Lehrman American Studies Center

Russell Kirk's best known work was published in 1953. It often is cited as one of the major books that established the post-World War II American conservative movement and critical success launched Russell Kirk into national prominence. In the book, Kirk looked to Burke as the beginning of the modern conservative movement with its values of tradition, morality, and religion, and traced the movement’s evolution to post-World War II America.

Rejecting an ideological definition of conservatism, Kirk contended that the defining characteristic of conservatism was an inclination to value the permanent things in human existence: custom, tradition, religion, and moral imagination. These permanent things were derived from experience of tradition and the insights of great men whose learning was passed down generation from generation. Although Kirk defended tradition, he was not opposed to change; rather, he stressed that genuine reform must take place within the context of a tradition. The task for the statesman is to preserve and reform at the same time.

Thus, true conservatism for Kirk was the recognition of man's spiritual and social nature that acknowledge universal moral norms. By contrast, romantics and utilitarians like Rousseau and Bentham presented ideological threats to the moral and political foundations of western societies. Kirk condemned them for failing to acknowledge an ethical standard beyond self-interest and believed their notions that sought to transform human nature were contrary to the permanent moral and spiritual nature of man. The primary conflict of our time therefore was one of opposing types of imagination: the romantic and utilitarian with their premises of individualism and the conservative with his reverence for tradition, continuity, and the permanent things.