Truth vs. Intimidation: Which Side Wins?
Intercollegiate Review | Conservatism's sharpest voices, curated weekly. ISI's Intercollegiate Review brings you the best in serious conservative thought.
Honoring Charlie Kirk: Refusing to Be Silenced
A week has passed since Charlie Kirk’s brutal murder during a public debate at a Utah university. In the aftermath of the tragedy, conservatives have been left reeling—both from the shock of Kirk’s death and the disturbingly celebratory response from some on the Left. The events have revealed the dangerous consequences of a progressive culture that labels traditional conservative views as “hate speech” and seeks to silence them.
In an article for the New York Post, ISI President Johnny Burtka and Collegiate Network Executive Director Marlo Slayback urge conservatives not to let Kirk’s assassination scare them into silence. They suggest the goal of political violence is to shut down discourse through intimidation. The best way to honor Charlie Kirk’s legacy is to continue challenging the falsehoods of progressive ideology—even in the face of threats.
College students can counter ideological conformity on their campuses by partnering with ISI and similar organizations to host debates and bring in conservative speakers. Instead of backing down in the face of hostility, students should rally together and—supported by the proper authorities—show that violence will not silence free speech. This dedication to civil discourse, despite the dangers, is what made Charlie Kirk’s voice so powerful.
Read the rest of Burtka and Slayback’s article here.
The Math Behind Supporting Aging Populations
Over the past few decades, the West has confronted two troubling trends. First, millions of people have become increasingly dependent on government support to survive, with some exploiting the system to live off taxpayer dollars. Second, birth rates across the West have fallen below replacement levels. Fewer children mean an aging population that struggles to sustain a thriving society.
In the Financial Times, John Burn-Murdoch explains how these two trends have combined to threaten the French and British economies. Both countries have entrenched pension systems that have proven to be financially unsustainable and politically untouchable. Government spending to support their aging populations has risen so rapidly that income growth for French and British pensioners now far outpaces that of their working-age counterparts. Yet attempts to curb costs have been met with public outrage and have been quickly abandoned.
The result, Burn-Murdoch writes, has been financially devastating for both France and Britain. Debt-to-GDP ratios have soared, while infrastructure spending has been slashed to fund pensions. If there is to be any hope of turning things around, voters and politicians alike must eventually “confront mathematical reality.”
Read the rest of Burn-Murdoch’s article here.
Compendium
Every article we feature here is available to read for free. Articles from paywalled publications are available through gift links.
Dan McCarthy, Editor-in-Chief of Modern Age and ISI’s Director of Publications, on how “safetyism” became soft censorship in The Spectator World.
Spencer Kashmanian, ISI’s Chief of Staff, on modern American martyrdom in Crisis Magazine.
Aaron Renn on the quiet revolution in divorce law in his Substack.
Christopher Rufo and Ryan Thorpe on anti-Catholic hate crimes the media won’t name in City Journal.
On how Charlie Kirk remade the Right in The Scholar’s Stage.
JD Vance on carrying Kirk’s torch from the White House.
Eric Dolan on the bimodal blueprint of violence in PsyPost.
Hannah Spier on cult dynamics behind campus extremism in Psychobabble.
David Cowan on Nvidia’s dance with Beijing in Compact Magazine.
Spencer Neale on Banksy’s latest mural in The American Conservative.
Upcoming ISI Events
If you enjoy what you’re reading here, we invite you to engage with ISI at one of our upcoming in-person events.
Homecoming Weekend | September 19–20 | Wilmington, DE
ISI invites you to our Wilmington, DE campus this September for a weekend of fellowship, learning, and spirited conversation. Students, professors, alumni, and friends from across the country will gather to explore this year’s theme—Golden Age Mindset: How to Restore Western Civilization.American Politics and Government Summit | October 9–11 | Wilmington, DE
This annual scholarly conference examines the theme Statesmanship and Leadership in the Age of Mass Society and draws on timeless thinkers to address modern challenges. The summit is open to the public, offering rigorous discussion across history, politics, literature, and related fields.An Evening with Calley Means | October 23 | Wilmington, DE
Join ISI and the Brandywine Women’s Coalition for an evening with Calley Means, co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health. Means will share insights on America’s rising chronic disease crisis and offer practical steps to reclaim lasting vitality.
Visit our events page on our website to see all upcoming events.
This week, from ISI’s Digital Media:
Can a man be both truly great and a devoted father? In the latest Project Cosmos episode, James Orr, Alex Petkas, Nathan Pinkoski, Dan McCarthy, Johnny Burtka, and Bill Rivers dive into ambition, virtue, and legacy in a lively roundtable conversation.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more content like this.
This week, from the Collegiate Network:
ISI’s Collegiate Network supports over 80 student-run publications across the country, empowering students to run independent college newspapers, magazines, and journals that report on important issues ignored by the mainstream media.
Timeline of Charlie Kirk’s Assassination via The Rostra
An eyewitness account and timeline of Charlie Kirk’s brutal assassination last Wednesday at Utah Valley University.Political Violence is not a Punchline via The Claremont Independent
Claremont students’ reactions to Kirk’s murder expose a chilling rise in campus intolerance and acceptance of political violence.A City Upon a Mountain via The Brownson Record
Orestes Brownson once hailed Mount St. Mary’s as a Catholic “city upon a hill”—can today’s Mountaineers revive that lost beauty and pride?Men of Moral Courage via The New Guard Press
They say courage is contagious; perhaps true courage might pick up where evil struck.The Death of a Youth Political Activist, From the Perspective of a Youth Political Activist via The Lemur
Grief meets activism in this unfiltered wake-up call from those who refuse to be bystanders.From Morris Hillquit to Zohran Mamdani via The Columbia Sundial
Lessons on slogans, nuance, and free speech from the socialist mayoral candidate who ran 100 years ago.
Visit our Student Journalism section to read more from the Collegiate Network.
Academic Freedom and American Conservatism: A Delicate Balance
The concept of academic freedom seems simple on its face. In practice, however, protecting it requires maintaining a delicate balance among a variety of often conflicting interests. According to the Supreme Court, universities have the freedom to determine “who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study”—but this institutional freedom often conflicts with the equally important rights of professors and even, to some extent, students.
In this week’s Modern Age article—excerpted from ISI’s American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia—Daniel E. Ritchie examines how American conservatives have historically sought to balance competing academic freedom interests. In the 1950s, he notes, William F. Buckley questioned the prevailing notion of academic freedom because he believed it provided cover to academic ideologues seeking to undermine religion and liberty in America. By the 21st century, however, academic freedom has become one of the few remaining defenses for conservative professors and students against college administrations’ attempts to enforce conformity to progressive ideology.
Ultimately, Ritchie says that conservatives are “likely to continue to press for a pluralism of approaches to the pursuit of knowledge and for the valid distinction between teaching and propagandizing.”
Read the rest of Ritchie’s discussion of academic freedom here on the Modern Age website.
Modern Age is ISI’s flagship publication. Visit modernagejournal.com and subscribe for a free daily newsletter.
“If you believe in something, you need to have the courage to fight for those ideas—not run away from them or try and silence them.”
– Charlie Kirk
"Honor Charlie, Ditch Existing Universities." https://dissidentcon.substack.com/p/honor-charlie-ditch-existing-universities
It's been a long time since joining fellow honors program attendees in the hallowed halls of Oxford. I am disappointed to see the program no longer alternates the Cambridge and Oxford venues, though I understand the likely prohibitive cost of doing so. More importantly, I am disappointed to see the extent to which ISI has drifted from what I had believed was a bastion of classical liberal thought and to seemingly a mere sounding board of Republican talking points.
Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, Whittaker Chambers, Albert Nock...as a 20 year old, these figures and others were transformative to my interpretation of life, approach to politics and growth as a person. Sadly I feel the words of those giants are lost, diluted or mutated in the dung heap of modern political discourse, of which Charlie Kirk was both a proprietor and salesman. Charlie was not cut from the same cloth, and while the likes of George Will suggest he and WFB were 'kindred spirits', the fact is his incendiary style and often smarmy demeanor were not couched in tact, wit or any endearing qualities that would attract a sensible person to agree, or at a minimum not wince in discomfort, unless said person was already firmly engulfed with MAGA delusions.
Let us most vociferously decry censorship, intimidation and murder, but let us not put on an untouchable pedestal or disproportionately monumentalize Kirk's career as the work of 'the conservative mind'. Perhaps it is merely a symptom of the times that in order to maintain relevance (and financial support), one has to shout louder and uglier than one's opponent. I recall a distaste (often wicked) on the progressive left for Rush Limbaugh that coursed a similar vein to that felt for Charlie Kirk, and perhaps a modern Kirk is not that dissimilar from a vintage Limbaugh when considering the context of their respective political climates. Further perhaps then the difference is the respective political guarantor of nearest conservative principles...for Kirk, this person is Trump, who embodies the antithesis of principled ideals (if his belief system can even be attributed to higher cerebral function necessary to elicit 'principled ideals' and not simply personal or business opportunities) put forth in the texts of the great men from whom ISI proclaims intellectual heritage.
As a country and especially as witness bearers to classical liberalism, we could use more of the likes of a Kirk...but our integrity, discourse and polity we will fare better with Russell than Charlie.