ABSTRACT
The present condition of ideology—in a world torn between warring imperialisms—should be much to the liking of the conservative scholar. Conservative ideology itself is the attempt to describe the uniformities of behavior that run through the known historical facts. Conservative realism would assert that action guided by moral considerations must take into account the effectiveness of action in reaching its goals. Ideology is showing itself subservient to other forces, to deeper forces, at work in history. And modern ideologies are passing into the pattern of behavior long since cut out for them by the experience of other generations. If the conservative realist insists on patterns of behavior, Jose Ortega y Gasset may observe them almost regardless of the ideological system that happens to be accepted at a given moment. In politics, according to the conservative view, a moral idea is valid practically within a scope of action, a scope of action that conforms to historical experience.
