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disposes of them by distortion and the erection of straw men. Reversing
his own criticism of someone else, one can say that Kirk's knowledge of
the radical and liberal mind is in inverse proportion to his acquaintance
with conservative theories. He asks us not to identify conservatism with
the conservatism of mediocrity or with the stupid conservatives, yet he
will not grant the same courtesy to his opponents: all liberals, he im–
plies, are fatuous liberals.
Nevertheless, a glimmer of the best elements in conservatism shines
through the book: assertion of the necessities for law in social life and
for restraint on power; the call for order; recognition of the relevance
of wise intuition; demonstration of the interdependence of religion, morals
and politics; and awareness that economic activity should be subordinated
to higher values. Thus, even though at his frequent worst he stifles in
his own venom, at his seldom best he stands for High Toryism, which
was a remarkable animal in its time.
The "program" itself, a collection of addresses and previously pub–
lished essays, purports to deal with ten "urgent questions": (1) the mind,
(2) the heart, (3) social boredom, (4) community, (5) social justice,
(6) wants, (7) order, (8) power, (9) loyalty, and (10) tradition. Best
insights are found in the chapter on social boredom and in some parts
of the chapters on justice and power. The problems are faced mainly
by invoking Burke, Newman, Irving Babbitt, P. E. More, and company.
The remaining space is devoted to flagellating persons of whom the
author disapproves. Riesman is singled out as
bite
nair
and gets the
heaviest bastinado. Some others who get a drubbing are professors (with
apologies for having sojourned in the academy himself), intellectuals
("When a man is both a professor and an intellectual, he is loathsome;
when he is professor and intellectual and ideologist rolled into one, he is
unbearable"), liberals ("distraught and frightened"),
Partisan Review,
Bentham, Mill, Marx, Marxists, Dewey, Deweyites, Kinsey, planners and
doctrinaire radicals.
Mr. Kirk, of course, is a doctrinaire conservative; he is full of
assertion but offers little original analysis, and is lost when he leaves the
laps of Babbitt and More. His critical touchstone is what other con–
servatives have said. Thus, an idea is evil if conservatives have op–
posed it. Bellamy, for instance, is dismissed because William Morris
thought ill of him; hedonism is out because Dr. Johnson exploded it
long ago.
If
Dr. Johnson hated a cause only a fool could espouse it. And
if Dr. Johnson, Burke, Coleridge, Ruskin and B.
I.
Bell hated a cause,
then, good heavens, only dissolute radicals full of malice and Marxism
would come near the thing.
