Recently there has been a great deal of fond reminiscence (bordering on hagiography) of John F. Kennedy, sparked by recognition of the 50th anniversary of his assassination. That assassination was, of course, a horrible thing, for JFK, for his family, and for the nation. I would never say anything to minimize that fact. However, now [...]
If it’s two weeks till Christmas and you haven’t bought most of your Christmas presents (like me), you’re in luck! This is your chance to prove your creativity, with my expertise in responding to panicky situations. I’m currently typing this with one hand while my other hand holds a binky in my infant’s mouth. Yes, [...]
We need not assume the mantle of an anti-materialist to appreciate that a certain degree of social equilibrium is dismissed or ignored during the holidays, allowing for a lack of societal and personal restraint. Many otherwise normal considerations are subsumed into the pursuit of a “happy” holiday. All too often this demands we forgo normal [...]
The great British writer G.K Chesterton insisted that progress is not merely a problem but is “the mother of problems”. It is, therefore, necessary to understand what progress is, and perhaps more importantly what it is not, before we can fully understand and solve the multitude of problems to which it has given birth. One [...]
In the 1980s I served as the vicar of country parish of Brading on the Isle of Wight in England. One of my predecessors was The Rev’d Christian William Hampton Weekes—known affectionately as Hampy. Born in 1880 and educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was the Vicar of Brading from 1935 to his [...]
The full weight of the failed Enlightenment experiment over-taxes the load bearing pillars that prop up a decaying Western Civilization, pillars that are buckling under the sheer weight of moral corruption on full display in modern society. The ethical structures of the West are in desperate need of repair. This new age is best characterized [...]
It’s somewhat criminal that Kevin McCormick is not better known. An avid reader and fan of The Imaginative Conservative, a father of four, and a dedicated husband and member of his small Texas parish, McCormick has been fighting for the good, the true, and the beautiful all of his adult life. I can vouch for [...]
The most successful leader of the 20th century was Winston Churchill. But for twelve years, from 1928 until Dunkirk in 1940, he was totally on the sidelines, almost discredited—because there was no need for a Churchill. Things were routine or, at any rate, looked routine. When the catastrophe came, thank goodness, he was available. Fortunately [...]
A Tory, according to Samuel Johnson, is a man attached to orthodoxy in church and state. A bohemian is a wandering and often impecunious man of letters or arts, indifferent to the demands of bourgeois fad and foible… Tory and bohemian go not ill together: it is quite possible to abide by the norms of [...]
There is a growing consensus among human beings that the effects of our developing technology are not conducive to human development. Popular technology, despite its claim to interact and connect, breeds isolation. It causes people, especially young people, to stray into an introverted withdrawal from others and the world. As such, these results are antithetical to [...]
Making a Christmas list is, or at least should be, a joyful endeavor. It is therefore with a good deal of pleasure that I’ve set about compiling this list for imaginative conservatives. I feel, however, that I should clarify the sort of “conservative” for which this Christmas list is intended. It is for those who [...]
Tinkering in your cellar to build a time machine, as many of our readers claim to do, you’ll eventually require an operator’s manual. Much frustration can be avoided by reading a clever short story that is in many ways opposite to Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, often as fun and infinitely [...]
Today we mourn the passing of Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013. Something drove a man to silence As immortal anger raged, Then another kind of violence Kept him on an island caged; What Grace brought amid restraint: In a sinner, out a saint. […]
This week, on Facebook, The Imaginative Conservative republicized the late Joseph Sobran’s article regarding the supposed errors of Abraham Lincoln. While one should never have too much faith in commentators on the internet, especially those who hide behind anonymity, one rather outraged and intelligent young man posted something to the effect of “I don’t know why The Imaginative [...]