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Dear
John,
In their own time, Martin Luther King Jr. and Russell Kirk occupied different ends of the political spectrum. Their philosophies inspired two of the most powerful movements of the age: the Nonviolent Movement (which led to the larger Civil Rights Movement) and the modern Conservative Movement. Without King and Kirk, modern American Social Justice liberalism and modern American conservatism as we know them would not exist.
And yet, for all of their differences, our modern politics suffer because contemporary liberalism and conservatism often lack the grounding in virtues, communitarian values and faith in an ordered universe to which both Kingian Nonviolence and Kirkian Conservatism held fast. Is it possible that by reacquainting ourselves with these lost traditions we could summon the better angels of left and right and restore a politics of virtue for the modern age?
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