Does a conservative have to be a reactionary?

Corey Robin essentially says so. It is a complex question. In a modern world in which each generation seems to believe it can reinvent humanity as a better species yet delivers "total war," the reactionary might be the healthier person. The healthiest person is one who can take the long view, fight for what is worth preserving, and discard what is truly obsolete or never a good idea in the first place. The conservative is someone who wants to be connected to things better and more enduring than himself; the conservative is an anathema to anyone who believes that human nature itself can be transformed by revolution (or evolution in fathomable time).

In response to Prof. Robin's essay (which is critical of Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk), here are Russell Kirk's "Ten Conservative Principles."

What Prof. Robin misses is the creative imagination of conservatives to draw wisdom from the past in order to solve modern problems, which are often caused when rulers divorce humanity from the way they rule (through both corporate collectivism and government fiat). Unfortunately, the worst dehumanizing forces are wielded by those who claim to liberate us.

The conservative knows that the plot of Animal Farm recurs often, and is most likely to recur when those who claim to represent the oppressed gain power, not that they are necessarily evil, but the act of obtaining power corrupts all but the most virtuous. We are generally better off under the diffused power of incompetents than under the concentrated power of the supposedly enlightened.

The past cannot be recreated, but it instructs us that the new is not always better than the old. Memory, that great weapon against tyranny, undermines the claims of those in power and those seeking power.