Conservatives must turn to the Western Tradition in order to abandon their cynicism and regain a proper sense of pessimism, which they can then use to challenge the optimism of the liberal worldview… Why have modern American conservatives gained the reputation of being anti-intellectual? The answer to this question is surely multi-faceted and complex, but [...]
The Classic Learning Test (CLT) is a new alternative to the SAT and ACT. By creating a new standard that is distinctly Western and drawn from the richness of our intellectual heritage, the CLT hopes to encourage secondary schools to return to teaching the great classics… The Classic Learning Test (CLT) is a new alternative [...]
In what was, perhaps, Edmund Burke’s best writing, the Anglo-Irish statesman had argued in favor of the moral imagination, a way by which one sees the reflection of God’s glory in another. He then concluded that section of the Reflections on the Revolution in France by noting that “to make us love our country, our [...]
As Edmund Burke continued his ferociously intellectual and spiritual attack on the French Revolutionaries in the earliest and least violent days of the Revolution, he noted critically that no one could ever attain or realize the virtues without struggle. […]
The West has been living in the shadow of its own demise for two centuries or more—and not merely since, say, the late 1960s. The only response to such a situation is to rediscover, hoard, and cherish the cultural treasures of our past. “The Romans of the Decadence” by Thomas Couture That Western [...]
When Edmund Burke surveyed the names of those leading the French Revolution in its first half year of existence in 1789, he despaired. Several were certainly good men, he noted, and many were quite accomplished. Yet, not a single man possessing any necessary experience in the world appeared on the list. “The best,” he lamented, [...]
Unanalyzed Responses Anxiety and deep insecurity are the characteristic responses evoked by the crisis in tradition. To experience them, it is not necessary for a people to be actively aware of what is happening to it. The process of erosion need only undermine the tradition and a series of consequences begin unfolding within the individual, while [...]
A lot of good books have come out of the West. They have been written by men and by women and may be read by girls and by boys. It is no wonder that so many appear on John Senior’s list of the thousand or so good books that youngsters should read before they get [...]
Half-knowledge is more victorious than whole knowledge: it understands things as being more simple than they are and this renders its opinions more easily intelligible and more convincing. –Nietzsche Several years ago, I heard a scientist being interviewed on NPR declare that humans are “just sacks of rapidly degenerating amino acids,” or something similar. I [...]
Cultural relativism is that preferred meta-ethical philosophy of left-wing apologists for barbarities committed by Islamists and other violent fanatics, both at home and abroad. When some old-school liberal like Bill Maher condemns some Middle Eastern theocracy for preventing women from driving, executing apostates, or refusing to prosecute honor killings—for being, in a word, illiberal—he’s barraged [...]
The West is dynamic, exciting. But there is a lesion of Being in the West because there is a draining away of memory. Suppose there began to be subtracted from your consciousness all memory, all the experiences of childhood, all the stories you have read or have been told. You would not know who you [...]
The Oracle of Delphi foretold countless fortunes, futures, prophecies, and mysteries over many centuries and is the same ancient fount of wisdom who declared Socrates to be the wisest man in the world. A great sign above the entrance to the Temple at Delphi exhorts all who enter her sacred halls to “know thyself,” for without [...]
Does our recreational reading matter? We could consider the whole realm of recreation and entertainment in a free and virtuous society, but for the purposes of this essay I shall focus on a particularly important form of recreation: reading. Reading is obviously one of the most essentially human things we do. Reading makes possible cultural [...]
Last week, two of my Twitter friends (and friends of The Imaginative Conservative: @hencole and @Sir_Geechie) were happily discussing the 1965 Russell Kirk piece on Malcolm X; the one Winston graciously posted. After @henrole called it a birthday gift of sorts, @Sir_Geechie replied, “You know folks want narrative not knowledge.” I have found each of [...]