IV. VARIOUS TYPES OF
CONSERVATIVE THOUGHT
1. Edmund Burke and Anglo-Saxon Conservatism.
Despite the relatively substantial unity and stability
of its
central values, conservatism displays a variety
of nuances based on the
different social experiences
of its partisans at different times and in
different coun-
tries. This was already
apparent in the reaction to the
democratic revolution of the late
eighteenth century.
Edmund Burke, who, as a critic of the French Revolu-
tion, gave the first (and to date most
important) formu-
lation of conservative
political philosophy, vehemently
rejected abstract political theories and efforts to found
a
constitution on them, because he esteemed as higher
than the rationality of
philosophers the reason that
formed social and political institutions in
accordance
with natural and divine laws operating in the historical
process. It is not the task of men to impose an order
on things, but to
recognize the order implicit in them
and to act accordingly. With his
practical political
sense and philosophical inclination to identify
nature
and history Burke had too much respect for the tradi-
tional social order to be willing to
cede its fate to the
ratio and the deliberate plans of contemporary
authors,
and he was too skeptical a judge of men to have confi-
dence in their original goodness
(Rousseau) or in their
rational foresight. He approved reforms, but
rejected
revolution because it destroyed tradition and continu-
ity. He relied too heavily, moreover,
on the foundations
of a functioning English constitution to be able to
understand the revolutionary challenge to conditions
that had arisen
historically in other countries.
Burke's ideas were of particular importance to
European and American
conservatism: he assigned
priority to the historical accomplishments of
genera-
tions rather than to the plans
of individuals and the
revolutionary acts of the masses; he did not acknowl-
edge the separation of nature and
history; he legiti-
mized feeling and
tradition as forces shaping the pres-
ent,
taking religion to be the “foundation of civil
society,” and provided an arsenal of arguments against
revolution that appeared to have the weight of histori-
cal experience on their side.
2. Restorationist Conservatism.
Burke's Reflections
on the Revolution in
France rapidly found an echo in
Germany, where reception was prepared
by the his-
toricist opposition to radical
enlightenment—above all
in J. Möser, E. Brandes, A. W.
Rehberg, and Friedrich
Gentz. Though at first stamped by the
Enlightenment,
all of these found in Burke that mixture of political
experience with concrete reflection, of assured con-
sciousness of freedom with a skeptical attitude
toward
innovation and emancipation that could not have arisen
independently under German conditions. Their rejec-
tion of revolution was not directed against Jacobin
horrors
alone. Because they recognized that it was no
longer merely a question of a
“change of regime” in
the old manner, but of a
“total revolution” (Gentz),
even though executed by a
part of the nation only,
they denounced revolution as a “breach
of the social
contract” hostile to every order in society and
therefore
as an “amoral operation” (Gentz). To the
claim of
revolution to reconstitute society they opposed an
equally
comprehensive denunciation of revolution as
a breach of law and as
destructive of the foundations
of the order of European society and state,
but did
not yet present any antirevolutionary counter-ideol-
ogy, nor any program of restoration.
The former appeared in French aristocratic Catholic
émigré
circles from the pens of J. M., Comte de Maistre
and L. G. A. de Bonald.
They were consciously opposed
to liberal enlightened thought, considered
revolution
as simply evil, and favored instead a retroactively
purified “order” that was traditional, hierarchical,
and
springing directly from the will of the Creator; against
revolutionary changes they offered the wisdom of his-
tory as the instructress of politics. A state could not
be
organized in accordance with rational constitutional
principles: its form
must derive from the history of
a people, and the sovereign power that
constitutes it
originates in God, and so obtains its legitimacy.
Written
statutes are only the formulation of the unwritten,
eternally
valid laws; only those institutions can endure
that are founded on
religious conceptions. For de
Maistre individual reason is presumption
condemned
to error, and philosophy is a destructive force. Since
monarchy is for him the traditional ordering power
and almost
“natural,” he wants it to be restored; not
indeed in
its absolute form, but in a patriarchal and
decentralized manner commanding
a society divided
into corporations (Stände) and in the closest relation
to the Catholic Church
as the universal force for tradi-
tion and
order. By setting the Church over the state,
and the Pope over kings, de
Maistre made them the
most powerful instruments of counterrevolution
and
restoration, a barrier to enlightenment and individ-
ualism, and the prop of monarchy and corporative
structure.
Even more clearly than de Maistre, de Bonald
emphasized the view that only
in society is human
nature truly realized; he thereby gave expression
to
those anti-individualistic features of conservatism that
enabled it
to recognize the social problems of an
industrial society in process of
development and so to
advance the social science. Bonald also
formulated
most clearly the differences between the individualistic
and abstract versions of a republic (that could not
achieve any important
social objective) and a real
“social” monarchy; his
criticism became focal in con-
servative
argumentation. Like de Maistre he sought
restoration, but was not content
with simply denounc-
ing revolution; rather
he presupposed its existence in
order to derive from its abstract
principles the con-
creteness of
restorationist politics. The content and
style of his thought later
influenced the Action
Française.
In central Europe restorationist conservatism found
its most acute proponent
in the Swiss, K. L. von Haller,
who saw patriarchal leadership, the
prerogative of civil
law, and the corporate patrimonial state as “natural”
institutions; on the other hand, he viewed the entire
development of the modern state as a path of error,
and so won the approval
of the Prussian conservatives
close to Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Western and
middle
European restorationist conservatism found an echo in
Russia
and—together with ideas of mysticism, quietism,
and
romanticism—influenced Tsar Alexander I; the
Holy Alliance,
which was initiated by him and repre-
sented
an antirevolutionary program, aimed at stability
and was based upon the
assumption of the solidarity
of all Christian sovereigns and people.
3. Romantic Conservatism.
While romantic con-
servatism in
Germany was in practice drawn into res-
torationist politics, its ideas and intentions, however,
were
developed in dialectical opposition to enlighten-
ment theories of the state and society as founded on
rational
laws, and in opposition to the politics of
enlightened despotism. These
theories and politics, and
not primarily the revolution, were made
responsible
for the abandonment of the beautiful hierarchical order
(family, corporate state, monarchy, church) that had
been formed in the
Middle Ages. The road to revolu-
tion had
followed an inevitable path from the Refor-
mation to rationalism and individualism, to adminis-
trative centralism and to the decline of
corporative
prerogatives. Rather than regard the revolution merely
as
a misfortune romantic conservatives understood
revolution to mean that a
soulless, nonreligious state
and the presumptuous attempt to reconstruct it
on
substantially rational principles were doomed to
failure. In
opposition to this, they relied upon the old
order and envisioned the
better future of an idealized
and harmonious Christian state (Novalis, A.
Müller,
F. von Baader). Since the evil reality of the present
was
viewed as a nonessential phenomenon the only escape
was seen in
the aesthetic reconciliation of opposites.
Romantic conservative political
thought in Germany
was closely intertwined with historicism, with Schel-
ling's philosophy of identity, and with
the nationalist
movement. The preference for vested rights over
consciously sought “progress” and the conviction that
every people must proceed along the lines of its own
unique organic
development, jointly produced in the
educated classes a growing tendency to
political con-
servatism. This attitude
also penetrated the ranks of
moderate liberalism in its increasing concern
about
radical and social democracy.
It was the reception of German romantic thought
and its insistence upon
history and Volk that formed
the conservative
component in the growing nationalism
among the mainly democratic, educated
classes of
Eastern Europe. “The Society of Friends of
Wisdom”
(liubomudry, 1823) with its
romantic-conservative
nationalism and the circle surrounding N. V. Stankević
were also shaped by ideas originating in Germany; both
Muscovite groups were—despite a rather short exist-
ence—forerunners of the accentuated Russian
nation-
alism during the second half of
the nineteenth century.
4. Neo-conservatism.
Since the late nineteenth cen-
tury
conservatism has in different ways moved away
from being defensive as a
result of the influence of
industrialization and capitalism, of growing
social
mobility, of advances in scientific and technological
thought,
the liberalization of state and economy, and
the secularization of thought
and public life. Even then
it has been easier for conservatives to
determine what
it is they are opposing than to design clear and
realistic
programs. The criticisms of civilization by Nietzsche,
Renan, Taine, Dostoevski, and J. Burkhardt, among
others, hardly fall under
the rubric “conservative”;
nonetheless they have
furnished the political con-
servative with
both a basic philosophy of civilization
and a wide audience. The
conservative “intellectual”
has come forward to
express the discontent felt for both
the world of bourgeois capitalism and
the programs
of socialism; in his formulating new myths, forecasts,
and schemes a skeptical, sometimes even nihilistic,
accent has not been
lacking. Appearing increasingly
less aristocratic or class-oriented than
intellectual and
elitist, this type of conservative has attained his
most
widespread influence in conjunction with militant and
integrative
nationalism.
The best known phenomenon of this type was the
Action Française, whose protagonists, Maurice
Barrès
and Charles Maurras, saw nationality as the
inalienable
distinction of man. Combining antisecular and anti-
Semitic tendencies with ideas derived
from Sorel they
promoted an authoritarian conception of the state
without undue scruples as to its legitimacy. Maurras
demanded the
establishment of an hereditary anti-
parliamentary monarchy, hierarchically structured and
corporatively organized, among whose firmest sup-
porters should be the Catholic Church.
In Germany before World War I conservatism of
this type was the program of
small and isolated, though
influential, groups. P. de Lagarde, with some
bearing
on romanticism, had demanded a state adequate to the
character
of the German people as well as a “German”
religion,
and based his hopes on a new elitist brand
of education. J. Langbehn
adopted this approach and
developed it, amplifying its antimodernistic
tenden-
cies: homeland, Volk, nature, and art constitute a
powerfully emotional
ideological syndrome in Lang-
behn that had its
effect on the youth movement.
This neo-conservatism was no longer “restora-
tionist”; it sought not to preserve the
existent, but to
eliminate what had come to be; not to restore some
medieval order, but to make room for a post-bourgeois,
post-capitalistic world. Its derivative conceptions of
social
order were by no means uniform; but there was
substantial agreement among
neo-conservatives to the
extent that they were antiliberal, antidemocratic,
and
antisocialistic. The Volk must be ranked above
the
state, the nation above mankind, community above
individual and
society. The social organization of the
Volk was conceived along occupational lines, the ad-
ministration of the state as
authoritarian: Kultur rooted
in the soil was to be
cultivated above cosmopolitan
“civilization.”
Neo-conservatism of this kind had its day on the
continent of Europe
especially after World War I. It
was able to represent itself as a new
national socialism
(solidarity) and was used as the official ideology
of
national movements and national dictatorships, so that
it sometimes
came very close to fascism. One must,
however, carefully distinguish
between the “right” and
fascism. The incorporation of
elements of conservative
thought in the wake of fascist movements and
systems
has been so damaging for the former that it is only
with the
greatest difficulty that a program of inde-
pendent political conservatism can be formulated.
5. Conservatism in the United States.
The position
occupied by conservatives among the political view-
points in any given country depends upon
the political
and social conditions obtaining in it. The attitudes and
goals called “conservative” in the United States
appeared to European eyes to be mostly rather
“Whiggish.” Until the 1960's it seemed even less easy
in the United States to find a powerful national “right
wing” of antirevolutionaries, restorationist legitimists,
supporters of romantic and organic social doctrines,
and antidemocrats than
to find a precise counterpart
of European liberalism. A radical left wing,
on the
other hand, has been almost nonexistent. Such facts
made the
dominant American credo look rather mod-
erate;
it may among other things be traced back to
the working of its democratic
machinery and to its
antifeudal past, though its revolutionary break
with
feudal Europe was in a way justified by a restoration
of colonial
rights.
Despite that and despite the influence of Locke on
American political
thinking, political conservatism was
manifested at the inception of the
Union by the fathers
of the Constitution. Their concern was for order
and
security to be attained by limiting the radical demo-
cratic tendencies found in the separate states, and
thereby to strengthen the authority of the new federa-
tion. Suspected during the conflicts with the
South
from Calhoun to Little Rock, the defense of states
rights—formerly the official position of radicals and
liberals
alike (Bill of Rights, Tenth Amendment), and
adapted by Jefferson to the
necessities of an expanding
“empire”—was considered in the
1960's as con-
servative a policy as the
insistence on laissez-faire
economics. Once stock-in-trade of American
capital-
istic democracy it became the
main argument of con-
servatives in the
twenties (Herbert Hoover) against the
modern welfare state.
A similar ambiguous attitude was displayed by the
West. At first often
expressing its outrage at economic
and political supremacy of the East in
terms of a
radical and even egalitarian democracy, the rural West
at
the same time, and increasingly since the 1870's,
displayed a rather
conservative mentality. Strongly
influenced by religious fundamentalism,
its criticism of
the megapolitan industrial East and its harking back
to an authentic Americanism supplied the conservative
cause with emotional
arguments.
In America as well as in Europe liberal and con-
servative arguments often merged. What makes it so
difficult for
Europeans to draw a sharp line between
liberals and conservatives in the
United States is a
missing guideline along strictly liberal or
conservative
terms; there is neither a Burke nor a Locke in the
United
States, which furthermore looked askance at
any influence of the Catholic
Church. The controversy
between Hamilton and Madison seems to be
reversed
though both sides claim Jefferson to be in their camp.
Even
the often described tendency of Americans to
solve their hardly articulated
ideological conflicts
“practically” tends to be
conservative in itself and has
led to almost schizophrenic attitudes toward
social
problems.
As a counterpoise to the social dynamism of a
democratic society,
conservatism in the United States
has from time to time raised its head
(for examples,
Henry and Brooks Adams), just as it has recurred as
the
politics promoting the self-interest of social groups.
While the most
convincing American conservative of
the nineteenth century was perhaps the
Southerner
John C. Calhoun, the development of new forms of
conservatism independent of a certain area can be
traced back to the end of
the century. The social
mobility of the American society at this time
began
to run out into horizontal movements whereas such
ideals as the
American “self-made” man were still
worshipped.
Asking for stability and a social equilib-
rium Americans formed a society with deep distrust
of nonconformist
behavior and change.
Further social and political changes in the last dec-
ades of the nineteenth century and particularly in the
1910's
and 1920's, business reactions to certain New
Deal measures, and above all
antisocialism, the fear
of communism, the “Cold War,”
and the hot ones in
Korea and Vietnam together with latent prejudices
and
antimodernistic tendencies (Irving Babbitt) have
induced a
psychological and political situation which
was being spectacularly exploited by some conservative
and
right-wing American politicians about 1970.
