thoughts in and out of season
A Swedish correspondent wrote to ask why ideas of historical and cultural community never seem to go anywhere today. My response continues some of the thoughts touched on in the recent discussion of social conservatism:
… More ...The basic problem I think is that such ideas depend on notions of what one is, and the modern
Takimag has published the following piece I wrote on social conservatism. Unfortunately, they no longer allow comments, which was always half the fun of publishing there.
Is Social Conservatism Necessary?
by James Kalb
January 15, 2009
Is Social Conservatism Necessary?
The voices of conventional wisdom are telling us once again that the Right should … More ...
I’ve been doing some radio interviews to promote my book, maybe a couple dozen in total. Here are some I have links to:
Here’s the text of a talk I gave at the first annual conference of The H. L. Mencken Club. (Actually, I only had time to present the first 3/5 or so of the talk. The remainder was mostly a rehash of previous talks, though, so maybe it’s just as well.)
James … More ...
I expanded the lecture I gave last summer at Gardone into a series of three essays that can be found in the October, November, and December issues of The Angelus. You can also read a Google docs version of the series as a single document.
Here’s the text of remarks regarding “The Future of Conservatism” I made on a panel at an ISI conference at Yale.
I’ve got 15 minutes to talk about the future of conservatism, so all I can do is present one part of that future in bold strokes.
Conservatism has big problems today. When you’ve … More ...
People have been asking me questions about my book, and I’m going to be giving some talks and radio interviews over the next month or two, so I thought I’d start putting together a Q&A on issues likely to be raised. Comments, criticisms, complaints and additions are welcome. The Q&A is likely to keep growing, … More ...
I just finished reading Robert Nisbet’s The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom. I had never read it before, I suppose because the name made it sound a bit platitudinous. In fact, though, it’s a frighteningly acute study of the close relation among (i) the modern absolute state, … More ...
There’s a tendency today to criticize “essentialism,” the idea that something like Islam has an enduring character such that (for example) you aren’t going to see a moderate liberal Islam become the predominant form of the religion.
I’m inclined toward a moderate essentialism. It seems to me that at bottom the opposing nominalist view is … More ...
The modern technological outlook can’t deal with issues of identity, because it abolishes essences—understandings of what things “really are”—in favor of measurable properties that fit the thing for particular chosen ends. That’s why it’s thought ignorant, irrational and abusive to treat someone differently because he’s a man or a gypsy, but not because he … More ...