One of the questions that has most bothered me in my reflections on culture is the question of kitsch. Just what is it? When did it begin? And why?
Roger ScrutonRead
Architecture, like dress, is an exercise in good manners, and good manners involve the habit of skillful insincerity - the habit of saying "good morning" to those whose mornings you would rather blight, and of passing the butter to those you would rather starve.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that architecture, similar to social etiquette, reflects our ability to manage appearances and interactions, often masking our true feelings.
Roger Scruton's quote implies that architecture, much like social norms and practices, embodies a form of skillful insincerity where one must navigate societal expectations by maintaining politeness, even towards those we may have negative feelings for. The comparison indicates that just as one might feign friendliness while passing the butter, architects create structures that fulfill social functions while often reflecting the complexities of human relationships and societal values.
Themes
ArchitectureMannersSocial EtiquetteInsincerityDesign
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about the role of architecture in society during an academic lecture.
More from Roger Scruton
All quotes →There are big questions science doesn't answer, such as why is there something rather than nothing? There can't be a scientific answer to that because it's the answer that precedes science.
Roger ScrutonRead
18th century opera is packed with emotion, but contains not a trace of kitsch. Only with the 'thees' and 'thous' of Victorian poetry does the disease begin to grow in our poetic tradition.
Roger ScrutonRead
The robust English view used to be that the correct response to offensive words is to ignore them, or to answer them with a rebuke. If you invoke the law at all, it should be to protect the one who gives the offence, and not the one who takes it. Now, it seems, it is all the other way round.
Roger ScrutonRead
For two centuries the English countryside has been an icon of national identity and the loved reminder of our island home. Yet the government is bent on littering the hills with wind turbines and the valleys with high speed railways.
Roger ScrutonRead
You cannot own a symphony or a novel in the way you can own a Damien Hirst. As a result there are far fewer fake symphonies or fake novels than there are fake works of visual art.
Roger ScrutonRead
Similar quotes
it is hard for anyone who is dissatisfied not to blame some one else, and especially the person nearest of all to him, for the ground of his dissatisfaction.
Leo TolstoyRead
The way you really find out about the performer's seriousness about the cause is how long they stay with it when the spotlight gets turned off. You see a lot of celebrities switch gears. They go from the environment to animal rights to obesity or whatever. That I don't have a lot of respect for.
Robert RedfordRead
The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation.
George SantayanaRead
Freemasonry teaches not merely temperance, fortitude, prudence, justice, brotherly love, relief, and truth, but liberty, equality, and fraternity, and it denounces ignorance, superstition, bigotry, lust tyranny and despotism.
Theodore RooseveltRead
...God does not possess a private knowledge of Himself and a separate knowledge of all the creatures in common. The universal Cause, by knowing Itself, can hardly be ignorant of the things which proceed from It and of which It is the source. This, then, is how God knows all things, not by understanding things, but by understanding Himself.
Pope DionysiusRead
Seas of blood have been shed for the sake of patriotism. One would expect the harm and irrationality of patriotism to be self-evident to everyone. But the surprising fact is that cultured and learned people not only do not notice the harm and stupidity of patriotism, they resist every unveiling of it with the greatest obstinacy and passion (with no rational grounds), and continue to praise it as beneficent and elevating.
Leo TolstoyRead