Roger Scruton's Conservatism: Between Xenophobia and Oikophobia

The English philosopher Roger Scruton calls himself a functional anthropologist. That means he defends the lifeworld—the relational, moral world in which we all must live—against the educated derision of the monstrous entity often called the self-conscious intellectual or elitist cosmopolitan. My focus here is to examine Scruton's defense of the nation—as the civilized mean between xenophobia and oikophobia—and religion as indispensable forms of social belonging. I conclude by offering the beginnings of an American and Catholic correction to his British form of liberal conservatism.