In this episode, I speak with Brad Birzer about the American Sociologist Robert Nisbet and his critique of the Modern Nation State. Nisbet was a strong proponent of decentralization and a multiplicity of associations. We discuss some of his ideas, including developmentalism, the quest for community, and authority. We also discuss Nisbet's influences—Alexis de Tocqueville, Edmund Burke, Proudhon, and the Counter-Revolutionaries—and his critique of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who he called the "demon of the modern mind". Brad is currently working on a book on Robert Nisbet that will be published by Notre Dame Press.
Dr. Birzer is professor of history, and the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies at Hillsdale College. He is the co-founder of The Imaginative Conservative, and has written books on J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Dawson, Russell Kirk, and the rock star Neil Peart.
Resources
See Books by Robert Nisbet Below
Fredrick Jackson Turner: The Significance of the Frontier in American History
Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Luke Sheahan, Why Associations Matter
Brad Birzer’s Blog Spirit of St. Cecilia
Robert Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth
Jaron Lanier, Who Owns the Future?
Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy The State
David Wrobell on FDR and Fred Jackson Turner: The End of American Exceptionalism
James Burnham, The Managerial Revolution
For elaboration on this see Julius Krein and his journal American Affairs
Ray Bradbury, Martian Chronicles
Here is an introduction to Counter Revolutionary thinkers: Critics of the Enlightenment
Jean-Baptiste-Henri Lacorrdaire
Voegelin New Science of Politics
Rousseau: Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts
Irving Babbitt, Rousseau and Romanticism
Individualism is a detriment to freedom
Individualism leads to centralization
Edmund Burke Quote:
“We begin our public affections in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our neighbourhoods, and our habitual provincial connections. These are inns and resting-places. Such divisions of our country as have been formed by habit, and not by a sudden jerk of authority, were so many little images of the great country in which the heart found something which it could fill. The love to the whole is not extinguished by this subordinate partiality.”
See this article by Brad Birzer on Edmund Burke
Tocqueville ch 6: Soft Despotism
Tocqueville ch 5
MMM: Does Capitalism Destroy Culture?
Hilaire Belloc The Servile State with Introduction by Robert Nisbet
“Liberty is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization” Lord Acton
Books
Russell Kirk: American Conservative
By Birzer, Bradley J.
Beyond Tenebrae: Christian Humanism in the Twilight of the West
By Birzer, Bradley J.
By Birzer, Bradley J.
Books by Robert Nisbet
By Nisbet, Robert
History of the Idea of Progress
By Nisbet, Robert
By Robert Nisbet
More Books by Nisbet
The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America
The Social Philosophers This is out of print, but Luke Sheahan is working to get it back.
Ep. 11: Bradley Birzer, Ph.D: Leviathan Inc.: Robert Nisbet, Decentralization, & Localism