The Permanent Things & Imaginative Conservatism (part I)

by Winston Elliott III & Darrin Moore

Below is the first video segment of the recent discussion of conservatism and the American Republic with host Darrin Moore & editor of The Imaginative Conservative, Winston Elliott, on WAAM Radio Talk1600 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. More to come...

The excellent graphics were produced by Darrin Moore.

The Voice of This Calling: The Enduring Legacy of T.S. Eliot

by Clinton A. Brand

In 1953, the first edition of The Conservative Mind was subtitled From Burke to Santayana; the second and every edition thereafter bore the subtitle From Burke to Eliot. Not only did this adjustment afford Kirk a bookend better consisting with Burke, but the change was also fortuitous as one element of a broader clarification of Kirk’s premise and purpose. For the second edition, Kirk enlarged his discussion of Eliot, and he also recast the final chapter, changing its final section from one called “The plan of action for American conservatives” to one entitled “The conservative as poet.” Thus, Kirk emphasized formally an argument that runs throughout his book—that the most vital expressions of conservative thought are not to be measured so much by effective political activity as by their reflection in the tradition of humane letters, particularly in those writers who (to borrow Kirk’s habitual wording) furnished anew the wardrobe of the moral imagination.

In T. S. Eliot, Kirk found just such an exemplar of thoughtful conservatism informed by an acute literary sensibility. Perhaps more importantly, in selecting Eliot as something of a latter-day counterpart to Burke—certainly as a figure more substantial than Santayana and one still living at the time of his writing—Kirk was looking ahead, beyond the tradition of thought he had surveyed, to identify possible models and resources for cultivating the “Conservatives’ Promise,” as he titled his concluding chapter. The golden anniversary of the original publication of The Conservative Mind offers an occasion to reassess that promise and to suggest what the legacy of T. S. Eliot has to offer another generation as we work the fields of a different cultural landscape, venturing to renew what Eliot called “The life of significant soil.”[1]

Conservative?

by Stratford Caldecott

G.K. Chesterton was once described as a "Conservative" thinker. He responded as follows:

"Because I want almost anything that doesn't yet exist; because I want to turn a silent people into a singing people; because I would rejoice if a wineless country could be a wine-growing country; because I would change a world of wage-slaves into a world of freeholders; because I would have healthy employment instead of hideous unemployment; because I wish folk, now ruled by other people's fads, to be ruled by their own laws and liberties; becuase I hate the established dirt and hate more the established cleanliness; because, in short, I want to alter nearly everything there is, a cursed, haughty, high-souled, well-informed, world-worrying, sky-scraping, hair-spliting, head-splitting, academic animal of a common quill-driving social reformer gets up and calls me a Conservative! Excuse me!"

The word "conservative" should, in fact, never be used without a public health warning – or at least without careful definition. Its opposite, "liberal", is no better.

The War on Conservatism

The philosophical roots of modern political conservatism extend back over many generations through Burke and the natural law to the Middle Ages and classical antiquity. This meant that in every historical epoch in Western civil society there have always been some conservatives. Over the next three decades Russell [Kirk] and I found that this fact was so distasteful to Marxists, liberals, and their allies among so-called ‘neo-conservatives,’ that they totally disregarded the evidence in the tradition of Burke’s politics. Either out of invincible ignorance or moral perversity, they revealed a willful genius for self-deception. In order to denigrate the conservative tradition and deny it intellectual respectability, they claimed that American conservatism is of very recent origins, that it is centered in a mindless religious fundamentalism or jingoistic patriotism, and that it is devoted wholly to defending the status quo, especially the selfish interests of the business community. For more than three decades this has been the constant strategy of those at war with the conservative tradition, and it is a technique that will undoubtedly be used into the future.”--Peter Stanlis (The Unbought Grace of Life)

The Revolutionary Conservatism of Jefferson’s Small Republics

by Arthur J. Versluis

By the early twenty-first century, Americans had become accustomed to, even took for granted, virtually everything against which George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had warned: gigantic public and private debt, a massive national government, entangling foreign alliances, a standing army, undeclared war in the form of military interventionism, the destruction of American agrarianism, and the list goes on. What some called a “New World Order,” others an “Imperial America,” had become very nearly the equivalent of the former Soviet Union: a huge, unwieldy, unsustainable, bureaucratic, increasingly totalized state. Given the gigantism of the American state by the beginning of the twenty-first century, one finds it hard to recall that this was not always the case, that indeed, even fifty years before, let alone a hundred and fifty, the American polis was weighted much more toward the local and regional than to the national government. In the course of its history, the very notion of an American confederation had been lost. In what follows, we will explore and seek to recover the revolutionary conservative principle of Jeffersonian American autonomy.

New Book: Forgotten Conservatives in American History

by Winston Elliott III

I am looking forward to reviewing this promising new book, Forgotten Conservatives in American History, by Brion McClanahan and Clyde N. Wilson. For now a teaser from the publisher is offered to our readers.

“Americans weary of what passes for ‘conservatism’ in the circus of modern party politics owe McClanahan and Wilson profound thanks for recovering these voices of a lost tradition. Our bloated, debt-ridden, crusading empire has never needed these courageous defenders of the old republic more than it does at present. This is a sober reminder of how far we have departed from first principles and points to the quality of character needed for recovery of authentic conservatism.”—Richard M. Gamble, author of In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and Unmaking of an American Myth

Thomas Jefferson, Conservative

by Clyde Wilson

A Review of The Sage of Monticello, by Dumas Malone, Volume Six of Jefferson and His Time, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975, 551 pages.

In 1809 Thomas Jefferson yielded up the Presidency and crossed into Virginia. In the 17 active years remaining to him he never left it. The first volume of Malone's masterpiece, published in 1948, was Jefferson the Virginian. The sixth and last is The Sage of Monticello. Jefferson begins and ends with Virginia. Keep this fact in mind. It will save us from many errors and lead us as near to the truth as we can get in regard to this sometimes enigmatic Founding Father.

No great American, not even Lincoln, has been put to so many contradictory uses by later generations of enemies and apologists, and therefore none has undergone so much distortion. In fact, most of what has been asserted about Jefferson in the last hundred years—and even more of what has been implied or assumed about him—is so lacking in context and proportion as to be essentially false. What we commonly see is not Jefferson. It is a strange amalgam or composite in which the misconceptions of each succeeding generation have been combined and recombined until the original is no longer discernible.

The Inhumane Qualities of Labels

by Bradley J. Birzer

Winston and I started The Imaginative Conservative website almost 2 years ago now. In that brief time, I’m proud to say that we—and by we, I mean Winston—have done extremely well in attracting visitors to this site and creating discussion here and around the internet. I’m certainly proud to be associated with the site and with Winston.

One of the most surprising things to me, however, is our constant need to re-examine the word “conservatism.” Over the past 44 months, a question about definition or label or something related to this has come up at least 44 times, if not more.

From these questions and desires, I can only conclude that we crave to grasp and define this thing, “conservatism.” As all TIC readers well know, our modern and post modern worlds have all too frequently degraded and debased not only our words and the our English language but even the very idea of language as a whole.

Conservatism is Not an Ideology

by Brad Birzer, TIC co-editor

Russell Kirk deserves special attention on the topic of ideologies. In his twenty-nine books on politics, history, constitutional law, literature, social criticism, economics, and fiction, the legacy of the French Revolution and the loosening of the ideologues upon the world haunted him at a profound level. Tellingly, Kirk’s most important influence was Edmund Burke, the originator of conservatism in the post-medieval world and the most articulate spokesman against the French Revolution. Following the careful scholarship of Raymond Aron, Eric Voegelin, Christopher Dawson, and Gerhart Niemeyer as well as the social criticism of Eliot, Kirk argued that one could define ideologies through three of its “vices.” 

The Libertarian Double-Face and the Case for Conservatism: A Reply to Wenzel

by Nathan Schlueter

Conservatives value individual liberty as much as libertarians, but they deny that freedom from coercion is the only form of liberty.

It cannot be repeated often enough: The issue dividing conservatives and libertarians is not whether there should be a public philosophy by which we are governed, but which philosophy should govern us, conservatism or libertarianism.

The “conservatism” that Professor Wenzel describes frightens even me. Fortunately it bears little resemblance to the American conservatism I am defending. Wenzel’s libertarianism, on the other hand, is Descartes with a Burkean face. Beneath the modest surface lies a rationalist principle that threatens the very foundations of free government.

Toward a Conservative Conservation Movement

by Tobias J. Lanz

Why Conservation Is Failing and How It Can Regain Ground, by Eric T. Freyfogle. Yale University Press

Environmental conservation has moved from the margin to the political mainstream in recent decades. However, despite the high profile and widespread public support of environmental issues, conservation policy has failed to achieve many of its goals. Eric Freyfogle, environmental law and policy professor at the University of Illinois, argues that this is because it has been caught between two extremes—people who love wild animals and wild places and those who want to protect their own individual rights and liberties. This tension has created a fragmented environmental movement and a confused and frustrated public.

This impasse must be overcome if conservation is to be truly effective. In short, conservation requires a communal approach, one Freyfogle terms a “land community” approach that sees environmental problems as more than legal, economic or technical issues, but as cultural ones. History must also be used as a framework to understand how environmental problems evolved and and to comprehend their broader social and ecological impact.

Why I am Not a Libertarian

by Nathan Schlueter

The contemporary Tea Party Movement, like its revolutionary ancestor, looks to principles for guidance. Yet an old but active fault line runs just beneath the surface of the movement that has the potential to cause a fatal rupture. Tea Partiers simultaneously promote both a conservatism based upon the principles of the American founding and a libertarianism based on individualism, but the two are ultimately incompatible.

Libertarians are good at explaining why the market works and why government fails, and they have made important policy initiatives in areas such as school choice. On the other hand, they actively oppose laws prohibiting obscenity, protecting unborn children, promoting marriage, limiting immigration, and securing American citizens against terrorists. These positions flow from core principles that have more in common with modern liberalism than with the American founding, and which threaten to erode our constitutional order even further.

Conservatism Revisited: The Revolt Against Ideology

by Michael Federici

Conservatism Revisited: The Revolt Against Ideology, by Peter Viereck. With a major new study of Peter Viereck and Conservatism by Claes G. Ryn.

Developments in recent American politics have raised questions about the intellectual roots and philosophical depth of conservatism. The direction of American foreign policy, for example, has inspired debates about the meaning of American conservatism. George Carey, in a Fall 2005 Modern Age article, suggests that American politics has turned away from conservative principles. Liberalism is the paramount political ideology in America. This may come as a surprise to those who equate conservatism with the Republican Party and who measure the success of the conservative movement by election results. Republicans control the policy-making branches of government and they have gained ground on the Supreme Court. In the mass media, conservative voices seem to be present more today in popular print, on the radio, and on television than ever before. Conservative books commonly become best sellers and conservative think tanks and foundations have burgeoning budgets. But it may be that many conservatives have lost touch with the intellectual roots and engendering purpose of their political movement. They conflate fleeting election politics and media exposure with the enduring work of maintaining Western civilization. In the formative institutions of American culture, the academy, the arts, the church, and the family, conservative values are in retreat. How does one make sense of these competing notions of conservatism’s political and cultural vitality?

Conservatism and the Western Tradition: Part V

Below is Part V in our video program "Conservatism and the Western Tradition." This is the final segment in this discussion here at The Imaginative Conservative. (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV) Please visit The Imaginative Conservative YouTube Channel for this series and more TIC videos soon to come.

Conservatism and the Western Tradition: Part IV

Below is Part IV in our video program "Conservatism and the Western Tradition." We will soon post the final segment of this discussion here at The Imaginative Conservative. (Part I, Part II, Part III )

St. Calhoun, Part II

by Bradley J. Birzer, TIC co-editor
(Part I)

Put aside this literal biblical history. A man abstracted from a community and from history, Calhoun believed, in the vein of Aristotle, is not a man at all, but a mere animal. All men, Calhoun argued, are born into varying states of authority—the authority of ethnicity, race, culture, language, family, religion, etc.—and into historical, social, and cultural contexts. Far from being a voluntary social compact, society is organic and evolves slowly over and through time. The fundamental social unit, therefore, is not the autonomous individual, but the family and its natural social ecology.

St. Calhoun, Part I

by Bradley J. Birzer, co-editor, TIC

Last weekend, I had the grand privilege of working with Emily Corwin, Adam Tate, and Richard Brake at a co-sponsored ISI/Liberty Fund colloquium in Philadelphia. Held at the gorgeous Omni,we overlooked Independence Hall. Our topic: Union, republic, and nullification. As I have been so many times in my adult life, I was struck by the sheer intelligence of John C. Calhoun.

Please don't get me wrong--I'm not a Calhounite. But, I find him much more interesting and subtle, say, than pro-slavery, anti-Catholic John Locke, often one of Calhoun's intellectual opponents. As Calhoun rightly notes, there never existed a State of Nature--unless, of course, you completely disregard all of Christianity and all of reality. In almost every way, Calhoun bests Locke in terms of social theory.

Conservatism and the Western Tradition: Part III

Below is Part III in our video program "Conservatism and the Western Tradition," with Dr. Brad Birzer. We will soon post further segments of this discussion here at The Imaginative Conservative. (Part I, Part II)

Rush: “Hightail it!”

by John Willson

Hypocrite, n.  One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.--Ambrose Bierce

I’ve wondered, from time to time, what parents may have been thinking to name a son “Rush.” A few of my New England ancestors adopted hortatory names--”Small-Hope Biggs,” “Safely-on-High Snatt,” or my favorite, as David Hackett Fischer relates it, “ffly fornication Bull,” who “was made pregnant in the shop of a yeoman improbably called Goodman Woodman.” Most New Englanders had Biblical names, of course, but never “Jesus.” That was left to Latins, who did other crazy things like reenact the Crucifixion. But Fischer also points out that naming children (according to cultural historian Daniel Scott Smith) “is culturally never a trivial act.”

One of the possible synonyms for “Rush” is to “hightail it!” Rush did indeed do just that, after slipping out his “slut” comment about the young woman who testified before Congress that she felt personally deprived because her Catholic university law school would not pay for unspecified means of birth control. The OED says that “slut” can mean a woman who is untidy or lazy, which it appears on television that this young lady is not, or, the preferred definition, “a woman who has many sexual partners,” which, of course, one cannot tell from viewing a Congressional hearing. Unless, of course, one is named “Rush.”

Conservatism and the Western Tradition: Part II

Below is Part II in our video program "Conservatism and the Western Tradition." We will soon post further segments of this discussion here at The Imaginative Conservative. (Part I is here.)