A new chain of Wagnerian cafés
mainThe Hungarian prime minister Victor Orban is reported to be among the investors in a new chain of cafes named after the last British philosopher and Wagner author, Roger Scruton.
Tibor Fischer writes in The Critic:
...Intended to be the first of a nationwide chain, (something that neither Plato or Descartes achieved), the “Scruton” has a prime central location, in Zoltán utca, near the Hungarian parliament. The many books and records dotted around the premises reflect Roger Scruton’s eclectic interests, prolific output, and knowledge of languages, and give an inviting atmosphere of erudition worn lightly. I admired Roger greatly for his industry, his kindness and because he bothered to think, something that seems very out of fashion.
Yes, Viktor Orban is a highly cultured man and not nearly the dictator that the soft-left newspapers try to make him seem.
Without my wishing to make a direct comparison, if you read Simon Sebag-Montefiore’s twin biographies of Stalin, you will find that he too was highly cultured and not the boor of popular legend.
A certain German non-democrat also seemed to quite like opera.
Is Mr. Orbán intent on replacing the remnants of public scrutiny with café Scrutony?
‘Kaffeesatz’-reading instead of all the ‘disencouraged’ lectures and ‘undesirable’ authors?
If so, let Mr. Orbán heed this warning: a café, even one bearing the effigy of an author as congenial to his ‘Weltanschauung’ as Roger Scruton, is an oasis propitious to the eclosion of that bloom which Mr. Orbán and his acolytes must dread most: thought.
Roger Scruton was a tremendous man and thinker. He dared to call-out “the Emporer’s new clothes”.
He didn’t call out (let alone ‘call-out’) anything.
What does call out even mean?
To be able to form an opinion, it is wholeheartedly recommended to read a bit first.
I think your English has let you down on this occasion. You might want to swot up on the expression ‘to call out’.
I repudiate your petulant expostulation.
I’m afraid a wide vocabulary won’t help you here (and I meant no criticism). The whole point is that you won’t find any definition in the OED that will explain the use of ‘to call out’ as it has emerged (often with woke connotations) in the last three or four (?) years.
Wagner, Scruton, Orban…all in heavenly constellation. This must be tremendously triggering to some!
What next–Rod Dreher’s Charcuterie and Bait Shop? Patrick Deneen’s Canteen?
A double Scruton expresso, please.
Philosophy is infiltrating café life:
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/30