When the Lewis and Clark expedition returned to St. Louis after two years not just of absence, but of complete absence, the people of America were ecstatic. The two men and their fifty-some companions were treated as royalty. Yet, even in such a climate of festive joy, no one forgot why Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their Corps of Discovery had gone west. They had done so through the tenacity, the ingenuity, and the inspiration of the third president of the United States. The night the fair citizens of St. Louis held a dinner and a ball in honor of the returning expedition, eighteen official toasts were given. While each reveals something about the nature of American republicanism and could serve as a book in and of itself, it is the first toast, of course, that matters most.

To “the President of the United States—The friend of science, the Polar star of discovery, the philosopher, and the patriot.”
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2016/05/thomas-jefferson-polar-star-discovery-lewis-clark-bradley-birzer.html

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the late John Paul II’s birth, it’s worth underscoring that one theme which permeated his pontificate from its beginning to the end was that of truth.

Many remember Pope John Paul II as playing a crucial role in Eastern Europe’s liberation from Marxist tyranny. But he also insisted that liberty needed to be grounded in and guided by the truth knowable via reason and faith. If freedom and truth become separated—as they most certainly have in many people’s minds in our own time—we not only end up with an unhealthy and dangerous association of liberty with moral relativism. We also open the door to those who claim that the truth is whatever the most powerful or the loudest say it is.
— Read on blog.acton.org/archives/116144-how-john-paul-ii-reminded-us-that-liberty-and-truth-are-inseparable.html

From the perspective of John Quincy Adams, the United States had no right to claim or annex any part of Latin America. It also, however, had no right to deny any part of Latin America from joining its cause with that of the United States.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2020/05/monroe-doctrine-bradley-birzer.html

Really, men are equal in two ways only: before the judgment-seat of God (who, remember, doesn’t assign them all to the same place), and in the eyes of the law. But human beings are not equal otherwise; and because they are unequal, they are not entitled to identical things. Every man is entitled to what is his own; but he has no right to take away from another who has more by his talents or inheritance.

For the slothful man is not equal to the diligent man. The brute is not equal to the saint. The fool is not equal to the sage. The traitor is not equal to the loyal man. The selfish is not equal to the loving. The coward is not equal to the hero. The rogue is not equal to the just judge. And nothing could be more unjust than to treat all these, under the lunatic pretext of natural equality, as if they ought to live one life and enjoy the same rewards.

—Russell Kirk, CONFESSIONS OF A BOHEMIAN TORY, 1963, pg. 280.

Bitterly, C.M. Kornbluth, the second presenter, vehemently disagreed, stating without equivocation that the genre “is not an important medium of social criticism.” Much like Hitler, Kornbluth complained, the adherents of science fiction treat the genre like a religion and lay claim to anything and everything they admire. Yet, for all its pretentions, science fiction rarely if ever actually criticizes anything prevalent in the world, and, when it does, its criticism remains rather tame. Anticipating the social radicals of a decade later, Kornbluth feared that science fiction fails in its power to change the consciousness of a reader, as the novels of the genre do “not turn the reader outward to action but inward to contemplation.” Then, he complained, there’s the horror genre, a supposed subset of science fiction which merely rolls all of our fears “up in one ball of muck” and thrusts “them into the reader’s face.” This is especially true in cinema, he continued, and “if the day ever comes when the shriek movie is a really major type, up there with, say the pretentious Western, the implications for the future of democracy will be bad.” Yet, one should never give any of this too much thought, he concluded, for “science fiction is socially impotent.” Tragically, Kornbluth died a year later, of a heart attack, only age 34.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2020/05/science-fiction-university-chicago-bradley-birzer.html

This prompts some new thoughts during her bedtime story session, in which she tells her own story, about a mother’s love and “the feelings of the unhappy parents with all of their children flown away.” Peter hates this story, but listens anyway. Wendy’s autobiographical tale features her own mother leaving open the window for her children to fly back into the house and ends with a happy reunion. Peter declares Wendy to be “wrong about mothers,” recounting his own story of finding the window barred upon his return after a long absence, “for my mother had forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my bed.” This tale frightens Wendy’s brothers, who then beg to go home. The Darling children have lost track of time and of their own identities. They must return home immediately. The Lost Boys, having now experienced a mother’s love and care, try all manner of threats and pleas to keep Wendy from leaving.

As they exit the underground lair, the children and Wendy are captured by the pirates. Hook proceeds with the “princely scheme” to force the children to walk the plank and then make Wendy the pirate mother. Offering words of farewell to the boys, she declares: “These are my last words, dear boys . . . . I feel that I have a message to you from your real mothers, and it is this: ‘We hope our sons will die like English gentlemen.’” These final words impress even the pirates, who declare they also will do what their mothers hope. Smee tries to bargain with Wendy. He will save her if she will promise to be his mother. “‘I would almost rather have no children at all,’ she said disdainfully.”
— Read on www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/searching-for-mother-in-peter-pans-neverland/

As we enter the third month of our national lockdown, many of our friends and supporters are struggling due to the Coronavirus pandemic and our country’s efforts to mitigate its deadly effects. Indeed, the crisis has brought much destruction and distress. But it has also caused many to turn again to the Divine manifestations of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness in this world.

The preservation and celebration of these “Permanent Things” are at the heart of The Imaginative Conservative’s mission. For nearly a decade, The Imaginative Conservative has been an important forum for civil dialogue about what it means to be conservative… to be human… to be God’s creatures. For the last ten years, we have provided essays by great minds that reflect the best of conservative and humane thought, past and present, free of charge and paid advertising.

To continue to do so, however, in this unexpected and unwelcome era of medical, economic, and social crisis, we need your help now. 
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2020/05/giving-tuesday-now-making-world-better-place-support-the-imaginative-conservative.html

Not surprisingly, the sub-genre of post-apocalyptic literature boomed after the dropping of the two American atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Suddenly, megadeath seemed a possible reality. Even mainstream books—such as Nevil Shute’s On the Beach—dealt with apocalyptic horrors. Some, such as R.H. Benson’s The Lord of the World (1907) and Walter Miller’s Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), relied on the mass destruction of nuclear weaponry. Amazingly enough, Benson’s 1907 novel hypothesized the weaponry as “city crackers.”

But, there were a myriad of other ways to kill off the earth and human beings, too. In Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End (1953), humans evolve into something new. Jack Finney feared the arrival of communist, parasitic aliens in his serialized Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1955). J.G. Ballard entertained the idea of twin killer, solar radiation and the greenhouse effect, in his The Drowned World (1962). In Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s Lucifer’s Hammer (1977), a comet hits the earth. Douglas Adams has the interstellar public works commission bulldoze the earth as a barrier to good trade and good highways in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979). S.M. Stirling blames a hiccup in the temporal order in Dies the Fire (2004). Gordon Dickson offered simple economic collapse for Wolf and Iron (1993). Stephen King, of course, wrote his tale of “Dark Christianity,” The Stand (1978), employing the plague as the method of death. Justin Cronin unleashed vampires upon us all in The Passage (2010), and Richard Matheson let loose the zombie-vampires in I am Legend (1954). 
— Read on www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/pandemics-and-our-love-for-post-apocalyptic-drama/

Timely and provocative assessment of various cultural, moral, and political problems in “post-constitutional” America.

America is increasingly defined not only by routine disregard for its fundamental laws, but also by the decadent character of its political leaders and citizens—widespread consumerism and self-indulgent behavior, cultural hedonism and anarchy, the coarsening of moral and political discourse, and a reckless interventionism in international relations. In The Historical Mind, various scholars argue that America’s problems are rooted in its people’s refusal to heed the lessons of historical experience and to adopt “constitutional” checks or self-imposed restraints on their cultural, moral, and political lives. Drawing inspiration from the humanism of Irving Babbitt and Claes G. Ryn, the contributors offer a timely and provocative assessment of the American present and contend that only a humanistic order guided by the wisdom of historical consciousness has genuine promise for facilitating fresh thinking about the renewal of American culture, morality, and politics.

“By exploring what humanistic renewal might entail, this book offers judicious and insightful perspectives about what the past teaches us about the limits of human beings in society and how to be prudent within the context of universal morality given these limitations.” — James A. Todd, Palm Beach Atlantic University

“‘What communism, Nazism, and progressivism share in common is a rejection of the moral realism that inspired and justified the development of limited government.’ That lapidary statement typifies the depth and clarity of this remarkable collaborative effort. Its diverse authors reacquaint readers with the moral imaginations of such giants as Edmund Burke, John Quincy Adams, Russell Kirk, Robert Penn Warren, Eric Voegelin, Irving Babbitt, and Claes Ryn. How refreshing it is in today’s academy to hear ‘Let things be called by their right names!’” — Walter A. McDougall, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, University of Pennsylvania

Justin D. Garrison is Associate Professor of Political Science at Roanoke College and the author of “An Empire of Ideals”: The Chimeric Imagination of Ronald Reagan. Ryan R. Holston is Professor and Jonathan Myrick Daniels ’61 Chair for Academic Excellence at Virginia Military Institute.
— Read on www.sunypress.edu/p-6877-the-historical-mind.aspx