The Conservative Mind
The Conservative Mind is a book by American conservative philosopher Russell Kirk. It was first published in 1953 as Kirk's doctoral dissertation and has since gone into seven editions, the later ones with the subtitle From Burke to Eliot. It traces the development of conservative thought in the Anglo-American tradition, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke.
The work is a classic in the intellectual tradition of conservatism. It influenced the postwar conservative movement in the United States and revived 20th century Burkean thought. It has been translated to a number of languages such as Bulgarian, Czech, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, and Portuguese.[1]
In The Conservative Mind, Kirk developed six canons of conservatism:
In addition to bringing attention to Anglo-American conservative principles, Kirk described his perception of liberal ideals in the first chapter: the perfectibility of man, hostility towards tradition, rapid change in economic and political systems, and the secularization of government. Kirk also argued that the American Revolution was "a conservative reaction, in the English political tradition, against royal innovation."[3]
The work also draws attention to:
The Conservative Mind hardly mentions economics at all. Kirk grounded his Burkean conservatism in tradition, political philosophy, belles lettres, and religious faith, rather than free market economic reasoning.