Announcing the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation
The Board of Directors is pleased to announce the establishment of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, a U.S. based not-for-profit corporation, and the appointment of Fisher Derderian as its Executive Director.
Called the “greatest modern conservative thinker” by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and “the most influential conservative thinker since Edmund Burke” by the Wall Street Journal, Sir Roger Scruton FBA FRSL (1944 - 2020) was one of the leading philosophers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Having received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, Scruton held numerous positions at universities and think tanks including Boston University, the University of Oxford, the University of Buckingham, American Enterprise Institute, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He was a prolific author, having written some fifty books on a diverse range of topics including music, architecture, art, politics, the history of philosophy, and the environment.
Not only was Scruton a philosopher par excellence, but he was a man of practice committed to the truth. Throughout the 70s and 80s, he actively supported Soviet dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe; he helped form in 1974, and then re-form in 2013, the Conservative Philosophy Group with aim of providing politicians a coherent philosophy; and he settled on a farm in order to make his English heritage a living tradition. In the end, he was recognized for his long life of work: President Václav Havel awarded him the Czech Republic's Medal of Merit, First Class, in 1998; the Prince of Wales knighted him in 2016; he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland in June 2019 by Polish President Andrzej Duda; and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán presented him the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, Middle Cross, in December 2019.
The mission statement of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation is to establish Scruton’s legacy through the conservation, care, and continuation of traditional wisdom and culture. Like Scruton, the Foundation aims to bring about a change so that the motivating spirit of our societies is one of oikophilia, or a love of our shared home, and create a culture of gratitude where, as in Edmund Burke’s social contract, we the living are connected to the dead and the unborn by conserving the precious inheritance that we have received from those who have passed before us for those who have yet to be born. Through the hosting and sponsoring of events, lectures, seminars, research, and projects, the Foundation will uphold Scruton’s vision of philosophy, architecture, art, and literature, helping to pass on our inheritance to future generations.
The Foundation is the fruit of several years of work. In 2018, when Derderian was a student of Scruton at the University of Buckingham, the two of them began conversations about the creation of an institution that would build up programs and resources around Scruton and his work. These discussions ultimately led to the idea of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation. Over the next two years, they worked together on the Foundation, what it stood for, and the activities it would undertake up until the final weeks of Scruton’s life. “To be able to honor Sir Roger with an institution befitting his legacy is a great dream of mine, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to lead it,” says Derderian.
Given the limitations on travel and gatherings due to COVID-19, the Foundation will host an online launch event on August 26. The event, The Life and Legacy of Sir Roger Scruton, will feature the British journalist Douglas Murray in conversation with the American art critic and publisher Roger Kimball on Scruton, his thought, his legacy, and his ongoing importance in the United States, United Kingdom, and beyond. Find more details and register for the event here.
“I am delighted by the launch of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation,” says Sophie Scruton, Scruton’s widow and a founding Director of the Foundation. “Many people are looking for an organisation that will continue Roger’s work and I am looking forward to supporting its projects.”
Follow the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation on Twitter or sign up for the Foundation’s newsletter for updates on future programs and initiatives.