Thank you for noticing the book.  I appreciate your comments.

This is a truly first-rate examination of the
continued value of Kirk’s achievement and Mark’s decision to
focus on Gerald Russello’s brilliant monograph on the
postmodernist elements in Kirk’s worldview was
well-considered. My only question, if it does remain
relevant, is to what extent Russell would have
recognized himself in the hermeneutics of his present
learned interpreters. Unfortunately he is not around
to answer this query.

Let us have more writing like this on Taki’s site!

“It would seem unlikely that a traditionalist thinker could find a comfortable sustenance today from the sales of his books and other writings.” It’s more than unlikely. Witness the destruction of Joseph Sobran’s career for refusing to bend with the political wind. See this

http://www.sobran.com/articles/leads/2007-fall-pubnote.shtml

and try not to hope WFB burns for eternity

The greatest sin of Kirk was his defining a “neo-conservative” as one who believes the capital of the United States to be Tel Aviv.  For this comment Kirk and his work will not be admitted to public discussion.

Of course, he was and is correct.  The United States is poorer for his absence.

Let me offer my thanks to Mark Wegierski for his review of Gerald Russello’s opus and his appreciation of Russell Kirk. I had the privilege of being Russeell Kirk’s assistant in Mecosta (in between graduate school at UVa. and at the Univeristy of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain), and assisted him on two books, ELIOT AND HIS AGE and THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN ORDER. I counted his a friend and mentor for nearly thirty years, and he was in large part responsible for my obtaining a Weaver Fellowship to study in Spain.

Mr. Earley is so correct: RK became increasingly aware of the nefarious role that the neo-cons were having in the conservative “movement,” and he opposed them in writing and in his public remarks. His famous comment about Tel Aviv becoming the virtual capital of the USA, which is undoubtedly true, elicited a reckless charge of “anti-semitism” from Midge Decter. Kirk was anything but an anti-semite, but by the time that remark was made, the p.c. battalions of the neo-conservatives were out in full force. Although the National Review crowd still pay lip service to him, he was virtually ignored at NR’s 50th anniversary shindig.

Indeed, they’ve moved on to such great minds as David Frum and Jonah goldvberg. Welcome to conservatism 2008!

Splendid article!  Please write again, Mr Wegierski!  Kindly tolerate a few quibbles and addenda:

the unquestionable benefits of science and technology
Let’s submit the “unquestioned” part to a jury of 12, 6 from Hiroshima, and 6 from Nagasaki, with our house ecologist, John Ball, as a alternate.  But I’m not faulting Mr. Wegierski. 

While unquestionably cherishing and valorizing white, Western, Christian civilization, he never got caught up in excessively racialized and biologically-reductionist modes of argument.

Very true about Kirk, however much our Stormfronters lie about him.  And I thank the author for saying so.  Still, I regret the use of “white, Western, Christian”.  Are Finns, Norwegians, Highland Scots, Basques, and Sicilians of the same “race”?  If they are, then the whole concept of “race” is meaningless – as I have argued often enough.

When a conservative calls the current-day regime “soul-killing,” he’s answered with a shrug. Werner Dannhauser, paraphrasing Nietzsche, put it even more bluntly: “[The Last Man] has due regard for health of the body, but would scarcely understand even the notion of health of the soul.” in Confronting the Constitution, p. 407.

What the Fifties in America probably lacked most was a sense of the heroic, of self-sacrificing struggle on behalf of an evocative ideal.
Probably a fault of the bourgeoisie in general. Still, the age of the bourgeois was better than what followed.  What a social order looks up to and admires says everything about it.

It would seem unlikely that a traditionalist thinker could find a comfortable sustenance today from the sales of his books and other writings.

It was never all that easy.  I have the impression that Dr. Kirk was invited to write his syndicated column as a result of his singlehandedly reinventing or reviving the Gothic Romance genre.  He got his start on the lecture circuit during the Goldwater campaign thanks to the political operatives of General Motors.  He was never a neocon, but I don’t think he did much to offend them either, at least for the first few decades of his fame.

Was he fully postmodern?  Not in the sense defined by his friend Canon Bell.  He embraced Catholic Christianity as the foundation of our civilization, but his autobiography admits no need to participate in public worship or the rest of parish life.  In this he resembles Richard Weaver.  Is he postmodern in the sense used by critical theorists?  I am not sure.  He clearly rejects the “metanarrative” of the Whig interpretation of history, but I think his conservatism involves a metanarrative all its own…

Kirk believed in a transcendental order based on divine revelation.

My question is did he ever have one?

Thanks for all these comments.  Dr. Gottfried, I think you may be right:  I suspect Kirk may not have seen himself fully in my portrayal of him, but I like to think that in my emphasis on the imagination and his historical writing he would see the worth of my approach.  Mr. Purcell, I see your point, which is something I tried to make in the book.  RK was not postmodern in Bell’s sense fully, or in the crits.  He was, however, trying to do something similar to those projects, while being faithful to his own tradition.

May we never forget the Old Right whose luminaries once dominated the early issues of National Review, and who would have shunned the talking heads of Fox and CNN who preach democratic universalism.  May the souls of Kirk, Kendall, Burnham, and Meyer rest in peace.

Great review.  The book sounds interesting, though I would have one criticism with it as described.

Given that “post-modern” is generally accepted in common usage (and even most of the postmodernists I know would probably agree with this) as “the unceasing, unrelenting urge to tear down, to destroy, to deconstruct, to smash to bits, any notion of the normative, the decent, and the natural”—then why does Russello then attempt to identify *that* urge with a new term, “hyper-modern”?

That is, if one is going to go about coining new terms, why not coin a new term to describe Kirk’s unique synthesis of modernism with tradition, rather than attempt to re-define a word which already has an accepted definition in our vocabulary & usage?

Is it because “post-modernism” already has popular cachet?

My point is that it seems a bit imprudent & futile, to me, to go about saying to people, “Jacques Derrida isn’t really post-modern—he’s *hypermodern*. 

Now if you’re really searching for a thinker who’s a real *postmodern*, you should look into Russell Kirk.”

In the meantime everyone will go right on referring to Derrida as a postmodern, and to Kirk as “just another conservative” who hates liberalism.

Seems to me—if we want to spend much thought on such things-- that it’d make more sense to refer to Kirk’s thought as transmodern or metamodern or something else that hasn’t already been “taken”, so to speak.

“Are Finns, Norwegians, Highland Scots, Basques, and Sicilians of the same “race”?”

Of course they are. Visit my website sometime and you’ll see dozens of data analyses documenting how the differences among these groups in America are trivial compared to white/black, white/Amerindian differences. You’ll find the same gaping differences if you compare Europe with sub-Saharan Africa.

Race is not everything like the Stormfronters profess, but neither is it nothing as you claim.

Frank Purcell’s comments are somewhat misleading and require further clarification.

Kirk converted to Catholicism largely at Annette’s insistence.  He was reluctant convert to Catholicism because he thought like William Mallock he would be more effective defending the doctrines of the Church by remaining outside it.  His wife would have none of this.  She insisted that he convert because she wanted her children to be raised in a Catholic family. 

I recall that sometime during the 1980s Kirk tried to avoid attending Mass because he objected to the priest at St. Michael’s.  Once more, his wife insisted that he attend Mass to set a good example for his children and, well, as a Catholic, worshipping at Mass has nothing to do with your opinion of the priest. 

Frank Purcell’s statement that Kirk “got his start on the lecture circuit during the Goldwater campaign thanks to the political operatives of General Motors” is somewhat confused.  Kirk had been on the lecture circuit before the Goldwater campaign.  That is how he made his living.  I believe that what Purcell is referring to is Kirk’s association with Dr. Jay Gordon Hall (who I recall meeting once in Mecosta), a lobbyist for General Motors.  They were very close friends.  In 1962, Hall solicited Kirk’s help for a committee he had formed to promote Goldwater’s candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.  Hall introduced Goldwater to Kirk’s writings and Kirk wrote articles supporting Goldwater and speeches which Goldwater delivered.  It should be remembered that in 1962, Kennedy’s popularity had declined and Goldwater’s prospects looked bright.  Time magazine observed in 1962 that Goldwater was more popular than Kennedy.  Kirk discusses this in his memoirs, “The Sword of Imagination,” pp. 254-260.
I congratulate Mark Wegierski on his thoughtful and well-written review of Russello’s book.  The great achievement of Russello’s study is that it forces us to look at Kirk’s work, as Wegierski amply demonstrates, from a fresh perspective.

Many thanks to Wesley McDonald for his clarifications.  Much of what I know about Russell Kirk came from The Sword of Imagination, which I did not read until last year, when I was preparing an essay on the man to whose early writings I owed so much.  I was bewildered and pained by the way he presents his Catholicism, which I can only describe as modernist, complacent about his admitted indifference to the public worship of the Church, indeed, seemingly proud of it.  I took it from a post on the Yahoo group that this might have been something of a pose, though you now confirm my first impression.

Why care about being “effective defending the doctrines of the Church” if those doctrines aren’t true?  And if they are true, how can you bear to remain outside it?  I find this deeply, deeply distressing.

I’m sure Kirk was on the same speakers’ circuit as other NR contributors before the Goldwater thing, but he describes the experience as an empowering one, and we need not be defensive about it.  To him at the time, as to this (then) high school student, the important thing is not that BMG was popular and had a chance to win, but that he was right about so much, and effective in getting his message across.  (Sound familiar?)

Thank you Mr. Wegierski,....for this review of Russello’s book on Russel Kirk but just as much for your inclusion of Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 address at Harvard: “A World Split Apart”.

I have not been confronted before with the idea that there is a companionship between the Enlightenment and Marxism. It seems obvious to me now and In self-defense, I remain resistant, but Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s (and others of the Mad Host herein) reasoned speech has me energized. The 30 years since the address would only seem to confirm his original assertions.

three quotes deserve mention;
First,” Today, well-being in the life of Western Society has begun to reveal its pernicious mask” . Crusaders without spirit make lousy Crusaders I suppose.

Secondly, “pitiless crowbar of events”. Perhaps the events since 9/11...the attacks and counter-attacks, truths and half-truths shall be a kind of baptism by crowbar of sorts

Thirdly, “A person who works and leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive burdening flow of information”
Would that we can all achieve both work and meaning.....and, in consequence, find ourselves impervious to the gibbering noise that fills modern life to an extent that the noise will gradually vanish for lack of interest.

I don’t know why but an intellectual pistol whipping is a fine thing. Time to read this book i suppose.

My understanding is that Kirk believed that he could more effectively defend the doctrines of the Church by being outside the Church.  It was a strategic decision and had nothing to do with how true he believed Church doctrines to be.

I am fascinated by your question, “Why care about being “effective defending the doctrines of the Church” if those doctrines aren’t true?  And if they are true, how can you bear to remain outside it?”

That is a very Catholic point and would be foreign to the thinking of a Protestant.  Protestants argue that the path to salvation lies through faith and one’s personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Catholics, by contrast, stress the importance of good works as the path to salvation.

Kirk was not raised in the Catholic Church and therefore was not habituated to certain Catholic ways of thinking.  His doctrine of the moral imagination, for example, seems closer to Protestant ways of thinking about ethics and morality than Catholic natural law.

“Inductivist” is hardly inductive.  Anyone whose been to the European countries that I mentioned and bother to look at the people would instantly conclude that they are from very, very different genetic backgrounds.

Of course, genetics has zero to do with intelligence or culture.

Protestants argue that the path to salvation lies through faith and one’s personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Catholics, by contrast, stress the importance of good works as the path to salvation.

Nope.  True this is a popular misunderstanding.  Let’s clear it up from the Catholic perspective.

Catholics (and for that matter Jews) do NOT believe in works righteousness. Catholics are not Pelagian or Semipelagian (however much certain Reformed statements might claim).

First this Catholic distinction: merit de jure and merit de gratia.  Merit de jure:  if you and I agree that I’ll mow your lawn for 5 dollars, and I mow it, then de jure I merit 5 dollars.  No Catholic believes that with God one merits this way.  Merit de gratia: One of the gifts of Grace is the ability to move forward in one’s salvation by good works.  The ability to perform these good works and the actual performance of these good works comes solely from Grace.

A further Catholic distinction:  Operating Grace and Co-operating Grace.  Operating Grace is God’s action.  Co-operating Grace is the freeing of the will by Operating Grace to cooperate with Operating Grace.  This also is Grace.  And meritorious works are the fruit of Co-operating Grace.

Note carefully:  Our Lord clearly teaches meritorious good works in Matthew 10: 42.  So does St. James in his Epistle.  I add that after The New Perspectives on Paul movement, beginning with E. P. Sanders Paul and Palestinian Judaism, there’s not much left to the Protestant argument of sola fide being Pauline. I have discussed this elsewhere.

Cf. Council of Trent, 6th Session, Decree on Justification.

Thanks, ‘Inductivist,’ for correcting Sid’s usual race-denying nonsense. Of course Basques, Sicilians, and Highland Scots belong to a common race and European civilization. This is not to deny that there aren’t ethnic and local regional differences between Europeans. Still, there’s a hell of a lot more in common between Russians and Sicilians than between either respective groups and Rwandans or Amazon Indians.

Sid Cundiff: “Of course Genetics has nothing to do with Intelligence or culture.” In reality, it has everything to do with it. Genes determine culture not the other way around. Intelligence is not distributed equally among human population groups, i.e. races. This is so well-established that not even dyed-in-the-wool race-denying liberals contend this, only subject the origins(environment vs. heredity)to dispute.

It just so happens I am in the process of
reading Kirks book. He spent alot of time on
Burke. And now he’s writing on some guys named
Randolph and Calhoun. I didn’t order the book
to examine the evolution of conservatism, I
bought it for stimulation. 
This will be the last conservative book I
read because secession as freedom is the final
stage of the intellectual development of a
radical anti-establishment conservative.

Wesley McDonald is dragging in that old Protestant polemic about grace and works.  Catholics are Bible Christians.  They believe the words of Jesus in the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to John.  Literally.  And they obey.  You may condescend all you like to those Christians who believe and obey and you may insist that there is nothing strange about promoting the belief without caring to avail yourself of the Body and Blood of the Lord.  But it is strange.  And tragic.  It is to cry Lord, Lord, and turn your back on the personal relationship that even Protestants admit it’s all about.  To promote religious belief without acting as if it were true is, for lack of a better word, neoconnery.  It troubled me no end to find RK, in Sword expressing himself in a way that at the very least allowed for that interpretation.  I was relieved this morning to learn that this wasn’t the full story.  But it is as if Kirk, to play his role as guru in chief of the traditional wing of the conservative movement, had to soft pedal the faith.

NANR offers no proof for his racialist claims.  He can’t.  There isn’t any. And too cowardly to sign his name.

And he clearly has never been to Russia or Sicily

Sid Cudliff: Flat-earther and race-denying Catholic “Traditionalist"(aka pining for the Inquisition)Wacko: Too cowardly to sign my name? As if “Sid Cundliff” is your true name. Everyone out here knows it’s a monniker so get over it. As for not “producing proof in favor of my racialist assertions,” where should I begin? There is an exhaustive body of scientific findings and research supporting my views. Is there any supporting superstitious nonsense you believe in as an article of faith, such as the Immaculate Conception? Where would you like to begin? Not only is the American Right, and especially its race-realist component plagued with “stormfronters,” but an unfortunately high percentage of fundamentalist christian fruitcakes(Catholic and Evangelical Protestant)as well. And, I’ve also travelled throughout Europe many times, and unlike your sense of race and genetics, which is stuck back in the dark ages along with your theology, know what I’m talking about. Next?

Speaking of Kirk, Frank Purcell writes, “He embraced Catholic Christianity as the foundation of our civilization, but his autobiography admits no need to participate in public worship or the rest of parish life.” Could you give me the page number of the passage to which you are referring?

Also, Sid and Frank, I wasn’t inviting an argument over Catholic doctrine, I was merely making the point that for culural reasons Kirk sometimes strayed from Catholic modes of thought.

For crimes of “heresy”, TakiMag is being targeted by the Left in the form of commenters Capp/Cundiff.

Notice the relentless attempt to divided white Catholics from white Protestants no matter the subject of the posting (this is no different from infiltrating the Asian-centric Model Minority forum and aggravating fault lines between, say, Koreans and Japanese: divide & conquer). Notice the omnipresent Marxism underlying Capp/Cundiff’s arguments. Notice the classic Soviet style debating techniques: the bigger the lie, the better.

In this thread we have the shameless Cundiff complaining that someone else is not using their real name. But the real point of this infiltration is to change the subject, disconnect the comment threads from the authors, and disrupt any sense of growing community and consensus among the commenters. In other words, kill this potential awakening baby in its cradle.

This website and other “heretical” websites that threaten to achieve mainstream status are being disrupted. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is psyops internet warfare.

So keep up the good work, Taki. You’re making some powerful people very nervous.

I don’t have the reference at hand, but Mr. McDonald himself notes that Kirk was not inclined to attend Mass regularly, and could only be induced to do so by the idea of giving good example to the children.  And, yes, I suppose that is the Protestant attitude.  The law of the Catholic Church is not onerous, at least for layfolk, but Mass on Sundays and other holy days has always been strictly required.  This is clearly explained to anyone who wants to become a Catholic.  But forget about law; if you really accept the Mass for what the Church says it is, even silly sermons and ghastly hymns won’t keep you away from it. 
If God’s body and blood are literally materalizing a couple of miles from your house, that’s worth getting out of bed for, or so it seems to me.  Perhaps to you it’s a degrading peasant superstition, perhaps even a vile idolatry to be exterminated with fire and sword.  But you don’t claim to be Catholic.  Kirk did, as did the European reactionaries did after the French Revolution put the fear of God into them.  And that’s what troubles me.

Oh, dear, too many “dids” in that last sentence.  Time for bed.

Let NANR present his credentials on “race”:

1. He is to state his full and real name.
2. He is to state his degree in organic chemistry, the year he obtained it, and the institution that granted it.
3. He is to state his degree in cell biology, the year he obtained it, and the institution that granted it.
4. He is to state his degree in genetics—Mendelian and molecular—the year he obtained it, and the institution that granted it.
5. He is to cite, correctly, his published research in these fields and the peer review.

Were NANR to so credential himself, I might take seriously what he says about race. But of course he can’t, and thus must be ranked with with snake oil salesmen and the corn doctor at the county fair, and his natural “science” ranked with spoon benders and alien space ship kidnappings.

Let’s go a step further.  Germans are good at piano making.  Pray tell us, NANR, where is the piano making DNA strain or gene in Germans? 

Let’s all have a good horse laugh. Then, once again, lets preach the truth: Racialism and Burkean/Tory Conservatism have NOTHING in common, the latter knowing that people are the product of history, habit, custom, class, tradition, ceremony, and religion—and NOT the product of a category so risible as “race”.  Skin color is as about as important as eye color.  What one’s folkways are are everything. Roger Thackery is the real heretic.

Sorry to have to go over all this again.  I’d like to think that our latest tedious fraud is new to this site, but more likely he’s the same old Stormfronter who, by changing his name, gives the illusion that they are many.  A more remote possibility is an Neocon or Cultural Marxist agent provocateur.  Now lets get back to honoring a real conservative, Kirk.

Question for NANE - I am friends of a couple who are a Russian theoretical physicist and a Brazilian nurse of half Amazon Indian, half Anglo-American descent, who is completing her master’s degree.  My question - Of what race are their quadri-lingual (speaking English, Russian, Portuguese and French) children?

Mr. Purcell, I don’t believe that Kirk ever wrote what you claim.  The fact that you can’t find the source troubles me.  At best, you have misunderstood him.

I am not engaging in some sort of anti-Catholic rant here.  My point is merely to try to explain why someone not brought up a Catholic would have difficulty with certain Catholic practices.  Years ago, like Kirk, I had considered conversion too, but I could never bring myself to think of Mass the way that Purcell does.  It is just not in me and such things cannot be explained through reason. This is not a criticism, just an observation. Although I don’t know Kirk’s heart, I suspect he wasn’t fully convinced either.

Why is Kirk’s thought not better described as pre-modern instead of post-modern?

“If God’s body and blood are literally materalizing a couple of miles from your house ...”

That would be rather gruesome. For casual readers of this, the correct term is transubstantiation, not materialization.

Mr. Salvo, thanks for the correction.  As a non-Catholic, I didn’t feel comfortable mentioning this.

Reply to “Sid Cundliff.”

If anyone is an “agent provocatuer,” it is you, my benighted reactionary flat-earther “friend.”

I wasn’t aware this forum was only restricted to self-styled “Burkean-Tory(Yuck!)Conservatives. Where was that posted? As to credentials in certain fields or scientific disciplines, what are yours?

1, What is your real name?

2, What are your credentials in theology, political science, philosophy, or genetics, anthropology, etc.?

3, Provide your real physical address and social security number(if a U.S. resident)so your identity can be verified?

4, Your documented sources for your leftist and very pseudo-marxist assertion that Race is meaningless and genes mean nothing? Someone with crackpot positions like these has some nerve accusing others of being “neocons” or agent provocateurs

“Cundliff,” Contd.

As for my claims(backed by extensive and exhaustive scientific research and study)establishing the validity and scientific-based reality of Race and racial differences, where would you like me to begin?

As to being a “snake-oil salesmen” or purveyor of “UFO abduction tales,” this another ridiculous ad hominem attack by someone well-versed in the smear tactics of cultural marxism. In short, your about as much a “conservative” in the Tory-Burkean sense of the term as Hillary Clinton!

“Cundliff,” Contd.

Furthermore, Racialism and the Burkean-Tory Conservative Tradition are hardly incompatible. This is neocon Cundliff’s nonsense. The Founding Fathers were certainly racialist in their vision of America as a White, Anglo Protestant Republic. The original U.S. Constitution excluded Negroes and American Indians from U.S. Citizenship. The First U.S. Naturalization Act of 1790 was very explicit as to who preferred candidates for U.S. Citizenship were. Want more examples? One can cite British, Canadian, and Australian examples as well.

Reply to Kurt Higdon:

Obviously, the offspring of this couple are ethnically and racially mixed. They are three-quarters Caucasian and one-quarter Amerindian. It isn’t all that complicated.

Tu quoque is no more a reply to my demand that NANR present his credentials than his parade of ad hominems, name-calling, red herrings, and begged questions.  He of course doesn’t have any credentials at all, and his silence proves this. So we can dismiss is claims of genetic/racial based culture as so much moonshine and hogwash.

“As to credentials in certain fields or scientific disciplines, what are yours?”
I not making the claim of racialist genetics. You are. The burden of proof is upon you, not me.

</i>"The Founding Fathers were certainly racialist in their vision of America as a White, Anglo Protestant Republic."</i>
Impossible.  NANR’s demonstrates his lack of education by his anachronistic argument.  The whole idea of “race” was invented in the 19th C by Arthur de Gobineau, a century after the Founders. Let’s all have another horse laugh!

“The original U.S. Constitution excluded Negroes and American Indians from U.S. Citizenship.” . 
An utter lie. Quote the Constitution where it supposedly says this. If you mean the 3/5s clause, you prove your stupidity even more, for this clause applied only to slaves, and moreover it was a compromise forced on the South by the North.  The South wanted slaves counted as a whole person.  Some racialism!  The same Constitution said that after 1808 no more slaves would be brought to the US, and that would be the end of it.  Racialist indeed!

Suppose we grant the impossible and say Founders to be readers of of NANR’s favorite author, Alfred Rosenberg.  So what? Point of fact, the question of slavery and Jim Crow were settled in principle by the Declaration and the Constitution.  Indeed, Jefferson’s original draft was even more specific.

So folks, NANR ("NAzi Nationalist Racialist") is revealed to be a liar and an ignoramus. To say nothing of having no case. Let’s hope for his going back to the Stormfront site.

“Obviously, the offspring of this couple are ethnically and racially mixed. They are three-quarters Caucasian and one-quarter Amerindian. It isn’t all that complicated.” - NANR

So how big a deal can race be if mixtures are so uncomplicated?

While I agree that Kirk was not so much a Thomist as an Augustinian you will find that the Reformers were also men deeply indebted to Augustine. This does not necessarily mean that Kirk was closer to Protestants for Roman Catholics like Christopher Dawson were also deeply Augustinian (as was Tolkien) and they shared Kirk emphasis on
the moral imagination. Of course, some of the Protestant
Scholastics, like Peter Martyr Vermigli, Jerome Zanchius, and John Owen were Thomists. All were defenders of natural law as has been recently demonstrated by the Acton Institutes’ Stephen Grabill’s Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics.

I do think that Kirk’s thought patterns were deeply influenced by his cultural protestantism. He descended from a line of cultural protestants with roots in New England Puritanism and Scottish Presbyterianism. Although the theological foundations had descended into unitarianism, Swedenborgianism, and the strange specter of
spiritualism there is an undeniable cultural inheritance.

To Frank Purcell’s point, all I can recall is this passage that
recounts the story of Annette bring home Clinton Wallace:

“A few minutes later, Annette burst upon Russell, who lay abed--being too frequently given to indolence on the Sabbath, the charge brought against his Pilgrim ancestor Abraham Pierce-- and shouted, ‘Russell, do you want to meet a bum?’ (pg. 351).”

Notice how the shadow of Protestantism, even Puritanism is interlaced in the passage? He speaks of his Pilgrim ancestor but also of the Sabbath and his personal sin of indolence. This is deeply suggestive of a man who owned his Protestant and Puritan heritage even as he took comfort from his Roman Catholicity. Of course, authentic confessional Protestantism cannot be blamed for Kirk’s sleeping in while his wife attended Mass. Failure to attend public worship and
the means of grace are matters of church discipline even for those who believe that we are justified sola fide (how does this relate to the relationship of faith to works in justification?).

The heart of the situation is Kirk’s conservatism and his recognition that even in converting to Rome he could not escape the haunting inheritance of the faith of his fathers. I do not have the reference at the tip of my finger but I recall that Kirk answered the question about the man’s ultimate meaning by alluding to the First Question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: What is Man’s Chief End? Man’s chief
end it so glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

BTW John Randolph of Roanoke is included in the Conservative Mind and in Kirk’s biography he makes the point that that Randolph’s Anglicanism was deeply evangelical and influenced by Samuel Davies.
That places Randolph’s protestant faith to the left of Old Light and Old School Presbyterianism. Of course, we would also have to note that many of those “atheists” in the Conservative Mind were “Protestant” atheists (I use to word loosely) including John Adams, Fisher Ames, ect. and all the men in the chapter on New England, ect. Some of the “atheists” were Roman Catholic “atheists” like Santayana. My point is that Kirk’s Conservatism transcended the breach between Rome and Geneva/Canterbury/ Boston and made common cause with all defenders of Anglo-American traditionalism (especially those traditions that he could feel in his blood).

Oh, Lord have mercy.

I see NANR & Sid are in a competition to see who can win the ever-coveted “Dogmatic Kook of the Thread” Award.

“genetics has zero to do with intelligence or culture.”

Sid, in a weird kind of way I’ve relaxed and learned to enjoy your posts—but this is really too friggin’ over the top. 

Why do you insist on making these sorts of sweeping, absolute statements?

Zero?

Nada, nothing, zilch?

Nothing at *all*?

Now, holster your Buck Rogers anti-Nazi ray-gun for a moment. 

I’m not talking about race per se. 

If you like, look at it this way—had George Washington Carver inherited the genes for Down’s Syndrome, would he have invented all those great uses for the peanut, regardless of what culture he had been reared in?

This contempt for biology borders on the pathological.

So a man is smarter than a turnip *solely* because of culture? 

So, if we wanted to make a turnip as smart as a man, all we would have to do is take a baby turnip and put it in a perambulator and hire a Greek & Latin tutor for it?

Not that I’m endorsing NANR.

Sid may be fruitier than a glass of V-8 Splash but at least he’s not a materialist asshole—and if you don’t take Sid too seriously he’s likeable, in his Don Quixote I-defend-true-conservativism looney-tunes sort of way.

As to NANR… I wonder if there’s a gene for being a blindly-arrogant, smug douchebag?

“They are three-quarters Caucasian and one-quarter Amerindian. It isn’t all that complicated.”

Yeah, that’s really friggin’ insightful.  Thanks, Socrates.

Which parts are Caucasian? 

Are two of the arms and one of the legs Caucasian?

All of which band together to try to buy Manhattan from the other, Amerindian leg, in exchange for some shiny beads & trinkets?

What, are we following the Mr. Potato-Head theory of the human condition?

Try putting together something as simple as a laptop computer based on this jackass-approach to the world—much less a human being.

Yes, yes—a computer is just so many parts plastic, so many parts silicon, so many parts gallium, etc. etc....

What?  An *operating* program? 

Program?!  What the hell are you talking about? 

Who needs to inform this system with anything like a *program*?  All we gotta do is make sure the material parts are in order.

Just as all that matters with a human being is his material, biological makeup, all that matters with a computer is its material composition—you superstitious flat-earth religious nut, you!

We don’t need no stinking program.  Non-materialist factors need not apply for recognition.

(Sigh.)

And no, my good Dr. Moreau, the genetic code is not analogous to the computer program. 

Take a baby and leave it in front of a television set in a house with no books for 20 years, and he’ll never grow up to be a concert pianist or nuclear physicist or anything else—I don’t give a damn how razzle-dazzle fine his ubermensch genes are.

He has to be *taught*.  And teaching occurs within a cultural *context*.

Yeah, right.  Leonardo da Vinci’s work had *nothing* to do with his being born & reared in Renaissance Italy.  Nope.  Nada, zilch.  Dante’s work had nothing to do with the Christian civilization in which he was reared.

Had Leonardo & Dante been whisked away across time & space as babes and placed in a trailer-park and his mind suckled on Spongebob Squarepants and the other joys of cable television, why, they’d still have been geniuses because they had the magical White Man’s Gene.

And Soviet architecture is ugly & Communist science relating to heredity was stupid not because Communism is an ugly, stupid culture—but because Slavs are just biological inferiors who can’t produce anything better.

(Sigh.)

Is it that hard to recognize that maybe the secret of Life is not found by grinding people down into building-blocks—be they atoms or be they genes?

Is it that hard to accept that just maybe there’s more than one factor that goes into making us who we are?

Is it that hard to accept that just maybe human beings cannot be summed up in a single, solitary, all-encompassing ideological principle—whether Chromosomes or Culture?

Yeah, what do I share with alien races—with their icky-Other alien DNA?

http://www.manabi-takaoka.jp/03/eng/area/detail/1401/2/detail.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urakami

Screw ‘em.  No kin of mine.

Response to Kurt Higdon:

That isn’t what I said, but whatever…

Response to G.S

You seem like another miserable, constipated reactionary A-Hole? What rock did you crawl out from under? Who pissed in your corn flakes today? You’ve taken my remarks and completely twisted them out of context. Who said Race or genetics were “everything”? Yes, the racially mixed offspring Kurt Higdon asked me about were as described. Would you care for further elaboration?

Response to “Cundliff”

Right from the Frankfurt School playbook

When unable to support assertions or make adequate response, engage in ad hominem attacks, i.e. “stormfronter,” “nazi,” “Your favorite philosopher, Rosenberg,” etc.

Reality Check for Neocon nutjob “Cundliff”

I’ve never posted on Stormfront in my life. On the other hand, you share their same mentality, if not ideology, not matter how you try to mask it in Catholic/"Burkean" BS.

Maybe when you’re run off this list eventually, you’ll try out Stormfront?

Response to “Cundliff”

Once again, you resort to smears, name-calling, and ad hominem attacks. It’s your forte out here and on other forums you post at. No big deal. As for providing “proof” of my assertions, there is an extensive and exhaustive body of research and findings in support of my position. Racial differences in intelligence are pretty well-established, the main argument being over whether these discrepancies are based more on environmental or hereditary influences. There has also been further research establishing genetic-based racial differences in many other areas, such as susceptibility to disease, different rates of physiological growth and development, and so forth. Would you like me to cite sources for you? You can then do your own homework, if interested. I’m not doing it for you. On the other hand, you’ve no provided no proof whatsoever for your ridiculous claims that “genes don’t matter” and “have nothing to do with culture,” aka Race is meaningless. What are these views based on? Religious mythology, a Papal Encyclical, or what? What, if any, scientific evidence exists which proves Jesus ever existed let alone that an “Immacualate Conception” of his alleged Mother ever took place?

Over to you, Neocon…

“Yes, the racially mixed offspring Kurt Higdon asked me about were as described. Would you care for further elaboration?”

Yes, please.

Which parts are Caucasian, and which parts are Amerindian?

“What, if any, scientific evidence exists which proves Jesus ever existed...”

Try first-hand accounts.

“Cundliff’s Historical Innacuracies

While Racialism in various ideological formats dates back to the mid 19th century, to deny that human societies prior to this era had no conception of race or differences between the races is absolute nonsense. In fact, Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese and Vedic Indians clearly made distinctions along racial, tribal, and ethnic lines. Would you like examples?

Cundliff’s attempts to disprove the essentially Racialist vision of America’s Founders is another desperate ploy on his part. It is quite clear Jefferson believed that Blacks and Whites were unable to live under the same government and supported the idea(at least in theory)of repatriating Blacks back to Africa. A little group was founded called the American Colonization Society? Ever hear of it? Many prominent figures in American History, including several Presidents were members. Immigration and naturalization policies until the 1965 “reform” show very clearly that The U.S. was to be a European-descended nation, not your favorite Neocon ideologue Ben Wattenberg’s concept of “the first universal nation.”

Shouldn’t you be on Free Republic or NRO?

Your views sound like a sanitized Ben Wattenberg/Jack Kemp Neo-Conized revision of real history. Back to the drawing board and hopefully, the fever-swamps for you. See you at the next McCain rally!

Response to G.S.

On Yeshua ben Yosef aka “Jesus H. Christ,” No proof whatsoever exists that he ever lived. If such exists other than biblical nonsense, i’m willing to hear it.

As to Higdon’s Friend’s offspring, they are of mixed European ethnicity and one-quarter Amerindian. Therefore, three-quarters Caucasian and one-quarter Amerindian.  Why is this so difficualt to grasp?

Note how NANR still tell us nothing of his credentials. Note how NANR has backed off his argument that the Constitution forbids Blacks to be citizens.  Note that he offers no proof that Germans have piano genes or Italians have painting genes.  He says such proof exists, but his “proof” is found only in Houston Steward Chamberlain’s idiocy.  Note how he continues to shirk his burden of proof. And now this blog is too stale for anyone to read proof should it be forthcoming (it won’t be).

Some physical diseases are genetic; most area caused by bacteria and viruses, as Louis Pasteur proved. But no cultural traits or intellectual achievements can be tranced to genetics, and certainly not to “race”, a category about as important as eye color. 

And now he doubt the historicity of the founder of the Christian religion.  NO ONE holds the view now among historians, Classics scholars and Bible scholars.  (I suppose NANR has degrees in these fields too, or has extensively read in them!) I suppose next we’ll here that Alexander the Great was an invention of MGM pictures. 

Folks, this fellow is just too absurd.  Yet useful.  I’ve told good men like Paul Gottfried that the “Far Right” was at best Neopagan and at worst as radically Christophobic and Judeophobic.  NANR should have been read Miranda rights before touching his keyboard.

Response to “Cundliff’s latest spout of verbal diarrhea.

“Cundliff’s complaints that I haven’t shown my “credentials” are absurd and unworthy of a serious reply, as if one requires a doctorate in Anthropology or Genetics to hold informed, educated opinions regarding these subjects. Ole Sid hasn’t displayed his credentials in any discipline, yet freely voices his views on everything from Israeli politics to Lincoln, Race, Theology, etc. etc. When challenged on his absurd and extreme views on Race, he resorts to smear-mongering and name-calling in typical leftist fashion, yet describes himself laughably as a “Burkean-Tory"(whatever that means in 2008). Why not just call yourself a Whig?

Sid grows almost apoplectic when the historicity of his mythical deity is challenged. He’s provided no proof that Yeshua ben Yosef ever existed in human form. Instead, he throws out more invective, i.e “neo-pagan,” far-right,” blah, blah, blah. Next, he’ll be citing the shroud of turin as proof for his saviour’s corporeal existence. Next, he does a little name-dropping, citing Paul Gottfried in his crusade against Racialists and other targets of his hatred forgetting that Dr. Gottfried was a personal friend of Sam Francis and has made favorable comments regarding Jared Taylor and American Renaissance(whose existence must infuriate old Sid to no end). Dr. Gottfried is on record supporting European Nationalist parties such as the BNP, Front National, etc. in their fight against Mass Third World Immigration and in support of a Europe for Indigenous Europeans. Apparently, Sid’s “good friend,” Dr. Gottfried is clearly on the side of those whom he’d like to purge from his ideal Tory/Burkean/Whig American Right. Dr. Gottfried, unlike flat-earther” Sid stuck back in the 11th century, considers Race and Racial differences to be of great importance. Eventually, Sid will turn on his “friend” and probably denounce him as a Racialist or Nationalist. So much for consistency in Sid’s dream world!

On the subject Race, Sid displays a deliberate, almost child-like ignorance. Sid claims to be a Rightist, but where this subject is concerned, comes across like the most fanatic egalitarian, cultural marxist one may conjure up in your worst nightmare. Sid would’ve been disrupting Dr. Shockley’s classes along with the Marxist Progressive Labor Party demanding his firing for daring to express heretical views on Race and Intelligence. He’d join the same scum against Arthur Jensen, Phil Rushton, Michael Levin, Richard Lynn, Frank Ellis, and others challenging the currently prevailing, but weakening, egalitarian dogma on Race.

Once again, Ole Sid conveniently ignores the findings of Anthropology, Genetics, Archaeology, Psychology, Biology, and the overwhelming evidence which conclusively establishes the biological reality of Race and the correlation between Race and differences in Intelligence. Sid is smart enough to know that these differences exist, and are largely, but by no means, exclusively, determined by hereditary factors, yet offers no alternative explanation.

It’s so much more fun to engage in smear-mongering, juvenile bs, like calling someone a “nazi” or a “stormfronter,” instead.

Maybe Ole Sid should do a little more reading and a little less name-calling. Maybe Ole Sid should try to live up to the alleged precepts of his professed religion, just for a change.

More “Cundliff” Historical Gaffes.

Ole Sidney claims my views on the original U.S. Constitution excluding Blacks from American Citiznship are in error. In reality, Blacks weren’t considered citizens at all until the passage of the 14th Amendment, in the aftermath of the Civil War.

So much for Sidney’s ideal of “The First Universal Nation.”

Still no proof.  Still no evidence of a Beethoven gene in Germans.  Still no credentials. Still no quote of the Constitution supposedly denying certain people citizenship. Case closed

Response to “Cundliff’s latest nonsense:

I’ve cited the original Constitutional clause counting Negroes as 3/5 of a human being, the fact that Negroes as a whole weren’t granted U.S. Citizenship until the passage of the 14th Amendment, and the well known sentiments of the founders regarding race-based differences. I could also cite as further evidence of America’s racialist foundations, the Chinese Exclusion Act, 1924 Immigration Act, and several other measures designed to preserve America as a primarily European descended Nation. Your question regarding a “Beethoven Gene” amongst Germans is a classic straw man argument and is a desperate ploy to avoid dealing with the main topic. On the other hand, you haven’t offered one shred of data disproving or discrediting the role of Genetics in determining Intelligence, or whether distinct human population groups, i.e Races, exist or not. Stick to clutching at your rosary beads and dreaming about the revival of the Confederacy, or a reversion to some Whig/Tory 18th century paradise. When you can amass data challenging the scientific foundations of genetic race-based differences, come back and talk to me. Until then, content yourself living in a reactionary dream world that was destroyed a century and half ago(your theological views date back even further).

Case closed.

“Notice the relentless attempt to divided white Catholics from white Protestants no matter the subject of the posting (this is no different from infiltrating the Asian-centric Model Minority forum and aggravating fault lines between, say, Koreans and Japanese: divide & conquer). Notice the omnipresent Marxism underlying Capp/Cundiff’s arguments. Notice the classic Soviet style debating techniques: the bigger the lie, the better”.
Spot on Roger, and you could add a couple more to your list of divisive posters and commentators. Most of this religious superstition/drivel belongs in the 16th century and has no place on a modern political web site.

“Is it that hard to accept that just maybe human beings cannot be summed up in a single, solitary, all-encompassing ideological principle—whether Chromosomes or Culture?”
GS your politically correct comment may appear valid to the naive, unfortunately for you, scientific research is continually reinforcing the primacy of genes. For example, the extensive studies on identical twins who have been raised from childhood in different environments have shown repeatedly that genes and not environment are dominant in determining personal abilities.

“But no cultural traits or intellectual achievements can be tranced to genetics, and certainly not to “race”, a category about as important as eye color.”
Sid, as I am pretty sure you know, the above comment is drivel. There have been a host of studies demonstrating significant differences in IQ between human races. Indeed, significant progress has now been made in identifying genes in mice that determine differences in memory retention etc. A simple Google search would reveal such information. As noted by Roger, I suspect that you are a disinformation agent.

As I said above, the 3/5s clause applied to slaves, not a race.  And it was a compromise forced on the South by the North; the South wanted slaves counted as whole person.  So NANR is a liar. 

Still no evidence. Still shirking the burden of proof.

And ian too offers no evidence.  And like NANR has no credentials.  And shirks the burden of proof.

Response to “Cundiff”

And, One again, for the umpteenth time…

You offer not one shred of data of evidence disproving racial differences in intelligence

You’ve not revealed your true name nor credentials in political science, genetics, anthropology, foreign affairs, economics, and so on and so forth…

Looks like the crusty old Whig gets slammed again!

Crusty Ole Whig Sid…

Sorry to burst another one of your bubbles(Just wait till I start tearing you apart on Tariffs and “Free” Trade bs), but the original constitution didn’t draw distinctions between free or enslaved Negroes. The Southern Plantation Slavocracy you champion certainly were cognizant of differences between the races and would’ve laughed your ole crusty whig butt out into the street. LOL!!

Still lying about the Constitution, never citing it. Still no credentials. Still no evidence. Still shirking the burden of proof

Crusty Ole Whig Sid…

Where’s your credentials?

Where’s your proof for any of the egalitarian and race-denying nonsense you routinely spout out here?

Tell us what an American “Christian Democrat” is?

Are they similar to their European counterparts? The same people who opened Europe up(along with “Social Democrats") to Globalism and Third World Mass Immigration?

Where does the “Tory-Burkean” Tradition exist today?

Name one politician or political party in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or Britain where this tradition exists in any recognizable form?

Sounds like another of Sid’s pipe dreams?

Maybe like that of reviving the CSA, The Gold Standard, or rolling back the Reformation?

Maybe next, you’ll take up the cause of reviving the Holy Roman Empire or the Austro-Hungarian Empire?

Sid absolutely opposes Nationalism, Racialism, and even what he calls Ethnic Nationalism?

Sid’s positions on these issues exactly mirror those of the present “managerial-elite” led power structure in “post-western” Europe, America, and Australia.

What kind of poison is Ole Sid peddling?

Beware of cultural marxists in Tory/Reactionary clothing.

When I started reading these posts about genetics, race and culture I wanted to suggest you read Thomas Sowell’s books on Race and Culture. He documents pretty well the fact that native intelligence--the genetic mix--varies very little among human groups. Knowledge, or acquired learning varies greatly based on the environment--culture--of the group. The same person raised among the aborigines of Australia as compared to a properous American suburb will reflect his culture inspite of his genetic, inherited IQ. Most of the vitriolic postings ignore the distinction between “intelligence” and acquired knowledge. They blur the distinction which is why they come to no conclusion or agreement.

Looking at historical case studies over the millennia there have been successful societies all around the globe, unaffected by race of genetics. The affluent ,erchants of the Eastern Empires were as “smart” as those in Venice, Timbuktu, Bombay, or everywhere along the Silk Road. The long-tern differences in success were determined by the cultures and belief systems of a few small groups. In “Common Genius,” just published by Laissez Faire Books, I suggest that terms “Euro-Centric” history, or “white, western Christianity,” be replaced by the term “Freedom-Centric Theory of History,” because the long and segmnented path to modern affluent nations started back with the entrepreneurs of Phoenicia and sporadically advanced through Greece, Rome, the Basques, the Hnaseatic cities, Florence, Holland, Scotlad, England and finaly moved on toAmerica.  Each of these stepping stones had one common denominator--they were smal isolated regions overlooked by major powers, with economic freedom allowing theri people to act freely and to lead relatively unfettered lives.  They were no more intelligent than the people of Asia or Africa or micronesia, but they had freedom from oppressive authorities, both spiritual and secular--almost all other stagnant societies were burdened by aristocracies and over-regulated centralized governing structures.  That is why we should call fro Freedom-Centric rule in the backward parts of the world. The mechanics of free enterprise and individual freedom are all that is required for a nation to advance. The people in Singapore, Dubai, and Hong Kong have fared as well as those in “The West” because they have employed the empowering principle of economic freedom. Their race and genetics are irrelevan and their success establishes that. Hernando de Soto’s books also establish that the determing factor in a nation’s progress is based on providing economic freedom to the common people--that any racial group will perform as well as another if just given the freedom to operate. This new theory of historical causation can be googles under “the Radzewicz Rule” and it supports basic conservative ideas about decentralized limited government. The theory also suggests that the growing regulatory burdens of Western nations will subvert their historic success and economic victories will flow to those nations such as the Asian Tigers that have adopted the winning strategy of free enterprise. Thus, the decline of the West is being brought on by centralized maternal governments dominated by populist poluticians who buy votes after brainwashing their electoratesinto thinking of themselves a victims instead of heros. Kirk’s book on heroes is cited in “Common Genius” as support for these ideas and he deserves credit for working with Goldwater to re-establish the growing ideas of conservative limited government. Bill Greene (real name!)

Reply To Bill Greene:

I’ve read Sowell’s work and remain unconvinced. Besides, what else would you expect from him? The famous Minnesota Twins experiments pretty much blow Sowell’s entire thesis right out of the water. As far as genetic differences between the races, recent findings in this area have established that these are real and fairly concrete.

The examples of successful capitalist societies in Asia you’ve cited hardly invalidates arguments for genetic-based racial differences. North East Asian Peoples(Koreans, Japanese, Chinese)have scored slightly higher on standardized intelligence tests(Avg. I.Q. 105) than Europeans.

Where are the Latin American or Black African “Tigers”?

Since Sub-Saharan Africa hasn’t developed one indigenous-based advanced culture or civilization on any level comparable with European or Asian societies, past or present, the overall outlook is pretty grim.

You talk of freedom and markets, etc. but the Asian “tigers” you refer to all are heavily regulated and protectionist. These cultures are group and not individual-oriented. All these societies are highly racially and ethnically homogenous, and have the advantage of a cohesiveness the U.S. and Third World Immigrant infested Western Europe increasingly lacks.

I doubt you’ll find one Japanese, Korean, or Chinese who buys into Libertarian nonsense about the virtues of unfettered plutocracy and Lassiez-Faire.

Your posting also provides another abject lesson as to the similarities between rival economic determinist philosophies such as Marxism and Capitalism. Both view Man as Homo Economicus, i.e. motivated solely by materialism and “rational self-interest.” If we just establish the right sort of economic relations, we’ll have heavan on earth. Either a Communist paradise where the state eventually withers away or some sort of Lassiez-Faire utopia, where “free agents” will blissfully produce and consume into eternity. We can see increasingly throughout the 20th and into the early part of this century that this paradigm doesn’t correspond to reality or human nature, and that we desperately need some sort of alternative.

Reply to NANR:

You cannot discard hundreds of pages of Sowell’s documented ana;ysis with a cavalier comment that “recent studies have done such and such. .” And, really, the Minnesota Rwins experiments you refer to ?  They’re a basebal team !! This is a serious subject that calls for rational argument--not stream od conciousness babble.  Makes me remember Cap’t Kirk’s greatline— “Beam me up, Scotty. . .”

Response to Bill Greene:

Here’s an interesting article:

Tiny Genetic Differences Have Huge Consequences

http://www.physorg.com/news119947859.html

More later…

Frank Purcell writes of Kirk that he never was a neo-con, but did nothing much to offend them at least during the first few decades of his fame.

I don’t think that during Kirk’s early career as a conservative writer there was much consciousness of the neo/paleo distinction. That didn’t come until the 1980s. A seminal moment was the withdrawal of the nomination of M.E. Bradford, a traditionalist conserrvative, to head the National Endowment for the Humanities. Bradford was a Southerner and had written papers critical of Lincoln’s Constitutional theory, his assertions of executive power, and other aspects of the Union’s conduct during the War Between the States. These brought Bradford into conflict with such people as Harry Jaffa, the Straussian head of the Claremont Institute. Whereas before Bradford’s nomination to the NEH these conflicts were purely on an academic level, now the knives came out amongst the journalists and political hacks. George Will wrote a column decrying the nomination. Eventually Bradford withdrew and the neo-con favorite, William “Bet-a-Million” Bennett, was installed in his place.

I was acquainted both with Kirk and with Bradford, certainly not well enough to claim them as close friends, but both were men I admired and spoke with on a number of occasions. To say that Kirk avoided offending neo-cons is a peculiar misrepresentation. As a matter of fact he once made a quip about neo-cons mistaking Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States. At least one prominent neo-con, the execrable John Podhoretz, was still bleating about this within the last year or two on NRO’s “The Corner.”

As for Kirk’s reported reluctance to attend Mass because of his distaste for the priest at his church, I have known a number of Catholics with no pretensions to be men of letters or political philosophers who have expressed similar sentiments.  I have a good friend who, long estranged from the Church, married late, fathered a son, and began going to church again because he and his wife wanted to raise his child in the faith. My friend attends mass but has mostly avoided taking communion because he can’t bring himself to confess to the priest at his church, whom he dislikes. People are quirky and flawed and behave oddly on some points. If Kirk did so, it only proves that the intelligent and articulate are no more exempt from these peculiarities than are completely ordinary folk. I hope Dr. Purcell will find it in his heart to forgive him. I think God will.

One small note/clarification: I was Dr. Kirk’s assistant for the years 1971-1972. As such I had some responsibility for the preparation of his little quarterly, THE UNVERSITY BOOKMAN.  The BOOKMAN did publish authors and
scientists who maintained that there were cognitive and genetic differences between the races, and Dr. Kirk also believed that to be true. The great preponderance of evidence today tends to confirm that there are definable DNA difference. That said, such a view should not be used as a basis for hatred based on race which would certainly violate Christian belief.Dr. Kirk, I believe, would have rejected that as well. Nevertheless, as anyone who has read his historical novel, A CREATURE FOR THE TWILIGHT may attest, he opposed decolonization and felt that native Africans were not, generally, prepared for independence. That did not prevent him from inviting exiled members of Ethiopian nobility into his household. And certainly “race” was NOT his paramount issue, by any means; but it was part of the cultural equation that had to be understood, and could not be ignored.

I’m not trying to stir controversy, simply to state what I know is factual.

That should read: A CREATURE OF THE TWILIGHT....

Dr. Cathey,

Thank you for this clarification on Kirk’s views concerning racial differences. Certainly, recognition or awareness of said differences isn’t tantamount to endorsing hatred or mindless bigotry.

hello everybody,
i use the viagra pills at last time (about four monthes) but two days ago i found
an article about cialis. and now i am going to order cilais at http://www.edtabsonline.com/ and test this tab.
Someone took this tablet before? Whats the effect?
Thanx