I just arrived home from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Summer Honors Program and if anything can give you hope for Western Civilization it is this annual gathering of 50 students from different educational, religious, and conservative backgrounds aimed at immersing themselves in Russell Kirk’s classic The Roots of the American Order (1974).
So I was a bit befuddled to come across a recently published lament for the decline of ISI into a polarized and politicized organization. The article is by a former Honors Fellow, who remembers his own experience of study, intellectual exchange, and deep conversations while on the program ten years ago with great fondness. But he believes that in the past decade, ISI has gone the way of all flesh—losing its “its antiquarian, tranquil appreciation of great books” and the liberal arts for an all-consuming obsession with current events and contemporary politics.
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