Roger Scruton Biography

British philosopher and writer Considered one of the most prominent exponents of British conservatism.

Roger Scruton was born on 27th February 1944 in Buslingthorpe , Lincolnshire, England & he died in 12 January 2020 in Brinkworth , Wiltshire, England.

Family:

He was the son of Beryl Claris Haynes, a housewife and John “Jack” Scruton, an educator formerly from Manchester. He had two siblings.

Childhood and youth:

He grew up in a residential area at Upper Cyrus Street, Ancoats which is a poor inner city region of Manchester. But they were humanists not Christian, so their home became a “religion-free zone”. His relationship with his father as well as the other family members was a complex one.

Roger Scruton Studies:

He won a scholarship to Manchester High School , a secondary school. Between 1954 and 1962 he attended the Royal Grammar School High Wycombe , where he received three A-levels in pure and applied mathematics, physics and chemistry, all with honors. These results secured him an open scholarship in natural sciences at Jesus College, Cambridge , in addition to a state scholarship. When he informed his family that he had been admitted to Cambridge, his father stopped speaking to him.

Finally, he graduating in Philosophy with double honors by 1965, he got his PhD degree in 1973 after writing on Kant ‘s aesthetics .

Teaching:

His academic career began at Birkbeck College of University of London as lecturer of philosophy between1971-1992.It is during these years that he came out as one of Great Britain’s most outstanding conservative thinkers. Roger also taught at Oxford University Boston University and St.Andrews University.

The Salisbury Review:

In 1982 The Salisbury Review became its founding editor thus promoting traditional conservatism while opposing Thatcherism.The magazine remained under his editorship until 2001.The circulation figures were fewer than 1000 copies in1983; however it had significant impact.

Scruton has said that working for The Salisbury Review cost him professionally in the UK. The journal was intended to provide an intellectual basis for conservatism and it criticized contemporary issues such as nuclear disarmament, egalitarianism, feminism, foreign aid, multiculturalism and modernism. It argued for a conservative predominance in intellectual life from its very first edition. In 1984, an article by Ray Honeyford criticizing multicultural education was published. In fact Honeyford was forced into early retirement after this article appeared and had to be protected from the police. The British Association for the Advancement of Science accused the magazine of scientific racism while Scruton himself faced boycotts at Glasgow University.

Philosopher:

After observing the student protests of May 1968 in France, he moved towards conservatism. Known for his important contribution to conservative thought focusing on the defense of tradition, aesthetics, national sovereignty and universal moral values, he left an indelible mark on contemporary intellectual discourse.

Roger philosophy has a few main axes:

• Conservatism: He defended institutions and traditions that keep stability and continuity like family, nation and religion arguing that revolutionary ideologies destroy valued achievements of Western civilization.

• Aesthetics: He stressed the importance of art and beauty and asserted that aesthetic experience was necessary for understanding our environment.

• Political philosophy: He advocated national sovereignty as well as parliamentary democracy; opposed bureaucratic centralism plus supranational impositions.

• Critique of relativism: Opposing moral relativism and cultural relativism, he supported the idea of objective universal truths criticizing postmodernism and deconstruction for rejecting an objective comprehension of the world.

• Religion: Though not openly religious himself, he considered religion useful in providing a moral framework for human life.

• Environmental conservancy: In Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet (2012), he offered an ecology based on individual and community responsibility, while rejecting alarmist attitudes and excessive state interventionism in favoring local-based sustainable solutions.

Writer:

A philosopher who wrote books on sexuality, literature, music, politics, culture , religion among others besides being a novelist with two operas to his name. His first novel Fortnight’s Anger came out in1981 when during the decade Scruton produced thirteen works of non-fiction. His most controversial book was Thinkers Of The New Left (1985) which included essays from The Salisbury Review as it criticized fourteen leading intellectuals including such names as E.P . Thompson , Michel Foucault Jean-Paul Sartre .

roger scruton also contributed to The Spectator along with The New Statesman . From 1983 to 1986, Scruton wrote The Times weekly column mainly on controversial subjects but also touching music, wines and motorcycle repair. In academics, Scruton was accused of treason for ridiculing anti-racism and the peace movement besides his support for Margaret Thatcher.

His famous works are The Meaning of Conservatism (1980), Sexual Desire (1986), The Aesthetics of Music (1997), and How to be Red in a Green World (2014).

Activism:

Between 1979-89 Roger actively supported Czechoslovak dissidents by establishing contacts between Prague-based intellectuals who opposed the regime and their counterparts from Western universities. He visited Prague and Brno via Jan Hus Education Foundation with other academicians interrogated on an underground education network initiated by Czech dissident Julius Tomin.

Moreover, in 1985 he was arrested in Brno city and expelled from the country . That year, it also happened that he was put into the Index Of Undesirable Persons as well as subject to monitoring during trips to Poland or Hungary. For backing dissidents Scruton became first-prize winner at Pilsen city June 1993 while President Václav Havel awarded him with a Medal of Merit I Class of the Czech Republic in 1998. In his fiction Notes from Underground (2014), Scruton reflects on his experience as a dissident intellectual under communism in Prague during the 1980s.

Private life:

He got married to Danielle Laffitte in September1973 and divorced six years later.

In addition, he got married again to Sophie Jeffreys in 1996 with two children; Samuel who was born in 1998 and Lucy born in 2000.

Death:

Roger Scruton passed away in Brinkworth, Wiltshire, England on January 12th, 2020.

Summary:

The English philosopher, writer and social critic whose main areas of interest included aesthetics and political philosophy with emphasis on the conservative and traditionalist viewpoints. He served as a chief editor of The Salisbury Review – a conservative magazine from 1982 to 2001. His books covered themes such as philosophy, art, music, politics, literature, culture ,sexuality and religion; in his career ,he also wrote novels and composed two operas .

Did you know...

Queen Elizabeth II knighted Roger Scruton for his services to philosophy, teaching and public education in 2016.