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PARTISAN REVIEW
influence than its mere numbers would imply, for the rentier status
constituted the goal of so large a section of the population."*
The average man usually takes for granted the ways of life to
which he is accustomed. Bertrand Russell wrote** that the great
majority of men and women in ordinary times pass through life
without ever contemplating or criticising as a whole either their
own conditions or those of the world at large. They find themselves
born into a certain place in society, and they accept what each day
brings forth, without any effort of thought beyond what the imme–
diate effort requires. But this is true only to a certain degree. It
refers to all social classes, to the lower as well as to the upper
classes, to the worker, aristocrat, and capitalist. The latter might
have more leisure-as a wealthy rentier-for contemplation and
sophisticated criticism, but this is often done rather as a hobby
than as a preface to action. In general, thinking leads him to
become a conscious partisan of conservatism, and a defender of
the social system which gives him economic security, leisure, and
privileges. Without them, he is inclined to become a different social
type whose ways of thinking and acting we shall have to deal with
in other parts of this book.
The Conservative Man had become the typical representative
of Western Civilization once the era of bourgeois revolutions in
Europe came to an end, and bourgeois society was firmly estab–
lished.
The Conservative at Home-and Abroad
This leads us to the clarification of a question which has often
been misinterpreted. Western Civilization has been identified with
the era of liberalism and democracy. Such an assumption is,
however, not quite correct. There was a strange contrast between
the Western Man who was, or may have been, a liberal in his home
country, but who behaved quite differently in those parts of the
world where he had vested interests threatened by mass movements.
The growth of world economy put Western Europe in the position
of a unique world center, but this development was not accom–
panied by the growth of liberal forces. The final development of
Western Civilization was decisively influenced by the growth of
•
Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences:
"The Rentier."
••Bertrand Russell,
Proposed Roads to Freedom,
New York,
p.
VIII.
