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A Theory of Conservatism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Francis D. Wilson
Francis D. Wilson*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

The conservative of today hardly knows what to conserve. His bargain with destiny seems broken, and instead of consciousness of achievement and contentment with what is, he is more likely to be filled with a sense of frustration. This frustration is an uncertain quantity with which to deal, since it is characteristically explosive and negative. Under its guidance, conservatism may become a driving force to suppress the inconsequential; it may be a force that is forgetful at the same time of fundamental changes that will undermine a way of political existence. The conservative is happiest when he is unconscious of politics, when the essential propositions of social organisation do not have to be defended. But the weakness of conservatism appears in not knowing always what are the fundamental propositions supporting its manner of living, and in inability to judge the consequences of political and economic mutation. Conservatism, however, is at least that body of social thought which does not have to be defended.

Conflict, struggle, and protest must be conscious and filled with a sense of purpose. In conflict, there is always the conscious defense of what is presumed to be an interest, and there is an attack on what others deem to be their interest. Likewise, radicalism can never be unconscious or merely habitual, for it is a protest against something that is. But it must not be forgotten that in no state of society have all interests reached an equilibrium which permits of complete coöperation and no struggle. In this sense, conservatism represents a functional value in existence, since the stability of a conservative society is a situation in which the conflict of interests and wills is muted and restricted.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , February 1941 , pp. 29 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1941

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References

1 See de Ruggiero, Guido, The History of European Liberalism, tr. from the Italian (1927)Google Scholar.

2 See, for example, Chase, Stuart, “Ideological Immunity, 1975,” New, Republic, Nov. 8, 1939 Google Scholar.

3 See Ogburn, W. F., Social Change (1922)Google Scholar; MacIver, R. M., “The Historical Pattern or Social Change,” in Authority and the Individual (1937)Google Scholar.

4 Cf. Merriam, C. E., Political Power (1934)Google Scholar; Russell, Bertrand, Power; A New Social Analysis (1938)Google Scholar.

4 Lasswell, Harold D., Politics: Who Gets What, When, How (1936), p. 3 Google Scholar.

6 The Theory of the Leisure Class (new ed., 1912).

7 If the Marxian does not assume that in the higher reaches of socialism there will be equality, he does not thereby condone the inequalities of economic power found in capitalistic society. The continuing pattern in Marxism is exploitation, though it is argued that eapitalism is a modern economic system. It can hardly be argued in the light of the Communist Manifeste, for instance, that there was a Greek or Roman capitalism. Pareto makes no assumption that economic inequality or political inequality can be eliminated. See The Mind and Society, tr. from the Italian (4 vols., 1935)Google Scholar.

8 Dawson, Christopher, Enquiries into Religion and Culture (1933)Google Scholar; Religion and the Modern State (1933).

9 The Ruling Class, tr. from the Italian (1939).

10 See Mannheim, Karl, Ideology and Utopia, tr. from the German (1936)Google Scholar.

11 See Sorokin, Pitirim A., Social and Cullural Dynamics (3 vols., 1937)Google Scholar, for data on divergent theories on historical movement.

12 Halévy, Elie, La formation du radicalisme philosophique (3 vols., Paris, 1901, 1904)Google Scholar, is one of the best workes dealing with this question.

13 Cf. Bukharin, N. I. and others, Mersism and Modern Thought (1935), pp. 235ffGoogle Scholar: A. I. Tiumeniev, “Marxism and Bourgeois Historical Science.”

14 See Hegel, G. W. F., Grundlinisn der Philosophis des Rechis (Berlin, 1833), VorredeGoogle Scholar.

15 See, J. T. Horton, James Kent; A Study in Conservatism (1939), for a study of one of the great American conservatives of the nineteenth century.

16 See Edwards, L. P., The Natural History of Revolution (1927)Google Scholar; Brinton, Crane, The Anatomy of Revolution (1938)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pettee, G. S., The Process of Revolution (1938)Google Scholar.

17 See The Essays of Francis Bacon (ed. by Scott, M. A., 1908), p. lxxx Google Scholar; alao Schmitt, Carl, Der Begriff des Politischen (1933)Google Scholar.

18 Cf. Ford, Henry Jones, Representative Government (1924)Google Scholar.

19 See Emerton, Ephraim, Humanism and Tyranny (1925)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for Salutati's treatise “De Tyranno,” chap. 4.

20 Reprinted in Brooks, E. C. (ed.), Bryce's American Commonwealth, Fiftieth Anniversary (1939), p. 182 Google Scholar.

21 The historian who claims to be purely scientific wants to be used by neither radicals nor conservatives. He is interested in the past, which offers some poesibility of being certain. He does not claim great insight into the future. However, social thought will not let the historians alone.

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