https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2025/02/russell-kirk-wield-five-swords-imagination-barbara-elliott.html
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." — Proverbs 9:10
AI GENERATED:
What Elliott Is Saying (Plain English)
Barbara J. Elliott is essentially making this argument:
> America's leaders are failing because they see politics as the entire world. Real leadership requires imagination—five kinds of it.
She leans heavily on Russell Kirk and Gleaves Whitney's reading of The Sword of Imagination. For Kirk, the "imagination" is not fantasy — it is the faculty that allows us to perceive order, morality, destiny, and meaning.
Elliott argues that good leaders must wield five swords simultaneously:
1. Historical Imagination
Understanding the sweep of human experience — what people have been.
2. Political Imagination
Understanding what humans can build together as a community.
3. Moral Imagination
Understanding what the human person ought to be.
4. Poetic Imagination
Understanding how humans express beauty, truth, and creativity.
5. Prophetic Imagination
Understanding where human choices lead — the unfolding of the future.
Her central complaint:
> Leaders today are one-dimensional. They think politics is everything, but lack all the other dimensions of imagination necessary to maintain ordered liberty.
When political action becomes detached from moral, historical, poetic, and prophetic vision, she says:
the brutal triumph over the prudent
the fanatic triumphs over the reasonable
the soul dries out
future consequences are ignored
This leads America into chaos and shallowness.
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Her Deeper Point: Ordered Liberty Has Deep Roots
Elliott echoes Russell Kirk's foundational idea:
> America is not rootless — it grows from Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and Philadelphia.
This is Kirk's "five cities" thesis:
Jerusalem – moral order and the ordering of the soul
Athens – rational mind and philosophy
Rome – republican virtue and law
London – common law, custom, contract
Philadelphia – the American constitutional synthesis
These roots form the "tree of ordered liberty."
Her critique is aimed at leaders who don't know these foundations, and therefore:
respond ignorantly
govern impulsively
lack philosophical grounding
substitute ideology for wisdom
fail to appreciate the West's inheritance
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Her Challenge: What Should Leaders Read?
Elliott asks readers to create a list of the top ten books a leader must read to wield the five swords.
That sparked the comments you see — long reading lists from different contributors.
Their lists all converge on the same idea:
> A leader must be anchored in Scripture, the Western canon, and the great works of political and moral philosophy.
Examples frequently cited:
The Bible
Homer
Plato
Aristotle
Augustine
Aquinas
Shakespeare
Tocqueville
Russell Kirk
Joseph Pieper
Washington biographies
Western Civ histories
These works cultivate each "sword" — moral, historical, poetic, etc.
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Why This Essay Matters in 2025
Here is the real subtext:
> We are living in an age that treats politics, power, and technology as the whole of human reality.
That is why our leadership class is failing.
Elliott (and Kirk) argue that:
Policy is not enough
Electoral wins are not enough
Outrage cycles are not enough
Technocratic fixes are not enough
We need soul, imagination, history, beauty, and wisdom — the things our civilization was built upon.
Otherwise, the West collapses into irrationality, barbarism, or what Kirk called the dissolution of order.
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