Comments on: By the Book http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2009/04/by-the-book/ Place. Limits. Liberty. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:57:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: Josh Cooney http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2009/04/by-the-book/#comment-2127 Josh Cooney Mon, 04 May 2009 15:49:59 +0000 http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/?p=2966#comment-2127 I agree completely. I think conservatives were having too much fun fighting communism to be bothered with anything else. I can only imagine what might have been if they had invested their financial and intellectual resources on education and cultural renewal rather than the Cold War. In Russell Kirk's book on T.S. Eliot, Kirk mentions a conversation where Eliot is highly critical of the new conservative movement, especially as it was being manifested in National Review. T.S. Eliot thought these young conservatives were ignoring the fundamentals of culture and he was right. Despite his title as "The Father of American Conservatism," Russell Kirk seems more like a symbolic figurehead for a movement that never really manifested his most important principles and ideas. Almost all the writings in The Essential Russell Kirk are related to the subject of education: The necessity of learning our ancient, classical, and Christian patrimony, and passing this tradition on to the next generation; and cultivating the moral imagination through the study of sound literature. Needless to say this was not, as it turns out, the main thrust of the conservative movement. More accurately, it was a six decade exercise in apologetics for free market capitalism and virtuous America. My apologies to Pat Buchanan: But the conservative movement was wrong from the beginning. I agree completely. I think conservatives were having too much fun fighting communism to be bothered with anything else. I can only imagine what might have been if they had invested their financial and intellectual resources on education and cultural renewal rather than the Cold War. In Russell Kirk’s book on T.S. Eliot, Kirk mentions a conversation where Eliot is highly critical of the new conservative movement, especially as it was being manifested in National Review. T.S. Eliot thought these young conservatives were ignoring the fundamentals of culture and he was right.

Despite his title as “The Father of American Conservatism,” Russell Kirk seems more like a symbolic figurehead for a movement that never really manifested his most important principles and ideas. Almost all the writings in The Essential Russell Kirk are related to the subject of education: The necessity of learning our ancient, classical, and Christian patrimony, and passing this tradition on to the next generation; and cultivating the moral imagination through the study of sound literature.

Needless to say this was not, as it turns out, the main thrust of the conservative movement. More accurately, it was a six decade exercise in apologetics for free market capitalism and virtuous America. My apologies to Pat Buchanan: But the conservative movement was wrong from the beginning.

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