If Lockean liberalism is the conservatism of the English-speaking peoples, what was there in British conservatism that was not present in the bourgeois thought of Hamilton and Madison? If there was nothing, then the acts of the Loyalists are deprived of all moral substance. Many of the American Tories were Anglicans and knew well that in opposing the revolution they were opposing Locke. They appealed to the older political philosophy of Richard Hooker. They were not, as liberal Canadian historians have often described them, a mixture of selfish and unfortunate men who chose the wrong side. If there was nothing valuable in the founders of English-speaking Canada, what makes it valuable for Canadians to continue as a nation today?
George Grant, Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism
It was the rise of Puritanism in late Elizabethan England, the advancing tide of Calvinist theology and ethics in the last two decades of the 16thcentury, not the Renaissance of the early and middle decades of the century, that marked the real rupture with the medieval culture.
C.S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama
Roger Scruton is one of the most published, articulate and probing conservatives in the last few decades. The telling points he raises cannot be ignored and many of the arrows he shoots hit the bull’s eye well and wisely. There is always a need for thoughtful conservatives to counter variations of trendy liberalism (of various and varied colours, shapes and sizes) and Scruton speaks his speech well on such a stage. The role that Scruton played in the founding and editing of The Salisbury Review (1982-2001) and his two books on conservatism, The Meaning of Conservatism (1980) and How to Be a Conservative (2014) position him well to speak about such a tradition. It was, therefore, with much delight and anticipation that I received Scruton’s most recent compact missive, Conservatism: An Introduction to the Great Tradition (2018), to review—needless to say, there is much to ponder in such a fast-moving overview of conservatism.
Conservatism: An Introduction to the Great Tradition is certainly not Scruton’s first attempt to summarize, in a compact and thoughtful manner, the history, principles and content of the stages and seasons of the conservative vision of the good life. In fact, each of Scruton’s multiple publications, in either an implicit or explicit manner, delve into the conservative way (and what we have lost by ignoring, caricaturing or distorting such a time worthy heritage). The all too sad litany of forgetfulness of the past as a result of a progressive notion of human history has clear cut the forest of centuries of wisdom and time tried insight—such a reality is, rightly so, called memoricide. We legitimately lament the clear cutting of our forests but a much deeper lament should accompany the clear cutting of the past (and the implications of such a short-sighted approach to culture and civilization). But, let us turn to Conservatism to get a fix and feel for what Scruton thinks we need to conserve and who are the saints and worthies of such an ethos and heritage.
CLICK HERE to Download full Ron Dart review of Roger Scruton
Comments