Conservatism and the Southern Tradition

 

A review of Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition (All Points Books, 2018) by Sir Roger Scruton.

There is no such thing as conservatism, according to Sir Roger Scruton’s 155-page monograph, Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition. That is, there is no unified theory of conservatism because it is always localized to a time, a place, and a tradition. To say the word conservative means something different depending on who, and where, you are. But the philosophy of conservatism qua conservatism simply does not exist. By no means does that mean it’s empty, though.

Conservatism requires a modifier. There is Southern conservatism. There is British conservatism. There is even what you might call Yankee conservatism (see, e.g., the Salem Witch Trials). One might rightly say that there is a localized flavor of conservatism for every state and even every town, the objective of which is to preserve the native society, kinship, and ritual. Conservatism without a specific temporal and terrestrial provenance, though, is empty.

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