The job of every conservative is twofold: First, he must fight tirelessly against the centralized, unitary state; second, he must do everything possible to promote that which makes the free society not just an ordered one, but a good one. Prior to the publication of Russell Kirk’s masterful The Conservative Mind in 1953, no real [...]
Power, in and of itself, has become an “ideology,” according to Robert Nisbet. It is, by its very nature, incapable of understanding nuance… As I had the opportunity to write in my previous essay for The Imaginative Conservative, Oxford University Press gave the grand sociologist and historian of ideas, Robert A. Nisbet, a chance to [...]
In no society in the world, Robert Nisbet believed, has any people become so remote from nature as have Americans. As technology allowed him to dominate or ignore nature, the American became detached from place, having neither loyalty nor respect for the land that once nourished him… After the rather massive and—at least to the [...]
Thomas Jefferson had hardly been exposed to the scientific and literary talents of black people except, to some extent, Phyllis Wheatley and Benjamin Banneker. At the end of his life, blacks in America were at the portal of coming into their own and would flower in the pursuits he most admired by the mid-late-19th century [...]
“Utopia” is an instructive call to return to the radical Christianity of Christ, to the purity and simplicity of His words, as the only way of saving mankind from ourselves. Thomas More’s Utopia remains one of the most puzzling and paradoxical treatises on the ideal state. In order to elucidate More’s true ideas and judgments, [...]
Richard Weaver claimed his homeland was the “last nonmaterialistic civilization in the western world.” Modernity to him meant at bottom institutionalizing most of the Seven Deadly Sins… Though his worth and stature were early established among them, while yet living Richard M. Weaver was something of a puzzle for his friends within the American “conservative [...]
We fail to do justice to the Christmas season if we fail to do justice to our neighbours. Like God Himself, we must also show good will toward men. As we approach the season of good will, we do so to celebrate and commemorate the good will of God towards Man. “For God so loved [...]
Food is a way to enjoy being alive. Drink wine and dance around the kitchen; kiss your beloved. Life can be beautiful… Experts with scientific credentials tell us the best way to resolve interpersonal conflicts, how to raise children, and what food to eat. These new gurus maintain that in principle scientific truths can guide [...]
Members of democratic nations, especially Americans, have almost unlimited personal freedom because the constraints of class, local communities, and family have been greatly weakened. But we are also free to choose to step off the consumer treadmill, refuse to seek material success for us alone, and attempt to serve others, materially, emotionally, and spiritually. In [...]
The point of going to the bookstore is to experience its glorious inefficiency, its Romantic signaling of something transcendent, its countercultural cultivation of quietude and dignity… Our family lives in the kind of town most people only see in fiction: an archetypal, small, Midwestern town of picket fences and blocks of mostly modest bungalows. Homes [...]
Americans have tried the Hamiltonian experiment of centralized government, usury, and gigantism long enough. Surely it is time, somewhere, for the Jeffersonian vision to begin to reappear. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Arthur J. Versluis as he explores the Jeffersonian vision for America and how we may [...]
A straightforward reading of Michel Houellebecq’s book shows that the author wants to consider the possibility that religion—not spiritualism, not some kind of therapeutic deism, but true, practiced, day-to-day religion—soothes our longings and grants us some measure of peace and satisfaction, a measure withheld by secular liberalism… Submission: A Novel by Michel Houellebecq (Groupe Flammarion, 2015) [...]
The left is politicizing our calming safety-valve institutions—the national anthem, marriage, statues, even leisure—damning them as expressions of an oppressive regime that must be overthrown. But these institutions need to be defended in order to relieve the pressures that are mounting and tearing society apart… If there is an image that represents the present state [...]
The floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey washed away the dividing lines of race, religion, and class, revealing character and the basic decency at the core of what it means to be human. What makes Houston’s heart beat most truly is faith in God… Hurricane Harvey revealed the huge heart of Houston through the biggest natural disaster [...]