The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot

Kirk tells us at the outset that this book is a long essay in definition. Many may wonder why he takes 500 pages to answer the question: what is a conservative? It takes that long because conservatism, at its core, is opposed to ideas that seek to level and shrink the broad and various questions of human existence into a few simplistic solutions. It is the political idealists, the social planners, who can narrow all of the questions of policy into a tidy grid. But true conservatives have always been broad thinkers. They have understood that different situations call for varied policies. Kirk tells us on page 8 that conservatives have always had: "Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems; conservatives resist what Robert Graves calls "Logicalism" in society. This prejudice has been called "the conservatism of enjoyment"--a sense that life is worth living." The above quote is a neat summary of the book. Conservatives have adopted different types of damage control in response to differing situations. This book shows the problems that the conservatives faced and how they sought to preserve freedom and security, to be faithful to the time-tested methods of securing property rights and individual freedoms, and how they warded off the seductive calls for utopianism. "Men not being angels, a terrestrial paradise cannot be contrived by metaphysical enthusiasts; yet an earthly hell can be arranged readily enough by ideologues of one stamp or another." The book chronicles what it looks like for conservatives to ward off ideologues of one stamp or another as they seek to impose their tyranny for everyone's good in pursuit of their utopia. Conservatives' strategies vary depending on the unique philosophical assault. The book is long because we live in a fallen world and humanity has an enemy. Satan's nefarious schemes morph and progress from one degree of evil to another. Wisdom is not content with one 3 X 5 card of principles but wisdom patiently learns from other brave souls in the past, about how they faced the giants of their day with courage and how they gained victories. The patient reader will find ample conservative courageous examples applicable to modern-day encounters with idealism. One last thought. 8 out of the Bible's 10 commandments are prohibitive: "Thou shalt not..." (Honor your parents and keep the Sabbath are the only 2 that are prescriptive.) This gives us great freedom in life. We can have the occupation that we choose, we can marry whom we choose (in the Lord), we can live where we choose, the world is our oyster, provided we don't worship other gods, lie, kill, steal, commit adultery, and covet. The left has the very opposite agenda. They are "liberal" (meaning freedom-loving) in the few areas where God is prohibitive. They are liberal when it comes to murder (abortion), adultery (free love movement), stealing (socialism), and have built an entire economic system based solely on coveting. But they want to control every last area of your life (for your good) while encouraging you to celebrate how free you are from the few things that God requires you not to do. The way to combat the enemies of freedom will vary and this book will arm any thoughtful person with a lifetime of sound principles, examples, and inspiration on how to approach the problems in this complicated and beautiful world we inhabit.

The book is a sort of intellectual history, each chapter summarizing the thought of one to three conservative thinkers, more or less chronologically beginning with Edmund Burke and running through poets of the mid twentieth century (T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost, among others). The thinkers discussed include intellectuals, clergymen, politicians and poets, all thinking, working and writing in the Anglo-American sphere (most are in fact British or American, but the exceptions -- Tocqueville and Santayana -- wrote in America or for American audiences). A good working knowledge of British and American history from the French Revolution through World War II is therefore a helpful prerequisite to understanding many of these thinkers. The summaries are interesting and informative as description. Many of them (the chapters on Burke and John Adams, for instance, or the section on John Henry Newman) make great introductions to figures whose work can't be read in comprehensive political treatises and many provide intriguing introductions to writers you have probably never heard of (Sir James Fitzjames Stephen) or to the thought of people whom you don't know as political thinkers (say, John Randolph or Arthur Balfour). Among the wealth of description, a little prescription creeps in. Kirk's heroes don't "argue" -- they "know," they "perceive," they "realize," they "understand." Kirk is highly sympathetic with the ideas he summarizes, and it is no coincidence that his final chapter, on twentieth century poets, is called "Conservatives' Promise" and contains some of the most hopeful writing in the book. "If men of affairs can rise to the summons of the poets," he writes, "the norms of culture and politics may endure despite the follies of the time." He ends upbeat, with a call to action of sorts. Not to be missed is Kirk's first chapter, "The Idea of Conservatism," in which he spells out the fundamental tenets which unite the belief of the writers whose work he describes, as well as their photographic negative, the tenets of radicalism. The book dovetails perfectly with George Nash's _The Conservative Intellectual Movement in American after 1945_, which, of course, begins with Kirk himself and which carries on a similar discussion (though Nash omits from his narrative the British half and focuses on intellectual figures, to the exclusion of practical politicians like, say, Goldwater).

If you have just a one book time slot on conservativism, try this. It is a permeating overview of this stance. By the end of it you will see, feel the world through a conservative mind. One does not need to be a conservative to be able to speak on the language, and think on the wawelength of a conservative. This book will provide the air of that one by revealing the gist of being a proper conservative. Amazing achievement.

Matt Continetti's The Right has led me to go back to the cultural conservatives of the mid-20th century, namely Richard Weaver, Robert Nisbet and Russell Kirk. Kirk presents the tradition of Anglo-American conservatism, going back to the time of Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville. He then alternates between what's going on in England and what's going on in America with regard to conservative principles, looking at figures like Calhoun, Disraeli, Orestes Brownson and John Henry Newman. A key point in this book is the importance of "The Adams Family". While conservatives usually look to Alexander Hamilton, he was more about northern industry and big business. Adams was more of a cultural conservative, and Kirk views John Adams as the American version of Edmund Burke, not on the same level, but similar. John Quincy Adams, Henry Adams and Charles Adams were all great thinkers, and were correctly pessimistic that their long-prominent family in America was declining in influence with each generation. If I understand correctly, the book originally ended with George Santayana, but Kirk added a reflection on T.S. Eliot and conservative poets like Yeats and Robert Frost, among others. This terribly eloquent final chapter may well bring you to tears of beauty, and I'd like to quote from it at length, from pages 492 to 497. As Eliot wrote in his essay on Francis Herbert Bradley, "If we take the widest and wisest view of a cause, there is no such thing as a Lost Cause, because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause. We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors' victory, though that victory itself may be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that it will triumph". In every period, some will endeavor to pull down the permanent things, and others will defend them manfully. No less than politicians do, great poets move nations, even though the generality of men may not know the poets' names. When the chief poet and critic of the century sets his hand to "redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide"-why, it is conceivable that he may undo Marx and Freud, not to mention captains and kings. Certainly some poets have been radicals: there is the Promethean defiance of Shelley. Just past the summit of the romantics' revolutionary enthusiasm, Shelley was answered by Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey and Scott; while even Byron thought Shelley's first principles nonsensical. Every age is out of joint, in the sense that man and society never are what they ought to be; and the poet senses that he is born to set the time right-not, however, by leading a march to some New Jerusalem, but by rallying in his art to the permanent things. The emphasis of Milton upon ordered liberty; the politics of Dryden, anticipating Burke's; the Tory principles of Swift and Pope; the doctrines of ordination and subordination, so strong in Johnson; the conservative Christian humanism of Coleridge; Yeats' passionate attachment to tradition and continuity-these are so many instances of the point. A Tory poet, Kipling, prophesied that the gods of the copybook headings with fire and slaughter would return; and so have they come among us again, and they smite with increasing fury. A chastened generation looks for the principles of order. The skies grow dark, and sober counsels obtain a hearing; as Chesterton wrote in The Ballad of the White Horse- The wise men know what wicked things Are written on the sky, They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings, Hearing the heavy purple wings, Where the forgotten seraph kings still plot how God shall die. Yet such champions of orthodoxy as Chesterton go gaily in the dark. Not to the romantic liberal enthusiast, nor to the glowering proletarian poet, nor to the versifying nihilist, can a chastened generation turn. They must look, instead, to the poetic defenders of normality, though for a time such poets lay under a cloud. Nothing is but thinking makes it so. If men of affairs can rise to the summons of the poets, the norms of culture and politics may endure despite the follies of the time. The individual is foolish; but the species is wise; and so the thinking conservative appeals to what Chesterton called "the democracy of the dead". Against the hubris of the ruthless innovator, the conservative of imagination pronounces Cupid's curse: They that do change old love for new, Pray gods they change for worse.

Although I have only finished the first three chapters of this book, I still want to give it a rave review, at the same time as I wonder why I was never exposed to it, at any time during my American education. I read plenty of books by liberals, but somehow this brilliant work by Russell Kirk was regarded as something like the deadly nightshade. Not so! And I will repeat the same complaint again: after reading the chapter on Edmund Burke, I wonder again why no teacher, and no course, ever even *mentioned* Edmund Burke, certainly one of the most profound thinkers of the last five centuries. And this book acquires even more importance when put with Melanie Phillip's The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power , because I suspect that she has not read it. She should read it, because some solutions to her problems appear in these profound pages. As Kirk summarizes Burke: the moral order among men is only a reflection of the moral order of God. Governments are instituted among men primarily to provide for safety --- safety from the marauding Saracen without our borders, and safety from the mob within our own borders. From this, Burke deduces his own, extremely interesting list of the rights of man, which to my mind rivals the list of natural rights listed in the Founding Documents of America. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" -- yes! But Burke adds: freedom to participate in an ordered, organized and intelligent society [not his words, I paraphrase]. After trying to summarize Burke, Kirk turns to the equally difficult task of trying to summarize John Adams, until recently our most-overlooked Founding Father. This "dour Federalist" is most likely the man responsible for our Federalist system of government, with its three branches (legislative, executive, and judicial). He accomplished this by "simply" writing an immense three-volume lawyer's brief, which surveyed and examined an immense range of successful governments: A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Against Attack of M. Turgot in His Letter to Dr. Price, Dated the Twenty-Second Day of March, 1778 . Fortunately, David McCullough has been resurrecting the life and career of this brilliant man, John Adams --- and the life of John Adams is now available on DVD: John Adams (HBO Miniseries) . There are lots of books on the market "explaining" liberalism, which usually teach such dubious doctrines as the Perfectibility of Man (Condorcet) and the Natural Equality of All Men. For the Conservative side, Russell Kirk's book is the heavyweight champion. On the negative side, Kirk strikes me as much too fond of religion and much too critical of economic progress. If we were to take him at his word, we would wind up with a much poorer America absolutely devoted to the Virgin Mary. If Kirk understands that a strong economy can pay for a strong military, he doesn't say so. Myself, I'm pretty comfortable with a strong and free America, with enough money to go around for everyone. If you want to have a balanced and informed view of the 21st-century political debate, this is a book which you must take into account.

This book has been a major inspiration to me and my way of thinking. It is not very difficult to go online and read any number of Conservatives talking about all of the issues of the day. But, this book stands alone in following and celebrating the history of Conservative intellectuals. Often times it is portrayed (not without some merit) that Conservatives are anti-intellectual. I have frequently heard that Liberals are just naturally smarter or more inclined to be an intellectual. But, The Conservative Mind blows a hole through all of that. Kirk examines major Conservative thinkers like: Edmund Burke, John Adams, George Canning, Benjamin Disraeli, John Randolph of Roanoke, Orestes Brownson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John C. Calhoun, and T. S Eliot (amung many many others). The most difficult aspect of this book is to accept John Randolph and John Calhoun as figures to be celebrated. They both were men who used their talents to protect an evil system of slavery. Although, as another reviewer elquently noted, Kirk was not endnorsing slavery or racism or anything like that. Just the fact that Conservatism is a The "negation of ideology," and that change will happen, in Kirk's prospective Calhoun was only following that line of thinking. I personally don't agree with it that far. As obviously slavery was antithesis of what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution stand for. But, again stating, Kirk is not writing to argue that slavery should not have been eliminated- only that change has to follow the methods of that society. I would recommend this to anyone- Conservative or Liberal. It is a magifnicent study of Conservativism. It can be a little dense at times, but that is to be expected and it shouldn't detour anyone from reading it.

First, regarding the Kindle edition: On the plus side, it is well formatted, with almost no typos and a linked table of contents (including links to the chapter sub-parts). Also a positive is that this is the last edition before Kirk's death. On the minus side, the source notes are not linked, and two or three of the substantive notes appear to be cut off in midstream (e.g., there's one in the discussion of Cardinal Newman that says, in effect, "here are some other relevant observations:" with nothing after the colon). Regarding the book itself: It's easy to see why "The Conservative Mind" caused a stir when it first came out and why it's become a classic. To borrow Kirk's own term, it's an "extended essay" in intellectual history, dealing with a particular thread of thought running through Anglo-American history from the late eighteenth century to the 1980s, when the last edition appeared. By examining the works of numerous English and American (and one French) thinkers, some well known and some forgotten, Kirk offers a worldview significantly different from modern liberal conventional wisdom. I really can't improve upon what some of the other reviewers have said, particular Bibliophile (Dec. 14, 2008). A great achievement. At a minimum, anyone with an interest in modern politics should read this book.

Kirk's book is supposedly the bible of Conservatives. Not neo-conservatives, but Conservatives. He sets up the long standing debate between the French, and Voltaie, and the English, using Burke as it's spokesman Supposedly Kirk would limit the vote, have a professional class of government officials, reduce if not eliminate most taxes, and let each individual strive for success. This is the basic mantra of classical conservatives, and is all well and good as far as it goes, but only a few of the many ever succeed this way. One of the surprises is how young Kirk was when this book was written; it's as if he had some inspiration for on high (probably not), or was cherry picking history (probably closer to the truth). After reading this book I had a better understanding of where the Conservatives are coming from, althohgh I still don't understand why an obscure Royalist politician from the 18th century should be their flag bearer. Royality as a form of government most likely will never occcur in the US, although we seem to flirt with it from time to time. Conservatives seem not admit of a meritotocracy, as we currently have in the US: they would rather rely on accidents of birth, cronyism and college organizations to select administrators, rather than people who have succeeded in other venues. A very informative, albeit frightening, book.

Obra de capital valor, tanto histórico quanto filosófico. Marco do pensamento conservador. Obra que expõe pontod fundamentais do pensamento de Kirk e do pensamento conservador.

So the first thing to say about this book is that it is NOT 'The Conservative Mind' by Russell Kirk, but a primer on that text. As such, it's a very useful dip into what I understand is quite a weighty tome. It's cohetently put together, and gives an excellent summary of the original text (I assume). If you only have an hour to spare and want to cover all the salient points in 'The Conservative Mind', then this is the book for you. But it really ought to be advertised as a primer and not as the definitive text.

AWESOME

Excellent review of 18th and 19th century conservatism in US and UK. Important emphasis on balance with democracy and aristocracy.

I was surprised and annoyed to discover that this 71page booklet is not 'The Conservative Mind' by Russell Kirk but an essay by Aaron McLeod about the book.