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Javier E

Government sacks Roger Scruton after remarks about Soros and Islamophobia | Politics | ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...al-islamophobiad-soros-remarks

philosophers islamophobia anti-Semitism uk

shared by Javier E on 10 Apr 19 - No Cached
  • In an interview with the New Statesman, the rightwing philosopher was unrepentant about his views on George Soros, the Hungarian-American philanthropist, who is frequently cited in antisemitic conspiracy theories and attacked by Hungary’s rightwing prime minister, Viktor Orbán.
  • “Anybody who doesn’t think that there’s a Soros empire in Hungary has not observed the facts,” Scruton told the magazine
  • Scruton, who has been a friend of Orbán for more than 30 years, denied that he was antisemitic or Islamophobic. He said Islamophobia had been “invented by the Muslim Brotherhood in order to stop discussion of a major issue”.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The interview prompted Labour to repeat its call from five months ago for Scruton to be sacked after it emerged that he had described Jews in Budapest as part of a “Soros empire”.
  • “His claim that Islamophobia does not exist, a few weeks after the devastating attack in Christchurch, is extremely dangerous, and his defence of the prejudice stoked by Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary is appalling.”
Javier E

Roger Scruton and the Fascists Who Love Him - 0 views

thetriad.thebulwark.com/...r-scruton-and-the-fascists-who

conservatism liberalism Scruton responsibility fascism

shared by Javier E on 22 Oct 22 - No Cached
  • Scruton was a true intellectual, that his writing extended far beyond political commentary into various fields of philosophy and the arts, and that his reputation was that of a gentleman
  • reading Scruton’s critique of liberalism from the safety of, say, 1995, with communism vanquished, liberalism ascendant, and Europe beginning to heal from an 80-year-old wound is one thing.
  • Reading Scruton’s critique of liberalism today, with right-wing illiberalism on the march both at home and abroad, is quite another.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Scruton’s argument in many of his essays and books amounted to a deep critique of liberalism as mistaken about human beings, about society, about politics. That critique was especially valuable when it could be read as a friendly corrective to liberalism’s errors, excesses, and contradictions
  • today, with liberalism under threat, it comes across more like an indictment of liberalism—an indictment that has apparently been taken up as a foundational text by fascists.
  • Pappin extols Hungary as “a traditional Christian society,” going on to say “as an anti-liberal, I think that’s good.” Pappin then defends altering the Constitution to tilt power toward the right and strip protections from groups he feels have undermined American traditional values.
  • at some point, you have to start asking hard questions. In art, we divorce the work from both its creator and its legacy. You judge the work for the work and do not hold it responsible if the artist, or its fans, turn out to be bad people.
  • I’m not certain that this is how it is—or should be—in the world of ideas.
  • In Scruton’s place and time, it did seem like liberalism was ascendant and that its overreach and failings needed conservative correction.
  • In our day, though, liberalism needs correction less than it needs protection—including protection from the would-be authoritarians sipping espresso in the Scruton café.
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