ABSTRACT
In a moment, a transcendent piece of art radiates love and transforms a unique historical moment into an emblematic experience where the passionate union of universal and particular creates genuine ethical inspiration. For Peter Viereck, political ideologies and party platforms are the product of an imagination conditioned to a certain ethical standard, primarily through culture and custom. True love can only be experienced by those who are able to perceive the world with some semblance of imaginative wholeness. Despite all its dreariness, Viereck's imaginative conservatism is a living testament of the need to enjoy life in all its plenitude with decency and decorum, what Nietzsche called the gay science. A survey of popular culture in the United States reveals that this region of Western civilization is still suffering from what Viereck derisively referred to as "overadjustment". There are plenty of fiddlers, but the living gut strings they inspire lack an organic grounding in the responsibilities indistinguishable from healthy human life.
