Over the last decade and a half, as many readers of TIC have probably noted, I’ve had the blessed opportunity of researching and writing about Russell Kirk (1918-1994), generally agreed upon as the founder of post-war American conservatism. At first, I did this mostly as a hobby, having become intensely interested in Christian Humanism through [...]
Virtue and the Promise of Conservatism: The Legacy of Burke & Tocqueville, by Bruce Frohnen In his role as a professor of English literature, Thomas Howard sometimes gives his class a list of the following words: majesty, magnanimity, valor, courtesy, grace, chastity, virginity, nobility, splendor, ceremony, taboo, mystery, purity. The reaction he gets is quite [...]
We mighta, coulda, woulda, shoulda, still-some-day-may elect a president serious about the matter of the nation’s freedoms. Or, possibly, not. The second possibility—so an ancient mariner reflects—arises from a sea change in our culture. It could be that more than half of us—a fast-rising proportion—don’t understand “serious” the way it was understood until half a [...]
In late 2011 and early 2012, there was a fierce debate among several prominent economists on the possible ways in which government deficits today could impose a burden on future generations. Specifically, Keynesian economists Dean Baker and Paul Krugman were arguing that right-wing concerns over the debt burden were nonsensical, because (for the most part) [...]
Through the ages the death of civilizations, no less than the death of human beings, has fascinated unnumbered observers of the human condition. For those who seek examples of civilization’s perdurability, the historical record is not reassuring. After all, what is Sumeria today but eroding ziggurats on the plain of Shinar? What remains of the [...]
Russell Kirk Mr. Birzer’s recent archeological dig into Dr. Kirk’s speech-writing unearthed a memory from now a quarter-century ago plus one, 1986, spring to be exact. Rusty Nichols, then Vice-President for Academic Affairs at Hillsdale College called me to his office. The purpose was to discuss some help for Russell Kirk who was writing [...]
What a gift to civilization this United States of America is. If you had to count the ways, how many very big things there are in which this country has positively excelled over its over two centuries of history. There is of course the political order watched over by our Constitution. Popular government remaining limited [...]
My habit was this—wake up, make breakfast with my wife, and as she was going to work, I would read the day’s headlines from the “news,” and we would talk about it over the phone. Over recent months, especially the last several days, I felt like I was reading more news, and watching more news, [...]
Not Chesterbelloc, but Bur-Kirk. [Dedicated to the genius and patience of Winston Elliott] In the fall of 1950, Russell Kirk turned the ripe old age of 32. He had been publishing articles and reviews (and soon his M.A. thesis on John Randolph of Roanoke through the University of Chicago) since 1936. Even during [...]
Thomas Aquinas, practical fellow that he was, understood that not all bad things can feasibly be proscribed by human law. It isn’t because people disagree about what is bad, but rather that a well-governed polity should require few laws, easily promulgated and understood, broadly promoting the common good, wherein the lawgiver can attend to things [...]
America’s British Culture by Russell Kirk The “identity crisis” is a relatively recent development of human psychology. Most people in history were what they were, and they didn’t bother overmuch to wonder what that was. Freud undermined this taken-for-grantedness when he taught that the Self was not a fixed essence but the mutable effect of [...]
Laughter dies a cruel but temporary death only seconds after my arrival home. Withered amidst strain; slackening, slighted.Bitten through, the instant hangs hateful and hard, typically lacking grace and form.Evening greetings are lost among refrigerator odors. The kitchen walls give way to padded ropes.Cloaks cast down, we slowly snarl and circle (we two who pledged [...]
In the later second century, an anonymous author wrote a Letter to Diognetus. As people come to grips with the events of November 6, we might do well to remember the limits of what we should expect from our—any—country, and the extent of our duties to a higher power. […]
Irving Babbitt, C. S. Lewis, Russell Kirk In a world agog with labels and categories we too often leave important ideas behind. With paleocons, traditionalists, neocons, Leocons, libertarians, classical liberals, anarcho-capitalists, distributists, and agrarians, the right can be as bad as the left in its fetish for classification. One group that defies easy [...]