Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 5
AMERICA THE
SUPR ANATIONAL
INTRODUCTION TO A SYMPOSIUM
R
ussell Kirk founded Modern Age in
order to publish a wide range of scholar-
ship, exhibited in the writings of American
conservatives, that might not be published
in other, more specialized journals. The six
essays in this symposium on American for-
eign policy fulfill Russell Kirk's vision of a
publication that offers contrary opinions
and that challenges commonly accepted
views. Kirk himself worked from his home
in Mecosta, Michigan, where his family
had lived for many years. He wrote from his
perspective as an American citizen, and the
sum of his scholarship is a reflection on the
affairs, hopes, and interests of a particular
country, the United States, and the citizens
of the American nation.
Though a world traveler, Kirk did not
view himself as a citizen of the world. Nor
did he aspire to become a member of that
New Class of humanist intellectuals whose
claims transcend the particular and unique
relationships that root us in American soil
and in what Kirk, following Edmund Burke,
called "our little platoon." A foreign policy
rooted in the pursuit of the national interest
was once, in the early life of the American
nation, the only foreign policy we could pur-
sue that would preserve our independence.
How, then, did American foreign policy
burst the bounds of our particular national
interest and become universal, aspiring to
complete a redemptive democratic mission?
This symposium is a summing up of histori-
cal and theoretical trends by six conservative
scholars whose works represent a classic,
conservative response to spiritual and intel-
lectual disorders that have adversely affected
the conduct of an effective foreign policy
focused on the national interest.
In my own contribution, I see the develop-
ment of a supranational American foreign
policy that ignores the national interest in
the influence of Leo Strauss's seminal work
Natural Right and History. I argue that con-
servative attempts at recovery from Progres-
sive ideology in the twentieth century that
motivated conservative scholars to master
classical political philosophy was derailed by
Strauss's influential treatise on natural right.
Walter McDougall sees the development of
a supranational American foreign policy as a
feature of an American civil religion. Begin-
ning with the Spanish American War, that
civil religion inspired the "Progressive impe-
rialism of the Teddy Roosevelt sort; Wilsoni-
5
Modern Age - Fall 2014
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Fall 2014
Table of Contents
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - Cover1
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - Cover2
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - Table of Contents
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 2
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 3
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 4
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 5
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 6
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 7
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 8
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 9
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 10
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 11
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 12
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 13
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 14
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 15
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 16
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 17
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 18
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 19
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 20
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 21
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 22
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 23
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 24
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 25
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 26
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 27
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 28
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 29
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 30
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 31
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 32
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 33
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 34
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 35
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 36
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 37
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 38
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 39
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 40
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 41
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 42
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 43
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 44
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 45
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 46
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 47
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 48
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 49
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 50
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 51
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 52
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 53
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 54
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 55
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 56
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 57
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 58
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 59
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 60
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 61
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 62
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 63
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 64
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 65
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 66
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 67
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 68
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 69
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 70
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 71
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 72
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 73
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 74
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 75
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 76
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 77
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 78
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 79
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 80
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 81
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 82
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 83
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 84
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 85
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 86
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 87
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 88
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 89
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 90
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 91
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 92
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 93
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 94
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 95
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 96
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - Cover3
Modern Age - Fall 2014 - Cover4
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2018winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2017fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2017summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2017spring
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2017winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2016fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2016summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2016spring
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2016winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2015fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2014fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2014summer
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com