In today's United States — are true "conservatives" the only people left — who have functioning, societally conscious brains?

© 2019 Peter Free

 

12 April 2019

 

 

Probably so — if you listen to the mostly mindless crap that everybody else spews

 

I cannot remember a time in which my homeland appeared so vacuously contentious.

 

It is as if we are having to endure a playground recess designed for psychologically twisted "retards" — to use a kid's word that is (arguably) still cruelly appropriate for some stage-setting metaphors.

 

 

For respite from politics-oriented vacuity

 

I often turn to genuinely "conservative" publications.

 

Those few remaining that recognize the merits of what we might call the Burkean Stream of Honorable Old Fashionedness.

 

 

Here is an example

 

It was written by Michael Warren Davis, an associate editor at the Catholic Herald.

 

His piece — entitled "The Radicalism of Russell Kirk" — concerns the whys and wherefores of government.

 

Meaning those questions that our body politic is (generally speaking):

 

too ignorant

 

lazy

 

and

 

intellectually and emotionally shallow

 

to contemplate in societally constructive ways.

 

 

Davis' essay compares Russell Kirk's traditional conservatism with (what Davis considers to be) modern American Republicans' morality-lacking laissez faire libertarianism.

 

I extract Davis' essay at length. The length is necessary to contrast his "conservative" ability to think and dissect with most of the rest of our nation's now omnipresent irrationality:

 

 

The set of principles and policy agendas that [Russell] Kirk called “conservatism” bears virtually no resemblance to the ideology that exists under those auspices today.

 

[L]ibertarians are “utilitarian materialists,” says Kirk, whereas traditionalists believe in a “transcendent moral order.”

 

Libertarians are concerned principally with questions of free versus unfree, wealth versus poverty.

 

For traditionalists, the question of right versus wrong trumps all.

 

Either government stands on the side of Good against Evil, or else it declares itself neutral, and is therefore complicit with Evil. Those are our options[:]

 

 

Real progress consists in the movement of mankind toward the understanding of norms, and toward conformity to norms.

 

Real decadence consists in the movement of mankind away from the understanding of norms, and away from obedience to norms.

 

 

[T]he principal function of government is not to ensure the material security and comfort of its citizenry. It is, rather, to stave off immorality and social anarchy.

 

[Kirk] repeatedly quotes Burke’s definition of government as “a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.”

 

The government must stand with the True, the Good, and the Beautiful against the false, the evil, and the ugly.

 

“The libertarian thinks that this world is chiefly a stage for the swaggering ego,” Kirk observes, whereas

 

 

the conservative finds himself instead a pilgrim in a realm of mystery and wonder, where duty, discipline, and sacrifice are required—and where the reward is that love which passeth all understanding.

 

[T]he libertarian does not venerate ancient beliefs and customs, or the natural world, or his country, or the immortal spark in his fellow men.

 

The socialists at least declare the existence of some sort of moral order; the libertarians are quite bottomless.

 

 

[Kirk] wasn’t an adherent to laissez-faire capitalism.

 

These “servants of private corporations” make poor masters of the body politic as well.

 

“Too stupid to even glimpse the necessity for revering and obeying the law that shelters him from social revolution,” he writes in The Conservative Mind, “the capitalist lacks capacity sufficient for the administration of the society he has made his own.”

 

We shouldn’t expect the capitalist to understand the delicate web of customs, prejudices, and loyalties that comprise a healthy civilization.

 

He buys and sells the labor of others and gambles on their fortunes. They’re not his neighbors or his countrymen, but his investments.

 

© 2019 Michael Warren Davis, The Radicalism of Russell Kirk, The American Conservative (10 April 2019) (extracts)

 

 

Davis continues with a point by point contrast of Russell Kirk's (historically genuine) conservatism with American Modernity's ethically vicious simulation of it.

 

 

The moral? — No Russell Kirks remain on the American front

 

Much to the detriment, I suspect, of the United States' long term survival potential.

 

As a closing aside, I smiled at Davis' inclusion of Kirk's point that socialists and true conservatives share a core concern for morality.

 

That's true.

 

It is why I — as an often suspected lefty — hold true conservatives in such high regard.