Roger Scruton on Several Political Topics

In August, 2023 I decided to start reading The Meaning of Conservatism by Roger Scruton. I was lucky to find a copy of the first-edition paperback (published by Penguin Books in 1980) at Westgate Books here in Saskatoon. I bought it in 2017, so after having it lay neglected on the shelf for six years, I decided to see what it was all about.

I have still not finished the book, as the bookmark is placed at chapter eight. There are only two chapters left (approximately 30 pages altogether), but I might not bother finishing it. The Meaning of Conservatism is very profound at some points, but also quite boring at others. Having said that, after spending time with this book, I can see why Scruton has a good reputation as a political philosopher. There is something sublime and intuitive about the way he thinks and writes.

Here are some passages from the book that I enjoy:

Even an institution like the Catholic Church has become afflicted with the fashion for reform, and being unable to take Christ's words to Simon Peter in their egoistic Lutheran meaning, has partially forgotten the tradition of custom, ceremony and judicious manoeuvre that enabled it to stand seemingly unshifting in the midst of worldly change, calling to every man with a voice of immutable authority. The Church, an institution with an aim that is not of this world, but only in this world, sells itself as a 'social cause'! It is hardly surprising if the result is not only empty moralism but also ludicrous theology. (22)

Conservatism presupposes the existence of a social organism. Its politics is concerned with sustaining the life of that organism, through sickness and health, change and decay. (25)

Of course there are good states and bad states, tyrannies and peaceful communities; and the conservative will be ready to judge between them. . . . But to think that the whole difference can be summed up in terms of a simple body of abstract rights, which can be specified for all men, independently of their origin and station, is neither feasible politics nor plausible doctrine. (49)

As I have already suggested, the liberal view is individualistic. It sees the individual as potentially complete in himself, and possessed of reason, which he can use either well or ill. To use it well is to use it freely – to live one's life according to the precepts of 'autonomous' (or even 'authentic') choice. (72)

The liberal is the one to ask 'why?' of every institution, never the one to doubt the premise from which the possibility of such a question springs, the premise of unbelief. (78)

But am I harmed by something purely because I do not consent to it? (78)

Just as Islamic law recognizes the conflict between the outlook which it expresses and the consumption of wine, so does our law recognize a conflict between the foetid banter of the public house and the menacing gentleness of 'grass'. (80)

To replace punishment by 'reform' is to separate the law from its unspoken moral base; it is also to assume a right of forgiveness which lies with the victim of crime alone. This reinforces the sense, either that crime is 'subjective', so that acts are criminal only by convention, or else that the objectivity of crime goes unnoticed by the powers of state. The first of those thoughts spells the decline in the standards of moral conduct, while the second fosters the desire for personal, rather than institutional revenge. (83)

It is the home, therefore, that is the principal sphere of property, and the principal locus of the gift. (Hospitality is the only form of gift that imposes itself as an obligation: for it arises when another has been invited into the sphere which defines one's own.) (100)

For sociology, containing no agreed theoretical structure, and having all but eliminated from its content the reflections of those perceptive men who founded it (men like Durkheim and Weber, whose style was the historical style, of elevated critical insight), may exist largely as a vehicle for mindless statistics and political prejudice. (150–151)

Oh my—ten quotations! I probably went overboard here. I treat books as both a resource and decoration, however, and so refuse to highlight or adorn them with Post-it notes. This makes quotations I come across that I find particularly interesting not readily available. Recording memorable quotations here may well be a good place to keep them within reach.