Hmm …

… Wagner’s Parsifal by Roger Scruton review – in defence of the insufferable | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

His lifelong obsession with Wagner may well seem symptomatic of Scruton’s own poisonous brand of elegiac conservatism. That said, this short book is a bracing corrective to Nietzsche’s account of the opera. In doing so, Scruton recycles some of his favourite themes, namely the difference between the sacred and the profane, sexual pollution and the redemption desperately needed by our spiritually degenerate society. Scruton writes: “In our polluted passions, seeking pleasure and excitement rather than respect and love, we scorn the Redeemer’s suffering and surrender to the basest form of control.”

The author of this piece seems to harbor a few poisonous notions of his own (e.g., Scruton’s “ reactionary perspective on the sanctity of marriage”), and what Scruton has to say about our polluted passions, etc. seems spot to me on regarding contemporary society.