Angelo (@angelobottone)

"Although he is almost invariably described as a “conservative philosopher” and certainly sought to conserve what Burke termed the political “entailments” transmitted through the generations, temperamentally Scruton was somewhat Bohemian. This and his iconoclastic tendencies, together with a low boredom threshold, sometimes led him to shock “conservatives,” much as he unsettled liberals. I remember one occasion when we both spoke at a conference at Princeton dedicated to defending traditional marriage. Good things were said by a series of able speakers, but it began to feel like they were preaching to the choir. I suspected that this was Roger’s feeling, too, and feared what he would say when his turn came. In a voice that sounded as if it were about to take the conservative argument to new heights, he observed that amid this wonderful celebration of traditional marriage, an important bulwark of the institution had been forgotten. Heads turned in curiosity. He paused, then said, “the mistress.” He went on, in a somewhat Chestertonian paradoxical manner, to argue that the mistress was a sustaining cause of fidelity, holding many a marriage together that might otherwise have fallen apart. To their credit the others resumed discussion without comment as if nothing of the sort had been said, but a few glances in our direction suggested they thought the Brits weren’t to be trusted when it came to upholding decency. " John Haldane remembers Roger Scruton https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/01/roger-scruton-burkean-and-bohemian