By Dan Flynn

"A good many people fret themselves over the rather impossible speculation that the earth itself might be blown asunder by nuclear weapons," Russell Kirk observed shortly before his death in 1994. "The grimmer and more immediate prospect is that men and women may be reduced to a sub-human state through limitless indulgence in their own vices-with ruinous consequences to society generally."

While college students are inundated with the writings of Jacques Derrida, Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault and other intellectually vacuous authors, the timeless wisdom of as towering an intellect as Russell Kirk is almost entirely excluded. Not so at Accuracy in Academia's Conservative University, which introduced Kirk's work to a new generation of students this summer. Redeeming the Time, a posthumously published collection of Kirk's essays on such broad topics as the modern university, religion, human rights, natural law, multiculturalism, and equality, was the required reading for the 70 full-time enrollees of Conservative University 2001. Through C-SPAN, hundreds of thousands of viewers were exposed to the wisdom of Kirk as well, as the lecture and ensuing discussion was broadcast to a nationwide audience via cable television.

Born in Mecosta, Michigan in 1918, Kirk gained prominence in 1953 with the publication of The Conservative Mind. The book, which tracked conservative thinking from Edmund Burke to T.S. Eliot, was in large part responsible for the resurgence of conservative thought in the postwar era. For more than 40 years thereafter, Kirk would play a central role in the Conservative Movement. The author of more than 30 books, including The Roots of American Order, John Randolph of Roanoke, and America's British Culture, the former Michigan State University professor wrote a column on higher education for National Review for a quarter century. Although he advised Presidents Nixon and Reagan, Kirk did not see the political sphere as the area equipt to make the most needed societal reforms.

"He never had much faith in the capacity of politics to do much good," Wes McDonald, a professor of political science at Elizabethtown College, told students at Conservative University. "He insisted that the most important challenges were always of a spiritual, moral, and intellectual nature." Kirk attempted to meet these challenges through his writings.

"Now what is this distinction of humanitarianism and charity have to do with justice?" Redeeming the Time asks. "The point is this: the humanitarian denies the existence of sin, declaring that what we call 'sins' are not moral matters at all, resulting instead from circumstance, faulty rearing, or social oppression. In the view of the humanitarian, sins-and crimes, too-are the work of 'society'; and sinners and criminals are victims, rather than unjust offenders." Kirk strongly rejected this sort of "humanitarianism."

Like all conservatives, Kirk valued freedom. Yet he recognized that there were other important characteristics to a governing philosophy. Without order, he pointed out, there could be no freedom. Without deference to a higher authority than man-God-there could be no order. "Out of chaos arises order," he wrote in Redeeming the Time, "and once order prevails, freedom becomes possible. When the faith that nurtured the order fades away, the order disintegrates; and freedom no more can survive the disappearance of order than the branch of a tree can outlast the fall of the trunk."

Wes McDonald directed this year's spirited book discussion on Conservative University's assigned reading, which in years past has focused on such classics as Frederic Bastiat's The Law and Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy, the State. For many years an assistant of Russell Kirk, McDonald has recently completed work on a book, The Conservative Mind of Russell Kirk, which will be published next year. Based both on his own personal experiences and his scholarly research, McDonald guided students through the basic tenets of Kirk's thought.

"Central to Kirk's teaching," McDonald pointed out, "is a dualistic view of human nature." Man is capable of both good and evil. This put Kirk at odds not only with the Marxists, but with many libertarians as well. "We're responsible for what we do in this world," is how McDonald summed up Kirk's view of individual responsibility. "We can't blame our wrongdoing on the faults of poverty, socio-economic forces, or inadequate potty-training…. That's what Kirk was talking about."

Egalitarianism, social engineering, the nanny-state, contempt for tradition, and atheism were all prevailing sentiments in the modern era that Kirk sought to overturn. If there was something that defined the conservative view, Kirk believed that it was the rejection of ideology. Real conservatives deferred to experience and tradition. The ideologue, both on the right and the left, worshipped ideas-regardless of whether these abstractions worked in practice or not. The modern battle between conservatives and leftists could be traced back to the French Revolution, Kirk believed, in which tradition was disastrously rejected for ideas-ideas that brought revolution, wars, and the horrors of post-1789 France. Edmund Burke, by speaking out forcefully against the Revolution, was seen as an early figure in modern conservative thought and one who was relied upon for wisdom throughout Kirk's body of work.

The book program's discussion period sparked a spirited debate regarding Kirk's views on the role of liberty, order, and morality in our society. One student wondered, "How do we redeem the time?" while another undergraduate lamented the current state of morality, asking, "Do you feel that Russell Kirk would think that the American public is getting what it deserves?" McDonald noted that "Most people are not wicked, they're weak," adding that Kirk's demeanor was always cheerful despite troubling phenomena in society. One student asked, how are conservatives to live in a culture that rejects their morality? "The answer is live the best kind of life you can live according to the best ethical standards. You light your little candle. You're going to be put down, called names, and you'll be unpopular. It's going to be hard, but you're going to have to. It's your responsibility."

McDonald divulged that as an undergrad he "devoured…a tattered copy of The Conservative Mind," Kirk's 1953 magnum opus. "It changed my life," he confessed, and thus began a lifelong interest in the ideas of Russell Kirk. Through McDonald's lecture and Conservative University's book program, many students now are set to undertake the same intellectual journey that McDonald embarked upon several decades ago.