Posted on 01/12/2020 3:28:49 PM PST by NRx
Conservative philosopher and author Sir Roger Scruton has died aged 75.
The author of more than 50 books on aesthetics, morality and politics, he was also a government advisor. Supporters hailed him as "the greatest conservative of our age".
A statement on his website said he had been fighting cancer for six months and "died peacefully" on Sunday.
"His family are hugely proud of him and of all his achievements," it said.
Sir Roger was at the centre of controversy last year when he was dismissed from, then reinstated to, an unpaid role as a government housing advisor after criticism of his comments about China and Muslim immigrants.
After he was restored to the role when supporters said his remarks had been misrepresented, he said there was a "witch-hunt" against right-wing figures, aiming to characterise them as racist or fascist. 'Conserve things'
Former Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan said Sir Roger was the "greatest conservative of our age".
"The country has lost a towering intellect. I have lost a wonderful friend," he said.
Historian Timothy Garton Ash said he was "a man of extraordinary intellect, learning and humour, a great supporter of central European dissidents, and the kind of provocative - sometimes outrageous - conservative thinker that a truly liberal society should be glad to have challenging it".
Born in February 1944, Sir Roger attended grammar school before studying at Cambridge.
He told the Guardian that he became a Conservative when visiting Paris during the 1968 student protests, which he saw as an "unruly mob of self-indulgent middle-class hooligans" professing "ludicrous Marxist gobbledegook"
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Memory eternal.
A bit like the UK’s version of William F. Buckley, I think considerably less influential though.
RIP.
How’d the chap vote on Brexit?
Terrible loss.
RIP
He loathed the EU. He believed that in all but the rarest cases, government was best handled locally.
Great mind.
R.I.P.
Rest in peace.
Thank you . . .
One of his disciples is now ascendant with the opposition party Forum for Democracy in The Netherlands.
Great loss to the worldwide intellectual conservative movement. RIP.
Conservatives aren’t liberals who’ve been mugged. They’re thinking people who’ve been overexposed to “Marxist gobbledygook.”
My 2019: Despite everything, I have so much to be grateful for
I happened to be reading this article and then searched for news on Scruton to be stabbed with this news.
Wow! I did not know him or his work so I looked him up on wiki. Seemed like a most prolific man.
What one book would you recommend to a novice?
How to be a conservative
“We have moved on a bit from the Middle Ages; it is not the man who is assassinated now, but only his character – but the effect is the same. Free discussion is being everywhere shut down, so that we will never know who is right – the heretics, or those who try to silence them” —Roger Scruton
Thank you!
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