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The Essential Conservative Reader for Adolescents
As my children (currently first and third graders) get older, I’m increasingly concerned about how to inoculate them against the incessant liberalism they will be exposed to on a daily basis through school and media. I already have to deal with cartoon dogs lecturing them about global warming and teachers not letting them eat snacks because — heaven forfend! — the yogurt contains Oreo crumbles.
Dealing with that stuff is pretty easy now; I just tell them the problems with what they’re hearing on TV or in the classroom, or I ignore the issue because the attempts at liberal indoctrination have failed. But at some point, sooner than I would like, they are going to need more. So I started thinking about a reading list for when that time comes to help my kids realize that a lot of liberal pablum is misguided at best and overtly destructive at worst. I want them to think critically about these issues.
The reading material needs to be accessible to a seventh grader (or thereabouts), so the Road to Serfdom, Capitalism and Freedom, and Liberal Fascism are probably out. I also don’t want the material to seem hectoring or overly preachy about the virtues of conservatism.
Here’s what I have come up with so far:
- “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” Rudyard Kipling
- Animal Farm, George Orwell
- 1984, George Orwell
- Politics and the English Language, George Orwell
- Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
- Harrison Bergeron, Kurt Vonnegut
- The Use of Knowledge in Society, Friedrich Hayek
- The Pretense of Knowledge, Friedrich Hayek (These last two might be a little too advanced for a seventh grader, but it can’t hurt to try. Plus, you can never have enough Hayek.)
What am I missing? What other short and/or accessible works should be included in The Essential Conservative Reader for Adolescents/Young Adults?
Published in Literature
Ricochet member Herb Meyer — a.k.a my dad — has two books that perfectly fit the bill. They’re both short, accessible, and crystal clear.
I have to disagree there. I read The Kent Family Chronicles (all 8 of them) as a middle schooler and found them very interesting, if not particularly well written (or plausible.) As an adult, though, my father-in-law introduced me to Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor. I also read the Civil War series by Michael and Jeff Shaara, and Philippa Gregory’s series about Henry VIII’s wives. What these books did was to give me a glimpse into what the events may have looked like while they unfolded. And in the case of the Shaara and Gregory books, they inspired me to grab nonfiction books about the people and events to read and find out what really happened. Historical fiction made me realize that I actually really love history.
I was not suggesting that 2112 is the most conservative RUSH song.
I was suggesting that 2112 is basically Ayn Rand’s Anthem set to music, (and with the addition of conquerors from beyond the solar system at the very end of the song, but that’s incidental).
;-)
(The irony, of course, is that RUSH has a song that is also titled Anthem, but it is unrelated.)
Considering John Cleese’s antipathy towards religion in general, that astounds me.
The socialization of the Serengeti Plain?
I hear this word from everyone, and it has no referent for me in reality. I draw a mental blank for some reason whenever people use it. I get the impression that everyone who uses it uses it because they heard someone else use it.
Just a mini rant of frustration.
socialization
[soh-shuh-luh-zey-shuh n]
noun
1.
a continuing process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position.
2.
the act or process of making socialistic:
the socialization of industry.
Origin of socialization
1885-1890
1885-90; socialize + -ation
Freewill is the song that turned me on to Rush. I was returning home after a delivery of french fries to a store in SLC from my family’s production facilities in SE Idaho, when I heard it on the radio for the first time. I got off at the next exit, went straight to the closest mall, and tried to find the album.
Which they didn’t have. But I did pick up Counterparts, which quickly became one of my favorite albums of all time.
And I’d rank Rush as being much less conservative than they are libertarian, and almost objectivist. Freewill is explicitly anti-religion, and that’s something they come back to time and again in Test for Echo, (Totem), Snakes and Arrows (Spindrift, Faithless, etc.). Meanwhile, they’ve been touting Randian concepts since Fly By Night (Anthem).
Still a rockin’ band, though. And the recent news about Alex Lifeson’s arthritis is really sad.
I would put just about anything by Ray Bradbury on your list — especially Fahrenheit 451 and The Illustrated Man. Bradbury doesn’t veer political too often, but it’s always in the background if you know where to look.
I hate to be a wet blanket, but I have a smart kid who is an eager reader in the target demographic for this post (8th grade) and few if any of these books will appeal to her. The only one that looks like her kind of thing is The Hunger Games, and she read that a few years ago.
When she was younger, I tried hard to get her to read Laura Ingalls Wilder, which I had read over and over as a kid. No dice. Some of the science fiction on here might be a possibility, but I remember most of it as being more attractive to boys than girls. As a matter of fact, most of these choices look more attractive for boys than girls.
My daughter and her friends spend all their time reading dystopian novels. Why? Because they are attracted to dystopian visions? Not at all. It’s because there is a school of modern dystopian novels that are written around teen romances. In fact, she’s not at all different from me at that age, except that I read a pile of entirely forgettable 1950s teen romances (they were old at the time) rather than forgettable dystopian 21st century teen romances.
And she is way too busy and overcommitted for me to require her to read something she does not want to read.
There is no point to this except as an opportunity for me to vent my frustration, unless someone can point out some of these books and say that they might be more attractive than I think. I do think the world could probably use more conservative-themed books that are attractive to girls, though. It might help us end up with more conservative girls, which would be all to the good.
Jerry E Pournelles CoDominion series. I am a conservative today because I read those books.
Some Shakespeare. Richard the 3rd. Julius Caesar. Hamlet. King Lear.
John Ringo A Hymn Before Battle Series.
Ton Kratman. Caliphate, A Dessert Called Peace and series.
Rose Wilder Lane was an interesting thinker and writer; I wrote about her here:
Author Appreciation: Rose Wilder Lane
Although I’ve often seen her referred to as “a discipline of Ayn Rand,” I’m pretty sure that most of her ideas (she published her core libertarian essay in 1936) were developed independently.
Hokey Pete! That’s a great quote! I never knew he said that.
I wonder if Ayn Rand’s We the Living would appeal to her. The main character is a young woman. Two main threads are her loves for the two main men in her life — who represent two main types of men as well. It’s not fluffy, and it’s dark, though.
It’s quasi-dystopian, the only difference being it doesn’t take place in an imagined world.
Hmm. Bradbury also sounds, in that interview, like a 90-year-old flower child.
Well, yeah. In 2010 he was a 90-year-old flower child. A let-everyone-do-their-own thing flower child.
Seawriter
The Trees.
Maybe not necessarily conservative or libertarian, but O. Henry stories.
I don’t know about everyone else’s kids, but mine wouldn’t do the kind of work for me that they would do for their teachers. In a good class, there’s discussion, journal-type responses, exams, essays, and miscellaneous projects about a book. That kind of engagement makes it much more likely that a teenager will undertake to read and then understand the nuances and complexities of a challenging book.
There’s just nothing that resembles reading a great piece of literature with other engaged readers under the tutelage of a fine instructor.
By the way, earlier someone mentioned Watership Down. At first I questioned its ideological relevance, but then I remembered the episode of Cowslip’s Warren (the partially-domesticated rabbit warren). It’s been over thirty years since I read that book. To this day, however, I’ve never witnessed a comparable evisceration of the notion of sacrificing freedom for material security.
Not so fast.
There are good examples of historical fiction. One is April Morning, by Howard Fast. The Battle of Lexington and Concord as seen by a boy who has twenty four hours to become a man. Definitely worth a read.
Bad historical fiction is bad indeed, but the good stuff is a great way to get a young reader to look for the actual history books.
I prefer Ringo’s Troy Rising novels. Entrepreneurship saves the world from alien invaders.
Bad form, RightAngles, and also poorly informed regarding homeschooling.
Even when we were homeschooling more than a decade ago, my sons got better socialization as homeschoolers than they got from the public schools. I saw both, because we homeschooled older son from 8th grade through high school, but younger son from 5th grade through 9th grade. There was a great, vibrant homeschool co-op, and several opportunities for group activities, and lots more interaction between kids and adults who are not their own parents or a daily feature like teachers. Compared to their peers, both sons were better-able to converse with adult people about adult topics.
After older son went to college, younger son did not want to be solo at home, so went to the local high school, where he learned to be lazy, sneaky, racist and cynical. He would have been better off at home. As far as socialization goes, the socialization at high school is toxic.
Further regarding homeschooling, check out this currently active post:
http://ricochet.com/homeschool-curriculum-review/
I have a contribution to make to this list:
We read it aloud in the car on a long road trip when older son was 9th grade and younger son in 6th grade. They loved it, and each chapter prompted a good discussion. It gave both of them an interest in economics, and made both of them monetarists.
Also, I can recommend the Ralph Moody books. They are a little like the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, in that they are autobiographical, but they are early 20th century rather than 19th century. Ralph was a very interesting character, and the books are an interesting read. A middle school age boy would be fascinated by the first four books in the series, and they convey solid conservative values and a spirit of initiative and self-sufficiency.
There are seven books in the series, but the later books take on more adult topics as Ralph grew up, and a middle-schooler will lose interest. You, however, will have to get them for yourself to find out how Ralph turned out. They are also fascinating.
I have seen some recommendations for science fiction that I think is less commendable than the Wrinkle in Time series and other works by Madeleine L’Engle.
I’m sympathetic to that argument in general. However, do you really want to sacrifice your children to that end? Perhaps a better way is to raise them up in the worldview, values and wisdom that you think they need in order to become the kind of adult who will fight alongside you on that battlefield. They will make much better soldiers that way. As children, they will be more like cannon fodder.
Well said, Polyphemus.
It can but it isn’t a silver bullet. Some 47% of all parents homeschool primarily to ensure their values are passed to their kids.
At the risk of going completely off topic, kids are socialized poorly in public high school and junior high. They deal with wretched people who deeply affect them in negative ways. They are constantly influenced by behaviors involving drugs, sex, and disrespect for authority. Homeschool kids generally get around with lots of kids do sports and art and pooled learning, but perhaps most importantly, they are socialized directly with adults and into adult life.
After reading three Heinlein books, I find that he isn’t all that conservative. He is a pull yourself up by your bootstraps guy which definitely qualifies. But he sort of defers to world governments, and he verges of nihilistic scientism. So he’s a mixed bag.
In all seriousness, The Princess Bride. Better than the movie.