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by Walter McDougall
It now seems to me that our real culture wars are not being waged between “God and country” conservatism on the one side and multicultural secular liberalism on the other. It now seems to me that our real culture wars are waged between Civil Religion on the one side and Christian orthodoxy on the other. What would a real conservatism look like today: a spirited, comely conservatism that could demonstrate William F. Buckley’s claim that “the wells of regeneration are infinitely deep”? Well, it cannot be just a reactive, resistant conservatism. As a young European historian I used to believe all true conservatism must be reactive because it never occurred to people like Burke or Metternich to be self-conscious conservatives until their legitimate, established order was radically challenged. But American history has now helped me to realize that conservatism is the genuine flipside of the counterfeit civil religion exploited by neolibs, radicals, and neocons...
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by Thaddeus Kozinski
A.G. Sertillanges sees the pursuit of knowledge as the pursuit of God, a form of prayer, and just as attention is the sine qua non of the contemplation of God, so is it the indispensable virtue for the attainment of knowledge and the discovery of truth. How to develop one’s faculty of attention? Live a moral life! Sertillanges makes this absolutely clear. Inordinate and uncontrolled passions destroy the intellectual life more than anything else. What to give our attention to precisely? This question is a bit more complex. Sertillanges’ is a balanced approach—both mystical and down-to-earth. Before we get down to earth, let us follow Sertillanges into the heavens: "Every truth is a reflection; behind the reflection and giving it value, is the Light. Every being is a witness; every fact is a divine secret; beyond them is the object of the revelation, the hero witnessed to. Everything true stands out against the Infinite as against its background; is related to it; belongs to it. A particular truth may indeed occupy the stage, but there are boundless immensities beyond"...
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by Michael De Sapio
Leave It to Beaver was very much a medieval morality play, in which the character of the Beaver repeatedly succumbed to temptation, suffered the consequences, and was guided back on the path of virtue. The Cleaver home was portrayed as a sanctuary, a garden of moral values in which love, mutual respect, and dignity reigned supreme. But the evil lurking outside the sanctuary was given its due. Beaver’s friends were a Dickensian bunch of delinquents, constantly luring him into trouble. Ward and June Cleaver provided the moral armor to fight these evils. As a father, Ward exercised justice tempered with understanding, frequently recalling what it was like to be a child. He was always ready to sit down with his sons and discuss their dilemmas—often in his book-encrusted den, the inner sanctum of the Cleaver home. The scripts excelled at pinpointing the decisive moment of moral choice and the chain of causation leading to evil...
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by Joseph Pearce
I love my own country but I wouldn’t dream of thinking that other people’s countries are inferior to mine. We should see the nations of the world as distinct and beautiful flowers in the garden of culture, each offering something unique to the whole bella vista of humanity’s cultural panorama. It is the love of this uniqueness of each nation which should inspire all lovers of national integrity to fight against the globalized monoculture that the globalist Imperium wishes to impose. It was this patriotic desire which led the English people to vote for Brexit, indicating that the concrete ways in which and by which a people live can only survive if patriotism is protected by politics. A failure to defend one’s way of life will lead to one’s way of life being destroyed. In this sense, patriotism might exist outside of, and beyond, politics, but it cannot survive without political protection. And this is why patriotism needs good, healthy, contemporary nationalism, as distinct from the imperialism masquerading as nationalism... [MORE]
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by Bradley J. Birzer
Russell Kirk’s assorted vignettes and biographies serve both his fundamental philosophy regarding human dignity and uniqueness.
First, for a conservative to assume some kind of rigid determination to hold a body of common beliefs would not only be absurd, but dangerous. Few of these men whom Kirk writes about would even recognize themselves as allies. Yet, as Kirk saw them, they each added something to the conservative mind, to the very lineage that holds us together.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, Kirk wants to remind us that we must honor our fathers, our mothers, our ancestors. Do we agree with all that our parents or grandparents did? No, of course not. But, even in our disagreement with them, we respect them by taking them and their ideas seriously.
The real conservative honors—even when understandably and necessarily disagreeing—his ancestors. We exist because they did. We feel—as we should—loyal to those who came before. If not, we would never care about those who come after us...
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by Gleaves Whitney
The idea of equality is central to understanding the American experience. It is the fundamental idea that lies behind the American Revolution and the extraordinary society we in America have created. More important still, the idea of equality has transformed not only the political life and society of the United States but also the life and society of the world. Yes, the notion of equality has been the single most potent revolutionary force the world has ever seen. Over and over again in the course of the past 200 years, mankind has defied tradition and status, blood and accumulated usage, in the hope of regenerating and recreating society. More often than not these revolutions have ended in failure and even a diminution rather than an increase in equality. Still, it is equality that has provided the dynamism, the moving force that has energized modern history. The great liberal and leftist revolutions of the past two centuries have all been made in the name of equality...
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