Conversando con Sir Roger Scruton - Pilar del conservadurismo y el pensamiento conservador
Summary
TLDREn esta entrevista, se explora el significado del conservadurismo y su relación con el cambio, la cultura y las tradiciones. Se argumenta que los conservadores no rechazan el cambio, sino que buscan una evolución gradual y cuidadosa en lugar de cambios radicales que podrían llevar a caos. Se discute la importancia de preservar valores tradicionales y la influencia de la religión en el conservadurismo, destacando la diferencia entre el conservadurismo secular y el religioso. Además, se menciona la posibilidad de una alianza conservadora hemisférica y la necesidad de enfrentar amenazas comunes mientras se respetan las diferencias locales.
Takeaways
- 😀 Conservadurismo se considera como un deseo natural de preservar lo que amamos y a lo que estamos acostumbrados.
- 🤔 El conservadurismo no es contrario al cambio, sino que busca una adaptación y mejora gradual en lugar de cambios totales y radicales.
- 🌏 La crítica de que los conservadores rechazan el cambio es una percepción errónea, ya que el verdadero conservadurismo reconoce la necesidad de cambios moderados.
- 📚 El conservadurismo se basa en la experiencia y en la observación de lo que funciona, en lugar de en teorías abstractas.
- 🏛 La represión de la cultura y los valores tradicionales, como el cristianismo, puede ser vista como una reacción a la carga de heredar tradiciones.
- 👶 La juventud a menudo muestra una tendencia a rechazar las tradiciones, pero con el tiempo suele aceptar la importancia de estas para la vida familiar y social.
- 🔄 Aunque las sociedades pueden perder aspectos de su cultura y estructura social, es posible recuperarlos, aunque en una forma diferente.
- 🎭 La identificación del conservadurismo con la religión varía según la cultura; en países católicos, está más estrechamente vinculado a la fe.
- 🌐 La separación del conservadurismo político y del conservadurismo religioso permite una mayor inclusión y diversidad de opiniones.
- 🌍 La posibilidad de una alianza conservadora hemisférica se basa en la idea de que, a pesar de las diferencias locales, hay amenazas y logros compartidos.
- 💡 El conservadurismo es un enfoque desde abajo hacia arriba, basado en la experiencia y la observación directa de lo que es beneficioso para la comunidad.
- 🏦 El conservadurismo generalmente acepta la economía de mercado liberal, pero con la precaución de que no resuelva todas las cuestiones sociales y humanas.
- 👨👩👧👦 La familia es una institución fundamental para el conservadurismo, ya que va más allá de la economía y se relaciona con la perpetuación de la humanidad.
Q & A
¿Qué significa el conservadurismo según el entrevistado?
-El conservadurismo es la transcripción del deseo natural de conservar lo que amamos y a lo que estamos acostumbrados a una forma coherente de política, lo que nos lleva a considerar cambios y adaptaciones en lugar de avanzar hacia metas desconocidas sin pensar en las consecuencias.
¿Por qué el entrevistado considera que todos los seres humanos son conservadores por naturaleza?
-Cree que todos tenemos un deseo natural de conservar lo que nos rodea, lo que nos es familiar y lo que sabemos manejar, lo cual es una parte integral de nuestra naturaleza y de cómo interactuamos con el mundo.
¿Cómo responde el entrevistado a la crítica de que los conservadores se oponen al cambio?
-Afirma que el cambio es parte de la naturaleza humana y que los conservadores no se oponen al cambio en sí, sino a cambios radicales y totales que pueden llevar al caos, mientras que prefieren un enfoque de cambio gradual y controlado.
¿Qué relación hay entre el conservadurismo y el cristianismo según el entrevistado?
-En países católicos, el conservadurismo a menudo está asociado con la religión, especialmente con la Iglesia Católica, mientras que en países anglosajones, el conservadurismo ha evolucionado para separar la política de la religión y enfocarse en la cultura nacional.
¿Cómo ve el entrevistado la posibilidad de recuperar valores tradicionales después de una pérdida significativa?
-Cree que, aunque las cosas pueden perderse, eventualmente se pueden recuperar, aunque a menudo en una forma diferente. Cita el ejemplo de Francia después de 1789, donde perdió mucho pero eventualmente se reestableció un orden social y legal.
¿Qué diferencia encuentra el entrevistado entre el conservadurismo secular y el conservadurismo religioso?
-El conservadurismo secular se enfoca más en la cultura nacional y en la política, mientras que el conservadurismo religioso está más arraigado en las creencias religiosas y en la práctica de la fe.
¿Por qué cree el entrevistado que los países de habla inglesa son más propensos a declararse conservadores?
-Piensa que los países de habla inglesa han desarrollado una tradición conservadora reconocida en términos intelectuales y culturales, lo que no ocurre en la misma medida en países católicos donde a menudo se los considera reaccionarios.
¿Qué papel cree el entrevistado que puede desempeñar una alianza conservadora hemisférica?
-Cree que es posible y beneficioso formar una alianza de fuerzas conservadoras entre diferentes países, reconociendo amenazas y logros compartidos, pero también respetando las diferencias locales y culturales.
¿Cómo ve el entrevistado el conservadurismo en relación con la economía de mercado y la economía liberal?
-Los conservadores generalmente aceptan alguna versión de la economía liberal porque creen que el conocimiento necesario para una interacción económica exitosa no se puede contener en un plan, sino que solo existe a través de un intercambio libre.
¿Qué importancia da el entrevistado a la familia en el conservadurismo?
-La familia es vista como fundamental para la perpetuación de la humanidad y la transmisión de valores, y no solo como una respuesta a una cuestión económica, sino a una cuestión más profunda sobre la continuidad cultural y social.
¿Qué mensaje tiene el entrevistado para América Latina y el resto del mundo?
-El entrevistado saluda a América Latina y el mundo, expresando su aprecio por la existencia de un continente con recursos naturales, literatura y música de gran calidad, y una cultura que se reconoce y valora.
Outlines
😀 Conservadurismo como deseo natural de preservar
El primer párrafo aborda la esencia del conservadurismo, considerándolo como una traducción política del deseo natural de conservar lo que amamos y a lo que estamos acostumbrados. El entrevistado argumenta que todos los seres humanos, por naturaleza, son conservadores y que el conservadurismo es una actitud prudente frente al cambio, buscando adaptar y mejorar en lugar de destruir y crear caos. Además, desmiente la idea de que los conservadores se oponen al cambio, señalando que el cambio es parte de la naturaleza humana y que lo que se opone es a cambios radicales y totalitarios que pueden llevar a la destrucción y no a una mejora real.
🌏 Conservadurismo secular frente a conservadurismo religioso
En el segundo párrafo, se analiza la relación entre el conservadurismo y la religión. Se destaca la identificación del conservadurismo con la religión en países católicos, especialmente con la Iglesia Católica, y cómo en contraste, el conservadurismo en países anglosajones ha evolucionado para separar el conservadurismo político de la religión, permitiendo una mayor diversidad de pensamiento. Se menciona la importancia de la experiencia y el escepticismo en el conservadurismo anglosajón y cómo ha llevado a una tradición conservadora reconocida en áreas intelectuales y culturales, a diferencia de lo que ocurre en países católicos donde a menudo se considera reaccionario.
🤝 Posibilidad de una alianza conservadora hemisférica
El tercer párrafo explora la posibilidad de una alianza conservadora entre diferentes países, enfatizando la importancia de la experiencia compartida y el reconocimiento de amenazas y logros comunes. Se menciona la historia de la Unión Atlántica como un ejemplo de cómo la unión frente a una fuerza destructiva puede ser fundamental para la supervivencia cultural. Además, se discute la naturaleza inductiva del conservadurismo, basada en la experiencia y el empirismo, en contraste con la visión deductiva de liberalismo y marxismo. Se argumenta que el conservadurismo debe trabajar en alianzas que respeten las diferencias locales pero que también se enfrenten a amenazas globales.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Conservadurismo
💡Cambio
💡Reacción
💡Ilusión de seguridad
💡Totalidad
💡Alianza Atlántica
💡Nihilismo
💡Economía de mercado
💡Familia
💡Identidad cultural
💡Escepticismo
Highlights
Conservatism is the natural desire to conserve the things we love and are accustomed to.
All normal people are considered conservatives in their instinct to preserve what they know and value.
Conservatism translates the natural desire for preservation into a coherent political form.
Conservatives approach political questions with caution and a respect for the status quo.
Change is a part of human nature, but conservatives oppose radical, total change that leads to chaos.
Marxist critics misunderstand conservatism, believing it to be against all change.
The suppression of Christianity and traditional values may stem from a culture of repudiation.
People may initially reject traditional burdens but later realize their importance as they mature.
Modern society allows for a prolonged repudiation of traditional values without immediate consequences.
Losing traditional values can lead to disaster, but societies have recovered in different forms throughout history.
Secular conservatism differs from religious conservatism, especially in its approach to politics and religion.
In English-speaking countries, conservatism is more likely to be identified with a political and cultural tradition rather than a religious one.
A conservative hemispheric alliance is possible, sharing common values and facing shared threats.
The Atlantic Alliance was crucial for the survival of European culture against Soviet expansionism.
Conservatism is an inductive, bottom-up approach, contrasting with the deductive, top-down approach of liberalism and Marxism.
Conservatives generally accept some form of liberal economics, valuing free exchange and opposing excessive interference.
Economics is not everything; conservatives recognize that not all questions are economic and that the most important ones often aren't.
The family is a crucial institution for the perpetuation of mankind, transcending economic considerations.
A final message to Latin America and the world, expressing appreciation for the shared European language and culture.
Transcripts
[Music]
see Reuters thank you very much for
accepting this interview it's it's an
honor for me I have to say this thank
you anyway
so let's get straight to the to the
matter what does conservatism mean who
is that conservative well my instinct is
to is to suggest that all normal people
are conservatives I believe that we have
a natural desire to conserve the things
that we love and the things that we're
adapted to and the things that we're
used to things that we know how to deal
with and that's all that conservatism is
is transcribing that natural desire into
a coherent form of politics and so that
when when one has a political question
instead of immediately charging forward
to some goal beyond anything we've
already known and sweeping reality aside
one hesitates and one looks at what one
has and one says well this is good but
it needs changing a bit this is good it
needs adapting that approach to politics
to me is natural and I think it's
natural to all human beings because we
all know that it's easier to destroy
things than to create them we are the
heirs to extraordinary benefits
stability law ordinary markets ordinary
homes families etc we don't want to
jeopardize those things so you mentioned
a word that is that seems to be in a
position to conservatism which is change
mm-hmm
especially let's say liberal critics
Marxist critics claim that conservatives
are opposed to changes they abort change
but that's actually not true no it's not
true
yeah I mean change is part of human
nature we're all changing we're all
advancing towards the ultimate change
which is death and we're too we take
provisions in order to postpone that
ultimate change and that involves
changing things and it's absurd all that
the Marxists mean by by their criticism
of conservatism is that the
Conservatives don't want radical total
change and they buxus believe that only
total change is a real change and that's
where they are so destructive a total
change is actually not a real change in
the existing things
it's an abolition of existing things and
an opening of the world to chaos what do
you think is a motivation behind the
suppression of Christianity and our
traditional values it's a very difficult
question this I believe that that when
at a certain point when people would
come a little tired of inheriting things
they'd suddenly turn round against those
things and adopt what I call a culture
of repudiation say that that's not me
guess take it away I want to be free of
that burden and that's a natural
instinct in adolescence but when
adolescents grow up they realize that
they have to adopt that burden if
they're to have children of their own
and if they have to honor their parents
and so on so it tends to go away but in
the world in which we live it doesn't go
away so easily because people are too
comfortable they can live with this
repudiation they don't have don't need
others as much as they used to at least
not for the time being so they live in a
kind of illusion a dream of security
which enables them to experiment with
throwing everything away but of course
they are opening themselves to disaster
and once those those things are lost is
it possible to recover them or you think
it's just a
well things do get lost and they do get
recovered but they get recovered in a
different form you know France in the
1789 lost everything they lost this
entire social order lost its law lost
all the traditional occupations of
people it lost its religion everything
and everything was scattered and there
was chaos two million people lost their
lives but you know eventually a Napoleon
stepped in okay it was a violent way of
stepping in and it wasn't the ideal but
by degrees it was restored and 19th
century France had law again it had a
social structure it had occupations it
had its religion so you know let's not
despair it's impossible to be
conservative from a secular perspective
what what do you think are the
difference between secular conservatism
and religious conservatism well in in
Catholic countries conservatism has on
the whole being identified with religion
in particular with obviously with the
Catholic Church but also with a often
with quite strict and backward-looking
forms of religion as with the ultra
montana's in France but whereas in
Britain conservatism which emerged in
the 17th 18th centuries has always been
part of the of the natives skepticism
yeah you know of course we've been a
Christian country but our kind of
Christianity is much more skeptical than
the Roman Catholic kind it's a mixture
of Catholicism and and Protestantism and
it's um it's not been imposed on the
people for the last hundred and fifty
years so I think that so we we've got
used to living in another way and also
to separating politics and
and as far as we can partly because in
the 17th century there was so much
destruction religious conflict so and
and I believe that actually our model of
conservatism is the right one
it's one which separates political
conservatism from religious conservatism
and opens itself to people who are
skeptical of that religion but simply
share the national culture here and
actually is what is interesting is that
that it's the English language countries
that have been the most likely to
declare themselves conservative we have
we have parties which call themselves
conservative parties we have a record
especially in America a recognized
conservative tradition intellectually
and culturally and whereas in Catholic
countries there isn't such a thing and
often it's dismissed as reactionary or
something's acting well in Spain doors
are traditional stream and it's a
conservative political thought yes in
Spain of course in all countries there
is conservative thinking among ordinary
people and that is as I say it's natural
but it is interesting that the attempt
to articulate the conservative position
in Spain has been undertaken to quite
and considerably sent by people who have
an admiration for England and the
British tradition like Ortega yeah yes
who was of course a parliamentarian in
the English sense too is it possible to
bring up to grow up and let's say a
conservative hemispheric alliance figure
things in common that we can I think it
is possible to have a such a thing an
alliance of conservative forces across
different countries which I think it's
part of your screw-top yeah yeah I've
always believed in this but I you know I
grew up
anyway in the post-war period where the
Atlantic Alliance was fundamental to the
survival of Europe and the survival of
European culture in the face of Soviet
expansionism and the Soviet Union had
one positive feature which is that it
United us against it we recognized that
we were faced with a very destructive
force and if we did not combined we will
be overwhelmed by it attacking and I
think that destructive force is changed
but it's still there it's it's the kind
of you know Soviet Communism was simply
one form of a nihilistic response to the
world which is there in all of us which
is a kind of diabolical thing which we
have to overcome and in this political
in the international sphere I think that
means we really must work on having
alliances influencing each other
allowing of course the local differences
the local variations because
conservatism is about locality it's
about what you love not about abstract
ideas so but still that we should
recognize that we have shared their
shared threats and shared achievements
and I would say that both liberal
liberalism and Marxism start from a and
intopia so it's a deductive thinking
whereas conservatism is inductive it's
empirically based it's experience based
do you think that appreciation is
accurate or would you know I think I
think that is true that conservatism
what I'm I would put it as a bottom-up
accessor rather than a top-down
procedure and this of course is
reflected especially in our case and the
American case in our systems of law
which are not top-down that then our law
is not dictated by Parliament and then
imposed on the people it's there in the
law courts
and then it's Parliament extracts the
law from that so I guess that would put
you in a very
very contrasting position with what
people in Brussels think yes I mean the
the unhappiness with the European Union
of the British people comes at least in
part from the fact that they they don't
recognize the validity of brussels law
because its law imposed by unelected
people who don't know the local
situation that they're legislating for
because we have been talking about a
liberal economics market economics is is
there anything such as conservative
economics on the whole historically
conservatives have from accepted some
version of liberal economics because on
the grounds that i think are most
articulately expressed by Hayek and the
Austrian school namely that the
knowledge needed for a successful
economic interaction between people is
not a knowledge that can be contained in
a plan it's only exists through free
exchange so if you start interfering too
much the free exchange you destroy the
knowledge on which any economy should be
based and modern history is a proof of
that the whole history of the Soviet and
of Chinese experience but so to that
extent conservatives and conservatives
will all always or tech and mostly tend
to endorse some form of liberal
economics but they will also be very
adamant that economics isn't everything
and that you can't solve all questions
by economic means because not all
questions are economic questions and the
most important ones are not economic
ones maybe the most important ones like
for example oh and what institutions do
we need in order to pass on to the next
generation fact what we example
inherited yeah the family the family is
not an answer to an economic question
it's the answer to a much deeper
question
question of the perpetuation of mankind
Sochi Royer thank you very much out in
just a final comment to our Latin
American friends and of course friends
from all over the world that will watch
this interview but especially to Latin
America any kind of comment message just
say hello hello it's in Latin America
but I'm glad that Latin America exists
because you know it's a fantastic I
don't I've never visited it but it
doesn't most welcome me yes is a
fantastic thought that that great
continent with all its wonderful Natural
Resources is speaking European languages
and producing fantastic literature and
music and you know and of a culture that
we all recognize and has a an air of
cheerfulness about it despite all its
difficulties well thank you very much
sir well you're my pleasure and mine too
thank you
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