Bradley, 1953 publication of the conservative mind, what was the reception . Pretty incredible. Far more so than anybody wouldve expected. When it came out it came out in may of 1953. It took about a it took about a month for to catch on. Once i did it caught fire. Roughly 75 or 80 publications in the English Speaking world. Everything from the Chicago Tribune and the new york times, london types, times literary supplement, they all reviewed it, sometimes two or three times and going through the summer feeling like maybe they didnt do it justice the first time. So it caught fire in a way that most academic books never even dream of doing. And certainly as a young man he hopes he would have a good career, and it went well beyond what he was expecting. It put his publisher on the map as well. Who is kurt . Guest russell kirk was born in 19882 to a very poor family in plymouth, michigan. His family has always, they all point back to 1623 and his mother side. They come over they come over to plymouth and massachusetts in 1623. A typical american story where they had been originally very originally very devout and their puritanism but as they migrated west they had gone secular and then a lot of intelligence and workingclass families intelligence in the sense of meaning well read, families at the end of the century embraced a spiritualism. Stances, santos, talking with the deck, tarot cards, that the atmosphere kirk to grow up inches always books, no money, but very interested in ideas as well. He got it was full scholarship to Michigan State. He couldve gone anywhere but in 1936 he went to Michigan State. Graduated in 1940, got off of masters degree at duke university. He was drafted into the military for five years and didnt get out until 1946. He taught at Michigan State and then went on and got his d lit to at the university of scotland and wrote the conservative mind. His reputation as i said it exploded with the publication of the conservative mind. Which was just his dissertation. And thats wild to think about. From that point forward, 195353 until his death in 1994th he was regarded as the intellectual touchstone for moderate american conservatism. Thats known up to the goldwater movement. Once the goldwater movement and 64 fizzled with the election his reputation went down as well. And never fully recovered even by the time of his death in 1994. He was not where he was, but he was not where he was, but had a good run certainly was very influential. Host what were some of the ideas in the conservative mind that were revolutionary . Spee02 he wouldve said they were counterrevolutionary. He was against the idea of revolution. He was worried, i think its important to put in context of his time that he was deeply worried about the rise of fascism and nationalism in communism. All of these ideologies. Kirk believed that in the american character what he wouldve called the American Mission that there is a sense that was given to us through people like George Washington that our job was not to make the world a new but to preserve the best of the western tradition and of socrates, where plato or aristotle. And he really thought the founders being very classically educated were giving us something old. He did not think for example of say america against hitler or america against all on. Hes thought of america as something separate that was above, not equal for stalin and hitler. It was our duty to take these guys out and keep ideologies down as low as possible. They were for him even good ideologies, even good ideologies, even they were dehumanizing at some level. He thought reality was too complicated for that. The conservative mind is truly that. He wants to conserve what is come before. I think probably 2016 it sounds trite but in 1953 is revolutionary. This is prevatican ii. Kirk was not catholic at this point, he would become catholic later on. His language sounds catholic. He talked about the dignity of language sounds catholic. He talked about the dignity of the human person. He talked about personalism, community, at times when those were not popular words in america. Release have been forgotten. He saw those as more than equal to fashion is in. They were better. It wasnt a 1 1 correspondence. Host were the ideas of the conservative mind accessible . Guest they were. And i think thats why it became it was a household may name in the 19 fifties. Not just here but throughout the English Speaking world. One of my favorite stories about kirk is that in august of 1953 he went over to england and wanted to meet t. S. Eliot. All it was performing a play play for the first time having it performed and so he went on to it edinburg animal he was there staying in a bed and Breakfast Hotel clerk asks him, are you the dr. Russell kirk . The author of of the conservative mind, and kirk was flabbergasted that anyone would know him like that. It turned out that the owner of this bedandbreakfast had just gotten the Time Magazine issue where the entire section was devoted to his book. I think that tells us quite a bit though that he was that will known. He was on shows all the time and being interviewed on the radio. He really was a household name. Plus he had a syndicated column in the 60s and 70s and people knew him through that as well. One interesting thing is that he also wrote short stories in horror fiction. People who know his Horror Stories, stephen king writes about him but people who know that kirk have no idea that hes also the kurt that wrote the conservative mind and vice versa. He had a strange audiences. He was wellknown in many circles in the 50s and 60s. Host were his Horror Stories good good sellers . Spee02 they were. They were weird. They were or not and a gentle way gentle way but he called him gothic, their brutal. Its not accidental. Its not accidental that he also their anti demonic there Demonic Forces and is not just a ghost story. They are are very involved and very complicated. In the way that stephen king would be today, that kind of sheer horror is in kirks stories. Host we are talking with bradley at hillsdale college. Conservative mind 1953, god and man at yell. Guest 1951 from buckley. Host was there a connection between the publication dates of those books of the two men. Guest them short help. 1953 was an interesting year for conservatism. It wasnt kirk publishing the conservative mind but one of the great social philosophers of that day published in that were his book the quest for community which is a great Standard Book for conservatism. Certainly starting in 1953 when it was published. Other books came out that year, fahrenheit 451 came out that year. Another great scientific novelist wrote a book. All of them created a whole and i think kirks was the most important. It was very accessible to many people. There was a lot going on in 53. It was a miraculous year. It may conservatism respectable in way that had not been for a couple of generations. Everything at that point was liberalism until you have people like brad baer two years earlier. So all of that was happening at once. Politics in 1952, leo strauss in 1953, it was an incredible year in many ways. Was the conservative conservative movement in america actually a conservative movement at that time . Guest thats a great question. If it was a movement it it was one of the most decentralized movements. It wouldnt be until goldwater through the creation of the goldwater movement at the end of the 1950s up until the Goldwater Campaign of 64. It wasnt until goldwater came in and kind of unified at all. I think kirk unified things intellectual but he didnt have the charisma to pull together a organization nor would he have the talent or skill to do that. He was was terrible at that. He knew that as well. He was purely an academic in that sense. Goldwater had the charisma of the background of the national guard. There was something about him and his look, kirk was not a goodlooking man but goldwater had a chiseled face. I think he was able to pull things together and really pull together a coalition of libertarians and conservatives in if there was a movement it took about five or six years to coalesce. It only coalesced around goldwater which is kind of odd. It starts it starts off as a non may be anti Political Movement but then it quickly becomes politicized. Host so kirk and buckley, friends and . Guest buckley, even though he was catholic so he cannot be totally blueblood, he was as blueblood as it would be possible for a new england catholic to be in the 19 fifties. Ivy league educated kirk was the antithesis of that. Coming out of poverty, not catholic but spiritualized in an art form of protestantism. Went to Michigan State, never really traveled to the east. Had no connection to new york publishers. The buckleys had oil money coming out of texas, they had connections with the kennedys. Again, the catholic thing held them down to a certain extent. Buckley because of his demeanor personality was able to overcome that. But buckley new that he had to have kirk on board the National Review. He went out in the early 1950s and i may not be remembering this right, i think it was 1955. They met at a bar not too far from kirks house. It was there that they formulated what National Review would be. Kirk who could be extremely bullheaded about things did not want to be on the masthead. The reason of this seem so esoteric to us now, number of the people that buckley had recruited were excommunists and kirk did not trust them. He did not want to be associated with them at all. People like all. People like max easterling, frank meyer, a number of people, kirk did not trust them. He was okay with that buckley doing this but he didnt want his name associated, even though now we always associate buckley kirk together. It was that little bit of we will call it traditionalist. It was a little on. You do describe him as a fabulous, a stoic. I would keep all of those things. And he hated the telephone. He didnt like answering it did not like it when it rang. It was an bondable creation. He would make fun of Alexander Graham bell and so forth. He had no problem with caring his typewriter. At what point do we say this is technology, this is not. Not. Everywhere he went he typed. He could type cxx words per minute. I minute. Had the privilege of going through his letters and meeting one out of 500 or thousand has a typo. He was incredible. There certain technologies that he loved to hate and other that he accepted. He was always stoic. That comes out of the fall of greece. So it comes out of the time. Of the fall of greece and the rise of the roman republic. It was a philosophy that argued that the world is pretty much hell and you just have to accept pain and suffering. It is good in and of itself. In kirk that was very much kirk. Theres were stories about him i dont know how much you want to get it but theres famous stories about where he fell into a river once when he was canoeing and he allowed himself to sink to the bottom. He thought it was his time. It time. It didnt bother him at all. It was his time, he is going to go. All of his life he almost to the extent to had no fear of death. There was a very stoic attitude. I dont think it was just cultivated, i think there is something inherent in his personality as well. He could get very hot blooded at times but it was rare. He generally was very call, didnt show a lot of emotion. It came out in his writing but not his personality. That is his stoicism. Host what is a fabulist . Guest thats his scientific side. Throughout the 30s and 40s sciencefiction was regarded as something barely above trash or per not graffiti. Partly its because of where you would bite. It was almost always sold by small publishers. They would have the sex stories next to the cowboy. Books geared towards teenagerss a nasty stuff. It got that reputation because it was sold in drugstores. Even with cs lewis, 11 of the great christian of the 20 century even when he started writing Science Fiction he lost a lot of people. Many people thought he was flirting with satanism. But kirk, from the from the very beginning had no problem with that. He loved people like bradberry, a lot of the figures that were becoming respectable but sciencefiction was marginal. Kirk cannot cannot just write Science Fiction he was writing horror was was a step worse than sciencefiction at the time. His fabulous and i think he wouldve seen it is no different than mark twain and connecticut yankee. For people when they thought of Science Fiction and horror they do not think mark twain, trust her to, they thought of a grubby thing that you might find in the back part of the drugstore. For kirk to embrace the, a lot of conservatism like bradberry because i never wouldve made it at that time in Mainstream Media because i wasnt respected. They had to go the second and third rate publishers. Obviously by the 60s than sciencefiction has taken often to this day the genres can imagine going into barnes noble and having sciencefiction. Thats purely us. Host was kirk accessible to the media, to students, etc. . Spee02 you would think he would it be because he hated technology so much but he didnt drive a car though he had no problem with the trainer flying. I was fine. He always made students drive him to the airport which is funny in grand rapids or even at hillsdale. Hillsdale students would have to drive up and drive backs it would be about two and a half hours. Its a five hour trip for someone. That would be quite a burden. Plus that student would probably have to come back so its even more than that. But he traveled everywhere. He would say huge part of his income came from traveling to colleges and speaking. He was gone almost half of the year would be traveling every year until his health got bad. He had a number of positions and procedures places but he would usually do them for a semester. Places like the university of chicago offered him at least three times a full tenure professorship. He just said no. Over and over again. If one says they are kirk in what does it mean . Guest i have friends who call themselves that. I dont think think there is such a thing. I dont think that title is up proper title. Kirk was adamantly anti conformist. Thats something we also forget about conservativism because it has changed so much. When that arose in the 50s was very much against mass culture, we think of jack as a deep very conservative man. Not his art but his own politics and views on things. That was not, in, in the 1950s most conservatives were worried about this mass marginalization of american, especially american males and teenagers. Kirk comes out of that. He that. He comes out of that tradition he uses the term individualism. But it was radical, anti conformist understanding. There was a lot of that tradition. I think kirk very much embraces that anti conformist is him in his life. We havent talked about his personality much but he carried with them most of his life a sword stick that he could wield if you need to. He often carried a revolver with him. He always always wore a threepiece, didnt matter what the weather was. He walked across morocco and africa in the summer wearing a tweed threepiece because i thought this is what i should do. He is truly a bizarre, quirky figure that sense. But not in any way shape or form fitting into the american mold of the time. Host it should be clear in this book kirk would never measure up to the stereotypes of conservatives. Guest i dont think so. I think most Young Conservatives want to pick up kirk and what should defense be none that goes back to the other question. I think thats why they would not want it. I think the understanding is a deeply humane understanding was that you, peter peter should be peter. You should be the best peter god or nature means you to be. My job as a teacher, frank, professor, father, whatever, my job is to bring the my job is to bring the unique gift you bring to the world. Its not to conform you. He does not want little kirks running around, running around, he wants people to be themselves. Thats the conservativism of the 50s thats beautiful. You cannot imagine imagine ray bradbury wanted anything to be like him. He wanted them to be weird, eccentric eccentric and individual. That was part of the interesting streak in the 50s. Host what would Russell Kirks reaction be, do you think two 2016 . Spee02 youre going to get me in trouble with this question. He would be aghast. For him, good discussion is what were doing. Its not a sound boy, not yelling or having a soundbite, not yelling or having a graphic pop up on the tv quickly and move on. Its not who can speak more loudly than the other person. I think a lot of people in the immediate left, right, this is not what we do. Again hes not conformist, he loved great socialists, its one of his good friends. Partly because they travel together and would have debates. What we are doing except to be more of a debate and they will go to colleges and have an hour or two hour discussion. Talk about ideas and work these things out. The idea that we get to decide something in a moment decide something in a moment or the 52nd spot before the commercial that is not kirk. And even though he is allowed we just lost john mcglocklin. Think of how he had the panel. He had to on the left into in the right. He he may interrupt them but they had an hour to talk. They had a discussion they can be playful with one another. There was that animosity, thats hard to imagine not to give anyone any trouble i love george when i saw them on the Oreilly Factor and they went after each other it was disheartening to see that it was so better. Will is a better man than that. Thats the kind of thing that kirk was trying so hard to fight against. That you cant sit here and demonize you because i disagree. Our job has to be to find a commonality where we can start it First Principles and move from there. Anyone can bash another person. Its one of the most vulgar things possible. But to find the strength of your opponents argument work with that thats a hard a hard thing. Thats her think kirk is genius. I think it was in his nature to pull the best out of someone. Host was he an isolationist type . Guest in terms of Foreign Policy he was very suspicious about any mission abroad. For a while he did not think world war ii for example was an unjust war, he he thought it was a good war. As you look back on it he thought there is possibilities that nazis couldve been defeated without warfare. Im not qualified enough in my but he became very leery of any warfare. Bidders not the right word because it doesnt quite fit but he became very distraught and 91 because he believed that what reagan had done by building up the army was perfectly fine. But you build up an army so you dont use it, thats thats the whole point of having a huge military, nobody messes with you. When bush use that army to go into iraq, kirk had real misgivings about it. He spent really the last three years of his life arguing that the republicans were going into this was a fiasco that it would take a full generation to get out of and this is not where we should be going. He thought it it was extremely anti reagan and anti conservativism. What bush was doing in iraq. Host what is his Lasting Impact . Guest one thing i try to bring up the book and i debated a lot whether to put this at the beginning of the end, think kirk is a figure that he will either be remembered fully or hell be totally forgotten. Theres no in between. Part of. Part of that is because he is not an original. Well either remember him for preserving great things are we will forget him and look at the people he preserved. In that sense i think kirk would be fine. Hell be fine if he merely played the role of making us remember i think there is an element and this is what i ended the book with which was so important to me. I thought if i started with this nobody would take it seriously, i have never in my life encountered, and any person whether i have read about the person and i never met kirk physically so i did not know him as a person, i know his widow very well, and nuts. And i know know his daughters but i did not know kirk. I never encountered anyone outside of Mother Teresa or john paul ii who is more charitable in his life. That hit me as i was reading. Ive always suspected that but once i start going through his papers, he grew up in poverty so money never met anything to him. Thats funny because i think my grandparents growing up also in poverty living through the depression money was sacred to them. Not in a false way but they kept it held onto it and didnt spend it. Kirk didnt see it that way. It was was no different than having a meal. Money was just a thing for him. It was a means to an end. It was not an end in and of itself. As early as the 1950s where he finally starts committed to money, never ever had money, in fact days you live on appeal butter sandwich. They were that poor. When he finally had money he give us everybody. It didnt matter. He would have immigrants who just landed in america saying i would love your book, and it wasnt begging, theyre just telling the situation. He would he would put money in the envelope and send that to them. Never did he expect any of it back. Actually you would ask me about his first book it went through 17 printings. He made a lot of money. When he died he was basically broke. He wasnt a good financial manager, that is clear. But he had also given almost everything away. We can say that theyre responsible and i think think in a way it was, he left his widow on his four daughters without an income but at the same time, they had also willingly done along in his lifetime helping anybody. In the kirk house until they get on their feet. That is extraordinary to think about that that. If you ask me what is the greatest legacy of kirk, his. Host bradley birsier, hearse dale college. Guest number of other donors. Kirk used to teach classics out of bolder,0s, 80s. A lot of money in colorado. They really liked kirk. Host the book, russell kirk, american conservative, thanks for your time. Guest thanks, peter, thank you very much. As the nation elect as new president in november will