England: An Elegy

by Roger Scruton

In this poignant and personal tribute Roger Scruton gives an account of England which is both an illuminating analysis of its institutions and culture, and a celebration of its virtues.  Covering all aspects of the English inheritance, and informed by a unique philosophical vision, An Elegy shows that there is such a country as England, that it has a distinct personality and endows its residents with a distinct moral ideal.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics, Cultural, British Literature, Sociology

288 pages, Paperback

First published May 10, 1988

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

[Bakunin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 'gentle' (to use one of Scrutons own favorite phrases) and thoughtful (albeit long-winded) book on what it means to be English. Roger Scruton is perhaps the worlds most famous conservative philosopher and also quite a good writer. This is his pastoral elegy for that country, which - in his opinion - is gradually losing its very character. This review will focus on the three things I found most interesting - English character, English law (or more like Law) and English government (not with a capital G).

Character. Scrutons main basic thesis is that the English are strangers to one another and that is why their society has managed to be so stable to several centuries. A certain respect for tradition and form while at the same time seeing ceremonies for what they are - norms, nothing more. The English could therefore joke at people who took certain positions too seriously. Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll are examples of authors who used nonsense to ridicule people of power. Thus satire and dissident became an integral part of the culture. How are you supposed to be free if you aren't free to criticize and discuss ideas openly?

Scrutons view is that because the English were strangers to each other and connected together only by various weird corporate identities (like sports) they could remain eccentric. Your home was your castle and one could indeed say that private property is the foundation upon which the English built their culture. The English are eccentric because... well because they can. Because nobody can tell them how to live. "Such eccentricity is not the functionless by-product of leisure, but a crucial ingredient in a free and risk-taking society. [...] For Mill eccentricity was both the expression of freedom and its ultimate guarantee, the character-building force which resists coercion and turns the world to human uses" (p. 53)

In another passage Scruton writes about the English ideal:
"If we were to look for an adjective with which to summarize the English as they aspired to be [...] it would be 'gentle' - a word of Latin origin, to which the English gave their own particular and multi-faceted meaning. The gentleman emulated those of 'gentle' birth; and in doing so he became gentle in another sense. In the midst of social failure he retained the ability to deal kindly, distantly and humorously with others, and if he nonetheless insisted on his high social merits, he would only become ridiculous - in other words, not gentle, but mere 'genteel'" (p. 66) Eccentricity doesn't mean that one lives alone and doesn't cooperate with other people. Indeed, Scrutons point is that it is because the English are strangers to each other that they can cooperate more easily. Toleration comes as a consequence of not having to always be intimate with other people; of not having to conform to the exact wishes of the 'clan'.

Law. The English system of law quite unique and is something that the anglo-saxons provided.
Basically the rights of contract are central and the norms with which individuals deal with each other are largely regulated by custom (that is to say case law). Lower courts can argue against higher courts because the basis for a law is a continual arguing for the pros and cons of decision making. I found the nature of 'ratio decidendi' to be quite interesting. Lawyers and judges have to provide reasons for their decisions and law can therefore not see as a rules laid down by the Sovereign (as with code napoleon or the corpus juris civilis). What is the just is not always obvious and therefore a lot of factors have to be taken account for. The fact that common law is based on case law and not some grand system makes it irrational, not unreasonable. Tradition develops slowly and over time which allows for corrections over time. Cases are also closer to what individuals actually experience in reality and it is up to the lawmaker to 'uncover' the general principle underlying the just outcome of that case.

Government. The English government is not entirely democratic either but should be viewed as similar to a court. The politicians represent the citizens but are also responsible to the institutions themselves. Society is not something that is only decided by the living but a contract between the dead, the living and the yet unborn (to take the Burkean view). This I found to be an interesting point and one which is rarely voiced in today's politics. I lean more toward direct democracy than Scruton does and therefore I find his case for a politicians loyalty to the system to be... a bit idealistic (even though one naturally prefers political amateurs like lord Salisbury to power hungry politicians which make the daily news). For most of their history, English government was small. It was the job of private enterprise (rather than some official) to fix urgent problems. If you found something to be deeply problematic then the best way to solve it was to take care of it yourself.

I found Scrutons view of the English countryside to be a bit too romantic for my taste and I think I diverged from him on his view of 'duty'. I am siding with Ayn Rand on this one: does duty really exist? The fact that people like to work and live together does not mean that we need to construct an irrational concept like duty. I could be wrong however and I would be open to hearing more arguments for the other side. Perhaps I will find them in the Lord Salisbury biography I am reading at the moment.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in English history and in understanding how a culture gradually develops. It is quite a timely book given how consumed everyone seems to be by the mass culture produced by Netflix and HBO.

[Dominic Foo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes me feel sad.

Reading this book is like reading about a father who left, or died, when one was at a tender age. As a Singaporean I see signs of the English all around, but England is no longer present.

Scruton's main thesis is the idea that the ways of England consists of loyalty to a piece of land ruled by the common law of the land with localist to the point of individualist instincts. There are certain aspects of English culture I recognise in my own, rule of law, the idea of fair play, public politeness and manners, the public-private distinction, discretion, etc. However sometimes he really flies off to heights of romantic imagination in the organic unity of country and culture which I can't really appreciate. I've lived in a city-state all my life and this efficient well-oiled and highly regimented machinery is all I know.

However while I can understand his sense of loss for the webs of institutions, customs and culture necessary for the maintenance of his life form, I cannot help but feel that it is something which we need to let go and move on. The capacity for such can already ironically be found in the English love for localism where we maintain such forms of life with our immediate neighbours rather than despair over its loss in a nation as a whole. I think we need to find our way in our present world by retaining the best of the past while letting go of those aspects which could no longer be reconciled with present realities.

In the end, I do not know whether England is merely absent or dead. However, there would always remain a part of me that hopes that it is merely absent rather than wholly extinguished.

[Dfordoom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roger Scruton’s England: An Elegy is a lament for a vanished civilisation and for the institutions that made that civilisation possible.

Scruton is a philosopher but you will find no academic jargon here. You will however find considerable passion.

Scruton examines the institutions that created English culture, institutions that it is now so unfashionable to admire that such admiration qualifies almost automatically as Thought Crime. Institutions such as the Church of England, the House of Lords and the English common law. Scruton’s defence of these institutions is extremely thought-provoking.

He points out that England’s constitution was as much as anything a defence against the excesses of democracy. Democracy of course is a sacred cow but Scruton demonstrates that it is often paradoxically incompatible with freedom. He also believes that the common law has been fatally weakened by masses of mostly unnecessary statute law, and more recently by edicts issued by the European Union, and that this is a loss that the English people will have cause to regret.

He also makes interesting points about reasonableness as opposed to rationality, and power as opposed to authority. While most European legal systems seek to be rational, the English common law sought to be reasonable, to provide workable solutions to conflict. Authority he sees as something quite different from naked power.

Power is increasingly centralised and flows from the top down, rather than originating in local communities. And increasingly in the hands of self-perpetuating elites of professional politicians with no ties to the community, either national or local.

Scruton sees fundamental changes as having taken place in English society to the point where the qualities once regarded as characteristically English are now virtually extinct.

The book is also a kind of intellectual autobiography which many people may find to be the most interesting aspect to it.

Of course there are many who welcome the changes that Scruton laments, but Scruton makes his case with eloquence, intelligence and passion.

[Oliver Wood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roger Scruton was a conservative philosopher and this is his lament of a vanished England, swept aside by fast food franchises and equal rights legislation. Whatever your views on conservativism, or Scruton himself, it's hard not to be impressed by the scale of the inquiry: there is religious radicalism, gothic revivalism, nation building, the cult of the amateur eccentric, public schools, lawn tennis and as many quotes from famous authors are you could hope to find in a dedicated anthology. But as well as historical survey, plotted according to black spots in need of urgent restoration, this is also quite a bit of autobiography. England: An Elegy, through guarded recollection and all too brief confession, charts the course of conservative in the making. Scruton, we learn, was not born into privilege. Growing up, he seems to have suffered from a family almost comically unsuited to his natural bookishness. His father is depicted as the textbook example of a working class philistine, bemused by education and trendy notions of self-improvement, while his grandfather, a drunk and a layabout, is suggested as someone who can only have grunted when Roger finally gets receives confirmation by letter of his acceptance into grammar school. All the elements then, for an outsider to become a born again Englishman, adopting tradition with all the fanatical elitism of someone eager to fit in where a Lancashire lad would ordinarily be discouraged, if not for belonging to the same class, then belonging to the wrong time period. Since as it transpires, the world of polished manners and panelled drawing rooms he yearns for is long gone, having died out sometime in the early 30s. Thus begins a lifelong obsession with a bygone era inaccessible to all living persons, not just Scruton, and a rather long, drawn out mourning for its all too brief existence as a cultural phenomena, which neatly brings us to the writing of this book.

The problem with this text, as a chronicle of pre-Americanised England, is its inability to see past its longing for what, for many, were the harsh realities of a far less enlightened age. Scruton is free to believe in the fairplay of the great schools, the sanity of rectors and choirmasters, since he never had to live through under their tyranny. In some parts of the country, the old ways of life go on, and there's little to show Scruton has bothered to speak to those presently affected by the remnants of the antiquated institutions. But that is at least in keeping with the meaning of an elegy. An elegy doesn't necessarily have to play fair with the truth. The real issue with Scruton's programme is that it is also a programme for cultural revival - making the case for reinstituting the old discarded traditions - and here Scruton is least convincing because, as a philosopher, he has that typically self-defeating tendency to abstract to general principle. What we need to know is why English traditions are better than French traditions, Italian or Somalian traditions but, instead, Scruton argues for tradition as an abstract idea, making the case for obeying custom by making a virtue out of obedience and ignoring the inherent value of the custom itself. It makes for a poor use of the philosophical apparatus. Arguments are general when they should be particular, metaphysical when they should be historical, and we know that Scruton is rationalising when he thinks he is reasoning because he has already given us the real motives for all his cultural pretentions at the start.

In fact, you can't help but feel such defenses would have been more persuasive by dispensing with academic procedure altogether, particularly in light of the autobiographical details in the introduction, where the indignity of social exclusion, not the inherent worth of tradition, is revealed as the real source of fascination with social forms typically associated with the elite. But a overly generalised argument can still serve as a fair generalisation on its own terms, so it's worth examining the argument for traditionalism more closely. As far as it goes, the argument isn't bad. What Scruton is saying is, I think, is that tradition, as realised through institutions, provides a far more stable framework for social cohesion than the loose set of principles that we are otherwise make do with. Drawing on legalistic definitions of personhood, Scruton attempts to secure social institutions as persons. In this way, much as corporations can enjoy rights typically ascribed to people, so public institutions can insist on their own status as legal persons, with all the special treatment that goes with a fully fledged package of rights. A spinoff of this is that positions of power (being personages in themselves) cannot be undermined with bad management or personal profiteering. For Scruton, social positions, persisting far longer than any single life, always outrank the individual. Hence, it doesn't matter that the Queen is an ass or the prime minister incompetent; that's just the kind of slapdash stewardship that can be easily rectified by the interjection of a more committed, perhaps even more submissive, public servant. Because we should remember that just as we have an obligation to obey authority, so those who occupy the roles of state have a duty to observe the norms of office. Obedience to the demands of social station works both ways.

Yet as egalitarian as this all seems, it's not clear how this justifies certain social roles in the first place (why have a Queen or PM atall?) and why exactly this personification of social station is necessary for us to take our institutional representatives seriously. It might be helpful to personify England as John Bull, since no one can really say who or what a country is - especially problematic when you are trying to get people to fight for it in a foreign land. But when it comes to our public representatives, their purpose is hard to mistake. Even the Queen, as abstract as she might appear, has specific duties, like opening parliament, just as judges have cases to hear, the prime minister a mandate to execute. And in these properly representative cases, we would no doubt feel more secure, not less, if we didn't encounter any signs of personality. Our faith in institutions, after all, consists in the fact that they are not like persons; they are impersonal, and because they are impersonal they are impartial, which is exactly why we trust them. The person reviewing our case in court will give us a fair trial because he is acting on principle, not just because we are his younger brother. The chairman of the committee will do what's best for the club, and not what he thinks will attract the attention of his glamorous secretary. The coveted roles of society are set up so they won't, in theory at least, be easily overruled by the sudden whims of personality.

But to this obvious objection, Scruton has a ready answer. Reason, not sentiment, is the defining characteristic of personality, so none of the above counter examples, all involving some degree of personal inclination, count against his thesis. We are thinking of personhood in terms of temperament. Actually, we should be thinking of the self as something essentially rational and impartial. But the problem is, apart from being a rather restricted view of personality, the definition doesn't align with Scruton's definition that comes later. In a chapter entitled 'English Character', Englishness is otherwise defined by its "coolness", "loyalty", "selfless concern" - traits that tellingly bypass the critical faculties and which sound like they could just as well belong to animals, an unfortunate symmetry that does harm to another related part of Scruton's thesis. Because as well as showing that institutional bodies are persons and therefore rational because persons themselves are rational, the other purpose of securing man as rational is to establish a strict divide between society and nature, civilisation and the lawlessness of the swamp. This is presumably to ensure that the bloodsports carried out and enjoyed by the elite, tacitly supported by Scruton, are morally vindicated. But leaving aside the fact that it isn't true that animals can't reason (recent research says they can), and overlooking the point that many humans can't reason at all (making them no less worthy of compassion) the insistence on reason as the crux of personality leads to absurd consequences - it produces the result that a constitutional body can be a person, but a wily, skittish fox can't, a wild, capricious stallion can't, but an empty, poorly-managed parliament can, and so even if Scruton can resolve the conflict of wanting personhood as rationality but English personality as temperament, any definition which asks us to embrace institutions more vigorously than flesh and blood creatures has surpassed human possibly and can probably be rejected as impractical outright.

None of these arguments, it should be restated, tell us anything about English tradition; they are general arguments for conservatism as transmitted by institutions. There’s no reason why we can’t do Englishness without this strange crystallisation of social norms, or English conservatism without the interference of state. Scruton is much closer to the spirit of England when he depicts it as a kind of heighted theatre, roles as roleplay rather than a straightjacket in which the individual must suppress their individual identity for the more pressing demands of office. On the middle classes aping the aristocracy he says: "By imitating this class, you entered it, since it was in itself a work of the theatrical imagination. And because theatre is also a form of distancing, which creates an impassable barrier between the actor and his audience, the English were especially good at it. Everywhere the middle classes strove to ape the manners of their 'betters', adopting the customs, vocabulary and accent that seemed to them to be proper to the gentry".

This is as good a depiction of the middle classes as you're likely to find. Scruton is right to see the culture as transmitted by a changeling middle class, with elitism as a crucial fiction employed to fight off feelings of inferiority. Scruton is also on the mark when he emphasises the self-conscious self-awareness of these theatrics. The problem is that Scruton wants it both ways: he wants elitism as a gentle jest, the aspiring classes roleplaying as aristocrats, but then roles as real occupations, not so much enlightened play as official stations administrated under oath. That's fine as far as it goes, it's just that Scruton doesn't take the time to make the distinction from role to role. Clearly, some roles, like being a parent or a politician, are essential for the functioning of society whereas others, like being a dandy or the village eccentric, are obviously frivolous. But because Scruton never takes the time to clarify the difference, he continually confuses the two, leading him to treat the disappearance of tweedy eccentrics as catastrophic a loss as if all the policemen suddenly vacated their roles, all the mothers overnight abandoned their children. While, admittedly, it is sad that eccentrics aren't as flamboyant as they once were, there is no comparison between the abandonment of style and the abolishing of social station. Even if we were to make being an amateur intellectual or country squire professions in themselves, with their own escutcheons and designated dress, we would then lose the crucial sense of play that animates and preserves them; since as Scruton himself points out, the whole point of Englishness is the conscious, not entirely serious sense, of performance that goes with it, that our costumes are costumes and not the uniforms of the totalitarian state - that we are a country where even the Queen might make fun the crown jewels, lest she attract the designs of a far less charitable form of public scepticism.

Yet, we might ask, why should Englishness be defined by the prejudices of hereditary wealth anyway? Can't culture be more than the middle classes striving "to ape the manners of their betters"? What you notice, throughout the book, is the absence of the arguably more vital counterculture of the more industrious working classes. Nowhere do we find any of the below floor backroom stuff that got on without getting the diploma, the unaffected masses who made their mark and filled their pockets without some smug, sexually questing mentor around to offer an inflected note of advice. The impression you get is of a fixed trajectory, with all culture, practically by definition, striving upwards. If we are to create anything worthwhile, so the argument seems to go, we must ape our social superiors, for culture arises out of subservience to patrician norms, no matter how mindlessly dictated, with the cunning caveat that they must be tied to institutions to be credible - the universities and colonial outposts that allowed men to pontificate at leisure, cocooned from the noisy antics of the outside world marching for its rights. But this too, like the personification of public bodies, leads to weird, counterintuitive results. We can have radical stuff like Wilde and Carroll because that grew out of Oxford quads; we can have the socialism of Orwell since it developed out of his time at Eton, but we cannot have the fairly mild, more politically conservative output from the likes of Blyton, DIckens and Waugh because all that developed off-campus, away from the Gothic cloisters which creak with brogue and reverberate with timid, donnish giggles. The cult of ancestry, inevitably, conflicts with the abiding values of tradition, and again, Scruton fails to show why he should be able to have it both ways.

On the whole, this is a book where the arguments rarely hang together. Too often claims unravel into unmanageable contradictions, and the central conceit of an England somehow still extant in spite of abandoning its certainties isn't really worth scrutinising. Perhaps unexpectedly for a philosopher, Scruton is far better by subterfuge than via direct debate. It is when he forgets his strict intellectual prospectus and ferments his passions that he is able to escape from the set course tyranny of his fanaticism and produce something that actually looks worth preserving. At his best, Scruton uses his talents to paint a picture of his native landscape infinitely more convincing, a landscape enriched with a subtle palette of words which are forever "blessing" the uplands, "nestling" the whitewashed cottages and refectories, religiously “redeeming” the essential lawlessness of nature, as in: “the sense of ownership which redeemed the accidents of nature” or: “refectories, monastic halls and libraries, all set within a close where grass and trees and houses nestled in quasi-rural calm.” The value of this kind of writing is that it goes along quietly polishing everything it touches, from tarnished reputations to faded institutions, touching and sanctifying even the most despotic areas of public life, from the almost eradicated clergy to the scattered remains of the aristocracy. In a very English way, Scruton succeeds in subtley where a harsh, unforgiving rationalism almost inevitably fails. That these are images and sensations mostly sourced second hand, from softfocus writers like Betjeman and Hardy, scarcely matters -being unable to look nature head on has never been part of the English repertoire anyway. Being at least one remove from reality, without falling into a reverie more typical of the hot tempered inhabitants of the temperate zones, is what makes us the strange sentimental sorts we are.

But it is in the final chapter, ‘The Forbidding of England', that argument makes a comeback. Reality, having reared its head as a political urgency, can apparently no longer be kept at bay. Poetry must cede to diatribe; the case for England made directly. To those who've followed the news over the past few years, much of the territory will be familiar: people can't say they're English anymore; suburban homeowners are persecuted for flying the flag; the EU undermines national sovereignty and our contributions go toward helping countries beyond hope. But it's not just the EU. Scruton also worries that we are becoming homogenous, that multinational hotels cheapen the landscape and drive out b&bs, that the faceless corporations whose highrises loom over our cities add nothing to our culture. While the anti-EU part of the message is now a settled matter, the anti-globalist stance is still very much a live issue, and if it’s here that Scruton wants to make a last stand against modernity, the premise isn't entirely ridiculous. Arguably, we have lost something in the unquestioning adoption of global values, where most of what’s left of public debate is conducted according to the whooping emotionalism of US television, where a ‘City gent’ is much more likely to wear a lanyard than a tie, and where every office looks like an anonymous airport lounge, there is a case for rolling back the clock, even if not quite as far as Scruton would like it.

Unfortunately, having ignored most of the modern world for most of the book, Scruton cannot make much of his closing argument. This is as much a failure of an inadequately explored conception of tradition as an insubstantial investigation of modernity. The two-sided nature of tradition, much less the non-Englishness of it, is never fully reconciled. Yes, tradition is, like the persistence of species, the stuff that resists change because it cannot be improved. But it's also the stuff that we forget about and allow to grow mouldy The truth is, for all the exceptional culture we’ve produced, much of it wasn’t very good. As soon as people got a taste for overseas consumables, they rightly donated all the knicknacks and drab engravings to the local hospice. The last century was as much a long awaited clearout of the junk in the attic as anything. But there is an argument that, in our hurry, we threw out much that had real, lasting, practical value. What we want to know then is which of our customs were valuable, which are better left in the past, and which are best left to the specialists. Until we can answer that question, this could really be an elegy of anywhere, and the likelihood is that what was really special about tradition, was that it belonged to the past - a barrier as impassable as the fences and hedgerows that divide the fields, the distinctions of wealth and class, and all the other litanies of a conservatism beautifully conveyed but ultimately inadequately defined.

[Porzia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding.

[Ravi Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent eye opener explaining how socialist/communists ideals and Conservative Party sellouts as well the C of E enemies of the land have disenfranchised people to such an extent, that self loathing for our own identity as English has become the norm. This is being seized on by the devolved governments who are seeking further to weaken the country thanks to the Labour Party who allowed devolution and have now been wiped out in Scotland and Wales themselves!

The love of country and patriotism is being shouted down by all sides, denying the English their identity and religion and politics have aided that.

Ours is a country to love, but time and again the horrors of imperialism are being used to stop anyone feeling proud of this country unless it is for the football. Labour MPs even tweeted picture of England's flag as a sign of how backward and racist the English are when she the MP was English herself!

Whoever thinks we will deny our national identity in favour of a european or globalist identity has another thing because there are still plenty of us who love this country and esteemed philosophers like Sir Roger Scruton in his hallowed elegy continue to give us a voice and let us know that we are not alone in recognising the attempts at the slow dismantling of our nation.

There is still time to stop it and stop it we shall!

Excellent read.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well .. what a set of mixed feelings I have about this one

Firstly - I sympathise greatly with the author : about 18 months ago , after having given an interview , he was widely denounced as “ racist “ , and as a result was sacked from a government job he had in the Arts . It later transpired - from looking at the transcript - that the interviewer had selectively published sections so as to suggest that Scruton had taken a racist line , when in fact the reverse was true , when seeing the context .

The interviewer and the government minister accepted that but by then the damage had been done.

So I sympathise greatly with the author .

However this “ elegy “ is long on philosophical generality and too short on personal life stories ,or evidence rooted in experience. That is my view .

The author is best when he tells us real life events and then moves from the particular to the general by way of drawing a moral conclusion from his actual experience .

So Scruton had me spellbound reading the tale of his schooldays and visits to his teacher a Mr Chapman . It is very well told and we feel we are back in the 1950s in the actual dining room of the suburban semi. And from this he tells us of the Leavis influence - an experience I shared , and those far off days where novels and writers are “ranked “ according to Leavis thinking , “ felt life “ and The Great Tradition .

If I compare those pages with the section under “ English Culture “ where in a single page , a list of 10 or 20 authors is expounded .. to prove or show some point ; the difference in impact is very great. I’m left reeling , and the writing loses its power.

There can be no doubt that Scruton loves England and deplores the Nay Sayers and Haters ( as do I ) . His book is very successful in conveying the “ enchantment “ of our Land - the eccentricity of the people, their fondness for tradition , the uniqueness of our legal unfolding system, the great poets , writers , our love of the countryside , and our sense of security that underpins it all - surrounded as we are by ocean, our democracy and its institutions, and our national peaceful and deprecating nature . He sees these things he loves under siege ..

Unlike Scruton - I am optimistic and hopeful .

[Lukas op de Beke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before picking up this book I was no stranger to English culture. Shakespeare, Queen Victoria, the Royal Navy, Queen Elizabeth, Henry VIII, the Gothic Revival, the green pastures, Oxford and Cambridge, Charles Darwin, Newton, these were all very familiar to me. But what I wasn't sufficiently aware of and what Scruton quite rightly points out as a key aspect of English culture is the spontaneous, instinctive desire of the English people to band together in all sorts of clubs. Although these clubs have a darker side- they are not always open to everyone fairly and equally (I believe Scruton fails to see this and his defense of the public school and class systems falls short of convincing)- I can readily understand the power and attraction of being able to become a part of such colourful microcosms and the heraldry, the immersion in history and the healthy and durable bonds that go with it. In other countries, this unique remedy and bulwark to an overly atomistic, individualistic and impersonal society is all too often found lacking and this is a sad thing. I also wholly agree with his analysis of the English character, a mixture of gentle and genteel.

[Stephen Dawes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was once told that this book ought to be required reading for all English members of Parliament by a sitting MP. I quite agree, although I would go further to recommend this book to anyone. A beautiful elegy to our gentle home which is under the most enormous and overbearing threat.

[Michael Potts · Rating 4 out of 5]

A moving lamentation for an England that is long gone. Ultimately this is a book, of which there are many, that points at the fire but not at the people who started it. The autobiographical sections, however, make this a very interesting read. I would advise against reading the older editions which saturate the secondhand book market.

[Scott Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roger Scruton's "England: An Elegy" is a poignant and insightful tribute to English culture and institutions, which the author argues are rapidly disappearing. As a renowned conservative philosopher, Scruton presents a compelling analysis of what he considers to be the essence of Englishness, covering aspects such as character, law, government, and cultural traditions.

Key points of Scruton's work include:

1. The unique English character, emphasizing qualities like eccentricity, politeness, and a certain detachment in social interactions.
2. The importance of English common law and its emphasis on reasonableness over strict rationality.
3. The role of traditional institutions like the Church of England and the House of Lords in shaping English society.
4. The decline of these institutions and cultural norms since World War II.

Scruton's work is both erudite and passionate, offering a much-needed defense of traditional English culture in an era of rapid change. Unlike more radical critiques of society, Scruton's approach is grounded in a deep appreciation for the historical and cultural foundations that have shaped England.

The book's examination of England's past is not mere nostalgia, but a thoughtful exploration of the values and institutions that have contributed to social stability and cultural richness. Scruton argues convincingly that the erosion of these traditional structures has led to a loss of social cohesion and shared cultural identity.

Scruton's call for a return to traditional institutions and norms is not impractical, but rather a necessary counterbalance to the forces of cultural dissolution. He recognizes that in a diverse, multicultural society, preserving a core cultural identity becomes even more crucial for maintaining social harmony and a sense of shared purpose.

The author's emphasis on the unique qualities of English traditions is not about superiority, but about recognizing the value of cultural distinctiveness. In an age of globalization and moral relativism, Scruton's work serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving cultural heritage and the dangers of uncritically embracing a homogenized global culture.

While Scruton doesn't shy away from addressing the challenges of modern society, his perspective offers a constructive vision for cultural renewal. He argues that by reconnecting with our cultural roots and revitalizing traditional institutions, we can address contemporary issues while maintaining a sense of continuity and shared values.

In conclusion, "England: An Elegy" is a vital contribution to the discussion of cultural preservation in the face of rapid social change. Scruton's conservative ideology and thoughtful examination of English culture offer valuable insights into how societies can maintain their identity and values while adapting to the modern world. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the preservation of cultural heritage and the importance of shared traditions in fostering social cohesion.

[NDH · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being of the same generation as that of the author, I share much of his displeasure at what the world has become. One could write much the same book about my own United States, whose history is likewise being erased and “re-imagined” by those who don’t know or want to know history. I think Mr. Scruton and I could readily enjoy a pint or two together, bemoaning the growing darkness outside the “Coach and Horses.”
But, I’ll not dwell on that, and just throw out rather randomly a few thoughts and questions that have arisen before me, like the Cheshire Cat’s smile.

What didn’t RS like about Tony Blair? I always thought he was a decent fellow, and certainly stood by America after 9-11. A toast to Tony Blair, says I…

Was Shakespeare Catholic? The argument that he was strikes me as convincing. And think what a different world it would have been had England remained the contentedly Catholic country it had already been for about 1000 years before Henry the “Defender” of the Faith switched sides. (I know, Ireland would have become Protestant…)

In a different vein, what does RS think of the Southern Agrarians, that school of writers loosely associated with Vanderbilt (Tennessee) in the 1930s and 40s, who seem to share a vision of rural agricultural life as being morally superior to that of the modern and industrialized?
More generally, I’d like to read a more thorough “comparative analysis” of, say, RS’s England with, say, France, Germany, the US. Many of the myths and clichés that RS identifies uniquely with “England” must surely have their counterparts in other countries.

But of course, that would be a different book.

How about “Goodbye Mr. Chips”? Does that capture something of the essence of the lost England RS laments (elegizes) or is it merely kitsch? I was very fond of that book.

In any case, I do think RS would raise a pint to Brexit. Being ruled from Brussels (the Berlin-Paris Axis) truly horrified him. Worse than being ruled from Inside the Beltway!

One last question:
What did RS think of Jeffrey Bernard (my other favorite English philosopher)? Did he ever read him, and vice versa?
Let’s toast to English philosophers!

[Bert Corluy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scruton as usual provokes thought. No matter if you agree with him or not, the ideas he confronts you with are interesting, his arguments convincing and though to contradict, his thesis always compelling. I’m not English yet was drawn to his view, his case, and his elegy -because he writes of an England that is vanishing, maybe even gone - for an English culture, society, identity that was certainly not flawless, but most definitely unique and in a way beautiful. It certainly is not a simplistic book. He tackles the many differing strands that make up the bonds that bind human beings together in a shared identity. From customs, laws, government, the very land and climate itself, shared history, food….
In his analysis and synthesis of this complex tapestry lies the value of this book, even for non Englanders: many of these strands have analogies in our nations, or are conspicuous by their absence. The method he uses is as interesting as his subject itself.
For lovers of philosophy, anthropology and politics it is strongly recommended, wether you are a conservative, the exact opposite, or something in between. Historians should know that it isn’t a historical work even though there are many links to history of course. Lawyers might be annoyed by his lack of technical knowledge. Generalists will find this book to be right in their wheelhouse.

[Joshua Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've got to stop reading Scruton products; I inevitably end up purchasing books based on his footnotes.

Three cheers for this well written work that provides the outlines to the heritage of the English culture.

[Greg Benham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enlightening--I would wholly recommend to any Englishman.

[Judith]

I have, sadly, abandoned this book. I’ve read others by R Scruton & enjoyed them - but this one, despite the odd sentence ringing very true, just didn’t seem worth the effort.

[Gunner Garner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant, and very much a shock to be so prescient about the modern dangers of loss of local culture and a society that no longer cares for its past, to have been written 25 years ago

[Jonathan Garvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very beautiful.

[T.]

Beautifully written, lovingly told. A rewarding read.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

In England: An Elegy , Roger Scruton delivers a sentimental reflection on the culture of England, and how it is being lost. In different chapters we learn about the English character and culture, the role of religion in England, the development of the English common law system and its effects on English government and monarchy, and the unique place of the countryside and village life in shaping the English national psyche. Interspersed within these reflections are autobiographical accounts from Scruton's life, helping to embellish the more abstract narrative.

There's nothing particularly outstanding or memorable about the book, although at a personal level (as somebody with no background in law), I found the explanation and celebration of common law to be very interesting. I also found Scruton's defence of the monarchy - as the non-corporeal 'crown' rather than any particular monarch - to be interesting, as I hadn't come across that sort of argument before. On a less positive note, it's probably fair to say that Scruton does tend to drift into sentimentality and romanticism rather than objective historical analysis - I doubt the relations between the upper-class lord of the manor and the working-class villagers was always quite as cordial and mutually-beneficial as the book seems to imply, for example. Overall, however, it was enjoyable to read an impassioned defence of the English culture, at a time where it is far more fashionable to mock or criticise it. 6/10

[Bobby Grogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a romance lost. Really aptly describes the cultural phenomena of the English (I think-- I have barely been there). The importance of distance in relationships, private organizations, a unique upper class, the country side.

[Päivi Peltola · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book gives a lot of information about the English culture. An interesting book to read at least for an English major.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brexit Reading - 2
Another important book that raises the issues that will influence decision-making on the UK's place in the EU.