This peculiar character of conservative thought explains one frequently commented upon aspect of conservatism cited by Mannheim: "The careers of most conservatives and reactionaries show revolutionary periods in their youth." Many of the early nineteenth century conservatives—Görres, Gentz, Müller in Germany; Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey in England—were initially enthusiasts for the French Revolution. The Federalists began as successful revolutionaries, and America's premier conservative, John C. Calhoun, started his career as a fire-eating Jeffersonian nationalist. Why does this pattern exist? Is it not simply because conservatism is not the permanent ideological expression of the needs of any social group? No one is born to conservatism in the way in which a Mill is born to utilitarianism. The impulse to conservatism comes from the social challenge before the theorist, not the intellectual tradition behind him. Men are driven to conservatism by the shock of events, by the horrible feeling that a society or institution which they have approved or taken for granted and with which they have been intimately connected may suddenly cease to exist. The conservative thinkers of one age, consequently, have little influence on those of the next. There are few second generation conservatives.
(Samuel P. Huntington, "Conservatism as an Ideology," The American Political Science Review 51 [June 1957]: 454-73, at 469-70 [footnote omitted])
Note from KBJ: The attacks of 9-11 created a great many conservatives. Who says good cannot come of tragedy?
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 