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Roger Scruton

The rise of the unscrupulous optimist

2016-03-05T16:33:51+00:00March 5th, 2016|leadership|

"Optimism, n.: The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly." Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary Education is a project filled with hope. We stand, framed heroically against the setting sun and scan the horizon for new stuff to transform the tired, outmoded, factory clamour of the past and hope - oh, how we hope - that everything will be better. But our forward-looking, progressive stance means we can all too easily miss seeing a landscape littered with failed ideas and the scorched ruins of unscrupulous optimism. Here are a couple of recent examples for your consideration: The College of Teaching Tom [...]

Intelligent Accountability

2016-10-05T20:44:27+01:00October 4th, 2015|Featured, leadership|

The history of human growth is at the same time the history of every new idea heralding the approach of a brighter dawn, and the brighter dawn has always been considered illegal, outside of the law. - Emma Goldman So many teachers I speak to are afraid to make nuanced professional judgements. When I make suggestions on how they could manage workload, organise classroom, speak to students, select curriculum content or plan lessons very often I'm confronted with,"That sounds like a great idea but I wouldn't be allowed to do it." Too many school systems have become blunt instruments used to [...]

Is education a zero-sum game?

2017-01-18T18:29:48+00:00April 18th, 2015|Featured|

Opportunity makes a thief. Francis Bacon A zero-sum game is one in which there is a winner and a loser; if you haven't won, you've lost. The term derives from game theory and economics and describes a situation in which one person's gain utility (the ability to satisfy his or wants) is exactly balanced by another's loss of utility. In The Uses of Pessimism, Scruton points out that much wrong-heading thinking and behaviour derives from what he calls the 'zero-sum fallacy' where all gains are paid for by the losers. Society therefore is a zero-sum game, in which costs and benefits balance out, and [...]

The best case fallacy or, why we balls things up

2015-10-03T10:48:34+01:00April 16th, 2015|leadership|

OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white. A pessimist applied to God for relief. "Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God. "No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that would justify them." "The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked something -- the mortality of the optimist." Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary In The Uses of Pessimism & the Danger of False Hope, philosopher and fox-hunting enthusiast, Roger Scruton argues against unbridled or, as he puts it, 'unscrupulous optimism', piling many - or most - of the [...]

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