Gloom Merchant

Via John Derbyshire, Roger Scruton’s Gloom Merchant, an excerpt:

However, in a host of ways we make the life of reason easy for ourselves, by ploys and fallacies that feed our false hopes. In The Uses of Pessimism I explore some of these ploys and fallacies, and show the devastating effect they have had on modern societies. For example, there is the “born free” fallacy that has dominated educational thinking since Rousseau. This tells us that human freedom is a natural gift, that we are born to enjoy it, and that we lose it through the laws, rules and hierarchies of social life. That, in my view, is the opposite of the truth. Human freedom is an

artefact. Societies have built laws, institutions and forms of collective discipline precisely in order that the individual can live freely. To believe that we are born free makes it easier to bear our frustrations, to blame others for our woes, and to dignify our inadequacies with the colours of a justified rebellion. It enables us to discard all knowledge that it is painful to acquire, and to believe that idleness is virtue. And the effect of this belief on education has been devastating, leading everywhere to the loss of discipline and culture.

Scruton’s The Uses of Pessimism is available soon.