Another nice passage on Kirk, from the same Frum essay: “Yet if Kirk’s great work cannot be counted as history, exactly, it ought to be esteemed as something in some ways more important: a profound critique of contemporary mass society, and a vivid and poetic image—not a program, an image—of how that society might better itself. It is, in important respects, the twentieth century’s own version of the Reflections on the Revolution in France. If Kirk was not a historian, he was an artist, a visionary, almost a prophet. As long as he lived, by word and example he cautioned conservatives against over-indulging their fascination with economics. He taught that conservativism was above all a moral cause: one devoted to the preservation of the priceless heritage of Western civilization.”