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Quote of the Day: April 9, 2024
“Conservatism starts from a sentiment that all mature people can readily share: the sentiment that good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created. This is especially true of the good things that come to us as collective assets: peace, freedom, law, civility, public spirit, the security of property and family life, in all of which we depend on the cooperation of others while having no means singlehandedly to obtain it. In respect of such things, the work of destruction is quick, easy and exhilarating; the work of creation slow, laborious and dull. That is one of the lessons of the twentieth century. It is also one reason why conservatives suffer such a disadvantage when it comes to public opinion. Their position is true but boring, that of their opponents exciting but false.”
-Roger Scruton
I miss Roger Scruton. There’s not much I can add to this, except to note that we seem to be destroying our collective assets at an alarming rate. In recent news, President Biden is “forgiving” the student loans of 23 million borrowers. Set aside the dollar amount and its effect on the economy – does no one in his administration consider the moral hazard this creates?
Published in General
That’s every century, Roger. Sometimes one needs to look around a bit, but it’s throughout history every where and every when.
This administration consider? No. They do not think at all. They do what feels good or what they see will give them a temporary advantage.
For them it’s a feature, not a bug. They wouldn’t do it if there was no corruption of the citizenry to be gained from it.
Perhaps so.
But a historian educated in modern economic science (the antidote to the later mainstream pseudo-scientific economics that now infects our minds) could make a strong argument that
1. the 19th century was for Britain and the US a time of slow, laborious, and dull creation especially of the good things that come to us as collective assets: collective material wealth, and those that Scruton names (“peace, freedom, law, civility, public spirit, the security of property and family life, in all of which we depend on the cooperation of others while having no means singlehandedly to obtain it.”) This creation encompassed both Bastiat’s That Which is Seen (absolute creation) and That Which is Unseen (differential creation)
2. The 20th was a century of rapid net differential destruction of those assets, absent net creation. Our intellectual incapacity to identify real economic phenomena that are of the category That Which is Unseen has permitted us to become a society that lustily participates in its own enslavement and impoverishment. Highly intelligent citizens defending the existence of the FDA, or the need for something like it, for example.
Marx was a Nineteenth Century writer supported by the wealth of Engels and his factory. And not everywhere was as peaceful as the US and Britain. Look at South America and Mexico. Also, what about that unpleasantness in 1861-1865 in the US? Or the Napoleonic Wars for the first 15% of the Nineteenth Century? Oh, and the War of 1812? The Nineteenth Century saw a lot of growth and progress, but that does not mean it was not destructive.
The Twentieth Century certainly had what we now call WWi and WWII, but it also had scientific advances and growth unlike any other century. Yes, we made mistakes in the 20th C., but it was the best century until this one.
If I am to foot the bill for “higher education,” then I should get a say on the curricula.
Aggrieved Group Studies Hardest Hit.
That is true, but it’s a non sequitur.
I’d love to know what this quote is taken from. I’m assuming Scruton is writing about the 20th century for a particular reason and not because he lacks knowledge about other examples in history.
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Lilly, it’s from his 2014 book, How To Be a Conservative. I confess I haven’t read that book (I’ve read others of his), but I saw the quote in the WSJ years ago and saved it.
Scruton’s reasons boil down to a desire to defend Western civilization from a Left bent on its destruction, and to articulate why our civilization should be defended and in fact cherished. He has written that the triggering moment was when, in France, he witnessed the riots of May 1968, instigated by communists, trade unions, and spoiled students.
From that same book:
What a great quote. I’m going to have to put that book on my reading list!
Many of his books are in print. And some of his columns are still available online in the periodicals he contributed to.
Moral hazard?!!? What’s a moral hazard to a bunch of careerist swamp-dwellers when there are votes to buy?
That’s the fault of the academy, not conservatism. Conservatives have been systematically excluded from the ivory tower. After a while, fewer take that career path.
Not really. His writings led to much of the destruction of the Twentieth Century.
YGBKM. There are no moral people in his administration. What we see as hazard, is their intent.
Aha! You’ve got me there.
I miss him too.