The Essential Russell Kirk

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An inspiring man of letters whose description of conservatism (not definition) is refreshing and wise. Non-ideological conservatism is what he values and so do I. Kirk was also a fine writer of occult and fantasy fiction, one of his stories was adapted for the Twilight Zone.

If you want to have your mind enriched by the Old Sage of Mecosta, read this survey of his writings!

The Essential Russell Kirk - ISI Books

For Kirk, however, truth endures despite the exigencies of time and place and of the losses that civilization was to suffer. Indeed, his writings measure the cruel losses in the immediate context of the disorder and decadence that Kirk diagnoses as the most severe symptoms of a collapsing of civilization in the twentieth century. And again and again he weighs the motives and methods of modern social engineers: those utopian reformers who, as T. S. Eliot writes, are ever “dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need be good”—in short, those who continue to deepen and broaden the gulf of disinheritance on which we find ourselves stranded at the start of the third millennium.

Excerpt From: George A. Panichas' Preface to The Essential Russell Kirk.

 

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'Kirk’s calling [is] as a modern man of letters who discharges his function as “a guardian of old truths and old rights,” and who strains to push things up to their first principles.

For more than forty years and in more than thirty books, and in countless articles, Kirk fought on the front line in the war of ideas. The nine major categories and the selected essays contained in this book present a map of the terrain on which Kirk fought. They identify the particular locales of the battles in which he was engaged, and they also encompass the strategies and tactics of the general warfare which demanded from him the utmost effort, tenacity, courage, belief.

"The Idea of Conservatism”; “Our Sacred Patrimony”; “Principles of Order”; “The Moral Imagination”; “Places and People”; “The Drug of Ideology”; “Decadence and Renewal in Education”; “The American Republic”; “Conservators of Civilization”: these are the respective titles of the nine categories around which The Essential Russell Kirk is organized and developed.'

Excerpt From: George A. Panichas' Preface to The Essential Russell Kirk.

 

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Strictly speaking, conservatism is not a political system, and certainly not an ideology. In the phrase of H. Stuart Hughes, “Conservatism is the negation of ideology.” Instead, conservatism is a way of looking at the civil social order. Although certain general principles held by most conservatives may be described, there exists wide variety in application of these ideas from age to age and country to country. Thus conservative views and parties have existed under monarchical, aristocratic, despotic, and democratic regimes, and in a considerable range of economic systems.

Excerpt From: The Essential Russell Kirk pp. 6-7

 

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A cogent piece on the restoration of our spiritual roots and thus, perhaps, a way out of our ethical degeneration led by secular scientism - Civilization Without Religion.

Russell Kirk -- Civilization Without Religion?

 

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Excerpt from Kirk's "Civilization" article, as linked above.

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The final paragraph of Malcolm Muggeridge's essay 'The Great Liberal Death Wish" must suffice, the limits of my time with you considered, as a summing-up of the human predicament at the end of the twentieth century.

"As the astronauts soar into the vast eternities of space," Muggeridge writes, "on earth the garbage piles higher, as the groves of academe extend their domain, their alumni's arms reach lower, as the phallic cult spreads, so does impotence. In great wealth, great poverty; in health, sickness, in numbers, deception. Gorging, left hungry; sedated, left restless; telling all, hiding all; in flesh united, forever separate. So we press on through the valley of abundance that leads to the wasteland of satiety, passing through the gardens of fantasy; seeking happiness ever more ardently, and finding despair ever more surely."

Just so. Such recent American ethical writers as Stanley Hauwerwas and Alasdair MacIntyre concur in Muggeridge's verdict on the society of our time, concluding that nothing can be done, except for a remnant to gather in little "communities of character" while society slides toward its ruin. Over the past half-century, many other voices of reflective men and women have been heard to the same effect. Yet let us explore the question of whether a reinvigoration of our culture is conceivable.
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The upshot says Kirk, is yes, "reinvigoration of our culture is conceivable", just not very likely. I agree, but hope to be wrong.

 

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The conservative is concerned, first of all, with the regeneration of the spirit and character—with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at its highest.

- Russell Kirk

 

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A recent reminder of the gracious & wise Kirk, by Lee Edwards:

Our Cultural Crisis: A Kirkian Response

 

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More essays celebrating the work of Russell Kirk:

Russell Kirk Archives - The Imaginative Conservative

 

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This small Kirk classic from 1957 has been reissued as Concise Guide to Conservatism. It is a real jewel!

"Conservatives distrust what Burke called “abstractions”— that is, absolute political dogmas divorced from practical experience and particular circumstances. They do believe, nevertheless, in the existence of certain abiding truths which govern the conduct of human society. Perhaps the [ten] chief principles which have characterized American conservative thought are these:

1. Men and nations are governed by moral laws; and those laws have their origin in a wisdom
that is more than human—in divine justice. At heart, political problems are moral and
religious problems. The wise statesman tries to apprehend the moral law and govern his
conduct accordingly. We have a moral debt to our ancestors, who bestowed upon us our
civilization, and a moral obligation to the generations who will come after us. This debt is
ordained of God. We have no right, therefore, to tamper impudently with human nature or
with the delicate fabric of our civil social order."

[From page 2.]

 

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The next three:

"2. Variety and diversity are the characteristics of a high civilization. Uniformity and absolute
equality are the death of all real vigor and freedom in existence. Conservatives resist with
impartial strength the uniformity of a tyrant or an oligarchy, and the uniformity of what
Tocqueville called 'democratic despotism.'

3. Justice means that every man and every woman have the right to what is their own—to the
things best suited to their own nature, to the rewards of their ability and integrity, to their
property and their personality. Civilized society requires that all men and women have equal
rights before the law, but that equality should not extend to equality of condition: that is,
society is a great partnership, in which all have equal rights—but not to equal things. The
just society requires sound leadership, different rewards for different abilities, and a sense of
respect and duty.

4. Property and freedom are inseparably connected; economic leveling is not economic
progress. Conservatives value property for its own sake, of course; but they value it even
more because without it all men and women are at the mercy of an omnipotent government."

 

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"5. Power is full of danger; therefore, the good state is one in which power is checked and
balanced, restricted by sound constitutions and customs. So far as possible, political power
ought to be kept in the hands of private persons and local institutions. Centralization is
ordinarily a sign of social decadence.

6. The past is a great storehouse of wisdom; as Burke said, 'The individual is foolish, but the
species is wise.' The conservative believes that we need to guide ourselves by the moral
traditions, the social experience, and the whole complex body of knowledge bequeathed to
us by our ancestors. The conservative appeals beyond the rash opinion of the hour to what
Chesterton called 'the democracy of the dead'—that is, the considered opinions of the wise
men and women who died before our time, the experience of the race. The conservative, in
short, knows he was not born yesterday.

7. Modern society urgently needs true community: and true community is a world away from
collectivism. Real community is governed by love and charity, not by compulsion. Through
churches, voluntary associations, local governments, and a variety of institutions,
conservatives strive to keep community healthy. Conservatives are not selfish, but publicspirited.
They know that collectivism means the end of real community, substituting
uniformity for variety and force for willing cooperation."

 

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Kirk was not only a sage philosopher and prolific writer on society, but also penned several weird tales. He was also a noble soul, as this article points out:

Snapdragon: An Introduction to the Ghost Stories of Russell Kirk

 

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Concise Guide To Conservatism-2019.pdf

 

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More essays celebrating the work of Russell Kirk:

Russell Kirk Archives - The Imaginative Conservative

Bumping up these many radiant pages of writings by and about Kirk.

 

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Perhaps the best of Kirk on the value of The American Cause, in one small volume. Here is the Table of Contents from the 2002 edition:

1. Ignorance—A Dangerous Luxury
2. The Need for Principles
3. Moral Principle: The Nature of Man
4. Moral Principle: Church and State
5. Political Principle: Ordered Liberty
6. Political Principle: The Federal Republic
7. Economic Principle: The Free Economy
8. Economic Principle: American Economic Accomplishment
9. Anti-American Claims
10. The American Answer

 

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From Chapter One:

IGNORANCE—A DANGEROUS LUXURY

This little book is a statement of the moral and social principles that the American nation upholds in our time of troubles. It is not a collection of slogans, nor yet a history of American politics. Intended to be an honest description of the beliefs we Americans live by, The American Cause is a brief effort to refresh Americans’ minds.

Many Americans are badly prepared for their task of defending their own convictions and interests and institutions against the grim threat of armed ideology. The propaganda of radical ideologues sometimes confuses and weakens the will of well-intentioned Americans who lack any clear understanding of their own nation's first principles. And in our age, good-natured ignorance is a luxury none of us can afford.

 

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More from The American Cause:

THE MEANING OF IDEOLOGY

Our book is intended for the general reader. We try not to take sides concerning religious and political questions which are in dispute in America, but endeavor to state as simply as we can those great convictions upon which nearly all Americans seem to be agreed: to which most Americans agree, by their daily acceptance of these principles as rules of life and politics, even if they themselves cannot easily put their convictions into words. This book does not provide an American “ideology.” The word ideology means political fanaticism, a body of beliefs alleged to point the way to a perfect society. Most Americans, this author included, are not political fanatics. But this book does provide, we trust, a concise statement of the beliefs that secure our order, our justice, and our freedom.

 

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Interesting voting record. Kirk claimed that he voted for a socialist rather than FDR or Dewey and then Eugene McCarthy and later supported buffoon Pat Buchanan in a primary effort against George H.W. Bush. Hard to understand how a person who developed the conservative principals, especially #4 where property and freedom are closely linked, could vote for a socialist or a neo-socialist. He died in '94 and I think he would be lost in today's hostile political climate.

 

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A 1982 classic piece; I wonder if virtue is valued or even thought about much nowadays.

Virtue: Can It Be Taught?