One of the questions that has most bothered me in my reflections on culture is the question of kitsch. Just what is it? When did it begin? And why?
Roger ScrutonRead
State solutions are imposed from above; they are often without corrective devices, and cannot easily be reversed on the proof of failure. Their inflexibility goes hand in hand with their planned and goal-directed nature, and when they fail the efforts of the state are directed not to changing them but to changing people’s belief that they have failed.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques state-imposed solutions, emphasizing their rigidity and the tendency to deny failure rather than acknowledge it.
Roger Scruton's quote reflects on the nature of state-imposed solutions, highlighting their inflexible character and the lack of mechanisms for correction. He argues that when such solutions fail, the response from the state is often to manipulate public perception rather than to reconsider the faulty approach, suggesting a deeper commentary on governance, belief, and accountability.
Themes
StateSolutionsFailureBeliefInflexibility
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about government policy failures in a community meeting.
More from Roger Scruton
All quotes →There are big questions science doesn't answer, such as why is there something rather than nothing? There can't be a scientific answer to that because it's the answer that precedes science.
Roger ScrutonRead
18th century opera is packed with emotion, but contains not a trace of kitsch. Only with the 'thees' and 'thous' of Victorian poetry does the disease begin to grow in our poetic tradition.
Roger ScrutonRead
The robust English view used to be that the correct response to offensive words is to ignore them, or to answer them with a rebuke. If you invoke the law at all, it should be to protect the one who gives the offence, and not the one who takes it. Now, it seems, it is all the other way round.
Roger ScrutonRead
For two centuries the English countryside has been an icon of national identity and the loved reminder of our island home. Yet the government is bent on littering the hills with wind turbines and the valleys with high speed railways.
Roger ScrutonRead
You cannot own a symphony or a novel in the way you can own a Damien Hirst. As a result there are far fewer fake symphonies or fake novels than there are fake works of visual art.
Roger ScrutonRead
Similar quotes
More than that, I believe that the grass is green because green is restful to the human eye, that the sky is blue to give us an idea of the infinite. And that blood is red so that murder will be more easily detected and criminals will be brought to justice. Yes, and I believe that I shall live forever, but I shall live without reason.
Penelope FitzgeraldRead
One man pins me to the wall, while with another I walk among the stars
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
I wondered whether I could find a Great Perhaps here at all or whether I had made a grand miscalculation.
John GreenRead
If people destroy something replaceable made by mankind, they are called vandals; if they destroy something irreplaceable made by God, they are called developers.
Joseph Wood KrutchRead
I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.
Oscar WildeRead
Tea...is a religion of the art of life.
Okakura KakuzoRead