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servatism emphasizes limitation. Mr. Kirk summarizes "this ancient
conservative principle (which Burke expresses better than anyone
else) . . . that the purpose of the state is to govern those that are
not fit to govern themselves," and claims with Burke that laws and
social institutions are a restraint upon man's "lower nature." Further–
more, Mr. Viereck has said that the psychological difference between
liberals and conservatives is the "split between those who trust the
'natural goodness' of man and primarily want to release it from
outer
restraints, and those who fear its 'natural' caveman propensities
and want to check it with
inner
restraints." As usual, Mr. Viereck
has missed the real problem and has substituted for it a false dis–
junction. Realistic non-conservatives are aware of the necessity for
restraints upon man's lower nature, but they are also painfully aware
of the way tyrannical and evil controls corrupt his higher nature.
In a recent review of Mr. Kirk's book, Gordon Chalmers says
he believes that the author has summed up most political problems
in the question:
Do
men have souls or do they not? Upon one's reso–
lution of this inquiry rests the basis of politics, he concludes, and
if the answer is no, men will then be treated as parts of a machine.14
This much may be true, but the question does not go far enough.
It should continue to ask: What are we to do when we recognize
that men do have souls? The conservative answer may be just as
inhuman as that of the materialist. By identifying the principle of
a man's soul with the principle of the social order, and by requiring
that his own individual law of development be determined for him
by the state, a conservative regime enslaves him as effectively as
any machine. Conservatism would impress on the soul of man its
own structure and deprive the soul of the autonomy which is its
life. Thus, although
it
may begin as a revolt against mechanism,
conservatism ends in coercive organicism.
Finally, the new conservatives show great concern of rootless–
ness and the need for roots, but where in America can they them–
selves find a class with which to identify? There is no pre-capitalist
aristocracy they can choose, and they clearly reject the aristocracy
of wealth because it offers no cultural leadership. There is no con–
crete social stratum which serious conservatives may select as a para-
14
New York Times Book Review,
May 16, 1953,
p.
7.
