Today marks the last day of my glorious Spring Break, so it’s back to the races tomorrow.  I’m a bit under-the-weather, so today’s Lazy Sunday is going to be a quick one.

I’ve been mulling over some big questions lately about the state of the conservative movement, and what constitutes “conservatism.”  I’m planning on offering a course this summer called The History of Conservative Thought, and with the current state of flux in politics generally, it seems like a useful exercise.

As the Right continues to define itself, bolster its coalition, and attempt to rollback the seemingly inexorable gains of the Progressive Left, it’s all-the-more critical that conservatives understand who we are, where our ideas come from, and how we can win hearts and minds going forward.

With that, here are three pieces—two directly about the state of the Right, one about the deeper ideas that pulsate through conservative thought—for “Lazy Sunday VIII: Conservatism”:

• “The Impermanence of Knowledge and Culture: The Great Library and Notre Dame” – written in the immediate wake of the Notre Dame fire a couple of weeks ago, this piece explores how fleeting and precious our patrimony is.  Conservatism, at its core, is about conserving things that are worth saving.  A culture that is proud, self-confident, humane, and devout—what the West used to be—is one that is worth preserving, cultivating, and bequeathing to our descendants.  That we’ve allowed it to become so hollow—that we’ve lost our reverence for great things and ideas—is, perhaps, our greatest failure as conservatives.
• “The State of the Right” and “The State of the Right, Part II: Dissident Right and Civic Nationalists” – these two essays go hand-in-hand, as they explore the current state of the conservative movement, particularly its different factions.  Blogger photog of Orion’s Cold Fire was largely the inspiration for both of these posts (he generously gave me a shout-out, too, for the latter of these two essays).  I highly recommend readers check out his essays “What’s Right” and “Identity Politics and Civic Nationalism – Part 1” (I’m excited to read Part 2—and beyond).  The former gives one of the best rundowns I’ve read recently of the various factions on the Right, and is worth checking out.

That’s it for a quick Lazy Sunday (it is lazy, after all).  I’ll be back tomorrow, hopped up on Mucinex.

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

• Lazy Sunday – APR Pieces
• Lazy Sunday II – Lincoln Posts
• Lazy Sunday III – Historical Moments
• Lazy Sunday IV – Christianity
• Lazy Sunday V – Progressivism, Part I
• Lazy Sunday VI – Progressivism, Part II
• Lazy Sunday VII – Deep State