Roger Scruton on Trump and Conservatism

Scruton is always worth considering, although I have a few thoughts that run counter to some of his points here.
When describing the history of an idea, one naturally looks for its best expression. A history of liberalism will have a lot to say about John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, somewhat less to say about Hillary Clinton. A survey of the conservative idea will dwell at length on Edmund Burke and Thomas Jefferson and devote only a paragraph or two to Margaret Thatcher.
Fair.
On the other hand, Mrs. Thatcher, and to some extent Mrs. Clinton, are known for invoking the great figures of political philosophy and for showing an educated awareness that “ideas have consequences,” as the American conservative Richard Weaver expressed the point. In Mr. Trump we encounter a politician who uses social media to bypass the realm of ideas entirely, addressing the sentiments of his followers without a filter of educated argument and with only a marginal interest in what anyone with a mind might have said.
"Anyone with a mind" is insulting, which is a minor point, and too strong to be accurate, which is a major one. The fact is that all of the Trump voters have minds, and have thoughts. Their thoughts aren't necessarily shaped by a great deal of education, but they are shaped by experience. I obviously value education highly, but experience is often the better teacher. Education frequently teaches things that aren't true, but that captivate the mind -- Marxism, for example, has been enrapturing to many highly educated people. Experience may beat one down, or it may help one learn how to transcend certain kinds of adversity. It is possible to draw the wrong lessons from experience. But at least the experience itself is real, and thus the lessons are grounded directly on reality.
Americans are conscious of their constitutional rights and freedoms. These assets are not guaranteed by human nature and exist only because Americans have fought for them. And they have fought for them as a nation, facing the future together. National identity is the origin of the trust on which political order depends.
This is a fundamental truth that I wish more people grasped. It is also an illustration of my previous counter-point. This is the heart that drives not only Mr. Trump's political fortunes, but many others across the world. It is a truth that apparently has to be learned by experience, since the intellectual world is largely dead-set on denying it because that world wishes this thing was not true.

So too this:
Those first words of the United States Constitution do not refer to all people everywhere. They refer to the people who reside here, in this place and under this rule of law, and who are the guardians and beneficiaries of a shared political inheritance. Grasping that point is the first principle of conservatism.
So there is much to agree with, but also things to dispute. In addition to his hostility to Trump voters, one might point out to Dr. Scruton that he is quite wrong about this part:
But as Edmund Burke pointed out in one of the founding documents of modern conservatism, his “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” we must “reform in order to conserve.” Institutions, traditions and allegiances survive by adapting, not by remaining forever in the condition in which a political leader might inherit them.
Here he is guilty of underestimating just how much of a reformer Trump has proven to be. Look first at the scale of his regulatory reform program, which has repealed vast swathes of Federal interference with ordinary economic activity, while pursuing the appointment of justices who are suspicious of the legitimacy of the regulatory state's claims to authority over these matters. That alone is a vast change, and while another President can re-institute repealed regulations, the judges are lifetime appointments.

The Times doubtless would not have published a piece that wasn't insulting and dismissive of Trump and his voters. There is much to criticize in the President -- especially in terms of the chaotic leadership he provides, which has made it difficult to draw many talented people, and difficult to retain the talented people he did draw. There are many things he could be doing better, and some things he does that are insulting and wrong.

All that said, there is more to the man -- and his voters -- than even the great Roger Scruton apparently can see from his intellectual height. These may be small men and women, but they are not thereby despicable. They have reasons for what they do, even if they are not polished at understanding them or articulating them clearly. Democracy is finally about respect, and especially the respect owed by the great to the small. Dr. Scruton should remember that this, too, is a conservative principle. It is what grounds a nation in not departing on some grand intellectual scheme, as Marxism does, without checking to see if those whose lives are going to be turned upside down by that scheme really approve of the undertaking.

11 comments:

  1. In Mr. Trump we encounter a politician who uses social media to bypass the realm of ideas entirely, addressing the sentiments of his followers without a filter of educated argument....

    This is the arrogance typical of pressmen. The "filter" to which Scruton is referring is the filter of the press. There's no educated argument there, only the demand to be the gateway of information flow, in Christiane Amanpour's tearful and Howard Kurtz' oblivious phrasing. Trump, for good or ill in his expressions and personalized remarks, is simply carrying Obama's use of social media to a farther degree and using that tool to extend Reagan's "going over the heads of Congress" technique. Bypassing the NLMSM along the way is no bad thing.

    Americans are conscious of their constitutional rights and freedoms. These assets are not guaranteed by human nature and exist only because Americans have fought for them.

    Here, Scruton demonstrates the comfort of his lack of understanding--and his arrogance of that comfort. We have no Constitutional rights or freedoms. We have inalienable rights and freedoms--and the duties implied by those--and these are acknowledged in our social compact documents, of which our Constitution is one. We still are able to enjoy those rights and freedoms (and duties), in the main, because Americans individually and as a natoin have fought for the protection and enforcement of them.

    But as Edmund Burke pointed out in one of the founding documents of modern conservatism....

    Scruton, in his name-dropping, doesn't even understand Burke. Burke, that wonderful "friend" of the colonials, was a damned monarchist--an 18th century conservative, not at all any "modern" one. (Indeed, I have a hard time distinguishing today's liberals from those monarchists.) Burke argued most eloquently in Parliament for the colonists to be allowed to enjoy the same rights as all Englishmen--first and foremost of which was the right to be ruled by a King.

    Since Scruton can't look far enough past his self-importance to understand his subject as well as any grade schooler (at least one of my generation), he shows himself having very little worth the bandwidth he occupies. He's just a highbrow illustration of the untrustworthiness of the NLMSM.

    Eric Hines

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  2. Very disappointed in Scruton.

    "On the other hand, Mrs. Thatcher, and to some extent Mrs. Clinton, are known for invoking the great figures of political philosophy and for showing an educated awareness that “ideas have consequences,” as the American conservative Richard Weaver expressed the point."

    Leaving Thatcher out of it for the moment: Hillary Clinton's "invoking the great figures of political philosophy" was merely genuflecting in the direction she thought she was supposed to genuflect, rather than part of any coherent argument. True as well of Obama.

    Much of educated dialogue these days consists precisely of such genuflection. I am reminded of something written by Andre Beaufre...later a General, but in 1940 a young Captain on the French General Staff. At first he was excited about his new assignment, but:

    "I saw very quickly that our seniors were primarily concerned with forms of drafting. Every memorandum had to be perfect, written in a concise, impersonal style, and conforming to a logical and faultless plan–but so abstract that it had to be read several times before one could find out what it was about…”I have the honour to inform you that I have decided…I envisage…I attach some importance to the fact that…” Actually no one decided more than the barest minimum, and what indeed was decided was pretty trivial."

    And as things fell apart in 1940, Matisse asked Picasso, “But what about our generals, what are they doing?”

    Picasso’s response was “Our generals? They’re the masters at the Ecole des Beaux Arts!”…ie, men possessed by the same rote formulae and absence of observation and obsessive traditionalism as the academic artists.

    ...which response uncannily mirrors Beaufre's on-the-spot observations.

    There is a lot of this kind of Academy thinking of this sort in Western societies today.

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  3. There is increasing support for an idea that originated in orchestra: "blind auditions". When one is seeking a cellist, for example, it should not matter whether the instrument is played by a cute young Asian woman or a fat old Jewish man or a pudgy, sexually-ambiguous, pale-skinned autistic. Similarly photos and even indicative names and addresses are being removed from job applications and resumes, such that Steve and Jamal and Ta'Nisi and Bobbi-Jo all have their credential evaluated on the merits of the documentation rather than the race or sex or victim-status of the groups their names and location might indicate. As the muse of Justice is blind, so too are we encouraged to be in selection of job candidates.

    What if the name, image, and political party of a candidate for office was obscured and journalists reported only on positions, by say code number?

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  4. It's always amusing how the evil conservatives of today become the conservatives of 30 years ago, who, whatever else we may say about them, at least were A, B, or C, not like those terrible conservatives who are in power today. I guess I tend to do the same about liberals. Who would have thought that anyone would look back on Mrs Thatcher and praise her firm grasp of the orthodox products of a decent education, unlike that terrible Mr. Trump. In 30 years, will they wax nostalgic about Trump too?

    I've been interested in blind auditions for a while. In my college days I had a lot of large classes, intro physics and the like, with anonymous exam papers. Our results were posted by student i.d. number. I liked it. Beats affirmative action any day, not to mention partisan confirmation theater.

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  5. It is in fact impossible to bypass ideas. Trump and his supporters may have received their ideas 3rd-hand, and they may not be exactly the ideas that were put forth by the original authors, but they are still ideas.

    First, the "original" writers, the Rousseaus and Jeffersons, did not create their ideas ex nihilo either. They adapted them from others they had read and spoken to.

    Second, while ideas often become degraded by being passed down through other thinkers, they sometimes are improved. They might be simplified, or combined with other ideas as they move out into the general culture.

    Trump absorbed a lot of basic Americanism of two generations ago, and colored it with the experience of real-estate deal making and hanging out with rich people. While that might be an academic philosopher's nightmare, I don't think that's so terrible. It's not the best example of Western Intellectual Thought, but it's way ahead of lots of other stuff that passes for deep thinking these days.

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  6. Trump's early life is interesting. As a boy he attended the church run by Norman Vincent Peale and came to know the Rev. Peale quite well. Peale presided at Trump's marriage to Ivana, and he was a strong influence on Trump.

    As a real estate developer in NYC, Trump regularly dealt with organized crime figures and communists, both of which still control the real estate market in the City. The same figures control Washington.

    I doubt Trump has any definable ideology at this point, but he is a consummate salesman and a realist. He is the most effective public speaker since John Kennedy, whom I am old enough to remember. The contrast between Trump's masterful, largely ad lib, performances and Obama's bumbling is actually painful.

    His political opponents, both Republicans and Democrats, have backgrounds that are gentile if not effete. They are seriously maleducated, brainwashed. They are delusional, and their mental lives are limited to slogans and cant. They were actively destroying the country before Trump arrived on the scene. Trump has visibly slowed the collapse, which is why there is such hysterical opposition to him, such appalling hatred for him and his family. Whether the collapse can be prevented remains to be seen.

    If you are not a Trump supported, you are an enemy of the American people.

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  7. we must “reform in order to conserve.” --Burke

    Scruton misses the definition of "reform" utilized by Burke. Dictionary.com has this:

    verb (used with object)

    to change to a better state, form, etc.; improve by alteration, substitution, abolition, etc.
    to cause (a person) to abandon wrong or evil ways of life or conduct.
    to put an end to (abuses, disorders, etc.).


    The Roman Catholic church typically uses the second definition above when asking for (or implementing) "reform." That is, 'to cause a person (or thing) to abandon wrong or evil....

    I contend that Burke could have been using "reform" with the mind of the Church, since Burke was an Anglican of the 'Catholic' variety--a "high Church" sort of guy.

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  8. "Second, while ideas often become degraded by being passed down through other thinkers, they sometimes are improved. They might be simplified, or combined with other ideas as they move out into the general culture."

    Or sometimes translated into a new dialect so that they can reach a new demographic.

    "Trump absorbed a lot of basic Americanism of two generations ago, and colored it with the experience of real-estate deal making and hanging out with rich people. While that might be an academic philosopher's nightmare, I don't think that's so terrible. It's not the best example of Western Intellectual Thought, but it's way ahead of lots of other stuff that passes for deep thinking these days."

    Ain't that the truth?

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  9. E Hines: being a "monarchist" is not evil per se, any more than monarchy is evil per se.

    Do you think that republican-democracy has succeeded in electing individuals who are--on the whole--better people than kings or queens?

    Pish-posh.

    In America, we can point to damned few Presidents or Congressmen who were sterling examples of statecraft and moral rectitude. Of course, the Europeans can point to damned few Kings and Queens who were sterling examples of statecraft and rectitude, too.

    So it's a draw.

    Arguing that royal families siphoned off moneys for their own accounts is....well....you don't think Harry Reid or Dennis Hastert have what they have by virtue of their salary, do you?

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  10. It's not a draw, because the ability to attract virtuous leaders is not the only factor. As Aristotle argues in the Politics, the other factor is how badly things go when they go wrong. Given that no system reliably produces virtuous leadership, the best system is the one that limits the capacity for harm when it fails to attract virtuous leaders.

    That is the advantage of constitutional systems that widely divide and limit powers over monarchies or aristocracies.

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  11. Well, yes. But assassins are fully-employed in monarchies-gone-bad.

    Point taken!

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