Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 02:1 (Spring 2020)
Article: In Memoriam: Sir Roger Scruton
Author: Paul Shakeshaft

Eikon 2.1 (Spring 2020) p. 16

In Memoriam:
Sir Roger Scruton

Paul Shakeshaft

Paul Shakeshaft is a scholar-in-residence at The Kilns, C. S. Lewis’s Oxford home; during his graduate studies he was supervised by Roger Scruton as a Rotary International scholar.

As the outpouring obituaries demonstrate, Roger Scruton was one of the most influential philosophers of the last fifty years. He made original and profound contributions to the way we understand beauty, conservatism, and human nature. In 2016, Queen Elizabeth II bestowed him with a knighthood for his services to education, especially to those behind the Iron Curtain.

Were Scruton’s sympathies resonant with those of today’s cultural elites, he would have occupied the place of National Treasure, the position philosopher Bertrand Russel occupied in the twentieth century. For though Scruton’s blazingly sharp mind and shy temperament were of the caliber and timbre of his intellectual grandfather, Ludwig Wittgenstein,1 his forays into public debate were Russellian in their profligacy. Nonetheless, he was an everyday fixture of British life through BBC Radio, The London Times, television, and popular books. In America he is most well-known within philosophical, conservative, and Christian circles.

Upon his passing in January, Britain’s Prime Minister tweeted (in his inimitable idiom of punchy, Anglo-Saxon heavy English): “We have lost the greatest modern conservative thinker — who not only had the guts to say what he thought but said it beautifully.”2 The Prime Minister spoke for all — admirers and detractors alike — when he acknowledged the beauty that flowed from Scruton’s life and pen.

Beauty, like the ersterbend E-flat of Mahler’s last symphony, is the note that lingers over Scruton’s life. His life’s end began with slander concocted by a left-

Eikon 2.1 (Spring 2020) p. 17

wing magazine for which he wrote weekly wine columns for many years. As a result, Scruton momentarily lost his commission overseeing the beautification of Britain’s buildings. Thanks to the untiring efforts of one journalist in particular, the truth soon came out. Scruton emerged with his reputation salvaged, but his health in tatters.

Scruton refused to harbor resentment toward his enemies. He forgave them.3 Ten years before this injustice, Scruton had written:

Happiness does not come from the pursuit of pleasure, nor is it guaranteed by freedom. It comes from sacrifice: that is the great message that all the memorable ...