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It is often said that conservatism was born as a reaction to the French Revolution. Edmond Burke is mentioned in this context as a kind of founding father of conservatism.
His famous book “Reflections on the Revolution in France” from 1790 is considered the first significant work of conservatism. As many know, Burke already predicted in 1790 how the French Revolution would derail into violence and chaos. Human societies, Burke claimed, must be allowed to change organically. Intellectuals (that is, in this context, Enlightenment philosophers) cannot found a society based on their wishful thinking. Traditions, habits, and proven experience must continue to function as guiding stars for our social structures.
Conservatism as it is shaped in Burke’s thinking thus arises as a reaction to the excesses of modernity. And the fact that Burke was able to so clearly foresee the reign of terror and the political chaos that the revolution in France would lead to has, to this day, given credibility and legitimacy to his reasoning.
But there is a missing piece in this historiography. It would be absurd to say that conservatism arose as a reaction to the French Revolution when the French Revolution – and by extension the entire Enlightenment – was in turn a reaction to a previously dominant conservatism. But we do not usually speak of conservatism when characterizing pre-modern society because it is not a self-conscious ideological pursuit. We speak of traditionalism.
But the way of thinking is the same: Man should above all look backwards when he orients himself in existence. It is based on what has already been and what has already been established that he should create his life.
This is a way of thinking and living that dominated completely in pre-modern societies. If you want, you can let the term “conservatism” designate the political movements that after the French Revolution pushed for a return to a more traditionalist society. And “traditionalism” can designate the ideology that dominates in pre-modern societies and so also in Europe.
To understand precisely what is meant by the term traditionalism, it is usually contrasted with the term modernism. The crucial difference between the two is that in traditionalism one mainly justifies one’s actions based on factors that exist in the past or exist in the present but that derive from the past.
It can be about history and tradition, but also about the social hierarchies and social realities that history has created. It can also be about religion or nature. The natural, societal, social and familial order that is in place when we are born becomes the reality that we humans relate to when we create our lives and our identities. As individuals in society, we usually stick to the place and role that history and social reality have assigned to us.
With modernity, man begins to look forward instead of backward. Now it is a vision of a possible future that guides people’s actions. Man can now say that he will throw the old society overboard, that he will make a revolution, establish equality and gender equality, and that he therefore believes in his own possibility of creating something other than what he was assigned by history. Thus, man also becomes an individualist. Now everyone must realize his own truth, his own freely chosen identity, and perhaps even his social identity and his gender.
We modern people living in the 2020s do not have to choose between an outdated traditionalism with established hierarchies and a revolutionary modernism that destroys everything in its path towards an equal and perhaps even classless society.
But many think that today we need more traditionalism and less modernism (since we already have had so much). Many of our politicians have been far too careless in their ambitions to remake our human and social reality based on their own desires. Not everything needs to be redone. Not all utopias need to be realized.
But we should not enter a thoughtless celebration of everything that comes from history. We should not return to a pre-modern society. We should not reject the progress we have made thanks to modernist thinking.
What we should do right now is to dampen the impact of modernist, or progressive thinking, and as good conservatives, give the past a chance. At least those parts of the past that have something valuable to offer.