Russell Kirk

Russell Kirk
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Russell Kirk

Russell Kirk (19 October 1918 – 29 April 1994) was an American political theorist, historian, social critic, literary critic, and fiction author known for his influence on 20th century American conservatism. His 1953 book, The Conservative Mind, gave shape to the amorphous post-World War II conservative movement. It traced the development of conservative thought in the Anglo-American tradition, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke.

content

1 Life
2 Ideas
3 Man of letters
4 Fiction
5 Notes
6 Further reading
7 External links

Life

Russell Kirk was born in Plymouth, Michigan. He was the son of Russell Andrew Kirk, a railroad engineer, and Marjorie Pierce Kirk.

Kirk obtained his B.A. at Michigan State University and a M.A. at Duke University. During World War II, he served in the American armed forces and corresponded with libertarian writer Isabel Paterson, who help shape his early political thought. After the war, he attended the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1953, he became the first American to be awarded the degree of doctor of letters by that university.^{citation needed}

Upon completing his studies, Kirk took up an academic position at his alma mater, Michigan State. He resigned in 1959, after having become disenchanted with that university's academic standards, rapid growth in student numbers, and emphasis on intercollegiate athletics and technical training at the expense of the traditional liberal arts. Thereafter he referred to Michigan State as "Cow College" or "Behemoth University." He later wrote that academic political scientists and sociologists were "as a breed--dull dogs."^[1] Late in life, he taught one semester a year at Hillsdale College, where he was Distinguished Visiting Professor of Humanities.

Kirk frequently published in two American conservative journals he helped found, National Review in 1955 and Modern Age in 1957. He was the founding editor of the latter, 1957-59. Later he was made a Distinguished Fellow of the Heritage Foundation, where he gave a number of lectures.^[2]

After leaving Michigan State, Kirk returned to his ancestral home in Mecosta, Michigan, where he wrote the many books, academic articles, lectures, and the syndicated newspaper column (which ran for 13 years) by which he exerted his influence on American politics and intellectual life. In 1963, Kirk married Annette Courtemanche; they had four daughters. She and Kirk became known for their hospitality, welcoming many political, philosophical, and literary figures in their Mecosta house (known as "Piety Hill"), and giving shelter to political refugees, hoboes, and others. Their home became the site of a sort of seminar on conservative thought for university students. Piety Hill now houses the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal.

Kirk declined to drive, calling cars "mechanical Jacobins", and would have nothing to do with television and what he called "electronic computers."

Russel Kirk converted to Catholicism in 1963.

Ideas

The Conservative Mind

The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana^[3], the published version of Kirk's doctoral dissertation, contributed materially to the 20th century Burke revival. It also drew attention to:

Conservative statesmen such as John Adams, George Canning, John C. Calhoun, Joseph de Maistre, Benjamin Disraeli, and Arthur Balfour;
The conservative implications of writings by well-known authors such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walter Scott, James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Russell Lowell, George Gissing, George Santayana, and T. S. Eliot;
British and American authors such as Fisher Ames, John Randolph of Roanoke, Orestes Brownson, John Henry Newman, Walter Bagehot, Henry James Sumner Maine, William Edward Hartpole Lecky, Edwin Lawrence Godkin, William Hurrell Mallock, Leslie Stephen, Albert Venn Dicey, Paul Elmer More, and Irving Babbitt.

The Portable Conservative Reader (1982), which Kirk edited, contains sample writings by most of the above.

Not everyone agreed with Kirk's reading of the conservative heritage and tradition. For example, Harry Jaffa (a student of Leo Strauss) wrote: "Kirk was a poor Burke scholar. Burke's attack on metaphysical reasoning related only to modern philosophy's attempt to eliminate skeptical doubt from its premises and hence from its conclusions."^[4]

Russello (2004) argues that Kirk adapted what 19th century American Catholic thinker Orestes Brownson called "territorial democracy" to articulate a version of federalism that was based on premises that differ in part from those of the Founders and other conservatives. Kirk further believed that territorial democracy could reconcile the tension between treating the states as mere provinces of the central government, and as autonomous political units independent of Washington. Finally, territorial democracy allowed Kirk to set out a theory of individual rights grounded in the particular historical circumstances of the United States, while rejecting a universal conception of such rights.

Principles

Kirk developed six "canons" of conservatism, which Russello (2004) described as follows:

A belief in a transcendent order, which Kirk described variously as based in tradition, divine revelation, or natural law;
An affection for the "variety and mystery" of human existence;
A conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize "natural" distinctions;
A belief that property and freedom are closely linked;
A faith in custom, convention, and prescription, and
A recognition that innovation must be tied to existing traditions and customs, which entails a respect for the political value of prudence.

Kirk said that Christianity and Western Civilization are "unimaginable apart from one another." [5] and that "all culture arises out of religion. When religious faith decays, culture must decline, though often seeming to flourish for a space after the religion which has nourished it has sunk into disbelief." [6]

Kirk and Libertarianism

Kirk grounded his Burkean conservatism in tradition, political philosophy, belles lettres, and the strong religious faith of his later years; rather than libertarianism and free market economic reasoning. The Conservative Mind hardly mentions economics at all.

In a polemic essay, Kirk (quoting T. S. Eliot) called libertarians "chirping sectaries," adding that they and conservatives have nothing in common. He called the libertarian movement "an ideological clique forever splitting into sects still smaller and odder, but rarely conjugating." He said a line of division exists between believers in "some sort of transcendent moral order" and "utilitarians admitting no transcendent sanctions for conduct." He included libertarians in the latter category.^[5]^[6] Kirk, therefore, questioned the "fusionism" between libertarians and traditional conservatives that marked much of post World War II conservatism in the United States.^[7]

Kirk's view of "classical liberals" is positive though; he agrees with them on "ordered liberty" as they make "common cause with regular conservatives against the menace of democratic despotism and economic collectivism."^[8]

Tibor R. Machan defended libertarianism in response to Kirk's original Heritage Lecture. Machan argued that the right of individual sovereignty is perhaps most worthy of conserving from the American political heritage, and that when conservatives themselves talk about preserving some tradition, they cannot at the same time claim a disrespectful distrust of the individual human mind, of rationalism itself.^[9]

Jacob G. Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation also responded to Kirk.^[10]

Kirk and Neoconservatism

Late in life, Kirk grew disenchanted with American neoconservatives as well. On December 15, 1988, he gave a lecture at the Heritage Foundation, titled "The Neoconservatives: An Endangered Species." As Chronicles editor Scott Richert describes it,

[One line] helped define the emerging struggle between neoconservatives and paleoconservatives. "Not seldom has it seemed," Kirk declared, "as if some eminent Neoconservatives mistook Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States." A few years later, in another Heritage Foundation speech, Kirk repeated that line verbatim. In the wake of the Gulf War, which he had opposed, he clearly understood that those words carried even greater meaning.[7]

Midge Decter, director of the Committee for the Free World, called Kirk's line "a bloody outrage, a piece of anti-Semitism by Kirk that impugns the loyalty of neoconservatives." ^[11] She told The New Republic, "It's this notion of a Christian civilization. You have to be part of it or you're not really fit to conserve anything. That's an old line and it's very ignorant."[8]

Samuel Francis called Kirk's "Tel Aviv" remark "a wisecrack about the slavishly pro-Israel sympathies among neoconservatives.^[12]

Man of letters

Kirk's more important books include Eliot and his Age: T. S. Eliot's Moral Imagination in the Twentieth Century (1972), The Roots of American Order (1974), and the autobiographical Sword of the Imagination: Memoirs of a Half Century of Literary Conflict (1995). As was the case with his hero Edmund Burke, Kirk became renowned for the prose style of his intellectual and polemical writings.^[13]

Fiction

In addition to his scholarly achievements, Kirk was accomplished both as an oral storyteller and as an author of genre fiction, most notably consummate ghost stories in the tradition of Sheridan Le Fanu, M. R. James, and H. Russell Wakefield. But he also wrote other admired and much-anthologized works that are variously classified as horror, fantasy, science fiction, and political satire. His fiction earned plaudits from authors as varied as T. S. Eliot, Robert Aickman, and Ray Bradbury.

Though relatively small—Kirk’s body of fiction consists of three novels and 22 short stories—it was attained amid a busy career as prolific nonfiction writer, editor, and public speaker. As with such other authors as G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien, all of whom likewise wrote much both in nonfiction and in fantasy fiction, there are conservative undercurrents, both Christian and political, to Kirk's fiction.

His first novel, Old House of Fear (1961, 1965), as with so many of his short stories, was written in a self-consciously gothic vein, in this case concerning an American who plunges into a remote and ominous locale in Scotland. This was Kirk's most popular and lucrative fiction book, and helped support much of his later writing. He followed that with A Creature of the Twilight (1966)—a dark satire of postcolonial African politics—and later with a dense haunted house novel, Lord of the Hollow Dark (1979, 1989). Kirk also oversaw the publication of three collections of all his short stories during his lifetime. (Three other collections have been published since his death, but they add no more stories.) One striking feature of his novels and stories is how certain characters tend to recur from one work to the next, helping provide his fictional canon with a heightened sense of unity and meaningfulness.

Having begun to write fiction in fairly early in his career, Kirk appears to have abandoned its pursuit after the early 1980s, instead devoting his last decade to nonfiction projects.

Novels

By sequence of publication:

Old House of Fear
- New York, NY: Fleet Publishing Corporation, 1961
  - Reprinted later in paperback by other publishers
- Revised edition, New York, NY: Fleet Publishing Corporation, 1965
  - Two changes distinguish this from the original edition:
    - A descriptive title is added to each numbered chapter heading
    - The capitalized phrase “THE END” is added at the close of the novel’s text
A Creature of the Twilight: His Memorials
- New York, NY: Fleet Publishing Corporation, 1966
Lord of the Hollow Dark
- New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1979
- Revised edition, Front Royal, VA: Christendom Press, 1989
  - Two changes distinguish this from the original edition:
    - Kirk’s 1967 story “Balgrummo’s Hell” is added as a prologue, under the heading “Prolegomenon: Balgrummo’s Hell”, placed before the numbered chapters of the novel
    - ”Acknowledgements” respecting this revised edition are placed at the end of the book

Individual short stories

Listed alphabetically, with first publication noted for each:

"Balgrummo's Hell"
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 7/1967
- Incorporated as prologue to the 1989 revised edition of Kirk’s novel Lord of the Hollow Dark
"Behind the Stumps"
- The London Mystery Magazine #4 (6/1950–7/1950)
"The Cellar of Little Egypt"
- Kirk, Russell, The Surly Sullen Bell, New York, NY: Fleet Publishing Corporation, 1962
"An Encounter by Mortstone Pond"
- Kirk, Russell, Watchers at the Strait Gate, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House Publishers, 1984
"Ex Tenebris"
- Queen’s Quarterly #64 (Summer/1957)
"Fate's Purse"
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 5/1979
"The Invasion of the Church of the Holy Ghost"
- Kirk, Russell, Watchers at the Strait Gate, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House Publishers, 1984
"The Last God's Dream"
- Kirk, Russell, The Princess of All Lands, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House Publishers, 1979
"Lex Talionis"
- Schiff, Stuart (editor), Whispers II, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979
"Lost Lake"
- Southwest Review #42 (Autumn/1957)
"Off the Sand Road"
- World Review #37 (3/1952)
"Old Place of Sorworth"
- The London Mystery Magazine #14 (2/1952–3/1952)
- Retitled in reprints as "Sorworth Place"
"The Peculiar Demesne"
- McCauley, Kirby (editor), Dark Forces: New Stories of Suspense and Supernatural Horror, New York, NY: Viking Press, 1980
- Retitled in reprints as “The Peculiar Demesne of Archvicar Gerontion”
”The Peculiar Demesne of Archvicar Gerontion”
- Reprint title of 1980 story “The Peculiar Demesne”
"The Princess of All Lands"
- Kirk, Russell, The Princess of All Lands, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House Publishers, 1979
"The Reflex-Man in Whinnymuir Close"
- Kirk, Russell, Watchers at the Strait Gate, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House Publishers, 1984
"Saviourgate"
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume 51 #5 (11/1976)
"Skyberia"
- Queen’s Quarterly #59 (Summer/1952)
"Sorworth Place"
- Reprint title of 1952 story "Old Place of Sorworth"
"The Surly Sullen Bell"
- The London Mystery Magazine #7 (12/1950–1/1951)
"There's a Long, Long Trail a’Winding"
- McCauley, Kirby (editor), Frights: New Stories of Suspense and Supernatural Terror, New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1976
- Winner, 1977 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction
- Retitled in reprints variously as “There’s a Long, Long Trail a-Winding” and “There’s a Long, Long Trail A-Winding”
"Uncle Isaiah"
- The London Mystery Magazine #10 (8/1951–9/1951)
"Watchers at the Strait Gate"
- Campbell, Ramsey (editor), New Terrors, London: Pan Books, 1980
"What Shadows We Pursue"
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1/1953

Short story collections