The Intercollegiate Studies Institute was founded in the early “God and Man at Yale” days of the American conservative movement with the purpose of keeping western civilization alive within American institutions of higher learning. The group has waged an impressive battle, provided funding and encouragement to a stellar group of professors, redefined the “unofficial” campus newspaper at dozens of schools, and given conservative students a path to discover intellectual stimulation abandoned by trendy academia. We’ve never been reluctant to endorse their events or send our friends to their website.

Recently, ISI announced a large scholarship contest for students who might be interested in communitarianism or the work of Robert Nisbet. By registering, students will receive a free copy of Nisbet’s brilliant, but controversial Quest for Community. If they follow-up and write a winning essay, they’ll receive mucho dinero and honors galore, as well.

Right now conservative thought seems to focused on economic concerns, but Nisbet’s work is still relevant and timely. It is *not* easy to be a cultural, sociological, or anthropological conservative in modern times. It takes wisdom rather than conformance to ideology and insight that often requires a kind of politically incorrect honesty that our very language seems to discourage today. However, those students who participate and struggle with Nisbet’s book will gain an interesting perspective through which to evaluate policy and the strength of the bonds between themselves and their neighbors. Here’s ISI’s pitch:

“2010-2011 Scholarship Essay Competition for College Students
‘Totalitarianism, Tweets, and Turf: Human Community in an Age of Techno-Globalism’

Registation Deadline: December 3, 2010

Essays Due: February 18, 2011

Essay Contest:
Originally published in 1952, Robert Nisbet’s The Quest for Community argues that a central yearning of the human person is for real community. For Nisbet, man is naturally gregarious and the experience of community is a necessary condition for human flourishing. He observed that throughout much of human history, communal institutions were understood as irreducible units of society, entities of culture formation and building blocks of civilization.

Nisbet suggests that the mass society of modern statism emerged, in part, as a profoundly unnatural and distorted substitute for the authentic communities of pluralistic civil society. In short, he presents the contemporary “quest for community” as a response to the loneliness of modernity, affirming Hannah Arendt’s account of modern totalitarianism arising from the atomized society of liberalism. As Ross Douthat observes in his preface to the new edition of the book, “if man can’t find that community on a human scale, then he’ll look for it on an inhuman scale—in the total community of the totalizing state.”

Drawing upon such thinkers as Burke and Tocqueville, The Quest for Community challenges the social atomism of an individualism that provides no essential buffer between Man and the State. Observing that “the present crisis” of modern political thought is the result of “the increasing loss of correspondence between the basic liberal values and the prejudgments and social contexts upon which the historic success of liberalism has been predicated,” Nisbet offers a vision of the free society buttressed by the social conditions necessary to sustain it.

Focus and Format of the Essay:
The Quest for Community was written before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when an Iron Curtain divided Europe and cast its shadow over the globe. Today, the Cold War is a distant memory, and public figures do not blush to speak of a “global community,” one seemingly united by trade and rapid advances in technology. Such political, economic, and social changes invite consideration of the enduring relevance of Nisbet’s work.

In light of developments in international politics, global economics, and the extraordinary technological innovations of recent decades, essayists are asked to reflect upon the social, political, and anthropological premises of The Quest for Community. Is community as Nisbet understands and presents it still necessary? Is it desirable? How do the barriers and challenges to establishing meaningful community compare to those he considers? Do our contemporary circumstances lend support to Nisbet’s insights, undermine them, or suggest that they have been overtaken by events?

Participation in the competition is free and open to all undergraduate students. All registered participants will receive a free copy of Robert Nisbet’s book, The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom.

Essays should be no more than 2,500 words and will be judged on the basis of scholarship, imagination, and quality of writing.

All essays must be emailed or postmarked by Friday, February 18, 2011.”

To learn more please visit: ISI Scholarship Info Page

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh said that those who’d like to tell the difference between conservative bloggers and those who are conservative-in-name-only ought to check to see who posts a link to an article in the American Spectator called “The Ruling Class.” After reading the article, we decided to take Rush up on his call to post a link. It’s a good read, populist-but-intelligent, and has some of the same spirit that helped ignite the early conservative movement as an antidote to “Rockefeller” or “Country Club” Republicans. Congratulations to Professor Codevilla and the AmSpec staff!

(Apparently Rush has some following amongst conservative bloggers who might not otherwise link to American Spectator articles. A quick search for “American Spectator” reveals that, after only a short time online, the #2 natural spot occupied in the SERP goes to this particular article.)

ConstitutingAmerica.org is a new effort to educate young (and not so young) people about the United States Constitution from Cathy Gillespie, a longtime activist and political staffer who also happens to be married to former RNC chair Ed Gillespie and Janine Turner, a film and television star with substantial credits to her name and welcome home in Texas.

We just learned about the site from a tipster named Wil a couple of hours ago and we haven’t had a chance to fully check it out, but so far we like what we see. As today’s resource, we thought we’d point everyone to the constitution contest for elementary school, middle school, and high school students featured on the website. The contest awards prizes not only to a choice few essay writers, but also to singers and performers.

According to the website, the entry timeline is as follows:

“Electronic submissions due by 11:59 p.m. July 4 to WeThePeople917@yahoo.com. Mailed entries must
be postmarked by July 4. All entry submissions must be accompanied by the entry form, with signed
parental consent.

For contest rules and more helpful information, please feel free to click the thumbnail link, below: