the stories we tell, the people we become · mcallister

Ted McAllister, a Pepperdine political theorist, gave this lecture at the Russell Kirk Center in 2014 on how the stories a people tells about its past make it the people it becomes. He sketches three rival American narratives, the Liberal story of progressive liberation, the Radical story of exploitation behind the ideals, and the Conservative story of Englishmen defending inherited rights, and argues that choosing among them is unavoidable and consequential.

Read as the opening essay of the Roots of American Order summer seminar, June 2026.