Many of you will recognize Russell Kirk as the author of Old House of Fear (1961), The Surly Sullen Bell (1962), A Creature of the Twilight: His Memorials (1966), The Princess of All Lands (1979), Lord of the Hollow Dark (1979), Watchers at the Strait Gate (1984), Off the Sand Road: Ghost Stories, Volume One (2002), What Shadows We Pursue: Ghost Stories, Volume Two (2003) and Ancestral Shadows: An Anthology of Ghostly Tales (2004). But Russell Kirk was also a major figure in the conservative movement. No, this is not a Tea Party nutcase. Kirk believed in the power of ideas. He was an expert on Edmund Burke’s philosophies. I found Enemies of Permanent Things a bit dated (it was published in 1969) but stimulating in its defense of considering the implications of change before we make them. In a section of “Norms of Literature,” Kirk provides a masterful analysis of the work of Ray Bradbury. If you’re interested in ideas, Enemies of Permanent Things will make you think. GRADE: A-
I suspect Kirk would find today’s so-called “conservatives” unrecognizable compared to his view of what conservatism was.
Deb, you’re spot on! Russell Kirk wouldn’t know what to make of the Tea Party.
I think I may have told you this but he gave Phil a blurb for his first book, thinking it was a sign Phil was a conservative. And Deb is right, of course.
No, I didn’t know Russell Kirk gave Phil a blurb, Patti. Cool! Of course, Kirk’s brand of conservatism would be branded “liberal” in today’s GOP.
Actually, no…it’s not as if the John Birch Society and the American Independent Party didn’t exist while Kirk was working on NATIONAL REVIEW and THE UNIVERSITY BOOKMAN. He most assuredly would not be a liberal today, and would probably, if you were game for it, give you a rather long explanation why exactly a conservative is not a liberal even in changing times, any more than a reactionary is a conservative.
I think a lot of political labels have morphed, Todd. Ronald Reagan would be considered “liberal” in today’s conservative climate.
Getting a jump on Bradbury day?
I’ve got FFB Bradbury Day all set, Todd. I’ll be interested in seeing your choice.
I’ll have to disagree again. Misuse of political labels is rampant, but unless you want to find some miraculous way in which Obama is a socialist, for example, that doesn’t make Reagan or Kirk remotely liberal, just because some people even more reactionary than Reagan have been heard from.
I think we agree on the old labels, Todd. But the current political scene has become so polarized that the positions Nixon and Reagan held would be considered “liberal” by today’s conservatives.
Still mulling my Bradbury, but will be interested in seeing everyone else’s…
No, I’m sorry to insist, but today’s reactionaries are not today’s conservatives, however much they might want to lay claim to that label…and to pretend that neoconservative progenitor Nixon or “pragmatic” reactionary Reagan are in any way, even comparatively, liberal is to leave the terms as meaningless as the abusers of them would like them to be. We haven’t had redefinition…we’ve had enthusiastic and sustained prevarication, and playing along with that is not helpful. Again, the reactionaries were very much in place in the ’60s and before and since…that they’ve gained more prominence is in part because of the utter collapse of liberals, who will cling to the center-right likes of Obama as if he was in any meaningful way a progressive, rather than stand up for what they supposedly believe in, much less make common cause with actual leftists.
I see your point, Todd. The language and labeling of our politics has been debased. Maybe that’s part of the Right’s strategy. But you must admit that Nixon and Reagan are on the “left” of the Tea Party movement which currently claims the mantel of “true” conservatism.
Well…the Tea Party is essentially George Wallace’s American Independent Party again, and as such, can be co-opted by even more reactionary forces than Reagan…but, on average, are not more to the right than Reagan, who did have a certain rudderless “pragmatism” rather similar to Clinton’s…Nixon’s neoconservativsm would allow him to be the least bad labor President since LBJ, but that’s mostly because all the subsequent presidents very much including Obama are basically hostile to labor’s aspirations…otherwise, neoconservatism is all about big government, which the Tea Party kinda sorta isn’t (except, as with other populists such as the AIP, when it can help them…keep the gummint out of my Medicare), hence part of their lack of love for W, who was the hapless tool of neoconservatives…
But, basically, Reagan was only to the left of say, Santorum because a) he wasn’t quite as stupid as Santorum (thought too close) and b) because unlike Santorum, he didn’t believe in much of anything so strongly that he couldn’t be argued out of it. The latter is the only reason he was to the left of Cheney, too, who IS as far right as Santorum in most ways without being as stupid.
We agree on Cheney, Todd. He’s smart and sly. Santorum isn’t either one.
Well…the Tea Party is essentially George Wallace’s American Independent Party again, and as such, can be co-opted by even more reactionary forces than Reagan…but, on average, are not more to the right than Reagan, who did have a certain rudderless “pragmatism” rather similar to Clinton’s…Nixon’s neoconservativsm would allow him to be the least bad labor President since LBJ, but that’s mostly because all the subsequent presidents very much including Obama are basically hostile to labor’s aspirations…otherwise, neoconservatism is all about big government, which the Tea Party kinda sorta isn’t (except, as with other populists such as the AIP, when it can help them…keep the gummint out of my Medicare), hence part of their lack of love for W, who was the hapless tool of neoconservatives…
But, basically, Reagan was only to the left of say, Santorum because a) he wasn’t quite as stupid as Santorum (though too close) and b) because unlike Santorum, he didn’t believe in much of anything so strongly that he couldn’t be argued out of it. The latter is the only reason he was to the left of Cheney, too, who IS as far right as Santorum in most ways without being as stupid.