Against the Tide: The best of Roger Scruton's columns, commentaries and criticism

About the Book

'His moral courage shines through from the start.' - Sunday Telegraph

The definitive edition of the late Sir Roger Scruton's philosophical and political essays and reviews, now collected in one volume.

The philosopher Roger Scruton was the leading conservative thinker of the post-war years. In this book are assembled the very best of his essays and commentaries, arranged thematically. The selection has been made and edited by Mark Dooley, Scruton’s literary executor.

Throughout this collection, Scruton proves himself to be at his most scintillating and controversial. He writes with passion and conviction about such varied topics as feminism, racism, fascism, Tony Blair and Donald Trump, as well as subjects like global warming, music and architecture. He takes aim at those who defy conservative common sense in favour of liberal falsehoods.

This book shows Scruton at his most brilliant and demonstrates how his influence will remain strong and enduring.

Table of Contents:

Preface: The Work That Must Be Done

Part One: Who Am I?
My Life Beyond the Pale
Roger Scruton Says ‘Put a Cork in It’
My Week: July 2005
My Week: January 2006
My Week: April 2006
The Flame That Was Snuffed Out by Freedom
Finding Scrutopia in the Czech Republic
Diary – August 2016

Part Two: Who Are We?
The Conservative Conscience
The Blair Legacy
A Question of Temperament
The Meaning of Margaret Thatcher
Identity, Marriage, Family: Our Core Conservative Values Have Been Betrayed
What Trump Doesn’t Get About Conservatism

Part Three: Why The Left Is Never Right
The Ideology of Human Rights
Who is a Fascist?
In Praise of Privilege
A Hominist Homily
In Loco Parentis
McCarthy Was Right on the Red Menace
A Focus of Loyalty Higher than the State
The Art of Taking Offence

Part Four: Intimations of Infinity
De Anima
A Matter of Life and Deathlessness
Dawkins Is Wrong about God
Altruism and Selfishness
Memo to Hawking: There’s Still Room for God
Humans Hunger for the Sacred: Why Can’t the New Atheists Understand That?

Part Five: The End of Education
The Virtue of Irrelevance
The Open University and the Closed Mind
The End of Education
The Plague of Sociology
Know Your Place
Universities’ War against the Truth

Part Six: Fraudulent Philosophy
A Note on Foucault
The Triumph of Nothingness
Freud and Fraud
If Only Chomsky Had Stuck to Syntax

Part Seven: The West and the Rest
In Memory of Iran
The Lesson of Lebanon
Decent Debate Mustn’t Be the Victim
The Wrong Way to Treat President Putin
Why Iraq Is a Write-Off

Part Eight: Cultural Corruption
The Art of Motor-Cycle Maintenance
Temples of Anxiety
The Modern Cult of Ugliness
High Culture Is Being Corrupted by a Culture of Fakes

Part Nine: Animal Rights, Pulpit Politics and Sex
Male Domination
The Pestilence of Pulpit Politics
On the Eating of Fish
Obligations of the Flesh
Eat Animals! It’s for Their Own Good
Sextants and Sexting
Tally Ho! Let the Hunt Remind Us of Who We Are

Part Ten: Annus Horribilis and Last Words
Diary
After My Own Dark Night
My 2019

Index

About the Author :

Sir Roger Scruton was a philosopher and polymath who wrote over fifty books. He was Professor of Aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London; University Professor at Boston University, and a visiting professor at Oxford University.

Mark Dooley is an Irish author, philosopher and journalist who has taught at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and at University College Dublin. Dooley is Sir Roger Scruton's Literary Executor.

Review :
Every piece is a masterclass in prose style and a reminder of how he earned such widespread popular affection…His moral courage shines through from the start. This is inspirational thought delivered by graceful language about politics and aesthetics that will continue to attract and influence readers. … A brilliantly stimulating selection of the journalism by the late Sir Roger Scruton… These are little masterpieces of philosophical polemic. The writings expertly collected in Against the Tide go a long way to illuminating Scruton's humane and dignified conservatism. On every page, the reader encounters a mind passionately at work, seeking to reconcile everyday problems with a moral sense. Against the Tide is a concise but rich selection of some of Scruton’s writings for various journals, magazines, and newspapers … What a pleasure to see so many of these pieces back in print … it is hard to imagine a better introduction to Scruton’s work than this wonderful, endlessly readable volume. Over 40 years of Scruton’s columns and commentaries, published and unpublished, as well as diary entries are gifted to us in this remarkably concise but substantive volume. Reading Scruton will help us rekindle the search for what is good, true, and beautiful, and, more importantly, recognize them (and their opposites) when we see them. A collection of his finest writing. Scruton stood apart in Britain as a thinker. His writing continues to illuminate, and he is sorely missed.