Professional Documents
Culture Documents
On Being Reactionary
Rein Staal
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
theories and idioms that, t o the ex- and unwanted dangers. Therefore, we
tent we take them seriously, reduce are told, we need plans and programs,
human beings to the pliable material staffed by credentialed experts, t o
of irresponsible power. The question undo the damage wrought by us, the
of personality in turn suggests our amateurs of life, hapless sleepwalk-
responsibility to transform the given ers whose first need is to be disabused
elements of life. These transforma- of the illusion of free agency.
tions include that of time into dura- Depending on t h e rhetorical cir-
tion, the lived, human time that one cumstance, our progressive savants
can remember and relate as a story, remark the growth of the impersonal
and that of space into location, the sphere either with the cool detach-
place for fellowship and loyalty. (Re- ment of t h e impartial spectator o r
actionaries tend t o b e storytellers with the enthusiasm of a co-conspira-
and localists rather t h a n theoreti- tor in t h e historical process. T h e
cians and cosmopolitans.) The dis- reactionarys scandalous vocation
cussion of reactionary principles will consists in the refusal t o abet such
conclude by considering authority, historical forces o r t o accept their
the crux of the mystery of personal inevitability. The inner meaning of
existence. One of the reactionarys reaction is captured in Paul Elmer
first obligations is to illuminate the Mores elegant phrase: to oppose to
significance of authority as a bulwark the welter of circumstance the force of
I
against social engineering and as a discrimination and selection. This
foundation of humane living. determination must contend with a
Todays political controversies re- canard that should be exposed right
volve around the embattled ideals of away, namely the invocation of social
personal loyalty and personal respon- change. It is in t h e name of this
sibility. Put another way, those con- slogan that our pundits invoke t h e
troversies imply t h e alternative of famed clock that cannot be turned
personal dependence o r impersonal back, the quintessential technocratic
dependence. Progressive political golem. T h e change in question is
thought has attacked the former and clearly not pure change, change as
a b e t t e d t h e l a t t e r , reflecting such. Change as such brings to mind
Rousseaus insistence that depen- the unpredictable, the novel, even the
dence on things is less corrupting arbitrary. Change a s s u c h has n o
and degrading than dependence on predetermined content or direction.
persons. Human associations con- Social change has been tamed and
stituted by mutual personal loyal- mastered by t h e theoreticians of
ties-notably family, friendship, and progress; it is change that has been
locality-confront a n intensifying filled, mapped out, predicted and pre-
theoretical as well a s practical on- destined, a change to end all change.
slaught. Other spheres of human ac- Progressive politics figures as the in-
tivity, such as school and workplace, strument through which time sub-
likewise feature the rise of bureau- mits to theory.
cracy and regimentation a t t h e ex- Since h e knows that history has
pense of spontaneity and personal many other avenues besides the crude
loyalty. From t h e rationalists per- dichotomy of backwards and for-
spective, the relationships of family wards, the reactionary poses indeli-
members, friends, and neighbors arise cate questions about the content and
by chance and carry unfathomable direction of change. (Not When will
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
we get there ? but Where are we judgment and affection, have been
going ?) A s the pathbreaking reac- recast as matters of power relations.
tionary G.K. Chesterton put it, whats In a way, there is nothing new here.
wrong with t h e world is t h a t not Since the first parents raised the first
enough people in it ask whats right. infant, human beings have known
The unwillingness to pose that ques- that relations of power figure in the
tion explains the veiled, subversive most tender of human experiences.
character of t h e moral orientation What is destructive in t h e current
behind relativistic and deterministic teaching is the identification of power
modes of thought. with ultimate reality. Todays devo-
The key challenge facing our think- tees of power eagerly embrace t h e
ing about politics is whether we ought Nietzschean view that t h e world of
t o resist the spiraling augmentation quality is a rhetorical gloss on t h e
of the impersonal at the expense of world of quantity; t h e r e is neither
the personal. (To pose the question in good nor bad, only more and less
terms of whether that development is (power). In this view, all discrimina-
capable of being arrested or reversed tion between can be nothing other
is t o substitute an insoluble pseudo- than discrimination against. Lacking
problem for a fundamental question the poetic integrity of Nietzsches ty-
of spiritual orientation.) The nature of rannical vision, our power-worship-
our predicament has been expressed ping contemporaries seek shelter be-
with consummate clarity by Romano hind a patina of egalitarian politics.
Guardini as the divorce of power from That retreat does not a t all detract
person. This condition leaves power from the lasting legacy of this intellec-
increasingly autonomous and intan- tual movement, namely the metaphys-
gible, while persons come increas- ics of tyranny. According to this view,
ingly t o see themselves as the para- ultimate reality consists of units of
lyzed playthings of forces outside their force acting on each other in relations
control. Thus divorced, both power of domination and subjection. On the
and person are, strictly speaking, ir- existential plane, m o r e a n d m o r e
responsible. The new world order has people accept the claim that misery,
a s its foundations two pillars, t h e despair, and lethargy can only be cured
impersonal constitution of power and by empowerment. Empower men t
the decomposition, one is tempted to commonly turns out t o mean recruit-
say the deconstruction, of the person ment into the offices and doctrines of
and of his experience of moral respon- the techno-bureaucratic order. (One
sibility. The recognition that techno- thinks of the sinister evolution of the
crats and intellectuals, despite their once honorable word workshop.)
professed disdain for each other, ac- Against the metaphysics of tyranny,
tually operate hand in hand, supplies the reactionary upholds a religious
the key impetus to reactionary think- view of ultimate reality. (In this con-
ing. text religion is meant in an etymo-
Not for the first time, intellectuals logical sense distinct from its applica-
have succumbed t o t h e lyricism of tion to specific institutions o r t o the
power. Today, popular social science specific content of Revelation. My dis-
and the machinery of opinion forma- cussion draws on the treatment of
tion have infused that murky passion personal fidelity and disposability
deep into the public mind. Art, moral- by Gabriel Marcel a n d t h a t of
ity, love, and learning, all the forms of religation by Xavier Zubiri.) Accord-
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
chestration of their lives. Confirming from its subjects and justifies it in the
Richard Weavers apprehension, even eyes of its adherents. Tocqueville fore-
the enjoyment of friendship has come saw the proliferation ofthis kind of power
under attack as arbitrary. We are in- and, keenly aware of how its faceless and
creasingly encouraged to rely for sus- efficient character distinguished it from
tenance o n support groups and classical models of tyranny, termed it
mentoring conducted under profes- democratic despotism; in the twenti-
sional auspices. Reactionaries insist eth century, James Burnham and later
that such arrangements be debated observers have charted,the course of
on their merits, not on the basis of the managerial power and its method of
social changes presumed t o neces- handling persons as one might handle
sitate them. As t o policies and institu- trained animals or other resources.
tions, the reactionary posture incor- Reactionaries tackle t h e crisis of
porates suspicion, what the founding authority on three levels, t h e per-
fathers would have called republican sonal, the literary, and the political.
j ea1o u sy . Reaction a r ie s a r e t h or- In e a c h case, bureaucratic institu-
oughly skeptical of the bureaucratic tions, private as well as public, d o
claim that we have no alternative to their best to shape a world in which
centralization and regimentation. On authority gives way t o impersonal
the level of the spirit, t h e reactionary forces. At the same time, each case
posture incorporates a scandalous feeds on theories and idioms emerg-
hope. Perhaps we can turn back the ing from the bureaucracy of ideas. A
clock; perhaps uprooting can be un- review of the three levels of the crisis
done; p e r h a p s families, neighbor- will shed some light on the reaction-
hoods, friendships-the persons and ary enterprise of reinvigorating au-
places that matter-can rise from the thority.
ashes of dislocation and mistrust. Every man is the author of his own
As an alternative to the consolida- actions. In that sense, each of us
tion of impersonal power, the reac- exercises what we could call personal
tionary returns t o t h e principle of authority. Personal responsibility
authority. Authority humanizes power hinges on personal authority; t h e
and makes it personally meaningful former makes no sense without the
and personally accountable. Much as latter. The current attack on the prin-
tradition redeems time and location ciple of authority is not directed at the
redeems space, authority redeems overlords generally identified with
power. Power without authority works authoritarianism. The attack begins
as a mechanical force. As Guardini closer to home, as more and more
argued, we who live at t h e end of persons, inspired by the propaganda
modernity face the decisive challenge of determinism and sustained by the
of curbing autonomous power and engines of therapy and pharmacol-
recasting it in the light of personal ogy, disavow authorship of their own
responsibility. Authority and respon- actions. Our culture displays an in-
sibility intertwine inextricably; au- creasingly clear split between those
thority resides in persons or bodies of who would extend the scope of per-
persons who can answer for their ac- sonal responsibility and those who
tions. Power wielded in and by the would diminish it. The reactionary
techno-bureaucratic order functions stands firm with those who would
precisely through its lack of author- uphold the principleof personal respon-
ity. Its impersonality at once protects it sibility. Reactionary thinking does not
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
deny the reality of impersonal forces view simultaneously realistic a n d
that may work on our bodies and on our hopeful. Consider Burkes observa-
minds. Instead, what is at stake is the tion: A certain quantum of power
existence of a nucleus of personal iden- must always exist in the community,
tity and responsibility that is irreducible in some hands, and under some ap-
to those forces. Nor does the reactionary pellation. Wise men will apply their
deny the crippling power of anger and remedies to vices, not to names; to the
despair, spiritual themes prominent in causes of evil which are permanent,
the stories of our lives. The line is drawn not to the occasional organs by which
elsewhere, at the elevation of personal they act, and the transitory modes in
irresponsibility into a principle that one which they appear. Burke was well
seeks to justify. Reactionary criticism is aware that the history of governments
obliged to expose, and even lampoon, is a sad tale full of fraud and force. He
the spiritual oxymoron of reductionism also saw, as have most conservatives,
voiced in the first person. Only those that power is an enduring reality in
who acknowledge authority over their political society and an enduring temp-
actions can work to curb irresponsible tation to those who wield it. From this
power. perspective, the government of men
Note the controversy over literary defies reduction t o t h e administra-
authorship. At t h e most advanced tion of things. The challenge posed by
fringes of academia the notion has got power is whether it can be experi-
about that authors, strictly speaking, enced as authority and not as force,
d o not exist; t h e y have been whether, in other words, it can be
deconstructed along with their texts. redeemed through personal obliga-
Once again, we see bureaucrats profi- tion.
teering in the void left by the eclipse of Progressive thought h a s suc-
authority. The death of personal au- cumbed to different variants of a m e
thority builds the business of treat- nistic view of power (reflecting what
ment industries; the death of the au- More discussed as the Demon of the
thor builds the business of the critic, Absolute). The revolutionary Left
now presented with unlimited oppor- rested in the belief that in the future
tunities for speculation. Books be- relations of power would be completely
come matter for dissection, and for transcended. The story of Marxist re-
the virtuosity of artful manipulation; gimes has made this position increas-
what suffers is their potential for trans- ingly untenable, though the power of
forming and enhancing the vision of such nostrums to persist should never
the reader. The bureaucracy of ideas, be underestimated. The main current
here as elsewhere, repeats and incul- of todays progressive thought pro-
cates formulas that corrode the sense poses a cynicism as thoroughgoing in
of personal identity and prepare the its way as the discredited utopianism.
way for a more general consolidation We are now asked to adjust ourselves
of bureaucratic, managerial power. to a world whose ultimate reality is
Deconstruction of personal identity inescapably constituted by relations
effects the mining and sapping re- of power, a world in which the joys
quired in order to supply ready mate- and burdens of personal existence
rial for projects of social engineering. are reduced to manifestations of those
The reactionary approach to politi- relations. We are used to identifying
cal authority builds on the traditional this view with those who invoke the
conservative view of political power, a demonology of oppression, but it also
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
informs the theory that sees the end of t o us as phenomena whose impersonal
history in a global technocratic re- workings we can trace. The theoreti-
gime. (Perhaps we could speak of Left cians and managers of impersonal forces
Nietzscheans and Right Nietzsche- will reply that they are simply dealing
ans.) Against both variants of the with observable realities that just hap-
metaphysics of power, the reaction- pen to be so, regardless of our wishes.
ary puts forward the principle of au- Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari,
thority derived from the metaphys- sed inteelligere. (Not to laugh, not to
ics of personal obligation. W e cannot weep, neither to denounce, but t o under-
escape relations of power, but they stand. Spinozas motto captures the
can a n d must b e transfigured by dominant mood of technocratic politics.)
mutual loyalties and personal ac- Yet the reactionary knows that all hu-
countability. Authority marks t h e man phenomena reflect the mysterious
transmutation of necessity into obli- quality at the heart of personal identity.
gation. To the extent that the reac- The inside is larger than the outside. The
tionary can be distinguished from the reactionary also knows that those, small
traditional conservative, the difference or great, who claim to be merely the
may lie in the reactionary belief that pristine vessels of impersonal forces in
the unbought grace of life did not die fact harbor the souls of tyrants. We must
with the Old Regime, but instead rep- recognize power exercised outside the
resents a perennial human possibil- field of mutual personal obligations as
ity. The counterrevolution cherishes the usurpation that it is.
personal loyalty and insists on per- Being reactionary entails care for the
sonal responsibility, though these spiritual realities that integrate and illu-
spiritual values may conflict with ev- minate our common world. The integrity
ery known institutional imperative; of language, the mutual obligation of
and it works t o replace unilateral, personal ties, the cultivation of place,
bureaucratic power with power of a the insistence on personal responsibil-
personal scale and constitution, dis- ity for power: all testify to the fundamen-
regarding t h e cynicism of t h o s e tal reality of personal identity. The reac-
pawned to the techno-bureaucratic tionary vocation lies in the reclamation
order. of these projects, even and especially if
The distinction between power and the constitution of the social and politi-
authority reflects the mystery of per- cal world threatens to make them obso-
sonal identity. The prevalence of im- lete. Though the faith in recovery may
personal power indicates that funda- s e e m a scandalous a n d quixotic
mental human realities have been dream, the reactionary knows the work
problematized so that they appear is worth the effort.
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED