by Russell Kirk To speak of American conservative action…may seem a contradiction in terms. The instinct of the conservative, as Lord Hailsham observes, is to enjoy life as he finds it, not to mold society nearer to his heart’s desire; nor does he think of practical politics as the end and aim of being. Family life, [...]
In the 1950s and 1960s, Kirk wrote frequently for the New York Times. In the following excerpted article, “The Aim of the Conservative is to Keep the Best in Life,” (NYT, March 4, 1956, pg. SM6), the 38-year old Michiganian proclaimed his allegiance to the timeless principles of Socrates, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and C.S. Lewis. The [...]
In neither his private correspondence nor his books or articles did Dr. Kirk write much regarding the so-called Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s. As some of his critics have gleefully noted, Russell Kirk seems to have simply let “McCarthyism” slide by, thus neither attempting to stop nor even to attenuate it. As one [...]
Russell Kirk Without the peril of destruction of the best in civilization there would be no motive to conservative action and no honor in being a man. The poetic imagination…in some ages belongs principally to the radicals; but in our time it is in the keeping of the conservatives. There is something better [...]
by Russell Kirk Professors and priests are meant to be the conservators of mankind, to which end they are set among men, reminding us that we are not the flies of a summer. Their labor is to tell men that certain truths endure, that upon human nature a peculiar character has been stamped by the Creator [...]
Russell Kirk Dear Readers of The Imaginative Conservative, As some of you know, I’ve been making my way through (and thoroughly enjoying) several of Kirk’s lesser known pieces from the 1940s and 1950s. Here are some excerpts from a speech Kirk gave in June 1954 to the national meeting of the Chi Omega [...]
Russell Kirk Conservatives must prepare society for Providential change, guiding the life that is taking form into the ancient shelter of Western and Christian civilization. For this, they will require the vision of Burke, the common sense of Adams, the courage of Randolph, the toleration of Tocqueville, the resolution of Calhoun, the [...]
by Gordon Keith Chalmers —May 17, 1953 New York Times Review of “The Conservative Mind” The author of The Conservative Mind is as relentless as his enemies, Karl Marx and Harold Laski, considerably more temperate and scholarly, and in passages of this very readable book, brilliant and even eloquent. All American thought, whether religious, political, literary, [...]
Fifty-six years ago, Russell Kirk attempted to define Edmund Burke’s idea of “the unbought grace of life” as applicable to the American culture of the 1950s. As far as I know, this article was never reprinted. It shows a youngish Kirk at his best, I believe. And, it seems especially appropriate to publish these quotes [...]
As I prepare to celebrate our New England holiday of Thanksgiving, I've been reading quite a bit of Russell Kirk's less-well known articles from the 1950s. One of my favorite has been one that appeared in the Georgia Review (1954). Here are few tidbits from it. Kirk spoke as poignantly to his audience fifty-six years [...]
The following 1950 quote from Russell Kirk [“How Dead is Edmund Burke?,” Queen’s Quarterly 57 (1950): 162] made me think of our recent conversation on the power of Ayn Rand to attract strong, young minds, eager for Truth. Men of conservative impulse are numerous in every society; they are among us today, but most of [...]
President Reagan & Russell Kirk The conservative believes that men and nations possess free will, and that if a nation or a civilization tumbles to its ruin, such catastrophe is the consequence, for the most part, of the failure of heart and mind of the people who made up that nation… Essays on [...]
Russell Kirk In the franchise bookshops the shelves are crowded with the prickly pears and the Dead Sea fruit of literary decadence. Yet no civilization rests forever content with literary boredom and literary violence. Once again, a conscience may speak to a conscience in the pages of books, and the parched rising generation [...]
Russell Kirk If a conservative order is indeed to return, we ought to know the tradition which is attached to it, so that we may rebuild society; if it is not to be restored, still we ought to understand conservative ideas so that we may rake from the ashes what scorched fragments of [...]