Principles and Heresies

In the December 1 issue of NATIONAL review, James Burnham gave us a lengthy and impressive analysis of the contemporary decay of moral and social authority. And in the course of a tentative consideration of the possibilities of a restoration of authority, he raised a number of questions, the most important of which is whether the “authoritative” in society can be reconstituted without the society becoming “authoritarian.” By “authoritative” I take him to mean the authority without which civilization cannot subsist; by “authoritarian,” a regime based upon force and charisma and approaching, at its extreme, the totalitarian. The question he associates with it, whether authority will be re-established by the Left or the Right is subsumed under this question, because the history of the twentieth century has shown that any authoritative regime from the Left is invariably authoritarian and totalitarian.

This is what makes so abstract the sentence of Donald Zoll that Mr. Burnham quotes: “There is not a ‘good’ order or a ‘bad’ order. The antithesis of order is disorder.” Of course the antithesis of order is disorder; but the denial of goodness or badness to the social order is a non sequitur. There can be many “orders”—every one of them, better or worse, the antithesis of disorder. But each civilizational order that history records had its individual characteristics that made it better or worse. The Soviet Union is certainly an “order,” but it would be a bold man, or a dogmatic anarchist, who would say it is no better or worse than the order still surviving in England or France or the United States.

FS

About the Author

Frank S. Meyer

Frank S. Meyer was a senior editor of National Review.

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In the December 1 issue of NATIONAL review, James Burnham gave us a lengthy and impressive analysis of the contemporary decay of moral and social authority. And in the course of a tentative consideration of the possibilities of a restoration of authority, he raised a number of questions, the most important of which is whether the “authoritative” in society can be reconstituted without the society becoming “authoritarian.” By “authoritative” I take him to mean the authority without which civilization cannot subsist; by “authoritarian,” a regime based upon force and charisma and approaching, at its extreme, the totalitarian. The question he associates with it, whether authority will be re-established by the Left or the Right is subsumed under this question, because the history of the twentieth century has shown that any authoritative regime from the Left is invariably authoritarian and totalitarian.

This is what makes so abstract the sentence of Donald Zoll that Mr. Burnham quotes: “There is not a ‘good’ order or a ‘bad’ order. The antithesis of order is disorder.” Of course the antithesis of order is disorder; but the denial of goodness or badness to the social order is a non sequitur. There can be many “orders”—every one of them, better or worse, the antithesis of disorder. But each civilizational order that history records had its individual characteristics that made it better or worse. The Soviet Union is certainly an “order,” but it would be a bold man, or a dogmatic anarchist, who would say it is no better or worse than the order still surviving in England or France or the United States.