Russell Kirk and the Age of Ideology

Rating:
Summary: New Light on the Old School
Review: "Conservatism," so far from being the lock-step ideology pictured in the left's caricatures, is a plural noun. In this book, W. Wesley McDonald points readers to one of the core figures of this political tradition.

Kirk, who died in 1994, is best known as the author of "The Conservative Mind" (1953), a book which galvanized young thinkers -- McDonald was one of them -- disaffected with the prevailing political culture of America. "The Conservative Mind" appeared at a time when received wisdom about conservatives in politics hadn't evolved since 1861, when John Stuart Mill pegged them as "the stupid party." American political scholars seriously argued in print that political conservatism was not a philosophical position but a mental maladjustment.

Kirk was a "traditionalist." He believed that an objective universal moral order exists, and that it ought to be defended from ideologues of the left and right. He disliked unbridled free-market capitalism (which fuels "the dream of avarice"), and he believed the state has a constructive role to play. He believed that traditional patterns and institutions -- "the permanent things" -- preserve order, and they are the best foundation of a political system that can offer real freedom rather than mere anarchy.

"Strictly speaking, conservatism is not a political system, but rather a way of looking at the civil social order," Kirk wrote. It is not a sharply defined program or an ideology -- a word Kirk loathed, it seems. As a result, even sympathetic critics lamented Kirk's "lack of philosophical precision." McDonald has made great progress, in this book, in stripping down Kirk's vast and diverse body of writing to reveal its philosophical framework.

Kirk's critics considered him anti-rational because he rejected the Enlightenment's fetish for reason as humanity's best guide. Like Burke, he saw reason unguided by tradition as a path to bloody Jacobinism. But McDonald rescues Kirk from this charge by emphasizing the concept Kirk used to balance reason: an elusive quality he called "moral imagination." Kirk held that "ethical and normative truths are often best conveyed through a symbolic veil, as found, for example, in the medium of great poetry, rather than by the means of discursive explication."

Kirk could call T.S. Eliot friend. His belief in the power of myth and literary tradition makes one think not of Republican politicians but rather of Harold Bloom or Joseph Campbell. Literature "is the breath of society," Kirk wrote, "transmitting to successive rising generations, century upon century, a body of ethical principles and critical standards and imaginative creations that constitutes a kind of collective intellect of humanity, the formalized wisdom of our ancestors." No wonder Kirk's writings through the years especially have sparked the imagination of young minds.

McDonald works to keep his subject elevated above contemporary politics, but it is difficult to read the book without applying Kirk's thought to modern problems as you go. For instance, with a tight election looming, in an age when a few thousand votes in New Mexico can decide the presidency, some Republicans fret about the potential Libertarian threat to President Bush. It was Kirk who sounded the warning that conservatives and libertarians were not natural allies. In fact, as he knew, liberals and libertarians have more in common than the Latin root of their names, and more in common with one another than with conservatives.

How does a conservative know he is not a reactionary? Absent ideology, how does he know which changes to embrace, which to accept conditionally, which to resist? He must know that even the most conservative institution (such as the Catholic Church, to which Kirk was a convert) was at one time looked upon as a dangerous innovation. "Life is always presenting us with new possibilities, and hence our applications of the good must be constantly adjusted to emerging circumstances," McDonald writes. "The ethically ordered society is realized by the creative acts of successive generations of virtuous people striving to apply universal standards of the good to concrete situations. In this process, as traditions are preserved and renewed, society maintains a healthy balance between the twin necessities of change and preservation."

McDonald's connection with Elizabethtown College, the great center of Anabaptist studies, may have made him think when he wrote this passage, as I did when reading it, of the Amish.

Rating:
Summary: The Roots of American Conservatism
Review: I would imagine that most people who call themselves conservatives have no idea - or very little knowledge - of the man who started it all. Russell Kirk published "The Conservative Mind" back in the 1950's, the book that was the impetus to the soon-to-be Conservative movement. However, over the past half-century, Conservatives have lost knowledge of their pedigree, and often espouse doctrines - or ideology - that might be alien to the origins of Conservatism.

McDonald's book, "Russell Kirk and the Age of Ideology," attempts to rescue Kirk from those who might distort Kirk's ideas or who might not understand his approach. The author begins with personal anecdotes about the time he spent studying at Kirk's home in Mecosta, Michigan. Some of these stories explain a lot about Kirk's relation to the public. He was a very shy man who often stuttered in conversation. Although he was not a master in speech, he was indeed a master with the pen. McDonald explains that Kirk worked for hours each day writing on his typewriter. Sometimes when asked a question about a particular subject, Kirk would silently point to a book, figuring that McDonald could figure out the answer on his own.

Kirk explained that Conservatism in its modern sense did not exist before 1790 when Burke published "Reflections on the Revolution in France." The French Revolution was based, for the most part, on abstract ideas divorced from historical development, and wished to overthrow the order of things in the form of a new world, supposedly replacing the old world of custom, tradition, prejudice, and local connections. It appears that Burke's critique attenuated the British impulse to copy the French Revolution, which would soon drown Europe in horrible bloodshed. Abstract ideas that are a priori or posteriori, without prudent consideration of fact and circumstance are opposed to conservative principles.

In the second chapter, McDonald explains the moral basis of conservatism. To understand Kirk's approach, one must understand the concept of ethical dualism and the "inner check." To explain in detail, McDonald refers to Irving Babbitt, Paul Elmer More, and Folke Leander, because Kirk was not a philosopher in a technical sense, and thus there is some philosophical imprecision in Kirk's writings. One must understand in this context, man's Lower Self and Higher Self. The Lower Self is prone to evil: selfish arbitrary and socially destructive behavior. This is in opposition to man's Higher Self: that which pulls us in the direction of our true humanity or our ultimate spiritual purpose, McDonald explains.

Kirk emphasized the importance of the moral imagination to provide an inner check on our destructive natures. Great literature, religion, parents, and teachers would hopefully fertilize the moral imagination. When a person would come to a choice between his higher noble nature and his destructive lower nature, hopefully, this wealth of imagination imparted into him would point him in the proper direction, instead of him choosing the easy path or the path for the thrill of the moment. He might recall the Ten Commandments, or the honor of his mother or any other such things that provide for the moral imagination. Actually, Kirk, on a technical point departed from strict Natural Law, as might not be obvious to the casual reader. In this connection with the Moral Imagination, Kirk emphasized the quality of the will over reason in making the choice of the higher over the lower. But, overall, Kirk's thoughts are compatible and complimentary with Natural Law.

Kirk emphasized the importance of culture before politics. One could not just pass a law and hope to make things less decadent or debased. If one wanted to renew society, one should focus upon the religious institutions; strengthen the families - or what is left of the families - and work for an education of virtue instead of an education for the bureaucracy or corporation. One should brighten up his own little corner of the country. After the culture understood the virtues properly, then the society could be renewed. But a society void of virtue produces men incapable of understanding their situation and it would be futile to simply pass abstract laws since there would be no order in the people's souls in the first place.

An important concept to understand about the recent degradation of our culture is deracination. A deracinated person is one who is cut off from his roots. During mass industrialization and urbanization, people abandoned the farms and the local communities of which they were an integral part, and went to the big cities. Upon arrival, they were simply one person among other similarly interchangeable parts, as Eli Whitney had done to their machines that drew them from the country and villages. Thrown among unknown people and cutoff from their traditions, they could not pass on their traditions to the next generation. The next generation was thus rootless, usually ignorant or contemptuous of religion, and distained the traditions of their elders and became decadent.

When we depart from the inherited customs of moral imagination, and attempt to remake society anew from scratch based on an abstract principle, we have the problem of ideology. Ideology distorts the images and the visions of the moral imagination and leads many astray on destructive paths. For to have this imagination with the power to check out lower selves, if the images and visions therein are abstract and distorted, our choices and our will, will be diseased and we will be lead astray from the true path.

With Kirk, tradition is also paramount. The trials and errors of our ancestors have been encapsulated into custom, prejudice, and prescription. This wealth of knowledge is ignored at our peril since there is not enough time in one's life to accumulate such knowledge gained over centuries.

McDonald supplies humorous anecdotes in the process of writing this book, which might have taken longer than he expected. He mentions that his wife would occasionally ask him, "When are you going to finish the damn book?"

Rating:
Summary: A Thought-Provoking Look at the Roots of Conservatism
Review: If you think conservatism in America means international military adventurism, "compassionate" expansion of government entitlements, open borders, free trade and the embracing of unencumbered secular capitalism, think again. Dr. Wesley McDonald re-examines the works of the father of post WWII conservatism in America, Russell Kirk, to reveal that conservative ideology as we know it today is 180 degrees from what is was just 50 years ago.

If you believe yourself to be a conservative, this book will reveal to you the extent to which modern conservatives have strayed from the principles laid down by this pioneer of American conservatives. If you are of a different philosophical bent, McDonald's book will cause you to reflect on your political orientation based on Kirk's deeply intuitive understanding of law and its effect on culture.

A must read for any political junkie who wants to examine the philosophical underpinnings of a political movement that began after WWII and remains a strong, if compromised, force in politics today.

Rating:
Summary: Beware The Followers
Review: Russell Kirk preferred to deal in generalities, focusing on the ethical, social, political, and aesthetic norms which maintain order in a society. Rarely did he comment on the issues of the day. This makes it difficult to assess his ideas because only when an idea enters the fire baptism of experience can it be tested. Although I have benefited from Kirk's books, I have often wondered how to apply his ideas in today's world, particularly some of the more dubious ones such as his contempt for science and technology.

Two books that have successfully applied Kirk's thought are Bliese's The Greening of Conservative America and Scully's Dominion. McDonald's book, by contrast, repeats and sums up material from Kirk's own books and from those who influenced him, such as Edmund Burke and Irving Babbitt. McDonald is less concerned with application, and consequently his book takes on the tone of an unfriendly sermon. Only occasionally, moreover, does he challenge Kirk's views. I agree with Kirk's and McDonald's skepticism regarding libertarianism, and applaud their separation of it from conservatism, but I would like to have seen further explanation of how Kirk defended the market economy from the extreme individualism of von Mises. Wilhelm Roepke, for example, tried to balance the dislocations created by modern markets with the need for cultural and social order.

I don't know what Kirk would have made of McDonald's attempt to turn him into a philosopher, or at least to fashion a philosophy with his views at the foundation, given Kirk's antipathy to manifestoes and system-building. Kirk's preference for aestheticism over rationalism - for images of order over spreadsheets of values - suggested an approach more fluid and dynamic than rigid and legalistic. Perhaps it is an occupational hazard for professors to see humans as merely the sum of their ideas, to build competing manifestoes, and to forget that man is not moved by reason alone.

McDonald's dismissal of neoconservatism is surprisingly superficial. If a coherent system called neoconservatism exists, I cannot find a list of its principles by any of its founders. Norman Podhoretz, in fact, eulogized it in Commentary several years ago. To say that neoconservatives "did not share Kirk's appreciation of literature and art" would come as news to anyone who has read an issue of The New Criterion, a monthly defense of moral, religious, and cultural norms.

McDonald fails to mention how September 11 drove another nail into the coffin of isolationism, Kirk's or anyone else's, and how it vindicated the neoconservatives' warnings about threats from the Middle East. Kirk made only a few remarks about neoconservatives, mostly late in life during Heritage lectures. His work shows no familiarity with the history of the Middle East. I have little sympathy with McDonald's complaints that neoconservatives (by which he means mostly New York Jews) are taking over, i.e. getting all the think tank money, writing for too many journals, and unfairly influencing public policy. It is apparently beyond the understanding of certain unhappy folks that the neoconservative influence has been exaggerated or that it has been accomplished by honest means in response to current events.

David Frum has written approvingly about both Kirk and the neoconservatives, demonstrating that no one person or movement is either all right or all wrong, that truth and discovery transcend mere choosing of sides. Like Frum, I am more interested in a living conservatism which accommodates the reality of what is happening in the world today outside of books and academic squabbles. That approach, I believe, is what Kirk meant by a conservatism that is thoughtful, flexible, and nonideological.

Rating:
Summary: The Permanent Things
Review: Russell Kirk stands today as one of the intellectual giants of our time. The work under review is the first in depth study of Dr. Kirk's intellectual legacy since his death ten years ago. It is a must read for anyone who is interested in exploring the roots of the modern conservative movement.
The book covers the depth and breath of Kirk's thought. The author focuses on the key points that formed the infrastructure for the conservative movement that has transformed American politics over the past fifty years.
More than a biography, this is a detailed exegesis of the work of a lifetime. The greatest strength is the author's detailed summary of the points that formed Dr. Kirk's intellectual construct, which revolved around tradition and the moral immagination. Rejecting ideology, Kirk's conservatism is a prism through which the issues of the day may be seen in true perspective. It was his opinion that moral and ethical truths, the permanent things, formed the basis of the political, economic and social institutions that comprise our culture and support civilization as we know it. Without the moral imagination, we are doomed to follow the latest fads and fashions in a continuing degeneration, mistaking mere change for reform and inprovemnt. The end result is the end of civilization as we know it and the dawn fo a new dark age.
Of equal imortance is the carefull explanation of the differances that exist between Kirk's thought and recent developments in the conservative program, especially since first achieving power in the early 1980's. The reader who thinks he/she knows what conservatism is all about will be in for some interesting surprises.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who has a healthy intellectual curiousity about contemporary polics, philosophy and the world of the mind. Reading this work you will learn to appreciate the importance of the conservative vision, the moral imagination and the permanent things.
This is a survival manual for our cultural future.

Rating:
Summary: Champion of the Permanent Things
Review: Russell Kirk was the preeminent American conservative thinker in the 20th century. He produced a huge volume of nonfiction, literature, essays, and also edited many important works as well. Although Kirk is occasionally praised by the "conservative" establishment (in reality, the neoconservative controlled beltway establishment), he is for the most part ignored today. There hasn't been much in the way of secondary studies of Kirk. James Person's book is fairly good, but is more of a biography of Kirk and an overview of his thought, rather than a critical study. Prof. McDonald's book should go a long way to restoring Kirk to his place in conservative thought.

As I've said before, Kirk tends to be a rather opaque writer. Kirk rarely presented definitive plans to solve specific problems. Instead he offered a general approach to society based on respect for tradition and some general "canons" of conservative thought. For this reason, Kirks opposed libertarianism. Besides libertarianism being wrong on certain issues, libertarianism represents an "ideology" -- a preplanned approach to society which (to that extent) is similar to socialism. As someone once said, certain political systems offer the "One Big Solution" to the "One Big Problem." To Kirk, society's problems are more complex.

The best part of this book concerns the chapter on "moral imagination," which plays a central role in Kirk's thoughts. McDonald also highlights the influence of Irving Babbit and Paul Elmer More on Kirk. There is also an excellent discussion of Kirk and the Natural Law. I enjoyed the brief discussion outlining the differences between the Old Right (writers such as Kirk and Nisbet), paleoconservatism, and neoconservatism.

Rating:
Summary: Champion of the Permanent Things
Review: Russell Kirk was the preeminent American conservative thinker in the 20th century. He produced a huge volume of nonfiction, literature, essays, and also edited many important works as well. Although Kirk is occasionally praised by the "conservative" establishment (in reality, the neoconservative controlled beltway establishment), he is for the most part ignored today. There hasn't been much in the way of secondary studies of Kirk. James Person's book is fairly good, but is more of a biography of Kirk and an overview of his thought, rather than a critical study. Prof. McDonald's book should go a long way to restoring Kirk to his place in conservative thought.

As I've said before, Kirk tends to be a rather opaque writer. Kirk rarely presented definitive plans to solve specific problems. Instead he offered a general approach to society based on respect for tradition and some general "canons" of conservative thought. For this reason, Kirks opposed libertarianism. Besides libertarianism being wrong on certain issues, libertarianism represents an "ideology" -- a preplanned approach to society which (to that extent) is similar to socialism. As someone once said, certain political systems offer the "One Big Solution" to the "One Big Problem." To Kirk, society's problems are more complex.

The best part of this book concerns the chapter on "moral imagination," which plays a central role in Kirk's thoughts. McDonald also highlights the influence of Irving Babbit and Paul Elmer More on Kirk. There is also an excellent discussion of Kirk and the Natural Law. I enjoyed the brief discussion outlining the differences between the Old Right (writers such as Kirk and Nisbet), paleoconservatism, and neoconservatism.