Mary Ann Lyons
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thread 1/4
It was 1951 when Russell Kirk, the godfather of the modern conservative movement, published his book The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot in which he laid out the importance of “classes and orders” in society.
04:13 PM - Apr 29, 2024
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Mary Ann Lyons
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thread 2/4
The middle class was growing like a weed back then — this was before Reagan kneecapped the labor movement — and Kirk warned that if too many people got into the middle class and were no longer “the fearful poor” that there would be chaos in America.
04:13 PM - Apr 29, 2024
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Mary Ann Lyons
A
thread 3/4
He warned that too much middle class wealth would mean that women would no longer fear and respect their husbands, racial minorities would forget their “rightful place” in the social order, young people would defy their parents, and society would generally go to hell.
04:13 PM - Apr 29, 2024
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Mary Ann Lyons
A
thread 4/4
Kirk’s solution, dictated back in the 1700s by Burke himself, was to gut the middle class and return to the “normal” social form of a small number of really rich people at the top, a tiny middle class of doctors, lawyers, and professionals who served the rich, a massive class of the working poor.
04:13 PM - Apr 29, 2024
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