Requiescat in pace Sir Roger Scruton: Remembering a great man of letters who has been called home.

“I am a conservative. Quite possibly I am on the losing side; often I think so. Yet, out of a curious perversity I had rather lose with Socrates, let us say, than win with Lenin.” - Russell Kirk, "Why I Am a Conservative," Confessions of a Bohemian Tory: Episodes and Reflections of a Vagrant Career (1963)

Requiescat in pace, Sir Roger Scruton (1944-2020)

Sir Roger Scruton died today, at age 75, and the world is a lesser place with his absence. A one paragraph press statement on his website announced the death of the writer, philosopher, husband, father, and brother following a six month battle with cancer.

Sir Roger was a courageous man who in the midst of the Cold War traveled behind the Iron Curtain into Poland and Czechoslovakia to meet with dissidents, and demonstrate his solidarity with them, while risking prison himself.  He helped create "a pool of light" in which they could converse in freedom. He would continue this kind of work for the rest of his life.

I was introduced to who many describe as "the greatest conservative of our age" around 15 years ago by my friend Aramis Perez, and am grateful for it. In 2013 had the opportunity to meet the conservative writer and philosopher at a Forum 2000 gathering in Prague.  He was gracious, down to earth, and demonstrated his solidarity with Yris Perez Aguilera, a Cuban dissident attending the meeting.

Sir Roger Scruton together with Cuban dissident Yris Perez Aguilera at Forum 2000

Sir Roger's writings on beauty, morality, politics, environmentalism, democracy and education, and the importance of tradition are required reading with both a depth and breadth of knowledge  reminiscent of Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke.

This blog has quoted this man of letters on several occasions over the past ten years, and been influenced by him.  Sir Winston Churchill observed that it was beneficial to read books of quotations, and that in doing so would spark interest in reading more of the person cited. Below is the full quote.

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.” - Winston Churchill

In the spirit of wanting to encourage others to read the works of Sir Roger Scruton and share his views with others, below are some quotes of his that have impacted me over the years. Thanks to the internet some of these quotes are also linked to the essays from which they were excerpted.

"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" - Roger Scruton, 2000. Modern Culture

"Rights are not secured by declaring them. They are secured by the procedures that protect them. And these procedures must be rescued from the state, and from all who would bend them to their own oppressive purposes." - Roger Scruton, October 16, 2004, "The State Can't Set You Free", The Spectator

"Hayek’s theory of evolutionary rationality shows how traditions and customs (those surrounding sexual relations, for example) might be reasonable solutions to complex social problems, even when, and especially when, no clear rational grounds can be provided to the individual for obeying them. These customs have been selected by the ‘‘invisible hand’’ of social reproduction, and societies that reject them will soon enter the condition of ‘‘maladaptation,’’ which is the normal prelude to extinction." - Roger Scruton "Hayek and conservatism", in Edward Feser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hayek (2006)

"For art cannot live in the world of kitsch, which is a world of commodities to be consumed, rather than icons to be revered. True art is an appeal to our higher nature, an attempt to affirm that other kingdom in which moral and spiritual order prevails. Others exist in this realm not as compliant dolls but as spiritual beings, whose claims on us are endless and unavoidable. For us who live in the aftermath of the kitsch epidemic, therefore, art has acquired a new importance … That is why art matters. Without the conscious pursuit of beauty we risk falling into a world of addictive pleasures and routine desecration, a world in which the worthwhileness of human life is no longer clearly perceivable." -Roger Scruton, May 5, 2009, Beauty

"I argue that environmental problems must be addressed by all of us in our everyday circumstances, and should not be confiscated by the state. Their solution is possible only if people are motivated to confront them." - Roger Scruton, December 4, 2012, How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism 

"When we ask questions like this, are we naturally democratic? And what is the place of the democratic ethos in education? We realize that we are pulled between two competing forces. “Competition it seems to me has two different forms, one the natural form, the other the artificial form that we are all hoping for. The natural form of competition is that in which one person strives to dominate the rest and that person, if he succeeds, will then impose upon the rest his view of things. However, we hope for another form of competition, a non-natural form of competition in which the person who succeeds doesn’t want to dominate but simply to be heard. That you compete in politics for example in order that your voice should be heard and then you make room for the voices of others, that it seems to me is what the democratic instinct is."- Roger Scruton, September 13, 2015 "Are we naturally un-democratic" Forum 2000

My colleague Aramis Perez noted over social media that Sir Roger Scruton died on the same day Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke was born 291 years ago today. This day will now be marked as one to remember and honor two conservative icons.

Requiescat in pace, Sir Roger Scruton (1944-2020)