What Makes Us Americans?

By Brittany Baldwin

As an American Studies major at Hillsdale, I am confronted with this question often. I have to admit that sometimes it is unsettling to think that I often feel incompetent in answering the questions that lies at the heart of my area of concentration. While I don't have a comprehensive answer, the following are some characteristics that I believe characterize the American people. I welcome and encourage discussion, criticism, additions, etc.

1) the little "platoons"--From Burke to Tocqueville to Kirk, some of the greatest minds have recognized the uniqueness of the American people to form voluntary assemblies and organizations. From the Temperance Society to the American Red Cross to the NRA to Boy Scouts to the YMCA, men and women have joined hands in creating communities that worked towards a common end. These common ends may often focus on one specific thing, but more often then not they seek to preserve the common good and to unify people towards a common cause. These associations, as Tocqueville so acutely recognized, tempered the rugged individualism that could easily veer into anarchy, or at the very least selfishness.

2) aesthetic purity--The American people have never been knights or royal blood, and though remnants of the Medieval serfdom and nobility seeped into American culture, particularly into the South, for the most part, a simple way of living seemed to define the American lifestyle until the Guilded Age. Ambition has always spurred immigrants to move to America and has also caused emigrants to move Westward. Yet, many of those Westward travelers did not hope to get rich fast, with exception of the miners; instead, they wanted to have their own plot of land to till the soil, plant crops, and cultivate the earth. They wanted to live self-sufficiently, revering God's power in nature, helping their neighbors when they suffered hard times, and strengthening the bonds of family in the midst of hard work. The Laura Engels Wilder books, Willa Cather's My Antonia, and the Ralph Moody books demonstrate this frontier life that began with the puritans and continued well into the 19th century. This simple lifestyle has diminished in much of modern-day America, with the decadence of American's diets, convenience of one new invention after another, and American's growing materialism, but I still believe the aesthetic purity lies dormant in many American's souls.

3) The guttural and intellectual instinct to protect and defend property--The republican ideal of property rights being our first and most important right has remained a definitive element of the American people. At the battle of Lexington and Concord, men stood together to defend their little plot of the earth, and to defend their families and their communities. Though armed, they followed the Anglo-Saxon myth of peacefully protesting by standing against Norman tyranny. The British forced fired at them and ended all hopes of restoration. Just as this moment lit the flames that inspired many colonists to sacrifice their lives for their rights, men have continued to cling to their rights, as demonstrated by recent events like the tea party movement. While Europeans seem willing to surrender to socialist programs, the American people remain determined to protect the individuals rights to keep what each man earns, free speech, freedom of religion, press, the right to bear arms, and many others. Though some have succumb to socialists ideas, the resurgence of conservative in the new House represents a rekindling of the Americans' love of property and their willingness to defend it.

Is God Really A.W.O.L. When Wedding Bells Ring?

By John Willson

“I appreciate the energy of this essay,” my professor wrote at the end of a longish paper I had written on Faulkner’s Light in August, “but there is no reason to go outside the covers of the novel to explain what he had to say.”  He was a New Critic, and for reasons I never understood felt that the world of Faulkner’s art was the world of Faulkner’s art.  He would not allow anyone in his classes to stray into context, or history, or other such remote places.  Well, he made the rules--but I didn’t follow them (my grades were all B++++++, which I guess was a back door vindication).

I may have just spoken a parable.  The George essay, “What Is Marriage?”, is gathering attention in pagan liberal circles precisely because he and his co-authors insist on invading enemy territory and out-arguing them on their ground, rather than holding to the truths that their own have defended for many, many centuries. 

John Creech has done a heroic job of precis, and then another heroic job of doubling back on the initial assaults against the George position.  This could go on for some time, if the George team defense continues to push back at the relativist counterattacks they seem so happy to receive.  Philosophers love this stuff, almost as much as New Critics loved to defend art for art’s sake.  I detect an undertone in John Creech’s summaries that hopes for George, et. al. to get off the other team’s turf--but I may be wrong and don’t want to put words into anybody’s mouth.

But I must offer what seems to me to be a simple-minded correction to all of this.  Without God there is no marriage.  Natural Law doesn’t cut it (at least not by itself), nor do sociological arguments (and that’s what most of them are) make a convincing case for something so fundamentally a part of the order of creation.  Why shy away from Christian, especially Catholic Christian, conviction that God is Creator, we are creatures, the Creator made us male and female, and that we fulfill part of the order of God’s creation by becoming one flesh?  One can make all the ingenious arguments one wishes, and engage the liberal pagans wherever one wants to; but they have the ground covered.  God defines marriage by revelation, and for believers there is no way out of that truth.

What is Marriage?: Reply to Objections

by John Creech

As indicated in my post last week on Dr. George’s article addressing the “gay marriage” question, following is a summary of his responses to certain objections.  My summary of the main thrust of his argument can be found here and the complete text of Dr. George’s article can be found here.

Objection I:  Some, if not all, human beings need meaningful companionship that involves romance (presumably including sex) as well as public recognition.  Limiting the legal marriage to one man and one woman, as the traditional understanding of marriage requires, refuses public recognition to homosexual partnerships.  Consequently, homosexually oriented people are denied a basic human need for meaningful companionship and hence true human fulfillment.

Reply to Obj. I:   This objection is based on several false assumptions.  First, it assumes that meaningful companionship is impossible without romance and sex.  But history, and likely one’s own experience, demonstrates the reality of genuine friendship in which emotional, psychological and dispositional intimacy is present without the need or desire for romance and sex (the entire Western tradition from Aristotle, to Aquinas to C.S. Lewis acknowledges the reality of friendship as an intimacy with another that forms  a “second self”,” an intimacy that does not require romance and sex).  Given the reality of genuine friendship, the assumption that meaningful companionship requires romance and sex, denies the meaningfulness of the intimacy some individuals have whose relationship does not include romance and sex.  Therefore, not only is meaningful companionship possible without romance and sex, but the assumption that it is not denigrates the value of those whose deep friendships do not involve sex.

Second, the objection assumes that fulfillment from a meaningful relationship requires public and thus legal recognition of the relationship.  A relationship’s meaningfulness does not depend on public/legal recognition.  If it did, then non-romantic, platonic friendships would not be meaningful without such recognition (recall that current law, especially after Lawrence v. Texas, which held anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional, legally allows homosexual relationships, so this issue is not whether such relationships are allowed but whether they are legally recognized as marriages).  But as indicated above, platonic friendships are possible and do not depend on public recognition for their meaningfulness. As such, fulfillment from a meaningful relationship does not depend on public and thus legal recognition of the relationship. 

The Haunted Souls of Readers

By John E. Rocha, Sr.

Pursuing a liberal education takes a lifetime. School may not be fun some of the time and for a few of us, all of the time, but what I have learned from Fr. James Schall, S.J. over the years is that a liberal education does not take place at school, but for most of us after we are outside of the university. In an essay entitled, “On Reading Books," Fr. Schall introduced me to writer, Christopher Morley and his second novel, The Haunted Bookshop. It was a book he had not heard of before and had just received as a gift. I soon wandered Amazon.com and found an inexpensive first edition. If it was good enough for Fr. Schall to mention in an essay; it was good enough for me to read...it took him over 80 years to discover the text, it would not have to take me that long.

The Haunted Bookshop is a book worth finding and reading; one that truly sparks the moral imagination. As the first novel that I have read by Mr. Morley, I believe it is a good place to begin reading his works and I look forward to my next Morley read. The end of World War I acts as the backdrop of novel, along with a true hope for peace led by President Woodrow Wilson both of these are brought to our attention by the protagonist, Roger Mifflin. Mr. Mifflin is the eccentric used book dealer, turned American hero, whose bookstore and residence above the store sits on Gissing Street in Brooklyn, NY.

On the opening pages, Mr. Morley draws the reader into the world of Brooklyn post WWI with vivd imagery and sounds of the day. The "remarkable bookstore" is described as "It was very different from such bookstores as he had been accustomed to patronize. Two stories of the old house had been thrown into one: the lower space was divided into little alcoves; above, a gallery ran around the wall, which carried books to the ceiling" (Morley 4). Unique and yet typical of most used bookstores that I have visited, it is described as wall to wall and floor to ceiling of books. I visit two such bookstores when I travel outside of Texas; When I visit the ancestral home of Russell Kirk in Mecosta, MI, I pay a visit to the local bookstore, The Mecosta Book Gallery. I have never left the store without at least one book that I am looking for and perhaps three or four that I did not realize were on my reading list. I always eye the "Kirk Section" for any that I do not own or perhaps a first edition. I can say that I did not discover the city of New Orleans in my youth, but rather through marriage. As I have spent time over the years visiting family and attending a conference or two, I make sure to have book money on hand, as I enjoy visiting a handful of book shops in the French Quarter. There are many shops to mention, but the one that you can always find a a surprise book or two within the budget is at Dauphine Street Books. I am "big" guy and I can barely move around in the shop, it is crammed with books, dust, and more books. In Houston, one does not have travel far to find two good book shops, 1/4 Price Books and the other is a hurricane Katrina transplant, Kaboom Books, which actually has two shops in the Heights, and they still have most of their books in storage. All three books shops come to mind when I first opened The Haunted Bookshop. All have serious, yet friendly proprietors, that a first time visitor may find too eccentric for society today. Each book shop still lacks what Morley gives the Haunted Bookshop, the "air" of what book shops were once were: "The air was heavy with the delightful fragrance of mellowed paper and leather surcharged with a strong bouquet of tobacco...There was an all-pervasive drift of tobacco smoke, which eddied and fumed under the glass lamp shades" (Morley 4-5).

Original Conservative Mind Ad

They're Not Going to Catch Us. We're on a Mission from God.

by Julie Robison

It was a cold night. My good friend Karen and I were driving back to campus after a quick trip to Ann Arbor for a special viewing of "The Human Experience," the first full-length film of Grassroots Films, the Brooklyn-based company which also produced the phenomenal “God in the Streets of New York City” and “Fishers of Men.” It was a school night. We both had class early the next morning. We were both so on fire.

I told Karen about my family and our love of home, but how I had been discerning becoming a missionary after college in Belfast, Ireland, to help foster peace and ecumenism between warring Roman Catholics and Protestants. Then Karen spoke: she was thinking about becoming a nun.*

I was surprised, and then I wasn’t. I pressed her for more information, ecstatic for my friend. I was the first person she told. She was worried about her family, especially her sister Anna, who is one of her best friends. They had often talked about living close once they were married, so they could raise their kids together. But when Karen talked about realizing her vocation, her whole face lit up. Her love of the Lord is apparent to all who know Karen; the joy she was finding and the peace she experienced in accepting God’s will can be unsettling to those unversed in complete surrender.

It almost goes without saying the level of bemusement Catholics experience when some non-Catholics talk about nuns tends to be high and in the laughable region. Apparently all nuns go around in their habits and whack people with rulers they have hidden in their sleeves. They look like Penguins (cue the ‘Blues Brothers’). They are all sexually repressed and mean.

Last week, however, those misconceptions were beautifully dispelled when NPR published a story on the Nashville Dominicans. One read of “For These Young Nuns, Habits Are The New Radical” was cause for a shout of "Te Deum!";  multiple reads was known to cause Catholics to hum "Sanctus" for the rest of the day. This article is possibly one of the first non-scathing articles about the Catholic Church from the mainstream news arena in years, and could even be seen as a deep nod to the success of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI's efforts for the New Evangelization via public radio.

Christian Humanists Rage Against the Machine

By Bradley Birzer

[This was a originally a talk I gave at Piety Hill, Mecosta, Michigan, in March 2003.  Some of it is dated, but only a little bit.  And, I've even softened some of my views regarding the Reformation and modern liberalism.  But, overall, I'm happy with this talk.  

It was intended to be a celebration of the Christian Humanist (and especially Kirk) love and pursuit of all things Incarnation-al as opposed to the maddening rule by the will or wills of men.  It seems appropriate to post it as the liturgical calendar opens the celebration of the birth of the Incarnate Word.  

Merry Christmas to all readers of the Imaginative Conservative, and thank you for helping us grow so profoundly in 2010.] 

*****

The nineteenth century witnessed the flourishing of progressivist thought: in social relations, political relations, religion, and biology.  Everything was evolving, or so it seemed, for the better.  Smiles were more frequent, as the blessings of modernity were entangling everything, East to West, West to East.  Life just kept getting happier, and the citizens of the world were becoming one, homogenized, contented mass.  In a word, according to men such as H.G. Wells, it would soon be “utopian.”

It was all a lie. 

Pondering the Humility of God

by John Barnes

The mystery chose to enter the history of man through a life story identical to that of any other man.  Thus, it made its entrance imperceptibly.  No one was there to record it.  At a certain point, the mystery presented itself.  And this event marked the greatest moment in the lives of those who encountered it, the greatest moment in all of history. –Msgr. Luigi Giussani

“Ponder, brothers, the humility of God,” a wise friar once told us in novitiate.  I carried this instruction with me even after I laid the Dominican habit aside.  It tends to reside at the forefront of my meditations in the Advent and Christmas seasons.

“Three things are too wonderful for me; four I do not understand,” reads Proverbs 30:18.  

I count among such things the profound, incomprehensible event of the Incarnation.  I’m suspicious of any man who claims to understand fully how and why the God who created the universe ex nihilo humbled Himself to become a man, born in a stable and eventually suffering a torturous death at the hands of His creation.  It is, in its essence, a mystery—the mystery—and it must be approached as such.

It is not a mystery we can seek to understand, but rather an event we must embrace and carry with us as we toil through even the most mundane aspects of daily life.  The soul must never cease chasing it.  As St. Gregory of Nyssa said, “Those who run toward the Lord will never lack space… One who is climbing never stops; he moves from beginning to beginning, according to beginnings that never end.”

What is Marriage?

by John Creech

Dr. Robert George, professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, recently weighed in on the “Gay Marriage” debate.  In his article, “What is Marriage?,” published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Dr. George argues that the common good of our society requires that we legally enshrine the traditional view of marriage and that the common good would be damaged by legally enshrining homosexual partnerships as marriage. In arguing from natural law through an analysis of the essential components and structure of marriage as understood through the light of reason, he makes an important contribution to the defense of traditional marriage.  Because he relies exclusively on natural law, advocates of the revisionist view of marriage cannot dismiss the traditional view simply by classifying it as solely a religious position that has no place in public discourse.   Further, by providing strong reasons in support of traditional marriage that are consistent with but do not appeal to articles of faith, Dr. George offers a means of explaining a position we may intuitively agree with, but have been unable to articulate or explain persuasively.  While I certainly recommend reading the article in full (here), for those who might benefit from a summary, following is a distillation of Dr. George’s argument (I’ll be following up with a summary of his responses to common objections to his position in a second post).   

The Imaginative Soul

By Brittany Baldwin

The following is an essay I wrote for an American Studies Class, "We the People": An American Journey

Prelude

Once upon a time, a little farm boy in Nebraska grew up to be a young man, and as he grew, he decided to go to college. But he didn’t want to go to just any college; he wanted to go far away to a big city, where there were lights, and paved streets, and pretty girls. So, after he planted his last crop, went to his last church service, walked the fields for the last time, and ate his last family dinner, he walked to the train station, handed the Ticketmaster his one-way ticket to Chicago and waved good bye to everything he had ever known. When he arrived on campus, he felt as if he had been plopped into a magic city--buildings touched the heavens, horseless carriages zoomed across corners, and blinking signs illuminated the chilly air. At first, he was just as enamored with the classroom as he was with the city. The sophisticated professors and cultured students lived a life of leisure, compared to his days on the farm. Yet, the longer he attended classes, the more he questioned the professors’ philosophies, and there was something in his soul that cringes at this idea that “everything means anything.” The dancing and drinking and beautiful women, however, distracted him from his questions, and slowly he began to accept more and more of his professor’s teachings.

Kirk on Abraham Lincoln, 1970

One hundred fifty years ago today, the Union—or, what was left of it—was in an uproar.  Two days earlier, after three days of debate, the South Carolina Convention declared itself independent of the American Union. 

Never before or since has a greater threat existed against the cohesiveness and integrity of the United States of America.  The hapless James Buchanan, a liar and a coward, sat in the Oval Office, impotent.  The incoming president would not take the oath of office for another three months. 

It seems appropriate, then, as we begin the 150^th anniversary of the events that led to the American Civil War, we turn to the intellectual and spiritual patron of this website, Russell Kirk, and consider his views on Abraham Lincoln, the man who would become so identified with the four-year noble tragedy.

The Blissful Burden of Proof

by Julie Robison

The summer I spent in Washington, D.C. was a huge learning experience for me, especially outside my internship. I went to Philly for a conference and met a guy who also happened to be in D.C. for the summer. When we got back, he invited me out to dinner with a couple of his friends. I remember God coming up in the conversation, for some really random reason. They went around the table: Agnostic, Atheist, Agnostic. Then came me: Roman Catholic! I mostly listened, making a few comments when appropriate, but felt out of my element. All three did not grow up with any type of formal religious education or upbringing (unlike my own), but, knowing that did help me understand their thought processes better.

At my internship, religion would weave its way into the discussion as well. I didn't need to bring it up-- people would ask me what I thought, which is among the highest compliments one can bestow on another. My cold little office had frequent visitors who liked to chat with me about politics, government, their day, music, growing-up and "the good old days" and yes- even religion. People knew I was Roman Catholic through general conversation, and thus confided in me: my editor was Jewish; the letters editor minored in Religion in college but aligned his beliefs closer to Christopher Hitchens'; the managing editor was a traditional Catholic; one of the editorial writers was Episcopalian but married to a Catholic; even the (now former) VP of editorial once felt the need to explain himself to me- how he grew up Catholic and fell away- how he wanted to get married- how he wanted to have kids- how, yes he was dating someone, but had never met the One.

For all my conversations, I'll never, ever, ever, concede to the notion that there is no proof for the existence of God.

This post was inspired by an article in Sunday’s WSJ, "A Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais: Why I Am An Atheist" by British Comedian Ricky Gervais. It was shared via two friends of mine, both Atheists, and "liked" over 32,000 times, which I admit troubles me deeply.

Russell Kirk on Social Justice, 1954

In the early to mid 1950s, especially after publishing The Conservative Mind, Kirk began to develop his own own three pillars of a good society, "Order, Justice, and Freedom" as he would frequently put it in the 1970s and 1980s.  

In this 1954 article (excerpts below), published in the University of Notre Dame's Review of Politics, Kirk--fully within the Christian Humanist tradition--considered the virtue of Justice from a classical as well as a Christian perspective.  Harmony, not contention, brought together the two traditions.  

Only a true Justice--the recognition of "giving each man his due"--would allow the flourishing of a well-ordered society.  

Additionally, Kirk argued in a rather libertarian and Catholic fashion, true justice could only exist when chosen freely by well-ordered individuals and not when imposed from above.  To support his own claims, Kirk drew upon Plato, Cicero, Burke, and Pope Pius XI.

Though nominally a Protestant at this point, Kirk had begun taking instructions in joining the Roman Catholic Church from a Jesuit while teaching at the University of Detroit in the spring semester of 1954.  He would not come into full communion with the Catholic Church for another decade.

This article, never reprinted, also reveals some of Kirk's thoughts on the existence of Natural Rights, a topic he rarely addressed elsewhere.  "The foremost of our true natural rights is the right to justice and order, Kirk wrote.  "Men have a right to the product of their labors, and to the benefits of good government and of the progress of civilization.  But, they have no right to the property and the labor of others."

Among the Paynim: Afghanistan in Perspective (Part 2)

(Part 1 can be found here) 

By Stephen Masty

The Afghan war grows unpopular in a financially stricken America, and every time that US President Obama talks of withdrawal he encourages Afghan corruption. Knowing that if America scoots in less than five years the Taliban will return, every petty official is encouraged to fill his desk drawers with as much loot as he can to support his children against the promised American retreat and the impending 25 years economic hardship, misrule and brutality. Bigger officials steal more, much of it taken in backhanders from US contractors. The promise of sustained US support would not end corruption, but would diminish it.

Hamid Karzai was a friend of mine starting 26 years ago, and (although I’ve only seen him once since he became president and he might have changed with power) he was bright, brave, honest, stable and admirably selfless. He was too kind and too conservative, not radical enough to shatter old coalitions that would have freed him from dealing with too many rat-bags whom he believed were needed to retain a vestige of order. Perhaps he was right, but many Afghans disagree even though many still respect him. Meanwhile, a new study from Chatham House correlates insurgency with injustice from warlords, government and its allies.

Every week for at least the last year, leaks obviously generated from Washington intentionally humiliate President Karzai in front of his countrymen, weaken his fragile national coalition when there is no viable democratic alternative waiting in the wings, and – importantly - attempt to mask American policy failures. And boy, what failures!

America subsidises the Pakistan military that supports the insurgency that kills American soldiers. As the US Congress confirms, American contractors pay bribes to the Taliban who blow up American troops. American contractors and spooks provide millions to strengthen brutal warlords and corrupt officials against whom American leaders rail, usually blaming President Karzai. Ten years of often-failed American development work, and little cooperation to help Afghans build their own government, policies and priorities, have still had a few good results – but almost none of which are visible to ordinary Afghans who believe it was all a trick and America stole back the money it promised. American agencies fight each another within the US Embassy and on Capitol Hill, lobbying for one another’s budgets and mandates, mindless of the work thwarted and the damage done to Afghanistan.  Americans say they support dialogue with the insurgents while the CIA helps the Pakistani intelligence services arrest those Taliban leaders most likely to parley.

The Grotesque Iconography of Lady Gaga

by Julie Robison

This Sunday marks the fourth week of Advent; in a week, it will be the feast of the birth of our Lord. My mother has been blasting Christmas music. In between choir boys singing "Silent Night" and Bing Crosby, the radio DJ, told his audience that the number one performer of 2010 is Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga is more than a manufacturer of pop music and catchy tunes. She came into the music scene two years ago, infecting the senses and causing a strong urge to move it-move it with her first single, "Just Dance"-- closely followed by more hits: "Poker Face," "Paparazzi" and "Telephone" (with Beyonce). She has become, in the most secular use of the term, an icon. Her image is a mosaic: outrageous, loud, provocative, creative and unabashedly out there.

Just to get an idea of how culturally embedded Lady Gaga is, let's use the technology litmus test. Of her 21 uploaded videos on YouTube, the lowest viewed video has over 1 million clicks and her highest is over 319 million (the music video for "Bad Romance"). At present, the LadyGagaVevo channel has 342, 426 subscribers and over a billion total upload views. She has over 7 million followers on Twitter and almost 25 million people "like" her on Facebook.

Now let's compare Lady Gaga's popularity to, say, the Roman Catholic Church, who has over a billion members worldwide. The Vatican has its own channel on YouTube. It has 900 uploaded videos, mostly excerpts of speeches by Pope Benedict XVI, translated by a voice over. The most viewed video has over 105 thousand views; the lowest has a few hundred. The Vatican joined YouTube on November 21, 2005 but only has 26, 392 subscribers. On Twitter and Facebook, its fans and followers are collectively below 12,000.

Quote of the Day--Russell Kirk, Instinct of the Conservative

To speak of American conservative action...may seem a contradiction in terms.  The instinct of the conservative, as Lord Hailsham observes, is to enjoy life as he finds it, not to mold society nearer to his heart’s desire; nor does he think of practical politics as the end and aim of being.  Family life, church, literature, good talk, good dinners, sometimes good hunting—these things please him far more than parliamentary intrigue or journalistic controversy.  It is this mood of enjoyment, in part, which until recently put conservatives at a disadvantage in the United States.  For this has been a land of great expectations, rather than of realized satisfactions.  The conservative has no enthusiasm for circulating petitions or addressing mass meetings .  When he acts, he acts only from compulsion.--Confessions of a Bohemian Tory

Among the Paynim: Afghanistan in Perspective (Part 1)

By Stephen Masty

A recent and ill-conceived letter to a conservative magazine suggests that we take a moment to review American involvement in its war in Afghanistan and to dispel a few pernicious errors.

The author of the letter, a former British politician, dusts off every mistake and canard produced by his country since they were roundly thrashed by the Afghans in 1841 (they were clobbered again in 1878 and either lost or earned a draw in 1919, but most of us put them at 0 for 3).

You have heard the palaver before: Afghans are warlike savages never happier than when slitting one another’s throats; they have never been subdued, occupied or defeated (choose two or more options); Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires; they never had a “real” country, only a sort of daemonic Disneyland of internecine warfare, corruption and the cruel oppression of women; these fiends in human form will blow us to bits and then torture to death any poor sods misfortunate enough to survive the blast; so, we had better cut and run ek dum super juldee hai (Anglo-Indian Hindi-English for bloody fast). This is historically inaccurate, plus incorrect and meaningless in a modern setting, but it is a venerable and effective excuse for three-time losers and so it gets trotted out generation after generation, like great-grandad’s soup-stained cummerbund long overdue for dry-cleaning or replacement.

A century or more of upper-class Britons began to be fed this malarkey in the 19^th Century by their popular children’s novelist G. A. Henty, who wrote blood-and-thunder epics with titles rather like “Pig-Sticking Moslem Fanatics with General ‘Bobs’ Roberts,” or “Slaughtering Uppity Black Kaffirs for Queen & Country.” The novels are largely forgotten, thank God, but the propaganda survives and the letter-writer captures some of the content while choosing not to replicate the crass language.

Kirk and the "Aim of the Conservative" (1956)

In the 1950s and 1960s, Kirk wrote frequently for the New York Times.  In the following excerpted article, "The Aim of the Conservative is to Keep the Best in Life," (NYT, March 4, 1956, pg. SM6), the 38-year old Michiganian proclaimed his allegiance to the timeless principles of Socrates, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and C.S. Lewis.  The continuity of the traditions of the West, he hoped (but remained unsure), might just trump the vicious ideologies and so-called progress of the modern world.

*****

Russell Kirk, “The Aim of the Conservative is to Keep the Best in Life,” New York Times (March 4, 1956): SM6.

“My boyhood may be said to have been spent in the railway yards; at college, living on peanut butter and crackers, I hugged my poverty about me like a cloak; and I have not the slightest expectation of eventual worldly prosperity. If any young man is bent upon advancement, I advise him to enlist in some “liberal” undertaking, for the conservative element which survives in our country does not have wealth, or influence, or even means of expression.”

How to Become a Pessimist

 by John Willson

A long-time colleague of mine used to say, rather often, “John, you are so hopeful.”  He didn’t mean it as a compliment.  Another colleague once told me that he had just seen the ultimate conservative bumper-sticker: “LOSING SLOWLY.”  The wickedly funny Ambrose Bierce (in The Devil’s Dictionary) defines “pessimism” as “The philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.”  In my experience most conservatives are pessimists, or at the very least, to parody a phrase, optimists who have been mugged by reality.

            Christians, of course, are required to have hope.  The sin of despair is equivalent to the sin against the Holy Spirit: unforgivable.  But even Christians are not required to be optimistic about any given political regime (history and the Bible are proof of that), any particular economic system, or even any one marriage.

            It is this last subject that threatens to turn me into a pessimist, despite the fact that my own has lasted, so far, for forty-nine and one-half years.  I blame it on Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Charles Murray, two guys who say a lot about the family.  Murray sums it up in Losing Ground:  “Illegitimacy is the single most important social problem of our time--more important than crime, drugs, poverty, illiteracy, welfare, or homelessness because it drives everything else.”

Kirk on McCarthyism, 1953

by Bradley J. Birzer (and Russell Kirk)

In neither his private correspondence nor his books or articles did Dr. Kirk write much regarding the so-called Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s.  As some of his critics have gleefully noted, Kirk seems to have simply let "McCarthyism" slide by, thus neither attempting to stop nor even to attenuate it.  As one of the most prominent conservative voices of his day, the argument runs, Kirk should have spoken against openly against HUAC, blacks lists, and the like.

These critics are simply wrong.

In fact, in a the following little known and never reprinted essay, "Conformity and Legislative Committees," Kirk did address the issue. . . after a fashion, a very Kirkian fashion.

Kirk never wanted to be silent about this issue or any other, and he certainly never desired others to be silence.

In the article (excerpts below), Kirk, not surprisingly, placed the issue of "McCarthyism" in a larger context than anyone else at the time.   The problems, such that it was, was an outgrowth of the arrogance of democracy and the belief that politics should be ascendent in all things.  While citing de Tocqueville on the limits of democracy and its tendency toward soft despotism and conformity, Kirk did acknowledge and address the specific problem of a legislature acting in a judicial fashion.

The most important issue of the entire matter, though, was the issue of loyalty.  For an educational or political system merely to stamp a conformity on its pupils or citizens would be as inhumane as it would be ultimately counterproductive.  Real loyalty can only be inculcated through example and tradition.  True loyalty springs from a love that develops organically and naturally in the breast of the individual citizen.

In essence, through this article, Kirk rather brilliantly attempted to de-politicize the very loaded issue of "McCarthyism."  Perhaps, to be somewhat charitable to Kirk's critics, those who stalwartly opposed "McCarthyism" could only imagine a political solution.  Kirk, of course, imagined a much greater solution.

To my mind, he succeeded.  Enjoy the quotes.

[image from: http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/marshall/aa_marshall_mcarthy_3_e.html]

Taking Romance out of Schmoozing Sources, and Other Bad Habits

by Julie Robison

(more from our WikiLeaks Symposium)

Gentle Readers, today Miss Manners would like to remind everyone that it is bad manners to tell state secrets, especially those found out because of a vindictive American soldier.

Julian Assange is not, despite his defense, doing anyone a favor. In fact, in this time of war, he is doing quite the opposite. The U.S. Government, as is the case with most (if not all) governments, certainly has its share of skeletons.  But that does not justify the extent of information sharing he is doing, especially in relationship to national security. What is the real purpose of WikiLeaks releasing the unsanctioned US Army field reports from the Middle East or, more recently, the secret US Embassy cables? 

The WikiLeaks website prominently displays on its opening page a quote from Time magazine; Time says WikiLeaks “could become as important a journalistic tool as The Freedom of Information Act.” The real controversy surrounding WikiLeaks, however, is not the ability or right to release information but the antiquated question of who exactly is the purveyor of truth.

Quote of the Day--Russell Kirk, Imaginative Conservatism

Without the peril of destruction of the best in civilization there would be no motive to conservative action and no honor in being a man.  The poetic imagination...in some ages belongs principally to the radicals; but in our time it is in the keeping of the conservatives.  There is something better than dynamic conservatism, and that is imaginative conservatism…And if we Americans are to lead the nations, we shall have to think less and less about doubling or tripling the standard of living and more and more about what makes life worth living.--Russell Kirk (Beyond the Dreams of Avarice)

Quote of the Day--Russell Kirk, Professors and Priests

Professors and priests are meant to be the conservators of mankind, to which end they are set among men, reminding us that we are not the flies of a summer.  Their labor is to tell men that certain truths endure, that upon human nature a peculiar character has been stamped by the Creator with which we tamper at our peril, and that the complex of ideas and methods which we call civilization cannot subsist without moral sanctions.  Priest and professor are meant to show men the mysterious coherence and continuity which binds all things in their places.    --Russell Kirk (Confessions of a Bohemian Tory)

Among the Paynim: Doin’ the Camel-Step

By Stephen Masty

It is an ancient and almost forgotten Pushtoon tradition that should be embraced by Americans immediately and enthusiastically. So, consider it a little Christmas gift from Afghanistan.

 And why not? Like Christians, Muslims also venerate Hazrat-sahib Issa (Jesus) and Bibi Miriam (the Virgin Mary), so Christmas can be a shared celebration even if the two religions hold different perspectives on the principal characters of the Nativity. But enough of this – it is time to unwrap the present.

It’s called a camel-step and it works like this, no batteries required.

Let us say that you are an Afghan of some importance, a local khan or squire, and someone does the dirty on you. Because it’s Afghanistan, an ancient place full of big families and thus devoid of secrets, everyone gets to know about it.

You cannot afford to ignore the affront for then you appear to be stupid, weak or cowardly and your prestige and influence diminishes accordingly. You could send your retainers to kill your betrayer, but contrary to rumours spread by the British to justify three wars lost, Afghans are rarely bloodthirsty, are normally soft-hearted and cannot even bring themselves to kill a suffering animal. Besides, killing a deserving scoundrel sometimes kicks off a blood-feud of family retribution that can quite easily result in a century or more of reciprocal slaughter – as it did with the tribal Scots a few centuries back. So what to do?

Russell Kirk's 1954 Speech: "Conservatism, Liberalism, and Fraternity"

Dear Readers of TIC, As some of you know, I've been making my way through (and thoroughly enjoying) several of Kirk's lesser known pieces from the 1940s and 1950s.  Here are some excerpts from a speech Kirk gave in June 1954 to the national meeting of the Chi Omega sorority.  As you will see, many of these paragraphs ended up in A Program for Conservatives.  Enjoy.

Russell Kirk, “Conservatism, Liberalism, and Fraternity,” lecture given in June 1954 to Chi Omega, reprinted with same title, Eleusis of Chi Omega 58 (February 1956): 121-130.

“A friend of mine, about the time my book The Conservative Mind was published, told me that if I wanted to sell any copies, I ought to get the word “sex” into the title somehow, since only that sort of book seems to find a large public nowadays. Well, it might not be ill–advised for some one to write a book entitled The Conservative Sex. Women are the conservatives of this world. The advocates of female suffrage promised us a way of saving reforms if only women were given the vote; the opponents of the measure warned us that voting women would demolish everything established. In plain fact, nothing of the sort happened; ever since, women have been a bulwark of traditional society. They are conservatives because, even more than men, they venerate an order more than human and a wisdom more than the appetite of the hour.” [pg. 121]

[Image from/by Sam Torode]

Quote of the Day--Russell Kirk, Ancient Shelter

Conservatives must prepare society for Providential change, guiding the life that is taking form into the ancient shelter of Western and Christian civilization. For this, they will require the vision of Burke, the common sense of Adams, the courage of Randolph, the toleration of Tocqueville, the resolution of Calhoun, the imagination of Disraeli, the stern justice of Stephen, the catholic learning of More. Democracy in some form will endure. Whether it is to be a democracy of degradation, or a democracy of elevation, lies with the conservatives. - Russell Kirk, “The Conservative Mind.”

Why Conservatives Should Embrace Sarah Palin

by Anthony Williams

[editor's note: Anthony, not to be confused with our other contributor, Tony Williams, is a graduate of Hillsdale College.  He is currently also, much to my happiness, one of my wonderful colleagues at the college.  A native Alaskan, a father, husband, and an expert on all things technological and Lego-esque, Anthony has graciously agreed to defend Palin from a conservative viewpoint--BjB]

Much derision has been heaped on Governor Sarah Palin since she accepted John McCain’s invitation to run for vice president, from the right and the left, but I think both sides make too much of her mistakes and underestimate her strengths. I think both see that her public persona isn’t very polished, and this leads to all the rest of their conclusions. She speaks frankly, without dissembling, and on some subjects she is not well versed. Unlike most politicians, she lacks the ability to discuss subjects on which she is ignorant as though she were not. The left sees this as evidence that she is stupid, a mere yokel from a backwater state. The right sees this as evidence that she is an embarrassment to them, a populist yokel from a backwater state, not to be trusted with the mighty work of saving the republic.

Our press is complacent (fat and well-fed), our world leaders arrogant, our citizenry horribly ill-informed

by Norville Rogers

Because we’ve been asked to be brief, my response to the leaks are offered in a way to get the conversation going and thus will be twofold: a general response and then some thoughts about a specific cable.  I also will avoid questions of intention (on the part of Assange and Manning) and will simply have to ignore the consequentialist-versus-deonotological foundations of such a discussion.  There is simply too much groundwork to be covered.

First, let me say that the diplomatic cables are not comparable to the Pentagon Papers (not even the Abyan bombing revelation that validated Amnesty International’s version of the story--that the killing of dozens of civilians, including 14 women and 21 children, were the result of U.S. bombings, and not the work of the Yemeni government as initially reported).  In general, I support WikiLeaks, even if they weaken our diplomatic ties and complicate our foreign “adventures.”  WikiLeaks simply reports unvarnished material--even if they do so illegally (and thus should be prosecuted according to the law).  As a citizen, I feel they have done me a personal service (offering me unvarnished information about the workings of my government), and no doubt a disservice as well (perhaps weakening that same government in areas in which it legitimately harms us to be weakened). 

The Forgotten First Emancipator

by Steve Klugewicz

"It seems to me a historian's foremost duty to ensure that merit is recorded, and to confront evil deeds and words with the fear of posterity's denunciations."
-- Tacitus

After reading Andrew Levy’s The First Emancipator, the story of Virginia aristocrat Robert Carter III (not to be confused with his grandfather, Robert “King” Carter), I can no longer blithely make excuses for slaveowning Founding Fathers who refused to free their slaves. Motivated by the egalitarianism of his religious beliefs—a combination of Baptist and Swedenborgian theology—Carter in 1791 quietly issued his “Deed of Gift,” which provided for the gradual emancipation of his 452 slaves. Though there were many smaller individual emancipations in the United States both before and after, the scale of Carter’s act was without precedent and was not imitated by his more renowned peers.

Unlike these Founders who sought secular immortality in everlasting fame among later generations, Carter wanted to be forgotten. He mandated that his grave be unmarked (it remains so), and his great act of emancipation was unaccompanied by the sort of flowery rhetoric meant to preserve his name to posterity. 

Levy’s telling of Carter’s story is exemplary, but Levy’s provocative conclusions about why Carter has been forgotten by history are the high point of the book. Carter’s act of emancipation—the largest prior to the Civil War—“undermine[s] both Southern claims that emancipation was impossible and Northern claims that emancipation was something that only Northern morality and Northern will could make happen, through persuasion or by force” (p. 183).

PRUDENCE in the ‘Assangeian Stables’

by John Willson

As I write this, the DOJ is trying to find a way to prosecute Julian Assange under the Espionage Act, calling to mind earlier uses of that catch-all and very ambiguous legislation. 

Senator Joe Lieberman says to Fox News (this is only a slight paraphrase), “If we can’t shut this guy down, then shame on us, the civilized world.” Others are calling, literally for Mr. Assange’s head, Sweden is trying to get him back on a sex charge, and Ecuador has offered him unrestricted asylum.  Not since Daniel Ellsberg moved what became the Pentagon Papers into the public domain has so much sound and fury settled over Washington.

I know little about Mr. Assange’s motives or methods--I doubt if, right now, many people do--but I would suggest that he is not the problem; nor are we dealing here with an assault on the rule of law, natural rights, or what used to be the republic. 

The Twelve Days of Christmas by Russell Kirk

In city after city, I have seen Christmas parades on Thanksgiving Day!  One might think that we were celebrating the birth of Mammon, rather than that of Jesus, the enemy of money-changers in the Temple.  Though I applaud the pleasant custom of present-giving at Christmas, Christ did not die on the cross to enrich shopkeepers.

The earliest date on which there is justification for commencing the Christmas season, according to the ecclesiastical calendar, is December 16.  More precisely, however, Yuletide extends from Christmas Eve, on December 24, to Twelfth Night (January 6), which honors the Three Wise Men, or the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.  Churches may retain their Christmas decorations until February 1, or Candlemas  Eve—February 2 being the anniversary of the purification of the Virgin.  So, if pressed, I will permit the department-stores to put Santa Claus in their windows as early as December 16, and even to keep him there until February 1.

But to exhibit him on Thanksgiving?  A thousand times NO!

Don’t mistake me for a spoil-sport:  on the contrary, I should like to revive all the good old customs genuinely associated with the joyous season of Christmas.  In getting and spending at this time, we have forgotten that merry-making has more to it than buying a pile of plastic toys to be smashed by bewildered children on Christmas morning.  But your Christmas tree shouldn’t go up before Christmas Eve, and it shouldn’t come down until Twelfth Night – when it is supposed to be burnt.

WikiLeaks: Gentlemen and Honor

In order to have our WikiLeaks Symposium available in digestible pieces we will re-publish the contributions as individual pieces over the next several days.--The Editors.

Gentlemen and Honor

by Winston Elliott III

First, gentlemen do not read other men's private correspondence.  

Secondly, in The Wise Men Know What Wicked things Are Written on the Sky Russell Kirk wrote: "It is not the mission of the United States to establish universally some imitation of the American political and economic order.  Every people must find their own way to order and justice and freedom." Still, an enormous (likely Sisyphean) job has been given to the Departments of State and Defense and the CIA. They have been tasked with transforming other nations to become more "American." Of course this is planned with little thought given to whether the culture and history of these nations has in anyway prepared them to emulate the United States, or whether the peoples of these countries desire to be transformed into well behaved democratic capitalists. Yet, diplomats cajole and negotiate, armies are dispatched, and bribes (both piratical and those styled as "aid") are employed to encourage other nations to do our bidding. We are not surprised when WikiLeaks confirms that pride, avarice, envy and lust play their part in international relations. We are disappointed when reminded of America's part in fostering these vices in order to suit our purposes.

Finally, it appears likely to me that good men may die because the "non combatants" of WikiLeaks choose to reveal secrets regarding our military activities in Afghanistan and Iraq. While I would prefer that we did not have any of our warriors in those nations (or in any other foreign nation unless the result of formal declaration of war or involved in joint training exercises) I would reserve a special place in Hell for WikiLeakers, and their co-conspirators, if a single soldier dies due to their wickedness.

An America that did not depend on foreign lenders to fund our enormous national debt could be much more plain spoken in foreign affairs. An America that did not depend on $28 billion a month in foreign oil could be much more honest in our foreign affairs. An America that respected the cultures and histories of other nations sufficiently to allow them to find their own paths to order, justice and freedom could be much more patient in foreign affairs. Until we have our domestic affairs in order we cannot be independent, we dare not speak plainly. As a nation we live in fear that the piper will come to collect his due. God grant us the fortitude to get our house in order and the wisdom to appreciate that reasonable men will only emulate those who they truly admire.

WikiLeaks and the Republic: An Imaginative Conservative Symposium

by Birzer, Davis, Frohnen, Anger, Masty, Robison, Rogers, Elliott, and Willson.

What an insane couple of years in terms of politics: recession, cash for clunkers, Bush stimuli packages, Obama stimuli packages, the Russians praising Stalin in their subways (and putting their nuke subs off of our east coast), the Chinese singing “hallelujah” to Mao, the U.S. government entering the pornography business with perverts manning (manhandling) airport security, and now, an Australian and a self-proclaimed libertarian, having gotten his hands on over 250,000 American diplomatic cables, releasing these slowly to the world.  Slowly enough that they’re not to become merely a fad, exciting today, forgotten tomorrow.  Instead, WikiLeaks is releasing them slowly enough for each new revelation to be meaningful and soak into the public mind.

Not surprisingly, the characters who claim to represent the American government (and, according to certain British newspapers, erroneously, the American public), are furious.  Though these officials—some elected, some not--don’t mind prodding through our personal lives—our family data, our income, and, now with the TSA, our most private bodily parts—they certainly do not like their own decisions and words being made public.  Various government officials—including our Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton—have proclaimed the WikiLeaks founders as nothing less than enemies, equal to the Taliban or Al Qaeda.