Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Conclusion to Kirk's Ten Conservative Principles

Such, then, are ten principles that have loomed large during the two centuries of modern conservative thought. Other principles of equal importance might have been discussed here: the conservative understanding of justice, for one, or the conservative view of education. But such subjects, time running on, I must leave to your private investigation. The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.
--Russell Kirk, Ten Conservative Principles (1993).

2 comments:

Adrienne said...

I just love that last paragraph. It is so true!

Mark in Spokane said...

Well, it is Russell Kirk writing after all. One of my favorite writers from the conservative tradition.