The gulf between Scruton’s thought and the level of our politics can be depressing. In a political form that is rapidly degenerating into a mass democracy, decent citizens who embark on a political project often unwittingly adopt the political anthropology of dictators. To motivate the masses, they exaggerate threats, corrupt their research, and demonize their critics. They invent odious and insular vocabularies, and ever-changing codes of manners to make the ideas of their critics “not just obsolete but also, in some way, inexpressible.” All for the greater good, of course.
Just as Scruton identified the missing element of socialism as one of gratitude, so it is the missing element in much that trades under the label of conservatism. It is gratitude that helps us view property not only as an asset to be mined but as a trusteeship, with duties to the dead and the unborn attached. Scruton spends much of his work offering little hints on how the existing passions and sentiments found in common people can be harnessed toward sound environmental policies and projects that will ameliorate the effects of capitalism, hasten integration of diverse people into liberal societies, and arrest the breakdown of family life.
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