A towering intellect whose only crime was to be a conservative

Jan 13, 2020 by Jill

by Toby Young, Mailonline:

He was a brilliant philosopher and one of the most eminent conservative intellectuals of his generation, who spent his life fighting for freedom, whether in academia or on behalf of those oppressed behind the Iron Curtain.

He loathed Communism and lived to see his criticism of it vindicated — first in Eastern Europe, then in Latin America.

He wrote more than 50 books on a vast range of subjects and was knighted in 2016 for ‘services to philosophy, teaching and public education’.

Yet Roger Scruton, who died yesterday aged 75, always remained something of an outcast, vilified by the liberal establishment for daring to challenge the fashionable nostrums of our age. Because he was an unapologetic conservative and defender of Western civilisation he was never given the respect he deserved.

Following his knighthood, that respect appeared finally to have been conferred upon him. And when, in 2018, he was appointed as chair of a government commission on building and architecture, it seemed certain.

But the announcement of his appointment was greeted by what he called a ‘hate storm’, with those appalled by it on the Left sifting through everything he’d said or written dating back 50 years to find opinions to be ‘shocked’ and ‘outraged’ by.

Read here

Read also: Scruton and the Tories. “A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country.” by Paul Goodman, Conservative Home

Roger Scruton: A man who seemed bigger than the age by Douglas Murray, Spectator (£)

Roger Scruton: Conservative lodestar by Danny Kruger, UnHerd