Books

The Hidden Depths in Robert Frost ~ The Imaginative Conservative

The conservatism of Robert Frost was rooted in his tendency to view existence as inherently paradoxical. Frost carefully crafted and honed metaphor as a device to express such tensions in suggestive rather than didactic ways, which sometimes resulted in critical misinterpretations that deny the importance of the metaphysical in his verse. Robert Frost: The Poet […]

The Light Invisible ~ The Imaginative Conservative

The modern secularist, T.S. Eliot, finds meaning either in the brute forces of the physical world or the arbitrary freeplay of the mind or the passing consensus of the human tribe. Looking for meaning in these places has not only led individuals to a sense of nihilism but has led whole nations to slaughter innocent […]

Invasion of the Ultra-Subtle ~ The Imaginative Conservative

More and more I am convinced that our ultimate human fate will depend on whether or not we succeed in wresting the intellectual life from the professoriate. Doesn’t the whole intellectual world stand or fall on this distinction: whether our intellectual understandings are mere inventions, or whether they are authentic discoveries? One purpose of cultivating […]

The Open Front Door ~ The Imaginative Conservative

People who read books of this kind usually expect the author to answer the question: “Why did you become a Roman Catholic?” I am not trying to explain it, but I must try to illustrate it by an example. It was as if I had been a man homeless and needing shelter, who first of […]

Montesquieu & the Two Historical Foundations of Tolerance ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Westerners today ought to meditate upon Montesquieu’s admirable reflections whenever they decide to launch a war of humanitarian intervention. These reflections especially call into question the institutionalization and systematization at work in contemporary demands for international justice. In The Spirit of the Laws (1748), Montesquieu effected a revolution, one that called into question the character of Christian […]

A Conversation ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Peco Gaskovski’s “Exogenesis” has been described as “Blade Runner meets the Benedict Option.” In the novel, a thousand-mile metropolis named Lantua has emerged from the collapse of the USA. Artificial birthing and strict reproductive control is enforced with hi-tech social conditioning, 24-7 monitoring by the state, and the total loss of freedom, disguised by smooth […]

Our Father’s House ~ The Imaginative Conservative

God is the complete satisfaction of our need to know and to love. He is all Truth, utterly lovable. But God must be known for what He is, else an appropriate response to Him cannot be made. Philosophy and theology tell us, but not so effectively as does Dante, who has made us see what […]