Binge Watching Roger Scruton

When I put down a book and get into bed I tend to then watch a documentary on the same subject to accompany the learning. It is especially a good way of solidifying information that you have previously absorbed while reading, as well as providing some additional context for the time and place in which the events played out. Regurgitating the information in the form a blog is also a good way of insuring you will remember the days learning. About a week ago I watched a documentary on Enoch Powell after I finished the chapter on his childhood. An individual known as Roger Scruten was featured in the documentary lavishing blandishments on Mr Powell. My friends occasionally remark upon my ability to read the character of an individual, so when I listened to professor Scruton speak I immediately identified him as a person of interest.

As mentioned in a previous blog I went ahead and purchased his books on modern philosophy, the meaning of conservatives and Immanuel Kant, adding them to the top of my pile of unread literature. This was of course after I watched a number of his videos on youtube. I started with the one subject I must have mutual agreement in before proceeding with his other content; this came in the form of a wonderful speech he did on reasons to secede from the European Union. I was impressed with his calm and collected manor and his soft spoken tone that emanates reason. At the end he was answering questions, one of which was about the continuation of culture and traditional values. He recommended getting married, having children and instilling the desired values into them. I was impressed with his bluntness.

The documentary he made for the BBC called ‘Why Beauty Matters’ (which I have imbedded below) is absolutely fantastic. It included many angles I have myself never considered before in terms of the case for religion and god, but its main attack is upon modern art. The concept is that modern art akin to that of Tracey Emin, which depicts an unmade bed with used condoms and other filth strewn about, is actually missing the point. Roger doesn’t attack its credibility as art, but rather the creativity that is attached to it. He explains that through the age’s art has always been intrinsically linked with beauty, and its main function was to amplify beauty and in alternate situations to console the individual through times of despair. For example, paintings of death that depict it with a level of dignity designed to make the person come to terms with it.

The Crucification by Andrea Mantegna

Much of modern art does not attempt to capture such beauty and in fact aims to do the exact opposite. In the case of Damien Hirst he often chooses to depict the harsh realities in which there is no beauty. The documentary offers the metaphor which summed this art up, that if Tracey Emins bed was in a skip down a back ally, instead of in a museum, a person would walk right past it. Whereas if you saw the bust of the Apollo Belvedere you would instantly be struck by its beauty regardless of it being in a skip. Roger’s fear is that we are losing touch with the origins of art and with it we will lose the meaning of life, but this is not the only philosophy he attempts to convey.

The case is very well put that beauty has an intrinsic link with the spiritual. He describes it as love with no attachment, sighting the example of the joy felt when holding a friends baby. Biologically and psychologically you have no vested interest in the child, you feel joy regardless of the fact you’re not going to use it, you are not going to eat it and you are not going to raise the child. Yet you still feel a sense of joy which psychologically has no scientific function. Scruton claims it is this unexplainable positive feeling which amplifies a belief in god, something he mentions in frequent conjunction with Immanuel Kant.

Some of the other Scruton videos I watched included his appearance on Russia Todays ‘Going Underground’, a great interview where he talks about the potential for conservatism in every individual. What I was really impressed with was his ‘reluctant capitalism’; he stresses the point of balancing the books but with a desire to run the economy in aid of social cohesion. He champions the elements of ‘Das Kapital’ that calls out the consumer culture, as part of Conservatism is teaching self-restraint and responsibility, something that consumerism can override through material desires. We need look no further than the music industry to see one of the great negative effects of capitalism.

The last thing I am going to mention is a video he made about fox hunting. Fox hunting is one of the subjects in which I personally have not formed an opinion. It’s something I have not thought essential to look into but at the same time have always had a fascination to learn about. Scruton has a book entitled ‘On Hunting’ which I will have to add to the wish list once I have finished some of his other books and grasped a better understanding of his philosophy. I am rather excited to begin his short work on Immanuel Kant and have decided to read it in parallel to ‘The Life of Enoch Powell’.