I had the privilege of introducing the winner of this year henry and Anne Cote Taylor prize for the conservative book of the year. This years winner is dr. Daniel mahoney for his book the statesman as thinker portraits of greatness, courage, and moderation. [applause] dans book strikes a perfect name for introducing a new generation to some of the greatest thinkers and statesmen in history from cicero to de tocqueville Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill Charles Degaulle and many more and it exemplifies how one can combine action through the virtue of prudence especially amid very difficult circumstances. Dan has been involved with isi for decadesca and hes taught in the Honors Program for over 15 years and has published three books with isi in addition to riding regularly for modern age and lecturing on College Campuses across the country. He is the emeritus at the Claremont Institute and senior rider at l 30 and he received his. A ta from the college of hoy cross and his m. A. And ph. D. From the Catholic University of america in political science. The winner of last years prize Victor Davis Hanson describes this book as quote worthy of being written and researched to the classically trained and thinking man of action. Dan joins a long list of ofaccomplished honorees includig Victor David Hanson Wilford Mcclay and are Robert Angela codevilla and many more to please join me in welcoming this years winner daniel mahoney. [applause] well thank you so much for those very gracious words. I am going to continue developing a theme that was introduced by john burtka earlier tonight and that is the indispensabilityty of gratitudeo a truly civilized life. For me its a gratifying honor and a genuine delight to be awarded the 2023 award for the conservative book of the year. A gratifying honor because ive been committed all my adult life to the essential preserving and transmitting and yes reforming and renewing the noble civilization and civic inheritances that help define the west and america. I received this honor gratefully as a sign that my efforts have borne. To receive this award is also a delight becauseht of my Long Association as johnny mentioned with isi and the interfaith studies institute one that stretches back somewhere in the 1990s. My first summer Honors Program was in williamsburg when it was 103 degrees and im amazed that people were jogging. I did not join them. And some of my fondest memories as academia as a whole are associated with isi. Some are Honors Programs in williamsburg virginia oxford and cambridge in the uk thats when the dollar was holding its own quebec city to the north that paragon of Political Correctness imposed christianity. And i also remember a full set of frames that made those experiences so rewarding and delightful. The wisdom anddo playfulness of the late great waller who is something of an isi institution and of course working with such editors at isi as mark henry, jeff nelson, art the young and dan mccarthy. And in recent years ive had the pleasure of participating in the George Washington statesmanship program delivering lectures on washington and lincoln churchville degaulle. Im also pleased to have an article on the late jesuit political theorist james d shaul and the brandnew issue of modern age there was a man who knew the meaning of revelation to the depths of his soul. Ive always felt family and friends that i know all seven jesuits in the world. Or maybe 12 or 14 but i know them all and father shaw was among the greatest of them. Ill tell youhs a quick story about him. Months before he died at the age of 91 i had just published a book called the idol of their aged about the humanity of christianity and i wrote to him and i said father jim i need your address in california to send you my new book and he said nevermind down i party prepared it for the claremont review of books. He was a 91yearold jesuit who is alert right until the very end. And lets not forget all the bright decent amiable and energetic students i came across at isi over the years. And if you do challengeve the nerves but on the whole the students were just delights and open and hungry for the kind of wisdom that is less and less available on College Campuses today. So in a contemporary come climate where education at every level combined deliberate repudiation of our estimable heritage with ideological tendentiousness that seeks to destroy what remainsin of it, te work of isi has become even more necessary. Crowds that stand with isi in this enterprise. The inheritance we defend is not of course good simply because it is old or because it is ours but it is wisdom tried and true. As a result it appreciates that we can never begin a new with some revolutionary hero. Thats a reference to the fact that when the french found themselves their First Institution the world began a new new zero to 12 months of the year were abolished in the seven days of the week were abolished. When you read history books you learn the ropes the air was killed on the night of storm a door in the year two. We never had a year to in america. It was still anno domini and that does not exist anymore. It says something about the differences between the two revolutions. The americans were engaged in a noble experiment to see whether people could govern themselves by reflection and choice rather than an accident or force as is said in the beginning of federalist number one but there was never a part of our founders to reject the continuity of civilization. Oin other words classical christian wisdom the wisdom of the moderate that all spoke to the souls of the statesmanship of the american founders. The destructive zealots and ideologues amongst the french revolutionary did that with deadly contempt for the understanding of very primordial contract that connects the living, the dead and the yet to be born. As a tradition dedicated to liberty the western tradition is of course by dynamic and expansive yet i think with ample room for true piety. As the french political philosopher juvenil wrote so eloquently in his 1955 classic sovereignty and inquiry into the political and i quote every individual with a spark of imagination feels deeply indebted to many others through the living and the dead the known and unknown, the wiseman knows himself and his actions will be inspired by a deep sense of obligation. Not the spirit of selfloathing and repudiation that dominates Higher Education today of course based on a complete rejection of profound insight. Reason and experience of like men and women become monstrous when they diffuse themselves with autonomous self. In our time that conceit has led to utopian dreams and murderous rage or two souls for rest contentt with what is called flicking the earth. You can probably figure out what he meant. Braille Human Dignity needs to be nursed a deep a sense of obligation starting with our forebears without whom we wouldo not be more have anything at all. Natural piety however is not solely focused on the task. If we gaze further outside of ourselves to the mysterious natural order. Finally open to the grace that lifts our spirits and allows us to experience the presence of the living. Only by gouging are considerable considerable only by acknowledging a noble tradition into the natural and divine sources have our dignity as human beings are rerendered capable of achieving great and good things in our turn. The last phrase raising good leads me to the book from which im being honored tonight and the distinction as a thinker, portraits of greatness, courage and moderation. Somebody asked me about another one of the cardinal virtues that was missing and i said well of course my whole book is about that book titles cant be too long so we had to leave prudence not forgotten. Added the title itself. I argue in the book and illustrate was seven or so examples and with ancillary mention of many more that the virtues of magnanimity and moderation and is latin for the greek for greatness of soul something aristotle talks about in the early books. Greatness of soul and a deeply felt sense of obligation to truth, liberty and conscience. They go handinhand. And in the domain of action, if humangu action guided by prudene and practical reason what powers above ande truly endorse is the admittedly rare combination of honorable rendition and selfconscious self limitation with greatness and goodness coexists and a relative harmony given some tension. The magnanimity poll is best articulated and defended by the Classical Wisdom and humility is the quintessential christian virtue. As Thomas Aquinas said they only appear but in practice its very difficult to provide honorable ambition and a healthy sense of selfrestraint but i think ill let the figures i highlight in the book managed to do that and managed to do it in a impressive and relatively unusual way. Washington was one such exemplary of noble honorable and morally serious ambitions which he goes to the service of his fledgling country into the larger cause of civilized liberty. Across the Atlantic Napoleon Bonaparte and of course you get the short course of him, famously contained his contemporaries wanted him to be another washington. A great man willing to leave the stage and go home and his duty was done. The great rider Seth Napoleon did not know how to go home and did not want to go home and thats why he ended up on saint helena under british captivity guarded and not going home but not ruling anyone or anything. Alexis de tocquevillei a man wo combined magnanimity and m moderationob and political sobriety in a most depressive way tocqueville said of napoleon that he was as great as one could be without being good but a new category there, kind of greatness by the not so good. Without being good was napoleons achilles c hill his fatal flaw. Closer toured a this french statesman said Charles Degaulle, you feel like npr when you start pronouncing foreign cities and names. Closer toured a Charles Degaulle said napoleon served a greatness and moderation. It should be instructive for future generations. Again building onto golf analysis in a couple of this important writings about statesmanship. S the great mans works of energy fizzle out or give rise to tragedy when they are severed and what degaulle called the rules of classical order. Theres a book by degaulle called the discord among the enemy translated into english in a little play by lincoln but its a work of a more civilized world. Degaulle as a prisoner ofed war captured and he was an officer soviet access to the Prison Library and started to write a book about why germany lost world war i. He blamed it in part on the insubordination of the German Military elites and especially the influence of the will to power of contempt of moderation and the rules of classical order. An appreciation of quote the limits marked out by human experience, common sense and the law unquote. Truly magnanimous statesmen learn and i quote to go against their degrees of age a sense of balance of what is possible, of measure which alone renders the works of energy durable and fruitful. The germans had plenty of ambition and energy but they lacked a sense of moderation and restraint. Riding in 1924 degaulle saw the severing of greatness and measure at work and the nietzsche milla trice and political elites of germany. How much was the contempt for decency, moderation of the moral law that informed monstrous revolution. Communismti warred unrelatedly against all the human roots, all the precious achievements of civilizationst against truth against human liberty and dignity, against the very idea of natural life. Theres a wonderful discussion and the communist manifesto where marx said i refuse to takl seriously any objections raised to n communism in the name of philosophy religion or natural justice. Those are just the fast predictions of the people. As we conservatives will no the and communist efforts to impose but the great political philosopher memorably called mendacious second realities on the only Human Division we know the price to forms of murderous tyranny hitherto unimaginable. How very sad but how instructive it is that progressives everywhere and far far too many among the young still believe that communism is good in theory and far from in practice and i can tell you that believe that somehow communism is on the side of angels, think it was Harry Hopkins fdrs righthand man and told the soviet union the new deal in a hurry and mussolini many young people think communism is superior and aspiration to the code td and realities of liberal and constitutional orders. I know the university suggest otherwise. As a country as a civilization we have failed miserably in passing on the lessons of the 20 20th century to new generations. Chief among them the great truths that the ideological, the routing of, all and suspect groups, the industrious religious believers assorted class enemies and perhaps young men today rather than in a flawed human hearts. This manichaeism is a sure route to on earth. Todayly nearly 25 years or so after the annus mirabilis of 1989 we are observing a repetition in new form of the ideological lie. Progressives will fully say an imperfect. Largely Decent Society is nothing but injustice and exploitation. Critical race theory does have replaced gratitude to our forebears and democratic selfrespect and new groups of people of alleged oppressors are called to load themselves or to be banished from civic and human community. Such unrelieved contempt for fellow citizens has nothing to do with justice, social or otherwise. Quite the contrary. It makes a mockery of free civic life and it creates a fictive world of permanent victims and oppressors. It is light years away from the affirmation of common humanity and common citizenship. So much for the moral realism the liberating moral realism that affirms an famous words from the gulag arpad calico archipelago the line separating good and passes not through states or between classes nor between Political Parties either, for it right through all human hearts quote unquote. Faced with human nature and extremis. Scioscia nixonre rediscovered te central classical and a biblical wisdom and broadly held and expressed in a soap or moral and political wisdom of our founding fathers. It is impossible but its possible to constricted within each person. To acknowledge this is to begin to find wisdom and selfknowledge. In contrast the woke the course of moral and political renewed the ideological lie of the 20th century. Common to both right and leftwing totalitarianism in the name of hiding racial ethnic and adjustments. But they end up tearing i think the soul polluting the public space with a cliche because they do not begin to understand the moral drama that animates each and every human soul. Im getting a feel of the next book which is called the persistence of the ideological lie. They only know how to negate and repudiate, to destroy the precious fragile inheritance that has been passed on to us for safekeeping. To do this we need new statesman to rise to be cultivated among us contending that each of us needs to have tincture of the statesman in him or her. People often ask me how we can renewed the noble tradition of t statesmanship representative by cicero in antiquity by the likes of washington and lincoln churchville degaulle. The first thing a course the perfect thing to do is to study them and who they are. He said jefferson and nine added 10 new yorkers can tell you who hehe is. Thats part of reality too. As it happens this is what the founders did. Cicero the great work is a truly estimable work to shape the moral and political imagination of the west well into the 19th century. As i describe in my book ciceros honorable statesman is equally distant from the manipulations of theat machiavei and. And the nietzschean over manner supermen as they are of traditional moral wisdom and an ethic of selfrestraint and honorable ambition but also from the aversion to the legitimate toughminded exercise of authority by the contemporary humanitarian. The great french poet and philosopher once said with moral duty they dont want us to have clean hands and they dont want us to have any chance at all. Statesmen need hands. They have to make tough decisions. But thats not the same thing as adopting power. Either hard or soft but all bearing the true statesman takes from what cicero called in latin to find the noble the honorable and the service of civilized liberty. Liberty and its moral preconditions of purposes are at the statesmans lone star. And those include institutions of army vet trains men with honor and not toss selfexpression. For example or social engineering. This is the realistic and highminded framework that are theorists of repudiation so mindlessly aim instead of legitimate authority and norms that serve a community of citizens. They see everywhere only implacable power, crude selfserving and now a course predictably races to the core. The secular priests see only domination were others rightly discerned love a consent communy and the bonds of affection, civic. I was at a Conference Today a conference two days ago at the Heritage Foundation honoring the latead great ms. Decter and rereading her memoir is a prominent and influential feminist. It was great insight but all congress between men and women is a form of rape. You could build something really greatur on that insight. The heresy of domination takes a partial truth, the insight of poverty which is a real thing can become authoritarian and and turns it into a fanatical and realistic ops vacation. The refusal to accept and here i quote that power is sometimes the least the nine and decent like the power of a loving parent or an object ofve love. A good statesman is moved by love forun his country but the partisans of this heresy because they reduce everything to power in a power struggle govern those social and cultural institutions they have come to commandeer and commandeer is the word like the university and the very manner they contend and you cant imagine another way of europeans relating to each other. As i argue in the closing pages of my book our task is to reaffirm the real in the spirit of gratitude for what has been passed on by our forebears as a precious gift. And i believe john burtka only by repudiation do we have a fighting chance of advancing the likes of the great statesman thinkers i describe in my book. But that act of moral recovery, civilization of renewal, the demand of us and exercise of greatness and moderation that will test our hesperia civilized men and women. True moderation is not justg, accommodatingor in an evermore progressively repudiation of direction. True moderation is when a mans rare courage and not tepid capacity before the forces of selfloathing, negation and repudiation. Isi defense we like to so here i go. That is the false reporter courage that edmund burke saw at work among the english wigs like charles fox who wanted to make their peace. To cite the last sentence of my book the choice is ours. There is no reason to despair because free will is a gift. We are always free to act and we are always free not to live by its up to us to exercise free will prudently, justly, courageously and wisely. Thank you very much. [applause] [applause]
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