Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life, by Roger Scruton
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Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life, by Roger Scruton
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Roger Scruton is Britain's best known intellectual dissident, who has defended English traditions and English identity against an official culture of denigration. Although his writings on philosophical aesthetics have shown him to be a leading authority in the field, his defence of political conservatism has marked him out in academic circles as public enemy number one. Whether it is Scruton's opinions that get up the nose of his critics, or the wit and erudition with which he expresses them, there is no doubt that their noses are vastly distended by his presence, and constantly on the verge of a collective sneeze. Contrary to orthodox opinion, however, Roger Scruton is a human being, and Gentle Regrets contains the proof of it - a quiet, witty but also serious and moving account of the ways in which life brought him to think what he thinks, and to be what he is. His moving vignettes of his childhood and later influences illuminate this book. Love him or hate him, he will engage you in an argument that is both intellectually stimulating and informed by humour.
Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life, by Roger Scruton - Amazon Sales Rank: #145565 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-06-15
- Released on: 2015-06-15
- Format: Kindle eBook
Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life, by Roger Scruton From The New Yorker Scruton is an English philosopher best known for vigorously defending traditional culture in works like "England: An Elegy" and "The Meaning of Conservatism." His latest book assembles twelve "autobiographical excursions" into a composite account of his intellectual development. In addition to neatly expository essays ("How I Discovered Culture") and a sequence of poems entitled "Miss Hap," the collection includes a reminiscence of the "sleeping cities" of the Eastern bloc and an acute meditation on beauty and religious faith. The blunt wit for which Scruton is known is scarce here, but lyric suits him almost as well as polemic. Such passages as the evocation of a chapel filled with the "soft smell of stone that has grown old in shadow" vividly illuminate the moral import of aesthetic values. Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker
Review 'A practised and elegant writer'The Independent'The autobiographical musings of a conservative intellectual who refuses to wear his learning lightly.'The Sunday telegrapha very fine book, brimming with humanity and intelligence (Michael Burleigh Literary Review)
Scruton is an English philosopher best known for vigorously defending traditional culture in works like "England: An Elegy" and "The Meaning of Conservatism." His latest book assembles twelve "autobiographical excursions" into a composite account of his intellectual development. In addition to neatly expository essays ("How I Discovered Culture") and a sequence of poems entitled "Miss Hap," the collection includes a reminiscence of the "sleeping cities" of the Eastern bloc and an acute meditation on beauty and religious faith. The blunt wit for which Scruton is known is scarce here, but lyric suits him almost as well as polemic. Such passages as the evocation of a chapel filled with the "soft smell of stone that has grown old in shadow" vividly illuminate the moral import of aesthetic values.
"The record of an extraordinary life" "contains many memorable portraits of Scruton's friends, teachers, inspirations, antagonists "the central teaching of this wise and companionable book is that the acknowledgement of loss is not the end the prelude to the possession of joy" (National Review)
"...Gentle Regrets, Scruton's wistful, magnanimous, and ineluctably intelligent memoir."- National Review, March 27, 2006
(National Review)'[A] book of unforgettable reflections on childhood, schooling, music, opera, religion and love...[a] highly personal series of wistful reflections.' (A. N. Wilson, Times Literary Supplement, 18/08/2006 Times Literary Supplement)Title mention in article by Roger Scruton on Chomsky.Wall Street Journal [Europe], 29/09/2006 (The Wall Street Journal)'Gentle Regrets, his memoir, is far more than a collection of fertile ideas: it's the colourful story of a learned man's life and the argued attempt to help other reclaim treasures of mind and soul that are being relegated to the discard bin....Scruton has produced a minor classic, a searching treatment of his own spirit in conflict with the spirit of age.' (David Castronovo, Commonweal, September 2006) "...a penetrating self-examination that is oftenremorseless and poignant, while presenting what may be the finest contemporaryexample of one man's resistance to 'personal and social disorders of this age."- Philosophy Nowa very fine book, brimming with humanity and intelligence (Sanford Lakoff Literary Review)"The record of an extraordinary life" "contains many memorable portraits of Scruton's friends, teachers, inspirations, antagonists "the central teaching of this wise and companionable book is that the acknowledgement of loss is not the end the prelude to the possession of joy" (Sanford Lakoff)
"…Gentle Regrets, Scruton’s wistful, magnanimous, and ineluctably intelligent memoir."- National Review, March 27, 2006
(Sanford Lakoff)'Gentle Regrets, his memoir, is far more than a collection of fertile ideas: it's the colourful story of a learned man's life and the argued attempt to help other reclaim treasures of mind and soul that are being relegated to the discard bin....Scruton has produced a minor classic, a searching treatment of his own spirit in conflict with the spirit of age.' (Sanford Lakoff) “…a penetrating self-examination that is oftenremorseless and poignant, while presenting what may be the finest contemporaryexample of one man’s resistance to 'personal and social disorders of this age.”- Philosophy Now
About the Author Professor Roger Scruton is visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall Oxford and visiting Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews. His other books include Sexual Desire, The West and the Rest, England: An Elegy, News from Somewhere, Gentle Regrets and I Drink Therefore I Am (all published by Continuum).
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63 of 63 people found the following review helpful. A stimulating traditionalist By Ralph Blumenau One has to be awed by the range of cultural references in this book of autobiographical essays. Coming from a home which was not interested in books, the young Scruton was captivated by Bunyan at the age of 13. At 15 he was into Rilke and Dante. At 16, he and a group of sixth form friends `declared war on kitsch'. By the time he was a Cambridge undergraduate, inspired by T.S.Eliot, he was into Culture in a big way: he and his friends there were `consciously aiming to better themselves', and were establishing hierarchies among works which were not kitsch: the superiority of Mozart over Vivaldi, Milton over Carew, Titian over Veronese, and - Paul McCartney over Mick Jagger. They were elitists, and as such rebels against left wing rebels who were then fashionable. And an individualistic conservative he remained for the rest of his life.As a 24 year old he was in Paris, and witnessed the events of 1968. He was an admirer of De Gaulle because the General defined the French nation in terms of its high culture, and he detested Foucault, one the gurus of the students, for his shallow relativism and for teaching that `truth' requires inverted commas.So he was a defiant fish out of water as a lecturer at Birkbeck College at a time when academia in Britain (unlike in the United States) considered conservatism as an aberration, and when, to find an English conservative philosopher, he had to go back to Edmund Burke. In 1978 Scruton sought a parliamentary seat; but his Burkean philosophy was so unfashionable that he was not selected, and `I ceased to be an intellectual Conservative, and became a conservative intellectual instead'. The chapter called `How I Became a Conservative' is a splendidly vigorous presentation and illustration of his beliefs.For me the finest chapter in the book is the Burkean one on architecture, in which Scruton lambasts modern architecture for its contempt of tradition and for the people on whom it inflicts its soulless and anti-communal monstrosities. Scruton was once Professor of Aesthetics; aestheticism lies at the heart of his conservatism and nowhere does it find more eloquent expression than in this chapter. His hatred of what modern architects have perpetrated was shared by his father, an activist in this respect and whom elsewhere in the book he frequently describes as a foul-tempered tyrant, but who here is given generous filial praise.Conservatives are sceptical of schemes to make the world a better place: and in religion, too, Scruton is attracted by people who believe that `the duty of a Christian is not to leave this world a better place. His duty is to leave this world a better man.' In one chapter he describes two such Christians - both Roman Catholics - who have been very important to him: here we have an aim of self-improvement which is the spiritual equivalent of the aim he has pursued in the cultural realm. The last chapter (which I found went way over the top in its sweeping claims of the damage done by the lack of religious faith) goes beyond that: it is a sermon on the need for our society and for individuals to recover faith: to bring us together again as a community, to understand suffering as sacrifice, to teach us that we have obligations to the generations who have preceded and who will follow us, to preserve us from the impiety of scientists being allowed to tamper with God's creation, both human and environmental.There is a chapter on what music in general and opera in particular has mean to the author, in which he conveys his hatred for modern productions that interpose the producer's `message' between the music and the audience.There is a remarkable chapter called `Living with Sam', the name first of a pet dog, then of a hunter (Scruton is devoted to hunting) and then of Scruton's son. In that chapter he mingles beautiful descriptions with philosophical thoughts about the relationship between humans and animals, about the soul, about personhood and the nature of parenthood, about marriage (which should be a vow and not a contract), and about television (than which `in the armoury of nothingness there is no weapon more lethal').The rest of the book strikes me as bits and pieces to pad out the volume, without obvious connections to its main theme. There is a chapter on the resonance of names (Scruton's own included); an evocative one on the contrast between Prague and Warsaw in communist and in post communist times (during the former period Scruton did some underground lecturing there). Another chapter reproduces his diary of a six day visit to Finland as a lecturer, fairly relentless and quite funny in its mockery of the lugubrious Finns and their soulless modern buildings. There are diary entries about his friend Iris Murdoch, and about a visit to Soweto in 1983.The book evoked varying reactions from me. Sometimes I found its tone smug and precious; I enjoyed him when he argues, less so when he asserts. His style varies from the limpid, poetic and beautiful to passages which are too dense to be any of these. He does not suffer fools gladly - robustly and joyously including among them many whom others regard as sages. I think that, like many combative conservatives, he relishes his unpopularity. I was always struck by his fundamental seriousness: it seems to me that almost every aspect of daily life evokes from him philosophical ruminations and associations. Not an easy companion, I would guess; but surely a stimulating one.
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful. Perfect Title By McLaren F1 Gentle Regrets seems to be the perfect title for this work. Especially strong are his writings regarding religion and the Catholic Church, ironic since he is not Catholic. It is also evident that he has suffered through the years from the liberal establishment that holds university life in a vice, refusing to even hear, let alone consider, reasoned dissent. His writing is as strong as his philosophical thoughts.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful. A brilliant Thinker By An enthusiast reader Well, as we all know, Scruton has a very agile intellect, being a dissident in what used to be a very open-minded British society. The trajectory of his life seems to me quite unique.Scruton has challenged the establishment with the power of his conservative ideas AND ideals - and the Brits went on with their bizzare socialist contrivances. Perhaps it would be too much to compare Scruton to Solzhenitsyn, but there is something brave, noble and extraordinary about this solitary knight. He reminds one of Jan Patocka, as well, the brave anti-Communist Czech philosopher who saw his calling to be something far greater than the petty academic achievements... No wonder why Scruton is so well appreciated by the Eastern European public!I only wish he could delve more deeply into the early Christian tradition, for which he certainly shows a lot of respect.
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