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Conservatism
- Central European University Press
- Chapter
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Conservatism Its Definition and Types In colloquial usage, the connotations of the term “conservative” and its collocate, “radical,” imply an opposition, an antithesis. The most frequent concepts associated with conservatism, suggesting social and political equilibrium and identifying it with the aristocratic social order, are authority , tradition, traditional values, order, history, social and political hierarchy , aristocracy, status quo, custom, and organic social development. By contrast, the somewhat constructed series of concepts associated with radicalism include “the people,” the search for a utopia of social justice (achieved possibly even through violence), and the goal and challenge of radical renewal. Radicalism lays stress on the universalism of natural law, equal civil rights, and collective self-government contra order by divine grace and feudal social organization, which spiritualizes the military and ecclesiastical functions and regulates personal rule based on merit and dignity. The conservative preserving attitude is tied to traditional frames, historical forms, and the hierarchically conceived frameworks of the aristocratic societal organization. This is further developed into the “nation” in terms of relativity as well as a sense of reality, whereas the demand for radical transformation is linked with universal validity and the ideal state of society. The conservatism vs. radicalism antithesis is not merely used conversationally , it is a historical outcome of the specificities of the dual selfdefinition of the conservatives’ and radicals’ rationales reproduced ever since the French Revolution. Conservatives have always accused their adversaries of overt or covert radicalism, the subversion of the social order, the destruction of a social organization ensuring the balance of quality elements , the promotion of an attitude determined by sheer quantities, and the greed for power of a selfish and unrestricted minority. The radicals have also been quick to condemn those of a different opinion from theirs as bene- 12 Conservative Ideology in the Making ficiaries of the ancien régime, and as reactionaries by tagging them conservative . The self-perception of conservatives and radicals was determined by the diabolic nature of the image they created of each other, a conspiracy psychosis comparable to an exorcism of a secularized theology. The self-definitive schemes that evolved and became fixed were precipitations of real historical experiences: the conservatives saw their adversaries in the place of the Jacobins of the French revolution, and the radicals recognized the advocates of the ancien régime in the conservatives . The sterile figures of the professional revolutionary and the obdurate reactionary—to use István Bibó’s labels—imply the separation and polarization of two narrow, rather mythic concepts of the human being in which past and future, tradition and norm, custom and reason, continuity and creativity, are contrasted irreconcilably. This dichotomous thinking evaluates the opposite elements on the basis of whether the indictment is presented by the prophets of the system of privileges based on birth or by those of revolutionary messianism.1 The colloquial connotations and their emotive charges are fixations of the polarization of these selfidentifications . Modern European conservatism emerged in response to the challenges of various enlightenments and to the eighteenth-century American and French revolutions, its contents being the legitimation of the personal power of monarchic rule, the order by divine grace, and the system of privileges by birth as the valid system of norms questioned by these challenges . Beside and beyond radicalism, it was more and more strongly confronted by liberalism, an ideological and political trend which advocated the society of free owners in which nobody and nothing could have absolute power. Liberalism, representing the different associations of individuals with independent judgement and independent existence (disposal over property), and the value system of personal freedom, mainly wished to emancipate the society of property owners from the absolutist power of the state and to prevent the state from ruling over society. To achieve this, liberals wished to sever society from the state, the private person from the citizen, and to build up the institutional checks and balances of the protection of individuals against the teeth of state intervention , to separate the executive, legislative, and judiciary powers from each other, and to create a system of personal rights for individuals. The initial 1 See, Bibó (1991a), 421–521, esp. 447–468, (1986–1990), 3: 5–123, Talmon (1960a, 1960b, 1991), Brinton (1965), Arendt (1979), 21–178, 215–281, (1993), and Furet (1994, 1999, 2000, 2006). Cf. Ferrero (1941, 1961, 1968, 1972) and Berlin (2000, 2002, 2003, 2006). [34.229.50.161] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 13:57 GMT) Conservatism 13 attempts of the aristocracy to curb...