In their learned book, The Wisdom of Our Ancestors: Conservative Humanism and the Western Tradition, Graham James McAleer and Alexander S. Rosenthal-Pubul ask: What is the wisdom of our ancestors? Answers to this question figure into how conservatives and classical liberals confront progressivism’s ongoing depredations and its most recent goal of centralizing private capital and property around ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) objectives. Of course, these objectives are defined by billionaire investors and multinational institutions as a global good against the supposed predations of capitalism. What we might call conservatism, or just “the right,” is itself divided about how to contest progressivism and a certain cosmopolitanism, seen in “Davos Man,” EU politics, and transnational institutions like the United Nations, etc. That split, our authors contend, is between liberal conservatism and nationalism.
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