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Entry: After Paleoconservatism (II) Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/after_paleoconservatism_ii#24705 Post contents: Dr. Havers: Your second comment seems rather different from your first, which dismissed the value of historical thinking, labeling it "pining for lost golden ages." Of course, restoration is very hard work; of course, most conservatives have no idea how hard it is; but for that matter, most conservatives don't really desire restoration, even of 30-50 years back. The Christian, however, realizes that we are called to restore the world in Christ, and we have the hope of doing so precisely because Christ conquered death and restored life to mankind. Such restoration will not happen, however, if we spend our days in envious emulation of the "success" of neoconservatives, a "success" which has been gained by foregoing restoration and instead engaging, like all leftists, in ongoing revolution. True restoration will never be imposed, Jacobin-style, from above; it will arise from families and parishes and neighborhoods and regions that make the effort to return to the good life that men have lived throughout the ages. As long as we try to capture the future, we never will. The true hope for the future lies in the past, and that's not mere quixotic nostalgia. Sent at: 2008 07 24