Course on Russell Kirk: week 5

Welcome to week 5 of the course on Russell Kirk. I have posted links to the earlier units of the course on the new Russell Kirk page.

I'm a great believer in the importance of stepping back and taking a review at key moments in a course. As we're roughly half way through the course now, I'd like to use today's post to invite you to step back from trying to engage with Kirk in detail and to suggest some key elements and some critical challenges to them that you should be reflecting on.

Reading:

The main reading will be the short passages I excerpt below. However, I'd encourage you to read this New York Times review of Bradley Birzer's biography of Kirk to get a sense of a modern critical reaction to Kirk (and indeed to Birzer's view of Kirk). Here. I'd also recommend the transcript of Birzer's speech on Kirk which reflects on (as he puts it) 'The awful humanity of Russell Kirk'. Here. (One of the things I'd pick up from both is the way in which Kirk's personality is important in understanding him. This placing of imaginative individualism at the centre of Catholic and conservative thought is, in my view, one of the key interests in Kirk. In particular, it provides an interesting tension with the impersonality of that other key Burkean strand in his thought, a respect for the traditional forms of society.)

Putting those titbits aside, the first reading for this week is an excerpt from the biography of Ernest Gellner by John A. Hall. (p.83).

Traditions are manipulations of the past (not indeed generally actual fabrications) for the purposes of manipulating the present and propping up current arrangements'. On the other hand, he insists that although 'tradition may be elegance, competence, courage, modesty and realism...it is also bull***t, servility, vested interest, arbitrariness, empty ritual'.

The second reading is a brief summary of Catholic social teaching given by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (here). In particular, it summarises such teaching in seven principles:

Life and dignity of the human person.

Call to Family, Community and Participation

Rights and responsibilities.

Option for the poor and vulnerable.

The dignity of work and the rights of workers.

Solidarity.

Care for God's creation.



Critical discussion:

Gellner has been described as a 'one man crusader for critical rationalism'. Unsurprisingly, therefore, he is extremely suspicious of approaches which downplay the possibility of the rational critique of inherited thought and practice. The above excerpt is aimed at Michael Oakeshott, a leading British conservative thinker but might equally apply to Kirk.

The questions I think Gellner's criticism should bring to the forefront of your mind about Kirk are:

1) Would Kirk accept Gellner's criticisms? How might he answer them?
2) Are there other elements in Kirk's work besides an emphasis on tradition which might provide the basis for a defence of Kirk?

(As a reminder, here are Kirk's principles of conservatism in their sixfold form (from Wikipedia):


A belief in a transcendent order, which Kirk described variously as based in tradition, divine revelation, or natural law;
An affection for the "variety and mystery" of human existence;
A conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize "natural" distinctions;
A belief that property and freedom are closely linked;
A faith in custom, convention, and prescription, and
A recognition that innovation must be tied to existing traditions and customs, which entails a respect for the political value of prudence.)


Turning to the seven principles of Catholic social teaching as summarised by the USCCB, I'd suggest the following questions as we move further through the course:

1) Compare the USCCB seven principles with Kirk's six principles above. What principles are missing from the USCCB list compared to Kirk's? What principles are missing from Kirk's list?

2) Paying attention to the absences noted in 1), in each case, which list is more closely allied with the tradition of Catholic thinking on society and why?

3) Bearing in mind the above, are the lists totally incompatible, in some tension, or completely compatible? Why?

[Next post: 5 September 2016]

Scottish snippet:

Kirk owned a house in Pittenweem (40 High St) and holidayed regularly there in the 1960s and 1970s. He believed the High St to be haunted and set a ghost story about a Doppelganger there ('The reflex-man on Whinnymuir Close' in the collection Ancestral Shadows (source).) Kirk's interest in the supernatural is discussed by Bradley Birzer here.

[Details of image: Pitteweem High Street. Copyright Ken Bagnall and licensed for reuse. Full details here.]