BY SEAN WALSH
“When people feel at home, they allow themselves freedoms, hobbies and eccentricities.” – Sir Roger Scruton
Occasionally, the broiling cesspit that is social media stills itself for just long enough to reveal a gem. Here’s an example, a tribute to the conservative academic Michael Oakeshott, posted on Twitter by the philosopher Ferenc Horcher:
Oakeshott’s style was enchanting. Here was a man who taught my generation how conservatism could be combined with Bohemianism, convention with eccentricity, orderliness with wild abandon, pleasure with responsibility.”
Horcher attributes the quote to the late Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, a journalist to whom the eccentricity lauded in the quote came naturally, ostentatiously and took several forms. These included, most famously, the liberal use of profanity during guest appearances on national television, usually while sporting a bow tie (except for the cravat, nothing screams “character” quite as loudly as the bow tie).
Oakeshott’s own eccentricities were less sartorial in their manifestation, being of the familiar academic type (i.e. serial philandry, and a testing of the boundaries of romantic loyalty – a form of life which, come to think of it, is not eccentric at all within the context of the Academy). Oakeshott was, arguably, the most influential defender of the conservative worldview to write in the 20th century. His writings urge rightful scepticism concerning what we might call “Utopian experimentalism”: those philosophies of both right and left which hold that the role of politics is to “impose a universal plan of life” on society. Such a template will often assume some version of historicism, the contention that there is an arc of history towards which society must bend, either by destiny or human coercion. Further, they will tend to be naively (but dangerously) optimistic about the perfectibility of the human soul.
But to the mind of the conservative philosopher, if there is such an arc, then its curvature is beyond the discernment of the human intellect, and it is conceited to assume otherwise; and the fact of human imperfectability is the primary lesson of the earlier chapters of the book of Genesis. We are Fallen and it is beyond the abilities of a Marx or a Sartre to raise us again.
To be a conservative, Oakeshott suggested, is to cultivate habits of thought, emotion and action which prefer “the convenient to the perfect; present laughter to Utopian bliss”. The primary function of the state is, on this view, to provide and sustain a safe space within which the citizen can flourish via the exercise of virtue. At this point it should withdraw. As Aristotle noted, man is primarily a social animal whose happiness is maximised by meeting his obligations, some of which are contractual, others of which are inherited, including – especially – those owed to family and place (of which more below).
This idea that we can combine convention with eccentricity seems paradoxical, except to the conservative eye, which sees that the latter requires the former, and is in no way in conflict with it.
A convention is an assimilation of rules and suggestions which have been tried, tested and consolidated over time, for the preservation and protection of an established and vibrant political or cultural order. To be eccentric is not to flout those rules but to work creatively within them – up to, but not beyond, the point of subversion. The greatest writers find liberation in the rules of grammar; the most innovative artists are those who absorb and build on the artistic traditions they have been bequeathed.
And the greatest eccentrics are those for whom the rules and norms of society offer not constraint, but opportunity and those rules must be cherished for that reason. The leftist strategy, to sweep away what has been and to start from scratch is not subversion but vandalism; and the instinct which motivates it is not one of eccentricity but of boorishness.
It is the acknowledgment that there are classes of rules which are to be observed rather than obeyed which licenses the creative acts of the authentic eccentric.
None of this is to suggest that all conservatives are eccentric (that would be too optimistic) or that all eccentrics are politically conservative (that would be too depressing). My suggestion is simply that it is the conservative worldview which best explains the phenomenon of the eccentric, and that leftist orthodoxies – with their love of homogeneity and disdain for the kaleidoscopic character of a happy human society – which makes no room for him.
Scruton’s insight, quoted above, is, as we would expect, an impeccably conservative one. Attachment to home and place is of primary consolation to the human soul and is one of many sources of comfort which cannot be replicated outside the dynamic rhythms of human everyday life, despite the absurd claims of those otherwise apparently sane people who advocate that there can be such a thing as “machine consciousness”.
Eccentricity is a mark of the human, and the conservative analysis of the human condition is best placed to make that point. Oh, and the eccentric life is best lived authentically, modestly and below the radar. The wearing of the bow tie is not obligatory.
Sean Walsh is a former university teacher in the philosophy of mind. That was a while ago – but he keeps up with the subject. 2015-2017 he was slightly homeless. He now writes and is the very proud father of a wonderful child. He is grateful for everything he has.