THE CONSERVATIVE MIND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 945, 20 September 1957, Page 15

THE CONSERVATIVE MIND

CONSERVATISM IN AMERICA, by Clinton Rossiter; Heinemann, English price 21/-. HE hot, optimistic currents of 18th century thought were so devastating that there is still need, so it seems, to fight against them with persistence and

ingenuity, and Mr Rossiter vigorously enters the lists. For him there is still an unresolved conflict between the faith that human nature ig good and man perfectible under the guidance of reason, and the bracing realisation that man is evil and his history a tragedy. Too much, he feels, has been written about America on the basis ofa facile liberalism. This book gallops through American history, with apt and argumentative comment, aiming at a radical re-assessment. That which is liberal has been conventionally presented as good. Mr Rossiter explains that, in so far as it was good, the merit lay in conservative elements, long understressed. He is a scholar, writing for the common man, or at least for the common man _ with intellectual interests. Accordingly, he occasionally departs, with an engagingly apologetic shudder, from academic austerity to give summarising dogmatisms, neat cataloguing of complex considerations and agile colloquialisms. His conclusion is an exhortation. To a non-American reader the argument is sometimes overloaded with mere names, and _ occasionally preoccupied with the allocation of verbal labels. The preliminary analysis of what constitutes Conservatism sometimes has its feet off the earth. Nevertheless, the book is brisk, purposeful and persuasive, Paradoxically, though, in its analysis "shallow optimism" is anathema, its overall impact is of reasoned, even vehement, hopefulness. After all, virtue and stability may be attained, though only by hard application and sacrifice. The "lunatic Right" and the political magic of an 18th century vision can alike be exorcised by purposeful recognition of the unchangeable laws of human behaviour. Intelligent and courageous conservatism holds the key, and Mr Rossiter is equally eloquent about past failures and future opportunities.

F. L. W.

Wood