Leftism
20. Conservatives and Liberals
The term conservatif, conservateur in the political sense, like the term liberal, originated on the Continent. The French were the inventors, and when it was introduced in Britain for party purposes in the 1830s, it was not accepted without a struggle. Sir Robert Peel protested against this label for the reformed Tory Party as “un-English,” but he yielded later and used the un-English term. An endeavor was made to rename the Tories “Constitutionalists” and this effort was repeated in the 1880s but without success. Lord Randolph Churchill, who belonged to the leftmost wing of the Conservative party, called himself a “democratic Tory.” Today parties calling themselves conservative exist in Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and Canada. Then there are conservative parties which use other labels. The Anti-Revolutionary party of the Netherlands is Calvinist in inspiration and most decidedly conservative in outlook. The Monarchist parties of Italy are conservative and so are, up to a point, the Liberal parties of Australia, Italy, and India (i.e., “Swatantra”). Italy’s Democristiani and the Christian-Social party of Belgium have conservative wings. Conservative thought, however, exists in many other countries, layers, and groups, especially in “study circles,” Kreise, especially in Germany. Quite a number of periodicals are conservative in policy and appeal.
Commercialism and industry, which want to “get things done,” are also frequently “anti-intellectual.” Here we get the clash between the “doers” and the “talkers.” This combination of an industrial-commercial with an agrarian-military-naval upper crust created a general anti-intellectual atmosphere in Britain, and this inevitably had a greater impact on the conservatives than on the leftist (Laborite) attitude. The Laborites as a Socialist party are a Continental if not an international party—and this in spite of their amazing parochialism. There is such a thing as the parochially minded internationalist, and he is indeed also to be found in America, which a German author once called a Grossinsel, a gigantic island wedged in between three oceans and the Caribbean.
What we have said of Britain is true mutatis mutandis of the United States. The intellectualized aristocracy of the United States consists even today only of thin layers on the East Coast, and here and there in the rest of the country. The captains of industry and the big traders are not excessively given to thought and art. Therefore the intellectual life of America gets little human, little moral, though often a substantial material aid from them, and, unfortunately, they do not often reflect whom and what they are supporting. The result is that intellectual and artistic life in the United States is not tied to conservative thought, and conservatives until very recently were not overly interested in intellectual and artistic affairs. All this had nothing to do with the totally fallacious concept of the “young nation” which allegedly has to “mature” in order to develop a dynamic intellectual and artistic life. (Luxor, Karnak, Mohenjo-Daro are “young,” the Acropolis is older, present-day American culture and civilization—as an integral part of the West—are very old because they have such a long prehistory!) An Oxford don (just like a “long-haired” American professor) is always in danger of appearing as a funny figure to his countrymen. A professor of the Sorbonne, on the other hand, until recently was a demigod, a member of the French Academy a god. And the son of a Ruhr industrialist who is a self-made man will consider it natural that he study to become a doctor utriusque iuris (doctor of civil and canonic law). The obsession with la pensée, les lettres et les arts in France is just as great as the preoccupation with Kultur in Germany or with Kul’tura in Russia.
This introduction is necessary to remind the American and the British reader that the formulations, “Conservatism is opposed to all ideology” and “Conservativism is alien to intellectuality” have only local significance. From these formulations to John Stuart Mill’s high-handed declaration that the Conservative party is the “stupid party,” the distance is not so very great.
Continental conservatism was liberal only inasfar as it was a continuation of the Ancien Régime—which it was only in parts. Yet “popular movements,” movements of the masses, are automatically more sanguinary than reactions coming from small elitarian minorities. The collectivist left always wanted and, if in power, has tried to exterminate minorities—royalty, aristocrats, priests, “bourgeoisie,” intellectuals, Jews, “capitalists,” bankers. It never happened the other way round. There never has been an attempt from the most fanatical reactionaries to exterminate workers or farmers. And something similar is true of verbal warfare. There exists a whole polemical literature charging minorities with every imaginable or unimaginable vice and describing in detail their evil character. Yet who would dare to denounce the character of one’s own country’s entire working class? Or its peasantry? In his memoirs a former butler might denigrate a duke (or, even better, a duchess) who once employed him: a lovely piece of scandal titillating the prurient. But what duke would write an abusive book about his former butler? This, indeed, would be considered a total denial of the principle of noblesse oblige.
Let us admit that the older conservativism on the Continent had a strongly authoritarian bent and that it operated with affirmations which brooked no discussion. Much of conservative thought had been stimulated by Edmund Burke whose speeches and letters had been translated into several languages, but this Whig infusion did not generate much flexibility. The idea that one could rule fruitfully, effectively and efficiently through an executive of policemen, gendarmes, informers, and jail wardens was (let us admit it) pretty widespread. This is the way Metternich was running Central Europe. Foreign armies intervening to crush local revolts did the rest. Yet early conservatism, we must bear in mind, was only authoritarian: It was never totalitarian. Its weakness was that the pendulum had turned: The image of man was no longer Roussellian. Europe had practically gone back to Calvin without having stopped at St. Thomas Aquinas.
Popular representation, the Diets of old in most parts of Europe, was a traditional institution, whereas the modern parliaments made up of parties were decidedly not. Yet the French Revolution had dishonored, in the eyes of many an early conservative, the very idea of representation, so that only local representations composed of the various estates did survive. The French parlements never reappeared. As a result we see that the early conservatives had cast their lot with the absolute monarchy, and this Gerlach, a great conservative, called quite rightly “the Revolution from above.” In other words, the early conservatives conveniently forgot that mixed government and not absolute government is the great Western political tradition. The conservative concept of monarchy envisages the king in a dialogue with the people whom he patriarchally (but not paternalistically) treats as his children—but as adult children and not as minors. The trauma caused by the howling mob of Paris had gone too deep.
Yet the early conservatives were antinationalistic and in this respect they had reacted in a very healthy way against the nationalism of the French Revolution, this mass outbreak of ethnic identitarianism. French (ethnic) nationalism had provoked German nationalism and nationalisms fostered also by German Romanticism (Herder!) sprang up in every nook and corner. People speaking the same language now wanted to live in one country under one government, as nation une et indivisible. Against this “herdist” outbreak Metternich reacted as violently as the Hohenzollerns, Frederick William III, and Frederick William IV. This new nationalism of a leftist character was rampant among the German students who were also enthralled by democratic and republican ideas: These young men, who had in many cases fought against France, now proved that they were taken with identitarian, with leftist ideas—though not quite as much as their former enemies. And the way conservative governments repressed their movements showed that even these leaders had been affected by the tyrannical spirit of the French Revolution. Force called for Force.
This very popular demagogue was later arrested by the Prussian authorities, jailed for several years, but acquitted in a public trial.
The early conservatives were not fully aware of this basic deterioration. No real efforts were made in Europe to return to the old system of professional armies. The leaders liked the idea of oversized military establishments. Later even the old antinationalist attitude was given up. This evolution was largely due to the rise of Marxism with its accent on “internationalism.” With the decline of early liberalism and its replacement with old liberalism even the word liberty became more and more suspect. Had not liberty been one of the slogans of the French Revolution with its triple program of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity? The fact that liberty was almost immediately betrayed by the Revolution was slowly forgotten. Economic freedom, a free market economy, world trade—all these became increasingly unpopular with European conservatives who, without realizing it, assumed increasingly reactionary traits by just saying “no” to the prevailing currents.
Naturally the true and beautiful (they are not necessarily identical) can appear in different “outward” forms. The cathedral of Trondhjem in Norway and the Cathedral of Mexico City are very different in form and expression. They were built in different ages. They have to be loved and respected across national boundaries. There are, on the other hand, limits to our worldwide acceptance of other values. A highly conservative Portuguese administrator in central Angola might advocate the building of a courthouse in an African style but he will not “respect” the age-old tradition of sacrificing small children.
In retrospect we might say that these reforms were an error because the worker was treated as a child and his welfare was placed in the hands of the State rather than his own. But taking the conservative outlook of the fìn-de-siècle and the early twentieth century into consideration, the reforms could be expected as some sort of Continental version of “democratic Toryism.” The American reader, in this connection must remember that royalty is distinguished from nobility, and that agrarian reforms might have the full backing of the crown. He also has to bear in mind that royalty and nobility are not by nature friendly to the plutocracy, that the nobleman on the Continent dislikes the manufacturer and the banker, and, one should add, that “the university” has a position apart while the clergy was usually torn between populism and royalism. Today royalism is no longer a temptation. A large part of the clergy (including their theological inspirators) are hell-bent on ingratiating themselves with their “customers.”
Their country came first in the thoughts of these conservatives, and they found themselves in a most difficult situation when the parties of the nationalistic left became engaged in a bitter warfare against the parties of the international left. Should they just call down a plague on both houses? Or did they have a moral obligation to join what they considered the lesser evil? The average conservative, looking over the situation, saw on one side the Marxist parties—Socialists (Social Democrats), independent Socialists, Communists—all pledged more or less to the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Socialists, after all, were Marxists who had poured some water into their wine, while the Communists were Marxists who preferred to drink their whisky straight. But both had the same origin, both used the Red Flag, both frequently joined in alliances (“Popular Fronts”) against the “bourgoisie.”
Still, the black period of dictatorship in large parts of Europe served as a beneficent if terrible and tragic school for European conservatives. In so many ways they were cleansed of the leftist poisons which had affected them in the first and, even more so, in the second half of the nineteenth century. First of all, they again learned to appreciate the great value of liberty fully. In jails and concentration camps, in fear and trembling due to the silencing, the boycotts they were subjected to, the suspicion cast upon them, their bereavements through assassination and execution—out of all this they learned the bitter lesson that liberty is necessary to the dignity of man, necessary for the preservation of tradition, necessary for educating their children in their own image. In the past they had often sneered at the liberty the democratic interlude had accorded them because they had been free even before 1918, and because they saw in the liberty of the time between the wars the reason for paralysis and chaos—an error, no doubt, because it had not been liberty that created the disorders but the entire political-social framework. Now they realize that truth has the chance to be attractive in liberty only, because all suppression provides the halo of martyrdom, and truth aided by force loses its luster. An error shouted from a flaming stake has more power than the truth proclaimed by a public loudspeaker protected by a dozen gendarmes.
They found out that though pacifism as an ism is a utopian error, peace is nevertheless a great good and war really only an ultima ratio (more “ultima” than “ratio,” we would be tempted to say), that thorough “militarization” of a nation has paralyzing and debilitating effects, and that, ideally speaking, those should be soldiers who have a real calling—which is true of all professions, sacred and worldly.
They found out that there is such a thing as Christian humanism and even humanitarianism; that there is nothing uglier than severity for severity’s sake, brutality for brutality’s sake; that the basic attitude of the Christian is one of love.
They made the amazing discovery that a free economy really delivers the goods, that manufacturers are not all devils incarnate and that “social justice” can be based only on economic realities and not on generous hearts alone. They also gave up much of their leaning toward the conspiratorial explanation of history, which sees history mainly as the work of secret societies and religious sects. They found out that the average man has a fair amount of goodwill but is weak and often overpowered by evil emotions and that his political acumen is exceedingly modest (to say the least)—all of which suffices to explain the vicissitudes of modern history without constant resorting to involved theories.
American conservatives probably have a better chance. But what is the Continental conservative’s attitude toward conservatism in America? Economically-socially speaking he is at first surprised to find it deeply imbued with preliberal ideas. Adam Smith never had the slightest place in European conservative thought, but upon some reflection the European will understand why “Manchesterism” does indeed belong to the traditional American scene. What the Continental conservative misses most in the American conservative outlook is, as we hinted, something like a coherent system of thought. Naturally, he will encounter feelings and emotions, but not a cogent philosophy. Professor Eliseo Vivas, a conservative Venezuelan thinker who teaches in an American university, has said quite succinctly that it should not be
necessary to show in detail that the problem of conservativism is a difficult problem that touches on all domains of human interest, scholarly no less than practical, philosophical no less than legal, moral and theological no less than economic and social. I take it as agreed that if the conservative movement is going to make more than a trivial and fugitive impact on the life of the nation, it will have to develop a philosophy that is systematic, that is comprehensive, that takes full and honest account of current positive knowledge, and that is, therefore, no mere repetition of dried-up old chestnuts that appealed to men a generation or two ago but have lost their flavor and freshness.
The roots of this state of affairs are manifold. There is the aforementioned dislike for systematization. There is also the fear of looking into the future, of envisaging something radically different from the present order, in other words, not only of breaking with the present leftward trend, but of advocating something revolutionary: something too old, too new, or too farfetched.
Let us ask this painful and crucial question: Can American conservatives hope for a better world on the basis of the present American Constitution, as it is now interpreted, i.e., within the framework of a political order which is more or less (though not fully) democratic? I personally do not believe that such hope is realistic. Yet, to say so openly, an American conservative needs a great deal of courage. In the last 150 years the American left, through repeated Constitutional changes and latitudinarian interpretation, has democratized the originally far less democratic Constitution as designed by the Founding Fathers. We must now ask whether the majorities within the American people are ready to reverse this trend, whether this process can be terminated democratically, whether the system can evolve into other directions. I am rather pessimistic about this possibility, though we should not discard it from our calculations altogether.
American conservatism must be revolutionary in the sense that it must have the will to renew radically the face of the country. And for this purpose it needs a systematized idea, a philosophy animating a concrete vision of America and the rest of the world as they ideally ought to be. I am convinced that such a philosophy must be universally valid and that the vision cannot remain a local affair. We are living in a world where, it is true, small things must be protected and the sense for what is locally and organically grown should be reawakened.
Colossalism is an evil. Nevertheless, the time of parochialism is over. One of the greatest conservative writers, Hermann Borchardt, said in his The Conspiracy of the Carpenters:
