I. INTRODUCTION
1. Contemporary Usage.
With the exception of
Scandinavia, England, and a few countries of
the
British Commonwealth, no major national political
party has
officially labelled itself “conservative.”
Parties of
the political “right” are, however, frequently
called
“conservative.” Moreover, in the course of a
general
broadening of the political spectrum to the
“left,”
the range of positions called “conservative” has
become increasingly wider; however, it has become
necessary to make a
distinction between conservative
and reactionary positions and policies. In
everyday
speech in the 1960's the term “conservative”
seems
to be more widespread than the contrasting terms
“liberal” or “radical”; it denotes,
as used by opponents
mostly with a critical or pejorative tone, an
attitude
that attaches greater importance to the preservation
and care
of the traditional and enduring than to inno-
vation and change. The typical conservative defends
individual and
collective material and cultural posses-
sions, fears and resists revolution, and accepts progress
only as a
gradual development from the existing politi-
cal system. This in turn places those who think and
feel
conservatively in a permanently defensive position
from which they either
incline to cultural pessimism
or are obliged to demonstrate that
“genuine,” “true”
conservatism
is not really hostile to change, but is
indispensable for the stability of a society with deep
concern
for the maintenance of continuity.
2. Etymological Summary.
In Latin conservare
means to protect,
preserve, save; the noun of agency,
conservator, appears as a synonym for the substantives
custos, servator. Just as the Greek Sōter (“Savior”) was
adopted from the religious realm by the Hellenistic
cult of the ruler, so
too conservator is found among
the Romans beginning
in the Augustan era (as an
epithet of both Jupiter and Caesar). Augustus
appears
as Novus Romulus, as protector of the
mos maiorum
and pater
patriae to whom the Senate dedicated the
coinage inscription
Parenti Cons (ervatori)
Suo.
In Christianity conservator appears along with the
proper name for the Savior (salvator) on some occa-
sions. Beginning in the thirteenth
century, upon the
acceptance of Roman law, conservator appears north
of the Alps as a juridical and
administrative term for
an imperial, royal, or church functionary charged
with
the preservation or restoration of rights; in England
they were
predecessors of the “Justices of the Peace.”
In
French conservateur is used roughly from 1400 to
the
end of the eighteenth century in the sense of an
“official
charged with the guardianship and protection
of certain rights, of certain
public property.”
The political usage of “conservative” is derived from
the French conservateur, and begins to appear only
after the French Revolution, and then very hesitantly.
In his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Burke
used the verb “to conserve,” while his German
translator, Friedrich Gentz, later spoke of the “tend-
ency to conserve.” In France conservateur in the sense
of moderation and conservation may also
refer primar-
ily to idéés libérales. In this sense it was
used, among
others, by Mme de Staël (1798) and by Nepoleon on
the 19th of Brumaire 1799: “Conservative, tutelary,
and liberal
ideas have come into their own by the
dispersion of the factions which have
been oppressing
the Councils.” The modern political meaning:
“one
who is a partisan of the maintenance of the
established
social and political order,” derives from Chateaubri-
and's weekly newspaper
Le Conservateur (started in
1818).
(“Le Conservateur will support
religion, the
King, liberty, the Charter, and loyal, respectable peo-
ple....”)
“Conservateur” has never appeared as the
official
name of a party in France.
The characteristic political connotation of the
English term
“conservative” took final form in the
1820's in line
with French usage. In 1827 Wellington
expected from the
“parti conservateur” of
England the
unity of all forces dedicated to the preservation of
monarchical and aristocratic privileges in opposition
to radical demands;
in the struggles over the final
version of the Reform Bill after 1830, “conservative”
was often understood in the sense of “local, consti-
tutional,” and as the
antithesis of “anarchic, radical.”
As the name of a
party and as the expression of a
changed conception of its own policies,
“conservative
party” appeared along with
“Tory party” for the first
time in 1830, though its
meaning remained contro-
versial. It was
the personality of Peel that imposed an
interpretation on the word
“conservative” that may
still count as valid to this
day: defense of law and order,
along with a willingness to reform any
institution really
in need of amelioration, but by gradual and
deliberate
steps.
