Roger Scruton: A konzervativizmus [Conservatism]. Mathias Corvinus Collegium Press, Budapest, 2023, 185 p.
I initially picked up Roger Scruton’s (1944–2020) social philosophy book titled Conservativism to better understand terms such as conservatism, liberalism, neoconservatism, socialism, and cancel culture and others often inconsistently used in the media. I was not disappointed. After I believe two afternoons of reading Scruton, I have a clearer grasp of the historical roots and modern meanings of these ideas.
What I did not expect was that Roger Scruton’s book could also be read from the perspective of education as an institution. Specifically, “Conservatism” helped me think through many of the uncertainties facing today’s public education system—why these uncertainties exist—and, perhaps, point to potential solutions. More concretely, while Scruton in this book (originally published in 2017 under the title Conservatism: Ideas in Profile) traces the historical development of conservatism as a unified intellectual, political, and cultural movement, much of his analysis can also be seen as addressing the ultimate purpose and goal of education. According to Scruton’s interpretation, conservatism offers a framework for raising well-mannered, tradition-respecting, yet free-thinking young adults.
Of course, this is not something Roger Scruton explicitly states; rather, this is what I, as a reader of his book, think, having felt for years that the school system is in crisis. Today, schools are equipped with everything that seems to represent modernity—computers, smartphones, and so on—but one key element has disappeared: ethos, the spirit of meaningful learning. Among all subjects, history education, in my view, is in the deepest crisis. It has lost the guiding principle of why we teach and learn history in the first place.
For me, Roger Scruton provides answers to these major uncertainties through his reflections on conservative thought. Those who study history are young adults who want to feel secure, to feel at home in the world. They have personal desires but also want to belong to communities. They are ready to overcome obstacles, ready to compete, while also following the rules—qualities that fit Roger Scruton’s interpretation of conservativism.
Roger Scruton touches on education in several places. For example, he discusses the British school system, which he believes faces the thankless task of trying to integrate children from various sociocultural backgrounds according to an imagined order, an order that many of the students’ parents deeply resent (p. 157). However, education is not the central theme of Scruton’s book; instead, he returns to topics such as the “illusion of choice” in an increasingly shallow mass democracy (following Hegel, p. 69), the nature of socialist-communist political regimes (p. 70), and the culture of liberal guilt—precisely the topics that initially drew me to this book. Beyond these, Scruton also delves into contemporary phenomena, including the rampant culture of equality and the implications of big data for conservative economics (p. 117).
As the reviewer explores Roger Scruton’s views on conservatism and finds valuable insights into what makes a good school, they cannot help but wonder: are there any functioning customs and traditions in Hungarian schools in Slovakia that could guide school communities toward a Scruton-style conservatism?
Scruton’s three most prominent ideas (i.e., his critique of the Enlightenment, his doubts about the omnipotent state, and his conservative interpretation of freedom) shape the framework for this question. His book provides historical context for how these three pillars form the foundation of contemporary conservatism. In his critique of the Enlightenment, Scruton draws on David Hume’s moral philosophy, which suggests that the associations of free individuals are not based on reason but on feelings of sympathy and belonging (p. 42). However, why is a centralized state problematic? Alexis de Tocqueville, for instance, argued that centralization erases class distinctions, dismantles social hierarchies, and weakens regional and local attachments (p. 80). In today’s highly centralized state-run schools, the issue with the central state—an impersonal and unaccountable machinery (p. 70)—is that overregulation stifles the creativity and initiative of both teachers and students. Unlike liberalism, conservatism imposes necessary limits on freedom to allow a community, such as a school, to function in an organized and purposeful way (p. 43). However, these limits should be set by the community itself, not by distant bureaucrats. This aligns with the conservative belief that individual freedom arises from political order (p. 33).
Scruton delves deeply into cultural conservatism (pp. 85–110), which could be seen as the ideal measure for a traditional, value-preserving school. He examines the conservatism of thinkers like Michael Oakeshott, an intellectual pioneer of modern history education, and explores how conservatism leans toward transcendence (e.g., William F. Buckley) as opposed to Marxist secularization. Scruton also openly addresses conservatism’s antidemocratic tendencies, referencing the works of Kenneth Minogue. In fact, conservative political philosophy rejects the notion of absolute equality, emphasizing the natural differences between individuals and states.
Through Roger Scruton’s work, I understood how closely aligned Catholic universalism, classical liberalism, and the conservatism that emerged from it once were, especially when the focus was on human freedom: the noble ideal. As Wilhelm E. von Ketteler wrote in 1875: “The true enemy of personal freedom is absolutism—the belief in a state with absolute and unlimited power. Since only God is absolute, absolutism also leads to the deification of the state. Wherever this idea takes root, there is no room for individual rights and freedoms; the very concept of personal freedom disappears.”
Barnabás Vajda