Russell Kirk on C-Span

C-Span ^ | July 2002 | C-Span

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

conservatives on TV bump

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(discussion ongoing now)

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Interview

William F. Buckley, Jr. Interview C-SPAN, American Writers
Mecosta, Michigan (United States)
ID: 170896 - 3 - 06/13/2002 - 0:55

In an excerpt from the American Writers program, "Writings of Kirk and Buckley," William F. Buckley, Jr. was interviewed at his home in Stamford, Connecticut. He talked about the history of the conservative movement and conservative political thought in America, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s.

(follows later)

[general_re]

Thanks for the ping - flipping over now ;)

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Gleaves Whitney has been doing a pretty good job discussing the Constitution, Kirk's Roots of American Order, Lord Acton, and Polybius' theory of the constitutional cycle. Saw the Buckley interview earlier. Rather interesting retrospective on 20th-cent. conservative movement in Buckley's typical style. Insights on Reagan, Nixon, McCarthy, etc.

[Admin Moderator]

bttt

[general_re]

I must have missed the Buckley thing - do you happen to know if they'll re-run it?

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

I just popped a tape in to catch it when it runs again around 2:00am tonight. Trying to see if they will run this whole cycle again on Sunday...

[general_re]

Nevermind - I clicked on the schedule link, and found it for myself ;)

[general_re]

Crossed posts - thanks, I'll have to set a tape... ;)

[headsonpikes]

Hell of a thread. ;^)

[general_re]

Ha! Well, we were having a nice substantive discussion, until some smart guy decided to butt in ;)

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

I'm sure Dr. Kirk would appreciate the recent interest.They just discussed: Kirk's Six Canons of Conservative Thought

1:"Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience."

2:"Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems;"

3:"Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a 'classless society'."

4:"Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked: separate property from private possession, and the Leviathan becomes master of all."

5:"Faith in prescription and distrust of 'sophisters, calculators, and economists' who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs."

6:"Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress."

[general_re]

I've always wondered how inseperable those premises are, really. The last two are clearly Burkean in nature, IMO, and 2 and 4 are pretty straighforward. 3 could be problematic, depending on how stringently we want to define "classes" and "orders", but it seems to me that 1 is possibly the most schismatic - it seems to me that one can believe in a "natural" order without requiring that order to be necessarily transcendant.

Maybe it's just me - I tend to part company with Kirk in that respect, so it's maybe not much of a surprise that I have issues with that one ;)

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Interesting point. Probably gets down to what one means by
"transcendent" as well. For Kirk this was definitely Judaeo-Christian. Of course, the fusionist strategy adopted by
other conservatives did not press this point.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience."

Legalists and logicians, of course, would find the relevant "or" in the sentence of interest.

[marron]

Saw most of the Kirk special, and the Buckley interview that followed. I love these guys.

American conservatism seems to be an amalgam of what I call the traditionalists, which would include Kirk, and Burke, Oakshotte and others, versus the "small L" libertarians and constitutionalists who assert as their flag the rights of the individual, property rights, and limited government, but may be otherwise uninterested or even suspicious of tradition.

Its not an either-or proposition, though. Many, many of us embody elements of both varieties, as do Kirk and Buckley.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

American conservatism seems to be an amalgam of what I call the traditionalists, which would include Kirk, and Burke, Oakshotte and others, versus the "small L" libertarians and constitutionalists who assert as their flag the rights of the individual, property rights, and limited government, but may be otherwise uninterested or even suspicious of tradition. Its not an either-or proposition, though. Many, many of us embody elements of both varieties, as do Kirk and Buckley.

Interesting observations, thanks. Caught me by surprise while channel surfing. I didn't realize C-Span was planning to run this.

I think we could probably also talk about transcendental conservatives or transcendental libertarians which would include the Voegelinian types and some of the more philosophical types you can find occupying various points of the critical non-socialist spectrum. The fusionism definitely gives expression to a lot of diverse viewpoints. The coalition which included Buckley, Kirk, Whittaker Chambers, Max Eastman, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Jeffrey Hart, James Burnham, Brent Bozell, the Goldwater and Reagan people, Federalist Society constitutionalists, some of the followers of Hayek, and other libertarian strains is certainly a fascinating pageant of 20th-century politics, intellectual and literary endeavor. Fortunate that C-Span devoted some time to this. The big three (CBS,NBC, ABC) hardly ever did (or do, if at all). "Conservatives" being right-wing extremists, gun nuts, tax dodgers, nativist racists, homophobes, or neanderthals from their perspective, apparently.

[general_re]

Legalists and logicians, of course, would find the relevant "or" in the sentence of interest.

Hmmm, that depends on what you mean by "or" ;)

If one takes "or" to indicate logically exclusive conditions, then I see where you're coming from. But I've always read that "or" to indicate synonymous propositions, that are equivalent and the same. You can call me James, or you can call me Jim, but either way, I'm the same person ;)

In any case, I think for Kirk it would have been much the same thing - if we had asked him where this body of natural law would have been derived from, I think we should not have been very surprised by the answer...