The Work of Local Culture

In 1954, Russell Kirk, fresh on the heels of his Conservative Mind, published A Program for Conservatives. In “The Problem of Tradition,” the book’s last essay, Kirk asked, “Is it possible to revive a sense of traditions among a crowd who have forgotten the whole concept of tradition?” If renewal were to be accomplished, Kirk argued, four things were required: a “reaffirmation” of tradition as a way of knowing embedded in our customs and beliefs in opposition to the ideologue’s faith in “pure rationality and formal schooling”; a recommitment to localities and regions, and to the decentralization of the economy and mass society; a reenergizing of community loyalties and functions in our cities and towns; and “the returning to family and church and voluntary association of their old responsibilities as transmitters of tradition.”