Roger Scruton - The True, the Good and the Beautiful

Eminent Scholar of aesthetics Roger Scruton raises important questions about the individual's relationship with morality and the arts.

[@dariushkananimusic8049]

This man is brilliant and utterly charming.

[@markcreemore4915]

We should count ourselves very lucky to live in the same moment in history as Sir Roger Scruton and Dr Jordan Peterson.

[@lennycarlson1178]

calm down lol

[@thekaiser4928]

Take Peterstein out and then we are fortunate to have Scruton. Juden Peterstein is a below average intellectual, and is filled with hypocritical views.

[@ajjames8691]

When Peterson speaks on clinical psychology he is a giant, when he strays into politics and philosophy not so much. Scruton is a true polymath.

[@DariaRock1]

Charles Taylor ? John Lennox? Thomas Nagel ?

[@DariaRock1]

As well?

[@william.james.]

Sir Roger - Insightful and enriching. I am better because of his effort here. Thank you.

[@st4ndswithfist]

God, I love this man.

[@borislavmarkov4171]

"Truth is tricky, goodness - even trickier, but beauty is easy to discern." I love that quote, but am unsure of its truthfulness.

[@johnmartin2813]

At least it's beautiful and even good. And truth without beauty and goodness is merely a desire to shock. So maybe it's true as well. (All three have to endure the test of time before we can finally tell.)

[@johnmartin2813]

At least it's beautiful and even good. And truth without beauty and goodness is merely a desire to shock. So maybe it's true as well. (All three have to endure the test of time before we can finally tell.)

[@Visigoth_]

"beauty is easy to discern." - It really *is... drop the pretense of "intellectual" superiority (or one's fear of being found wanting), and then that which touches your soul (not the religious soul, but the core of your emotional center); that is beauty. It's when you feel some emotional connection (on a personal level) that's deeper then a superficial passing curiosity. It just "grabs you" sometimes subtly, sometimes powerfully.

[@normandylander]

Beauty isn't goodness, but goodness is beautiful.

[@craigsmith1443]

normandylander _Beauty isn't goodness, but goodness is beautiful_ H'm...is that statement quite balanced enough to be valid? Shouldn't it be 'Beauty isn't goodness, and goodness isn't beauty'? Put that way, it seems clearer, I think. However, I think we can say, 'Beauty is good, and good is beautiful,' depending on how one thinks 'beautiful' should be defined. I think that the Good is beautiful while the Good is not Beauty (that's why we have the different concepts), but both are desirable for a fully human life because the Beautiful is part of the Good, and the Good is crucial to our living well and rightly.

[@du8993]

Incredible lecture. So elucidating and poignant. Enthralled from as soon as I heard the introduction. It is always about questions, always. The beauty is to find the right questions to ask and the meaning to a meaningful life is the ability to be able to ask enough questions to find it.

[@paulg444]

Thank you so much LDS for bringing this beautiful man to us!!!

[@zhaoxiaoying9894]

A true wise man.

[@astrogoodvibes6164]

Good on the beautiful truths of the mind behind Sir Roger Scruton.

[@levcimac]

Ken Wilber does a decent job at delineating, distinguishing and integrating The Good, True & Beautiful. He also does a good job at showing how we can sometimes fall into reductionism whereby we fail to delineate, distinguish and integrate elements that make up The Good, True & Beautiful in the wider culture... which is already happening. The patterns he points out are very educational.

[@alanflood8162]

Marvellous!

[@Visigoth_]

Good lecture!

[@MyDenis0]

what i like about serious conservatives is that they tend to translate complicated topics into simple ones, and in doing so discern facts from bullshit, but at the same time there is the risk that they may discredit valid points wich are subtle and elegant, classic example of schopenauer and hegel.

[@piushalg8175]

In respect to the picture of Grünewald I would say that the picture of the crucifiction has to be related to the picture of the resurrected Christ by the same painter on the backside of the altar in order to understand the message.

[@tsiiphsycoii]

Should have uploaded this video in mono, would have made the audio better.

[@paulg444]

There is a north star for navigating all things moral, social and political, Scruton!

[@littoy]

58:49 Great question.

[@Visigoth_]

lol... good answer too. (^_^)b

[@VallaMusic]

right off the bat - the typical academic line that we are forever questioning while never having the answer and that's just the way it should be - johnny depp, the film don juan demarco, the four questions scene - there's your answer

[@AnnabelleJARankin]

Yes, forever questioning because art opens your heart to possibility...

[@mattgilbert7347]

I like Beethoven and Heavy Metal.

[@bushfingers]

Matt Gilbert hey Matt - that was going to be my comment - word for word!

[@mattgilbert7347]

bushfingers Great minds think alike. Bach was the original metalhead. Beethoven was power-metal.

[@mattgilbert7347]

bushfingers Wagner as well. Chromatic scales and dissonance, baby!

[@misterkefir]

Heavy metal music and classical music have a lot in common. Besides - the best heavy metal music has symphonic and classical elements in it. It makes it truly epic beyond belief. I also love classical and heavy metal, even better if they're combined!

[@electrasong9954]

So do I.

[@_________________________7050]

46:45

[@georeodeo217]

Good is predicated upon God. The Good or God shoots forth its creative Idea as the Light of Truth which, striking the magic Mirror of matter, shines with pleasure at representing that Truth in the many forms of Beauty. The lower man projects his own horrors on that same screen and suffers accordingly. Truth is Light, Beauty is Life and both are made One in Goodness, which is Love. "Wisdom perfects Art; Art perfects Nature, and Nature perfected is the Wise man's Stone."

[@TMPreRaff]

No - good is not predicated on god. God has nothing to do with it. Don't underestimate yourself.

[@virvisquevir3320]

Tim McGee - Don't underestimate God.

[@orriolbohigas591]

Good existed way before any god was invented by men. what you say makes no sense. also, in the history of mankind, the name of god has been spent more often to commit atrocities than to do any good.

[@orriolbohigas591]

@@virvisquevir3320 why not ? otherwise is he gonna punish me ?

[@delcioalves4556]

Up

[@anthonydimichele837]

I wonder if DW Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation can be "rescued" in the same way that Wagner's work was explained? I think the overt racism in that film was marginalized for many years, culminating in a DW Griffith award given for Hollywood films of technical excellence (Kubrick received one); but it was later withdrawn for its racist associations. The film glorifies the Ku Klux Klan and actually lead to a resurgence of membership and its attendant violence.

[@zekielwagen]

He lost me when he said "there was nobody living here back then"...

[@OriginalLHB]

For once I must vigorously disagree with Sir Roger. I can see that the Tintoretto is great art but it is oriented far more toward the Last Judgement and therefore distracts one from the essential reality of The Crucifixion, which is the totality of Christ's suffering. The nature of His sacrifice is thus glossed over in the Tintoretto which I find to be a repugnant piece of art for it's Triumphalist orientation. The Grunewald is a masterpiece. Also, just because Schubert drank a little too much doesn't make him depraved. Wagner is more problematic; he was a genuine jerk.

[@ailblentyn]

4:50 "Of course ther was noone living in this part of the world then". Says it all. Or at least a lot.

[@einsatzgruppencommander1184]

I suppose is unlikely that the Utes shared Sir Roger's aesthetic sensibilities.

[@thedaveastator7939]

Actually as far as I can tell it doesn't really seem to say a lot. All that's needed is a factual correction, the error itself doesn't have any consequential bearing on his subject matter.

[@emiliodiaz3927]

Thanks for the insight anime girl

[@WmThomasSherman]

I like Roger Scruton and generally agree with what he says, but in this talk I would take exception with a few things. Satan a sympathetic figure in "Paradise Lost?" To each his own but I hardly saw him that way. And to use commercially driven Thomas Kincaid as a representative of sentimentality is grossly unfair and absurd. Try rather Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or Doctor Dolittle. Now what says Scruton to these? I myself like them much better than Wagner or Puccini. And now that he mentions it, as far as most 19th and 20th century classical music generally, and aside perhaps for Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff, they are like Scruton's books of science, ordinarily good for one read, or in their case one listen, unlike say 18th century classical music, like Mozart, or the Baroque of such as Handel and Vivaldi; which we can stand hearing over and over and over again.

[@OriginalLHB]

I hate to say it, but your musical aesthetic has yet to rise to the level of your literary aesthetic. Satan is of course not a sympathetic figure in Paradise Lost but he does have most of the best lines.

[@stueyapstuey4235]

4:40 '..there was no one living in this part of the world, just then...' at least no one worth speaking of... (that we haven't since extinguished)... Neo-Cons of the world unite - Don't we all just love beauty and truth!

[@sebastianmelmoth685]

Milton's Satan noble? Good grief!

[@RobSinclaire]

When I was a Kid a product came out called "Scratch 'an Sniff" and that's all this is, smelling Farts!

[@davewilson6313]

Rob Sinclaire you are a model of profundity.

[@RobSinclaire]

And you, Sir, are the very Fountain of Wit

[@davewilson6313]

I see you support recycling. We have common ground after all.

[@bobmarshall3700]

Unfortunately Mr Scruton has stated in another video that he likes hunting. To me there can be no reason why someone who claims to be refined can condone blood "sports".

[@marsyasian]

a bit dull...

[@marcionphilologos5367]

I advise Hr.Scruton first to read Zeno, Plotinus, Origen, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Spencer etc, before speaking about art, science, religion and its interconnections. Why have proven bourgeois Anglo-Saxon philosophers to be stupid?

[@ThePhilosophyDoctor]

Sir Roger Scruton is an expert in: Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Kant Hegel, Marx etc. As a philosopher he has taught philosophy for 50 years. And written about 50 books. study his books before you pass judgement

[@philipcollier263]

Imagine assuming that he hasn’t read these already... you’re not advising anything, just trying to advertise how “well read” and superior you are, compared to those other snivelling proles who might stumble across this arrogant little boast of yours.

[@beatonthedonis]

Scruton is neither true, nor good - and he's certainly not beautiful.