Kirk.... KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRK

About 4 percent of my retina and a corresponding percentage of my brain have been reading the debate in these columns about Alan Wolfe's evisceration of conservative theorist Russell Kirk. I confess that I am not smart enough to pick up on the nuances of the debate, so here is my (small) contribution in the form of some questions to which I do not know the answers: which conservative politicians today claim to be linear descendants from Kirk? What policy ideas can be traced to the tracks in his mind? Did he contribute meaningfully to resolving (or exacerbating) the uneasy truce between political conservatism and Christian moralism? Aside from the conservative intellectual elite, who counts Kirk as an intellectual influence? Would conservatism today be the same if Kirk had never lived? Is Kirk the conservative equivalent of Lionel Trilling? John Rawls? (How many liberals have even read John Rawls?) Actually, the Rawls question is unfair. Liberals might not know much about him, but his writing and thinking underpin the modern Democratic Party theory of redistributive rights and expansive government.

As an actual practitioner of politics, what should I know about Kirk?

Or should I go back to wondering why Rudy Giuliani's team of bodyguards always looks at me with growling eyes?

Comments

Marc:

I have mixed feelings on Kirk. He's a graduate of Michigan State University, but he talked smack about the school. But his smack was dead on. So I'm conflicted. At least he didn't cheer for U of M.

However, one thing most people don't notice about Kirk is burried within his autobiography. During his youth at MSU he participated in a violent anti-union riot and actually took up arms (lead pipes) against leftists. That's hardly the snearing literist we're told to think of when we deal with diet-Kirk.

Posted by Dr. M | July 11, 2007 6:04 PM

"As an actual practitioner of politics, what should I know about Kirk?"

Nothing. He was just provided some (pseudo) intellectual window dressing on some of the more retrograde aspects of American political life, and at the end of the day his work was nothing more than a mere solicitude for tidy incomes. No need to waste your time.

Posted by Mark in Houston | July 11, 2007 11:46 PM

Actually, the Rawls question is unfair. Liberals might not know much about him, but his writing and thinking underpin the modern Democratic Party theory of redistributive rights and expansive government.

I know this was an aside, but I don't understand what you mean. If liberals (the people responsible for enacting liberal policies) don't know much about Rawls, how does his thinking underpin modern liberalism? Aren't these two statements incompatible?

Do you mean:

1) Most liberals don't know much about Rawls, but liberal elites who disproportionately shape policy do know about him. What's more, they believe him and base their policy prescriptions on his basic philosophy.

2) Most liberals (maybe even elites) don't know much about Rawls, but Rawls is the only defensible philosophical justification for liberal policy.

3) ???

I'm a liberal, more or less (maybe center-left), but I'm pretty much just a consequentialist. Whatever works. I suspect most liberals are the same. The purpose of government is to fix market failures and help us hit the sweet spot of the aggregate happiness curve by redistributing the rich person's marginal Hummer to buy food for a hundred poor people. That sort of thing.

Posted by mk | July 12, 2007 10:23 AM