Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 429

The basic truth in the reactionary response is to be found in its realistic assumption of the primacy of the real over the ideational.

But this truth is distorted by its extreme application: the assumption of the separate existence of tradition.

The reactionary misses the point that tradition exists ontologically only in the form of psychological-intellectual relations.

Reactionary theories, for this reason, usually assume some form of organismic theory.

In its defensive formulations, the theory will attack conscious change on the grounds of the independent existence of the community.

In its dynamic form, it visualizes the community as the embodiment of an ontological force -- the race, for instance, which unfolds in history.

In both cases the individual tends to be treated as an instrument of the organic reality.