But the truth is that, while I admired the essay immensely, I didn’t really like it. Which is but another way of saying that I disagreed with it. Today, looking back over the past forty years, I can see why. I was American, Michael was English.

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In short, Oakeshott’s ideal conservative society is a society without religion, since all religions bind us as securely to past and future as to the present.

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Oakeshott’s conservative disposition runs squarely against the American grain. Oh, Americans possess such a disposition all right. Despite all one reads about the frustrations of American life, it is the rare American who dreams of moving to another land, and hardly any do.