"Lord Acton...understood well the relationship between the inner order of the soul and the outer order of the commonwealth, and the gulf separating the liberty of appetite (libido) from a willed and reasoned liberty (voluntas)."
Russell Kirk, father of the American conservative movement,
died April 29th at the age of 75 in his home in Mecosta, Michigan. Best known
for his book The Conservative Mind, published in 1953, Dr. Kirk's writings
have influenced two generations of conservatives in the United States and abroad.
He was a prolific writer and columnist, publishing over 30
books of fiction and non-fiction, as well as hundreds of essays and reviews.
For 30 years, he edited The
University Bookman, a quarterly review of books, and was the founder of
Modern Age, a critical review of politics and culture. Furthermore, he lent
support to the Acton Institute, since its inception in 1990, with his presence
on its advisory board.
Born and raised in rural Michigan, Dr. Kirk cultivated an
attachment to the land and an admiration for ruggedly independent agrarian communities.
He graduated from Michigan State College in 1940, and went on to graduate school
to study history at Duke University. In 1942, he was drafted into the military
and spent the rest of the conflict in Utah.
His war-time experience heightened his distrust of state power.
Letters during this period revealed his opposition to conscription, military
inefficiency, governmental bureaucracy, “paternalism” and socialist
economics; he feared that New Dealers would doom the United States to collectivist
economic tyranny. His time in the military, however, gave him an opportunity
to further his knowledge of the classics, to prepare himself for further studies
following military service. Soon after the war, he attended St. Andrews University
in Scotland, writing his doctorate on the Anglo-American conservative intellectual
tradition, which later became The Conservative Mind.
In it, Dr. Kirk laid out the six principles of his philosophy:
1) political problems are fundamentally moral and religious problems because
a divine intent rules society and conscience; 2) recognition of the need to
cultivate affection for the multiplicity and variety of traditional life and
custom, in opposition to the narrow and reductionist ideologies of equalitarian
and utilitarian social schemes; 3) order and class must be accepted as natural
and necessary prerequisites for social harmony; 4) the connection between property
and freedom is inseparable and economic leveling undermines economic growth;
5) preference for prescription, tradition and sound prejudice over grand social
theories of alienated intellectuals whose ideas, when applied as public policy,
free man's anarchic impulses; 6) change is not identical to reform.
Dr. Russell Kirk persistently engaged contemporary liberalism
in an articulate and intelligent manner not merely to criticize his foes but
to provide a positive alternative that justified the preservation of what he
called the 'permanent things' while letting loose the power of the 'moral imagination.'
His Catholic sacramental vision brought to the printed page a view of humanity
that was colorful and mysterious, composed of a panoply of traditions and customs
guided by natural law. Constantly threatened, this richness of Truth he devoted
his whole life to defend.
