January 12, 2021 - 11:18am
It has been a year since the death of Britain’s last conservative philosopher, Sir Roger Scruton. His cultural impact was as broad as his individual impact on me was deep. My debt to him is immense.
Encountering Scruton’s work while at university was less a revelation, more a feeling of being given answers to questions I didn’t know I had. I’d thought I was conservative, but being a rather lost soul with no real idea of life I hadn’t any concrete sense of things. Scruton took these semi-coherent mental gestures and gave them shape.
Reading Scruton’s books showed conservatism didn’t mean freedom above all, and that the constraints on one’s freedom that gave it direction were more important than the freedom itself. This emphasis on limits, such a contrast to Cameroon “Conservatism”, resonated with my reality of living with Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), a fragile skin condition.
In Where We Are, Scruton wrote of the importance of identity and the role of family and community in forming this. Many feel disconnected from themselves and each other, unable to answer the burning question of ‘who are we, where are we, and what holds us together in a shared political order?’ Living with EB can heighten this feeling of alienation and isolation, made worse by our culture’s emphasis on choice when real choices are increasingly made impossible in our social and economic disorder.
Scruton was keenly aware, along with Martin Heidegger, of this universal problem of alienation in modernity, of our feeling of being thrown into this world and the existential estrangement this instilled. Scruton, more than anything, was the philosopher of home, and the search for a sense of homecoming informed his work on the importance of the nation and finding a sense of place.
Crucial to this is inculcating a disposition of gratitude towards our time here with those closest to us. My condition, with its debilitating pain, is a brutal reminder that life is a vale of tears. Even so, Scruton’s philosophy of limits enabled me to see that life is worth living, that this “time is yours, and yours eternally.” This has encouraged an acceptance of what I have, who I am and gratitude for those closest to me.
I met Scruton at Blackwell’s in 2017, following a discussion of his book, On Human Nature. Afterwards he signed my copies of four of his books. In a guarded manner indicative of a shyness I see in myself, he was genuinely interested in what I’d been doing at university. The man in life matched the consoling warmth of the words on paper. Sir Roger Scruton, through his writing and speaking, has enabled me to feel at home in the world, in spite of everything, by giving a nobility to inheritance, purpose to the present and a sense of obligation to the future. His essence echoes on in his many books. I miss him, but my gratitude to him is boundless.
Henry George is a freelance writer and researcher. He has written for Merion West, as well as for Quillette and University Bookman.
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SubscribeThe first true indication of any collapse will be at the expense of Taiwan. The CCP will then have something to blame other than their own over-rapid industrial expansion and aggressive exports. Naturally, it will be entirely the fault of US empire building, US unprovoked economic warfare, or some such nonsense. An external enemy daring to challenge China’s right to invade Taiwan would be a typical autocratic response to an own goal.
Rather than China needing an external scapegoat, the U.S. might exploit Taiwan as a pretext to curb China’s rise.
So Chinas economy will overcome the deep structural problems facing it, simply because it gave some civil servants a pay rise? Seems a rather flimsy pretext for such a prediction
Be fair – Starmer and Reeves are trying to pull the same stunt here !
Yes, the author didn’t address the population problem China faces: a large cohort of the population is moving into retirement and will have to be supported (thanks to the one child policy) by a much smaller cohort. Also the West seems to be losing its enthusiasm for the kind of ‘neo-liberal’ globalisation that we’ve seen for the last 40 years, and which has benefitted China so much.
This is the gist of west mindset problem:
“Unable as a result to break out of the middle-income trap, which would require shifting towards an economy based on domestic consumption, the regime has consequently left itself vulnerable to the coming wave of Donald Trump’s tariffs. Then, the thinking goes, the economy may enter a real crisis.”
There is no trap in middle income. China is NOT consumption culture. Stupid consumption is what got here buying cheap, obsolescence products, that destroy the beautiful earth.
I think the world needs to question what is profit? What is growth? What is lowering cost? And what is the ultimate goal of economy? What is economy????
China power is steady, harmony and cooperation not just cost cutting without knowing what, profit driven without end, and full employment and then….innovate with full stomach, less stress mind and see what is out there!
We, the people not the billionaire need to set the agenda once and for all.
If China is so into harmony and all this good stuff, you’re going to need to persuade me why they’re producing all these “cheap, obsolescence products”, since it’s their own beautiful earth that will be destroyed in producing them.
And if China isn’t a consumption culture, please explain why it’s such a huge market for Western luxury goods.
That’s nonsensical. There’s no point to an economy EXCEPT to generate consumption. If an economic activity doesn’t give the people more consumption of goods or services, it’s pointless.
Hence China’s abject failure in creating 80 million empty housing units, and vast networks of high speed trains that are barely used. Those things are not economically productive, because no one consumes their services, and therefore China’s growth has been massively overstated. You might as well dig holes and fill them back in.
Here we go again
A complete lack of Understanding
As to what China is and how The West reacting.Even The Experts who are stating that China is meeting it’s targets but give the game away by seriously doubting China shall continue to meet the Targets it sets for itself by way of
Governance and 5 year plans
Time and Time again I state go study China’s 5000 year history
And once you have done so you must now then go on to study Buddhism , Zen Buddhism and Confuciousism
Then and only then can you possibly understand of what I say next
But once more you must complete your education by way of Study of the Four Volumes ( over 2600 pages ) of Xi Jingping and The writings contained in The Governance of China .
And just if you Basically want to study how a Internal Combustion Engine works
Then fundamentally all you require to understand is the principle of how it works once you reach that level
You can maintain any repair any Internal combustion Engine
So a 4 stroke engine consists
Of 1 Induction 2 Compression
3 Ignition 4 Exhaust
Know the firing order and when the cylinder that fires first you then find out where Top dead Centre of that cylinder is just before the Inlet valve to the cylinder is seating and about to close
Absolutely everything else with regards that engine is built and engineered around that
Now for China
A ) Buddha all his adult life debated
With the Leading Hindu cleric
Who insisted that Man and society required Rules
Buddha completely disagreed stating that every Human knows what’s right and wrong being born instinctively with such Wisdom and knowledge
When the Hindu cleric got news that Buddha was dying the cleric immediately departed to go and see Buddha
When he arrived and after a long debate The Cleric departed saying
I’ll never accept there no rules
Buddha retorted Oh there never can be any rules
And as the Cleric opened the door to depart Buddha cried out WAIT
Then said there are rules but only
Two
The cleric then asked well what is the first rule
Buddha informed him
Do nothing to harm the ground upon which you stand, Nor the air that you breathe and the waters you depend upon
The Cleric then Asked why is that so
Buddha replied that the second rule is That never shall there be enough even for just One Man’s greed
But always enough for everyone’s
NEEDS
Now you ask what the hell is this got to with China
Well from Buddhism , Zen Buddhism and Confuciousism you will soon find
That these 2 rules are Paramount
Then if you go and find out what the 5 yellow stars represent then you discover what modern China is all about
So let’s jump to the central principles of the 4 volumes of
The Governance of China
And time and time again reference is made to the following
1. For the New era
And
2 ) Building a modern moderate
Prosperous Society
Now with regards a New Era go look at how Western Colonialism
Looted and plundered the rest of the World
Then Neo Liberal Capitalism endeavour to continue with such plunder by way of the Hegomonic
$ and the so called World Order
Then explain how E.Musk is earns more in 1 yr which is more than the combined GDP of 124 Nations
And another rich elite hedge fund manager ( Spiv ) by way of his large private airliner spews out in one year more CO2 than 2.8.million
Average Western families do
And 29.million.Western poor families
Surely given all I state what China means by New Era and Moderate prosperity
If not you are either brainwashed or have a closed mind or just plain stupid
If you ain’t got it then explain how the hell can mankind possibly survive far less prosper and thrive
As Margaret Thatcher said
Thier Is No Alternative ( Tina )
But not in a manner that’s off any relevance today
She tried to create a New Era one that has failed spectacularly so
China’s New era won’t fail
Why because if does we all fail
70 years ago I was fired up reading all that similar sounding stuff about the CCCP.
Yea, it always sounds wonderful when you are young and ignorant. I’d almost believe it too if there wasn’t an elite, filthy rich oligarchary sitting at the top of the CCP.
As opposed to our own filthy rich oligarchies in the West? Oh, right, I forgot, they are the sacred “job creators” …
Anyone who follows China would agree with this article. Far far from being buried despite the US led anti-China program. The negative China propaganda is ‘cold-war’ and many get sucked in to believing. China plays the long game. Policy is determined by solid long-term planning rather than 4 year election driven decisions. And they are nimble to challenges as seen by the accelerated and successful home-grown chip industry. And look at Huawei!