The Weekly Sage hopes to regularly bring brief profiles of key contributors to thought and faith before a Christian audience for historical education and awareness of valuable resources.

Willmoore Kendall

–          “Similarly, insofar as it is a generally-accepted principle of modern political philosophy and modern politics that the purpose of society, government, and law is to minister to the self-interest of the members of society, rather than to the perfection of man’s nature or to the attunement of human affairs to the will of God, we again stand in the presence of the influence of the contract philosophers…Alike the question as to the validity of the major contention of the contract philosophers (namely, that there is no higher law), and the question as to the influence they have exerted in their attempt to discredit the Great Tradition, seem certain to remain highly controversial questions in the continuing struggles…between Conservatives and Liberals: Conservative affirmation and Liberal denial, Conservative faith in the growing Great Tradition (as set forth above) and Liberal relativism. The Lockeans in America, in other words, are the Liberals; and the Conservatives, who disagree and must disagree with the Liberals on all the crucial points, must learn to understand themselves as anti-Lockeans. Then, at least, the record can be put straight.[1]

–          “The real significance and danger of the ‘prayer’ decisions lies, then, precisely in the attempt to lay down a general rule on religious observances in the schools were formerly there was none – and to accomplish this by setting aside a universally understood (if never articulated) general rule on another matter, namely: Let the people of the local community work the matter out, as part of their general problems of living together on their little portion of American real estate….Both neighborliness and the avoidance of doctrinairism increase the chances of people keeping their sense of humor, as sense of humor cements neighborliness and wears down, still a little further, the tendency to be doctrinaire. The fact that the relevant negotiations are and must be conducted face-to-face, and are presided over by the necessity of living together tomorrow, sets a stage on which alike neighborliness, sense of humor, and the avoidance of doctrinairism can thrive like the green bay tree. Are we going to let the Supreme Court uproot them, in the name of spurious and novel doctrine?”[2]

Willmoore Kendall (1909-1967) was a deeply original thinker, author, and personality who played an influential if overlooked role in the 20^th century American Conservative movement. His major works, The Conservative Affirmation and Willmoore Kendall: Contra Mundum consist more of topical responses to particular conflicts in American politics and society. These are wide-ranging, including First Amendment interpretation, McCarthyism, Civil Rights, education, religion, foreign policy, and more. Thus, in contrast with many leading conservatives, such as Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, William F. Buckley, James Burnham and others, Kendall was not perceived to have contributed a key tome to the Conservative revival, leading to less time in the intellectual limelight of the political right.

Perhaps this problem can simply be explained, as so many other elements of Kendall’s life can be explained, by his incredible precocity. The son of a blind minister in Oklahoma, Kendall taught himself to read at the age of 2, graduated from high school at 13, and became the youngest freshman, to that point, to enter Northwestern University. A Rhodes Scholar by 22, he completed in 1941 his PhD dissertation, John Locke and Majority Rule.[3]

While this was a significant work in political thought, it came in the heart of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, not perhaps the ideal environment for conservative political philosophy as compared to the consensus of the 1950’s or even the turmoil of the 1960’s. Thus, Kendall’s work earned him a job as a faculty member at Yale, rather than a broad intellectual or popular following. However, in this role, Kendall mentored the rising generation of conservative scholars, including William Buckley, M. Stanton Evans, and L. Brent Bozell Jr., all of whom studied at Yale.

But Kendall’s legacy does not lie merely in his role as exceptional teacher and mentor, though he might have been deeply satisfied to find it so.[4] Rather, he did articulate unique and challenging ideas which Americans today could learn deeply from examining. Kendall emphasized reading the Constitution as an entire document in light of The Federalist. Thus, rather than allowing the apparent strength and formal simplicity of the Bill of Rights define our understanding of the Constitution, more focus should be on the stated purpose of the Constitution – to establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility. Thus, the deliberate sense of the community, rather than the invincible rights of individuals, should be, in Kendall’s view, the ruling voice in our politics.

Because he was such a topical writer, some of Kendall’s positions are no longer immediately practical. The evolution of Supreme Court jurisprudence has been to increase and expand the application of the 14^th Amendment, a practice Kendall opposed. The increasing globalization of the 21^st century and the corresponding leaps in technology have created an America of even less communal ties, more isolation, and increased worries focusing on privacy and personal liberty that promote a rights-based order of the kind Kendall disliked.

Nevertheless, this evolution has only revealed the value of Kendall’s critiques. Our increasing polarization and lack of constructive discourse are precisely the predictions Kendall made about nations that embrace the open society concept and rely on the Supreme Court, not Congress, to adjudicate its major political disputes. Unfortunately, Kendall died suddenly at the age of only 58, moving rapidly and ahead of his contemporaries in this as in many other things. Further, though he was deeply committed mentally to a sincere Catholic faith, his marital difficulties should give all Christians, particularly successful Christian leaders, pause.

He did not live long enough to see his faith in the Soviet Union’s Cold War defeat made real. Nor did he witness the popular results of the Reagan Revolution in the 1980’s flowing from the intellectual efforts of his pupils. Still, Kendall’s ability to integrate “the Great Tradition”[5] and the concrete American situation were uniquely valuable and should lead to ongoing examination in our modern context.

–          “Survival, in itself, is not the highest value; on the contrary; under the ethos of Western civilization as revealed to us by that civilization’s central teaching, survival is a relatively low value; above it, for example, ranks truth; above it also, for example, ranks beauty; above it, far above it, ranks justice, and along with justice true religion; above it finally, and perhaps most appositely for our purposes here, ranks freedom, and along with freedom the processes of rational deliberation and discussion… these higher values have been provided for, that these being the things that make life worth living, survival without them is not life but death, that, in short, the law of reason bids us regard ourselves as – I choose my words – expendable for these higher values.”[6]

–          “The proposition that all opinions are equally and infinitely valuable, which we are told to be the unavoidable inference from the proposition that all opinions are equal, is only one – and, as we now should know, the less likely – of two possible inferences. The other tells us that all opinions are equally and infinitely without value, so what difference does it make if one, particularly one not our own, gets suppressed…In order to practice tolerance on behalf of the pursuit of truth, you have first to value and believe in not merely the pursuit of truth but truth itself, with all its accumulated riches to date. The all-questions-are-open-questions society cannot do that; it cannot, therefore, practice tolerance towards those who disagree with it. It must persecute – and, on its very showing, so arrest the pursuit of truth….The point about Mill’s model is that by giving equal privileges to those who are in fact opposed to or ignorant of the discussion process, it constitutes as a matter of course a major onslaught against truth. The two paradigms are not only different, but incompatible.”[7]

Pondering a question on politics, culture, the Christian life, or really any topic? Submit it to mailbag.bereans@gmail.com! Your question may feature in Matt’s Marvelous Monday Mailbag.

[1] Willmoore Kendall, The Conservative Affirmation, (IL: Henry Regnery Company, 1963), 99.

[2] Nellie D. Kendall, ed., Willmoore Kendall: Contra Mundum, (NY: Arlington House, 1971), 344-345.

[3] Ibid, 13.

[4] Ibid, 26.

[5] Willmoore Kendall, The Conservative Affirmation, (IL: Henry Regnery Company, 1963), 99.

[6] Nellie D. Kendall, ed., Willmoore Kendall: Contra Mundum, (NY: Arlington House, 1971), 631.

[7] Willmoore Kendall, The Conservative Affirmation, (IL: Henry Regnery Company, 1963), 116-119.