The Roots of American Order
McDonald, W. Wesley
service by not trusting that our political system would function as swiftly and justly as most of us have come to believe. These cynics demonstrated the age-old desire of wanting to take the law...
...Even the teenie-boppers have shown the good sense to stay away...
...Tracy, played by Diana Ross, who can sing but doesn't here, transmogrifies into Mahogany, the fashion model star of the hour, under the inspired tutelage of Anthony Perkins, who has perfected the high fag twitch...
...Its achievement in preserving a decent social and moral or der was largely based upon the unique development of common law...
...Historically, the book ranges from the Hebrew prophets to the middle of the nineteenth century...
...Americans generally retain a respect for their old moral habits and their old political forms," observes Kirk, "because those habits and forms express their understanding of order...
...Geographically, the book maps the contributions made by five cities to America's vision of order: Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and Philadelphia...
...The Prophets knew that there is a moral order which transcends time, and that to defy that order by separating man from God's order will make man something less than human...
...Whereas radical authors and even some conservative writers might see the critical events of the sixties and seventies as a prelude to the breakup of American society, Kirk harbors no such notions...
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...The First Amendment was not intended to disavow religious convictions, but to safeguard them from arbitrary regulation by the national government...
...He fancies no apocalyptic visions...
...Enclosed is my check for $8.00...
...There is a very real danger, as a result of all that has followed Watergate, that we now face a permanent shift in the balance of power in government...
...Lisztomania: After this, Ken Russell has nowhereand I mean nowhereto go but up...
...Liszt was the first teenie-bopper idol, don't you see, and Wagner was a Nazi, or didn't you know...
...Justice, in case you were wondering, triumphs...
...Of the eighteenth-century intellects who influenced the Founding Fathers 28 The Alternative: An American Spectator January 1976 Kirk selects for special attention Montesquieu and Blackstone...
...Perhaps most important, Kirk's view of the prospects for America is hopeful and optimistic...
...In his American Republic, Brownson argued that religion and politics are forever joined...
...These few paragraphs barely outline some of the major themes of this volume...
...Gospel, with a story of no redeeming social value but with nice if predictably stereotyped performances from the leads...
...Kirk traces within this large book (534 pages) those ideas and institutions which have influenced most significantly the maintenance and preservation of the American social and political order...
...It is the Church we must depend upon to maintain religious truth and to stand above the oscillations of public opinion...
...After all, Orestes Brownson, the last thinker that Kirk discusses, a nineteenth-century Catholic social thinker, is not exactly a name that would come readily to a schoolboy's lips if he were asked to think of someone who contributed significantly to the American political tradition...
...However, if you have the higher ambition of preserving your sanity in a world that is going mad, there is no alternative to The Alternative...
...A harmonious relationship between the inner order of the soul, the moral order of the individual, and the outer order of the republic, the The Roots of American Order by Russell Kirk Open Court $15.00 civil social order, must be established...
...With Tocqueville, Kirk holds that America's religious principles are "indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions...
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...It is of univer sal application, unchanging and everlast ing...
...Consequently, the book is partly a historical commentary, partly a history of ideas, and partly political advocacy...
...Kirk has performed the highly welcomed task of tracing the origins and development of the major strains of political thought which inspired the framers of the Constitution and which still animate our present moral and political order...
...The Roots of American Order, however, swims against the popular intellectual currents of our time through its distinctive examination of the foundations of America's order...
...Many Americans, during this Bicentennial celebration, will seek to rediscover America's political tradition through such popular books as Alistair Cooke's America and Boorstin's The Americans: The Democratic Experience...
...Montesquieu taught, as evidenced throughout the pages of the Federalist Papers, the importance of limiting power by functional separation of the branches of government...
...Kirk's intent is not only descriptive, but prescriptive as well...
...So essential is the existence of some sort of a religious grounding for the social order that Kirk would agree with John Adams that even the worship of pagan gods would be preferable to atheism...
...Although Ross J.S...
...Please print) Name Address City State Zip The Alternative: An American Spectator January 1976 29 RUSSELL KIRK (continued from page 29) principles of order has done much to preserve America from the confusion and violent change that plagues most modern nations...
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...It can hardly be unexpected that the greater bulk of books which will appear during this Bicentennial period, hailing the American founding, will "reflect the spirit of the age" in their concentration on America's tradition of social dissent and revolution...
...The skeptics thought that the mounting evidence warranted a Congressional inquiry, but instead of passing judgment themselves they preferred to rely on our Constitutional process...
...The Roman concepts of rule of law and ordered liberty have been imbedded intc the American Constitution...
...Secondly, Kirk resists the notion that the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution erected a kind of "wall of separation" between the Church and the State...
...Blackstone's Commentaries, which were so widely read in the colonies before the Revolution, transmitted to the Americans an account of the English law...
...Because of his wide-ranging concerns, this book is extraordinarily difficult to summarize and therefore this review will touch upon only a few of Kirk's major points...
...Herbert Stein THE ALTERNATIVE, Post Office Box 877, Bloomington, Indiana 47401 Enclosed is $ Please enter a ^ new ^ renewal subscription to The Alternative for: ^ One year $8...
...However, this book's contribution to conservative literature is unquestionably important...
...And time and space make three...
...A civilized social order depends upon a proper religious foundation...
...If we decide to amplify the power of the legislature while diminishing that of the executive, we may create a climate in which thepursuit of popular or narrow interests through the use of governmental power will flourish...
...Rooster Cogburn (...and the Lady): True Grit, Part II...
...Rather, the phrase refers to the relative equality of social conditions between the American and British peoples and to the moral equality of men in their ability to discern the principles of a common moral law...
...Kirk's concerns are first and foremost with religious order...
...And, if cynicism comes to dominate popular opinion, we may fail to see what Madison so emphatically warned us about: The aggrandizement of power by the Congress whose aim would be the satisfaction of popular wants and not that which would be in the common good...
...Against the arbitrary and unjust acts of the state, man can appeal to this universal law...
...The first of the soul's needs," Kirk quotes from Simone Weil's The Need for Roots, "the one which touches most nearly its eternal des-tiny, is order, that is to say, a texture of social relationships in order to carry out other ones...
...Wesley McDonald The Order of the Ages "Books often reflect the spirit of the age," observed Russell Kirk six years ago in his Enemies of the Permanent Things, "but also books can conjure up the spirit of the age...
...Kirk's broader Judeo-Christian perspective, challenging much of what is found in the prevailing schools of interpretation, makes this a welcome contribution to the literature of American political thought...
...Solon taught that a balanced mixed form of government which respects the interests and rights of all classes and elements in the commonwealth is the best form...
...Brown-son does, though, serve Kirk's purpose of reaffirming the necessity for a Christian concept of order for America...
...Hoffman, M. Stanton Evans, and others have already proclaimed The Roots of American Order as Kirk's "best," to my mind The Conservative Mind, to use the late Clinton Rossi-ter' s words, is still his "most enduring contribution to modern conservatism...
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...Although he did not provide a workable model for the structure of a regime, Plato's analysis of the human condition has been incorporated into the American concepts of order...
...First of all, he denies that the phrase "all men are created equal" from the Declaration of Independence implied a kind of egalitarian notion of the talents and abilities of all men...
...This book is meant," he writes, "to water roots for the renewing of order, and the betterment of justice and freedom...
...Under God, Brownson concluded, the American Republic will grow in virtue and justice...
...Proceeding next to the contributions ofthe Greeks, Kirk notes that despite the remoteness of the Greek civilization from our own, "the ideas of Hellas still breathe life" into our understanding of order...
...This body of non-codified law was the foundation an good order in Englandenforceable largely because it reflected the enduring norms of the English people...
...Despite the popular misconception that the Dark Ages of Europe were too intel lectually and morally bleak and primitive to have contributed much to the Ameri can political order, Kirk contends that an understanding of medieval England and Scotland is essential to an understanding of American order...
...Unlike the late Richard Weaver, he does not perceive modern civilization to be on a "fearful descent," nor is the impending "dissolution of the West" just around the corner...
...Good literature alters the climate of opinion, and the shape of society, for the better, while the literature of decadence, or the decay of literary tradition, can undermine the commonwealth...
...The ideas of Plato and Aristotle have been transmitted down the ages by the European civilization from which the colonists came...
...accept the existence of some moral order, by which they govern their conductthe order of the soul...
...First, its publication marked a significantturning point in the development and growth of recent American conservative thought, the beginning of the serious effort of conservatives to rediscover and revive a nearly lost tradition...
...Naturally, he must die, Mahogany must Return To Find Her Roots With Her Own People, and Billy Dee (who is a cross between Omar Sharif and Ron Dellums) wins his gal, thus proving that Afro-Americans have more fun, and white homosexual photographers commit suicide, and clothes make the woman, and the movie is breaking all box office records in New York and other centers of advanced culture...
...There are moments of much worth, and great stretches of wilderness...
...Life without a sense of order is intolerable, like a man traveling through the night without a guide...
...This attachment to certain enduring (continued on page 39) "The Alternative will not show you how to make $1,000,000 in your spare time doing needlepoint...
...Although the American order has been shaken as of late, there is still much cause, Kirk concludes, to believe that it will remain essentially intact for the foreseeable future...
...It is certainly Kirk's most ambitious work, second perhaps only to The Conservative Mind...
...Kirk's search for American roots may seem to end oddly for many readers...
...Thus, Kirk finds nothing in the Constitution which would be hostile to Christianity nor "the re-ligious consecration of the civil social order...
...It makes two important contributions to our understanding of the American political tradition...
...Mahogany: At last, a soap opera for blacks, encompassing every iota of treacle imaginable...
...Second, the present book lacks the forceful impact, both stylistically and politically, of The Conservative Mind...
...Good laws must reconcile the claims of different social groups as the American Founding Fathers wisely understood...
...Such a notion would have flown in the face of not only prevailing Christian conviction, but also known biological fact...
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...Kirk begins his discussion with the Hebrew Prophets, noting their major contribution to modern social order as the understanding that all true law comes from God, Who is the source of order and justice...
...Consequently, Kirk's idea of order is not the efficient order of an omnipresent police state, but "a systematic and harmonious arrangement," which has grown within the context of inherited wisdom, customs, and traditions...
...Book Review/W...
...A profoundly religious community would give each man his due, recognizing both the Christian virtue of charity and natural differences which distinguish men from each other...
...Roger Daltry of The Who, who shone in Russell's Tommy, looks wholly embarrassed in this wholly embarrassing mishmash...
...Within this framework of moral belief and understanding, The Roots of American Order selectively studies only those "certain ideas and beliefs, which continue to nurture order in the person and order in the republic down to our time...
...The Roman civilization, although lacking in Greek imagination and artistic genius, "held more meaning for the new United States than did any other civilization and political community except the British and their own colonial society...
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...He has given us much cause to be cheerful as we face the nation's two hundred year birthday...
...please print) Name Address City State Zip Date of change ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ There is opportunity in America...
...Natural law, which was rooted in Christian ethics, declared the absolute rights of man, of personal security, personal liberty, and private property...
...It left the field of religious establishments to the separate states...
...The clash of macho vs...
...Kirk's discussion of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is interesting primarily for its forthright rejection of two widely accepted interpretations often made by many modern thinkers and constitutional experts...
...Billy Dee Williams is the Negro stud our Mahogany really loves, but Perkins represents glamor and opportunity...
...Without a doubt this book would make an admirable addition to the library of any reader eager to understand the intellectual and moral beliefs which underpin the American political system...
...As a source of inspiration, as well as learning, students will continue turning to The Conservative Mind...
...These cynics demonstrated the age-old desire of wanting to take the law into their own hands...
...For this reason, they were, and hopefully will continue to be, the backbone of the Republic...
...BRUDNOY'S FILM INDEX (continued from page 36) Marxist, kindly but bureaucratic-minded cops, an old horse, falling leaves, falling snow, falling interest level...
...Sarkes Tarzian Inc...
...There is much, much more here on medieval Christianity, the Schoolmen, the rise of Protestantism, the Scottish Kirk, the English civil wars, John Locke, Whig politics, American colonial politics, Hume, Burke, and others of whom space forbids any comment...
...Two years $15...
...Government is only possible "because most people...
...John Wayne back as the cantankerous Western lawman, joined by Kate Hepburn as a missionary lady out to avenge her daddy's death at the hand of the desperados...
...True law is right reason in agreemeni in Nature," wrote Cicero...
...Most importantly, the Romans have taught us that true liberty can exist only if the law of state is subordinate to the law of nature...
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Vol. 9 • January 1976 • No. 4
