Traditionalism

The traditional approach to Political Science was widely prevalent till the outbreak of the Second World
War. These approaches were mainly related to the traditional view of politics which emphasized the study

Page of
| 1the state and government. Therefore, traditional approaches are primarily concerned with the study of
the organization and activities of the state and principles and the ideas which underlie political
organizations and activities. These approaches were normative and idealistic. The political thinkers
advocating these approaches, therefore, raised questions like ‘what should be an ideal state?’ According
to them the study of Political Science should be confined to the formal structures of the government, laws,
rules and regulations. Thus, the advocates of the traditional approaches emphasize various norms - what
‘ought to be’ or ‘should be’ rather than ‘what is’.

Characteristics of Traditional approaches:

1. Traditional approaches are largely normative and stresses on the values of politics

2. Emphasis is on the study of different political structures.

3. Traditional approaches made very little attempt to relate theory and research

4. These approaches believe that since facts and values are closely interlinked, studies in Political Science
can never be scientific.

Various forms of Traditional Approaches:

The traditional approaches can be sub-divided into the following-

1.Philosophical 2.Historical 3.Institutional 4.Legal approaches.

Discuss the various traditional approaches:

Philosophical Approach: This approach is regarded as the oldest approach to the study of Political
Science. The emergence of this approach can be traced back to the times of the Greek philosophers like
Plato and Aristotle. Leo Strauss was one of the main advocates of the philosophical approach. He believes
that “the philosophy is the quest for wisdom and political philosophy is the attempt truly to know about
the nature of political things and the right or good political order.” This approach firmly believes that the
values cannot be separated from the study of politics. Therefore, its main concern is to judge what is good
or bad in any political society. It is mainly an ethical and normative study of politics and, thus, idealistic.
It deals with the problems of the nature and functions of the state, citizenship, rights and duties etc. The
 advocates of this approach firmly believe that political philosophy is closely linked with the political
ideologies. Therefore, they are of the opinion that a political scientist must have the knowledge of good
life and good society. Political philosophy helps in setting up of a good political order.

Page Historical
|2 Approach: According to the advocates of this approach, political theory can be only
understood when the historical factors like the age, place and the situation in which it is evolved are taken
into consideration. As the name of this approach is related to history, it emphasizes on the study of history
of every political reality to analyze any situation. Political thinkers like Machiavelli, Sabine and Dunning
believe that politics and history are intricately related and the study of politics always should have a
historical perspective. Sabine is of the view that Political Science should include all those subjects which
have been discussed in the writings of different political thinkers from the time of Plato. This approach
strongly upholds the belief that the thinking or the ideology of every political thinker is shaped by the
surrounding environment. Moreover, history not only speaks about the past but also links it with the
present events. History provides the chronological order of every political event and thereby helps in
future estimation of events also. Hence, without studying the past political events, institutions and
political environment it would be wrong to analyze the present political scenario/ events.

Institutional Approach: This is a very old and important approach to the study of Political Science. This
approach mainly deals with the formal aspects of government and politics emphasizes the study of the
political institutions and structures. Thus, the institutional approach is concerned with the study of the
formal structures like legislature, executive, judiciary, political parties, interest groups etc. The advocates
of this approach includes both ancient and modern political thinkers. Among the ancient thinkers Aristotle
is an important contributor to this approach while the modern thinkers include James Bryce, Bentley,
Walter Bagehot, Harold Laski, etc.

Legal Approach: This approach regards the state as the fundamental organization for the creation and
enforcement of laws. Therefore, this approach is concerned with the legal process, legal bodies or
institutions, justice and independence of judiciary. The advocates of this approach are Cicero, Jean Bodin,
Thomas Hobbes, Jeremy Bentham, John Austin, Dicey and Sir Henry Maine.

The various traditional approaches to the study of Political Science have been criticized for being
normative. These approaches were idealistic also as their concern went beyond how and why political
events happen to what ought to happen. In the later period, the modern approaches have made an attempt
to make the study of Political Science more scientific and, therefore, emphasize empiricism.

TRADITIONALISM
 A philosophical and theological doctrine, disseminated through parts of Europe of the 19th century,
according to which the principal truths of a metaphysical and moral nature can be attained by man
through God's revelation alone. According to traditionalism, human reason by itself is not capable of
coming to these truths; it needs external instruction—in the last resort, divine revelation. God must teach
Page man
| 3 not only supernatural truths but also the natural truths of His existence, the immortality of the soul,

the moral law, the nature of authority, and the concept of being. God's revelation is diffused among men
by tradition, that is, by oral and social instruction.

Origin: Traditionalism had its origin in the search after a stable and infallible principle of order in a
world shaken by the French Revolution and by the widely diverging philosophies of the 18th century.
Some thinkers blamed the existing instability on man's reliance on human reason, which on the one hand
claimed to solve all mysteries, even those of faith, and on the other hand undermined all certitude, since
the rationalistic Cartesian doubt contained in itself the seed of agnosticism (see rationalism; cartesianism).
There was felt a great need of simply indicating a principle of stability rather than of discovering it. On
this ground some Catholic thinkers came to the conclusion that the errors of the enlightenment and of the
Revolution had their source in the conviction that the principles of political and intellectual order are of
human origin. They thought, on the contrary, that these principles transcend human reason, defy its
analysis, and therefore must be revealed by God and handed down to men.

Schools: Traditionalism developed into two main forms or schools: one rigid, the other moderate. The
former was represented mainly by L. de bonald (1754–1840), F. de lamennais (1782–1854), and J. de
maistre (1753?–1821); the latter, by A. bonnetty (1798–1879), G. ventura (1792–1861), N. Laforêt
(1823–72), and G. Ubaghs (1800–75). Moderate traditionalism was advanced chiefly by the professors of
the University of Louvain; it is, therefore, also known as the Louvain school of traditionalism. However,
in the midst of their discussions the traditionalists sometimes modified their views; besides, some of
them, such as the moderate L. bautain (1796–1867), were affected by ontologism. All this makes it more
difficult to classify them accurately. With this qualification one can also number among moderate
traditionalists J. hirscher in Germany, J. donoso cortÉs in Spain, V. gioberti in Italy.

Doctrine: De Bonald, systematizer of the doctrine, presented his ideas in numerous works, particularly in
his fundamental work La Législation primitive (Paris 1802) and in Recherches philosophiques sur les
premiers objects de nos connaissances morales (Paris 1818). He maintained that man's ideas are somehow
imprinted on his mind by its Author, and yet without voice, speech, or language there would still be no
knowledge, at least of suprasensible truth. This language could not be invented by an individual or even
by a society. It was given to man along with the notions of the first truths by the Author of man's reason.
 Consequently certain knowledge is founded on authority and ultimately on God's speaking to man. The
first man who accepted these truths had to transmit them to others by instruction; and this transmission
has been taking place down to modern times.

Page Similar
|4 doctrine was advanced by de Lamennais in his Essay said that human reason can err; thus, man is
never certain that his reason does not err in each particular case. Therefore, one must look for an infallible
principle if he wants to be certain. This principle must be accepted without argument, that is, by faith.
Such faith is common to all men, not just proper to an individual. But the authority of universal reason,
which expresses itself in common sense, is infallible, although it cannot be demonstrated and must be
accepted by faith. If it were not infallible, one would fall into skepticism. The most universal truths that
men commonly profess are God's existence and the fact of His revelation to mankind. These truths are the
basis of all philosophy. For man in himself has no reason of his existence; he has it in God. The essence
of reason, however, consists in possessing truth. Therefore, God, when creating intelligent beings,
bestowed upon them a knowledge of basic truth, together with the language that man by himself could not
invent; this truth was then handed down to others by speech, and its transmission continues because of the
divine assistance. As a result, the belief in the testimony of the human race gives to the individual the
greatest certitude; and belief in the testimony of God assures the only certitude for all mankind.

This doctrine was closely connected with the social and political philosophy of the traditionalists. De
Maistre was interested mainly in this aspect of traditionalism, which he elaborated chiefly in the
following works: Du pape (2 v. Lyons 1819); Essai sur le principe générateur des constitutions politiques
(Petrograd 1809); Les Soirées de Saint Pétersbourg (2 v. Paris 1821). His fundamental idea was that man
by himself is incapable of finding the true principle of political and social order, just as he is incapable of
discovering ultimate truth. Corrupted by original sin, and yet associated with others, man must be
governed. The kind of government, however, is not the result of his will; it is imposed by the divine
sovereignty, which is reflected in the sovereignty of the popes and monarchs. The principle of order
established by God is manifested to men through history, which shows that true order lies with hereditary
monarchy and not with a government elected by the people. The supreme monarch is infallible in the
temporal order as the pope is infallible in the supernatural order. The monarch should use even radical
means to compel man to observe the law. Lamennais was less stable in his social and political philosophy.
He changed his views from the absolute authority of the pope [Religion considérée dans ses rapports avec
l'ordre politique et civil (2 v. Paris 1825–26); Progrès de la révolution et de la guerre contre l'église (Paris
1829)] to a liberal Catholicism and democratic order [the journal L'Avenir, founded in 1830; Les Paroles
d'un croyant (Paris 1834)].
 The moderate traditionalists modified the position of rigid traditionalism by asserting that some kind of
instruction is necessary for the development of human reason that it may obtain the knowledge of God
and of moral principles. However, this instruction is not an efficient cause but only an indispensable
condition of such knowledge. As air, warmth, and moisture are necessary for the development of life in
Page the
| 5 seed, so instruction is necessary for man's certitude about fundamental truth. The necessary instruction

can be provided by voice, writing, gesture, or any other means in the possession of human society. After
such an instruction and, ultimately, after God's revelation, man can prove His existence and other
fundamental truths [see Collectio Lacensis: Acta et decreta sacorum conciliorum recentiorum, ed. Jesuits
of Maria Laach, 7.1:129; H. Lennerz, De Deo uno (Rome 1955) 16–17].

Objections and Significance: The main objections against the traditionalist doctrine are reducible to the
following. Traditionalism disagrees with the teaching of the Bible, particularly with Wisdom 13.1–9 and
Romans1.19–21. It makes man's faith irrational; irrational faith leads in its ultimate analysis to complete
religious relativism. Traditionalism teaches blind faith as the answer to the philosophical problems that
require a rational solution. Furthermore, men do not accept something as true because the human race
agrees upon it, but because it is intelligible in itself. The traditionalists proved onesidedly from history
that human reason alone is incapable of forming successful institutions in the intellectual and social order.
Yet, if one were to grant that human reason does not in fact reach truth, still it would not necessarily
follow that reason is incapable of attaining it. Finally, language and voice cannot produce concepts, since
words are but arbitrary signs that manifest concepts. The traditionalists exaggerated in general the
dependence of man's reason on language, education, society, and revelation.

The traditionalists, however, were right in bringing out the role of faith at the time of exaggerated belief
in reason, an exaggeration that led to the abolishing of all the mysteries of faith and of respect for
legitimate authority. They were also correct in their conviction that faith is morally necessary for reaching
the ultimate truths.

Views on Traditionalism:

In the years following the Second World War, a group of writers emerged who became known as
America’s “New Conservatives,” prominently including Richard M. Weaver, Peter Viereck, Robert
Nisbet, and Russell Kirk. The New Conservatives articulated ideas and concepts that were virtually
unprecedented in American intellectual history; with Kirk as their leader, in the context of the American
conservative movement their position eventually became known as traditionalism, appropriately enough,
since their writings were redolent with sometimes sweeping doubts about the “progress” of the modern
project—and about the individualism at the heart of modern liberalism’s liberty.
 Central to the conservatism of the 1930s had been intransigent opposition to the “socialism” of
Roosevelt’s New Deal on the part of various Republican-leaning social groups. Among intellectuals,
articulate conservatism in the 1930s had been represented by such men as H. L. Mencken, George
Santayana, Irving Babbitt, and Albert Jay Nock. With the partial exception of Santayana, each may be
Page said
| 6 to have subscribed to a version of classical liberalism or libertarianism, emphasizing something

resembling Mill’s individuality as against social conformity. Without exception, their worldviews were
markedly elitist and sharpened by religious skepticism. In other words, these prewar conservatives
connected not at all with the lived traditions of the vast majority of the American people, except on the
single point of the tradition of individualism, whether rugged or not.

While Kirk himself was influenced by some of the currents of thought in the 1930s, and while The
Conservative Mind (1953) purported to be a “recovery” of a preexisting Burkean tradition in American
political and social thought, it is difficult to deny that there was also a large element of invention in Kirk’s
account of the conservative tradition. Kirk’s “canons” of conservatism begin with an orientation to
“transcendent order” or “natural law,” a view that political problems are at bottom religious and moral
problems rather than the other way around: whereas the libertarian conservatives of the 1930s usually
understood themselves as heirs of various Enlightenment dissenters from Europe’s Christian civilization,
Kirk is a dissenter from dissent, striving to learn from the sidelined champions of orthodox religion. Kirk
therefore rejects rationalism, utilitarianism, and egalitarianism. He ties freedom to property-holding, but
there is no discussion of the “magic of the marketplace” or interest in economic efficiency. He is hostile
to the experimentalism of the social scientific mind, and he defends the latent reasonableness of evolved
social forms. The three evils that emerge as antagonists throughout The Conservative Mind are the French
Revolution, the industrial revolution, and the bureaucratic-managerial revolution of the first half of the
twentieth century. Communism is mentioned hardly at all.

Focusing on the French Revolution, Kirk states emphatically that the overarching evil of the age is
“ideology,” and he claims that conservatism properly understood is “the negation of ideology.” As such,
conservatism prescribes a “politics of prudence,” a cautious statesmanship founded upon a sensitive
understanding of the complexities of human nature, the limitations of human history, and the
capaciousness of the human good. Of course, liberalism’s ancient boast has always been that it founds
itself upon, and best adequates to, human nature—once that nature is shorn of illusions and superstition.
To the liberal mind, one might even say that if ideology is defined as a project to achieve a utopian
intellectual abstraction, then it is liberalism that is the negation of ideology.
 From Kirk’s perspective, there is a partial truth in liberalism’s claims: liberty is a genuine element of the
human good, and individual human beings are worthy of a respect which is roughly, imperfectly realized
in a doctrine of rights. But to Kirk and to the American traditionalists he inspired, liberals ultimately fail
to understand the partiality of their core principle. Their account of human nature excludes too much of
Page what
| 7 can be known, and is known, about the human good. The homogenization of the whole of the human

world on the basis of the contract theory, thought Kirk and his traditionalist allies, is the dehumanizing
threat we ultimately face, made all the more dangerous by the fact that America’s political discourse has
lacked any terms which would enable us to recognize the ideological or dogmatic character of liberalism.

Kirk’s traditionalism quickly met with, and has long labored under, the accusation that it is, in effect, “un-
American.” The American tradition of political thought has always proceeded within the terms of the
Constitution and the Federalist Papers—evidently liberal documents. As Louis Hartz so famously argued,
America is the Lockean country par excellence, with an aboriginal condition (or original position) closely
resembling Locke’s state of nature, and a founding compact reflecting Lockean principles. Consequently,
there never has been, nor ever could be, a genuinely conservative party—in the European sense—in
American life.

But Kirk was actually quite close to the values and aspirations of common Americans untutored in
political theory. Today’s traditionalist conservatives continue to be closer to average Americans on
religious and moral matters—and on what we might call the “national question”—than are either
libertarians or neoconservatives. Traditionalists can be understood as “un-American” only when America
is understood definitively as the abstract embodiment of liberal theory.

The traditionalist conservative’s first feeling, the intuition that constitutes his moral source, is the sense of
loss, and hence, of nostalgia. Those who are secure in the enjoyment of their own are often progressives
of a sort, so confident in the solidity of their estate that they do not shrink from experimenting with new
modes and orders. The conservative spirit, as such, arises only when loss is at hand, or, probably more
frequently, when loss has occurred. Consequently, there is always a “reactionary” dimension to such
conservatism; the conservative typically arrives “too late” for mere conservation.

While in possession, we take our good for granted and, so, often fail to recognize it. But in the face of
loss, the human good is vividly revealed to us. We lament the loss of goods, not the loss of evils, which is
why lament illuminates. While it may be true that nostalgia views the past through “rose-colored glasses,”
such a criticism misses the point. To see the good while blinkered against evils is, nevertheless, to see the
good. This is a source of knowledge, as well as a moral source. And here we may begin to glimpse facets
of the human good beyond mere utility, beyond all our theorizing.
 So drenched in the progressive spirit is American political discourse that the backward glance is usually
rejected out of hand, and with the most facile of arguments. Ever since Burke’s solicitous phrases about
“Go thick” and “monkish” traditions, traditionalist conservatives have notably looked to the Middle Ages
as a source of inspiration. In doing so, one is met with a rejoinder of the sort, “But would you really want
Page to
| 8live in an age before modern dentistry?” Southern traditionalists who speak well of the antebellum

South almost always stand accused of being racist defenders of slavery. But why should such rejoinders
count as definitive when the modern project, which is usually understood to have begun in the
Renaissance, took as an inspiring model Athens—a society which had no access to modern dentistry and
a society built on a foundation of slave labor?

Traditionalists do not wish to “turn back the clock” to pre-modern dentistry, any more than the lovers of
Periclean Athens wish to restore a slave economy. Polis-envy in the Renaissance and among some of our
contemporaries serves as an indicator that a thinker is attracted to an ideal of political participation, as
well as literary and philosophical originality, and perhaps, of leisure, that he believes is unavailable or
frustrated in the present. Likewise, the traditional conservative’s kind words about medievalism indicate
that he is attracted to forms of communal solidarity, loyalty and friendship, leisure, honor and nobility,
and religious “enchantment” that seem to be presently unavailable. As Tocqueville helps us to
understand, this list is not idiosyncratic, but rather corresponds in its particulars to the deficits universally
engendered by the modern regime. There are permanent features to the world remade by Enlightenment,
and conservative “medievalism” is a catalog of the loss brought on by the achievement of the modern
regime. Wherever there is a sense of loss, the conservative knows that there lies an indicator of some
dimension of the human good.

From this discussion we can discover something else about the traditionalist’s “method.” The philosophes
cast doubt on the universal applicability of Christian “morals” in light of the diverse folkways of “natural
men” whom European explorers had discovered (or claimed to have discovered) in their voyages. A
common trope of the French Enlightenment was to question even the incest taboo as an unscientific
“prejudice” of Christian civilization. But the Enlightened builders of the liberal regime were quite certain
that they had discovered principles of political right that were universally applicable—and which in time
might be applied beyond politics to the sphere of morals. Burke in contrast was guided by a kind of
certainty in (traditional) morals, by an immediate intuition of the human good, while he viewed with the
deepest skepticism speculative theories of political right. Whereas the Enlightenment “builds down” from
politics to morals, the conservative “builds up” from morals to politics. Perhaps it would be fair to say
that the liberal tradition even today has not yet generated a credible account of moral life. Perhaps it
 would be similarly fair to say that the conservative tradition has not yet generated a credible account of
political life.

Viewed in this way, it might be said that traditionalist conservatism is not yet a political theory, but

Page rather,
|9 a tradition of social criticism which is working its way to a political philosophy adequate to its
deepest moral intuitions. There is nothing extraordinary in such a view when we remember that the liberal
tradition first reached something like a comprehensive theoretical articulation only in Locke, nearly two
centuries after its moral rudiments came to light in the Renaissance and Reformation. We are only little
more than two centuries on from conservatism’s birth in the reaction to the French Revolution. Thus, the
specifically political teaching of traditional conservatism remains provisional.

One might describe the traditionalist conservative’s political project as one of “containing liberalism,” of
“boxing in” liberal justice. As the conservative movement in America crystalized in the 1950s and 1960s,
a large, rather impressive, and decidedly understudied body of literature developed on the question of
“tradition.” In retrospect, we can now see that “tradition” was a word deployed to indicate those moral
contents of life which are eroded under liberalism; these studies were undertaken in an effort to
understand the prerequisites for the persistence of those moral contents, so that policies and
jurisprudential concepts could be developed to safeguard those social structures in which the moral
contents of life naturally arise. Emphasis was placed on “society”—but not on what we know as “civil
society.” That is, emphasis was placed on elements of Gemeinschaft (organic community) rather than
Gesellschaft (contractual society). Conservatives have sought to “make room,” both conceptually and
practically, for the flourishing of Gemeinschaft. Hence, the frequent invocation of Burke’s “little
platoons,” as against the modern “grid” which reduces everything to the superintendence of the equal-
protection state and the free market. Put another way, the political goal of traditional conservatism might
be to keep the “public” realm small—but not in the liberal way, which makes the private, i.e. individual,
realm large. What is wanted is a large and authoritative “social” realm.

Today, we often find that practical political advocacy reflecting a traditionalist perspective takes place in
institutions with the word “family” in their titles. The liberal contract tradition’s reduction of human
beings to autonomous individuals fosters a self-conception that destabilizes the marriage bond; the
welfare state then lubricates exit from marriage with various substituting benefits. Love, it has been said,
is the willingness to belong to another. There is little place for such love in a world of autonomous
individuals bristling with rights—the world which liberalism understands as “natural.” The popularity of
a therapeutic language of “fulfillment” in contemporary America only exacerbates the weak institutional
 support that liberal jurisprudence provides for marriage. Traditional religious marriage ceremonies often
included a prominent discussion of sacrifice, not a concept with ready appeal to autonomous individuals.

It is no accident that when liberalism attempts to think about marriage it characteristically neglects the

Page children.
| 10 Rather than a universal fact of human nature, the reproduction and rearing of children is
considered an irritating anomaly in the social contract. Consequently, children are effectively relegated to
an externality or assimilated to adult autonomy. What else is liberalism to do with such creatures—
naturally dependent, naturally unequal, and naturally only potentially rational human beings, who
naturally belong to their parents, who in turn naturally belong to them?

The weakness of liberalism’s educational doctrine cannot easily be remedied, however, for liberalism’s
boast is that it chastely denies to itself any thick theory of the Good, and thus uniquely does not need to
indoctrinate its citizens with controversial orthodoxies. But when the liberal state appropriated to itself the
business of education with the advent of the “common school,” it seized the responsibility of soulcraft—
without really admitting to that fact. Education is in its nature value-laden. Liberalism’s principled refusal
to speak in teleological terms of a summum bonum therefore renders it a much-abashed patron of the
schools: for as every parent knows, children ask Why?—and continue to ask Why?—until they come to
the end of the matter. A consistently liberal schooling must always stop short of that end, satisfying no
one. For most of American history, the common schools surreptitiously reflected shared local values, and
the central organs of government looked the other way, a reasonable strategy for muddling through a
theoretical inconsistency. Lately, however, courts have insisted on enforcing liberal norms on the schools,
engendering a demoralization of society from the roots up. If in the past the schools stood in loco
parentis, reflecting the values and exercising the discipline of parents in the domestic sphere, today the
schools represent an ever-earlier exposure of children to the rights-bearing and market-choosing of the
public sphere.

The traditionalist response has been to encourage experiments in alternatives of all kinds that might allow
schools to reflect comprehensive conceptions of the good. A tuition tax credit was long the conservative
goal, fostering the growth of an alternative, fully “private” (or, more properly, “social” or “domestic”)
system. Vouchers now seem a more politically feasible goal—though vouchers also raise anxieties, since
nothing yet has escaped the control that accompanies state “help.” Traditionalists furthermore take hope
from the burgeoning growth of homeschooling in our time, hoping that as we absorb in our social
imagination the fact of widespread homeschooling, we will begin to recognize something that was
obscured by the progressive ideology of the common school—namely, that a public school is not an
arrangement between the state and students, but rather between the state and parents: schools are best
 understood as providing one way (and not the only way) to serve, or even merely to supplement, the
primarily parental office—simultaneously an obligation and a right—of educating one’s own children.

Besides the family, we might consider here one other area of inquiry in which the approach of

Page traditionalist
| 11 conservatives has differed from others allied with them in the American conservative
movement: economics. Traditionalists typically have taken private property, market exchange, and the
price mechanism all as something more or less natural. But they have advanced no particular doctrinal
commitments, and they are sensitive to the artificial abstractions of modern corporate capitalism. During
the second half of the twentieth century, traditional conservatives did oppose socialism, the growth of the
welfare state, and most government regulation of the economy—but they did not necessarily do so for
reasons of classical liberal political economy. Their primary concern was with the culture of socialism or
of welfarism. In a similar way, many traditional conservatives today have begun to voice reservations
about the culture of globalizing capitalism.

The economic theorist with the greatest appeal to the traditionalists has been Wilhelm Röpke. A German-
Swiss Protestant, Röpke’s work proceeded in dialogue with the Catholic social thought tradition,
especially the papal encyclicals Rerum Novarum (1891) and Quadragesimo Anno (1931). While
fundamentally a defender of the free market, Röpke nonetheless embraced talk of a “third way” between
socialism and capitalism. He warned of a kind of consumer materialism and social anomie arising from
the totalizing reach of market “logic.” He thus emphasized the need to embed the market amidst strong
social institutions and structures—boxing in liberalism in its economic dimension. Withal, traditionalist
conservatives have often written in favor of a widespread distribution of productive capital, and in favor
of smaller units of economic production. The question is not whether markets will be regulated; the
question is what values shall structure that regulation.

The national narratives of most European peoples celebrate their moment of settlement into a particular
place, an end to nomadic wandering and the taking up of agriculture (and Christianity). It is striking that
Americans celebrate not our settlement, but rather our movement—setting off for the frontier. The liberal
narrative of America as a “universal nation” corresponds to this unsettledness: to be a “universal” nation
is precisely not to be a nation, a gens. Traditionalists have been endeavoring to settle America, to
celebrate our arrival and not our departure, our actuality and not our potentiality, to bring Americans to
see their national experience both as more particular than universal (which is to say, ideological) and as
more in continuity with European precedents than in discontinuity.