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CATEGORY: CONSERVATISM (9 min)

Is There Common Ground in Common-Good Conservatism?


There’s a New Year’s feast for your thoughts in the New Criterion: a debate on “common-good conservatism.” Roger Kimball introduces it.
 
On the surface, Kimball writes, this debate features a conservatism of nationalism (à la Edmund Burke) vs. one of moral renewal (think: Aquinas and Aristotle).

But dig a little deeper and you see a bigger dispute between these new strands of conservatism and what some have termed “Conservatism, Inc.”
 
And beyond that, Kimball writes, you’ve got the real problem. Get his thoughts here as you settle down for the feast.
 
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CATEGORY: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY (8 min)

The Folly of Historicists


Consider the arrogance of the deconstructionist, Randall Smith writes.

These individuals pretend to expose the historical and biographical contexts that determine an author’s work, while never subjecting their own scholarship to the same analysis.
 
“When we deconstruct authors in this way, reducing them to our own preconceived categories, we no longer hear their voices, we hear only the mocking echo of our own,” Smith writes.
 
What’s the scholarly alternative to this impoverished historicism?

Smith shares thoughts from C.S. Lewis and Pope John Paul II that are good places to start.
 
Get that wisdom right here.

 
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Because our student editors and writers are bravely bringing conservative ideas to their campuses, we’re highlighting their efforts here.

The Three Faces of Washington D.C.: An Intern’s Perspective via The Standard

A Timeline of Cornell’s Endemic Restrictions via the Cornell Review
 
CATEGORY: CULTURE (4 min)

To Conservatives Who Want to Save Culture


“Beauty will save the world.”

If you know that quotation, you probably appreciate great art and culture.

But it’s one thing to appreciate great art and culture. It’s quite another to understand what makes it and how to preserve it.

So we consulted a painter.

Creation, Not Consumption

In this week’s Intercollegiate Review essay, painter Michael J. Pearce explains the conservative’s role in culture, and what conservative art can look like. Read it to learn:
  1. The agreement conservatives have with past and future generations
  2. The relationship between created works and those who enjoy them
  3. What conservative art looks like today

If you’re a conservative who appreciates the arts and culture, this guide is for you.

 
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The Weaver Fellowship, January 15, 2022


Are you considering pursuing grad school? ISI’s Weaver Fellowship can help fund your academic year.

These fellowships seek to uphold the idea of academic excellence and the role of education in producing persons capable of making reasoned choices in favor of liberty.

After more than fifty years, the ISI graduate fellows program boasts some of the most distinguished figures in the academy and public life.

But hurry, the application deadline is January 15, 2022. Make sure you apply today!
 
Apply Now »

“For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice.”

—T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

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