Posted by
Daniel Crandall on Monday, January 07, 2008 10:34:40 PM
I am fascinated with the works published by the
Intercollegiate Studies Institute. They produce some of the best books and journals available today. I don't think
Regnery or
Encounter Books come close to the intellectual gravitas coming from ISI.
I don't subscribe to their journals (a factor of funds rather than desire) so I'm limited to what is available online and what I find now again in a bookstore. Recently I found the Summer 2007 issue of Modern Age. The focus of this issue is the "Why I am a Conservative: A Symposium". All this is a long, and perhaps not very interesting, way of introducing this Michael Oakeshott quote from "On being Conservative":
"To be a conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss."
I do love the bit about "present laughter to utopian bliss". There could not be a more accurate distinction between conservatives and liberals with regards to that quality.