E. V. Walter
CONSERVATISM RECRUDESCENT:
A CRITlQUE*
The conservative revival in America is a movement of op–
poslnon, a counter-revolution against the progressive movement and
its fruits. In mid-century it dominates the intellectual scene just as
progressivism and pragmatism dominated in the first decades. Trying
to entrench itself as a majority position, it is groping for a philosophy
that will give it intellectual leadership. Its major handicap in this
search is its own genesis out of a milieu
in
which, as Lionel Trilling
has observed, liberalism was not only the dominant but even the
sole intellectual tradition. Determined to conserve itself, conservatism
today is attempting to crystallize a tradition out of the history of
thought.
Critical response to this attempt is weak, although the number
of writings in a conservative vein has reached epidemic proportions.
There are few intransigent voices against the movement, and the
silence is, I believe, symptomatic of the same serious pathology that
has produced the conservative recrudescence.
Russell Kirk's recent book,
The Conservative Mind,
is a sez;ious
attempt to define conservatism. Not the least of Mr. Kirk's dis–
tinguished literary talents is his keen intuition for the appropriate
word. The concluding chapter of his book is called the "Recrudescence
of Conservatism." It is significant that the .author should with un–
erring instinct apply the term "recrudescence" to the movement under
discussion. Mr. Kirk has devoted a volume toward a definition of
conservatism; I shall take only a little space to define "recrudescence."
The Latin root and the meaning given by the Oxford Dictionary
both signify a quality or state of breaking out again afresh, usually
*
This paper was read at the Midwest Conference of Political Scientists, April
30, 1954.
