Looking like an aged Robert Redford, conservative Roger Scruton reveled in controversy and notoriety. Scruton died in 2020. This volume collects some of Scruton’s ephemeral writings.
“We live in troubling times for the conservative conscience. The West is adrift without leadership, anarchy is spreading through Asia and Africa, and the political process in Europe has been absorbed by the fantasy of European Union. Almost everywhere in the civilized world we encounter social decay: the decline in religious observance and local customs; the rise of crime and violence; the pornocratic culture of mass media; the description of love and marriage; the collapse of education and the retreat of the individual into his private pleasure dome.” (p. 31)
While Roger Scruton’s analysis is right on the money, his “solutions”–like those of most contemporary conservatives–are wide of the mark. Reducing the size of government and blaming the government for making problems worse are top strategies in the Conservative Playbook.
I enjoyed Scruton’s writings on music. Here’s a section that will delight Art Scott who used to attend the Proms every year! “The best thing about summer is the Proms, and this year especially on account of Daniel Barenboim’s wonderful performance of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. I have studied that stupendous work for most of my adult life, ever more convinced of its greatness and the truth of its underlying vision.” (p. 24)
If you’re in the mood for short articles on a variety of topics from an intelligent–if wrong–conservative point of view, Against the Tide certainly holds its water. GRADE: B
Table of Contents:
Preface: The Work That Must Be Done — viii
Part One: Who Am I? — 1
My Life Beyond the Pale — 3
Roger Scruton Says ‘Put a Cork in It’ — 8
My Week: July 2005 — 10
My Week: January 2006 — 13
My Week: April 2006 — 16
The Flame That Was Snuffed Out by Freedom — 19
Finding Scrutopia in the Czech Republic — 23
Diary – August 2016 — 26
Part Two: Who Are We? — 29
The Conservative Conscience — 31
The Blair Legacy — 34
A Question of Temperament — 37
The Meaning of Margaret Thatcher — 42
Identity, Marriage, Family: Our Core Conservative Values Have Been Betrayed — 50
What Trump Doesn’t Get About Conservatism — 54
Part Three: Why The Left Is Never Right — 57
The Ideology of Human Rights — 59
Who is a Fascist? — 66
In Praise of Privilege — 69
A Hominist Homily — 72
In Loco Parentis — 75
McCarthy Was Right on the Red Menace — 79
A Focus of Loyalty Higher than the State — 82
The Art of Taking Offence — 85
Part Four: Intimations of Infinity — 89
De Anima — 91
A Matter of Life and Deathlessness — 94
Dawkins Is Wrong about God — 97
Altruism and Selfishness — 101
Memo to Hawking: There’s Still Room for God — 106
Humans Hunger for the Sacred: Why Can’t the New Atheists Understand That? — 109
Part Five: The End of Education — 113
The Virtue of Irrelevance — 115
The Open University and the Closed Mind — 118
The End of Education — 121
The Plague of Sociology — 124
Know Your Place — 128
Universities’ War against the Truth — 133
Part Six: Fraudulent Philosophy — 117
A Note on Foucault — 139
The Triumph of Nothingness — 143
Freud and Fraud — 146
If Only Chomsky Had Stuck to Syntax — 149
Part Seven: The West and the Rest — 153
In Memory of Iran — 155
The Lesson of Lebanon — 158
Decent Debate Mustn’t Be the Victim — 162
The Wrong Way to Treat President Putin — 165
Why Iraq Is a Write-Off — 168
Part Eight: Cultural Corruption — 173
The Art of Motor-Cycle Maintenance — 175
Temples of Anxiety — 178
The Modern Cult of Ugliness — 181
High Culture Is Being Corrupted by a Culture of Fakes — 185
Part Nine: Animal Rights, Pulpit Politics and Sex — 191
Male Domination — 193
The Pestilence of Pulpit Politics — 196
On the Eating of Fish — 199
Obligations of the Flesh — 202
Eat Animals! It’s for Their Own Good — 205
Sextants and Sexting — 208
Tally Ho! Let the Hunt Remind Us of Who We Are — 211
Part Ten: Annus Horribilis and Last Words — 215
Diary — 217
After My Own Dark Night — 220
My 2019 — 224
Index — 233
