The Political Philosophy of Conservatism (Vita Activa)

Hörcher, Ferenc

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-13591-0_3

Ferenc Hörcher⁴

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism ((PASTCL))

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Abstract

After the above review of the education and formative years of Scruton, the philosopher, let us now turn to the active part of his career, his involvement in ideological struggles, journalism and political activism. These elements define this part of his life as a vita activa, an active confrontation with the state of affairs in politics, and a rather courageous attempt to make an impact on the thought of his day by popularising the political thought of conservatism, which was at the time lagging behind both in the ideological competition and in the theory-building efforts of academia.

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Notes

1.
Scruton, Gentle Regrets, 51.
2.
Andrew Roberts, Salisbury: Victorian Titan (London: Faber & Faber, 2012), 328.
3.
Scruton and Dooley, Conversations, 47.
4.
Roger Scruton, About the Salisbury Review, available at: https://www.salisburyreview.com/about/.
5.
Scruton and Dooley, Conversations, 54–5.
6.
Scruton, Gentle Regrets, 52.
7.
Natives of what are today called the V4 countries (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary) usually dislike the denomination Eastern Europe being applied to their native country, as they regard themselves to belong to what is called Central Europe, or Mitteleuropa. For a famous article on the issues of the relationship between Central Europe and the West, see Milan Kundera, ‟The Tragedy of Central Europe,” trans. from the French by Edmund White, 1 New York Review of Books 31, no. 7 (April 26, 1984).
8.
Nicholas Hills, ‟Oxford dons battle Czech secret police,” The Montreal Gazette (4 June 1980): 77.
9.
Scruton and Dooley, Conversations, 73.
10.
John Stuart Mill, The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill: Ethical, Political and Religious, ed. Marshall Cohen (New York: Modern Library, 1961), xxxiii/xxxiv.
11.
Roger Scruton, The Meaning of Conservatism (London: Macmillan, 1980, 2nd edition, 1984), 10. I will use the page numbers of this edition.
12.
All the quotes about dogma are from: Scruton, The Meaning, 11–13.
13.
I am grateful to Robert Grant for these references.
14.
I will summarise the Hegelian account of the hierarchy of human sociality with the help of the Hegel entry of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Paul Redding, ‟Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/hegel/.
15.
As Robert Grant reminded me, even in the realm of civil society, individuals also compete for the benefit of their families, and not simply for their own personal benefit. This is a difference of scale, between close, personal ties, and the relationship between the citizens.
16.
For a more detailed account of the relevance of the Hegelian triad for Scruton, see: Paul T. Wilford, ‟Das Geistige Tier: Roger Scruton’s Recovery of Hegel,” Perspectives on Political Science 50, no. 2 (2021): 119–37, DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2020.1854015. It is worth noting that Charles Taylor played a major role in the renaissance of Hegelian scholarship, and in revealing its relevance for political philosophy. His monograph on Hegel was published in 1975 by Cambridge University Press. Scruton had a critical view of Taylor yet held him in high regard.
17.
One should not forget about the lack of personal knowledge of the others in the case of one’s love of one’s country, which distinguishes this form of love from the love of friends or family members, based on close personal acquaintance.
18.
This claim does not mean that the ruler’s personal elements will not have an effect on the loyalty of the subjects—yet that effect is more of a sociological matter, and up to a certain point not a constitutional issue.
19.
Scruton. The Meaning, 94–118.
20.
Scruton adds here that utilitarianism, too, has a third-person perspective on human action.
21.
Scruton and Dooley, Conversations, 142.
22.
Roger Scruton, A Political Philosophy: Arguments for Conservatism (London, etc.: Bloomsbury, 2006), vii.
23.
Ibid., viii.
24.
Ibid., ix.
25.
Ibid., 7.
26.
Scruton refers to Fukuyama’s famous book on trust: Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995).
27.
Scruton, A Political Philosophy, 8.
28.
Ibid., 39.
29.
Scruton certainly agreed with Oakeshott that this common cause of maintaining order does not require further common purposes—see Oakeshott’s distinction of enterprise and civil associations. Once again, I am grateful to Robert Grant for this point.
30.
He refers to it on p. 35. of A Political Philosophy.
31.
Roger Scruton, The Need for Nations (London: Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society, 2004), Roger Scruton, England: an Elegy (London: Chatto and Windus, 2000).
32.
Scruton refers here to the historical overview of John Witte, From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion and Law in the Western Tradition (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997).
33.
Scruton, A Political Philosophy, 87, quoting paragraph 161 of Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right.
34.
Scruton, A Political Philosophy, 87.
35.
Ibid., 88.
36.
Roger Scruton, Sexual Desire. A Philosophical Investigation (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986).
37.
Scruton, A Political Philosophy, 95.
38.
Ibid., 122.
39.
To be sure, the exact mechanism how more communal violence can liberate the community from its own guilt is not fully explained.
40.
Which does not mean, of course, that there would be no resentment in the latter, either.
41.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (originally published Berlin: Schocken Books, 1951).
42.
Significantly, Scrtuton was not a strong voice in the pro-Brexit campaign.
43.
Scruton, A Political Philosophy, 191.
44.
T.S. Eliot, For Lancelot Andrewes (1928)
45.
Scruton, A Political Philosophy, 194.
46.
As a British thinker, Scruton does not pay, perhaps, enough attention to the fact that in the shadow of the Holocaust, both modern and late-modern conservatism have to make all effort, to detach themselves from any form of anti-semitism, a frame of mind which characterised historically, and keeps returning in the far Right. Scruton himself was also alleged to make anti-semitic remarks; these allegations, however, did not find evidence. His response to this charge, and a defence of free, uncensored discussion, is found in: Roger Scruton, ‟An Apology for Thinking,” The Spectator (11 April 2019), available at: https://www.roger-scruton.com/articles/590-an-apology-for-thinking-11-april-19-the-spectator. After the debate which caused the government to withdraw Scruton from the position of the chair of a government position, the magazine, New Statesman, which published the allegation, apologised, and Scruton was reinvited as co-chair of the commission.
47.
Scruton, A Political Philosophy, 196.
48.
T. S. Eliot, “East Coker”, Four Quartets (London: Faber and Faber, 1943), 182.
49.
Scruton, A Political Philosophy, 204.
50.
Ibid., 205.
51.
T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets.
52.
Ibid.
53.
Scruton, A Political Philosophy, 208.
54.
Ibid., 208.
55.
Robert Grant tells me that Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown went as far as to summon Scruton to give him political advice.
56.
It is remarkable that three of Scruton’s friends are also mentioned by name: Bob Grant, Alicja Gescinska and Sam Hughes, thus underlining that beyond the family circle Scruton had gathered by then an intimate circle of friends and allies, including, I am told, Robin Holloway, Marek Matraszek, David Wiggins, David Matthews.
57.
Roger Scruton, How to Be a Conservative (London, etc.: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2014, 2019), ix.
58.
Ibid., 173–84.
59.
Scruton, England .
60.
Scruton, How to Be a Conservative, vii.
61.
He refers to a rather recent book in this context, Anthony Gregory, The Power of Habeas Corpus in America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), which explains the medieval legal historical tradition of the writ of habeas corpus, allegedly a specifically English invention, as the basis of American freedom.
62.
I am grateful to Robert Grant for calling my attention to this personal connection to Baron Glasman.
63.
Scruton, How to Be a Conservative, viii.
64.
Neil Gross, Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care? (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2013); Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, eds., Professors and Their Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014).
65.
Scruton, How to Be a Conservative, 1.
66.
He identifies the mental landscape of his father with that painted of the English working class by George Orwell in The Lion and the Unicorn.
67.
Scruton, How to be a Conservative, 6.
68.
As Margaret Thatcher famously put it in an interview: “There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.” Douglas Keay, “Aids, education and the year 2000,” Woman’s Own (31 October 1987): 8–10, available at: https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689.
The interview caused a large uproar, so No. 10 had to issue an explanation in the Sunday Times on 10 July 1988: “But society as such does not exist except as a concept. Society is made up of people. It is people who have duties and beliefs and resolve. It is people who get things done. She prefers to think in terms of the acts of individuals and families as the real sinews of society rather than of society as an abstract concept.” Available as above.
69.
Roger Scruton, Notes from the Underground, a novel (New York: Beaufort Books, 2014).
70.
Scruton, How to be a Conservative, 25.
71.
Ibid., 29.
72.
Roger Scruton, Philosopher on Dover Beach (Southbend: St Augustine’s Press, 1998).
73.
Scruton, How to be a Conservative, 119.
74.
Interestingly, the great criticism of leftist totalitarianism, Orwell’s 1984 was also finished in the same year, 1948.
75.
Pieper’s Leisure, the Basis of Culture was originally published in German in 1948. T.S. Eliot wrote the introduction to its English translation, which appeared in 1952. Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture, trans. Alexander Dru, with an intr. T. S. Eliot (London: Faber and Faber, 1952).
76.
Scruton, How to be a Conservative, 148.
77.
One should not forget, however, that recognition can be accompanied by vulnerability to others.
78.
Adam Schaff, Alienation as a Social Phenomenon (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1980).
79.
Although Taylor is not explicitly mentioned here, it is worth noting the conversation between Taylor and Scruton in “Roger Scruton and Charles Taylor on the Sacred and the Secular,” in Bryson, The Religious Philosophy of Roger Scruton, 239–52.
80.
Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 25–73.
81.
Scruton, How to be a Conservative, 150.
82.
Ibid., 159, referring to: T. S. Eliot, On the Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (London: Faber, 1933).
83.
Arthur Danto, The Abuse of Beauty (Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 2003).
84.
Scruton, How to be a Conservative, 182.
85.
Ibid., 184. The translation in Will to Power of this paragraph (822) by Kaufmann and Hollingdale is: “We possess art lest we perish of the truth.” Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), 435. One should also recall the fact that the Romantics attributed to art the knowledge of a superior truth.
86.
Roger Scruton, Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition (New York: All Points Books, Horsell’s Morsels Ltd, 2017).
87.
He did not experience the socially disastrous effects of the Covid restrictions we ourselves have experienced lately.
88.
One should note, however, the longstanding distinction between patriotism and nationalism, a distinction which is there, in Renan as much as in John Lukacs.
89.
Scruton, Conservatism, 12.
90.
Ibid., 33. It should be noted that Burke supported the American cause.
91.
Ibid., 35.
92.
Ibid., 46.
93.
Ibid., 57.
94.
The Phenomenology of Spirit, chapter 4, part 1. Hegel’s expressions for these terms are: Herrschaft and Knechtschaft.
95.
Scruton, Conservatism, 64–5.
96.
Ibid., 70.
97.
Ibid., 73.
98.
Ibid., 94.
99.
Ibid., 99.
100.
It is worth recalling Hayek’s famous self-identification, in the style of Edmund Burke, who never became a Tory himself: “The more I learn about the evolution of ideas, the more I have become aware that I am simply an unrepentant Old Whig—with the stress on the ‘old’.” F. A. Hayek, “Postscript, Why I Am Not a Conservative,” in Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, The Definitive Edition, ed. Ronald Hamowy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960, 2011), 519–35, 531.
101.
Scruton, Conservatism, 108, 111.
102.
Ibid., 114–15.
103.
Ibid., 115.
104.
Allan Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs: Essays 1960–1990 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 17–18.
105.
Scruton, Conservatism, 130–1.
106.
Roger Scruton, “Maurice Cowling’s Achievement,” Open Democracy (25 August, 2005), downloaded March, 2021 at https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/2783/.
107.
Scruton, Conservatism, 134–5.
108.
Ibid., 149.
109.
For an overview of this position, see Yoram Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism (New York: Basic Books, 2018).
110.
See The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy, ed. Karen Weisman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). It has an entry specifically on ancient Greek elegy, Gregory Nagy, “Ancient Greek elegy” in Weisman, The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy, 13–45.
111.
This famous quotation is from the end of the Preface of Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820).
112.
Scruton, England , vii.
113.
Ibid., ix.
114.
This is the title of chapter eleven. See p. 244.
115.
Both of the above quotations are from England: An Elegy, 65.
116.
Ibid.
117.
Ibid., 66.
118.
Ibid.
119.
Ibid., 157.
120.
David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1990).
121.
Scruton, England, 158.
122.
Ibid., 158, quoting J. H. Newman, “Knowledge and Religious Duty,” in The Idea of a University (London, 1852).
123.
Scruton, England, 159. This is, by the way, the novel of which Scott Fitzgerald said: “I’d rather have written Nostromo than any other novel.” Ian Watt, Conrad: Nostromo (Landmarks of World Literature) (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988), 1.
124.
Karel Čapek, Letters from England (1924), 172, quoted by Scruton, England, 158.
125.
Scruton, England, 158.
126.
Ibid., 159.
127.
Ibid., 206.
128.
Ibid., 206–7.
129.
Ibid., 211.
130.
Shakespeare, Richard II, Act II, Scene I.
131.
Robert Rowthorn, ‟Foreword,” in Scruton, Need for Nations.
132.
Maurizio Viroli, For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995).
133.
J. S. Mill, A System of Logic, 10th edition (London, 1879), vol 2. 522.
134.
Scruton, Need for Nations, 12.
135.
Ibid., 11.
136.
Ibid.
137.
Ibid.
138.
He takes the term from Spengler, and explains the idea in a more detailed fashion in his book: The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat (Wilmington DE: ISI Books, 2002).
139.
Ibid.
140.
Ibid.
141.
Scruton refers here, in this connection, not so much to the history of Christianity, which was eventually able to tackle the problem with the separation of church and state, but to Islamic history, which witnesses a proliferation of internal and external conflicts between rival religious groups, due to credal differences. Within that framework these conflicts seem to be impossible to resolve.
142.
Scruton, Need for Nations, 12.
143.
Ibid., 19.
144.
Ibid., 19.
145.
Ibid.
146.
Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992). Characteristically, Scruton adds that this thesis was prefigured in Hilaire Belloc’s History of England (London, 1915).
147.
Scruton, Need for Nations, 21.
148.
Ibid., 28.
149.
Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism.
150.
Scruton, Need for Nations, 22.
151.
Ibid., 23.
152.
Scruton cites at this point examples of secondary literature about these mechanisms of corruption experienced in supranational entities.
153.
Scruton, Need for Nations, 25.
154.
Ibid., 28.
155.
In this respect the American legal system is somewhat different: it does not exclude jurisdiction over issues arising outside of the realm of the territory of the state, in other words extraterritorial jurisdiction.
156.
Roger Scruton, Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet (London: Atlantic Books, 2012), 227.
157.
Aristotle, Politics, Book 1, Chapter 2., 1252b12–14.
158.
Ibid., 1252b10–11. Hesiod’s quote is from Works and Days 405.
159.
Scruton, Green Philosophy, 229.
160.
Ibid.
161.
Ibid., 232–3.
162.
Ibid., 235.
163.
Novalis, Das allgemeine brouillon, Materialien zur Enzyklopädistik (1798/99), No. 857.
164.
Scruton, Green Philosophy, 238.
165.
Ibid., 239.
166.
Ibid., 253.
167.
Ibid., 259.
168.
Ibid., 260.
169.
Ibid., 261.
170.
Ibid.
171.
Ibid., 262.
172.
Ibid., 263.
173.
He explicitly refers to Jane Jacob, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961), James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), Lewis Mumford, The City in History (London: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd., 1961) and, of the representatives of the New Urbanist Movement he mentions Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order (Berkely: Center for Environmental Structure, 2002), and Nikos Salingaros, A Theory of Architecture (Solingen: Umbau Verlag, 2006). It is also relevant for us that he refers to his own two books of aesthetic theory as his own contribution to the New Urbanist Movement.
174.
Scruton, Green Philosophy, 269.
175.
Scruton, Green Philosophy, 272. For a more detailed account of the Poundbury experiment, see the present writer’s study: Ferenc Hörcher, ‟A léptékhelyes város dicsérete. A herceg, az építész és a filozófus beszélgetése,” Magyar Építőművészet 20, no. 114 (2020): 63–9.
176.
See Léon Krier et al., The Architecture of Community (Washington DC: Island Press, 2009).
177.
Living with Beauty. Promoting health, well-being and sustainable growth., The report of the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission, January, 2020. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/861832/Living_with_beauty_BBBBC_report.pdf. Part One of the report includes chapters with the following titles: ‟Ask for beauty”, ‟How do we want to live?”, ‟What should be done?”.
178.
Sir Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500–1800 (Harmondsworth: Allen Lane, 1983). Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1994).
179.
Scruton, Green Philosophy, 350.
180.
Ibid., 365.
181.
Scruton refers to Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (originally published in 1835 and 1840), vol. 2, par 2, ch. 7. on p. 170, n186. He also makes repeated references to Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), who also took Tocqueville as his starting point, diagnosing the disaster of civil society and advocating support for its renaissance.
182.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), ed. with intr. and notes by J.G.A. Pocock (Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987), 41.
183.
Scruton, Green Philosophy, 27.
184.
“The liberal (German ‟freiheitlich”), [1] secularised state lives by prerequisites which it cannot guarantee itself. This is the great adventure it has undertaken for freedom’s sake. As a liberal state it can endure only if the freedom it bestows on its citizens takes some regulation from the interior, both from a moral substance of the individuals and a certain homogeneity of society at large.” Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Staat, Gesellschaft, Freiheit (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 1976), 60. On the importance of the Böckenförde-dilemma, see Ferenc Hörcher, “Prepolitical Values? Böckenförde, Habermas and Ratzinger and the use of the Humanities in Constitutional Interpretation” in Hörcher, A bölcsészet-tudományok hasznáról/Of the Usefulness of the Humanities (Budapest: L’Harmattan, 2014), 87–101.
185.
Scruton, Green Philosophy, 27.

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Institute of Philosophy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
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Hörcher, F. (2023). The Political Philosophy of Conservatism (Vita Activa). In: Art and Politics in Roger Scruton's Conservative Philosophy. Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13591-0_3

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