Editing Conservatism (section)

=== Reactionary conservatism ===
{{main|Reactionary conservatism}}
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|footer = Italian esotericist [[Julius Evola]] and Colombian aphorist [[Nicolás Gómez Dávila]]—prominent reactionary critics of modernity
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Reactionary conservatism, also known as reactionism, opposes policies for the [[social transformation]] of society.<ref>{{cite book |title=The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought |edition=3 |year=1999 |page=729 |isbn=978-0-00-255871-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cthOAAAAMAAJ |last1=Bullock |first1=Alan |last2=Trombley |first2=Stephen |last3=Lawrie |first3=Alf |publisher=HarperCollins}}</ref> In popular usage, reactionism refers to a staunch [[traditionalist conservative]] political perspective of a person who supports the status quo and opposes social, political, and economic change.<ref>{{cite dictionary |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reactionary |title=reactionary |dictionary=Merriam-Webster |date=May 9, 2023}}</ref> Some adherents of conservatism, rather than opposing change, seek to return to the {{lang|la|[[status quo|status quo ante]]}} and tend to view the modern world in a negative light, especially concerning [[mass culture]] and [[secularism]], although different groups of reactionaries may choose different traditional values to revive.{{sfn|Encyclopædia Britannica}}{{sfn|McLean|McMillan|2009}}

Some political scientists, such as [[Corey Robin]], treat the words reactionary and conservative as synonyms.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Robin |first=Corey |title=The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-0190692001 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7YY0DwAAQBAJ |quote=This book is about the second half of the story, the demarche, and the political ideas – variously called conservative, reactionary, revanchist, counterrevolutionary – that grow out of and give rise to it.}}</ref> Others, such as [[Mark Lilla]], argue that reactionism and conservatism are distinct worldviews.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lilla |first=Mark |title=The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction |publisher=New York Review of Books |year=2016 |isbn=978-1590179024 |pages=xii |chapter=Introduction |quote=Reactionaries are not conservatives. This is the first thing to be understood about them. They are, in their way, just as radical as revolutionaries and just as firmly in the grip of historical imaginings.}}</ref> [[Francis Wilson (political scientist)|Francis Wilson]] defines conservatism as "a philosophy of social evolution, in which certain lasting values are defended within the framework of the tension of political conflict".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Francis |title=The Case for Conservatism |date=1951 |isbn=978-1412842341 |page=2 |publisher=Transaction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vKG30tSqDr8C}}</ref>

Some reactionaries favor a return to the ''status quo ante'', the previous political state of society, which that person believes possessed positive characteristics absent from contemporary society. An early example of a powerful reactionary movement was [[German Romanticism]], which centred around concepts of organicism, [[medievalism]], and traditionalism against the forces of rationalism, secularism, and individualism that were unleashed in the [[French Revolution]].<ref name=":3">{{cite book |author1-last=Siegfried |author1-first=Heit |author2-last=Johnston |author2-first=Otto W. |chapter=German Romanticism: An Ideological Response to Napoleon |title=Consortium on Revolutionary Europe 1750–1850: Proceedings |year=1980 |volume=9 |pages=187–197}}</ref>

In political discourse, being a reactionary is generally regarded as negative; Peter King observed that it is "an unsought-for label, used as a torment rather than a badge of honor".<ref>{{cite book |author-last=King |author-first=Peter |title=Reaction: Against the Modern World |publisher=Andrews UK Limited |year=2012}}</ref> Despite this, the descriptor has been adopted by intellectuals such as Italian esoteric traditionalist [[Julius Evola]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ferraresi |first=Franco |date=1987 |title=Julius Evola: Tradition, Reaction, and the Radical Right |journal=European Journal of Sociology |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=107–151 |doi=10.1017/S0003975600005415}}</ref> Austrian monarchist [[Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn]],<ref>{{cite journal |title=Credo of a Reactionary |author-last=Campbell |author-first=Francis Stuart |journal=The American Mercury}}</ref> Colombian [[political theology|political theologian]] [[Nicolás Gómez Dávila]], and American historian [[John Lukacs]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=Confessions of an Original Sinner |isbn=9781890318123 |last1=Lukacs |first1=John |year=2000 |publisher=St. Augustine's Press}}</ref>