I would like to ask here about Dr. Fleming’s correspondence course in the ancient literature. Is the course predicated upon the knowledge of the recommendations given in response #19? Or does it function as a companion work, to be studied simultaneous to the literature, in order to guide one through it?

Favorite quotation in it, from memory, goes something like:

If you demand and enforce that I love someone else’s children more than my own, simply because they don’t look like my children, makes you a tyrant and me a slave.

Dr. Fleming’s Morality of Everyday Life is indispensable in giving an ancient perspective on the ethics of modern liberalism.

Other books that do for metaphysics what Dr. Fleming did for ethics is Edward Feser’s The Last Superstition and also his book on Aquinas. These books give an ancient and medieval perspective on the early modern philosophers (Descartes, Locke, Hume, etc.) who were extremely influential in constructing what we now call liberalism, broadly speaking.

My favorite is “this life is a vail of tears.”

I think one has to be clear: Is your intention to defend a South that no longer really exists or to clear your own mind of the lying rubbish that is at the heart of all liberalisms, both the Marxist type and the libertarian type? The former project requires an ideology–one more dishonest attempt to maintain or acquire power–while the latter requires a great deal of systematic study.

In asking for suggestions on what to read, you should also be clear. Are you looking for a serious philosophical program or a course of study for ordinary intelligent people? If the latter, then you may begin today by setting aside all your Southern books for several years and devote yourself to studying the literary and intellectual tradition that formed the South. My recommendation is that you begin with two projects: 1) Learn Latin and 2) begin reading good translations of the best Greek literature: Homer, Hesiod, the tragedies, and Plato’s early dialogues as preparation for studying the indispensable philosopher, Aristotle. Without a firm grasp of Aristotle and Cicero, there is hardly any point in reading Burke, much less Weaver. We Americans are provincial colonials in a great and comprehensive tradition. We cannot “remember who we are” if we forget who we have been.

Some years ago, I spent some time trying to develop a classical curriculum and stimulating discussion of the classics, but for lack of time and resources I have slowly given this project up. If some kind rich person would give us enough money to hire a classically trained assistant for two years, we could accomplish a great deal.

For those of us who are imbued with Va.Ky. Resolutions, Calhoun, Southern Agrarians, and Chronicles Mag., Abbeville Inst., who should be our favorite classical, medieval, etc., through to post modern philosophers and what are their works?

In other words, who best articulates philosophically for us what we enjoy and cherish contemplatively of conservatism, i.e. localism, tradition, custom, freedom of association, distrust of do-gooders, duty to family, etc.?

Was there a classical philosopher who was us, if we analogize?

Richard Weaver poses in Epilogue of Southern Trad. at Bay that the South never made the conquest of the imagination to prove that it was right. Other than all his subsequent works, except for the conclusion of Visions of Order, are there any recognized works that attempted what he proposed in the Epilogue, for the South in general, and for its traditionalists in particular?

Has anyone successfully combined dialectal empiricism and analogy with rhetorical sermonizing to make the necessary conquest of the imagination that proves the South “was right, finally”?

Did we ever get our Burke or Hegel, as Weaver said we needed?

Is there any “tyrannizing image” to which the South can look for its imprimatur? Any recurrence to a fundamental principle that has the effect of forcefully victorious logic, and does not just imitate desperate cries of “the Constitution and States Rights,” which have prevented so little?

Do we have anything that can succeed against the post modern notions that our enemies are good and we are evil, that if we don’t see the evil in ourselves then we have not done enough ethical reasoning to see how our prejudices blind us to the harm done to others as we desperately try to hold on to our diminishing privileges?

Is there a favorite passage from antiquity that summarizes all we hold dear?