ABSTRACT
The main reason for the categorical separation of modem history into "good" and "bad" is that the conservative intellectual is a latecomer among the ideological types. The core of conservative thought—at least in its immediately obvious, popular, form—is that there is no real change, either in the condition of man or in his historical existence. Religion was enrolled in the conservative-reactionary ideology. In Protestant countries it could blend relatively easily with other cults, held more basic to the deep nature of man and community: race, blood, and an almost animistic view of the soil. In Germany, much faster and much more thoroughly than in Italy, the modern tragedy of conservatism became visible. After the First World War, conservatism became an ideology, thus an extremist force, and the moderate conservatives no longer had a chance of making the weight of their views felt.
