Become Reactionaries or Perish

Daniel Larison has more time, intellect and ability than I do. He is a rather prolific blogger, producing several well written posts each day.  I discover more and more that each time I find an article or issue I wish to post that Daniel has already written something.  (If Daniel has not already posted on it Joshua has.)

He recently posted a thought provoking piece on a current article in The American Conservative by Austin Bramwell.

It will be of little avail, I suppose, to note that the bulk of Mr. Bramwell’s analysis rests on the claim that conservatism is an ideology, when any conservatism worthy of the name is non-ideological.  It is an anti-ideology.  Prescription and prudence, if they make what someone might call an ideology, make a very ”thin” ideology indeed.  Someone will presumably say that this, too, is an ideological claim, but it cannot be stressed enough that there are conservatives (perhaps not many, but they do exist) who never subscribed to the thing Mr. Bramwell describes as conservative ideology.

I find it confusing that some conservatives still consider that there is, or should be, an ideology associated with real conservatism.  As Larison points out, and I have pointed out several times in the past, real conservatism is a philosophy.  By the standards of left/right ideologies real conservative positions might at various times and in various places be considered right, left or center.  To be certain in most cases real conservative positions fall right of center when viewed through a dogmatic ideological lens - this does not equate conservatism with the ideology of the right; it merely shows commonality on certain issues.

Real conservatives are for conserving and preserving the best of what history and tradition provide.  However, real conservatives are not stuck in the past - conservatism is about keeping the good and moving forward. As Clyde N. Wilson states:

The conservative philosopher Russell Kirk contrasted mere stand-patter conservatism of the dull-witted or poor in spirit who reject anything new with the true conservatism of an Edmund Burke or a John C. Calhoun who perceived that it was necessary to change in order to conserve because new conditions had created new threats to our patrimony.

No wonder that conservatism confounds and confuses ideologues on the left and right so much. At various times true conservatives have been rightly labeled as revolutionaries, reactionaries, isolationist, expansionist, traditionalist, populist, pro-war and anti-war.  When you adhere to a philosophy that talks about how to think rather than an ideology that tells you what to think it is possible to come down on the "right" side of all issues, no matter what ideological dogma states.
It is high time that true conservatives again take up the role of reactionary and if that fails revolutionary.  As Larison points out:

The greatest problem of conservatism is that it perceives real problems, but simply starts screaming, “There is a really BIG problem over here!  It is gigantic!  It’s going to wipe out life as we know it!”  Then it retires to the parlour for an obscure discussion of who insulted whom during the 1992 presidential campaign over drinks and cigars.

How completely true, he continues:

[modern conservatism] does not generate important or interesting ideas anymore and is almost structured not to generate such ideas.  It is structured to reproduce itself and confirm its own assumptions about its intellectual vitality and diversity, when neither is really in evidence in most places.

Therein lies the problem, we have become the "stand-patters" that Kirk described. True conservatives must regain the high-ground of principles and stand firm there - but to get to the high ground we must move, not merely theorize and pontificate.
Burke was a revolutionary, so was Jefferson, they accepted that a fundamental change in the status quo was acceptable to ultimately preserve and conserve the traditional.  Calhoun was a reactionary - attempting to stem the tide of wrong thinking by relatively minor machinations.  We would do well to remember these men.
We true conservatives will ultimately fail and perish completely from this land unless we become true reactionaries; reactionaries prepared to become revolutionaries if need be.