Russell Kirk bequeathed us a succinct definition of a
conservative:
"In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the
permanent things more pleasing than Chaos and Old Night. (Yet conservatives
know, with Burke, that healthy 'change is the means of our
preservation.')"
Last Thursday, the Notre Dame philosopher Ralph McInerny reminded
conservatives that the permanent things are in fact permanent,
and cannot ever be undone, much less be undone in one election.
His lecture, hosted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute
(ISI) and the John W. Pope Center, in Charlotte, North Carolina,
was titled, "Do the Great Books Matter Anymore?" a question that
Prof. McInerny answered in the affirmative.
I've always been taught that the genius of Bill Buckley, among
other conservatives following Goldwater, was to unite social
conservatives, national defense conservatives, limited government
conservatives, and others under a single banner. The trick was
that Buckley understood the 'permanent things' and the Great
Books, and thus commanded respect as a conservative on an
intellectual level.
ISI, of which Bill Buckley was the first president, aims to show
that the conservative movement is formed by the thinkers whose
work has endured throughout ages and across vastly different
societies and circumstances. The Great Books, McInerny argued
before a few hundred people, reveal the immutable truths of human
nature.
"When you think of authors like Jane Austen, or Joseph Conrad, or
Mark Twain, they all are novelists, but they all have their own
voice," McInerny mused. "...And what that voice conveys is a
vision of the mystery of human existence. The writer gives an
intimation of what it is to be a human being."
He explained how the Great Books present morally compelling
stories. "Someone gets in trouble and tries to solve it. The
character finds it very difficult, and might not do the right
thing." From the characters' dilemmas, the reader learns that "we
are answerable for what we do."
McInerny's conclusions were sure to resonate with those from a
religious background. He noted that classically the liberal arts
were divided into the 'Trivium' and the 'Quadrivium,' which
translate to 'the three ways' and 'the four ways.' "Ways to
what?" he asked rhetorically. "Ways to understanding Scripture.
The idea of the university is that it all adds up to something
massively unified. The whole point is to aim at theology."
Of course, conservatives don't have to be Christian, and not all
Great Books have Christian authors. McInerny explained that
Plato, Aristotle, and other non-Christians in the Western canon
believed that a sort of Providence or over-arching narrative
guided human action, and wrote with that concept in mind.
A member of the audience challenged him on this point, asking
what conditions, other than the scriptural inclination, could
inspire the creation of literature in McInerny's system. The
dramatic dimension to any story, McInerny answered, consists of
the spiritual consequences that follow any of the character's
actions. Even without that scriptural basis, though, we follow
the character because "he faces a problem of importance for who
he is. We respond to that, because that's us. It's us too."
Does this mean that Plato, Aristotle, Austen, and Conrad are all
conservatives? Yes, insofar as they articulate the permanent
things that make us human, and believe that there are overarching
principles that cannot be traduced for merely incidental
purposes.
The conservative movement and the Republican Party are about to
undergo a reconfiguring. Will the result be something Kirk -- or
Bll Buckley -- would sign on to?
