11/2/2023 0 Comments Roger scruton conservatismAs Huntington observes, “in the proper historical circumstances conservatism may well be necessary for the defense of liberal institutions,” for “the greatest need is not so much the creation of more liberal institutions as the successful defense of those that already exist” (460, 472). Most liberals would agree with that list because what Scruton is interested in conserving is, well, liberalism. The goods that he wants to conserve are the achievements of contemporary democracies: the “opportunity to live our lives as we will the security of impartial law, through which our grievances are answered and our hurts restored the protection of our environment as a shared asset, which cannot be seized or destroyed at the whim of powerful interests the open and enquiring culture that has shaped our schools and universities the democratic procedures that enable us to elect our representatives and pass our own laws” (vii). Scruton, on the other hand, has a specific answer. Jerry Muller observes that “conservatives have, at one time and place or another, defended royal power, constitutional monarchy, aristocratic prerogative, representative democracy, and presidential dictatorship high tariffs and free trade nationalism and internationalism centralism and federalism a society of inherited estates, a capitalist, market society, and one or another version of the welfare state.” Samuel Huntington argues that conservatism has no continuing essence: it must be understood situationally, “as the ideology arising out of a distinct but recurring type of historical situation in which a fundamental challenge is directed at established institutions and in which the supporters of those institutions employ the conservative ideology in their defense.” For they are the property of others, who are not yet born” (182).īut what are we preserving? Without further specification, these ideas lead nowhere in particular. Things fought for and died for should not be idly squandered. Our inheritance “brings with it not only the rights of ownership, but duties of trusteeship. It “starts from a sentiment that all mature people can readily share: the sentiment that good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created” (viii). Scruton’s aim is to show that the best elements of each of those ideologies is most attractive when it is incorporated into a broadly conservative vision.Ĭonservatism at its core, as Scruton understands it, “tells us that we have collectively inherited good things that we must strive to keep” (vii). The book is evidently aimed at the left-curious, who are drawn to the ideologies that oppose conservatism. How to Be a Conservative is a good introduction to Scruton’s thought. Princeton professor Robert George called him “the most important Anglo-American conservative thinker of his generation.” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted, “We have lost the greatest modern conservative thinker-who not only had the guts to say what he thought but said it beautifully.” Is he a conservative? The Never Trumpers say he is not, but why? Is there any form of conservatism that deserves our attention today?Ī good place to begin to think about those questions is the work of Roger Scruton, who died in January. The Republican Party today is largely defined by loyalty to him. Has conservatism any intellectual merit? Or is it essentially a mere collection of rationalizations for the status quo? With Trump’s influence and visibility, never has the issue been more urgent - or more confusing. Review of How to Be a Conservative, by Roger Scruton
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