There is a right way and a wrong way to deal with Irving Babbitt’s work as with that of any serious thinker. The proper question for scholars to ask would appear to be: Do Babbitt’s various concepts faithfully account for the facts of human experience? In other words: Is he providing a scientific analysis of [...]
What important works of fiction worked a healthy reaction against the French Revolution in Britain and America, a reaction little diminished today? The bicentenary of the French Revolution occurs in this year of 1989*; and still the world is tormented by ghastly political upheavals and acts of terror that are inspired by what was said [...]
American culture has an opportunity now for renewal through its people of faith. We are being called to care for one another with love. We are being called to live out our virtue in service. The American soul has withered, and awaits an infusion of the lifeblood of love. Whether or not we respond may [...]
The popularity of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” has paradoxically led us to underestimate the Venetian’s true greatness. Once renowned across Europe, by the early twentieth century Vivaldi was considered a minor composer. Then, several events occurred to re-awaken interest in the music of “The Red Priest.” Inevitably, when one hears the name of Antonio Vivaldi, one [...]
In his many works, W.H. Mallock successfully developed a science of conservatism based upon an affirmation of personal restraint, aristocratic rule, and market economics. To challenge the prevailing social and political orthodoxies of one’s time and place often encourages recrimination and eventual neglect. Such has been the fate of William Hurrell Mallock (1849-1923), a seminal [...]
Want to catch a glimpse of the face of God? Or at least feel what it is like to know Him? Take stroll and climb the stairway to Heaven with T.S. Eliot and Russell Kirk on Ash Wednesday. Being Downriver Darrin and the distiller of the great books that I’ve had the good fortune to [...]
Every time I reread the “Protagoras” or “Meno,” I am surprised anew that a man of Plato’s towering intellect and searing insight into human nature could have been so mistaken about the human propensity to sin and rebellion. Plato never cared much for the sophists, viewing them as amoral peddlers of a relativistic kind of [...]
T.S. Eliot’s conservatism is “pre-political,” offering no simple formula for the modern polity. He reminds us that even if we could have our way in the political arena we would be unable to create a perfect society, given our own fallen nature. Such a wise mixture of hope and humility is what can keep conservatism [...]
Robert Nisbet feared that modern totalitarians had succeeded in undermining the very foundations of goodness, truth, and morality. They had not only redefined liberty as power, but they had transformed the modern political state into a secular church, exchanging real religion for civic religion, creating a “New Leviathan.” Like most Americans during the Great Depression, [...]
My canon of the very best books that help us understand our humanity would contain no surprises. But allow me instead to suggest some works that are instructive for reasons quite different from those of the recognized classics. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson – It’s an untrue truism that good monster stories are really [...]
In order to flourish, democracy must be firmly grounded in principle. In order to remain stable, power must be decentralized, and therefore liberty and equality under the law must be valued over abstract and ambiguous ideals such as “equality” or “progress.” I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think [...]
What is it, in and about music, that gives one an experience so outside of oneself that one can see reality anew, as if newborn in a strange but wonderful world? [In] sound itself, there is a readiness to be ordered by the spirit and this is seen at its most sublime in music. —Max [...]
How close are Confucian ideas to the American conservatism of our day? Confucius himself is known in Chinese tradition as the “Model Sage for Ten Thousand Ages.” Thus, Confucius and his disciples and later followers held that there are indeed “permanent things,” to borrow the telling phrase employed to such great effect by Russell Kirk. [...]
In “The Social Group in French Thought,” Robert Nisbet explains that social philosophers such as Bodin, Hobbes, and Rousseau undermined and sabotaged private law and intermediary institutions. Their thought culminated in the French Revolution and in its radical and nationalist legislation. Robert Nisbet’s dissertation began by lamenting that the history of freedom has been written [...]