In response to liberalism, it is necessary to work for the restoration of the concrete circumstances of justice. But the concrete law that I have been advocating is very unlike anything that either a socialist or a liberal would approve. It preserves inequalities, it confers privileges, it justifies power. That, however, is also its strength. [...]
There is so much pertinent history and so much wisdom in Russell Kirk’s “America’s British Culture” that his book would serve as a useful summary of America and its culture for the busy student—even for one who is hard pressed by the demands of a multicultural curriculum. America’s British Culture, by Russell Kirk (New Brunswick, [...]
If we know what music is, we have a duty to help young people to understand it, regardless of its “relevance.” We should do this as it has always been done, through encouraging our students to make music together. How many writers, educators, and opinion formers, urgently wishing to convey the thoughts and feelings that [...]
The problem for modern music arose from the way in which ideas came to displace feelings as the source of musical creation. Conscious repetition of learned effects does not amount to real musical content. Surprised by Beauty: A Listener’s Guide to the Recovery of Modern Music, by Robert R. Reilly (Ignatius Press, 2016) Robert R. [...]
The pursuit of genius in architecture is what has most contributed to the unstitching of our urban fabric, giving us those buildings in outlandish shapes and unsightly materials that take a chunk of the city and make it into somewhere else. For the truly great projects, architects are necessary, and can take credit for magnificent [...]
We must surely understand composer-conductor Pierre Boulez as the instigator of a false conception of music—not only of the place of music in high culture, and in the civilisation that is our greatest spiritual possession, but of the nature of music itself. DE MORTUIS NIL NISI BONUM: Of the dead, nothing unless good. But you [...]
Perhaps we should be grateful to John Williams and Howard Shore for showing us that we can still use the tonal language to create music that resonates in the hearts of ordinary people. Perhaps we should be suspicious of those musical censors who leap to dismiss whatever is spontaneously likeable as cliché, and whatever touches [...]
In “How to Think Seriously about the Planet,” Roger Scruton seeks in part to re-establish, or to remind us of, the close relationship between conservatism and concern for the environment. He also argues that the only really sound and successful environmentalism is a conservative environmentalism. How to Think Seriously about the Planet: The Case for [...]
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 [...]
Richard Wagner’s story of gods and heroes, of giants and dwarfs, is not a fairy tale. It is addressed to modern people, who have lost the ways of enchantment, and for whom the path to heroism is overgrown. It is a story in which law and love, power and property are all caught up in [...]
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 [...]
Wilhelm Röpke asked how to address the problems of social fragmentation and the loss of community feeling, in a world where the market is left to itself. Röpke’s own idea was that society is nurtured and perpetuated at the local level, through motives that are quite distinct from the pursuit of rational self interest. Two [...]