Roger Scruton: Why Intellectuals are Mostly Left

I've I've suffered this all my life that well at least ever since I became a conservative in which was in May 1968 in Paris yeah yeah I didn't know I hadn't a very clear idea of how to articulate it all I knew was that when I looked down the street and saw all these rowdy students throwing stones at policemen I I just said to myself whatever they believe I believe the opposite and then I didn't know what it was and and then it was a sort of lifetime's work to find out what the opposite is

and I somewhat arrogantly came to the conclusion that it's if you start thinking about politics in an intellectual way you are likely to be on the left because that provides a systematic solution an answer to their questions give put it all in a system and and also gives you a rather dignified and self-congratulatory place in the system but once you started thinking if you think a bit harder and longer about it you'll move back to what you would have been if you had never thought at all you know and that's what that's my view is

what an intellectual conservative is he's it's someone who articulates the real reasons for not having reasons say that again someone who articulates the real reasons for not having reasons but just feeling and doing what's right right well I think you know is I think it's Yates Yates has a wonderful poem Easter 1916 and and in there he has the lettuce market the great that had such burdens on the mind and toiled so hard and they to leave some monument behind he wrote that when he witnessed some Irish revolutionaries destroy a beautiful house of a very

wealthy landed English Anglo Irish person and in a lot of ways that poem articulates that idea that it's very easy to destroy and tear down it and and one of the I think one of the things that's so tempting for many people because the world is so troubling to so many people and and so many people suffer in this world and and a lot of what the the liberal left tends to to rely on is is that sense of indignation that a lot of idealistic people feel because there are things that are deeply wrong with

the world but then when we look historically at how when these people have gotten into power whether they're I mean people tend to forget that the the Nazis were actually they were quite bohemian in a lot of ways they they had a lot of leftist politics certainly their economics was was tend to be collectivist and and and they were National Socialists as opposed to being internationalist but when they when they get into power they they tend to really really tear things down and don't give us yeah well I I think there's an explanation of this

it's some what Hegel calls the labor of the negative right that the the initial instinct on the left is that negative instinct things are wrong and it must they must be rectified they can only be rectified however by the seizure of power and so we're going to seize power in order to rectify them but once you've got the power the negative is still there in your heart because it's driven you all along you know that's the thing that has inspired you so you set about destroying things at punishing people you in declined classes who are

to blame you know the Jews the bourgeoisie whoever it might be and you don't get out of that negative structure and I feel that's what I felt very strongly in 1968 you know that okay of course there are things that are wrong in France but there are also things that are beautiful and right and you've got to go through this and come back and rescue those things which is much more important than destroying a few obstacles along the way Blake has interesting the he says the hand of vengeance found the bed to which the purple

fled the iron hand crushed the head and came a tyrant in its stead and that tends to be a pattern that we see again and again that when if you have for instance in Iran's a good example of that I mean Civ aquas was one of the major reasons for the revolution itself because the heavy handedness of the Shah is his secret police which he probably had no idea they very often live in these silos and bubbles yeah but they've got you know the secret police the apparatus all comes back yeah and and the disappearing

the people that disappear all disappear again so I mean this is part of the problem but again it's still this fundamental problem for instance I mean one of the things that that you talk about in in fools frauds and firebrands is is the idea of power being the way in which everything is articulated that the critique is about power I mean Foucault is a good example of you're out of somebody who just saw everything in terms of power but there's there's definitely truth embodied in that and I think that's why it's so seductive for so

many people I mean we have to deal with with the fact that so many people are seduced by this because they experience especially marginalized and disenfranchised people yes that is true but of course in the intellectual world it's extremely corrupting to see things in this Foucault daeun way you know you instead of asking the question is what our hams are saying true I ask the question you know what power is advancing behind that you know you then disappear from the picture and also what you've said disappears from the picture I'm not no longer engaging with

you I to thou at all right because without the concept of truth there is no real engagement between people all I am seeing is the power that's speaking through you and that of course you can look at the whole of culture in that way which is essentially what the postmodern curriculum is taking one writer one philosopher one musician after another and just talking about you know my Susan McCleary on Beethoven that this is fantasies of rape speaking through this music you know it's extremely boring after works it's totally panicking it's uh plans I mean I

want more things I say about critical theorists I you know that if it was a lens that it might be useful sometimes to just peer through that lens but but it's a corneal transplant okay you know and yeah it becomes the only way yeah and I've seen one of the things that I've seen with students in my own teaching experience is you know I've had critical theorists in my classes and whenever they raise their hand I could almost verbatim tell them what they're going to say it's the response that they're going to give to whatever

was said yes and and well then we need to understand why it is so seductive that's my point it troubles me how seductive it's been and it also I grapple in my own self with the amount of genuine injustice in the world you know that takes place on a daily basis and I mean for instance you know their attacks on capitalism to me the corporate world today is so powerful to use a favorite term in that in that world is hegemonic you know this idea where monoculture becomes becomes so imperious and we we've seen so

many I mean I'll give you an example when I was young one of the treats in Mike's way is to go to a bookstore bookstores have pretty much been wiped out in the United States because of these corporations so small bookstores are not able to survive so now you have you you had borders but then borders goes bankrupt hmm and and then now we've got we're left with Barnes and Noble and and and so if you go in who's picking those books who's actually choosing what books like if you go for instance to to the

teen section it's almost all about vampires and really weird occulting and stuff it's not like you know the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew mysteries it's it's very corrosive ideas we slightly changed the topic now we're not really talking about this postmodern obsession with power right we are we're talking about well changing the structure of life right and but for me a lot of I mean I'll give you an example Herbert Marku say who I'm not a fan of button by any stretch but when when I read some of his works I was struck by real

insights about things that were very troubling about American culture one dimensional man this idea of a consumer and and life as consumption and and and losing me I mean his solutions is a whole other problem but and this is something I think that's very seductive is that the the critical aspect of of Marxism and Neel Marxism has always been it's always had a resonance and a lot of people there's something very very powerful about it when you when you get to solutions and how we deal with these things we're in another realm but if I

think if conservatives don't really address the the real serious critiques that are there about the status quo yeah I think you're right they have they have perhaps neglected those critiques but you know as I saying earlier the purely negative approach to the status quo is simply going to perpetuate this negativity and has done you if you're not the typical conservative in my reading of events is someone who looks around himself and he finds things that he loves you know anything's when those things are threatened they're vulnerable I've got to protect right and it's not often

that you find on the left somebody who looks around and finds things that he loves it's um it's always something that's gone wrong something that is even hateful and you've got to mobilize against it if you've lost any sense that actually the world is lovable and that there are things therefore to be rescued in it you have actually lost the sense of why there is such a thing as a community in the first place and that I think is one of the things that I felt very strongly throughout my life that that there really are

wonderful things that we've inherited all Americans however whatever position in society they are are still heirs to something rather remarkable you know a rule of law which has goes on perpetuating itself from generation to generation if they if only people knew how rare that was they would see that they've gotta fight to preserve it you know and the same with so many other institutions that we yeah I couldn't agree with you more