The dangers associated with the imperial presidency are compounded by an awareness that, while new and more expansive theories of executive authority are seriously advanced, the office is not attracting individuals of high moral and intellectual character. The Philadelphia Constitution may be dead, but the basic problems which troubled the Framers—e.g., preserving the rule [...]
“Patriarchy” is a word that has almost ceased to communicate a definable meaning in contemporary discourse. Feminist theory deploys the term so loosely that it may be applied to any institution or instance in which men dominate women or are perceived to do so. “Most feminist criticism,” Heather Jones avers, “tends to represent the [...]
For several months after his 1939 immigration to the United States, W.H. Auden (1907-1973) remained enchanted with all the old dogmas—psychology, Marxism, and liberal humanism—that had shaped so much of his early work. As a poet, he continued to assert his faith in man’s ability to save civilization from ruin. Composed like all mankind [...]
Particularly in dangerous times, the true patriot has a duty to resist the call to blind nationalist obedience so that he may serve his nation’s true interests, and help it to live up to its duty to obey a law higher than itself. Perhaps the most famous quotation from the great Tory lexicographer Samuel Johnson [...]
Planter, statesman, orator, and diplomat, John Randolph of Roanoke stands out as one of the most fascinating characters ever to strut across the stage of American politics. Collected Letters of John Randolph of Roanoke to Dr. John Brockenbrough, 1812-1833, edited by Kenneth Shorey (157 pages, Transaction Books, 1988) Planter, statesman, orator, and diplomat, John [...]
There is a readiness to employ American power in its vast and lethal potential in causes that have no carefully defined or concrete “interest” or objective, where the claim to justification is an appeal to a universal or an abstract ideal such as democratization of societies not our own, world peace, security, liberty, or [...]
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 to the most impressive and most visible strand of the historical process, namely, the ever-advancing scientific investigation [...]
There still are men and women enough among us who know what makes life worth living—enough of them to keep out the modern barbarian, if they are resolute. If they are not resolute, and if they cannot make common cause, the garment of our civilization will go to the rag-bin, and the cultural debris [...]
There now exists a general dissatisfaction with the present sunk condition of higher learning; complacency having trickled away, reform is conceivable… For a quarter of a century, the higher education in America has been sinking lower. Agreement on this subject is so widespread that I need not labor the point: others will offer you [...]
Michael Oakeshott’s conception of conservatism was not without its critics. Among them was the American intellectual and self-avowed conservative, Irving Kristol… In 1956, the English philosopher Michael Oakeshott published “On Being Conservative,”[1] a statement of “the conservative disposition” as he conceived it. Although largely well received, Oakeshott’s conception of conservatism was not without its [...]
Ambiguities and contradictions aside, the Southern conservative tradition, by a heroic act of mind, may yet be summoned against the distortions of modernity, and, in particular, against the alluring gnostic supposition, now so prevalent, that men can alter the nature of existence and transmute the substance of being. From the perspective of the twenty-first [...]
To many American Protestants, Reinhold Niebuhr restored an understanding of the truth of the dogma of Original Sin, as expressed in the myth of Adam’s fall. Yet in the defense of other Christian dogmata, was he indeed so strong-hearted and strong-minded as he generally is taken to have been?… Niebuhr and His Age: Reinhold [...]
The sorriest aspect of the twentieth century has been the rallying of the intellectuals to the arrogant banner of nationalism, which rejects universal and eternal truth for the sake of national and passing advantage… Thirty years ago, a book was published about which a great many people talk, but which few have really read: [...]
As the rising generation is left ignorant of our civilization’s dogmas—or is encouraged to discard them—strange new dogmas rush in to fill the spiritual vacuum… All societies, in all times, have lived by dogmas. When dogmas are abandoned, the social bonds dissolve—swiftly or slowly; and the “open” society ceases to be a society at [...]