The integrative mind
A review of The Common Mind: Politics, Society and Christian Humanism from Thomas More to Russell Kirk by Andre Gushurst-Moore.
In this highly engaging book, André Gushurst-Moore surveys twelve of history’s greatest men of Anglo-American letters: Thomas More, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Henry Newman, Orestes Brownson, Benjamin Disraeli, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, and Russell Kirk. Along the way, he explores several interrelated themes, all intended to illuminate “the common mind.”
What is this common mind? It is that which rests upon the uniformity of human nature, and which encompasses qualities and values shared by people throughout history simply by virtue of their common humanity. Predicated on this is the idea of common sense and a properly formed conscience, the “faculty that negotiates . . . moral action.” The accumulation of insights and wisdom imparted by such a conscience over the centuries represents what Gushurst-Moore then...
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