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As mentioned in the introduction, Nöel O'Sullivan reminds us, "the every day meaning of the word [conservative] gives us no indication about where a study of conservatism should begin, or about who should be included in it, or excluded from it."¹ And as Gordon Lewis reminded us: "A refusal to state [the principles of conservatism] is in itself a vital conservative principle."² O'Sullivan disagrees with Lewis to the extent that O'Sullivan thinks conservatism can state its principles and is an "ideology."³ However, O'Sullivan only defines conservatism negatively, as "opposition to the idea of total or radical change, and not by the absurd idea of opposition to the change as such, or by any commitment to preserving all existing institutions."⁴ Historically, we know that the radical change opposed by early conservatives was the French Revolution as an example of the destruction of an entire social order sanctioned by the dictates of rationalist politics. Conservatives articulated skepticism toward the idea that political methods could so change the social environment as to eliminate pain, evil, and suffering from the human condition. The conservative, then, tends toward acceptance of the limits the world imposes on her and is skeptical of the ability of the individual or the state to eliminate these limitations without tremendous danger and instability ensuing.⁵

DOI: 10.1057/9781137466839_10

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