Scruton And Dupre: A Comparative Analysis

Roger Scruton and Louis Dupre express their opinions on culture, and how culture cannot continue when people forsake it. Scruton claims the identity of a culture comes from the interest of the people in the culture that originates from the elites. Dupre contrasts with Scruton by saying the people within the culture find their identity by their nature. If culture is to survive, Scruton believes it must be passed on to future generations through education. For culture to survive in Dupre’s view, he emphasis nature again and how people should evaluate their nature to find their identity. If they do, the culture will remain and will continue for future generations. However, both men agree with the issue of culture very closely. Scruton explains that the issue is people abandoning …show more content…
Scruton talks about culture as “the accumulation of art, literature, and human reflection… and established a continued tradition of reference and allusion among educated people” (2). He also claims “Culture… is the created and creator of elites” (1). The culture’s identity is subjective because it is based on the people’s interests and how they vary from other cultures. The foundation of culture is also in the elites because the unique interests of the culture originate from them. Dupre understands culture to be more objective compared to Scruton because people’s nature is the origin of the culture’s identity. People cannot choose their nature because someone’s nature is his identity, so it is more objective because the culture’s identity is in the person’s nature. Early in The Modern Idea of Culture, Dupree asks “How do we define culture? As a process of cultivating a given nature, or as one of creating a new, second nature?” (1) Dupre illustrates from this that the way he defines culture is to find its nature. This provides an instance of his emphasis on nature to define