Germany's New Conservatism [antikvár]

FOREWORD i. CONSERVATISM: NEW AND OLD by Sigmund Neumann Conservatism is the fashion of the day. Only a generation ago a derogatory design, if not the death nail for any politically ambitious man of affairs, it seems to have become suddenly a mark of distinction and the open-sesame to wise statesmanship. While some lone stalwarts of way back may rejoice in such belated recognition and renown of a much maligned notion, this is truly the time to save it from its own newly won enthusiasts in order to salvage its historical entity. Political concepts indeed have their ways and days. They are most endangered when they catch the popular fancy. Like coins, passed from hand to hand, their imprint gets worn, their deeper meaning is blurred, their pre-conceptions and consequences are cheapened and lost in mouth-to-mouth transactions. Thus they may well lose their original value. If one does not want to discard them altogether, one must re-press, re-furbish, re-define them. Such a task is doubly called for in a time of transition (and what time is not in such a radical transformation?). Historical reality often changes without having yet managed to create its new language. In the clash of present-day, fast-changing systems, a continuous conceptual house-cleaning becomes a necessity. In fact, one could well argue that a time-lag usually exists between historical reality and its conceptualization, especially in a revolutionary age when the political vocabulary is quickly outdated and thus full of misnomers. We are still living within an ideological framework of a hundred years back and naturally cannot master our present-day political conflicts with such obsolete and often romantic stereotypes. This is a time when a meaningful historical comparison is called for. More than that: a theoretical clarification becomes a paramount preliminary vii