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When the reactionary response is thus bolstered by an intellectual defense, the characteristics of that defense are explicable only in terms of the basic attitudes of unanalyzed reaction.

Reaction is rooted in a perception of tradition as a whole.

It is a total situation that is defended: the `` good old days ''.

There is no selectivity ; ;

even the questionable features of the past are defended.

The point is that the reactionary, for whatever motive, perceives himself to have been part or a partner of something that extended beyond himself, something which, consequently, he was not able to accept or reject on the basis of subjective preference.

The reactionary is confused about the existential status of a decaying tradition, but he does perceive the unity tradition had when it was healthy.