Conservatives treated George Orwell's work similarly, at least while the Soviet Union was a going concern. They accurately focused on his hatred for Communism and his vague Tory cultural leanings, the better to ignore his socialism.
See Gary Dorrien's new autobiography, "Over from Union Road: My Christian-Left-Intellectual Life" (Baylor U.P., 2024, p.131) on his friendship with Russell Kirk: "...we compared notes on authors that he and I treasured, and we fixed on...Reinhold Niebuhr. Russell said he had radar for people who were more conservative than they realized, and Niebuhr was a good example, on his view, and so was I...He was committed to the view that the formerly almost-Marxist Niebuhr progressed almost all the way to...Edmund Burke. We stayed in touch, in 1993 I wrote a book on neoconservatism, and Russell wrote a vintage-Russell blurb for it." At the time, Dorrien chaired the religion department at Kalamazoo College. In 2005 he became Reinhold Niebuhr professor of social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in NYC.
That’s fascinating. I have Dorrien’s book on neoconservatism. Is his memoir interesting in other places? I would love to know who else Kirk considered more conservative than they realized. Did Dorrien share the assessment?
That's the only Kirk reference. From the context, it's clear Dorrien admired Kirk as a "prolific 'man of letters' of the old school," without sharing his political leanings. Dorrien's references are mainly to Christian "peace and justice" social democrats. Dorrien mentions (p.72) how much he admired the way John Patrick Diggins fused biography with political and intellectual history in "Up from Communism: Conservative Odyssey's in American Intellectual History" (1975), suggesting that this prompted his own approach to writing. (Diggins later consulted Dorrien for his own book on Niebuhr (published in 2011), and so did I, his student, when I was asked to edit Jack's manuscript posthumously.) Kirk's death ended Dorrien's personal connection to conservatives (I'm checking the index). Still, at his book-signing, Dorrien reminded me that in the text he describes Kirk's wife Annette as 'radiant' and he asked me to tell her that, which I did.
Conservatives treated George Orwell's work similarly, at least while the Soviet Union was a going concern. They accurately focused on his hatred for Communism and his vague Tory cultural leanings, the better to ignore his socialism.
See Gary Dorrien's new autobiography, "Over from Union Road: My Christian-Left-Intellectual Life" (Baylor U.P., 2024, p.131) on his friendship with Russell Kirk: "...we compared notes on authors that he and I treasured, and we fixed on...Reinhold Niebuhr. Russell said he had radar for people who were more conservative than they realized, and Niebuhr was a good example, on his view, and so was I...He was committed to the view that the formerly almost-Marxist Niebuhr progressed almost all the way to...Edmund Burke. We stayed in touch, in 1993 I wrote a book on neoconservatism, and Russell wrote a vintage-Russell blurb for it." At the time, Dorrien chaired the religion department at Kalamazoo College. In 2005 he became Reinhold Niebuhr professor of social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in NYC.
That’s fascinating. I have Dorrien’s book on neoconservatism. Is his memoir interesting in other places? I would love to know who else Kirk considered more conservative than they realized. Did Dorrien share the assessment?
That's the only Kirk reference. From the context, it's clear Dorrien admired Kirk as a "prolific 'man of letters' of the old school," without sharing his political leanings. Dorrien's references are mainly to Christian "peace and justice" social democrats. Dorrien mentions (p.72) how much he admired the way John Patrick Diggins fused biography with political and intellectual history in "Up from Communism: Conservative Odyssey's in American Intellectual History" (1975), suggesting that this prompted his own approach to writing. (Diggins later consulted Dorrien for his own book on Niebuhr (published in 2011), and so did I, his student, when I was asked to edit Jack's manuscript posthumously.) Kirk's death ended Dorrien's personal connection to conservatives (I'm checking the index). Still, at his book-signing, Dorrien reminded me that in the text he describes Kirk's wife Annette as 'radiant' and he asked me to tell her that, which I did.