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Roger Vernon Scruton (gebore in 1944) is 'n Britse filosoof vir wie dit belangrik is om naas die publikasie van akademies-vakkundige tekste ook oor alledaagse sake te skryf. Dit neem soms die vorm van toegepaste wysbegeerte aan. Hy is ook die outeur van kortverhale, twee romans, 'n poësiebundel en twee libretto's vir twee operas wat hy gekomponeer het. Om duidelik te skryf, is vir hom 'n obsessie. Scruton wil nie "inscrutable" (Kindle 302 - bron hieronder) wees nie.

Scruton se outobiografiese boek, Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life (London: Continuum Books, 2006), is al voorgestel as 'n opstand-teen-die-vader-teks, dus soortgelyk aan die outobiografiese werke van John Stuart Mill en Edmund Gosse waarna ek onlangs verwys het (SêNet, 27 Maart). In werklikheid kom daar min hiervan tereg. Scruton se pa, Jack, bly 'n skadufiguur. Hy word uitgebeeld as 'n gefrustreerde onderwyser wat om duistere redes 'n grief teen die onregverdige lewe het. Jack het ongelukkigheid in sy huisgesin gesaai deur ongeduldig te wees, te veel te drink en aan stilstuipe te ly.

Met sy werkersklasagtergrond was Jack se politiek sosialisties. "He rejected the monarchy, the Empire, the class system and the Anglican Church" (K 3364). "From the Peasant's Revolt [1381] to the trade union movement, Englishmen, he believed, had made 'no' into their national philosophy, and that philosophy was his" (K 3375). Roger, daarenteen, is deur bv Edmund Burke (1729-1797) beïnvloed en het 'n tradisionele konserwatiewe geword. In hierdie sin was daar tweespalt tussen vader en seun.

Maar nadat Roger se ma gesterf en hy sy ouerhuis verlaat en Jack weer getrou het, het hulle saam vir die behoud van bv historiese geboue gestry omdat hulle 'n liefde vir die tradisionele en ongerepte Engelse platteland gedeel het. Jack "saw modernist architecture as the enemy of home" (K 3368). "Modernism, as he saw it, empowered the developer and disenfranchised the rest of us: it was the public face of private greed" (K 3379). "Jack uttered the lasting cry of the citizen - the cry to join in a shared life, to redeem a place and a time, to honour the community by honouring those who had built it over centuries" (K 3419).

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976): "It is only by dwelling that we build" (K 3448). "Civilization ... has the temple, the market and the city as its goals ... The agreeable settledness of the old English town" en die onderskraging van "local patriotism" is wat volgens Scruton nodig is (K 3452). "Plato [427-347 vC] saw ... the true aim of the city [as]: 'the care of the soul'" (K 3481). Postmodernisme word deur Scruton voorgestel as nie veel beter as modernisme nie, want pleks van euwels te verbied, word hulle toegelaat. Dit kom neer op "spiritual idolatry. It exalts the present moment, defies the past and mocks the future" (K 3612).

Die boek is nie 'n volwaardige outobiografie nie, maar bloot 'n aantal "autobiographical excursions" (K 16) om lig te werp op aspekte van die outeur se lewe en idees. Weens die ruimtebeperking kan ek net oor enkeles hiervan skryf. Heel aan die begin is daar hierdie pêrel: "Wisdom is truth that consoles. There is truth without wisdom, as we know from the many mad scientists who are running loose in our world. And there is consolation without truth, as we know from the history of religion. Whatever its defects, my life has enabled me to find comfort in uncomfortable truths" (K 20).

Scruton kontrasteer sy twee voorname en verbind hulle met twee tendense in homself. Die objektiewe Roger kom in sy studie van bv die natuurwetenskappe en die regte na vore, dus in die sogenaamde werklike werklikheid. Die subjektiewe Vernon verlustig hom in die gewone, alledaagse, minder tasbare werklikheid, bv in die humaniora, bv die letterkunde, wysbegeerte en kunste soos musiek, argitektuur en skilderkuns. Hy noem dit 'n "higher mode of being" (K 78). "Culture was the awareness beyond science" (K 420). Dit raak "the flesh beneath the biker's jacket" (K 193). In laaste instansie gaan dit vir Scruton om betekenis en beskawing. Wat hy najaag, is nie populêre kultuur nie, maar hoë kultuur.

Sy ouers en susters beskou hy as "coarser beings", want hulle "had no knowledge of books" (K 82). Teks is gesimboliseerde taal: "I formed the conclusion that symbols put us in touch with our real selves" (K 93). "Librarians ... made fortresses of books, where taste and scholarship survived ... For those [soos hy] born into bookless homes ... the public library was a refuge, a place where you could come to terms with your isolation" (K 127).

Hy leer die leefwêreld van die klassieke Grieke en Romeine ken en hunker na die ongerepte, historiese Engeland. Oral om hom neem hy verval waar. Maar TS Eliot (1888-1965), wat hy as die grootste digter van die 20ste eeu beskou, "told me that our culture contains the seeds of its own renewal" (K 484). "Criticism is necessary if the culture is to be protected from decay ... if you want to know the meaning of life ... you should explore your cultural inheritance with a critical eye, so as to repossess the meaning that has been distilled in it" (K 521). Dit kom as 't ware neer op "the effort to 'purify the dialect of the tribe'" (K 528). "Conservatism is founded on love: love of what has been good to you, and foregiveness of what has not" (K 1146).

Scruton het dit teen die relativering en gelykmaking wat die modernisme en postmodernisme bepleit; die ontkenning van hiërargie. Hy is in die anti-egalitariese kamp, "defending achievement against mediocity" (K 939). Die gelykmakers weier om die volgende onderskeide te maak: "Between those who can be taught and those who can't ... there are real distinctions between knowledge and opinion, culture and philistinism [in die sin van Matthew Arnold], wit and stupidity, art and kitsch" (K 491). Dit is so omdat daar "real distinctions between people" is (K 958). 'n Mens kan sodanige onderskeid maak sonder om onbillik te diskrimineer. Modernisme ontken nie net die verlede nie, maar ook die kern van die indiwidu se hede, die "community, home and settlement" (K 672). Hierdie drie word deur Scruton vry van "the disease of sentimentality" (K 1073) benader. Elders word sentimentaliteit 'n "vice" genoem (K 1754).

As student aan die Universiteit Cambridge het Scruton agtergekom "almost all English intellectuals regarded the term 'conservative' as a term of abuse. To be a conservative ... was to be on the side of age against youth, the past against the future, authority against innovation, the 'structures' against spontaneity and life ... The choice remaining was between reform and revolution. Do we improve society bit by bit, or do we rub it out and start again?" (K571).

In Mei 1968 was Scruton in Parys tydens die studente-opstand. Wat hy daar waargeneem het, het dit vir hom duidelik gemaak dat sy pad vorentoe dié van 'n konserwatiewe sou wees. Die radikales kon afbreek, maar het nie geweet wat om in die plek daarvan te stel nie. "The rational pursuit of liberty, equality, fraternity [die slagspreuk van die Franse Rewolusie, 1789] ... are actually forms of militant irrationality" (K 691).

Scruton het die Gaullistiese visie aanvaar waarvolgens 'n nasie uit taal, religie en hoë kultuur bestaan. Hy het dit veral teen Michel Foucault (1926-1984) se standpunt: "Where there is power there is oppression. And where there is oppression there is the right to destroy" (K 613). Foucault se "vision of European culture as the institutionalized form of oppressive power is taught everywhere as gospel, to students who have neither the culture nor the religion to resist it" (K 620).

Sy konserwatisme het van Scruton "an intellectual pariah" gemaak (K 668), veral in die akademiese wêreld, maar ook wyer. Hy verwerp Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) se standpunt dat die samelewing op 'n kontrak gebaseer is. Dit is veel eerder "a trust, with the living members as trustees of an inheritance that they must strive to enhance and pass on" (K 757).

Die gewydheid en heiligheid wat met katedrale, kerke en godsdiens geassosieer word, is deel van die verlede en moet, volgens Scruton, gekoester word en behoue bly. As jongman het hy hom in 'n kerkie in die Franse platteland bevind: "I was not a believer, but not a mocker either. Standing, kneeling, sitting and singing in obedience to imperatives that for me were options, I was for a moment a believer in belief" (K 1006). Wat as religie gepredik word, was nie vir Scruton aanvegbaar nie, "save the major premise of God's existence [ook K 3171] ... A religion without orthodoxy is destined to be swept away ... The structure stands unshakeably, even though built upon nothing" (K 1040). "If there is knowledge of God, then it is a kind of personal knowledge" (K 3940). "Faith transfigures everything it touches, and raises the world to God" (K 1084). "Faith ... is a transforming state of mind" (K 3670). "The mass of mankind may be unable to live without religion" (K 3685).

"By pondering my loss of faith I have steadily regained it, though in a form that stands at a distance from the old religion" (K 3689). Elders noem hy dit "my much-amended but nevertheless regained religion" (K 4015). Wat hom aangetrek het, is "the sense of the sacred" (K 3701) of "holy" (K 3775). "The loss of faith ... is a loss of comfort, membership and home: it involves exile from the community that formed you" (K 3708). Dit is ook "a loss of knowledge" (K 3801). 'n Terugkeer na geloof beteken "refurbishing the image of humanity as god-like and redeemed" (K 3731). "Religion is the force that has enabled us to bear our losses" (K 3828).

"Christian charity is now entirely misunderstood, as a kind of collective effort to improve the world ... The duty of a Christian is not to leave this world a better place. His duty is to leave this world a better man" (K 1161). "Love ... is to know oneself as other, by knowing another as oneself" (K 1555). Thomas "Aquinas [1225-1274] describes love ... as willing another's existence" (K 3094). "Friendship is a moral relation ... love is a destiny" (K 1754). "A world in which there is love is a world in which the good things of life are seen as privileges, not rights" (K 4000).

Scruton assosieer sy idees dikwels met dié van Matthew Arnold (1822-1888). Arnold het die gedig "Dover Beach" in 1867 geskryf. "His reflections on the dwindling of the Christian faith are marked by a very English melancholy, a not-quite-resigned attempt to fit the world of unbelief and scientific scepticism into the Gothic frame of Anglican culture" (K 3665).

Scruton het nie 'n televisiestel in sy huis nie, maar laat sy kinders toe om dit elders te gaan kyk. Televisie is volgens hom 'n euwel in die hedendaagse samelewing. "The television has one purpose and one effect - which is to ephemeralize our affections by putting momentary fantasy in the place of lasting interest, idle curiosity in the place of knowledge and voyeuristic appetite in the place of feeling. Television presents all that it touches in the guise of fleeting images, which must be ever louder, ever cruder, ever more eyecatching and vulgar, if the craving of its victims is to be assuaged" (K 1987). "Today we live in ... a world of fantasy, delusion and unfreedom, in which the effort of rational choice is in many areas beyond our powers" (K 1994).

"A fear of heresy is beginning to grip the countries of Europe ... heresy as defined by a form of post-Christian political correctness. A remarkable system of semi-official labels has emerged to prevent the expression of dangerous points of view. And a point of view is identified as dangerous if it belongs to the old Judaeo-Christian culture, thereby reminding us of what we were when we actually believed something" (K 3872). "To criticize popular culture, television or contemporary rock music, even to press for the teaching of grammatical English in English schools - all these are proofs of 'elitism'" (K 3880). "Every reversal is a cause of bitterness, anger and blame. Misfortune becomes an injustice, and a ground for compensation. Hence our world is full of hatred - hatred for the other, who has got what is mine ... This revulsion is the inevitable reward of those who think only of what is owed to them, and not of what they owe" (K 3992). "The good things of life are mine by right, why should I be grateful for receiving them?" (K 4000).

Scruton vertel van sy werk in Oos-Europa om anti-kommunisme te bevorder. Daar word hy op die hande gedra. In Finland is hy egter onbekend en hy gee eintlik 'n baie onvleiende indruk van die skaam of teruggetrokke, "low-profile" (K 2776) maar patriotiese, Finne. Met verwysing na Raymond Roussel (1887-1933) se gedig, Impressions d'Afrique (1910), skryf Scruton:"Africa today is not the fantasy of the Impressions, but the horror observed by [Joseph] Conrad [1857-1924, Heart of Darkness, 1902], a place where gangsters boasting of their anti-imperial record pile corpse upon corpse as proof of the evils of imperialism" (K 2945).

In 1983 het Scruton 'n dagbesoek per motor aan Soweto gebring. Hy noem nie hoe lank en om watter rede hy in Suid-Afrika was nie. Hy was in die geselskap van Yunus en Julie. "He is classified as coloured, she as Indian" (K 3213). [Ek dink hy het hulle etnisiteit verkeerdom.] Hy vertel hoe bang sy gidse in Soweto was, maar verder beskryf hy bloot wat hy daar waargeneem het: die huise, mense op straat, ens. Daar is nie die gebruiklike veroordeling van apartheid nie. "Yunus ... hates the university [Wits], and hates liberals more than anyone. A Boer, he tells me, is better than an Englishman, since he is straightforward and tells you that he dislikes the colour of your skin" (K 3279).

Die outeur het Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) en haar man, John Bayley (gebore in 1925), geken. Hy vertel van 'n besoek aan hulle voor Murdoch se siekte en ook een toe sy aan Alzheimer se siekte gely het. Wynbottels was omtrent die enigste ornamente in die huis. Scruton verwys met smaak, soos ander reeds gedoen het (bv AN Wilson), van die slegte wyn wat voorgesit is en die "delicacies" (K 3151) wat Bayley as geregte in die kombuis opgetower het: "The food has a wartime air" (K 3155). Scruton se waarneming is dat Murdoch "was looking for what is good and just and durable" (K 3179). Bayley "was striving desperately to agree with everyone within earshot" (K 3202).

Volgens keer skryf ek nie oor 'n boek van Scruton nie, maar oor een wat 'n oorsig van Scruton se wysbegeerte gee.

Johannes Comestor