To avoid the sin of ideology in political life requires one to maintain the perspective that Kirk and Voegelin expressed in their work. As much as conservatism is about specific objectives such as keeping private associations vibrant, avoiding excessive government interference in private affairs, practicing fiscal responsibility, and a modest foreign policy, conservatives do well to remember that such policies cannot be effectively promoted by individuals who lack the very restraint that these policies require. Plato long ago suggested that political order is dependent on the order of the soul. In other words, politics reflects the state of the souls of political leaders and the citizens they govern.

Culture animates politics. Education serves as the central nervous system of the body politic. It shapes the minds and imaginations of leaders and citizens in ways that make some laws and policies possible and others impossible. We are mistaken to believe that power alone can shape politics according to good ends. To use power intentionally for the highest ends of politics, leaders must have an aristocratic disposition. By aristocratic, I mean that they must have the kind of character that puts the common good before narrow self-interest and that knows the difference between mere partisan politics and constitutional politics. The American Framers used the term “republican virtue” to describe this disposition. Read more»

Michael Federici | “The Meaning of Intellectual Conservatism” | February 9, 2026 |

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