In argument about moral problems, relativism is the first refuge of the scoundrel. Roger Scruton More Quotes by Roger Scruton More Quotes From Roger Scruton The core of common culture is religion. Tribes survive and flourish because they have gods, who fuse many wills into a single will, and demand and reward the sacrifices on which social life depends. Roger Scruton demand sacrifice culture Conservatives resonate to Burke's view of society, as a partnership between the living, the unborn and the dead. Roger Scruton unborn partnership views The welfare state that is built upon this conception seems to prove precisely away from the conservative conception of authoritative and personal government, towards a labyrinthine privilege sodden structure of anonymous power, structuring a citizenship that is increasingly reluctant to answer for itself, increasingly parasitic on the dispensations of a bureaucracy towards which it can feel no gratitude. Roger Scruton gratitude apathy government If you consider only utility, the things you build will soon be useless... nobody wants to be in it. Roger Scruton architecture useless want Conservatism is itself a modernism, and in this lies the secret of its success. Roger Scruton modernism secret lying Private property is one of the best institutions which has ever evolved, to protect us from the bullying of others. Roger Scruton institutions bullying protect Modern art was born from a desire to destroy kitsch. Roger Scruton kitsch desire art Affect not to despise beauty: no one is freed from its dominion; But regard it not a pearl of price--it is fleeting as the bow in the clouds. Roger Scruton fleeting clouds beauty Kant's position is extremely subtle - so subtle, indeed, that no commentator seems to agree with any other as to what it is. Roger Scruton subtle agree position In literary representation, the distinction between the genuinely erotic and the licentious is a distinction not of subject-matter, but of perspective. The genuinely erotic work is one which invites the reader to re-create in imagination the first-person point of view of someone party to an erotic encounter. The pornographic work retains as a rule the third-person perspective of the voyeuristic observer. Roger Scruton party imagination views The future of mankind, for the socialist, is simple: pull down the existing order and allow the future to emerge. Roger Scruton socialist simple order Concerning no subject would [George Bernard] Shaw be deterred by the minor accident of total ignorance from penning a definitive opinion. Roger Scruton bernard-shaw opinion ignorance Styles may change, details may come and go, but the broad demands of aesthetic judgement are permanent. Roger Scruton details style judgement When many people individually get what they want, the result may be something they collectively dislike. Roger Scruton want may people A philosophy that begins in doubt assails what no-one believes, and invites us to nothing believable Roger Scruton doubt philosophy believe In 1970s Britain, conservative philosophy was the preoccupation of a few half-mad recluses. Roger Scruton mad half philosophy In all the areas of life where people have sought and found consolation through forbidding their desires-sex in particular, and taste in general-the habit of judgment is now to be stamped out. Roger Scruton desire sex people This "knowing what to do"... is a matter of having the right purpose, the purpose appropriate to the situation in hand... The one who "knows what to do" is the one on whom you can rely to make the best shot at success, whenever success is possible. Roger Scruton purpose knowing hands Unlike every other product that is now manufactured for the table, wine exists in as many varieties as there are people who produce it. Variations in technique, climate, grape, soil and culture ensure that wine is, to the ordinary drinker, the most unpredictable of drinks, and to the connoisseur the most intricately informative, responding to its origins like a game of chess to its opening move. Roger Scruton wine games moving The problems of philosophy and the systems designed to solve them are formulated in terms which tend to refer, not to the realm of actuality, but to the realms of possibility and necessity: to what might be and what must be, rather than to what is. Roger Scruton problem might philosophy
