‘Conservatism’: A Philosophy of Hesitation
A review or ‘Conservatism’, by Sir Roger Scruton.
‘Conservatism,’ wrote the philosopher Sir Roger Scruton, ‘starts from a sentiment that all mature people can readily share: the sentiment that good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created.’ This remark sheds light on the curious thing about conservatism: it is not a system, like socialism, but an attitude — an approach which, if slapped on a placard, might be summarised as ‘Hesitate!’ Where most conservatives are doers, concerned with dealing with the problems of the day, Sir Roger was a thinker, an ‘intellectual conservative’, who set out to put his instincts into words. He gave over much of his life to this task; and, arguably, succeeded as much as any writer before him.
In Conservatism, from the ‘Ideas in Profile’ series, he gives an overview — a ‘profile’ — of the tradition with which he identified: its history, its chief exponents, and its relation to the present day. Beginning from the premise that ideas have roots in biological, social and political conditions, and do not just arise from one another as weather systems do, he sets out four first principles. These are that (a) human beings live in communities; (b) we require a shared home and place of safety our membership of which is not disputed; (c) we need peace with our neighbours and rules for securing it; and (d) we need the love and protection offered by the family. Sir Roger describes these as ‘imperatives rooted in biology … and the needs of social reproduction’ and says ‘utopian’ thinkers ignore the limits these place on life. From this we can infer something Sir Roger makes explicit elsewhere: that conservatives are concerned with that first-person plural: with the ‘we’.
We can infer something Sir Roger makes explicit elsewhere: that conservatives are concerned with that first-person plural: with the ‘we’.
Sir Roger has long thought conservatives should set out their world-view. Our world is hyper-verbal and rationalistic; for Sir Roger, if conservatives lack a ‘programme’ (as we have learned to call it) then they will fail to persuade. But ‘visions’ tend to be suspect for conservatives, who tend, according to psychology, away from ideas and towards practicalities. For thinkers like Michael Oakeshott, who attacked rationalism in his 1962 essays, no theory or vision could ever capture reality. He thought political goals take away our freedom by forcing us to pursue them. Though there are exceptions—Russell Kirk set out a conservative programme, which reads rather like a wish-list— conservative thinkers have been defined by their suspicion of change and desire to stop or at least slow it. Per Lord Salisbury, ‘life is delay’. That fact always gave Sir Roger Scruton a somewhat tragic and even romantic air, I think: he knew he would lose what he tried so badly to defend.
Conservative thinkers have been defined by their suspicion of change and desire to stop or at least slow it. Per Lord Salisbury, ‘life is delay’.
He gives this tour of conservative thought, which crosses centuries and seas and borders, and includes brief introductions to types like de Maistre, Chateaubriand and Ortega y Gasset, in a clear and graceful style which should disabuse any readers of the notion that all conservatives are knuckle-dragging troglodytes. And only now and then does the mask of the teacher slip to reveal a more prickly persona beneath. He writes generously of socialism in a chapter on the mark it has left on political philosophy and conservatism specifically; and he is most engaging when discussing Coleridge, Ruskin, Eliot and other ‘cultural conservatives’, who responded to disaffection with the world through art and criticism. The book lacks the neat and tidy arguments, humour and metaphor that Sir Roger shows elsewhere in his work; but we can blame the narrow purpose of the book for this. At any rate, he wrote prolifically, so you can find all that elsewhere.
Conservatism is a lucid, penetrating guide to a tradition, written by the man who more than anyone else perhaps has tried to clarify what it means. It is to some extent subjective; as I have said, the subject matter is more commonly shown through action, not words. But there will be some who will see their own instincts clarified and underscored in the book. In any event, if you like political philosophy, history, ideas or, indeed, anthropology, then this little volume is worth a couple of hours of your time.
