bradford intellectual right

7/28/2019 Bradford Intellectual Right

1/5

1 1 1 . R E T R O - / P R O S P E C T I V E S

A Generation of the Intellectual Rght:At the Head of the Column

IN HE COLORFUL narratives of nineteenth cen-tury British and American military historians,the most dramatic accounts are of res plblicabeset by the heathen, of a garrison undersiege, tsfate depending upon the amval of anequally embattled relief column sent forth atthe rumor of revolt in the backlands, withcomrades in distress. A convenient summaryof these expeditions can be derived from areading of JamesMorris thoughtful trilogy onEnglands imperial experience, HeavensCommand,Pax Brilannica, andFarewell theTrumpets. Related materials appear in thepopular novels of colonial responsibility well-performed and in the fiction and chronicle ofthe American frontier- tales of Detroit andFort Pitt, Boonesboro and Fort Phil Kearny.In the full-blown versions of this powerfulh-age at the head of the column cutting its waythrough to the beleaguered outpost would ap-pear some version of soldiers three, the cen-tral figures in this drama, who did theirfighting in the vanguard and deserved muchof the credit for what it achieved. The musicof bugles or the distant skirl of the pipesheralded their coming. And jubilationawaited them as they entered the fortressgates. At Lucknow, Khartoum, and Peking,at Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking (andlater in Tobruk) the pattern was repeated andthe lesson which it embodied reaffirmed: thatwhen the heathen rage, the issue of how (orwhether) they will be restrained will be decid-ed by a small groupof resolute men.It isby reason of their historical functionas

the leaders of a rescue operation that I findin these old-fashioned wamors an analogy tothe champions of independent thought whowere particularly responsible for the revival ofintellectual conservatism in the United Statesduring the years following World War 11-atime when that position had become, for ascholar of any ambition, almost untenable.The figure which I invokeisnot so fanciful asone might imagine. As much can be gatheredby any sensible person from a quick reading ofGeorgeNashs The Consenative IntellectualMovement inAmenca,Since 1945 and fromrecollection of the situation of American con-servatism following the revem which it suf -fered during the Roaring Twenties, theDepression, and the ordealof a war which wasofficially identified as a liberal crusade. Topreserve within the academy the respectabilityof the position which we now occupy withwhat seemsto be security, a great effort wasrequired: an effort led forward by a numberof courageous men who risked the influence oftheir careers and ignored the fashion of theirtime. Itwasalso important that their conser-vatism was a natural reflex of their achieve-ment of a coherentview of the world forgedout of their mastery of a particular discipline.Without a few unmistakably major figures,thinkers of genuine distinction who came toagree with less cerebral conservatives on policyby working out the implications of their ownstill various premises, the recruits could nothave been gathered, the defensive perimeterpreserved, nor the tide finally turned. For the

292 Summer/Fall I982


2/5

deep-rooted conservative instincts of theAmerican people, in all of their multiplicity,needed an apology, a rationale, a teaching (orset of doctrines) if they were to survive theargument from authority pressed upon themby an almost uniformly liberal cognoscenti.And also a language for transforming whatwas merely visceral, habitual, or pragmaticinto a vehicle for the recovery of politicalauthority in a republic which earlierAmerican conservatives had built. M odernAge has been at the heart of this tum-around-which is, as we all know, by nomeans complete even at this point. The workof certain conservative thinkers is rightfullyconnected with the history of the magazineand has had a powerful influence on thecourse it has followed in its first twenty-fiveyears and in the definition of its characteristicpreoccupations.

Part of the record which gives a certainpropriety to the imageof the relief column inthis discussion of great figures in the revival ofAmencan conservative thoughtisthe fact thatseveral of these men whom I must mentionare Europeans by birth and received theireducation abroad. In particular I refer to twoeconomists and two political philosophers:Friedrich August von Hayek and Ludwig vonMises; Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin.Professors Hayek and M k ame to theUnited States from Austria, after otherteaching in England and Switzerland, respec-tively. Hayek, Nobel Laureate in Economicsfor 1974, is the pupil of Mises, but came tothis country only in 1950, after a long tenurewith the London School of Economics, and adecade later than his preceptor. However,despite differencesin the precise emphases oftheir work and in the patterns of their careers(Mises the more purely libertarian), the twomen together began to have an explosive ef-fect on the reigning collectivist consensus con-cerning the theory of political economy atabout the same time. In 1944ProfessorM k spublished Omn@otent G ommen t andBureaucracy. In the same year Hayekbrought out hisclassic analysis of statkm anddictatorship, The Road to Serfdom. Withthese books the influence of the AustrianSchool amved on the arid American intellec-tual scene and shook to itsroots the view of the

dismal science almost established by LordKeynes and theNewDeal. Other books fromthese great masters reinforced the effect oftheir early English or Amencan perfor-mances: Mises huge H uman Action (1949)and Sociabm (1951); Hayeks Individualismand Economic Order (1948), The Constitu-tion of L iberty (1960), Studiw in Philosophy,Politics and Economics (1967),New Studies inPhilosophy, Politics, Economics and theHzjtoy of I deas (1978) and the monumentalthreevolume Law, Legislation and L iberty(1973, 1978, 1979). In this fl ood of logic anderudition the collectivist and familiar notionthat the economic life of modem man shouldbe planned according to some great designdrawn according toapion.abstractions lostmuchof itsauthority. A serious challenge tothe intellectual underpinnings of the Leftentered the field of combat, and the olderAmerican axi omof a strong connection be-tween the rights of property and politicalfreedom was given fresh support. WhatHayek described as constructivist ra-tionalism, the dream of a rationally con-structed society, had won wide acceptancewhen the work of the Austrians first began tocirculate on these shores. Mises, Hayek, andtheir confr&res broke up the monolith andhad much to do with the steady movement ofeconomics as a discipline away from thesocialist monotony of 1930-1945.The achievements of Leo Strauss and EricVoegelinin rescuing the study of politics fromthe rigid orthodoxies of behaviorism are noless impressive than those of the two great6mg-d economists. Indeed, they constituteanother instance of European correction ofdestructive doctrines imported from Europeby an earlier generation of American radicalsand then spread like a virus in the academyand among politically influential members ofthe public life. The links between the thoughtof Strauss and Voegelin are a common convic-tion of the importance of classical politicaltheory and a profound suspicion of modempoliticsas a set of paradigms or assumptionsand as a distortion of what weknow from ex-perience and good authority concerningmans nature and probable destiny, should hepersist in the worship of power and the pursuitof the empty promises of utopian rationalism.

ModemAge 293


3/5

Both Straw and Voegelin stand clear ofegalitarianism in its familiar forms, eventhough Straw affirms one version of naturalrights based on a definitionof man as a ra-tional creature. Voegelin is less concernedwith ethics and the classical notion of virtue,and looks instead to the ground of all socialexistence in a pious openness or attunementto the order of being: a sound ontology. ForStraw, questions of faith and revelationbelong to a separate sphere from those ofphilosophy- to Jerusalem, not Athens. Yet,though the preoccupations of these two greatprofessors finally diverge, they define much ofthe conversation that iscontemporary politicaltheory-a study which had almost lost itsplace in the cumculum when they began topublish their work in English. Furthermore, thas been of inestimable importance that theinfluence of Strauss and Voegelin has been in(or toward) the Right.

In 1936LeoStraw published (in England)The Political Philosophy o Hobbes: I ts B&and I ts Genes& Thiswork was reprinted inthe United States in 1952 and followed byPersecution and the Art o Wri2ing (1952),Natural R&ht and H ktoy (1953), ThoughtsOn Machzizvelli (1958), What t i PoliticalPhilosophy? (1959), The City and Man(1964), Socrates and Arirtophunes (1966),L iberahim, Annent and M odern (1968),Xenophons Socratic Discourse (1970),Political Philosophy: Sk h a ys by Leo Straws(1 975), and numerous monographs.

Voegelins purchase on American thoughtbegins with The New Science o Politics(1952), and is developed in Snence, Pohtiksand Gnosticism (1968),F rom Enlzghtenmentto Revolution (1975), andA n a m n k (1978).But the undoubted centerpiece of Voegelinscareer is the magisterial Order and H istoy, ofwhich wehave had thus far four volumes fromLouisiana State University Press (1956, two in1957, 1974). Voegelins emphasis on thedeformations of the spirit which lurk justbeneath the surface of most modern ideologieshas had a profound and lasting influence oncontemporary conservative thought. But thegreat sweeping survey of antiquity in Orderand H istoy, itsaccount of various human ef-forts to reflect in politics, religion, andliterature mans relation to the order of be-

ing and its transcendent ground, will in thelong run be rememberedas one of the centralintellectual achievements of our century.Straw and Voegelin as political philoso-phers have been effective in protecting usfrom what the poet Allen Tate has calledprovincialism n time- from imagining thatour own era has been unique, that it marks akind of progresswhich makes the past irrele-vant and is therefore in itself the measure ofall things found in history. But the analysis ofmodernity and its peculiar Faustian arrogancehas also been impressively conducted on thebasis of other kinds of evidence, as ap-prehended through other modes of inquiry.E l i 0 Vivas has followed, as the organizingstructure of his reflections, the network ofquestions which belong to moral philosophy,the aesthetic theory of literature, andcriticism. Antiquity and the medieval orderhave not been his themes, but insteadpositivism or naturalism and the embodimentof dark and distorted visions of the world insome of the most powerful productions of themodem imagination. More recently he hasalso given us a fascinating intellectualautobiography, Two Roads to Ignorance(1979). There, from behind the mask ofAlonzo Quijano, Vivas givesus an account ofhow a Spanish gentleman who is also aphilosopher (Vivas was born in Venezuela)came to reject relativism and the sterile isola-tion of academic specialization to ask, Onwhat basis shall my life be ordered? Vivashas written authoritative work in aesthetictheory and excellent criticism: Creation andDticovey: E ssay in Cri ticim and Aesthetics(1954);D. H . Lawrence: The Failure and theTriumph o Hti Art (1960); The ArttiticTransaction (1963). He has also authored adevastating critique of the radical guru, Con-tra Marcuse (1972). But he will be bestremembered by hisfellow conservatives forhisreply to John Deweys H uman Nature andConduct (1922) and other treatises from thesame tradition in his memorable defense ofaxiological realism, The Moral L qe and theEthical Lqe (1950). Vivas, in arriving at theconclusion that moral values have an onticsanctionis all the more persuasive when werealize that he reached this position out ofreaction to an earlier commitment to the op-

294 Summer/F alll982


4/5

posite proposition. Hs is one of the greatconversions which have so much enrichedthe conversation among conservative thinkersin our time. And his writing is a model oflogic, order, and grace.The other members of this metaphoricalvanguard in relief differ from the fivealready remarked in that they are un-mistakably American, though countrymen offour very distinctive kinds.The first of these, Russell Kirk, has beenmost intimately connected with the develop-ment of M odem Age. Indeed, he was ourfounding editor, and continues to be one ofour most regular contributors. The concep-tion and design of the magazine were in greatmeasure originally his, and have beenvalidated through long persistence. M odemAge is anAmencan journal of opinion, mostparticularly in its openness to a multitude ofconservative voices, which the variety andcombining, the leaven of synthesis in Kirksown astonishing career should have led us toexpect. For though often mislabeled as acultural expatriate, the point of reference inalmost everything he has written has been (asin the case with Weaver, Kendall, and Meyer)focused on the right order of thir com-monwealth, given its origins and its record.Kirks most influential book has been, to besure, The Consemtive M ad (1953). Sinceitappeared, more than twenty other volumeshave come forth from the same pen-onliterature, education, manners, biography,politics, travel, and many other subjects. Plusseveral works of fiction, some of them in thegothic hode. Within the series are severalworks of severe and specialized scholarship,including ohn Randolph of Roanoke (1951,1964) andEliot and His Age (1972). But onlyThe Roots of American Order (1974) rivalsthe original traditionalist manifesto in its im-portance to the status of American intellectualconservatism and itsserious outreach toward avast general audience concerned with definingthe responsibilities of the Right in a specifical-ly American context. We owe to Kirk theclear perception and forceful reminder thatAmerican conservatism, if it is to prosper,must be more than an economic theory, thatit must stand in some positive relation to theParty of the Right as it has appeared in

moments of crisis throughout the history ofWestern civilization. By remembering thatwhat was English or European is often whathas become American, we keep in mind thepremise that the best way to defend the freemarket is to argue for it as part of a more in-clusive proposition, with reference to itshuman consequences. Kirk isour AmericanCicero, the repository of our common mem-ory of the ancestral things, who knows whowe are by knowing from whence we havecome. He is the central figure in any accountof the conservative revival at which we hererejoice.As Russell Kirk belongs indubitably toMecosta, Michigan, so did Richard Weaveranchor strongly in an inherited place,Weavenille, in the mountains of NorthCarolina. Butas Kirk worked outward from aground of piety to consider the roots of orderamongus, so did Weaver, from the ground ofhisresearches in Southern intellectual history,

move to ask a question larger than Whatfathers?, to look for an explanation for thebeleaguered status of the South as the lastnon-materialist civilization in the WesternWorld in the convoluted history of modemphilosophy and rhetorical theory. As welearnfrom Weavers first important publication,I deas Have Consequences (1948), he was inepistemology a realist, a student of Plato andthe medieval doctors. But this side of hsnature was tempered by his habitus as arhetorician (as one of the leading authoritieson rhetoric) naturally suspicious of dialecticsand by hisoriginsas a Southerner who beganhis scholarly career with a study of hisregionsmind, the posthumously published TheSouthern Tradition ut Bay: A H zitoy oPostbellum Thought (1968). Weavers otherimportant works are the characteristicEthicso Rhetoric (1953) andLanguage Is Sermonic(1970), the collectionL ge Without Prejudice(1965), and the extraordinary VGons oOrder (1964), a statement of political theory.

For Willmoore Kendall, Richard Weaverwas a natural nominee for captaincyof theconservative team. But Kendall was aserious candidate for the office himself,though more visceral and xenophobic and lessparadigmatic in the nature of his influencethan hisAgrarian conf&re. Kendalls South-

Modern Age 295


5/5

em origins affectedhisthought more than hesometimes recognized. With Weaver, he re-acted with alarm to the civil rights crusadeand the Second Reconstruction. And fromhis Oklahoma boyhood he had preserved afeeling for the distance separating society andthe state, for dangers posed by egalitarianismto the natural operations (domestic tranquili-ty) of healthy communities. But Kendallwould never (as did Weaver) have honoredthe South for being more like Europe thanthe rest of the Republic. For he measuredother polities by the inherited American pro-position as embodied in the old (pre-1860)Constitution, a document separate from (andnot incorporating) the Declaration of In-dependence. For refinements in theory Ken-dall looked to both Straw and Voegelin, butfirst of all to Publius as he appears in TheF ederalist. But despite his Oxford years as aRhodes Scholar, his studies of Roweau andLocke, Milton and Mill, Kendalls interest wasin translating a generically American practiceinto the language of the ancients, our ownno-tion of virtue, not a borrowed doctrine. Hismost important book is the posthumousBaskSymbols o the American Political Tradition,which George Carey completed and broughtout in 1970. But we have also from Kendallthe collectionsThe Consmtiue Affirmation(1963) and Willmoore Kendall Contra M un-dum (1972), the earlyjohn Locke and theDoctrineof Majority-Rule (1941), the transla-tions, some textbook material, and Democ-racy and the American Party System (1956),which he wrote with Austin Ranney. He wasa powerful teacher and gfted interpreter oftexts. Future generations of studentswll go tohim for explanations of how American politicsworks in the context of our political institu-tions and for a correction of the habitualmyopia of the Left in itsabstract understand-ingof that subject.Weaver and Kendall, like Russell Kirk,wrote often for M odern A ge, and have beensubjects for essays appearing in thesepages.We can say the same of Frank Meyer. How-ever, it isnot primarily because of hisessays orbooks- The Moulding o Communists (1961)and I n Defense o F reedom (1962)-that hisvanguard includes the indispensable Mr.Meyer. For though he bespokehimel f on an

astonishing variety of subjects and was a manof great general learning, it is for the sake ofhis offices as broker and gadfly, his en-thusiasm for the discovery of prospective con-tributors, his labors in organizing and direc-ting the maneuvers of his brethren on theRight that Meyer belongs as the concludingaddition in this special company. FrankMeyer, though a near-libertarian in his ownpolitical thought, was also a fusionist in hispractical politics within the framework of ourcounterrevolution. Cooperation against thecommon enemy had for him a priority overin-housedisputes with other conservative in-tellectuals. Or, at least did so much of thetime. In this good judgment and in his in-tellectual curiosity, he continues to be an ex-ample for those of us who hold ground hehelped to take.My list of nine is of course arbitrary andselective. Many arguments for revision couldbe made. Other Europeans (or former Euro-peans) have had a purchase on the enterprisewhich we celebrate with this issue of M odernAge: Wilhelm Roepke, Gerhart Niemeyer,Thomas Molnar, Michael Oakeshott, C. S.Lewis, William Hutt, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, and John Lukacs. And we areunable to mention all of the native-bornAmericans whose achievements warrant theirinclusion, for they are so many, and theirwritings so voluminous. When George Nashcontinueshishistory, he will need two volumesfor the next installment. Indeed, the reliefcolumn has amved. There is a conservativeintellectual establishment, the development ofwhich made possible the electoral triumph of1980. The nine men saluted here have beenpresiding spirits in defining much of thesubject matter examined in the first twenty-five years of Modern Age. They are, in thesphere of their activities, heroic figures; andwe will need more of their kind in the years tocome. For although the strategic condition ofour citadel has improved since 1957,American conservatism is not a mass move-ment: the barbarians are still out there, readyto renew their assaults. With the onset of theirattacks, wemust be able to depend upon thearrival of friends who have broken through-bringing ammunition, reserves, and a freshsupplyof steady nerve.

296 Summer/Falll982

bradford intellectual right

Documents