Program for Conservatives

A Program for Conservatives by Russell Kirk, 312 pages

Had Russell Kirk's 1954 sequel to The Conservative Mind offered a political program in the narrow sense - a set of policy prescriptions and proposed legislation - it would doubtless be long obsolete.  Instead he addresses a perennial question: What is it that conservatives seek to conserve?  For Kirk, the answer lies in what Burke called "the unbought grace of life."  This is above markets and states, for it is for its sake that markets and states exist.  It can only truly exist within an ordered community of persons, and is threatened by both individualism and collectivism, the anarchy of robber barons and the tyranny of central planners.  The order true community demands is above all a moral order, perceptible to yet surpassing reason, beyond calculation and manipulation and the mere cleverness that too often substitutes for true wisdom.

Kirk maintains that although the capitalist and the socialist may exploit the seven deadly sins to gain money and power, what they cannot do is control them.  Thus, "conservatives" who focus on economy and utility rather than principles themselves forget that liberal democracy demands moral resources it is itself incapable of renewing, fostering a nation "very rich in goods" but "very poor in spirit."  Thus the first principle - the first virtue - is humility, beginning with the awareness that we have received more than we could hope to build ourselves.