I usually agree with just about everything Ann Coulter says. Sometimes she could use a little more tact, but she's almost always right. The important thing to remember is that she's an entertainer, not a scholar. Kirk might appreciate what she's doing, but I doubt he would be an incredible fan.
I have to agree. The reason I see as to why students aren't reading the classics of conservative thought is twofold. First, a lack of education to be able to understand these works. It seems that one needs to have some grounding in philosophy to understand these works, but most students, I would say, do not have that grounding. I blame this on the university. Given the PC nature of most universities and colleges, they are not going to teach about these classics, if they did, I think more students would be reading them. I was exposed to Weaver in a rhetoric class by a prof. who happened to be an ISI member. Second, I see it as a larger problem revolving around time. Students have so much to read for classes that they are not going to want to read outside of that, which could be construed as laziness, but I must confess that graduate school can keep one from making that dent in their library. I think the key is to encourage professors to use these works in their classes when appropriate as I think as long as they don't see them as Republican they will be more inclined to consider them. Maybe it is time for us to take back the conservative movement away from politics and place it back in the realm of ideas, which is where I believe Kirk originally intended it to remain.
Well, obviously, as a college student, it's much more important for me to learn about people like Karl Marx than people like Russell Kirk. Somebody please tell me how it is that we help students MY AGE understand what it actually means to be conservative, and not just "involved in politics" so they can get cool jobs (and they just happen to believe in a couple conservative ideas...)
First off, I am not sure with your first sentence what you are trying to say. Are you saying that it is more important to learn about Marx because that is what many colleges want you to learn, or are you being sarcastic? As for helping students understand, perhaps ISI could set up a program to provide a work of Kirk, Weaver, and Buckley to students for free. The only real way for students to understand what it means to be conservative is to make the works of the great conservative thinkers easily available to them.
