J. Mahoney for his book the statesman and thinker portraits of greatness, courage and moderation. Dansby strikes a perfect theme for the weekend introducing a new generation to some of the greatest thinkers and statesmen history from cicero to edmund burke, alexis de tocqueville, washington. Abraham lincoln. Winston churchill. Charles de gaulle, and many more. And it exemplifies how one can combine both thought and action through the virtue of prudence, especially amidst very difficult circumstances. Dan has been involved with isi for decades. Hes taught in the Honors Program for over 15 years, and hes published three books with isi. In addition to writing regularly for modern age and lecturing on College Campuses across the country. Hes the emeritus at assumption, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute and a Senior Writer at law and liberty. He received his from the college of the holy cross and his m. A. And ph. D. From Catholic University of america in political science. The winner of last years prize victor davis hanson, describes his book as, quote, brilliantly written and researched tribute to the pantheon of classically trained and thinking of action. Dan joins, a long list of accomplished honorees, including davis hanson yuval levin, wilfred mcclay, andrew roberts, angela cody villa and many more. Please join me in welcoming this years winner, dan mahoney. Said. Well, thank you so much, gianni, for this very gracious words. I i am going to continue developing a theme that was introduced by johnny burke tonight, and that is the indispensable melody of gratitude to a truly human in a truly civilized life. For me, a gratifying honor and genuine delight to be awarded the 2023 political award for the conservative book of the a gratifying honor, because i have been all my adult life to the essential conservative task of preserving and transmitting and yes, reforming and renewing the noble civilizational and civic inheritances that help define the west and america. I received this honor gratefully a sign that my efforts have borne fruit to receive this work is also a delight because of my longest, as johnny have mentioned with isi, with the intercollegiate studies institute, one that stretches back somewhere in the 1990s. Take first summer Honors Program in williamsburg when it was like 103 degrees. I was amazed that people were jogging around colonial williamsburg. I did not join them and of my fondest memories and the academe as a whole associated with isi summer Honors Program in williamsburg, virginia, oxford and cambridge in the u. K. , thats when the dollar was holding its own. Quebec city to, the north that paragon of political and post christianity. And i also remember a whole set of friends who made those experiences so rewarding and delightful. The wisdom and playfulness of the late, great peter lawler, who was something of an isi institution. And of course, working with such friends, editors at isi as mark henry, jeremy beer, jeff nelson, harvey young and, dan mccarthy. In recent years, ive had the pleasure of participating the George Washington statesmanship program, delivering lectures on washing ten and lincoln, churchill and the goal and burke. Im also pleased to have an article on the late jesuit theorist james v shaw and the brand new issue of modern age. There was a man who knew meaning of both reason and revelation to the very depths of his soul. Ive always joked family and friends that i all seven good jesuits in the world. There may be 12 or 14, but i know them all. And father shaw was among the greatest of them. Ill tell you a quick story about him. Months before he died at the age of 91. I had just published a book called the idol of our how the religion of humanity subverts christianity. And i wrote to father jim. And i said, father jim, i need your address on my scott nelson california to send you my new book. He says, never mind. And ive already reviewed it for the claremont review of books. There was a 91 year old jesuit who was alert right the to the very end. And of course, lets not all the bright decent, amiable and energy ascetic students i came across through isi over the years and a few a few that challenged nerves but always out on the whole the students were just delights and open and hungry for the kind of wisdom that has and less available on College Campuses today. So in a contemporary climate where at every level combines deliberate repudiation of our estimable bowl inheritance with ideological tenderness that seeks to destroy what remains of it. The work of isi has become even more necessary. Im to stand with isi, in this noble enterprise eyes, the inheritance. We defend is not, of course good, simply because it is old or because it is. But it is. Wisdom tried and true as a result, it appreciate that we can never begin, which some revolutionary years hero. Thats a reference to the fact that when the french got themselves their first republican constitution, the world began a new. Year zero of the months of the year were abolished. Seven days of the week were embellished. They got rid of the sabbath. So when you read history books, you learn that robespierre was killed by the convention on the ninth of thermidor in the year two. Well, we never a year or two in america. It was still anno domini, of course, and our domini doesnt exist anymore. The c and b bce and all that. But it says something about the differences between the two revolutions. The americans or in a noble experiment to see whether people could govern themselves by reflection and choice rather than an accident by accident of force. As is said, the beginning of federalist, number one. But was never an effort. The part of our founders to reject what we might. The continuity of civilization. In other words, classical and christian wisdom, the wisdom of the moderate enlightenment all spoke to the souls and, the statesmanship of the founders. Theres the destructive zealots and ideologues among the french revolutionaries. Did that displaying deadly for more. Burkes more capacious understanding of a primordial that connects the living the dead and the yet to be born as tradition dedicated to human liberty. The western tradition is course dying, dynamic and expansive. Yet i think with ample room for true pieties, for true piety, as the french political bertolt juvenal wrote so eloquently in his 1955 class, like sovereignty, an inquiry the political good and i quote every individual with a spark of imagination feels deeply indebted to. Many others the living and, the dead, the known and the unknown. The wise man himself for better and his will be inspired by a deep sense obligation. That is not the spirit or the spirit of selflove, thing and repudiation that dominates higher education. And today is, of course, based on a complete rejection, i think, of that profound opportunities open up. Well, reason and experience alike testify that men and women become monsters when they confuse themselves with gods beholden to nothing or no one. The autonomous self in our times that conceit led to utopian dreams and murderous rage or two petty souls who rest content with. What pascal vividly called licking the earth. You can try to figure out what pascal might mean by. Real human freedom and dignity need to be nourished by a deep sense of obligation. Starting with our forebears, without whom we would not be or have anything at all. Natural piety, however, is not solely focused on the past. It lifts our gaze further outside ourselves to the mysterious ness of the natural order. And finally is open to the grace that lifts our spirits and allows us to experience hence the presence of the living god only by acknowledge touching our considerable depths to our forebears to ennobling tradition, and to the natural and sources of our dignity as human beings, are we rendered capable of achieving great and good things . In our turn . Now, the last phrase great in good leads me to the book from i am being honored tonight. The statesman as thinker portraits of greatness, courage and moderation. Somebody. Me about another one of the cardinal virtues was missing their prudence. And i said, well, of course i buy my whole book as a defense of the politics of prudence, but good titles cant be too long. So we had to leave prudence not forgotten, but out of the title itself. In it, i argue in the book and illustrate what seven or so examples and with ancillary mention of many more that the the twin virtues of magnanimity, moderation, magnanimity is the latin for megalodon sookie, which the the greek for greatness of soul something talks about and the early books of nechamkin mccain ethics. Greatness. Greatness of soul. And a deep belief. Felt. Sense of obligation to true liberty and conscious. They go hand in hand in the domain action of human action guided by prudence or practical reason. What towers above and truly endorse is admittedly rare combination of honorable ambition and selfconscious self limitation, where and goodness coexist in a relative harmony. If in some tension, we know i would say the magnanimity poll is best articulated and defended the classics by Classical Wisdom and humility. Of course, as a quintessential christian virtue. Thomas aquinas famously says they only apparently appear to be in contradiction. But in practice. Its very difficult to combine honorable ambition and a healthy sense of selfrestraint. But i think all of the figures i highlight in that book and the book managed to do that and managed to do it in an impressive and relatively unforced. Washington was one such exemplar of noble, honorable and morally serious ambition, which she yoked to the service of his fledgling country and to the larger cause of civilized liberty across the atlantic. Napoleon bonaparte, the corsican, the short corsican, famous asli, complained that his contemporaries him to be another washington a great man willing to leave the stage and to go home. When his duty was done. This he could not do. The great french writer chateaubriand said, you know, napoleon did not know to go home, did not want go home. Thats why he ended up on saint helena. Know under british captivity guarded and not going home but not not ruling anyone or anything. Alexis de tocqueville who a man i think in his thought combined magnanimity and moderation and political sobriety in a most impressive way, tocqueville said of napoleon that he was as great as could be without being good. So we had a new category there, a kind of the form of greatness by the not good. Okay and the without being good was napoleons achilles heel. His fatal flaw or closer toward the french statesman showed the goal, said that or Charles De Gaulle, you know, you feel like an npr guy when. You start pronouncing foreign citizens nicaragua. You know closer to our de Charles De Gaulle said that napoleon served a severed greatness in moderation, a lesson that should be in strong active for future generations. And again, building on two goals analysis and a couple of his important writings about statesmen, the great mans works of energy fizzle out or give rise to tragedy when they are severed from what the goal called the rules of class order. And here are those a book by de gaulle called the discord shall enemy the discord in the and among the enemy. It was translated in english as the enemys divided and a little play on on lincoln. But its a work that it was a more world. You know, the goal was a prisoner of war captured in 1916. He was officer so he had access a german Prison Library and he started to write a book about why germany lost world war one. And he blamed it in part on the insubordination. German military elites and, especially the influence of nietzsche on of of will to power of contempt for moderate action, for the rules of the classical order. So what did they, de gaulle said from an oppressed nation of, quote, the limits marked by human experience. Common sense and the law, unquote. Truly magnanimous, statesmen learn. And i quote de gaulle again, 34 years of age, in 1924, the sense balance of, what is possible of measure which alone renders the works of energy durable and fruitful. The germans had plenty ambition and energy, but they lacked major and a sense of and restraint. Writing in 1924, de gaulle saw the severing of greatness and measure at work in the new Chinese Military and political elites civil mind. Germany. How much worse, however, was the contempt for de moderation and the moral law that informed hitlers monstrous revolution of nihilism . Communism to ward unrelentingly against all the human gods, all the pressures achieved of civilization against truce, against human liberty, dignity against very idea of natural. Theres a wonderful little discussion near the end of part two of the communist manifesto when marx says, i refuse take seriously any raised by to communism in the name of, philosophy, religion or natural justice. You know, those are just the class pretensions the enemy of the people . Well. As we conservatives. Well know, the nazi and communist efforts to impose what the great political philosopher erich von glenn memorably called mendacious bias. Second realities on the only human condition we know gave rise to forms of murderous tyranny hitherto unimaginable. Now how very sad, but how instructive it is that progressives everywhere and far too many among the young still believe that communism is good. In theory and far from terrible practice. And i could tell you that that belief that somehow communism is on the side of the angels or that some think it was harry hopkins. Fdr is right hand man who called the soviet union the new deal in a hurry. You know . You know, remember making the trains on time . Well, many young people think communism is superior in aspiration to quotidian realities of liberal constitutional orders. And nothing hearing in their universities suggests otherwise. As a country and as a civilization, we have thus failed and passed on the lessons of the 20th century to new generations. Chief among them the great truth that ideological monarchy ism, the rooting of evil. All evil and suspect groups. The the kulaks, the industrial peasants, religious believers the bourgeoisie a class enemy. Perhaps perhaps young white men today rather in a flawed human heart. Well, this islam is invitation nay a sure route to hell on earth today. Nearly 25 years or so, after the annus mirabilis of 1989, we are a repetition in new form of the ideological line. Progressives will she an imperfect but, largely decent societys, nothing but evil injustice and exploitation critical, race theory and wokeness have replaced gratitude to our forebears and democratic self respect and new of people alleged. Oppressors are called loathe themselves or to be banished from the civic and human community. Such unrelieved for our fellow citizens has nothing to with Justice Social or otherwise. Quite the contrary. It makes a mockery of the shared bonds that make friendship work life possible, and it creates a fictive world of permanent victims and oppressors. It is light years from the affirmation of common humanity and common citizenship. So much for the moral realism, the moral realist ism that affirms in solzhenitsyns famous words from the gulag archipelago and i quote that the line separating good and evil passes not through states nor between nor between Political Parties either. But right to wherever human heart and through all human hearts, quote unquote. Faced with human nature in extremis in the soviet gulag, solzhenitsyn rediscovered, a truth central to classical and biblical wisdom, and i think broadly held and expressed in the sober, moral and, political wisdom of our founding fathers. It is from past able, again, im quoting solzhenitsyn, to expel evil the world in its entirety. But it is possible to constrict it within person to acknowledge this is to begin to find wisdom and selfknowledge in contrast to woke the coercive, moral and political for a course of moral and political fanatics, to core renew the ideological lie of the 20th century common to both and left wing totalitarianism in the name of fighting racial ethnic and sexual. But they end up tyrannized the soul polluting the public space with insidious because. They do not begin to understand the moral drama that each and every human soul getting a little bit of the feel of my book with encounter, 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 this. We need new statesmen arise to be cultivate rid among us and pending that each of us needs to have some tincture of the in him or her people often asks me how. We can renew the noble tradition of statesmanship represent. It by solon and cicero antiquity and by the likes of burke, washington and lincoln, churchill de gaulle and vaclav havel, closer to home. The first thing, of course, the first thing to do, of course, is to study them and know who they are. You know, waters world. See Jefferson Hayes and you know, nine out of ten new yorkers can tell you who he is we all know thats yeah thats part reality too. As it happens this is what the founders did ciceros on is a great of moral and political philosophy is a truly estimable work that shaped the moral and political imagine imagination of the west well into 19th century as. I describe in my book ciceros honorable statesman is distant from the manipulations of the machiavelli and prince and the nietzsche in over man or superman contemptuous, as they are of traditional wisdom and ethic of selfrestraint and honorable ambition. But also from the aversion to the legitimate, tough minded exer sighs of authority by the contemporary humana in edges of great french catholic, a philosopher once said about contents, you know, with is moral duty, he said. The canadians dont want us to have clean hands. They dont want us to have any hands at all. You know, statesmen need hands. They have to make tough decisions. But thats not the same thing as the power ethic of a machiavelli or nature, neither hard or soft. It has moral bearing. The true statesman takes. His bearing from what cicero called latin. The honest stump, the fine, the noble the honorable. At the service of civilized liberty. Liberty. And its moral precondition. Some are the statesmans lodestar. And those precondition purposes include authoritative institution. An army that trains men dedicated to honor and not to selfexpression, for example, or social engineering. This is the realist yet high minded frame of thought and action that are theorists of repudiation so mindlessly and to buried instead of legitimate authority and of decent norms that serve a community of citizens they see everywhere only implacable power, crude, oppressive selfserving, and now of course, predictably to the core. These secular priests see only domination where others rightly love consent and community, and the bonds of affection and familial. I was at a conference two days ago with the Heritage Foundation honoring the late great mitch, dr. And rereading her memoir. So i was brought back in time to prominent and influential feminists. The seven a Susan Brown Miller great insight was all Sexual Congress between men women as a form of rape. You know well you get to build something really great on that encouraging insight. The heresy of domination as Roger Scruton calls it, takes partial truths. The insight that authority, which is a very real thing, can become authoritarian and domineering and turned and turn said into a fanatical and nihilistic obfuscation. The refusal to accept and here i quote scruton, that power is sometimes at least benign and decent, like the power of a loving conferred by the object love. I think of a statesman who really is moved by a love of his country and the partizans of this heresy because they reduce everything to power and power struggle, govern those social and cultural institutions they have come to, commandeer and commandeer is the right word. Like the universities and media in the very manner, they contend, because they cant imagine way of human beings relating to each other. Near the end, as i argue, the closing pages of my are task is to reaffirm the real in a spear of gratitude for what has been passed on by our as a precious gift. And i believe johnny burke accorded the next words only by repudiating repudiation. Do we have a fighting chance of again seeing the likes of the great statesman thinkers i describe in my book, but that of moral recovery and civilizational renewal will demand of us an exercise, grandeur of greatness and moderation that will test our mettle free and civilized men and women true moderate to modern nation is not just a common dating thing, its just a drift in an ever more thought and aggressively repute relational direction. True moderation will demand rare courage and not tepid passivity before the forces of selfloathing, negation and and isi like to quote burke. So here i go. That is the false reptile courage that edmund burke short work among the english whigs like fox, who wanted to their peace with jacobin ism to cite the last of my book, the choice is ours. There is no reason to despair because free will is a gift on high. We are always to act. We are all we free not to live by lies. It is up us to exercise free will prudently, justly, courageously. That is why we thank you very much. Happy new year and to politics and prose. Im brad graham im the coowner of the bookstore along my wife, lissa muscatine, and were very excited to have with us this evening at jim
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.