"We haven’t any use for old things here.”

Roger Kimball writes in American Greatness,

Let me end by noting that the opposite of “conservative” is not “liberal” but ephemeral. Russell Kirk once observed that he was conservative because he was liberal, that is, committed to freedom. Kirk’s formulation may sound paradoxical, but it touches on a great truth. To be conservative: that means wanting to conserve what is worth preserving from the ravages of time and ideology, evil and stupidity, so that freedom may thrive. In some plump eras the task is so easy we can almost forget how necessary it is. At other times, the enemies of civilization transform the task of preserving our culture into a battle for survival. That, I believe—and I say it regretfully—is where we are today.

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