burnham. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much roger and also thanks especially to the buckley program at yale. as you might imagine for me this is really a wonderful occasion in which we can sit down and discuss some of the ideas of my father and how they changed lives and changed policy at times too. but i thought since part of the program is the life of james burnham that i should really concentrate more on that than on, at least this formal presentation part and give you a couple of perspectives as growing up under james burnham, what was it like? [laughter] and believe it or not, my father's insistent on being realistic about how the world works was ingrained in all three burnham children at a very, very early age. and i always remember one of the things when i was very young he used to share with me he'd show me a historical atlas, and he said this is history here. the color advances the color stabilizes from one page to next the color recedes, another color takes over parts of africa or eur

burnham has another regulation. conservatism small fee a lot of it if you look about europe, what is conservatism mean? a lot of it is elitism. old aristocratic idea, which is now in modern western european countries not so much aristocrats. it's also capitalists and economic corporatist families they hand down their big gigantic dismisses two kids and avoid all the rules that everyone else has to adhere to. this is where the regulatory state of berkey and ideas can help us think through things because part of what we are now fighting against in terms of this overweening regulatory fee is the kind of conservatism. if you deregulate things, dolby disruptive. we just don't know. we can never have a free health care system. who has one of those? it's so much better like jonathon group or the other day. all of the american voters who don't understand we have to do these things for them because they are too to figure it out for themselves. that elitism in a small sense betrays a kind of conservative impulse. liberal elit

i found myself asking is this what burnham is marching toward? is that all that is as the song goes? how shall the west survived and what are the forms this survival will take? but then i would turn to the epigraph from spenser's the queen that burnham carefully chose though he does not identify or comment on the source of the quotation and is not in the edition that i read. after describing the cave of despair spencer has been rebuked by the red cross light for provoking the suicide of -- and it is despair himself who speaks in this epigraph saying what if some little pain that patents have that makes frail/to fear the better way of? is a pain that brings ease and lays the soul to sleep in quiet grave? sleep after toil port after stormy sea ease after war death after life does greatly pleased. hearing this insidious argument of self defeat he nearly killed himself but is saved by the spirit of faith whereupon despair hangs himself. that is the part that comes after. my question is what is the connection between spenser's figure of despair and th

50th anniversary of the publication of james burnham's "suicide of the west" a panel discussion of liberalism at home and the challenges to western survival. this is a little over an hour. >> my name is carolyn hanson and i'm the speaker's director program creates a great pleasure that i'm here to introduce a distinguished patron of liberal arts and western civilization. professor noel valis. she is a professor of spanish and portuguese. okay no longer portuguese. [laughter] she was a recipient of the guggenheim fellowship and also a national endowment for the humanities fellowship. she is written on sacred realism, spanish civil war and 19th century spanish novels so without further ado the moderator for the second panel

. >> now as part of a conference on the 50th anniversary of the publication of james burnham's "suicide of the west: an essay on the meaning and destiny of liberalism" a panel discussion on u.s. foreign policy. this is about an hour. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. i am membership director of the above the programming is my pleasure to introduce the moderator for the final panel which is readathon 11 -- "the drift of u.s. foreign policy and the challenges to western survival" survival". charles hill is a professor at the stanford institute and in the 2008 presidential election was chief foreign policy adviser to rudy guiliani. author of grand strategies and trial of a thousand years he teaches in the grand strategy, one of the most popular and rigorous disciplinary seminars offered at yale to handle questions of leadership and diplomacy. professor hill teaches in studies of western civilization freshman year program so without further ado please would join me in welcoming our moderator will introduce the panel professor charles hill. [applause] >> thank you and good afterno

first job the forgetting to the panel is to wave this in front of you, "suicide of thewest," james burnham. it's just out, available from amazon and it is for the handful of you who haven't read this, it is eerie uncanny how relevant this work is to what we're talking about here today. i recommend you go out and get it online. today is the panel on the drift in u.s. foreign policy. we have three remarkable public intellectuals of wide-ranging influence on the panel today. i will introduce them in the order in which they will speak for 10 minutes or so and then leaving is time for questions. kt mcfarland is with fox news, as national security expert, a columnist. she is the anchor for the "defcon 3" at fox served in the nixon, ford and reagan administrations. she, as i was once, an aide to henry kissinger, speechwriter she was for secretary of defense weinberger once deputy assistant secretary of defense. chic has run for office for the senate and generally someone who really knows the foreign affairs business. second, james kirchick who i've known for some time since his degradation sure t

i think one of the key lesson wed tame from burnham and ravel is how vulnerable democracies for being manipulated to being coopted by authoritarian powers. it's very easy to spread disinformation propaganda, lies and i am very interested in what the russians are doing in this field and the disinformation field. if any of you have ever seen the network rt it is a think to behold. it is -- it's horrible. it's evil, and it's sinister but brilliant television and has a huge audience, and it is not soviet style propaganda. this appeals to all political stripes from the far left to far right. it works because we have a democratic society. we don't kick out their journalists, we don't censor them as they do our side. so that a major challenge. so hate to be so pessimistic but i am very worried about the state of europe and our alliance structure there the next two years are going to be very difficult, but i do ultimately agree with kt that in the end america will most likely endure i hope. [applause] >> like to thank the william f buckley society for a invite maybe. i am not a foreign policy

james burnham would say look what a realist madison was which is absolutely right. it is almost that simple because most conservatives say i'm pretty realistic and that's true also. i think burnham is absolutely without illusions about any sentimental idealism in the way it comes to site. that's why. i'm familiar to so many people appeared to resist thinking that coldly about things. >> werner explains this himself which i agree, that is a central book of his thought and the other emanations in the way. he's describing distinctions and i could never remember that term, but one means a disposition of people, desires or actions you might say and other rationalizations that these aims. the rationalizations change all the time. but the desires remained fairly constant. does anyone remember the terms, drawing on pareto, i can't remember sorry. the point however is there is permanent disposition, which you called idealism which certainly fits and occurs again and again and events it seems to me not just arguments. defense has to confirm burnham's analysis before people be

inaudible conversations] next from a conference on the 50th anniversary of the publication of james burnham's "suicide of the west" a panel discussion of liberalism at home and the challenges to western survival. this is a little over an hour. >> my name is carolyn hanson and i'm the speaker's director program creates a great pleasure that i'm here to introduce a distinguished patron of liberal arts and western civilization. professor noel valis. she is a professor of spanish and portuguese. okay no longer portuguese. [laughter] she was a recipient of the guggenheim fellowship and also a national endowment for the humanities fellowship. she is written on sacred realism, spanish civil