Of Beauty and Consolation Episode 2 Roger Scruton 

Sermons should come from superior people, not inferiors. The virtuous are the exemple, not the sinners. The issue with aristocracy is when people are prevented from ascending and progress, not when the aristocrat tells the mediocre that he is inferior to him. Scruton ascended from the working class at a time when state schools made it possible.

Sir Roger was a good lord of the manor thats why. . .

Same.

I'd love to find out as well.

You are the one who can console the poor. Maybe not all but one or two. You can be the world to one person.

A good question and one that questions the foundations of conservatism.

Of course Scruton says that each person must do their own work to find consolation. He himself was from the poor class. He is modeling the answer to your question.

Christianity tells the average people that they have a reason to exist: God gave you a soul and He has a personal plan for you. The Pope is there to guide the society to the will of God. The Pope crowns kings to implement the divine will. Kings order average people so they can fullfil their role in the divine plan. It's very conforting and that's why atheism alone is the elitist view as you need to find your place in the universe by yourself. This is really hard, especially if you don't have an obviously useful social role or if you are not very smart and don't enjoy thinking about ideas. Religions tell people what is the purpose of society and where they fit in. You don't need to be an aristocrat. Soldiers love to die in holy wars, if they are truly convinced victory will bring the world closer to the sacred purpose of society and the universe.

what about the music at the start?

Most hunter gatherers had a territory and a village. They weren't nomads.

In the year 2000, broadcasted on dutch television.

I suspect it's a Scruton original. I also suspect he wrote it within 48 hours of hearing a recording of Daniel Adni playing Debussy's "Ballade".

When, 1:15:00?

The interviewer's an obvious Jew, who can't help but bring up the likes of Goebbels as his example of the ultimate evil, and dare Scruton to say that God rests even in those souls most dehumanised at the hands of his conquering tribe. It's not at all surprising that he should squirm when confronted with God - and in the form of Christianity no less.

@John R. Beatty That is obviously it. This is a common interviewing technique. This is what Stossel always does.

I think they're just comfortable together; makes for a more genuine conversation.

He's just Dutch.

Dutch people are known for being very direct.

No, it is dated 2000, 20 years ago, so he was around 55.

Anthea Irene de Villiers For the answer to that piece of transferrence by anthropomorphism you would need to ask the question of a rabbit or indeed a hen.

Because that is where he found a belonging.

Maybe coming home to the animal self isn't either ethical or moral in and of itself. Your war example is a good one, surely this plugs in to not only the limbic system, but the r-complex. HOW we connect to the r-complex is maybe an ethical question to satisfy the limbic brain, and Neo-cortex.

Vasco Pinto Ferreira , you mean " those ," who ....not does!!!?

?

This isn't entirely true actually, many of the finest museums and Art Galleries in London are completely free, there are many places all over the UK you can hear superb music for less than £20. The best opera tickets are expensive (though you can in fact get tickets for as little as £9 if you book early) but I would have to ask if you had looked at the average price of tickets to see a Premiership Football match? With the advent of the internet we have the opportunity to hear and receive culture for next to nothing so it really is a matter of personal priority rather than demographic and class, I say this as someone who grew up in a family that is as working class as it gets but had a father with a love for classical music developed from buying LPs from the shop in town with his pocket money. And on the point of personal priority I doubt Scruton is seeking any such membership he's just doing as many of us dom pursuing activities that he gets a sincere sense of enjoyment and fulfilment out of.

You're judging him for something that is not in this discussion !!!

Confirmed pseud.

He wasn't born with a silver spoon Jon. Did you write the book of love?

+lefteris1976 You do realize that the Foxes will be culled in a far more cruel fashion without the hunting, do you....? The Camus quote, "....none worth killing for." is ludicrous. Even a feral Cat will kill (and die) to defend her kittens. Apparently Camus possessed less virtue and compassion than a She-cat.... .

It's impossible to talk about fox hunting without discussing culling/animal population management. However, it would have been nice to hear him discuss the experience of the fox and animal welfare.

To hunt is an undeniable part of the humanity. I agree with Scruton, the beauty that he pursuits is the human being one, he chases what means to be human.

Hunting is retarded.

Lefteris1976 in your comment you betray the fact that you have never been or seen foxhunting, in which case the veracity of your assertions on the matter should be treated with extreme caution. Going hunting Scruton (or anyone in the hunting 'field' for that matter) doesn't kill anything. The hounds kill, sometimes. You might say, therefore, that the huntsman and his whippers-in kill by proxy. The members of the field simply ride around on horses. What, exactly, do you claim that they kill? It's a bit like going to watch a rugby match and thinking to claim personal credit for every try scored, every tackle made when, in fact, all you did was spectate!

Actually the clothing he is wearing is far more reminiscent of the 1930s and would have looked completely out of place and eccentric in the 19th century, let alone the 18th. Your ignorance aside, I wonder why you feel you have a right to tell people how they should and should not dress? Is other people's clothing choices really any of your business?

Fox hunting so excites in some people their sympathies for wild animals and at the same time their class resentments that it's no use saying anything to them in defence of anyone who takes part in it. (I have no desire to defend fox hunting itself.) But as you chose to watch him speak, I'll gamble on it. Some people just don't belong in the social class into which they were born. Up or down, they want out. (Class aliens, they've sensibly been called.) I think Scruton was one of them. Difficult life at home as a child is likely to inspire certain hatreds or near-hatreds, among them one for the faults and limitations of one's own caste. The habit is formed, and one is soon busy finding fault in all the others, too, setting up the necessity to explore and evaluate them all, to shop in a way, and finally to assemble an eclectic class (and class identity) of one's own. It would be a tiring business, and the self-conscious and deliberate aspect of it some could feel taints it with inauthenticity ("panto" is your term for this, I think; others might detect no such taint) but then he had no choice in the matter. Life shapes you, in some ways ineluctably. At times you have to leave where you are and that means going somewhere else, whence you can never return. You may perhaps feel that class wandering is a moral pathology and that a devotion to his parents' ways and way of life were the only decent option he had. Other possibilities included the cafe, the garret, and suits of black clothing, or a way of life straining to present egolessness, implausibly devoid of class sympathies. Choices abound and so do ways of combining them. But a cozy home on a piece of land you work, maintain, and improve, and immersion to some extent in the area's old customs and rituals together make an attractive vision in my view. (It also appears congenial to the life of the mind). Possibly you think he arrived at this formulation in order to impress and intimidate others. I think he was too self-aware, too clever, and too sensitive to serve such motivations. It's a vision more than attractive enough on its merits that it needs no spectators. I didn't mind it when The Beatles and Pink Floyd bought their estates either. A race car driver or owner of beauty shops drunk on champagne and bellowing in his country house at a liveried valet is a different story (i.e. much more than faintly ridiculous), so there are limits, but I think it unfair to prohibit people from abjuring the social class of their birth, regarding it as a form of sumptuary law which satisfies the envious many far more than it reassures the socially fortunate few.

why do you say that?

Envy??

Was the f word necessary?

What led you to discover that? And what sort of opinion do you have now?