ON CONSERVATIVE LITERATURE (books on rational conservatism) –See reading lists

http://www.propertarianism.com/MORE ON CONSERVATIVE LITERATURE

(books on rational conservatism)

–See reading lists at www.propertarianism.com Then “Reading Lists” from the menu–

My last post was just too narrow so I thought I’d forward this canon on rational conservatism. It doesn’t hold a candle to Libertarian theory because it’s fundamentally an emphasis on the normative rather than political or economic economy. But that’s precisely why we should study it. Conservatives ‘get it’. Even if they can’t talk about it rationally or intelligently. ARATIONAL != IRRATIONAL.

MORE ON THE ANALYTICAL AND HISTORICAL APPROACH

Jerry z Muller :

_Conservatism_

http://www.amazon.com/Conservatism-Anthology-Political-Thought-Present/dp/0691037124/

_The Other God That Failed_

http://www.amazon.com/The-Other-that-Failed-Deradicalization/dp/069100823X

“Us and Them : The enduring power of ethnic nationalism”

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63217/jerry-z-muller/us-and-them

“Capitalism and Inequality : What the right and the left get wrong”

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138844/jerry-z-muller/capitalism-and-inequality

George H. Nash: _Conservative Intellectual Movement in America_

http://www.amazon.com/Conservative-Intellectual-Movement-America-ebook/dp/B0055PNMQ4

Robert NIsbett : _The Quest for Community_

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1558150587?ie=UTF8&creativeASIN=1558150587

F.A. Hayek : _The Constitution of Liberty_, _The Road to Serfdom_

RESTORATION SCHEMES

Mark R Levin : _The Liberty Amendments_ (Restoration)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Liberty-Amendments-Restoring-American-ebook/dp/B00CO4IP5M

(Levin’s ideas are solid but the Genii is out of the bottle. Secession is the only power we have to force a rewrite, and that would simply lead to organized dissolution.)

Richard M Weaver : _Ideas Have Consequences_ (Philosophy/Ideology)

http://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Have-Consequences-Richard-Weaver-ebook/dp/B00BN4YIGY

(Weaver’s Philosophical attempt at Restoration.)

ON ‘THE FALL’

(Criticism is good. It’s just not an answer to the problem)

Richard Epstein : _How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution_

http://www.amazon.com/Progressives-Rewrote-Constitution-Richard-Epstein-ebook/dp/B004XOZ658/

Whittaker Chambers: _Witness_

http://www.amazon.com/Witness-Whittaker-Chambers-ebook/dp/B0028085JS/

Thomas Sowell : _The Vision Of The Anointed_

http://www.amazon.com/The-Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-Social/dp/046508995X

ON SENTIMENTAL AND ANALOGICAL CONSERVATISM

(What I want to get away from.)

Before about 1990, the scientific knowledge did not exist to support conservatism. And the speculation generated by the pseudo-sciences of the 19th century by Marx, Freud, Cantor, The Frankfurt School, the American Marxist Movement, and the American-European Postmodern movement, were successful, particularly in the 1970’s in creating anti-rational ideas in the masses via universities.

Leo Strauss : _History of Political Philosophy_

Russell Kirk : _The Conservative Mind_

____________ : _The Politics of Prudence_

http://www.amazon.com/The-Politics-Prudence-Russell-Kirk-ebook/dp/B0055PKEX8

Michael Oakeshott (everything)

Ostwald Spengler : _The Decline of the West_

Francis Yockey : _Imperium_ (romantic vision of totalitarian recreation)

GOING FORWARD – REFORMATION CONTINUES

The connection between christianity, high victorian language, germanic manners, and our morally loaded aristocratic poetry and literature, is still present in these works. We have, slowly, converted most of our language to that of science, models and the study of incentives and cognitive abilities and biases. We have learned a great deal, slowly, about the institutions, traditions, memes, morals, ethics, manners, myths and metaphysics of western civilization. But most importantly, we have learned enough about political economy, and the influence of norms on that political economy, to discuss ‘the pagan and christian west’ in ratio-scientific rather than ratio-philosophical terms.