Editing Conservative Revolution (section)

=== New nationalism and morality ===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R06610, Oswald Spengler.jpg|alt=Oswald Spengler|thumb|[[Oswald Spengler]], author of ''[[The Decline of the West]]'', embodied the ''[[Cultural pessimism|Kulturpessimismus]]'' that partly characterised the Conservative Revolution.]]
Conservative Revolutionaries argued that their nationalism was fundamentally different from the precedent forms of German nationalism or conservatism.{{Sfn|Klapper|2015|pp=13–15}} They condemned the [[reactionary]] outlook of traditional [[Wilhelminism|Wilhelmine]] conservatives and their failure to fully understand the emerging concepts of the modern world, such as technology, the city and the [[proletariat]].{{Sfn|Woods|1996|p=61}}

[[Arthur Moeller van den Bruck|Moeller van den Bruck]] defined the Conservative Revolution as the will to conserve a set of values seen as inseparable from a ''[[Volk]]'' ("people, ethnic group"). These eternal values were able to survive through the fluctuations of the ages because of innovations in their institutional and ideal forms.{{Sfn|Giubilei|2019|p=2}} Distant from the pure reactionary who, in Moeller van den Bruck's eyes, does not create (and from the pure revolutionary who does nothing but destroys everything), the Conservative Revolutionary sought to give a form to phenomena in an eternal space, a shape that could guarantee their survival among the few things that cannot be lost:{{Sfn|de Benoist|2014}}
{{blockquote|text=Conserving is not receiving to hand down, but rather innovating the forms, institutional or ideal, which agree to remain rooted in a solid world of values in the face of continuous historical setbacks. In the face of modernity as an era of insecurity, opposing the securities of the past is no longer enough; instead it is necessary to redesign new safety by adopting and taking on the same risky conditions with which it is defined.|sign=Arthur Moeller van den Bruck{{sfn|Balistreri|2004}}}}
[[Edgar Jung]] indeed dismissed the idea that true conservatives wanted to "stop the wheel of history".<ref>{{harvnb|Woods|1996|p=61}}; see {{harvnb|Jung|1933}}.</ref> The [[Chivalry|chivalric]] way of life they were seeking to achieve was, according to [[Oswald Spengler]], not governed by any moral code, but rather by "a noble, self-evident morality, based on that natural sense of tact which comes from good breeding". This morality was not the product of a conscious reflection, but rather "something innate which one senses and which has its own organic logic."{{sfn|Spengler|1923|pp=891, 982}} Conservative revolutionaries saw the values of morality as instinctive and eternal, and as such embodied in rural life. The latter became challenged, Spengler believed, by the rise of the artificial world of the city, where theories and observations were needed to understand life itself, either coming from liberal democrats or [[scientific socialism|scientific socialists]]. What Conservative Revolutionaries were aiming to achieve was the restoration, within the modern world, of what they saw as natural laws and values:{{Sfn|Woods|1996|p=103}}

{{blockquote|text=We call Conservative Revolution the restoration of all those elementary laws and values, without which man loses his connection with Nature and with God and cannot establish a true order.|sign=Edgar Jung, 1932{{sfn|Jung|1932|p=380}}}}
Influenced by Nietzsche, most of them were opposed to the Christian ethics of solidarity and equality. Although many Conservative Revolutionaries described themselves as [[Protestantism|Protestant]] or [[Catholic Church|Catholics]], they saw [[Christian ethics|Christian ethical premise]] as structurally indenturing the strong into mandatory, rather than optional, service to the weak.<ref>{{harvnb|Woods|1996|pp=31–32, 37–40}}; {{harvnb|François|2009}}.</ref> On a geopolitical scale, theorists of the movement adopted a [[World view|vision of the world]] (''Weltanschauung'') where nations would abandon moral standards in their relationship to each others, only guided by their natural self-interest.{{Sfn|Woods|1996|pp=1–2}}

{{blockquote|text=Let thousands, nay millions, die; what meaning have these rivers of blood in comparison with a state, into which flow all the disquiet and longing of the German being!|sign=Friedrich Georg Jünger, 1926<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Fest |first1=Joachim E. |title=The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership |year=1999 |publisher=Da Capo Press |pages=249–263}}</ref>}}
''[[Völkisch movement|Völkischen]]'' were involved in a [[Racialism|racialist]] and [[Esotericism in Germany and Austria|occultist]] movement dating back to the middle of the 19th century and had an influence on the Conservative Revolution. Their priority was the fight against Christianity and the return to a (reconstructed) Germanic pagan faith, or the "Germanization" of Christianity to purge it from foreign (Semitic) influence.<ref>{{harvnb|Boutin|1992|pp=264–265}}; {{harvnb|Koehne|2014}}.</ref>