“The knowledge we need in the unforeseeable circumstances of human life is neither derived from nor contained in the experience of a single person, nor can it be deduced a priori from universal laws. This knowledge is bequeathed to us by customs, institutions, and habits of thought that have shaped themselves over generations, through the trials and errors of people many of whom have perished in the course of acquiring it.”

Envision your perfect world, of justice tempered with mercy, of wealth and compassion for all. Is it obtainable? And if so, to what lengths would you be willing to go to achieve it? This, argues Scruton, is the key danger of unconstrained optimism: if all we do is focus on the best possible outcome, then almost any action is justified in achieving it, whether muzzling the media or violating civil rights. Better, instead, to be pessimistic: to worry about what happens if things go wrong, as well as if they go right.

Regular readers will know I like to complain about the appropriation of words like liberal and conservative to parties that have very little to do with their traditional roots. Scruton is an exception: he is a classic small-c conservative, so much so that had The Uses of Pessimism been written by Burke, it would likely say very similar things. He argues that conservatism is about understanding that the world is difficult and complicated, and that sometimes our best hopes are not always what is realized: that instead, we must be scrupulous optimists, carefully weighing out costs and benefits using history as a guide.

The book is an insightful one, if not particularly revolutionary (shockingly). As a thoughtful look at conservatism, however, it does very well. Perhaps most surprising is how poorly it correlates to modern political parties: the conservatism Scruton paints is neither Democrat nor Republican, not even Tory or Liberal. It worries about global warming, but believes radical solutions can bring their own dangers: dislikes inequality, but doesn’t believe centralizing power in the government can solve it. Readers will vary in how appealing they find these arguments, of course: they very clearly represent only one side of a discourse. They are, however, a sometimes underrepresented side, due to a modern right that often seems as focused on optimism as anyone else.