A Syllabus of Conservative Thought

My crash course, in seven units.

C onservatism has been tagged as not a body of thought but a series of “irritable mental gestures.” No matter which is the more accurate description, as a holiday exercise I decided to put together what I would deem a full, rigorous course on Conservative Thought.

Not everything is perfect. But I’m satisfied about how these works give a sense of the whole Anglo-American tradition, where conservatism was born as a defense of institutions and has transmogrified (while remaining itself) into a critique of the institutions. It is supposed to teach students how to think like conservatives, and to give them an intuitive sense of why conservative thought evolved the way it did.

There are other oddities throughout. Obviously, Joe Sobran should not be grouped with neoconservatives, but his essays on abortion fit nicely in that unit. I also don’t communicate clearly the depth of anti-communism. Lastly, I hesitated and ultimately did not write up a post–Cold War foreign policy section. Ideally you would show how both have legitimate claims to conservatism. Neoconservatives are defending a liberal world order, a set of institutions built upon great sacrifices made before. The paleoconservative/new right critique (at its best) grounds itself in the right’s traditional anti-utopianism and appreciation for limits.

Anyway. Here it is:

Introduction: Jerry Z. Muller: “What Is Conservative Social and Political Thought?”

Unit 1: Foundations — Burke and the Revolution

Core aim: Introduce the conservative response to revolutionary politics and the problem of prescription.

• Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (selections: opening sections on abstract rights, the “age of chivalry” passage, his critique of metaphysical politics).
• Burke on party and constitution: selections from Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (on party as a body of men united, and on corruption).

⠀Guiding questions:

• How does Burke define political prudence and inherited order?
• In what way is his critique of “the rights of man” a critique of a certain anthropology?
• In what way is conservatism a defense of the state?

Unit 2: Scruton — The Meaning of Conservatism

Core aim: Present Scruton’s first, spiky work as the systematic statement of conservative doctrine against both liberalism and socialism.

• Roger Scruton, The Meaning of Conservatism — treat as the major text for the semester against which others are judged. Selected chapters:
  • “The Conservative Attitude”
  • “Authority and Allegiance”
  • “Constitution and the State”
  • “Law and Liberty”
  • Later chapters on property, the market, and social institutions (depending on edition).

Guiding questions:

• How does Scruton distinguish conservative loyalty from the liberal contract?
• Where does he critique capitalism from the right, and how does that shape later neoconservative vs. paleoconservative debates?

Unit 3: Continental and Tory 19th Century

Core aim: Show how conservative responses travel from Burke into continental Catholic/romantic contexts and into Tory party history.

• François-René de Chateaubriand, selections from Génie du christianisme (The Genius of Christianity) or his political writings on the revolution and religion (e.g., passages defending Christianity as the poetry and social cement of Europe).
• Major Tory party history (19th century): one narrative survey, such as John Ramsden, An Appetite for Power: A History of the Conservative Party Since 1830, focusing on chapters on Peel, Disraeli, and late-Victorian conservatism.

⠀Guiding questions:

• How does Chateaubriand’s defense of Christianity compare to Burke’s defense of the British constitution?
• How do 19th‑century Tory leaders translate conservative ideas into party organization and social reform?

Unit 4: Old Right and New

Core aim: Pre‑WWII “Old Right” plus Kirk as the architects of postwar American conservative self-understanding.

• Old Right essays (pre‑WWII) — a short dossier, e.g.:
  • Albert Jay Nock on the state, selections from Our Enemy, the State.
  • H. L. Mencken or early isolationist/anti-New Deal conservative pieces, focusing on skepticism about centralized power and war.
• Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind — selected chapters, especially:
  • Introduction, plus chapters on Burke and the moral imagination.
  • One or two chapters on 19th‑century English and American figures (e.g., Newman, Disraeli, Adams).

⠀Guiding questions:

• In what ways is the Old Right primarily anti‑state, and where does that differ from Scruton’s allegiance to institutions?
• How does Kirk’s rhetoric of tradition and moral imagination synthesize Burke, the Old Right, and Christian themes?

Unit 5: Against Liberal Hegemony

Core aim: Demonstrate the American conservative movement’s inversion of the conservative defense of institutions, to assailing them.

Selections from:

• William F. Buckley, God and Man at Yale
• James Burnham, Congress and the American Tradition
• Patrick J. Buchanan, Conservative Votes, Liberal Victories: Why the Right Has Failed
• Samuel T. Francis, “Winning the Culture War: The American Cause” (1991)

Guiding Questions:

• What does it mean if American conservatives have gone from defending institutions as they operate, to defending a Constitution the government does not abide by, a cultural inheritance forsaken by academia and arts, and a faith largely abandoned by the Church?

Unit 6: Neoconservatism — Social Policy and Capitalism

Core aim: Encounter neoconservatism as a moralized defense of liberal institutions and markets.

• Irving Kristol, Two Cheers for Capitalism — selected chapters on bourgeois virtue, welfare state, and religion/politics.
• Norman Podhoretz, “My Negro Problem—and Ours” — for race, ethnicity, and ethnic self‑critique inside a liberal‑democratic framework.
• Nathan Glazer’s The Limits of Social Policy and Irving Kristol’s “Welfare: The Best of Intentions, the Worst of Results”
• Optional: Midge Decter, “The Boys on the Beach” — essay on the charms and agonies inherent in homosexual subculture.
• Optional: Joseph Sobran, “On Imposing One’s Views”

⠀Guiding questions:

• Why do neoconservatives give only “two cheers” for capitalism?
• How do these writers link social order, culture, and markets, and where would Scruton (or Kirk) resist their categories?

Unit 7: Manent — Natural Law and Human Rights

Core aim: Use Manent to reopen the question of nature, rights, and political form in light of previous readings.

• Pierre Manent, Natural Law and Human Rights: Toward a Recovery of Practical Reason — entire book if possible, or at least all six main chapters plus the appendix.

Guiding questions:

• How does Manent’s archaic understanding of human existence (liberty under law, not liberty before law) recast both Burke and Scruton?
• Does Manent’s critique of rights‑talk vindicate or undercut neoconservative and liberal‑conservative arguments about markets, culture, and intervention?