Tradition

Eating Alone: Aristotle and the Culture of the Meal

Aristotle identified man’s eating habits as one of the cornerstones of civilization—one of two activities that highlighted the nature of man’s exquisiteness (and barbarousness). The importance of eating to the human condition should be self-evident to everyone. But what is...

A Death in New Mexico: The Old Healer

When I moved to Santa Fe, the City Different was a small, sleepy Western town with real stores around the Plaza, not upscale tourist traps that appeared after marketers invented the Santa Fe style. One day, I wandered...

Welcome to Colonus: The Theban Plays of Sophocles

I'm uncertain of the joy of reading the Theban plays of Sophocles—the story is just too monstrous—but in accord with the awe. This translation conveys it... Sophocles: The Theban Plays, translated by David R. Slavitt (256 pages, Yale University Press, 2009)

The Old-Fashioned Art of Visiting

Social visits are done for their own sake, for disinterested reasons, for the pleasure of others, and as a gracious act of thoughtfulness that dignifies both the visitor and the visited... In the novels of Louisa May...

Rebuilding Western Civilization: A Tale of Two Monasteries

The three vows of the Benedictine monk are obedience, stability, and conversion of life. In our own ways, we can follow this example, making it real by paying attention to prayer, cracking the books in solid study, and rolling up our sleeves in the honest, hard work...

Tradition: The Concept and Its Claim Upon Us

True unity among men must have its roots in that common participation in the holy tradition reaching back to an utterance of God Himself... One wonders whether tradition is not actually anti-historical. It stands in stark contrast...

The Essence of Conservatism

A conservative is not, by definition, a selfish or a stupid person; instead, he is a person who believes there is something in our life worth saving... Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join Russell Kirk as he explores...

The Durable Mr. Albert Jay Nock

Some sound instinct kept Albert Jay Nock from ever becoming a reformer, in the usual sense. He was never a tub-thumper for some system; never an organization man. He was, to the contrary, a lifelong learner... Albert...

Earning the Tradition

Tradition in action gives rise to new work, and the new work changes the tradition... At a gathering of Wyoming Catholic College faculty and staff on Monday morning, I had occasion to mention T.S. Eliot's seminal essay "Tradition and...

Enemies of the Permanent Things

The necessity of personal morality in a thriving community is denied by the enemies of the permanent things, who do not believe that there are permanent standards of behavior or indeed an unchanging human nature, and who seek to create political systems that will make everyone happy...

The Conservatism of Robert Nisbet

Robert Nisbet, in direct contrast to Russell Kirk, argued that conservatism was purely a modern ideology. For Nisbet, the entire history of conservatism began as a reaction to the French Revolution... When it came to the history...

Jeremiah and the Reclamation of the West

Liberalism comes to us with a devilish smile, quietly seeking the abolition of our traditions, communities, history, identity, and ways of life. Rather than follow the path of "progress" into oblivion, we should heed Jeremiah's call to seek repentance and a return to our roots and traditions,...

Coming Home: Why Conservatism Appeals to Young People

Conservatism is in many ways a philosophy of belonging. It appeals to the nation as a communal home, a vessel for culture, language, custom, tradition and all the vestiges of identity garnered from generations of shared history...

“The Habsburg Manifesto”: A Conversation in Four Acts

Is Time itself best understood by those things in life which are Time-less? Such is the main question posed in The Habsburg Manifesto. Habsburg is not a political play but a philosophical one, whose main theme is the inner nobility of the individual as that which withstands...