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What We Want to Conserve

What, exactly, do they want to conserve? ~Matthew Peterson Hm…could it be Christian civilisation, the family, local communities, constitutional republicanism, the rule of law, American sovereignty, the best of the entirety of the venerable Greek and Christian intellectual traditions, among other things? For starters, he might refer to Chilton Williamson’s introduction to The Conservative Bookshelf […]

What, exactly, do they want to conserve? ~Matthew Peterson

Hm…could it be Christian civilisation, the family, local communities, constitutional republicanism, the rule of law, American sovereignty, the best of the entirety of the venerable Greek and Christian intellectual traditions, among other things? For starters, he might refer to Chilton Williamson’s introduction to The Conservative Bookshelf to understand what “we want to conserve.”

If Mr. Peterson had more than a cursory acquaintance with the conservative intellectual tradition, as his remarks this week suggest he has little more than that, he would already know what we want to conserve, because the older luminaries of that tradition have already told him. In this, as in my life in the Orthodox Church, I strive to embody the principle stated by St. John of Damaskos: “I say nothing of my own.” That seems a far more secure path to travel than whatever it is that goes on at the Claremont Institute.

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