Reactionary
A reactionary is an individual that holds political viewpoints which cause them to seek to return to a previous state (the status quo ante) in a society. Reactionaries are considered to be one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is perceived radicalism, though reactionary ideologies may be themselves radical. While it has not been generally considered positive to be regarded as a reactionary it has been adopted as a self-description by some such as H. L. Mencken, Gerald Warner of Craigenmaddie and John Lukacs.
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Famous quotes containing the word reactionary:
“Dead power is everywhere among us—in the forest, chopping down the songs; at night in the industrial landscape, wasting and stiffening the new life; in the streets of the city, throwing away the day. We wanted something different for our people: not to find ourselves an old, reactionary republic, full of ghost-fears, the fears of death and the fears of birth. We want something else.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs, who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest ... of his head.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“A striking feature of moral and political argument in the modern world is the extent to which it is innovators, radicals, and revolutionaries who revive old doctrines, while their conservative and reactionary opponents are the inventors of new ones.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)