Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
Sir Roger Vernon Scruton, FBA, FRSLis an English philosopher who specialises in aesthetics. He has written over thirty books, including Art and Imagination, The Meaning of Conservatism, Sexual Desire, The Philosopher on Dover Beach, The Aesthetics of Music, Beauty, How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism, Our Church, and How to Be a Conservative. Scruton has also written several novels and a number of general textbooks on philosophy and culture, and he has composed...
ignorance opinion bernard-shaw
Concerning no subject would [George Bernard] Shaw be deterred by the minor accident of total ignorance from penning a definitive opinion.
simple order socialist
The future of mankind, for the socialist, is simple: pull down the existing order and allow the future to emerge.
religious civilization political
A civilization is a social entity that manifests religious, political , legal, and customary uniformity over an extended period, and which confers on its members the benefits of socially accumulated knowledge.
hands knowing purpose
This "knowing what to do"... is a matter of having the right purpose, the purpose appropriate to the situation in hand... The one who "knows what to do" is the one on whom you can rely to make the best shot at success, whenever success is possible.
gratitude rights resentment
When gifts are replaced by rights, so is gratitude replaced by claims. And claims breed resentment
sex people desire
In all the areas of life where people have sought and found consolation through forbidding their desires-sex in particular, and taste in general-the habit of judgment is now to be stamped out.
education mean priorities
We should not value education as a means to prosperity, but prosperity as a means to education. Only then will our priorities be right. For education, unlike prosperity is an end in itself. .. power and influence come through the acquisition of useless knowledge. . . irrelevant subjects bring understanding of the human condition, by forcing the student to stand back from it.
consolation imaginary imaginary-things
The consolation of imaginary things is not imaginary consolation.
names kitsch emotion
There is a sort of mystery to kitsch. When did it begin? If it is just simply another name for faking emotions, it ought to have been a permanent part of the human condition.
artist kitsch way
In the attacks on the old ways of doing things on word in particular came into currency. That word was "kitsch." Once introduced, the word stuck. Whatever you do, it musn't be kitsch. This became the first precept of the modernist artist in every medium.
firsts moral argument
In argument about moral problems, relativism is the first refuge of the scoundrel.
sacrifice culture demand
The core of common culture is religion. Tribes survive and flourish because they have gods, who fuse many wills into a single will, and demand and reward the sacrifices on which social life depends.
want useless architecture
If you consider only utility, the things you build will soon be useless... nobody wants to be in it.
moving wine games
Unlike every other product that is now manufactured for the table, wine exists in as many varieties as there are people who produce it. Variations in technique, climate, grape, soil and culture ensure that wine is, to the ordinary drinker, the most unpredictable of drinks, and to the connoisseur the most intricately informative, responding to its origins like a game of chess to its opening move.