The Conservative Mind

“The Conservative Mind” by Russel Kirk takes it’s place at the head of my all-time favorite books, eclipsing “The Closing of the American Mind”. It may be that Closing is more profound, but it is much less accessible, so “CM” takes over as the single “must read” if one wants to get what it means (or ought to mean) to be a Conservative. I still search for a liberal book equivalent, perhaps I will find it in Rousseau or Locke in the future.

This is sub-titled “From Burke to Eliot” and makes it clear how woefully incomplete my education, and the education of everyone in the west has been at least since the 1930’s or so, and likely much longer. The push to liberalism didn’t burn the books and ideas of the past, it just chose to ignore them and declare them irrelevant. The list of books and ideas that need to be understood to even have a passing knowledge of what has gone before, what is known of human nature, democracy, the relation of God and man, what is knowable and what is not philosophically; this vast body of knowledge has purposely ignored so that the lives of man could be “leveled” by our educational and government systems. The work of economic leveling turns out to be minor compared to the intellectual and cultural leveling that has been done so that the vast bulk of mankind has no idea of what it is that they are even missing. Conservatives saw this happening hundreds of years ago and were unable to prevent it, but the thoughts live on, there remains hope.

An interesting extended quote; “This book distinctly does not supply it’s readers with a conservative ideology: for the conservative abhors all forms of ideology. An abstract rigorous set of political dogma: that is ideology, a “political religion”, promising a terrestrial paradise to the faithful; and ordinarily that paradise is to be taken by storm. Such a priori designs for the perfection of human nature and society are anathema to the conservative, who knows them for the tools and the weapons of the coffeehouse fanatics.

For the conservative, custom, convention, constitution and prescription are the sources of a tolerable civil social order. Men not being angels, a terrestrial paradise cannot be contrieved by metaphysical enthusiasts; yet an earthly hell can be arranged readily by ideologues of one stamp or another”.

In listening to the mass media and most of education, one would believe that ONLY “conservatives” have “ideology”. The book also runs into the problem that Hayak is so plain on that the modern use of “liberal” and “conservative” has very little to do with the real meanings of the terms historically. To help on that front, here are the 6 canons of coservatitism according to Kirk:

1) Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience. Political problems are at the bottom religious and moral problems.
2) Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrow uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems.
3) Conviction that civilized society requires order and classes as against the notion of a “classless society”. Ultimate equality in the judgment of God, and equality before courts of law are recognized by conservatives; but equality of condition, they think, means equality in servitude and boredom.
4) Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked; separate property from private possession and Leviathan becomes master of all. Economic leveling, they maintain, is not economic progress.
5) Faith in prescription and distrust of “sophisters , calculators, and economists” who would reconstruct society on abstract designs.
6) Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than the torch of progress.


To contrast, the following are the radical or “liberal” tenents:

1) The perfectibility of man and the illimitable progress of society.
2) Contempt for tradition
3) Political leveling. Order and privilege are condemned; eagerness for centralization and consolidation.
4) Economic leveling. The ancient rules of property, especially land, are suspect to almost all radicals.
5) Animosity to God, “souls”, or any power that is “above man”.

By way of introduction, that is a start. I’ll try to capture some more in another Blog.