I do not like the term ‘reactionary.’ It seems to me to both imply an unthinking rejection of anything one doesn’t understand (which I’m sure was its original intent) and to frame the ideas and values contained therein in the context of what is being rejected, thus framing liberalism or progressivism or whathave you as the baseline, when the whole point of reactionaries is that we are trying to maintain what we believe to be the common, natural values and structures of the human race. It would be as if you were to describe the desire to get correct mathematical answers as ‘rejectionism’ because you are rejecting all other answers.

I would prefer terms like ‘Traditionalism’ or ‘Restorationism’ or…well, I don’t know. Trouble is, we have to work with the words we have, and this is it. Like TR and his nickname ‘Teddy,’ we may not like it, but we’re stuck with it.

And, on the plus side, I suppose bearing with things that you’re stuck with because they’ve been codified by long use is more or less a principle of being a reactionary. So it all works out!