On 11th February 2020, the Research Institute of Politics and Government held a roundtable at the Ludovika campus to commemorate one of the leading conservative philosophers of the 21st century, the late Sir Roger Scruton.
Ferenc Hörcher, director of RIPG and the host of the evening greeted participants and stressed the importance of recalling the philosophical thinking of Scruton in this English-language discussion. Bernát Török, director of the József Eötvös Research Centre spoke about the importance of this occasion in the life of JERC, where students, colleagues and friends of Sir Roger were to talk about his personality and his work. According to him, the legacy of Scruton is an important compass, that shows us, how we can find our home in this ever-changing world, and what are those values that need to be conserved by the rising new generations.
After the introductory thoughts by Dr. Török, Ferenc Hörcher explained the schedule of the evening. Participants of the first part, Zsolt Németh, president of the Committee of Foreign Affairs of the Hungarian Parliament, and Marek Matraszek, a Polish friend and disciple of Scruton were to talk about Scruton’s relationship to Central Europe. In the second part, Attila Károly Molnár, head of the Thomas Molnár Institute and Zoltán Balázs, professor of Corvinus University discussed Scruton’s relationship to politics and culture. Before the start of the opening panel, a short excerpt was shown to the public from a recorded discussion between Scruton and Islamic scholar Hamza Yusuf about the real meaning of conservatism, which is often regarded as more of an economic than a moral conception, and whether conservatism could be considered alive. The English philosopher’s answer was that ordinary people have a conservative attitude, but they don’t articulate it, and in a world dominated by the language of economics, things that really matter are endangered. Institutions that provide the spiritual and moral health of the community need to be protected. In this discussion, he also talked about how he had become a conservative in May 1968, after seeing the actions of rowdy students. According to his bonmot, the philosopher’s real task is to articulate the real reasons for not having reasons, just feeling and doing what’s right.
Zsolt Németh expressed his hope that this groundbreaking event would be followed by many similar ones. He talked about Scruton’s importance in protecting the European notions of family, nation and politics. Mr. Németh didn’t agree with the philosopher’s views on Brexit, and thought it was somehow symbolic, that Sir Roger himself, who didn’t want Britain to stay in the European Union, exited just a few days before Britain left the EU. According to Németh, British people had the souvereign right to decide this way, to choose this way of conserving their home and their nation, even if it would make them ridiculous in the eyes of the whole world. He said that the real issue about Brexit was not about money or migration, but finding our common home, like Tamási’s Ábel. Németh also expressed his thoughts on how millions owed a gratitude to Scruton for making them aware of how fragile our home is in this present world where identity has become an important issue. According to Németh, Scruton was „a rebel against rebellion” in 1968, who went against liberal mainstream. He also created us a home, consolidated the foundations of our home in a community of nations. He made it possible to maintain it for future generations, like a kind of a modern-day Burke. He was the contradiction of the false picture of conservatives, he stayed juvenile, he was a role model of the free man, a rebel, but not an anarchist.
On his relation to Central Europe and Hungary, Németh recalled meeting him in 1989 in Oxford. Scruton had pragmatic political and intellectual support programs for Central Europe. He visited Central Europe before 1989, held underground lectures in Prague, he was expelled from Czechoslovakia by the authorities in 1985. He was one of the few foreign opposition-supporters, who were strongly critical of liberalism. His excentric personality, strong English identity and his endeavour to prevent the collapse of Europe resulted in a very painful passion since the Easter of 2019, the political crusade against him and the physical pain he had to go through helped him understand much better the sacrifice of Christ. He found a home in a countryside Anglican Church where he took a job as an organist.
The next speaker, Marek Matraszek, an old time friend of Sir Roger, tried to find an answer to the question, why Scruton had found such an interest in Central Europe. He traced it back to how Sir Roger understood the world, the duty of an individual and conservatism, touching very fundamental aspects like human identity and freedom. The intellectual atmosphere of the UK in the 1970s and 1980s was characterized by the 1968 generation’s first influx into higher education. In the meantime, Scruton decided to come together with 5-10 other academics in London to establish charities, foundations to give support to independent academics, intellectuals in Central Europe. It was not a political, but an intellectual support. From Czechoslovakia to Romania, they provided financial assistance and support to samisdat publishing. A whole network had been organized in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary, that supported seminars and underground universities of philosophy and politics. Scruton was an activist in the sense that he loved getting involved in conflicts with the police, and was a dedicated activist.
Matraszek recalled his first meeting with Sir Roger in late 1984 at the Catholic University of Lublin, in communist Poland, when he heard that an English Philosopher would be talking about Wittgenstein. Scruton rejected the way communism instrumentalized human relationships. That is why he respected the writings of Karol Wojtyla, who later became Pope John Paul II about the essence of dignity of a human being in interpersonal relationships. In his view, communism destroyed the trust between people. And lastly, he opposed the way communism destroyed the conditions of freedom. Scruton was aware of the paradox, that in Central Europe, the suppressed traditional values were not only preserved, but were stronger than in the West. Scruton frequently said that the West would need to take the message of preserving pre-political common identity, beauty of the public sphere, traditions and values of previous generations. He believed in Central European politics, and considered the region to be a great beacon of hope. He receive the highest awards from the governments of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary as an expression of sympathy towards him from the peoples of Central Europe.
As a closing question to end the first part, Ferenc Hörcher asked Németh how Scruton's relationship with FIDESZ changed over time, as the current governing party of Hungary was not a conservative party when it was founded in 1988. In his reaction, Zsolt Németh stressed, that in the Hungary of 1988-89, the opposition wasn't structured and stratified. Viktor Orbán, József Szájer and Zsolt Németh himself, had already known Scruton from the time, when they were Soros-students in Oxford in the mid-1980s. They all had the same goals back then: to bring down communism and "reunite" Hungary with the West. Marek Matraszek stressed that as a philosopher, Scruton had a common intellectual bond with Vaclav Havel, a liberal writer who later became president of the Czech Republic, through the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and Jan Patočka. In England, he was hated by the left as an academic, mainly for his work Thinkers of the New Left, in which he had revealed the vicious nature of the intellectual falsity of the British intellectual left. He also had a completely different view on the role of universities as well. As a result of this conflict, Scruton was expelled from British universities.
According to Ferenc Hörcher, these thoughts led to the relation of culture and conservatism, and to the question whether politics should get involved in culture or not? The first speaker of the second panel was Zoltán Balázs, who explained, that no culture is possible without politics and vice versa. A conservative should always play by and respect the rules. It is the role of the cultural elite to remain open to discussions on taste, on aesthetic values. There are some worrying signs, but generally speaking culture can defend itself, if politics does not enter its realms. Taste itself can be harmed and corrupted, but not destroyed, the values of beauty and taste remain alive.
Attila Károly Molnár referred to Sir Roger's hope of finding something called everyday culture in the customs of this region. In the West, 1968-ers have turned away from traditional European culture, but in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland, communists still preserved European culture and made it available to the masses. The New Left however want to demolish the entire European culture, and this trend has only arrived in Hungary in the last 10 years. Culture is absolutely crucial to everyday life, that is why there is a strong need for politics to defend it.
In the discussion following the panel, further interesting topics and questions had been raised, like the issue of what is worth conserving, the political importance of high culture in conserving a lifestyle and social relations, Scruton's take on traditional marriage, the impact of his conservatism, the philosophical context of his oeuvre, his views on human nature and its limits, and how Sir Roger understood religion. He proposed the following epigraph for his own tombstone in the little Anglican church he used to play the organ in the church service: "Here lies the organist of the church, the last Englishman". As for his religious belief, he publically stated, that he had not been given the grace of faith, but he inferred to transcendental reality through cultural experience.
In his closing remarks, Ferenc Hörcher expressed his view that even if there was no chance of a complete agreement on the interpretation and evaluation of Sir Roger Scruton's ideas and phenomena, the most important thing is to read him and to think and write about him.
Written by Kálmán Tóth
Photo by Dénes Szilágyi