It is mistakenly thought by many that the great books are recommended for reading and study because they are a repository of truth. On all the fundamental subjects and ideas with which the great books deal, some truths will be found in them, but on these very same subjects and ideas, many more errors or falsities will be found there. The authors not only contradict each other; they often are guilty of contradicting themselves.
No human work rises to the perfection of being devoid of logical flaws. On any subject being considered, the relation between truth and error is that of one to many. The truth is always singular, while the errors it corrects are manifold…. No truth is well understood until and unless all the errors it corrects are also understood and all the contradictions found are resolved. It is in the context of a plurality of errors to be corrected and of contradictions to be resolved that the brilliance of the truth shines out and illuminates the scene. (p. 26, 27)– “The Great Conversation Revisited” essay in the Great Conversation.
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We hope you will join us in The Imaginative Conservative community. The Imaginative Conservative is an online journal for those who seek the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. We address culture, liberal learning, politics, political economy, literature, the arts and the American Republic in the tradition of Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot, Edmund Burke, Irving Babbitt, Wilhelm Roepke, Robert Nisbet, Richard Weaver, M.E. Bradford, Eric Voegelin, Christopher Dawson, Paul Elmer More, and other leaders of Imaginative Conservatism. Some conservatives may 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.” The Imaginative Conservative offers to our families, our communities, and the Republic, a conservatism of hope, grace, charity, gratitude, and prayer.
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