Conservatism and Recovery

The current issue of  Anamnesis features my examination of the role that conservatism has played in spiritual recovery from the disorders created by modern ideology.  The journal Anamnesis is  “dedicated to the study of Tradition, Place, and ‘Things Divine.”

Plato taught that before we were born,  our souls existed in direct relation to the divine, but through the trauma of birth we forgot. By the act of remembering, we can return to that better place and time.

In this essay, I suggest that daimonic men and women, who resist the disorders of the soul that plague us today, are contributing to recovery from these disorders and, collectively,  they constitute what I call the conservative “community.”  The word “daimon” refers to the spirit that came to Socrates when he was about to commit an injustice.