Welcome to the final post of our course on Russell Kirk. The previous posts can be accessed via the links on our Russell Kirk page here. In this final post I shall reflect on some of the key points which Kirk raises for Catholic social teaching.
For me, three points which are important in assessing Kirk's work are:
1) His emphasis on prudence and virtue as being at the heart of politics.
2) His emphasis on the importance of the past.
3) His emphasis on imagination.
The placing of prudence at the heart of political life echoes ancient philosophical thought which Kirk accessed primarily through Stoicism. Not only is there a focus on the importance of individual flourishing as the key end of politics, but there is a resistance to systematic accounts of political science as opposed to a reliance on the wise judgment of the sage. Both can be seen as being in tension with a certain understanding of Catholic social teaching as providing a recipe book of principles for politics and of its downplaying the individual's good in favour of the common good. Although there may well be moments either in Kirk's own politics or in American conservatism in general where prudence becomes mere pragmatism and a concern for the individual turns to subjectivism and self interest, such distortions are not a necessary consequence of Kirk's views. On the other hand, such emphases can be a needed corrective to modern tendencies to reduce the messiness of political life to techniques and the supernatural end of the individual soul to the emptiness of the merely collective life.
Kirk's conservative emphasis on retaining the past can certainly be criticised in the light of Catholic emphasis on natural law. Apart from noting that Kirk always acknowledged the need for change in some circumstances, however, it is important to remember that he is working within a culture constructed for 1500 years under a Christian influence. Whatever evils may exist within that culture are unlikely to removed by a wholesale abandonment of its main beneficial elements. Again, at the very least, an emphasis on the wisdom of tradition is a corrective to a modern tendency to regard the past merely as quaint or even as something from which to escape.
Finally, there is Kirk's emphasis on imagination. For all his affectation of the paraphernalia of the past, this makes Kirk a surprisingly modern, indeed, post-modern figure. His suspicion of technological reasoning and reliance instead on imaginative storytelling is based fundamentally on the ancient philosophical principle that human affairs can only be correctly governed by a virtuous ruler with the insight of wisdom. But to that basic foundation he adds a delight in playfulness and individual creativity. (For all their differences, he reminds me here of GK Chesterton.)
If I had to sum up the reasons for reading Kirk, I'd simply offer the thought that, whatever general principles can be established in social thought, those principles still have to be interpreted and applied through practical wisdom (prudentia). Getting to grips with the insights of the Wizard of Mecosta, both as a practising Catholic and major figure in American political thinking, is an important contribution to developing our own prudentia.
'Knowing that his death was coming soon gave great comfort to the family. At one of the last gatherings with his daughters, Kirk reminded his children to read always four specific works to sustain the moral imagination: Hans Christian Anderson's tale "Little Fur Tree," Tolkien's "Leaf by Niggle," C.S. Lewis's allegorical tale "Pilgrim's Progress," and George MacDonald's fairy tale "The Golden Key". He blessed each of his girls, promised to look over them from heaven, and made them promise to care for Annette. Kirk died on Friday morning, April 29, 1994, the Feast of St Catherine of Sienna, doctor of the church and patroness of communication. That morning Kirk had worried about John Paul II, who had just fallen, and had prayed for him. He and Annette had had breakfast together. Knowing this was probably his final meal, Kirk had asked for chocolate chip cookies and custard pie. As he had drifted off after breakfast, Monica, the oldest daughter, sang lullabies to him, the ones he had sung to her as a little girl. Russell Amos Augustine Kirk thus passed into timelessness.'
From Bradley J. Birzer (2015) Russell Kirk: American Conservative, University Press of Kentucky, pp. 392-3.
[That's all, folks! Normal blogging on general matters of interest for Catholic social thought will continue in future weeks...]
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