In “Wagner’s Parsifal: The Music of Redemption,” Sir Roger Scruton guides us—like Virgil—through the twisty cosmos of Richard Wagner and leaves us at the gates of paradise. Those who desire a treatment of Wagner’s final opera without the pollution of ideological criticism will find a wonderful breath of fresh air in Scruton’s treatment of the [...]
There can be no freedom absent some authority. Conservatives and libertarians alike may locate that authority in mediating institutions of modest size, recognizing the importance of consent and localism, family and place, to good government. Sir Roger Scruton’s example shows that certain conservative cultural conditions enable market-based economies to flourish. The room is alive with [...]
We live in a world which has in many ways been uglified, and it’s a world that we want to redeem so that we are part of it once again. Beauty is, then, the search for home, for a place where you can be at home with yourself and with others, but in particular where [...]
The late, great conservative philosopher, Sir Roger Scruton, delivers the keynote address at the Institute of Public Affairs' 2014 Foundations of Western Civilization Symposium. He discusses the topics of freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the pursuit of truth. —Editor This essay was first published here in August 2014. The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of [...]
People don’t like hierarchies and privileges, and there is a natural disposition to say that they’re not deserved. When anybody claims some kind of hierarchical position, the question is raised, “Who is he? Who does he think he is? And by what right does he claim this superiority over me?” There is a very famous [...]
In almost every way, Sir Roger Scruton was a thorn in the side of modernity and post-modernity. With Burke, he fought a “forlorn but dignified resistance to the tides of history.” He sought a future in which the national loyalty would endure, holding things together, providing all of us with sources of hope. No one [...]
Death is a truly strange thing. It has touched each of us, to be sure, by visiting loved ones. Yet, sometimes, it seems just unbelievably relentless. Death has already taken so many greats in the first half of January 2020—Neil Peart on January 7; Sir Roger Scruton on January 12; and Christopher Tolkien on January [...]
"The sacred and the beautiful stand side by side. Two doors that open onto a single space. In that space we find our home."—Sir Roger Scruton (1944-2020). Please watch this brilliant, classic documentary by the late Sir Roger Scruton on "Why Beauty Matters." —The editors This essay was first published here in December 2011. [...]
The impetuous call to sack Roger Scruton shows those who clamored for the blade of the guillotine to fall on his head for what they are. His sacking also exposed the concerted effort to demonize and silence anyone outside the public orthodoxy of thought... Sir Roger Scruton is one of the preeminent conservative intellectuals in [...]
Allan Bloom’s diagnosis in The Closing of the American Mind can explain far more about the sorry state of American higher education and the Western condition than popular stories that blame the Enlightenment, or democracy, or medieval nominalism. And it is therefore a valuable starting point… Last year marked the thirtieth anniversary of Allan Bloom’s [...]
Conservatism is in many ways a philosophy of belonging. It appeals to the nation as a communal home, a vessel for culture, language, custom, tradition and all the vestiges of identity garnered from generations of shared history. Recent discussions about conservatism have wondered how it can appeal to young people. These discussions necessarily emphasize the [...]
Neither a pacifist’s nor a militant’s novel, Her Privates We is praiseworthy both for its unforgettable characters and for its compelling, if necessarily tentative, exploration of this mystery of personhood under extreme pressure. Her Privates We by Frederic Manning (272 pages, Serpent’s Tail, 1999) Almost everyone enjoys a good detective story, and Her Privates We is [...]
According to Sir Roger Scruton, traditions and attachments to place and home are precious as they give order and meaning to life. They fill a basic human need. Once destroyed, they cannot be brought back. G.K. Chesterton famously wrote “The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at [...]
Without defending the citadel of the mind, how can we build a beautiful city? Without the conviction of true propositions, whence do we think beauty will come?… In Conversations with Roger Scruton (2016), Mark Dooley engages in a fascinating book-length interview with the famous English philosopher. While best known academically for unfashionable arguments on behalf [...]