CONSERVATISM RECRUDESCENT
521
munities, these are subsumed under and made subordinate to the
all-inclusive principle of the state.
ll
Thus, it is assumed that the
freedom of each individual
is
not inconsistent with the hierarchical
organization of society. And it is also assumed that it would be a
violation of the individual's freedom and happiness to wrench him
from his established place in the hierarchical arrangement.
Of course, conservatism is not the only position that is in–
terested in the security of institutions. The conserving purpose by
itself does not distinguish, in most cases, one political philosophy from
another. The end of political institutions themselves is conservation and
security. But the conservative idea fixes limits to the flexibility of
institutions and insists on their conformity to established models. In
its extreme form it goes beyond respect for tradition and elevates
tradition to a principle of control, extending to the dead the pre–
scriptive right to govern the living. The result is a mood which con–
demns as pernicious every tendency to innovation and engenders a
fear and hatred of social change, regardless of its character and
potential.
12
Those who oppose innovation tend to identify order
with the immutability of established conventions. Such an identifica–
tion fails to dea1 with the problems of power and change on any
but a temporary basis, and its inelasticity may lead to the destruc–
tion of the entire order by the pressures of irresistible, dynamic social
forces.
Hierarchically organized society creates at least as many prob–
lems as it attempts to solve. And uncritical veneration of traditional
social institutions solves none at all, for these are just as much
spawned by the evil that is said to lurk in the human heart as by
the good. There is much truth in the insight of Tolstoy and Berdyaev
that there is original sin in history, and that society is constructed
on falsehoods and injustice.
13
But even mixed conservatives like
Viereck, who admit that the accretion of law and tradition combines
good and evil in inextricable confusion, hold that it is the duty of
the conservative to sanction the presence of evil rather than endanger
the institutional structure.
Where non-conservative thought usually stresses freedom, con-
11
cr.
K. Mannheim,
Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology,
p.
107.
12
cr.
C. N. Cochrane,
Christianity and Classical Culture,
p.
104.
13 Cf. N. Berdyaev,
Slavery and Freedom,
p.
12.
