“A încetat din viață, la 75 de ani, marele filosof Roger Scruton, un stâlp al conservatorismului modern britanic și un luptător pentru reafirmarea individualității și a națiunilor în vremurile de mediocritate și comunizare pe care le trăim.
Dumnezeu să-l ierte și să-l odihnească!”
redactor șef – Revista “Manifest Româneşte”
“Coming close to death you begin to know what life means, and what it means is gratitude”. – Roger Scruton – Ultimul articol
Vă recomandăm site-ul https://www.roger-scruton.com/ și canalul You Tube Roger Scruton official
In memoria sa, publicăm un eseu documentar comentat de Scruton despre De ce contează frumusețea
Robert Scruton despre adopțiile de copii de către homosexuali
This ‘right’ for gays is an injustice to children
Western societies have, in recent decades, undergone a radical change in their attitudes to homosexuality. What was once regarded as an intolerable vice is now regarded as an “orientation”, no different in kind, though different in direction, from the inclinations that lead men to unite with women, and children to be born. This radical change began with the decriminalisation of homosexual conduct, and with a growing readiness not just to tolerate homosexuality in private, but to talk about it in public. We saw the emergence of the “public homosexual”, the flamboyant propagandist for that “other” way of life who, like Quentin Crisp, tried to persuade us that “gay” is after all the right description. There followed the movement for “gay pride” and the “coming out” of public figures —to the point where it is no longer very interesting to know whether someone is or is not of the other persuasion.
For the most part, the people of this country have gone along with the changes. They may not be comfortable with its more demonstrative expressions, but they are prepared to tolerate the homosexual way of life, provided it keeps within the bounds of decency, and does no violence to fundamental norms. However, this attitude does not satisfy the activists. For to tolerate is to disapprove. It is only when conduct offends you that you need to exercise your toleration, and the activists want people to treat homosexuality as normal. Through the slippery notions of discrimination and human rights, they have used the law to advance their agenda. Homosexuality is now treated by the law as a tendency comparable in almost every way to heterosexuality, so that any attempt to distinguish between people on grounds of their “orientation” — whether as applicants for a job, or as recipients of a privilege — is regarded as unjust “discrimination”, comparable in its moral heinousness to discrimination on grounds of race or sex.
On the whole we have accepted that laws against discrimination might be needed, in order to protect those who have suffered in the past from hostile prejudice. Every now and then, however, we wake up to the fact that, although homosexuality has been normalised, it is not normal. Our acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle, of same-sex couples, and of the gay scene has not eliminated our sense that these are alternatives to something, and that it is the other thing that is normal. This other thing is not heterosexual desire, conceived as an “orientation”. It is heterosexual union: the joining of man and woman, in an act which leads in the natural course of things not just to mutual commitment but to the bearing of children, the raising of a family and the self-sacrificing habits on which, when all is said and done, the future of society depends. The propaganda that has tried to rewrite heterosexuality as an “orientation” is really an attempt to persuade us to overlook the real truth about sexual union, which is that it is, in its normal form, the way in which one generation gives way to the next.
This truth is recognised by all the great religions, and is endorsed in the Christian view of marriage as a union created by God. This explains, to a great extent, the reluctance of religious people to endorse gay marriage, which they see as an attempt to rewrite in merely human terms the eternal contract of society. To put it in another way, they see gay marriage as the desecration of a sacrament. Hence the growing conflict between the gay agenda and traditional religion, of which the current dispute over “adoption rights” is the latest sign. According to the Christian perspective — and it is one that is shared, I believe, by Muslims and Jews – adoption means receiving a child as a member of the family, as one to whom you are committed in the way that a father and mother are committed to children of their own. It is an act of sacrifice, performed for the benefit of the child, and with a view to providing that child with the normal comforts of home. Its purpose is not to gratify the parents, but to foster the child, by making him part of a family. For religious people that means providing the child with a father and a mother. Anything else would be an injustice to the child and an abuse of his innocence. Hence there are no such things as “adoption rights”. Adoption is the assumption of a duty, and the only rights involved are the rights of the child.
Against that argument the appeal to “anti-discrimination” laws is surely irrelevant. The purpose of adoption is not to gratify the foster parents but to help the child. And since, on the religious view, the only help that can be offered is the provision of a real family, it is no more an act of discrimination to exclude gay couples than it is to exclude incestuous liaisons or communes of promiscuous “swingers”. Indeed, the implication that adoption is entirely a matter of the “rights” of the prospective parents shows the moral inversion that is infecting modern society. Instead of regarding the family as the present generation’s way of sacrificing itself for the next, we are being asked to create families in which the next generation is sacrificed for the pleasure of the present one. We are being asked to overlook all that we know about the fragility of homosexual partnerships, about the psychological needs of children, and about the norms that still prevail in our schools and communities, for the sake of an ideological fantasy.
To oppose homosexual adoption is not to believe that homosexuals should have no dealings with children. From Plato to Britten, homosexuals have distinguished themselves as teachers, often sublimating their erotic feelings as those two great men did, through nurturing the minds and souls of the young. But it was Plato who, in The Laws, pointed out that homosexuals, like heterosexuals, must learn the way of sacrifice, that it is not present desires that should govern them, but the long-term interests of the community. And it is surely not implausible to think that those long-term interests are more likely to be protected by religion than by the political ideologies that govern the Labour Party.
Telegraph
Ziaristi Online reamintește scandalul generat anul trecut în presa de limbă engleză după identificarea lui Soros drept deținătorul unui imperiu
Press Statement from Sir Roger Scruton in response to the apology from The New Statesman 8 July 2019
Jul 18, 2019
Statement, Sir Roger Scruton: “I am pleased to have resolved my complaint against the New Statesman. They have apologised for how they misrepresented my interview on Twitter and accepted that their article in some fundamental ways did not accurately reflect what I had said. I am pleased that the words I actually spoke are now available (transcript) (audio). This experience was very unpleasant, not least on account of the rush to judgment by others in the media and in politics. I was particularly distressed by the behaviour of the Minister who sacked me on the strength of the NS article, without asking me whether it accurately represented anything that I had said. I was also astonished by the comments issued from Number Ten Downing Street, and by the fact that the Conservative Party made no collective effort to defend me. I am grateful to the New Statesman at least for this, that these distressing events have awoken me to the true moral crisis of the Party to which, despite everything, I still belong.”
Text of apology from The New Statesman
Sir Roger Scruton
The New Statesman interview with Sir Roger Scruton (“Cameron’s resignation was the death knell of the Conservative party”, 10 April) generated substantial media comment and will be readily recalled by most readers. We have now met with Sir Roger and we have agreed jointly to publish this statement.
In the interview, Sir Roger said of China: “They’re creating robots of their own people … each Chinese person is a kind of replica of the next one and that is a very frightening thing”. We would like to clarify that Sir Roger’s criticism was not of the Chinese people but of the restrictive regime of the Chinese Communist Party.
Sir Roger is quoted accurately in the article: “Anybody who doesn’t think there’s a Soros empire in Hungary has not observed the facts”. However, the article did not include the rest of Sir Roger’s statement that “it’s not necessarily an empire of Jews; that’s such nonsense”. We would like to clarify that elsewhere in the interview Sir Roger recognised the existence of anti-Semitism in Hungarian society.
After its publication online, links to the article were tweeted out together with partial quotations from the interview – including a truncated version of the quotation regarding China above. We acknowledge that the views of Professor Scruton were not accurately represented in the tweets to his disadvantage. We apologise for this, and regret any distress that this has caused Sir Roger.
By way of rectification we provide here a link to a transcript of the interview and the original article so that readers can learn for themselves what Professor Scruton actually said in full. END
Reaction to the New Statesman article
The reaction to the New Statesman article turned quickly from condemnation of Roger to slow and steady acknowledgement that an injustice had been done: :
- Deletion of the Champagne Instagram by George Eaton;
- Apology from George Eaton for his ‘social media conduct’;
- Publication of the full transcript of the interview by the New Statesman;
- Expression of ‘regret’ for what had occurred and a statement that ‘we could have done things differently’ from James Brokenshire MP;
- Calls from MPs (including Iain Duncan Smith, James Gray and Zac Goldsmith) supporting Sir Roger and calling for him to be reinstated;
- Deletion of the New Statesman tweets by George Eaton and all corresponding re-tweets;
- Apology from the New Statesman in the agreed terms (Monday 8 July).
Sir Roger Scruton e-mail: contact@rogerscruton.com
Timeline
Wed 27th March, interview given to George Eaton in Roger’s own room in Albany
Wed 10th April Interview published online on The New Statesman with inaccurate and distorted Tweets which wholly misrepresented the interview.
Roger in Paris, civil servant from James Brokenshire MP’s department rings Roger’s home at about 3pm to say that in ten minutes time the government will announce he has been dismissed.
10th April onwards, many letters of support sent directly to Roger and many also sent to James Brokenshire, dismayed at his decision and lack of support for Roger. Douglas Murray and The Spectator start a campaign directed at George Eaton and the New Statesman to ‘Release the Tape’. Some Conservative MPs led by James Gray and Ian Duncan Smith call for Roger to be reinstated.
Roger writes articles where he is invited to do so giving his side: The Telegraph and The Spectator and Le Figaro; he is also commissioned by the Mail on Sunday although article only published later (links to articles below).
Friday 26th April The Today Programme releases the tape and in a high pressured interview, Roger has the chance to clear his name.
Audio tape published on Roger’s YouTube channel. That evening, the New Statesman publish a transcript of the interview. Some inaccuracies in the transcription.
Saturday 27th April The Spectator ‘The Scruton tapes: an anatomy of a modern hit job – How a character assassination unfolded on Twitter’ Douglas Murray.
Saturday 27th April James Brokenshire MP calls Roger for the first time.
James Brokenshire MP writes to Roger, letter dated 30th April. Both communications from Brokenshire refer only to the Twitter storm and a selected single phrase as justification for his decision. Roger not given right to respond.
Letters from supporters and European politicians to Brokenshire are not answered.
Relevant links:
The Roger Scruton interview: the full transcript New Statesman
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/04/roger-scruton-interview-full-transcript
Full Audio of the interview on Roger Scruton’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCYqhfc1wn4
‘An Apology for Thinking’, Roger Scruton, The Spectator 11/4/19 https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/04/roger-scruton-an-apology-for-thinking/
‘Notre Dame de Paris’, Roger Scruton, Le Figaro 17/4/2019 http://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/societe/roger-scruton-notre-dame-calcinee-nous-rappelle-cet-heritage-spirituel-qui-ne-doit-pas-mourir-20190417
‘After my own dark night’, Roger Scruton, – The Telegraph 20/4/2019 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/04/19/human-stories-rebirth-redemption-vital-part-meaning-easter/
‘Diary’, Roger Scruton, The Spectator 20/4/19 – https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/04/roger-scruton-should-i-forgive-the-journalist-who-got-me-fired/
‘The Today Programme’, BBC Radio 4 – 26/4/19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atbg6UoI0is
‘The Scruton tapes: an anatomy of a modern hit job – How a character assassination unfolded on Twitter’, Douglas Murray, The Spectator 27/4/19 https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/04/the-scruton-tapes-an-anatomy-of-a-modern-hit-job/
‘Sir Roger Scruton battled the Thought Police behind the Iron Curtain as a young man. Now he says they’ve come for him in Britain after he was wrongly accused of making racist slurs’, Roger Scruton, Mail on Sunday 30/6/2019 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7196653/SIR-ROGER-SCRUTON-battled-Thought-Police-Iron-Curtain.html
“Social media has no purchase on real life, because it’s designed to replace real life. The whole purpose of it is to recreate networks of human relationships in which reality has no part, so that people can live in fantasy worlds of their own and never encounter the real things like death, starvation, and conflict on the ground.” – Roger Scruton
