Professor Elizabeth Corey says conservatism is about far more than fighting. In fact, its major emphasis lies outside politics altogether.
Corey offers a thick view of intellectual conservatism. She invites us into something challenging and deep.
I tried to push her on whether she was asking too much. Was her approach practicable? Should we never ever fight? What role does conflict play in a conservative philosophy?
Professor Corey does not shy from these issues. She sees them as real questions for her students, but also in her own life.
Let me know what you think of this episode! Thanks so much for checking it out.
Shawn
Links:
https://lawliberty.org/podcast/conservatisms-lamentable-drift/
https://lawliberty.org/a-quiet-refusal-to-compromise/
Beautiful Losers
https://essays.quotidiana.org/hazlitt/pleasure_of_hating/
Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics
Chapters and AI summary:
Host Shawn Whatley welcomes Baylor University honors program director and political science professor Elizabeth Corey to discuss her concerns that modern conservatism has become increasingly adversarial, reducing politics to winners and losers and neglecting culture, education, and the “realm of experience” beyond the friends-enemies dichotomy. Drawing on thinkers such as Oakeshott, Scruton, Pieper, Kirk, and Aristotle, Corey argues for understanding tradition as learned “practices” and for balancing the active and contemplative lives, resisting the urge to instrumentalize knowledge. They address internal conservative pluralism and the Philadelphia Society’s big-tent approach, the role of humility and charity in debate, and Corey’s reading of Laura Field’s Furious Minds on MAGA-linked institutions like Hillsdale and Claremont. Corey also discusses Hazlitt’s “pleasure of hating,” her First Things piece on admiring, and her forthcoming book The Heart of Learning.
00:00 Modern Conservatism as Battle
00:31 Meet Professor Elizabeth Corey
04:18 A Drift Toward Conflict
10:07 Hot Button Politics vs Real Life
12:03 Is Culture Enough
14:51 Tradition as Practices
20:54 Active Life vs Contemplation
26:29 Oakeshott on History and Modes
29:37 Defining Conservatism Today
33:25 Big Tent Debates and Economics
36:14 Life Beyond Economics
37:01 Avoiding Sectarian Right
39:04 Humility and Big Tent
41:02 Pluralist Conservative Case
44:32 Do Ideologies Still Matter
48:24 Furious Minds and MAGA
50:46 Hillsdale and Claremont
54:21 Pleasure of Hating
58:52 Heart of Learning
01:02:24 Can Admiration Survive
