There has been some misunderstanding over what the term "conservative" means in "classical conservatism". In contemporary usage, "conserve" often means to "expend slowly". That is *not* what conservatism means in the phrase "classical conservatism"; it is rather meant in the way Burke and everyone else of his time used the word "conservation". "Conserve" meant to protect, guard, watch over. Constables, for example, were called "conservators of the peace". What traditionalism is concerned with "conserving" is not "the past" or "the present", but "the permanent things" (a phrase Russell Kirk lifted from T.S. Eliot). The "permanent things" are things which transcend time and place, they have always been with us. Some examples: Duty, sanctity, piety, purity, grandeur, mystery, sacrifice, earth, land, sobriety, gaiety, craftsmanship, eloquence, honor, shame, rite, reverence, virility, fertility, valor, gravity, merriment, largesse, chastity, awe, horror, mercy, discipline, responsibility, loyalty, faithfulness, order, grace, honesty, sincerity, virtue, family, repentance, silence, song, heritage, distinction, tragedy, nature, wisdom, ceremony, glory, forgiveness, righteousness, truth, splendor, ritual, good and evil, might, delicacy, tenderness, confession, folk culture, high culture, innocence, majesty, decorum, virginity, grief, joy, devotion, modesty, self-respect. Traditionalism is also therefore opposed to "corrosive" or "subversive" values, that is, those values which erode the "permanent things", such as: Hedonism, indignation, nominalism, utilitarianism, individualism, materialism, moral relativism, consumerism, formalism, freethought, scientism, poshlost, iconoclasm, irreverence, philosophical presentism, pornography, mammon, consequentialism, urbanization, brutalism, shamelessness, promiscuity, levelling, novelty.
Richard Weaver said,
>"subversive activity" has an exact application. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more accurate phrase. The expression means plainly an inversion by which matter is placed over spirit or quantity placed over quality.
Traditionalism champions folk culture and high culture over pop culture, because the former two tend to express the "permanent things" (some high culture of course actually attacks the permanent things, but it is still only "high culture" because some permanent thing is exemplified in it) whereas the latter is subversive in the extreme.
Cont