Lefties, being lefties, will often accuse their enemies of being ‘reactionary.’ And for them often this means simply being opposed to liberals — against government spending, in favor of big tax cuts, yada, yada, yada. In other words, being what you might simply call a ‘Republican.’
But this is hardly what the word means. ‘Reaction’ in this specific sense is a fairly complicated term. Websters defines it as “relating to, marked by, or favoring reaction; especially : ultraconservative in politics.”
Even that’s a rather thin definition, though. The word refers to a more specific anti-democratic impulse: a desire to turn back the broad Western trend toward democratic government and civic equality, often tied up with nostalgia for established militarized aristocracies, state churches, and so forth. This is why, say, Francisco Franco was a reactionary, as were, in a quite different way, some of the proto-fascist impulses in a European capital like Vienna at the turn of the last century — as described in this book.
In any case, one seldom really sees anything quite like this in American politics, though the term is often tossed around pretty freely.
Seldom, but not never.
Lately the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page really is starting to seem a little reactionary. Tim Noah had a whole series a little while back about a Journal editorial praising the virtues of the idle rich. And today there’s this really whacky column arguing that the problem with the British monarchy is that they’ve … well, that they’ve made their peace with the 20th century essentially.
The best response to the Sophie “scandal”–for that is how the tabloids dub it–would be for the queen to withdraw her family from the throng. A popular embrace is fatal. The monarchy does not, and should not, reflect the latest opinion poll. Instead, as a source of authority, it must cultivate afresh a sense of suspicion–a suspicion, this time, of the people.
Yikes!
Is this some new obscurantist thread in American conservatism? Or has Robert Bartley just gone over the edge?
