That constellation begins to come into focus at the end of the 18th century with Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France." It draws on the conservative side of the liberal tradition, particularly Adam Smith and David Hume and includes Tocqueville's great writings on democracy and aristocracy and John Stuart Mill's classical liberalism. It gets new life in the years following World War II from Friedrich Hayek's seminal writings on liberty and limited government and Russell Kirk's reconstruction of traditionalist conservatism. And it is elevated by Michael Oakeshott's eloquent reflections on the pervasive tendency in modern politics to substitute abstract reason for experience and historical knowledge, and by Leo Strauss's deft explorations of the dependence of liberty on moral and intellectual virtue.
Unbeknownst to far too few, the conservative tradition is vast, and its guises, the bastardization of the word conservatism, and the distortions of its meaning and principles is why we are in the mess we are in today.
"They didn't teach me that" is no excuse for ignorance. The libraries, (virtual and brick and mortar) are still, last I looked, free.
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