A RHETORIC OF MORAL IMAGINATION: THE PERSUASIONS OF RUSSELL KIRK A Dissertation by JONATHAN LEAMON JONES Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2009 Major Subject: Communication A RHETORIC OF MORAL IMAGINATION: THE PERSUASIONS OF RUSSELL KIRK A Dissertation by JONATHAN LEAMON JONES Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved by: Chair of Committee, James Aune Committee Members, Bedford Clark Jennifer Mercieca Christopher Swift December 2009 Major Subject: Communication iii ABSTRACT A Rhetoric of Moral Imagination: The Persuasions of Russell Kirk. (December 2009) Jonathan Leamon Jones; B.S., Texas A&M University; M.P.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. James Aune This rhetorical analysis of a contemporary and historical social movement, American conservatism, through a prominent intellectual figure, Russell Kirk, begins with a description of the author’s work. Ideologies, arguments, and sentiments are considered as implicit rhetoric, where social relations are defined by persuasion, ideas, historical appeal, persona, and various invitations to shared assumptions. First, a descriptive historical context is the foundation to explore the beliefs, communicative strategies, and internal tensions of the conservative movement through the development of various identities and communities during its rise as a formidable political power. Second, an analysis of the author and the author’s texts clarifies argumentative and stylistic choices, providing a framework for his communicative choices. The thesis of this discussion is that the discourses implicit and explicit in the author’s writing and conduct of life were imaginative and literary products of what he termed “moral imagination.” How this imagination developed, and its impact upon his persuasion, was a unique approach not only to an emergent intellectual tradition but also to the disciplines of history, fiction, policy, and audience. This work argues there were two components to Kirk’s rhetoric of moral imagination. First, his choosing of historical iv subjects, in biographical sketch and literary content, was an indication of his own interest in rhetorical efficacy. Second, he attempted to live out the sort of life he claimed to value. I argue he taught observers by an ethos, an endeavor to live a rhetorical demonstration of what he genuinely believed was good. As demonstrated by what many who knew Kirk identified as an inner strength of character and conduct, his rhetorical behavior was motivated by a love for and a curiosity toward wonder and mystery. By an imaginative reading of history, his exemplars of more properly ordered sentiments of a moral order sought to build communities of associational, relational persons that found identity in relation to other persons. His ambition was to explore and communicate what it meant to be human – in limitation, in promise, and in the traditions and customs that provide a framework for “human” in a culture. v DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my parents, Clyde and Nancy Jones. “Until the day breaks and the shadows flee…” - Song of Solomon 2:17 “Pray for us scribbling sinners now and at the hour of our death.” - Russell Kirk, “A Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale” “They say that his accomplishments are few, that it is only the rhetoric that is conservative. But the rhetoric is the principal thing. It precedes all action. All thoughtful action.” - William F. Buckley, Jr. on Ronald Reagan in the November 28, 1967 edition of National Review vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Words cannot express my deep gratitude. I begin by acknowledging my parents, whose love and support consistently placed me in a place of great comfort and blessing. They gifted a faith and selflessness I can only hope to emulate. James Aune, since my time as an undergraduate, has demonstrated a formidable intellect and a charity that all scholars should take as their example. I am grateful to him, to the members of my committee, and to those professors that have, as mentors, guided and challenged my development. Those deserving special mention include R.J.Q. Adams, Elias Barajas, Douglas Brooks, William Clark, Edward Funkhouser, Roy Joseph, Jennifer Mercieca, Stjepan Meštrović, and Christopher Swift. Further, I am honored to participate in the arguments, through involvement with First Things magazine and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, of “postmodern conservatism.” Those who do much of the arguing, particularly Bruce Frohnen, Paul Gottfried, George Nash, Peter Lawler, James Poulos, and Gerald Russello, have provoked much thought. This project would not have been possible without the kind assistance of Annette Kirk. Her encouragement and generosity surpassed all my expectations. And, most of all, I am continuously blessed by family and friends. It is to them that I will remain, happily, in debt. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………... iii DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………... v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………………………………………………..vi TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………... vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTIONS…………………………………........... 1 Restoration of True Significance: Imaginative Context and Definition…… 1 Unbought Grace: Kirk in Influence and Review…………………………... 46 II FIGURES............................................................................... 73 Dissent in Moral Imagination: The Goals of a Conservatism……………… 73 Amid the Ideologies: Sourcing Kirk’s Political Thought………………….. 103 Against the Idols: Kirk and the Agrarian Rebuke………………………….. 160 III PHILOSOPHY……………………………………………... 188 A Smaller Sphere: Kirk’s Critique of Modernity…………………………...188 Creation in Imagination: Postmodern Rhetorical Constructions…………....216 The Moral Life: Rhetoric and Association in Conservative Community…...246 IV CONCLUSIONS…………………………………………...... 271 Promise and Error: Kirk’s Concepts of Home……………………………... 271 Strategies of Representation: The Associational in Conservatism………….301 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………...333 VITA……………………………………………………………………………….. 355 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTIONS Restoration of True Significance: Imaginative Context and Definition Much like the elusive subject of Russell Kirk the writer and thinker, there is no easy way to define the term that often defined him: “conservative.” In this dissertation, “conservatism” is not an ideology or a firm set of doctrines. It is presented as Kirk tended to present it – as a disposition, an approach, and a sentiment.1 An author or editor of forty-one books, founder of two journals of culture and politics, and frequent contributor to newspapers, magazines, and academic journals, Kirk wrote and lectured widely in the four decades since the appearance of his most famous work, The Conservative Mind, in 1953. This book was his doctoral dissertation from St. Andrews University in Scotland, and it appeared at a time when the title seemed to many a puzzling paradox. Conservatism, he insisted over the course of his career, was “the negation of ideology.” Further, “a conservative impulse, if denied intelligent leadership and moral imagination, may be diverted banefully into ideological fanaticism.”2 I argue Kirk’s “conservative impulse” was literary, imaginative, and reconstructive, political insofar as the impulses of disposition, approach, and sentiment opposed his perceptions of technocratic solutions and an accompanying hubris. And this impulse, even as it was influential and important to aspects of American public discourse, has little endured. Kirk, however, was an insightful and ceaseless critic. His “reconstructions” offered a unique perspective of content and persuasion. __________________ The journal model for this dissertation is Rhetoric & Public Affairs. 2 The contribution of this project to rhetorical studies is the communication of the “negation of ideology” – reconstruction of “conservative” political language in particular and political community in general. The problem of defining conservatism stems from the great variety of figures, ideologies, and movements that have claimed the label. Infused with a strong market- based liberalism and noisy populism, much of contemporary American “conservatism” might appear depressingly strange to those, such as Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio,3 that were instinctively suspicious of “free trade” and foreign entanglements. This might be characterized as “America first” – foreign policy, for example, should aim only at “preventing invasion and threats of attack.”4 Yet little more than five decades later, well- known, self-identified conservatives such as David Frum were proclaiming the moral obligation to “end evil” by overthrowing dictatorships aggressive to their neighbors and hostile to the United States.5 This view has struck many other conservatives, as it would have Kirk, as an absurd vision of the world, one in which historical nations are replaced by a collection of “individuals” supposedly held together by a shared belief in abstracted concepts such as “equality” and “human rights.” In their strongly opposing view, one among the big, confusing, and occasionally contradictory collections of views of American conservatism, populations are not interchangeable. Humans need rootedness, a sense of place and of history, a sense of self taken from forebears, kin, and culture – that is, an identity