Roger Scruton, a conservative intellectual and British philosopher, has died at the age of 75.
Scruton, who had announced last year he was suffering from cancer, was a prolific author, writing more than 50 nonfiction books on topics ranging from aesthetics and politics to wine and music, as well as novels and operas.
An announcement posted to his website Sunday said that he died peacefully after his six-month battle.
He credited his conservatism to witnessing riots in Paris, which he described to the Washington Examiner in 2018:
Scruton, a graduate of the University of Cambridge who started his academic career as a professor of aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London, edited the conservative journal The Salisbury Review for nearly two decades and supported Czechoslovakian academic dissidents against the Communist Party in the 1980s, for which he was awarded the Czech Republic’s Medal of Merit in 1993. He later worked at the University of Buckingham, the University of Oxford, and the University of St. Andrews, as well as in the United States, and was knighted in 2016 for his contributions to philosophy and education. He was also honored for his anti-Communist activism by the government of Poland and by Hungary for his commitment to freedom in Europe.
A sometimes controversial figure, Scruton was fired and later rehired in early 2019 by the U.K. government for statements he made in an interview about George Soros and Islamophobia, among other topics.
But, despite a sometimes more skeptical wider audience, Scruton was a beloved figure in conservative circles, even hosting the 10-day Scrutopia Summer School for people who wanted to become immersed in his ideas.
“I think it’s a fundamental part of the conservative tradition that politics is not religion. It’s not the imposition of conformity from above by some sanctified elite, which is essentially the liberal position, but that it’s a form of continuous discussion between diverse and possibly conflicting interests, an attempt to conciliate, to arrive at a solution acceptable to everyone, which requires institutions like parliaments and Congress and so on and a rule of law, committees, and all the rest,” he told the Washington Examiner in 2018. “So, it’s about procedure, and it sees politics as aiming to conciliate rival interests rather than to impose conformity.”
He is survived by his wife, Sophie, and his children, Sam and Lucy.
