Roger Scruton's Blog, page 20

'Kant vs cant: How liberals lost their way' - Spectator Life, June 18

I recently attended an academic seminar, along with some of the most thoughtful and distinguished members of what is sometimes called the ‘liberal establishment’. The topic was ‘the crisis of liberalism’. Many of those present believed that there is such a crisis, and that it is caused by the inability of liberal ideas to prevail over the growing threat of ‘populism’. The thing called populism is amorphous and eludes every attempt to define it. However it is out there and ready to pounce, as...

The modern dog's life: two families, two homes and a commute - The Times, April 18

There’s nothing like a second home in the country to ease the stress and strain of urban life. After a few weeks marching up and down the Kings Road and listening to the latest Hurlingham Club gossip at home in Fulham, Paddy Paterson is running up the steps to Paddington station and steaming towards the train that will take him into the green heart of Wiltshire. Here his lungs will be filled not with dusty city life, but with air so fresh it will make him sneeze. He is lulled into dribbly dre...

'How to Build a Skyline at Human Scale' - The American Conservative, May 18

Buildings touch the ground, and the business of resting on the ground, rather than crushing, mutilating, or annihilating it, is one fundamental part of the architectural task. But buildings also touch the sky, and in doing so they create one of the most significant boundaries in our world—the skyline, which is the boundary between the city and the heavens.

'Loyalty as a Virtue' - Legatum Institute 10 May 18

Loyalty is a fundamental virtue on which we all depend for survival because it ties families, communities and nations together. In defining, loyalty Sir Roger distinguished between personal loyalty, which is a vow such a marriage vow or families ties and national loyalty, which is a contractual commitment. The motivation for loyalty may be practical where the commitment is rational and deliberate or sentimental where the commitment may remain despite a cost or disadvantage. Above all, loyalty...

'Bottled inspiration' Spectator Life - April 18

Wine was revered in ancient times as the work of a god. Its subsequent place at the heart of our civilisation justifies that attitude. Wine has been, for us, a glowing threshold through which we pass from work to play, from business to friendship, and from means to ends. In due course wine became an essential part of the sacrament that defines the Christian religion, singled out by Christ himself as the right way to honour him, to be taken at communion in remembrance of his sacrificial de...

Kathy Wilkes Memorial Conference

Exploring Identity: Political and Philosophical
Dr Kathy Wilkes was a Fellow of St Hilda's from 1973 until her death in 2003. She was one of the College's most distinguished female academics, who worked in an interdisciplinary way before this became fashionable. In particular, Dr Wilkes was a philosopher who was informed by experimental work in psychology. As well as a distinguished philosopher, she was a well-known supporter of academics struggling under communism in Eastern Europe. She play...

Why Musicians Need Philosophy? For the Future Symphony Institute

NOT AS MUCH, I GRANT, AS PHILOSOPHERS NEED MUSIC, but nevertheless the need is real. In the past our musical culture had secure foundations in the church, in the concert hall and in the home. The common practice of tonal harmony united composers, performers and listeners in a shared language, and people played instruments at home with an intimate sense of belonging to the music that they made, just as the music belonged to them. The repertoire was neither controversial nor especially challeng...

My plans and thoughts, Summer 2010

Comment on Recent Events. After a six-year spell in the United States, I and my family have returned to England, where we will be resident as before in rural Wiltshire, outside Malmesbury. During the last year I was a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and I have been fortunate in having been [...]

Soul Music

How we describe pop music proves that we find moral significance in music. How do we tell what music we should and should not encourage? "The ways of poetry and music are not changed anywhere without change in the most important laws of the city." So wrote Plato in The Republic (4.424c). And Plato is [...]

A little about my philosophy of everyday life

'On Beauty and Consolation' an interview with Wim Kayser for Dutch TV This film says a little about my philosophy of everyday life, in the form of an interview, made for a series which first appeared on Dutch television in 1995.              All the best for the new year,             Roger