Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged

by Roger Scruton

What is culture? Why should we preserve it, and how? In this book renowned philosopher Roger Scruton defends Western culture against its internal critics and external enemies, and argues that rumours of its death are seriously exaggerated. He shows our culture to be a continuing source of moral knowledge, and rebuts the fashionable sarcasm which sees it as nothing more than the useless legacy of dead white European males. He is robust in defence of traditional architecture and figurative painting, critical of the fashionable relativists and urgent in his plea for our civilization, which more than ever stands in need of the self-knowledge and self-confidence that are the gift of serious culture.

Genres: Philosophy, Cultural, Nonfiction, Politics, Education, Religion, Art

120 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Sir Roger Scruton was a writer and philosopher who has published more than forty books in philosophy, aesthetics and politics. He was a fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He taught in both England and America and was a Visiting Professor at Department of Philosophy and Fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington D.C.

In 2015 he published two books, The Disappeared and later in the autumn, Fools Frauds and Firebrands. Fools Frauds and Firebrands is an update of Thinkers of the New Left published, to widespread outrage, in 1986. It includes new chapters covering Lacan, Deleuze and Badiou and some timely thoughts about the historians and social thinkers who led British intellectuals up the garden path during the last decades, including Eric Hobsbawm and Ralph Miliband.

In 2016 he again published two books, Confessions of A Heretic (a collection of essays) and The Ring of Truth, about Wagner’s Ring cycle, which was widely and favourably reviewed. In 2017 he published On Human Nature (Princeton University Press), which was again widely reviewed, and contains a distillation of his philosophy. He also published a response to Brexit, Where We Are (Bloomsbury).

Reviews

[Cindy Rollins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, short treatise on culture which is not without hope.

[Joachim Stoop · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enkele gedachten (genoteerd tijdens het lezen. Dit is dus geen gestroomlijnde tekst)

Eerst het positieve. De man schrijft helder en scherp. Vooral in het begin van dit boek heeft hij weinig nodig om zijn punt te maken. Verder kan ik het op zich -als liefhebber van literatuur, filosofie en andere cultuurveruitwendigingen- alleen maar eens zijn over het centrale belang ervan voor individu en samenleving.

Bij aanvang twijfel ik of ik hem het voordeel van de twijfel moet geven rond zijn positonering: is hij (terecht) tegen nodeloze teloorgang en nihilisme of (onterecht) reactionair, terecht waardengericht of onterecht puriteins.

Zijn standpunt over onderwijs volg ik niet en vind ik hopeloos achterhaald. Het klinkt alsof hij terug wilt naar de strenge college's en internaten van de jaren 50.

Hij laat -bewust of onbewust- veel weg. Hierdoor kan je hem perfect voor je kar spannen als je rechts-reactionaire en pro-Westerse opvattingen hebt.
Het had daarom ook perfect 'Waarom Westerse cultuur belangrijk is' kunnen heten.

Een man die cultuurontwikkelingen ervaart als een passagier van een runaway train, wegrijdend van het station der verlichtingsdenkers zonder enig benul dat een nieuwe renaissance wel eens van andere wind kan blazen dan van oude witte mannen.
Want waarom zouden verlichtingswaarden als broederschap niet inclusiever kunnen en meer mensen, ideeën, origines omvatten of omarmen? Hij ziet de ironie niet in dat juist verlichtingswaarden als 'vrijheid' en 'gelijkheid' exact deze ontwikkeling kan impliceren.

Als grote bedreiging voor onze cultuur noemt hij -in de eerste zin van dit werk- islamisering en multiculturalisme. Hij gaat daarbij voorbij aan het echte gevaar voor de teloorgang in waarden en cultuur: populisme, persoonlijkheidscultus (Musk, Trump, Baudet, influencers als Andrew Tate), neoliberalistische uitholling van zowat alles, californication, etc.

Wanneer Scruton speficiek ingaat op enkele fundamentele zuilen van onze cultuur -muziek, literatuur, kunst- ontstijgt hij het niveau niet van een gepensioneerde zuurpruim die zich -vastklampend aan zijn verleden als aan een twijgje boven een afgrond- zanikt dat vroeger alles beter was. De jeugd leest Harry Potter en Maya Angelou in plaats van Charles Dickens .
Philip Glass boven Schönberg. Boehoe!
Verder verengt de man de hemelsbrede waaier aan hedendaagse muziek louter tot de popmuziek die hij op de radio hoort om het als totaal verval te omschrijven.

Edward Said, de Frankfurter schüle, academisch feminisme vormen voor hem een verwerping van de cultuur en bezondigen zich daarom aan cultuurrelativisme.
"In plaats van objectiviteit hebben we nu alleen nog intersubjectiviteit: met andere woorden 'consensus'.

Wie zegt dat de traditionele Westerse cultuur etnocentrisch en patriarchaal is, maakt volgens Scruton valse beschuldigingen. En zo komen we al snel uit bij het machisme van James Patterson en het 'witte mannen boven'-syndroom van rechtspopulisme .

Deze essays roepen bij mij meer medelijden dan afkeer op. Conservatisme is oké, maar waarom moet het zo verdomd ouderwets worden ingevuld?

[Malcolm Hebron · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Culture Counts, Roger Scruton mounts a defence of the heritage of high culture of the West against what he perceives as its enemies: fanatical Islam (only glancingly referred to), the operations of the market (briefly discussed near the end) and, above all, the attitude of 'repudiation' advanced by multiculturalists in the universities. He argues that the literature, music and art handed down to us - or at any rate the best of it - contains a body of emotional and moral knowledge that is intrinsically valuable and provides the imagination with a purer and better air to breathe in than the popular confections of the moment. The purpose of education in the humanities should not be to benefit the student with a set of instrumental skills, but rather to look after the culture itself by training a fresh set of guardians to look after it. The criticism we teach and practise should be to do with elucidating the aesthetic value and moral lessons of works. Despite the depredations he sees wrought by the multiculturalists, Scruton sees hope in the efflorescence of traditional practice in neoclassical architecture, music that returns to pre-Modernist tonality and writing that is similarly embedded in the conversation of canonical works.

One strength of Scruton is always the writing. He frames his arguments clearly and gracefully in a rhythmical prose that is a pleasure to read and a standing lesson for the tone-deaf scribes of the journals. His style is precise but also conveys deep feeling. Consider the phrasing and cadences of this sentence from his description of the decline of architectural teaching: 'Students of architecture were no longer to learn about the properties of natural materials, about the grammar of mouldings and ornaments, about the discipline of the orders, or the nature of light and shade'. Whatever one's views on building design, that is a beautiful summation of the essence of the classical view. The author is particularly strong at explicating philosophical points. I came away from his discussion of the different kinds of knowledge, for example, with that pleasant sensation of having had my mind tidied and cleared. And similarly with the passage on the thin crust of normality, with barbarous instincts beneath and the serene air of art and spiritual empathy above, and in many other instances. Some points are made in a single striking sentence: the few pages on Foucault, for example, ask us to consider whether that thinker can help us at all in elucidating the truth-value of any part of a governing discourse. He can be very funny, as in the attack on Le Corbusier. And I warmed to Scruton's sense of battling against the powers-that-be in academia. Though I am out of touch with the academic world now, I sense that his kind of traditionalism still has little purchase in the modern seminar and lecture hall. The book is an interesting contrast to John Carey's What Good are the Arts, which had the peculiar quality of an author sounding cross at the very idea of a higher culture, even though he was clearly on the winning side. One has to look hard for Carey's enemies - presumably Scruton and a few senior members of Oxford college common rooms - but Scruton's are at any rate easy enough to discern. I wonder if both authors overstate the influence of university courses generally.

Some parts of the book left me with reservations. Perhaps the weakest section is his chapter on teaching, with its wildly romantic vision of children rote-learning and acquiring a love of medieval Latin and the classic texts. There is no sensible suggestion here how such a programme could possibly be implemented, and I don't even see what he imagines happening in a lesson. Most of what he posits, concerning the slow acquisition of moral truths, would happen on a subliminal level anyway rather than by direct instruction. The chief enemy of promise in schools is not an academic culture of scepticism, but the dominant discipline of accountancy, which demands that any piece of work should be judged against a hyper-rational scheme which breaks down skills and 'objectives' into specific categories, each carrying percentage points. It is an insane approach to the business of learning (for a business is what it has become in all sectors of education), and has nothing whatever to do with the way the mind works or how culture lives. But unfortunately it is the system which dictates the practices of every single school and teacher in Britain today. Next to this one can gaze at Scruton's vision and sigh a little. But he must know that his kind of education has no chance whatever of taking effect, and so the chapter really reads as the indulgence of a fantasy.

Nor am I sure what our author would like to happen at university level, except for a mass removal of feminists, Marxists and the like. He castigates universities for adopting a programme based on various kinds of scepticism; but perhaps it is the job of a university to be sceptical. There are some well-aimed shots about some kinds of study which simply deaden the mind because the only tolerable answers are those known in advance; and the point that the so-called liberalism of some kinds of theoretical inquiry is simply a way of excluding anything off-message seems hard to counter, at least at an abstract level. It does seem to be the case that the same dismal left-wing dogma is preached across many university courses. What alternative is being offered, though? Elevating selected cultural artefacts to the 'high' category carries its own dangers. It misses the internal tensions which the great works and their creators leave us with. Is it repudiation to point out that in our greatest literature we also find anti-Semitic caricature? What are we to make of the fact the The Faerie Queene carries in its sumptuous verse the notion that the Irish are savages and should be exterminated by some kind of murderous robot? Is this a denial of our heritage? The issues seem to me rather to be things worth discussing. His reading of texts as embodiments of moral lessons seems painfully reductive (the single example of what we are meant to take from King Lear is pretty unconvincing). Nor do I see that one has to choose between Scruton's kind of reverence for art as embalming the best that has been thought and said on the one hand, and the hard-edged world of modern criticism on the other. I can be moved by King Lear one day and read a cultural materialist discussion of it the next, without the second experience damaging the first. This is, to be sure, a cognitive challenge, but the human mind is well equipped to perform distinct and even opposite operations at the same time.

Scruton's view continues a tradition from Arnold, Eliot and Leavis, and it is important that this tradition persists. In this book at any rate it seems to be deeply informed by a sense of some lost world of collective values, located chiefly in the shared beliefs of religion. Around Scruton's writing there hovers the yearning for community, for a way of thinking that confers membership in a society resting on firm foundations, at peace with itself. I simply have no idea where in history that world is to be found. I gained a great deal from this book, and would recommend it as a stimulating read; but I do not find myself sufficiently enchanted by the lament for an imagined golden age to seek membership of this particular club.

[Maughn Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been several years since I read a book from such a conservative point of view, and I was astonished to find that I agreed with so much of it. Scruton defends not only the humanities broadly speaking but classic Western art, philosophy, literature, music and architecture in particular, as containing moral, political and emotional knowledge so precious that, he argues, we should not think of teaching them as a benefit to students, but as a way of using students to conserve and perpetuate that cultural knowledge. My own position - pragmatism - takes this knowledge as neither absolute Truth (which Scruton seems close to arguing), nor as just one way of life among many with no reasons to favor it over others, but as a way of life we have good, if not cosmic, reasons to value. I'm also fearful of the eminent death of the humanities in education, and I can't understand how leftist deconstructionists have gotten into bed with right-wing capitalists in making that happen. In any case, I find a lot of Sructon's arguments a refreshing antidote to the post-moderns I've been reading, with their unrelenting suspicion of any positive claim of values, and their lack of anything meaningful to say about what makes life worth living. Of course I have all kinds of disagreements with Scruton: his heteronormativity, his simplistic dismissal of minimalism and hip-hop, and his curmudgeonly tone that makes the last third of the book really tedious. But on the whole, I have to admit: almost doth he persuade me to be a humanist.

[Edmund · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's great, but it's mostly a rehash of his "Modern Culture".

[Carla Parreira]

O livro discute a diluição da cultura ocidental, sem focar apenas no conflito entre esquerda e direita. Scruton analisa como a cultura ocidental está ameaçada, especialmente pelo crescimento populacional de comunidades islâmicas na Europa, enquanto muitos jovens europeus se afastam da formação de famílias e da procriação. Ele critica o multiculturalismo, sugerindo que essa diversidade cultural pode fazer com que a cultura própria seja desvalorizada. Scruton defende que é necessário reconquistar a integridade cultural ocidental e coloca em questão a importância que se dá à Revolução Francesa em comparação à Revolução Americana, destacando que a primeira resultou em um período caótico, enquanto a segunda promoveu progresso e democracia saudável. No entanto, ele ressalta que, apesar dos avanços tecnológicos e democráticos, a cultura de beleza não é suficientemente elevada, pois a admiração pela arte e pelo conhecimento não é incentivada nas próximas gerações. A elitização da cultura erudita é um ponto central, indicando que este tipo de cultura surge de círculos mais privilegiados, mas que deve ser acessível e apreciada por todos para que a cultura ocidental não se perca em meio à diversidade. Scruton observa que, embora a elite cultural usufrua e mantenha a qualidade da alta cultura, o verdadeiro objetivo deve ser democratizá-la, permitindo que todos tenham acesso. As opções de hoje, como ouvir música em aplicativos gratuitos ou ler clássicos em bibliotecas, demonstram que não é necessário um grande investimento financeiro para se conectar com a cultura elevada. Ele ressalta que muitas pessoas acreditam que a alta cultura é elitista, mas se esquecem de que essa perspectiva é muitas vezes imposta e desencoraja a exploração de obras significativas.

A estratégia de Scruton para resgatar os que se afastaram dessa cultura envolve não uma imposição, mas uma adaptação do contato com essas obras, começando de forma gradual. Ele critica a ideia de que crianças devem ser isoladas em ambientes excessivamente rigorosos onde apenas a alta cultura é ensinada. Em vez disso, ele propõe uma abordagem mais balanceada, onde a introdução à música erudita e a literatura clássica é feita de maneira acessível, permitindo que elas se sintam confortáveis e dispostas a explorar esses novos horizontes.

Scruton também analisa a indústria da música, afirmando que a produção atual se tornou cada vez mais rasa, focando em refrões e músicas curtas que capturam rapidamente a atenção do público, em detrimento de composições mais profundas. Ele critica a tendência de reduzir a música a um mero espetáculo visual, enfatizando que a essência deve ser a música em si. Em uma sociedade em que a personalidade dos artistas oscila entre ser mais importante que a obra, Scruton argumenta que isso limita a apreciação musical e contribui para um gosto superficial. Por isso, ele se pergunta como seria possível introduzir indivíduos acostumados a ritmos mais populares a composições com maior qualidade estética. A resistência é previsível, mas Scruton crê na possibilidade de um despertar cultural, um despertar que pode começar com pequenas experiências que instiguem a curiosidade, levando-os a descobrir por conta própria a riqueza da música e da literatura clássica, abrindo então um caminho para uma reintegração à alta cultura. Ao falar sobre a dificuldade que muitos jovens têm em se conectar com obras clássicas, é destacado que a familiaridade com uma quantidade restrita de literatura contemporânea pode limitar a habilidade de apreciar textos mais complexos. A experiência pessoal de ler "A Divina Comédia" revelou que mesmo alguém acostumado com a leitura pode encontrar barreiras ao enfrentar obras desafiadoras. Por isso, a proposta de realizar um projeto de leitura gradual é essencial, sugerindo que a construção de um repertório literário pode ser um caminho mais acessível. A necessidade de promover a autonomia e a curiosidade nos jovens foi enfatizada, com críticas à superficialidade do aprendizado que evita a busca ativa por conhecimento. É importante cultivar a habilidade de pesquisar e entender o material, como recorrer a um dicionário, algo que muitos jovens parecem relutar em fazer.

A discussão se aprofundou na ideia do relativismo na arte e como ele pode diluir a intenção original do autor. Scruton destacou que, independentemente das interpretações pessoais, as obras de arte têm significados intrínsecos que não são meramente subjetivos. Ao utilizar a comédia como exemplo, ele explicou que a intenção de provocar riso é o que define sua eficácia, mas a pressão do "politicamente correto" tem transformado as piadas em algo insípido e previsível, onde a sinceridade do riso é frequentemente substituída por reações condicionadas a normas sociais.

Essa análise acerca da comédia também toca nos riscos de se criar um ambiente onde a ofensa é mais importante que a liberdade de expressão. Scruton alerta para a perda da autenticidade, onde as pessoas hesitam em rir por medo de ofender os outros, prejudicando assim a experiência de se divertir genuinamente. O que ficou claro é que tanto na arte quanto na cultura, a busca pelo significado profundo e a apreciação do genuíno são fundamentais para uma vivência rica e significativa. A análise do famoso mictório de Duchamp serve como um exemplo de como as interpretações podem se afastar da intenção original, resultando em discussões acadêmicas que, muitas vezes, obscurecem a simplicidade da obra. Essa busca por pertencimento em um contexto cultural nos leva a replicar reações que não são autênticas, enquanto a verdadeira apreciação da arte deve provocar um desejo genuíno de aprendizagem.

O papel dos pais na educação dos filhos foi destacado, com a ênfase na transmissão de conhecimento que vai além do que é ensinado nas escolas. Exemplos como o do pai no livro "O Sol é Para Todos" reforçam a ideia de que, mesmo diante de um sistema educacional que pode falhar, é possível contornar essas limitações através de um envolvimento ativo e entusiástico na aprendizagem dos filhos. Essa abordagem personalizada e empolgante é fundamental para despertar a curiosidade e o amor pelo conhecimento. Além disso, a importância de oferecer argumentos ao recomendar livros ou obras de arte foi abordada, enfatizando que críticas devem ser fundamentadas e ligadas ao gosto pessoal do interlocutor. É necessário entender o público-alvo para que as recomendações sejam eficazes e bem recebidas. Resumindo, Scruton convida tanto os iniciantes quanto os mais experientes a se aventurar em leituras que enriquecem o repertório cultural.

[Bob Myer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good read for anyone concerned about the state of Western culture. It is a good defense of why teaching classical Western culture matters and how those who want to keep the culture alive can act.

[Amanda Harrison · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't finish book, but finished nonetheless.

Very conservative author, not all bad points, but very gung-ho for Western culture in a cringeworthy, awkward way.

[Matthew Dambro · Rating 5 out of 5]

A ringing defense of Western Culture by a conservative philosopher written simply and without jargon. It is a beautiful book with deep, life affirming thought.

[Chris Ogunlowo · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s inevitable that art & culture must contend with argument around their subjectivity & objectivity. It’s expected from domains where aesthetic judgment must collide with personal, moral, & commercial forces. And culture, especially being the overall custodian & gatekeeper of values, mythic & material forms - including art – constantly struggles for its survival & how to stay revitalized through generations.

This book appraises this reality, inviting the reader into an objective appreciation of the intrinsic value of culture across taste, criticisms and articulating the difference between higher culture and its postmodernist counterpart. It’s an engaging book written with clarity and grace. Except for occasional satire, it’s not angry as one might expect from a book making a case against mainstream repudiation about its subject matter.

On the one hand, it justifies the (high) place of Western civilization and how it has survived through its deliberate embrace of criticisms, assimilation of external influences and the fostering of institutions that serve to preserve its heritage. On the other hand, it’s a treatise for why culture, as an ennobling human asset, matters and why it must be rescued from the corrupting attitude of individuals and ideologies that treat it as an expired inheritance or a plaything of the bourgeoisie or, worse, a subject to be disparaged through the lens of political correctness and moral relativity.

Written by British writer and conservative, Sir Roger Scruton, “Culture Counts” is an engagement with the reader, nudging one to appraise preconceived cultural notions and a call to feel at home and protect our most valuable cultural inheritances. I like its subtitle “Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged.”

Highly recommended if you’re interested in Aesthetics, Culture and Civilisation (and if you need another perspective that challenges the wokenism of our new age).

[Petrus Forsgren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kultur räknas av Roger Scruton (2007) definierar vad kultur är, exemplifierar detta och argument varför bevarande eller skapande av kultur är så pass viktigt. Fokus är på västerländsk kultur och ur ett konservativt perspektiv. Boken har många ”tyngre” referenser från filosofi, historia och västerländsk kanon (Så som Sokrates, Aristoteles, Spengler, Kant, John Stuart mill, Marx, Derrida, Sartre) men har en översiktlig ton / pedagogisk uppdelning i en röd tråd som gör boken lättläst. Uppskattade speciellt kapitel 2 diskussionen om Fritid, kult och kultur. Finns det fin och ful kultur? När upplevs eller skapas kultur? Skillnad på distraktioner eller medvetet agerande/reflekterande. Det är ett intressant tema och kan användas till komplement/ge nyans till böcker så som Civilisationernas Kamp (Samuel P Huntington) eller Orientalism (Edward Said). Många insiktsfulla kommentarer. Detta var första boken jag läst av Scruton, fick upp ögonen för honom efter besök på Café i Budapest med ”Scruton-tema”. Det innehöll ett av hans arbetsbord samt hundratals böcker samt merchendise. Boken rekommenderas varmt!

[Gosia Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Scruton, and I loved it. Fantastic.
Some of my favourite quotes:
- "All rational beings laugh— and maybe only rational beings laugh. And all rational beings benefit from laughing."
- "Aesthetic values are intrinsic values, which cannot be measured by price; they also prompt us to find intrinsic values in the world in which we live."
- "There are no intrinsic values, people believe, but at best only opinions about intrinsic values. In other words, the attempt to build a realm of intrinsic value— and that is what culture really is— is regarded with suspicion. Those who demand that the attempt nevertheless be made are a threat to the social order, since they remind us that it is not an order at all, but a kind of regimented disorder where, beneath the uniform loutishness of public life, our desires compete in chaos for their satisfaction, without any public recognition that some desires deserve fulfilment while others should be suppressed."

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesujące podejście Scrutona, z którym jednak nie mogę całkowicie się zgodzić. Choć w wielu przypadkach przyznaję mu rację, nie zgadzam się m. in. z tym zagorzałym bronieniem kultury zachodniej - owszem, ma ona zarówno swoje, że tak powiem, "mocne i słabe strony", jednak jej ogólny wydźwięk jest dla mnie raczej negatywny.

Oprócz tego pewien moment, w którym Scruton mówi o przygotowaniu współczesnych odbiorców na powszechne w dzisiejszych czasach niezobowiązujące, krótkotrwałe relacje przez twórczość właśnie amerykańskich muzyków - przygotowanie na tego typu relacje czy może raczej upowszechnienie ich? Skłaniałabym się raczej ku temu drugiemu.

Ponadto wartościujące podejście, wywyższające wszystko, co klasyczne, dawne, a wyśmiewające nowoczesność, modernizm - nawet, jeśli niektóre z nich zaspokajają zmysłów estetycznych autora, nie znaczy to, że należy je wyeliminować i o nich zapomnieć, są bowiem również częścią kultury i podkreślają jej różnorodność i "rozstrzał".

[Shawn Ritenour · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book that defends Western culture, succinctly explains its foundations and why it is important for it to be taught on its own merits, and points toward how we may begin to recover it. The late Roger Scruton identifies in the last chapter what he calls "Rays of Hope" indicating that some--perhaps many--in our post-modernist waste land are, culturally speaking, like George Bailey at the bridge in Bedford Falls after seeing what like would be like if he had never been born: "Please God, I want to live again." This book serves as an excellent positive complement to Scruton's earlier 'Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture.' It is by turns sobering and invigorating. Every educator should read this book.

[Bobparr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ci sono arrivato per un consiglio, a Scruton - non credo mi ci sarei mai imbattuto in un filosofo che propugna il conservatorismo, il ritorno ai valori culturali e morali, la critica ai movimenti di 'rottura'. Eppero' è stato molto interessante. A parte la scrittura chiara e didattica - non involuta su concetti e terminologia astrusa - il pensiero dell'autore è spesso comprensibile e altrettanto spesso condivisibile - non sempre, ma spesso. Mi sono stupito di questa concordanza: che stia invecchiando...? Ogni tanto sembra di sentire parlare un vecchio nonno brontolone, con qualche idea curiosa sui movimenti di CL, ma vabbè. Feroce sull'Islam, netto sulla musica, implacabile con Le Corbusier. Impossibile non sorridere nella lettura.

[Anderson Paz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nesse livro, Scruton defende a “alta cultura” da civilização ocidental. Contra multiculturalistas e relativistas, Scruton argumenta que existem julgamentos objetivos que definem aquilo que deve ser mantido no repositório cultural de um povo. Existem produções culturais elevadas e saudáveis que são fundamentalmente distintas de outras passageiras e até desprezíveis. O teste do tempo, o significado universal e a contínua capacidade de ser referência definem o que de mais elevado importa na cultura.

“A nossa cultura invoca uma comunidade histórica de sentimento, ao mesmo tempo que celebra os valores humanos universais. Ela está enraizada na experiência cristã, mas extrai dessa fonte uma riqueza de sentimentos humanos que se espalha imparcialmente pelos mundos imaginados” (p. 117).

[Andrew]

The book would have benefited from more depth and substantiation, arguments are made without much, if any evidence. This allows Scruton to ramble into some fairly banal/unconvincing digressions which can feel reliant on simplistic, unsupported, and sometimes unsupportable argruments/conclusions.

The book is well written though and several sections are considerably more interesting, particularly his section on Foucault, his elite centred understanding of culture and what he terms "the culture of repudiation".

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually a really good book! Talked about the bad things of our times (basically the idea that truth is relative and everyone can have their own opinion and you can be or do whatever you want to) and why this is so bad and how it's destroying culture. Again, another theology book I had to read, but for it being a required book it was actually really good. He made several really good points and I would recommend reading it. Four stars just because obviously it can't compete with my favorite fiction books lol, though they are in completely different categories. For an educational book, 9/10

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Certainly the pithiest and most accessible of Scruton’s books on culture that I’ve read. Combines insights and critiques from a number of his more technical books into a handy 100-page argument for the importance of culture, with a passionate and hopeful call to preserve it against ideological vandalism.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully succinct book why high-culture is important - beauty, lifts the soul, fortifies the spirit and values nature. Scrutiny touches on literature, music, art, and architecture. He criticizes modern universities for not cultivating the appreciation of high-culture and promoting the descent into modernism.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written defense of high culture

This is a much needed justification for a return to traditional teaching of the humanities. We need our cultural heritage. It’s what helps to keep us human rather than the animals that we tend to devolve into. Scruton also offers some hope that there are artists who have the same vision.

[Almachius · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The moral value of art does not lie in the fact that it makes you good - maybe it has no such potential. Its moral value consists in the fact that it perpetuates the idea of moral value, by showing that there really is such a thing."

[Joel Zartman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential.

[Dan Yingst · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clear, cogent, and largely correct, but not particularly deep. A good primer/intro to the question, especially worthwhile on points of art.

[Nick Vandrepol · Rating 2 out of 5]

Het had een interessant boek kunnen zijn maar door de langdradige verwoording, de klagerige toon en vooral filosofisch gedram was het niet bepaald aangenaam om te lezen.

[Richmond Vernon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic read. Those with an interest in education should read this book even more than those with an interest simply in philosophy or political ideology.

[Jonatan Almfjord · Rating 4 out of 5]

Den västerländska kulturen är vår förnämsta moraliska källa i en värld som har nått moderniteten. Där finns kunskaperna om hur vi ska känna, i en värld där känslorna ständigt riskerar att gå vilse.

I den här boken förklarar den kanske största samtida (fram tills förra året levande) konservativa ideologen varför den västerländska kulturen är något som är värt att värna om. Han riktar skarp kritik mot postmoderna tendenser och verkar inte tycka om Foucault. Han driver också tesen att utbildningen är inte främst till för elevens självförverkligande - utan för kulturens bevarande. Lite som hur Richard Dawkins brukar prata om människor som fordon för gener och memer. Och han fördömer popmusiken - som enligt honom inte bara är dekadent utan även innehållslös:

Kraxandet och stönandet i framförandet blir det viktigaste draget i melodislingan. ... Sålunda är det ofta omöjligt att själv sjunga melodin och texten till en poplåt.

Mycket som står i den här boken är vettigt. Och det är, om jag vågar formulera mig så, en väldigt sund form av konservatism som förordas. Därav är den läsvärd.

[Olof · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book.

[Renata Perina · Rating 3 out of 5]

O livro tem uma tese interessante, mas vai ficando um tanto repetitivo. Gosto da tese, mas tenho algumas divergências com o autor, ainda assim acho válido por todas referências que ele aponta ao longo do livro. Livro curto e interessante, valeu a leitura, mas acredito que o autor tenha outras obras melhores.

[John Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very significant look at the importance of understanding culture and it's every day role in our lives. A small book with big ideas.