Roots of American Order

by Russell Kirk

Seek­ing for the roots of order, we are led to four cities: Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and Lon­don. In Wash­ing­ton or New York or Chicago or Los Ange­les today, the order which Amer­i­cans expe­ri­ence is derived from the expe­ri­ence of those four old cities. If our souls are dis­or­dered, we fall into abnor­mal­ity, unable to con­trol our impulses. If our com­mon­wealth is dis­or­dered, we fall into anar­chy, every man’s hand against every other man’s. For, as Richard Hooker wrote in the six­teenth cen­tury, “With­out order, there is no liv­ing in pub­lic soci­ety, because the want thereof is the mother of con­fu­sion.” This sav­ing order is the prod­uct of more than three thou­sand years of human striving. (Roots of American Order)

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We have a great appreciation for the thought of Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot, Irving Babbitt, and Christopher Dawson, among other imaginative conservatives. However, some of us look at the state of Western culture and the American Republic and see a huge dark cloud which seems ready to unleash a storm that may well wash away what we most treasure of our inherited ways. Others focus on the silver lining which may be found in the next generation of traditional conservatives who have been inspired by Dr. Kirk and his like. We hope that The Imaginative Conservative answers T.S. Eliot’s call to “redeem the time, redeem the dream.”