BOO KS
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The special mark of this philosophy is authoritarianism-the belief
that certain truths can and must be inculcated from above
because
they
are in opposition to the common sense of the majority. This is something
quite different from conservative traditionalism. The genuine conserva–
tive appeals to tradition as the sanction of the prevailing community be–
liefs and customs. The authoritarian school makes its appearance after
the "cake of custom" has been broken, and in opposition to the demo–
cratic appeal for the establishment of a new, rational, consensus. Not
that rationailty is ignored-for is not natural law itself revealed to right
reason? But the historical incorporation of reason is located in an edu–
cated minority, which is also the ruling minority. "In the literal sense,
!he principles of the good society must be unpopular until they have
prevailed sufficiently to alter the popular impulses. For the popular im–
pulses are opposed to public principles"
(The Public Philosophy,
p. 179) .
It
is not made clear whether this was always so, or whether the present
state of affairs goes back to the time when the majority of people en–
tered the political stage, i.e., when Western society became democratic.
But there is a suggestion that the U.S. Constitution owes its rationality
to the fact that in 1787 only about 5 per cent of the people cared to
exercise the vote. Now this fact has been noted before by writers who
have drawn quite different conclusions from it. It is of course a truism
that democracy arrived by stages, and that its beginnings did not look
very hopeful. For that matter, it is arguable that democracy is currently
in danger of breaking down. But it does not follow that this threat can
be averted by the adoption of an undemocratic philosophy.
It should be obvious that this is not a conservative doctrine, but one
which registers the disappearance of traditional sanctions. Genuine "di–
vine right" conservatism is of course no longer with us, certainly not in
Britain-reputedly a conservative country. We have to make do with
substitutes, of which the most popular at the moment is Whiggism in the
style of Burke and Tocqueville. This, since it is itself rationalist, leaves
room for such contrivances as a reformed educational system to incul–
cate sound principles. In a different form such ideas occur during revo–
lutions, when attempts are made to reform the public mind by direc–
tion from above. The "public philosophy" certainly was very much in
the thoughts of the leading Jacobins; Robespierre, by refusing to sanc–
tion armed resistance to a hostile Convention, even paid it the compli–
ment of sacrificing his life to it. The Jacobins were indeed uncommonly
doctrinaire in trying to force their countrymen to swallow the whole
system of republican morality at one gulp, and in the process they not
only came to grief themselves but very nearly succeeded in discrediting
