Does the American University Deserve to Survive?
With corporate America, academia, and the cultural institutions of this country now captured by the political left, how does conservativism, libertarianism, and classical liberalism forge ahead? How…
Schools Are Not Tools
According to Russell Kirk, “to the radical—communist, or fascist, or socialist, or any sort of radical ideologue—the school is an instrument of power;” it is “a means…
Reflections on Russell Kirk
One hundred years ago was the birth of Russell Kirk (1918-94), one of the principal founders of the post-World War II conservative revival in the United States.[1]…
Flannery O’Connor and Russell Kirk on the Spiritual Foundation of Political Reform
Introduction Mary Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) is best known as a Roman Catholic novelist, short story writer, and essayist. She is also known as a Southern writer who…
Eric Voegelin’s Normative Labor
In healthy reaction to the enemies of the permanent things in politics, a considerable body of serious political and historical scholarship has appeared in recent years. Some…
O’Connor and the History of Political Philosophy
In her prefatory note to the second edition of Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor claims that she is “congenitally innocent of theory” and that her preoccupation as a…
The Baby and the Bathwater: MLK and Russell Kirk’s 6th Conservative Principle
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is an American icon and venerated hero. He bravely spearheaded the civil rights movement of the 1960s, bridging people with powerful rhetoric…
Constructive Dialogues: Understanding Sexual Assault From Both Sides of the Aisle
Some of the most contentious and unfortunate issues to surface in recent memory have related to sexual assault and sexual impropriety. Whether it is the “#me too”…
Grace in the Garden: The Fall of Man and the British Pastoral Tradition
“An intermediate nature . . . prevents the universe falling into two separate halves.” —Plato, Symposium (203b). Almost from the beginning of when human beings began to…
The Communications of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra: Tongued With Fire Beyond The Language Of The Living
The media, colloquially referred to by some as, “the liberal media,” is widely known as one of the strongholds of the political left. Combined with the university…
Our Passions Forge Our Fetters: The Ballad of Star-Lord
Avengers: Infinity war is one of the highest grossing films of all time. The movie resides in the same cinematic universe as all the other Marvel Comic…
Russell Kirk: American Conservative
Russell Kirk: American Conservative. Brad Birzer. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. In the past decade and a half, a slew of biographies have been written about…
Is Anglo-American Conservatism Enough?
I Asking Is Anglo-American conservatism enough? is to presume that we already know what conservatism is and is to acknowledge it as good. But do we know…
The Need for Renewal: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Conservatism
In a chapter in The Conservative Mind titled “Transitional Conservatism: New England Sketches,” Russell Kirk cited John Quincy Adams, Orestes Brownson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne as figures in…