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Entry: Postmodern, Not Hypermodern: Russell Kirk Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/postmodern_not_hypermodern_russell_kirk#14139 Post contents: Many thanks to Wesley McDonald for his clarifications. Much of what I know about Russell Kirk came from <i>The Sword of Imagination</i>, 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?) Sent at: 2008 07 20