment to an established way of life is merely unjust discrimination against those who do not share it. The result has been a cantonisation of society in the name of ‘multiculturalism'”
“Like every primitive religion, Marxism is haunted by imaginary devils. ‘Capitalism’, ‘imperialism’, ‘deviationism’, ‘revisionism’, ‘infantile leftism’, ‘fascism’: everywhere in the path of the Marxist lie dark and inscrutable enemies”
“‘Populism’ is a word used by leftists to describe the emotions of ordinary people, when they do not tend to the left”
On cancel culture
“The mob is by nature innocent: it washes its own conscience in a flow of collective indignation, and by joining it you make yourself safe”
“As the communists realised from the beginning, to control language is to control thought – not actual thought, but the possibilities of thought”
“As for Islamophobia, I deplore the invention of this word, and all it has meant by way of silencing one side to a much-needed debate. It belongs to the new politics, based in ‘the art of taking offence’, among people who could not care less whether real offence has been given”
“It is easier to destroy good things in the name of an ideal than to maintain them as a reality”
“Once identified as right-wing you are beyond the pale of argument; your views are irrelevant, your character discredited, your presence in the world a mistake. You are not an opponent to be argued with, but a disease to be shunned. This has been my experience”
“The totalitarian mentality wishes not merely to divide, but also to rule. Moreover, because it sees itself locked in battle with an enemy who might establish himself anywhere and at any time, it must rule over everything”
requiescat in pace
