The good society is marked by a high degree of order, justice, and freedom. Among these, order has primacy: for justice cannot be enforced until a tolerable civil social order is attained, nor can freedom be anything better than violence until order gives us laws.
Interpretation
A good society is one of order, justice, and freedom, with order being the most important for achieving the other two.
In this quote, Russell Kirk emphasizes that a well-functioning society requires a foundational level of order. Without an established civil order, it is impossible to maintain justice, as laws cannot be enforced effectively; similarly, freedom can devolve into chaos or violence without the containment provided by order. Thus, order is positioned as the essential precursor to both justice and meaningful freedom in society.
In practice
In a debate about social reforms, this quote can illustrate the necessity of order in achieving a just society.
True conformity to the dictates of nature requires reverence for the past and solicitude for the future. 'Nature' is not simply the sensation of the passing moment; it is eternal, though we evanescent men experience only a fragment of it. We have no right to imperil the happiness of posterity by impudently tinkering with the heritage of humanity.
Rather than ennobling the public mind and cementing the social fabric, applied science speedily became the chief weapon of a gross individualism, which was anathema to the frugal and righteous (John Quincy) Adams, the source of enormous fortunes divorced from duty, the instrument of unscrupulous ambition and rapacious materialism. Presently, it came to scar the very of the country which Adams loved, a disfiguring process uninterrupted since his day.
...only the unscrupulous or shortsighted can defend pollution and degradation of the countryside.
The decay of old aristocratic prejudices against greedy speculation, the undermining of orthodox Christian faith (which forbids avarice)... the debauching of agriculture to a gross money-getting concern: these particular aspects of a vast and voracious concentration upon profits are so many illustrations of our sinning confusion of values.
The issue of environmental quality is one which transcends traditional political boundaries. It is a cause which can attract, and very sincerely, liberals, conservatives, radicals, reactionaries, freaks, and middle-class straights.
If a conservative order is indeed to return, we ought to know the tradition which is attached to it, so that we may rebuild society; if it is not to be restored, still we ought to understand conservative ideas so that we may rake from the ashes what scorched fragments of civilizations escape the conflagration of unchecked will and appetite.
Death is an evil; the gods have so judged; had it been good, they would die.
Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts, unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main.
But sometimes the world disrobes, slips its dress off a shoulder, stops time for a beat. If we look up at that moment, it's not due to any ability of ours to pierce the darkness, it's the world's brief bestowal. The catastrophe of grace.
Like one who has eaten and drunk too much and vomits painfully and then feels better, so did the restless man wish he could rid himself with one terrific heave of these pleasures, of these habits of this entirely senseless life.
The tradition of nonviolence, optimism, concern for the individual, and unconditional compassion that developed in Tibet is the culmination of a slow inner revolution, a cool one, hard to see, that began 2,500 years ago with the Buddha's insight about the end of suffering. What I have learned from these people has forever changed my life, and I believe their culture contains an inner science particularly relevant to the difficult time in which we live.
The whole life is a succession of dreams. My ambition is to be a conscious dreamer, that is all.
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