The Imaginative Conservative

06/18/2026

Music is an essential liberal art transcending the classroom, the concert stage, and professional recordings. It pervades life, and listening is not enough. (essay by Peter Kalkavage)

Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul. –Plato Music transcends the classroom, the concert stage, and professional recordings. It pervades life. Mankind has long used music in all sorts of ways, to celebrate, to lament, to dance,

06/18/2026

Because it is based on natural laws and timeless truths, the republic can be ignored, it can be mocked, and it can be forgotten, but it can never be fully undone. All it takes is an anamnesis, something to rouse us from our slumbers and reassert its many truths and goodnesses and beauties. Long live the republic! (essay by Bradley J. Birzer)

Because it is based on natural laws and timeless truths, the republic can be ignored, it can be mocked, and it can be forgotten, but it can never be fully undone. All it takes is an anamnesis, something to rouse us from our slumbers and reassert its many truths and goodnesses and beauties.

06/17/2026

The Lewis & Clark Argonath must be built!

06/17/2026

On this date in 1775, American colonists inflicted heavy casualties on British forces while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill: The American and French Revolutions provide a contrast between principle and ideology; between prudence and fanaticism; between prescriptive rights and extravagant ambitions; between historical wisdom and utopianism; between free government and democratic despotism. (essay by Russell Kirk)

The American and French Revolutions provide a contrast between principle and ideology; between prudence and fanaticism; between prescriptive rights and extravagant ambitions; between historical wisdom and utopianism; between free government and democratic despotism. A little book forgotten for a cen...

06/17/2026

Humans thrive upon historical continuity and knowing their communities are built with deep roots. But histories based on theories of power dynamics destroy an unseen social glue, leaving behind those who understood their place through a shared history. (essay by Michael J. Connolly)

Humans thrive upon historical continuity and knowing their communities are built with deep roots. But histories based on theories of power dynamics destroy an unseen social glue, leaving behind those who understood their place through a shared history. For those disinclined toward interstate

06/16/2026

There are some ideas so plainly preposterous, so spectacularly stupid, that only an astrophysicist of atheist persuasion could possibly believe them. And when will we stop listening to such people about the origins of the universe, concerning which they scarcely know anything more than we do? (essay by Regis Martin)

There are some ideas so plainly preposterous, so spectacularly stupid, that only an astrophysicist of atheist persuasion could possibly believe them. And when will we stop listening to such people, I’d like to know—all these self-styled experts eager to tell us how little

06/16/2026

Having severed himself from God, man was not empowered but disempowered, not expanded but crushed, not liberated but enslaved. What was needed at that point was not only a Saviour who could repair what no human could fix, but also a teacher who could enter into the inner darkness and chaos in the human soul to make the crooked straight and retrain the devastated vineyard. (essay by Brian Sudlow)

Having severed himself from God, man was not empowered but disempowered, not expanded but crushed, not liberated but enslaved. What was needed at that point was not only a Saviour who could repair what no human could fix, but also a teacher who could enter into the inner darkness and chaos in the

06/15/2026

On June 15, 1864, Arlington National Cemetery was established when 200 acres of Robert E. Lee's Arlington estate were officially set aside as a military cemetery: What do the women and men who occupy the innumerable office buildings on either of the Potomac think about those gun-toting revolutionary gentlemen of the eighteenth century? (essay by Bradley Birzer)

Across the mighty Potomac sits the capital of our once noble and humane republic, founded upon the idea that all men are created equal, endowed with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What do the women and men who occupy the innumerable office buildings on either of the Potom...

06/15/2026

Books on theology and books on gardening are more than plentiful, but rarely are both topics fused in the way these books manage to do. Christine Norvell gives us the intellectual grasp of the relationship between creation and the life of the soul, while Samantha Stephenson explains how, by cultivating both the earth and our souls, we can actively contribute to God’s new creation. (essay by Michael De Sapio)

Books on theology and books on gardening are more than plentiful, but rarely are both topics fused in the way these books manage to do. Christine Norvell gives us the intellectual grasp of the relationship between creation and the life of the soul, while Samantha Stephenson explains how, by cultivat...

06/14/2026

The mysteries of the human heart, and of the soul within you, are every bit as wondrous as the mysteries of the political and the natural worlds. And so you have asked questions of the world, in part because it is your nature to wish to know, in part because you wish to know your place within that world, and in part, because it is your world and you are bent on loving it as you love yourselves. (essay by Christopher Nelson)

The mysteries of the human heart, and of the soul within you, are every bit as wondrous as the mysteries of the political and the natural worlds. And so you have asked questions of the world, in part because it is your nature to wish to know, in part because you wish to