A Liberal’s Ode to Sir Roger Scruton
By: Ross Anderson
Tags: Culture, Art, Philosophy, Biography, Politics

A Liberal’s Ode to Sir Roger Scruton

At 75, a colossus of conservative philosophy has died. A young liberal reflects on this great man’s life and legacy.

Blue page numbers. The first book of Sir Roger Scruton’s that I read cover to cover was How To Be A Conservative. Released in 2014, this brief read, written in tight and masterful prose, distilled a life’s thinking on the nature of conservatism into one accessible, entertaining little book. A book with blue page numbers.

Of all the elaborate covers this titan could have chosen, he went for an understated solid blue with white text. Subtly fitting a book on conservativism. And yet, he had it published with those blue page numbers so that every single page used colour ink; no doubt at great bother and cost. This was what sold me on Scruton; a deep care for detail and beauty, told with a light smirk and gentle wit.

A philosophy professor on aesthetics, he released several books on the subject, including Art And Imagination, The Aesthetics of Architecture, The Classical Vernacular, The Aesthetics of Music, Beauty, and Understanding Music. This culminated in his BBC documentary aptly titled Why Beauty Matters. In it, he advocates for the meaning and significance of art and looks at that which dismisses it — Duchamp’s infamous urinal — with a quiet despairing hatred.

His form of conservativism is bound in and born of this love of beauty. Repulsed by the wayward destruction of the 1968 French university protests and riots, he was stuck by the carelessness of the progressive drive. That in the aim to tear down the old order and build a new better world, so often we lose what came before, much of which is of crucial value. If this strikes you as Burkean, it should; his political philosophy is grounded in Burke’s line that society was:

“a partnership… between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born”

For Scruton, this meant the preservation of that which is meaningful in an objective, graspable sense. In his eyes, beauty - in classical architecture, painting, and music — was key to this:

“Beauty is a value, as important as truth and goodness… The beautiful work of art brings consolation in sorrow and affirmation in joy. It shows human life to be worthwhile”

And, as with truth and goodness, it is one of the clearest signs of objective meaning:

“Beauty makes a claim on us; it is a call to renounce our narcisissm and look with revererence on the world.”

This is bound to his belief in national identity - in a national soul. Contrary to a relativistic position, he argues that countries are not bound together merely by arbitrary in-group/out-group divisions. Rather, their people are tied to their lands by shared meaning, tradition, and culture. Science may explain the cosmos but it definitionally lacks soul. On the other hand, beauty and meaning nurture the soul.

This is not to say that art must be stagnant. Of course not. Rather, meaningful progress is only possible in tandem to that which we inherit. As he wrote in Modern Culture:

“Without tradition, originality cannot exist: for it is only against a tradition that it becomes perceivable. Tradition and originality are two components of a single process, whereby the individual makes himself known through his membership of the historical group”

And it is in this that you find his conservatism. Scruton best distilled this in a key passage from that little book with blue page numbers:

“Conservatism starts from a sentiment … that good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created. This is especially true of the good things that come to us as collective assets: peace, freedom, law, civility, public spirit, the security of property and family life, in all of which we depend on the cooperation of others while having no means singlehandedly to obtain it. In respect of such things, the work of destruction is quick, easy and exhilarating; the work of creation slow, laborious and dull. That is one of the lessons of the twentieth century. It is also one reason why conservatives suffer such a disadvantage when it comes to public opinion. Their position is true but boring, that of their opponents exciting but false.”

Too often do those on the left characterise the right as being curmudgeonly, uncaring for the poor, held hostage by nostalgia, and disconnected from the issues of today. It is something I in the past have been guilty of. And yet, any fair reading of Scruton and what grounds his philosophy reveals anything but that ‘Nasty Party’ image. Rather, his philosophy is firmly rooted in his love of beauty, heritage, and the passing of knowledge.

Lest his prolific writing and populated library not be evident enough, his love of books is most aptly shown in this wonderful little anecdote: