The best of intellectual conservative thought, every Thursday
View this email in your browser

CATEGORY: CONSERVATISM (25 min)

Flaws That Shed Light

Donald Trump didn’t “Build That Wall” after 2016. But what he did do was tear down that wall about who or what counts as “conservative.”
 
Writing in First Things, ISI’s Daniel McCarthy sizes up two recent books that sift through the rubble and attempt to stake out conservatism’s contours today:
 

  • Matthew Continetti’s The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism; and
  • Yoram Hazony’s Conservatism: A Rediscovery.

 
These books cover some similar territory, McCarthy writes, but in many ways they’re complete opposites . . .
 
. . . in their stances concerning classical liberalism and its role in the American founding . . . and in their diagnoses of what the right must do today.
 
McCarthy examines the “serious flaws” of each work. But, he writes,
 
Those flaws are the flaws of conservatism itself, in either its liberalism-preserving mode or its attempt to maintain modernity’s constitutional traditions while escaping the constraints of modernity’s moral and economic conditions.”
 
So you’d do well to familiarize yourself with those flaws. Learn from them.
 
And then take up the most difficult task of all: “Thinking seriously about what the political right wants, and what it can achieve.”

Read Now »

CATEGORY: CULTURE WAR (9 min)

The moral backsliding is appalling

Remember when conservative politicians boldly defended traditional marriage?
 
Only seven years ago, Republican congressmen denounced Obergefell in no uncertain terms: The Supreme Court was trampling marriage, state laws, and Constitutional processes.
 
Today, writes Tony Perkins in The Daily Signal, it seems like the Republican Party has “moved on.”
 
The culture wars are only heating up, and an increasing number of Republican congressmen are either voting for same-sex marriage . . . or remaining conspicuously silent on the bill.
 
What’s changed?” asks Perkins:
 
Certainly not the significance of marriage—or the Constitution. Not the party’s platform or the role of states’ rights . . . What’s changed is that we have a Republican Party willing to go to the mat for sports but seemingly unwilling to stand up for an institution whose redefinition has ignited a firestorm of persecution in America.”
 
Make no mistake, he writes. The fight over marriage is at the bitter root” of battles over gender ideology, drag queen story hour, and trans athletes in girls’ locker rooms.
 
If Republican politicians are no longer willing to contest this ground . . . the future looks grim.

Read Now »

American Economic Forum: July 29-30, Washington, D.C.

ISI invites you to our 2022 American Economic Forum, to be held July 29-30 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., to hear leading conservative politicians, intellectuals, and thought leaders debate the best way for conservatives in 2022 to apply fundamental economic principles to our current crises.

For a limited time, students register for free. And if you’re under 30, weekend tickets are only $50.

You’ll hear panel discussions on a range of important topics, including: cronyism in the administrative stateChina geonomics, big tech censorship, woke capital, middle-class prosperity, and more.

This is a conversation you don’t want to miss.

 

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

Georgetown Mask Mandate Ignores Public Health Consensus
 via Georgetown Review

Tennessee judge halts Biden LGBTQ order, Cornell unaffected via The Cornell Review

 
CATEGORY: RUSSELL KIRK (31 min)

On Ideology and the Moral Imagination


Writing in Modern Age, Edward E. Ericson, Jr. reflects on the thought and influence of Solzhenitsyn and Russell Kirk.
 
Ericson was a scholar of Solzhenitsyn and no acolyte of Kirk, but he admits that “reading Kirk prepared me to appreciate Solzhenitsyn.”
 
He draws out two key concepts in depth: “ideology” and “the moral imagination.”
 
Kirk and Solzhenitsyn both understand “ideology” as any doctrine that usurps with human explanation the hidden and divine truth of the world. And it’s immensely powerful in its capacity to justify evil. Ericson calls The Gulag Archipelago “a sustained argument against ideology, heavily seasoned with examples.”
 
And the moral imagination? It’s “the principal possession that man does not share with the beasts.”
 
As you consider the future of conservatism in our troubled age, these thinkers will provide you with a feast for thought.
Read Now »
Thought of the Day:

“At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.

—Plato

Thank you for reading. Share with a friend!

Forward Forward
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Share Share

Who We Are, What We Do


Too many college students feel isolated or attacked for questioning the ever-narrowing range of debate on campus.

We introduce you to the American tradition of liberty and to a vibrant community of students and scholars so that you get the collegiate experience you hunger for.

 
Become a Supporter »
Our mailing address is:
Intercollegiate Studies Institute
3901 Centerville Road
Wilmington, DE 19807

Add us to your address book


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list