With partial reference to the extreme opinions thread, Roger Scruton, who I often had little to agree with, has died. It was always interesting to hear him on R4.

And a quote:

“But that is what life is about. It is about trying to get across a point, reaching for the words and not necessarily finding the right ones. But it is only in the whole context that you can actually know what somebody means.”

His positions were always deeper than communicated by the media and required thought. That’s what used to get him into trouble. The country needs thinkers.

Yeah on the surface I couldn’t find anything in common or agreeable about him, but I’ve actually been trying to read some of his work recently.

It is very sad that years of work, carefully documented gets reduced to one soundbite that gets a guy twitter mobbed to death. You might disagree with his conclusions but be sure he got there by a careful process.

We’d all do well to read things we disagree with and reflect on what if they’re right?

Vile man. Racist and white supremacist
We do not need people like him
It was not just one tweet. It’s a lifetime of racism

Absolutely dreadful comment TJ. We really do need people like him, even if his views diverge from our own. If nothing else, it forces other philosophers presenting a counter argument to sharpen their game.

Your logic is essentially that “Man says things I find uncomfortable” and “Uncomfortable things are bad” therefore “Man should not be able to say such things”.

That’s as depressingly illiberal as it comes. If anyone can reanimate the corpse of David Hume he’d skip across Edinburgh and hoof you in the bits for your assault on free thought.

NOpe

He was in favour of eugenics, a homophobe, an outright racist, a islamophobe and an antisemite and a thoroughly vile man.

You can be right wing all you want and have challenging views but anyone in favour of eugenics and who is an outright racist should be shunned by all.

Do you think Yaxley Lennon is someone to listen to? Scruton gave intellectual cover to people like him. Scruton is Yaxley lennon with a better education

some views are so vile they should be shunned and we should not be afraid to call them out.

His views do not make me feel uncomfortable. They enrage me. I cannot stand bigots and that is what he is dressed up in a thin veneer of intellectualism. Disgusting

Which of his books did you find most disagreeable and why?

His views do not make me feel uncomfortable. They enrage me. I cannot stand bigots and that is what he is dressed up in a thin veneer of intellectualism. Disgusting

Bigoted man hates bigots. Congratulations, you won Irony today.

Scruton, although possibly a fanny, shouldn’t be in the same breath as EDL man.

How is it “illiberal” to call out racism for what it is?

“all it takes for evil to flourish is for good folk to do nothing”

Shilling for big tobacco unforgiveable IMHO. I mean I get that philosophers need to eat, and a man shouldn’t talk about another man’s game – but there are limits. Perhaps he did serious work when he was younger, but that shows a cynical-minded man no longer interested in getting at the truth and just looking to cash out.

He was as racist as Yaxley lennon is. He and people like him provide the intellectual cover for people like Yaxley Lennon

don’t be fooled by the veneer of intellectualism.

Normally I would stand by the ‘it takes all sorts to make a society’ arguments, but the proto-fascist populist right is stomping all over this country, so **** Roger Scruton and his supporters. It’s time to aggressively take back our land from these people or we’ll be **** ourselves.

He warned against jewish conspiracies, invasions of muslim tribes, he thought homosexuality abohorrent, in favour of eugenics.
He said only white people could be british

Blatant anti Semite, racist, homophobe.

Can’t say I’ll miss him.

An educated man does not guarantee a good man

His positions were always deeper than communicated by the media and required thought. That’s what used to get him into trouble. The country needs thinkers.

I heard him defending himself on some controversy recently and it was hard to tell whether his comments had been misinterpreted by the media or whether he just had a very clever post hoc explanation for them.

Just done some reading up on him. Some of what he came out with was unpleasant and nasty, and could be used by bigots and racists to justify their. Some of what he was accused of saying was selective quoting, especially around some of the anti-Semitic remarks around Hungary. And some of what he said he changed his view over time, as you’d expect from a philosopher.

A complicated man, clearly a clever one.

How is it “illiberal” to call out racism for what it is?
“all it takes for evil to flourish is for good folk to do nothing”

There’s nothing wrong with calling out racism, but it would be better if you would take the time to identify the flaws in Scrutons argument that you think are racist.

What you’re actually doing is cherry picking a few second or third hand accounts of pieces of his work, deciding that they are racist by whatever yardstick you’re using. The scary bit, and this is the bit I really encourage you to reflect on, is that you are using your biased and poor understanding of his work to say he should be “shunned” and his views are “disgusting”. You are saying he is vile (dehumanising).

The Cambridge dictionary defines “bigot” as:

a person who has strong, unreasonable beliefs and who does not like other people who have different beliefs or a different way of life

Your views are clearly strong, they’re unreasonable because they’re logically flawed and based on no realy analysis and you are clearly using those beliefs to express a dislike of someone with a different belief.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that if a person spends most of their life writing down all their thoughts and publishing some of those thoughts will be odd or bonkers. In fact, as with ,any philosophers, he may have no longer agreed with some of what he wrote in his 20s or 30s. None the less, it presents a great opportunity for vultures to pick over 50+ years of work and find bits to whip up a twitter mob. You know that mad thought you had about X, Y or Z but never told anyone? People like Scruton, a fanny as he may be, had to the courage to publish those so that others could refute them.

People like Scruton, a fanny as he may be, had to the courage to publish those so that others could refute them.

By that logic you could incite hatred, be as abusive & offensive as you like because it’s all fine, you’re just giving others the opportunity to refute you.

I’m not sure that makes much sense, it also breaks the golden rule of ‘dont be a dick’

Pretty sure you can trawl through 16 years of my posts on here and find some ill informed views I no longer hold.

Dismissing everything someone has said or done and insulting them on the basis of some of their work is blinkered and counter productive. But that’s the black and white world we now live in, no room for shades of grey

Kimbers I don’t recall RS ever being prosecuted for inciting hatred, which is actually a crime, so I’m going to call a strawman fallacy there.

The logic for allowing dissenting and extreme opinions is that what is dissenting and extreme is ever shifting. What you’re advocating is putting large areas of belief beyond question. You can’t prohibit RS and still expect the next Mary Wollstonecraft or David Hume to be allowed to give us all a kick up the arse in the right direction.

Dismissing everything someone has said or done and insulting them on the basis of some of their work is blinkered and counter productive. But that’s the black and white world we now live in, no room for shades of grey

This x1000. “Uncertainty is uncomfortable – certainty is absurd” – Voltaire. We have lots of very certain people these days.

The fundamental difference between Yaxley Lennon and Scruton was that the first thinks no deeper than Twitter, whilst the second wrote 50 books to explain his positions. People are only happy to engage with the first means of communication. Like I said, I’m no conservative and didn’t agree with a many of his positions, but I’d never say he hadn’t thought them through.

He agreed with fox hunting, for example. Where he met his wife of 35 years junior, which surprised him greatly, and subsequently had two children.

I’m not disagreeing that the world is shades of grey, but he must be aware as anyone that what he says will get reduced to black & white

His friendship with & support of Orban is a good example, he agrees that Hungary was suddenly being invaded by huge tribes of Muslims from the middle east , which, in the case of Hungary, wasn’t true. But the fear of that has been used very well by Orban.

And he may not have been prosecuted for it but could easily be used to incite hatred.

His lending credence to Orban more worrying than the Yaxley Lennon

I also didn’t dismiss his life’s work, I was disagreeing with you saying that it was good he said offensive stuff .

I’m sure many 70s books on homosexuality seem bigoted now, whilst at the time may have seemed quite liberal !

OK so people should restrict their thoughts in case someone might, in the future, use it to justify something bad?

In that case the Romans were right to do in Jesus, look at what the Spanish Inquisition got up to. We may also want to dig up and drag Edmund Burke through the streets, because his work greatly influenced RS.

If you’re now going to drag his activities in Central Europe into it, he did actually put his arse on the line by going to these places during the cold war and undertaking subversive activities. While Victor Orban now seems to be going in a weird direction, you’re using that to attack RS when he had a long and complex involvement in that region.

you’re using that to attack RS when he had a long and complex involvement in that region.

yes I will attack his friendship & continued support of Orban, Im not sure why you wont let me?

It has helped legitimise Orban & Fidesz amongst some very influential parts of the right in this country

Its no surprise to see Scruton’s biggest fanboy & now advisor to The government toadying up to Orban

https://www.ft.com/content/dd01e0b2-30d5-11ea-a329-0bcf87a328f2

tomd

to defend this vile mans outright bigotry, racism, antisemitism paints you in a very poor light

To call me a bigot for calling him out for his racist views shows you do not understand what bigotry is

There is no room for shades of grey on this. a racist bigot is a racist bigot. Scruton is a racist bigot. there is no place in civilized society for racist bigots. Its a binary thing – you are either racist or you are not and over his career Scruton has shown he is a racist. Many times. He is even racist about british citizens who are of BAME descent

He provides fake intellectually cover for bigotry and the result is people like Yaxley Lennon. He and his pseudo intellectualizing is one of the root causes of racism

Remeber Scruton supports eugenics, thinks only white people can br british, called refugees from the middle est ” an invasion of Muslim tribes” called Soros part of a jewish conspiracy

If i were you I would invoke Hatterslys law – when in a hole stop digging

BTW – calling out a racist for being racist is not an “unreasonable belief” racism is the unreasonable belief

To call me a bigot for calling him out for his racist views

You haven’t “called him out on his views” though, you’ve just called him a racist without subjecting anything he’s said to any sort of scrutiny at all.

His public positions show his racism. He has:

Stated only white people can be british
That middle eastern refugees are ” an invasion of muslim tribes”
That homosexuality is wrong
That there is a jewish conspiracy around Soros

The statements he makes are very clear. the are outright and overt bigotry NO further analysis needed. Its simple plain bigotry and racism

Now i will answer no further because I will be testing the patience of the mods

Where have I defended his bigotory or racism? I’m defending his right to hold beliefs which I find difficult or challenging.

Your logic is that that certain beliefs are forbidden (but can’t explain what those are beyond shouting “racist”), and that people who hold “forbidden” views should be trampled.

That makes you a bigot, by the clear definition of the word.

Back in the day, philosophers like Montaigne and Rousseau started to craft reasoned arguments about why slavery and racism were wrong. At the time these were radical ideas, genuinely shocking. However thankfully they were allowed to hold those beliefs. More importantly they were able to do this because others were presenting rascist ideas for them to attack. A lot of RSs work probably won’t stand the test of time, it has already been ripped to shreds or will be ripped to shreds. We need people to challenge our beliefs to weed out the bad ones and refine any lazy ones.

Relying on the depth and commitment made to his work does not excuse Scruton from being a racist, a proponent of eugenics or a homophobe.

I can’t quite believe you are trying to say that TJ is a bigot for objecting to prejudice.

Difficult and challenging – there is nothing difficult and challenging about being an overt racist

Nowhere have I said hi is forbidden to say or think these things. Just that he needs to be called out on it

And yes – you are defending him by stating his abhorrent views are merely difficult and challenging. ~they are wrong. What you are doing is the classic defense of the racist. You probably do not know but I have been involved in the fight against racism since the 70s and I know what damage peoploe like him holding such overt racist views cause to society. You are defending his making racist statements by minimising them as “difficult and challenging”

Its wrong to be a racist.

with that I really must drop this thread

Thank you jamj

Never heard of him before this thread. Having read some of his prejudiced drivel I’m happy to know that he won’t be producing anymore. Of the little I’ve read this amused me:

To oppose homosexual adoption is not to believe that homosexuals should have no dealings with children. From Plato to Britten, homosexuals have distinguished themselves as teachers, often sublimating their erotic feelings as those two great men did, through nurturing the minds and souls of the young. But it was Plato who, in The Laws, pointed out that homosexuals, like heterosexuals, must learn the way of sacrifice, that it is not present desires that should govern them, but the long-term interests of the community. And it is surely not implausible to think that those long-term interests are more likely to be protected by religion than by the political ideologies that govern the Labour Party.

Cheap shot at the Labour party and bigging up religion in a article opposing homosexuals being parents. Dick.

TJ and RS being bigots are not mutually exclusive.

Relying on the depth and commitment made to his work does not excuse Scruton from being a racist, a proponent of eugenics or a homophobe.

This. And a right to free speech does not preclude us from arguing back.