In the first chapter of Understanding Media (1964), called “The Medium is the Message,” Marshall McLuhan begins the book by explaining his most famous aphorism. Over time, the proposition has acquired the status of a cliché, such that its original meaning and intent can become obscured. But as W. Terrence Gordon, the editor of the Critical [...]
The cause of the environment is not, in itself, a left-wing cause at all. It is not about “liberating” or empowering the victim, but about safeguarding resources. It is not about “progress” or “equality” but about conservation and equilibrium. Its following may be young and dishevelled; but that is largely because people in suits have [...]
I have been encouraged by Mr. Joseph Pearce’s two excellent essays, “How Many Loves? Arguing with C.S. Lewis” and “The Vulgar Mob: Arguing with G.K. Chesterton,” to offer up a little challenge to one thinker who has indelibly influenced my own conservatism. I have tremendous admiration for Roger Scruton’s courage in abandoning his academic career [...]
The purpose of cultural traditionalists ought to be to orchestrate a new renaissance for live classical music, to ensure that the dawn breaks on symphony halls that rise like polished temples in our midst rather than like ruins on abandoned hilltops. Sed me Parnasi deserta per ardua dulcis raptat amor. 1 —Virgil Perhaps our modern [...]
As the the conservative philosopher put it, his “unacceptable” views prompted character assassination, three lawsuits, two interrogations, one expulsion, the loss of a university career, contemptuous reviews, Tory suspicion, and the hatred of decent liberals everywhere. And, he swears, it was all worth it. Reality itself had been affronted. Repulsed, it had recoiled and collapsed [...]
The Uses of Pessimism: And the Danger of False Hope by Roger Scruton. In the excitement (and disappointment) of the politics of hope and change, surely a conservative’s responsibility must be to remind us that change is not the substance of things hoped for, and that reasonable hopes for those concrete goods really within human [...]
Arguments for Conservatism: A Political Philosophy by Roger Scruton. Conservatives always need to be on the look-out for new arguments to defend their positions, despite their conviction that there is “nothing new under the sun.” They may wish to live unreflectively by following the customs of their ancestors, but circumstances require that they also be vigilant [...]