Among the many memoirs and panegyrics that appear in our public space dedicated to the memory of Sir Roger Scruton - I myself am the author of such text, published here - it is not difficult to find a summary of his works. Some are more, others less enthusiastic, or even kind. It is not difficult to omit or "flatten" the ideological dimension of this thinker's oeuvre, more than anyone involved in the fight against - one could say half-jokingly - the present day as such. Of course, many will say that - on the contrary - it is easy to overestimate his work by giving it a rank that does not belong to it and looking for a depth that simply does not exist in it. Especially for the dispute between traditionalism and conservatism, Scruton is an emblematic figure, and being associated with conservatism, he becomes, in a way, an enemy and a polemic of those who do not care about the insidious preservation of the idea of some paradise that has just been lost (that is, the order and harmony of social settings), but about saturating the whole human domain with the deepest sense, that is, Christianity and Christianism. For some of them, Scruton is - with many other thinkers presenting conservative ideas - a "nihilist conservative". As such, he has no real justification for his assertions and claims, and in addition, he has a stance of giving up on the search for the senses that have been given to us here and which are only able to unite societas. It pushes aside - to put it bluntly - the question of Truth, God and His role in human systems.
A similar approach is undoubtedly useful and it is worth having it in mind as a kind of a certain warning and claim on the studied author. In general - if our way of reading is to be reasonable, and therefore kindly sceptical - we should always wonder whether the author introduces into the circulation of the idea of "money" a good enough attempt, that is, whether his arguments are able to "pay" for the defended theses and wonder where this "money" is minted, and thus what is the most basic source of the author's beliefs. One may also ask, however, whether similar assessments and concepts do not serve more to stigmatize than to describe, and ultimately to support the belief that a given author and work en bloc must be rejected, instead of a nuanced reconstruction that requires analysis and - afterwards - extraction of the best parts from it. Without considering here further this issue, which after Scruton's death becomes, in conservative and traditionalist circles, a point of reference for a reasonable evaluation of his work, I am going in the opposite direction to the one signalled above. I assume at least that Scruton's conservatism has a certain "awakening" value and unquestionable didactic qualities, and that it does not prevent further, deeper, more sophisticated and fundamentally "non-nihilistic" discussion and argumentation, and therefore it does not block the transition to the problem of tradition, and further on - transcendence, and finally - God. Scruton faced the latter problems - not without significant difficulties - in some of his works, such as "The Face of God" and "The Soul of the World". Initially, I intended to present to the readers of the studies and sketches published by the Wacław Felczak Institute the latter work, but it is hard not to notice that Scruton was most successful in a completely different field, namely in commenting on current issues of Western civilization and culture. Thanks to his vivid intelligence, simple elegance of his writing style and anchored in his argument about the most deeply shared issues, and thus about everyone, the light thrown by his writings spread in different directions. He was undoubtedly an influential thinker. He also had the courage to raise uncomfortable issues in a rude, but also without any easy pretensions. This lack of humility and humbleness could irritate many, but it also fascinated and forced many into polemics. All these features of Scruton's thought and pen can be seen in his essays, for example in the works collected in the collection "Confessions of a Heretic. Selected Essays" - a collection of writings that grew out of commenting on public affairs in Great Britain and the United States for over a decade. The author also emphasizes that he wanted to free this volume, completed in 2015, from strictly academic tones and make it useful to every intelligent person living in our shaky, capricious times.
I am writing these words on February 8th, 2020, just a few days after the Brexit carried out bz the thinker’s homeland. Brexit, which also fundamentally changes the place of Central European countries, especially Poland, on the EU map of political opportunities and tensions. It is therefore worth recalling the Scrutonian lecture on good governance.
In his essay "Governing Rightly", he analyses problems related to the misunderstanding or abuse of the Reagan dictum that “government is not the solution to our problems. The government is the problem”. It is easy to understand them in the sense that it is necessary to withdraw from the governing, starting from stopping the rushing - to the impossibility of any control over its direction, scope and pace - of the machine of regulation and control, creating new "crimes and misdemeanours", including ordinary, human forms of building relationships, unions and associations. At the end of this process, citizens become only "dependent" or "subordinate" individuals who give up their freedom in return for a public “wallet”.
An example of these processes is, according to Scruton, contemporary Europe with institutions providing a flow of still fresh regulations, with a regime of political correctness and other numerous EU "orthodoxies". In his opinion, there is a kind of "hysteria of rejection", which makes it necessary to tear out established customs and traditions or, if they are allowed to continue, to transform them into some kind of caricature. According to Scruton, a similar process is gradually being replicated in the United States. The Supreme Court plays its part in this, trying to impose the "morality of liberal elites" on the entire American nation regardless of its own will.
In the face of these trials, it is all the more important to see not only the bad sides of government but also the good sides. Meanwhile, it is precisely this "Reagan" risk for the Conservatives that their concept of government will be equated with pure negativity, with - for example - questioning all federal decisions. It should therefore be remembered, Scruton argues, that the production of systems with their own forms of governance is rooted in human nature and is a normal part of the lives of political beings. In social organization and entrusting power, human desires and efforts to live in peace are expressed.
It is confirmed by the so-called Arab Spring, where fallen tyrants - driven by the demand for power for their family, house or co-religionists - fell, leaving an important void. It revealed a lack of structures, ministries, offices, organizations, procedures, and even ingrained common traditions of governance on which all members of society could rely. Under similar conditions of lack of organized power, the fall of one tyrant only creates favourable conditions for the emergence of another. At most in between these events, the country will plunge into chaos, which will eagerly benefit the fanatics of Scruton.
In human nature, therefore - he continues, referring to Kant - "there are both these moments: the sovereignty of the person on the one hand and his obedience or adjustment as a subject living in community on the other. Both these dimensions, or these forms of human existence, meet in the social field in a relationship of reciprocity between the self and the self. In fact, says the author of "Confessions of a Heretic", our whole life is an implementation of this way of being. From the first steps you take in a family, school, team or team of some kind, a person learns to be "self" in relation to another "self" by taking responsibility with respect to others. Responsibility, however, is the result of freedom, and it is ultimately the freedom of the person that reveals itself in a well-organized human community.
This sense of responsibility - fundamental for the functioning of the community - is different in the United States and different in Europe. While in the face of danger or challenge to their local community, Americans organize themselves to face the problem, Europeans sit helplessly waiting for state services to solve the problem. This difference is due precisely to the divergent ways in which the essence of power and governance is perceived and governed, and finally to established attitudes towards power. According to Scruton, this type of organization, which we encounter in the United States, is clearly organic in nature and is the result of the development of a given community. It is not a government imposed in any way on the governed. The authority of the government stems from the fact that the rulers agree that they want to be ruled by their leader. This deeply consensual way of coexistence of socialised people means that the government retains some important autonomy and does not have to put everything to the vote.
Of course, this passage in Scruton's deliberations is quite easily challenged, as it is also, in principle, a European and even indigenous European concept of government. Even if, according to Scruton, today Europe has gone further away from it than the United States. Interestingly, it is precisely the fact that it has given up on a number of important issues for voting, while at the same time multiplying the votes (and thus the regulations) on secondary issues. If, therefore, a Conservative wants strong, stable, largely autonomous institutions, then the European Union and its agendas seem - in this respect - to suit his theoretical tastes. Of course, Scruton would argue that, first of all, they do not meet the basic condition for the organic nature of political development, which is also a guarantee of the real legitimacy of society for power structures; secondly, for this and many other reasons, they can rather be seen as a caricature of the conservative interpretation of power and government. Conservatives," says Scruton, "object to the government when it is imposed from outside, as was once the case with those European countries that have been imposed the communist yoke. In this sense, the structures of the European Union are also problematic. Contemporary governments and ruling institutions - if they are intrusive, determined to impose their opinions, customs and values - are not, however, the result of governance as such. Rather, they are the result of the influence of a liberal state of mind on governance, and thus usually simply a powerful and influential group within society. If the Conservatives accept this diagnosis, they should therefore show and criticize precisely this kind of abuse. Their first task today is to defend the government and governance from their liberal deviation, Scruton said.
This is where, in his opinion, the need for a rethink and a proper approach to the welfare state arises. For if people are to risk something for the state - and sometimes their lives are risked to defend it - this cannot be done without reciprocity, which is a fundamental, free and responsible human nature, an established bond of every political community. In fact, it is about the principle professed by all small communities that the community should take care of those who are unable to take care of themselves. But, as the example of America and Europe shows, this is a risky road. It can lead to the formation of a dysfunctional lower class in society, who, living without the proper social systems of responsibility relationships, in a way learn to live with the help of others. Thus, it turns against freedom, and closed in on the pathologies of its class becomes a force threatening the cohesion of society. The opposite effect is thus achieved.
Left-liberal and conservative paths are being spread out in the understanding and attempts to remedy this phenomenon. According to Scruton, those representing the first set of views believe that poor or socially vulnerable people are innocent by definition. No evil that they do can be reproached. They are not responsible for their lives, because they do not have enough social "power" to be responsible. This kind of "power" has its roots in meaning, position, possession. However, Scruton sees an important paradox in the effects of such thinking. That is, that the responsibility of power is rooted in the responsibility of citizens. Thus, if a government creates a class of irresponsible citizens (i.e., not responsible), it undermines the very pillar on which it supports itself (i.e., on which legal authority in society in general is supported).
If, however, responsibility is assumed to be the result of the freedom guaranteed by some form of ownership, then the state must, according to the liberal-left line of reasoning, also aim to relocate or redistribute social goods. No goods are therefore "possessed" until they are redistributed. This, in turn, is done according to the principle of "justice", which, however, is completely top-down and carefree of the moral obligations of the contracting parties, as well as of the effects of their own actions, which may encourage the perpetuation of undesirable social attitudes. Interestingly, this top-down distribution also applies to symbolic goods, such as patriotism, loyalty to the community, pride in one's own country. For a part of society, a government that controls all goods in this way must in time begin to appear not as "ours" but as "their". This can be accompanied by the contempt of a large part of society for power. This, however," Scruton said in 2015, "has not yet happened in the United States, where people are still able to take pride in their flag, military capabilities, national ceremonies, etc., and the government is still seen as "ours. The natural idea of power is therefore still preserved here. This is the aspect on which conservative criticism of the government and the claiming of proper forms of government should focus. It should therefore ultimately be about rebuilding a society led by the public spirit, which reigns only in a community of free people, capable of taking responsibility for their actions and deriving satisfaction from their effect. The public spirit understood in this way is "private", individual, and it does not bear the pressure of the state, and especially of domination.
Ultimately, therefore, the Conservatives' task is to map out the true and legitimate forms of government involvement and the boundaries beyond which its presence violates citizens' freedom. According to Scruton, however, the Conservatives did not manage this task. They were deceived by this well-known slogan of freeing society from government. They didn't quite understand that this is not their role to confirm similar distrust, but to promote a better idea of governance - one that takes into account the concessions we make to our fellow citizens when we connect with them as a nation.
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As I tried to make it clear in the above reconstruction, the description of the human domain up to all small human matters anchors Scruton in its understanding of human nature. In her lecture she refers to the classical concept of a person who strongly emphasizes reason, freedom and a typically human form of relationships. (The book "On Human Nature" is to be published on the Polish publishing market in a few days). However, his approach to these issues is - in general - a peculiar feature of his writing, strongly directed towards the current state of societies and the need to counteract the leanings of liberalism - polemical. A large part of his lecture on human philosophy (as can be seen, for example, in "The Soul of the World") assumes the rejection of the dominant interpretation paradigms and related thought and social currents. This is particularly true of evolutionary psychology, neurophysiology and all neuroscience, etc. He persistently raises the problem of human uniqueness in relation to the animal world, in a way that even the problem of this uniqueness is organized by his argument.
At the same time, Scruton sometimes feels compelled to shed light on the simplest things, such as the difference in building relations between man and animal, including domesticated animals. This relationship, he emphasized, will never be symmetrical, because there is a difference of nature so deep between man and animal that even when domesticated animals achieve a very high level of their own development by directing their energies towards man, they do not exceed the conditions of their animal nature and their species. He dealt with one of the most important problems of our times, that is, a phenomenon with two complementary dimensions: the animation of man and the simultaneous anthropomorphisation of animals. At the same time, he was tactful in addressing issues as inconspicuous as man's skilful and incompetent love for animals, which resulted from the difference in nature. For example, he commented on the way dogs are led out in open countryside. A dog that is walking - especially when kicking and sniffing - often means a threat to the elementary welfare and balance of the ecosystem, in which animals (for example, those mice he is tracking or birds he is chasing) carefully spend their energy and especially in winter try to survive the cold on minimal rations. As it is known, Scruton put a lot of effort into regaining ecology for a conservative ideological curriculum, and it also smoothly passed the problem of man as such to the problem of man as part of the local ecosystem.
However, all this polemical Scruton anthropology is built not so much on a classical philosophical foundation which only takes into account, and from which it draws its essential impulses, but on the fundamental conviction that man is a being seeking and producing beauty, homo aestheticus. At the same time, the author of "Confessions..." has seen these matters very broadly. The role of beauty in his thought has already been mentioned quite a lot, after all it is the leitmotiv of his writing. Therefore, in my opinion, it is worth remembering some distinctions contained in the essay about pretending ("Faking it"). In it, Scruton notes at the outset that there are two characters of untruth: lying and pretending. Anyone can lie: just say something with the intention of misleading the interlocutor. Pretending is an accomplishment, as it requires the inclusion of unconscious players as well as yourself in the game. Pretending is therefore an important cultural phenomenon. However, the same culture - in Shakespeare's or Molière's writings - teaches us that pretence can reach the very heart of man. That one can feel pretended emotions. According to Scruton, romantics have transferred the fervour of religious feeling to art. Since then, it was she who was to "save". The concept of "originality" as a proper measure of the value of a work of art was slowly born. With time, Duchamp's famous "Fountain" (simply a urinal) unleashed a real race for originality, with this release from pretending to be achieved through Duchamp's infinitely repeated "joke", i.e. the game of nonsense played in thousands of modern artworks.
An important caesura in these important processes were the diagnoses of early modernists (Stravinsky, Schoenberg in music, Eliot and Pound in poetry, Loos in architecture), according to which common taste was destroyed by sentimentalism, banality and kitsch. The task of modernism was therefore to restore sincere and fervent feelings. Ultimately, the result of this and similar attempts was to create a division according to which one can either stand on the side of the avant-garde and reject old, emotionally corrupt ways of creation, or create kitsch. The source of this word is unknown, but something important in the nature of kitsch was captured by Milan Kundera, who stated that kitsch is a matter of two tears rolling on our cheek, one after the other. The first one says: "how beautiful it is to look at children running on the grass." The second one says: "how beautiful it is to look at children running on the grass": "how beautiful it is to be touched, with all mankind, to see children running on the grass." Kitsch directs attention not to the object being watched, but to the subject being watched. And this is the essence of all sentimentalism: "look at me when I feel it." This is the fundamental difference between beauty and kitsch.
Beauty encourages us to stop thinking about ourselves and somehow wake up to the world of another person. According to Scruton, it makes us feel "at home" in this world, we see it as an orderly place, full of order, and ultimately adapted to the kind of being we are. However, creating beautiful things is not possible - in contrast to the multiplication of "avant-garde" art - without knowledge, discipline and attention to detail. True art is the work of love, fake art is disappointment. That is why only the first could illuminate the darkness of the totalitarian system as Achmatowa's poetry, Pasternak's writings or Shostakovich's music did. And only the connection between beauty and truth could allow Solzhenitsyn to say: "let a lie come into this world, but never for me".
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I believe that some effort is needed to assess Scruton's life achievements as not being of any significance for the possibility of finding, renewing and disseminating what is most important in the Western tradition and what in previous centuries allowed the tree of Europe to bear fruit abundantly and to cover almost the entire globe with a crown. This output has an unquestionable Christian dimension. Sir Roger Scruton's role in this field is not significant and neither is it direct, but the way he has directed his efforts helps to create the conditions for such renewal. His many years' efforts, often bought by environmental ostracism, have made conservatism - including the whole problem of roots and duration of civilization that he poses - one of the fully-fledged, contemporary directions in the academic debate and a self-conscious worldview with clear and well-defined assumptions. This merit can only be denied to him if he is considered to be a confounding achievement. That Scruton is a Western pretence and I have a strong opinion about the important tradition of the West. Such assessments are right, but they are not undisputed. If I were to make an effort to make some serious accusations against him, it would sound like this: Scruton created "apparent traditionalism," especially his reference to Christian tradition was, to put it bluntly, misleading. And yet it would be absurd to speak of Scruton's life and work: "He was "faking it." (as the title of the essay discussed above sounds). I see no reason to claim that he was a deceiver who constructed a certain mirage - involving others as much as himself in it. Rather, I think that he has gone as far as tradition has allowed him to go. Any further question is a question of religious faith, which I dare not examine.
Scruton wrote about the soil in the region he lived in, that it has a clayey structure and that everything but grass has difficulty growing on it. Clay - as every gardener knows - is a problem. It's heavy and cold, and it warms up with the greatest difficulty. But it has retention qualities. Perhaps Scruton's work was a similar "soil": sometimes excessively cool (perhaps even superficial), but it retained "water" circulating in the Western tradition. And if only grass can grow on this soil, it is already quite a lot, in a time of such a mental sterilization as today. Creating a garden requires a different kind of treatment, but it is rare to find gardens without grass.
Justyna Melonowska – doctor of philosophy, psychologist. Associate professor at the Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw. European Society of Women in Theological Research member. Publicist for "Więzi" and member of the Laboratory at "Więzi" between 2014 and 2017. Her works were also published in "Tygodnik Powszechny", "Gazeta Wyborcza", "Newsweek", "Kultura Liberalna" and others. Since 2017 author of "Christianitas. Periodical for orthodoxy". Participant of numerous public debates.