What Augustine witnessed in his friend—that interior opposition between fidelity to the peace of Christ and addiction to violence—Joseph de Maistre presented at the societal level. Why was it that, prior to the arrival of Christianity, every culture practiced sacrifice, including human sacrifice? The reason, for Maistre, was that every society was seeking in nature what could only come by supernatural intervention.
It seems that both the architects of the Brave New World and the serfs who live in it actually fear the state of nature found in the Rousseauian paradise. In fact, we have a profound aversion to nature. Rather than acting like animals, we feel a kind of queasiness not only when we witness the more animal-side of human life, but even when we witness animals acting like animals.
We are, then, in a rather odd situation. It seems that conspiracies are deemed believable when they arise in fiction. It also seems that conspiracies are thought to have really happened, and are considered an essential component in even a superficial understanding of history. But anyone who suggests that we may be in the grips of a conspiracy now is a ‘conspiracy theorist,’ a pejorative term that denotes a person who does not assent to all he is told by mainstream media outlets.
The picture that has been emerging of today’s papacy is one of a pope, with little or no regard for law and due process, governing a Church that has made disregard for law and tradition part of its ecclesiastical culture.
We are a deeply superstitious people. Unfortunately, there are those who have taken full advantage of this over the past two years to effect massive economic- and power-shifts, none of which have been to the benefit of civil liberties, families, or small businesses.
As the National Trust is essentially a conservative organisation, so too its membership largely comprises people with conservative instincts, that is, people who like long walks in the countryside, historic buildings, and fine art. It is astonishing, therefore, that the National Trust chose to go in a direction that, if continued, would lead to its suicide.
Europeans have a fascinating relationship with dogs, a relationship that does not seem to exist in any other civilisation.
When healthcare becomes a part of politics, directly gifted by the State, rather than associated with the State’s duties in an indirect way, it necessarily becomes part of the State’s governmental repertoire. This is a problem.
Conservatives and hippies would do well to recognise and foster the relationship that already exists between them. Strength in numbers and all that.
In a conservative analysis, employed to detect the presence of revolution, one must distinguish the revolutionaries from all others. Revolutions always mark the overthrowing of an established order in favour of a new system.
Establishing anew the cause of nationhood by situating its defence in the moral life of its members was one of Scruton’s achievements. The conservative movement of the future would do well to concentrate on this facet of his philosophy.
