Roger Scruton, "Come essere anti-socialisti, non liberali e conservatori"

Post-war intellectuals have inherited two major systems of political thought: liberalism and socialism. Each of them proposes an ideal solution to our condition, in terms which are secular, abstract, universal, egalitarian, “desacralized” and corresponding to no lasting common human experience. According to the author of this essay, the first task of conservatism, as a legitimate counterpart to these two political doctrines, is to create a language in which “conservative” is no longer a term of abuse, and to give back to politics its true meaning: a form of association which is not a means to an end, but an end in itself, and in which men live, not by universal aspirations but by local attachments and national loyalties.

Le dicotomie o contrapposizioni alla base del dibattito politico-culturale contemporaneo–a partire da quella classica destra/sinistra–sono, a giudizio di Scruton, fuorvianti e parziali: esseinfatti occultano o trascurano le reali differenze esistenti tra le culture, tradizioni e famiglie ideologiche chesorreggono la politica contemporanea. Ad esempio quelle che esistono tra il socialismo, il liberalismo e il conservatorismo (in particolare tra questedue ultime linee di pensiero, spesso confuse o assimilate tra di loro).