Founded in 1953, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) has remained on the forefront of the conservative intellectual movement with a particular focus on ensuring college students are equipped with the tools they need to explore the conservative worldview. During the tumultuous begins of the modern conservative movement in the United States, ISI embraced many of the views and adherents of both the libertarian and traditionalist wings of the movements. Today, ISI is yet again navigating the divisions on the Right as they seek to maintain a platform where these embattled factions can meet together and debate their differences with civility and passion.

Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis in this episode is James Davenport, Academic Program Officer for ISI, as they discuss indispensable books for the student of conservatism, the plight of young conservatives on college campuses, the importance and relevance of fusionism, cancel culture and civility, and how conservatives might combat the continuous Leftward bent of higher education.

About James Davenport

James Davenport is Academic Program Officer for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. He received his BA in politics, philosophy, and theology from the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University. As an undergraduate, James was an ISI Honors Scholar and president of his campus ISI Society—The Montaigne Society. He also participated in seminars with the Elm Institute, was a fellow with the Philadelphia Commons Institute (formerly the Agora Institute), and was a course fellow in religion and politics with the Hertog Foundation.

James’ writing can be found in the Imaginative Conservative, The University Bookman, Philanthropy Daily, Front Porch Republic, the Forma Journal of the Circe Institute, and more. He also hosts the Conservative Conversations with ISI podcast alongside ISI President Johnny Burtka and National Director of Student Programs Marlo Slayback. You can find James on Twitter @mrJSDavenport

Listener Mail

In the listener mail segment Josh responds to a listener’s request to cover the topics of conservatism in urban areas and the challenge of countering the Left’s hold over elite institutions, particularly in higher education.

As the old adage goes, variety is the spice of life. And the conservative heartily agrees. Variety, not uniformity, is what gives life its vitality and each life the potential for self-actualization and the opportunity for each of us to develop in our own unique way. But is variety compatible with equality? What do we mean by equality, and how might equality be established? What is the relationship between equality, progress, and justice?

In this solo episode, Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis explores what conservatism has to say about variety and equality and their relationship to progress and justice. No one disputes inequalities exist. But there is much disagreement on why they exist, or what qualifies as an “inequality”, let alone what should be done about it. Perhaps the sharpest question we can ask is who is to blame for inequalities? Does the mere fact that one person is unequal than another person create an injustice? And what of the various kinds of inequalities? We might be able to reach a wide consensus that no injustice is done if John is taller than Bill, or even if John is wealthier than Bill. But what if John belongs to an ethnic or social group that’s predominantly wealthier than Bill’s ethnic or social group? Is that an injustice?

To the conservative, true equality—equality before the law and before God—is precisely what gives rise to inequalities. And enforcing unnatural equality necessarily violates our natural equality. If people who are born with different abilities and access to opportunities are all set on a level playing field, we would naturally expect radically different outcomes. If we were to force equal access to opportunities by granting them to those without and depriving them to those who would otherwise have access, we would still see different outcomes because people would still be operating within the abilities they inherited at birth. If we strove still to eliminate even these inequalities, by demanding or enforcing that all outcomes be the same—such that if one person’s abilities allowed them to produce more or excel in some way beyond that of their peers we would deprive them of their excess production—we might finally achieve absolute equality. But the price we’d pay would be the death of distinction, variety, and—in a multitude of historical examples where such heavy-handed leveling has been attempted—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Is that justice? Is that progress?