Essay On Scruton And Dupre's Opinion On Culture

Roger Scruton and Louis Dupre’s works 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 a culture that origionates from the elites. Dupre contrasts with Scruton by perceiving culture as the manifestation of a people’s nature, who they are in the world, to identify their culture. 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 it having to be the center of how people must find their identity. If they do, the culture will remain and be passed on to future generations. Both men do agree closely with the problem of culture though. Scruton explains the issue is people …show more content…
Scruton explains the issue he sees at hand which is, “the widespread advocacy of ‘multiculturalism’ that Western culture has an unparalleled ability and willingness to assimilate other culture traditions” (4). He also brings up the culture of repudiation as a problem since, “it now targets the elite culture of the universities” (73). If people make themselves as a separate culture from anything else, cultures will become blended. The result is the previous cultures will disappear. Another reason they will disappear is the culture of repudiation challenges the elites, which creates culture according to Scruton. Dupre sees the same problem as Scruton when man leaves his nature to create a culture of himself. Nature reveals a transcendence of man because he relies on a transcendence for his existence, but “once man attains the awareness that the powers of control both over the universe and over himself are within himself… the need to relate all aspects of existence to a transcendent principle is felt much less” (12). The result is man creating his own culture and distancing himself from the previous