1950-1955 Arası Yeni Muhafazakârlık Paradigması: Hisar Dergisi Örneği

Abstract

The definition of conservatism as a concept means preservation and protection originating from the Latin word conservare. However, since conservatism predicates much more than its dictionary meaning in the history of modern political thought, it became necessary to consider the concept within a movement of thought, an ideology or political philosophy. What should an individual understand, then, from conservatism? The fact that the concept is ambiguous made the definition of conservatism a matter of debate. Within this period, while conservatism became a current issue in different countries, connotations have been ascribed to the concept with uncertainties in political life. We see that the concept has been frequently used in an ambiguous meaning. In our country, positivist ideology of Republic becomes conservative through the sense of status quo. Positivism symbolizes the transition from traditional world-view and way of thinking to modern world-view, from traditional theories to modern theories. Positivism is conservative. However, the concept of conservatism here is different than the conception in the western world. If the concept of conservatism is considered as protecting the existing thing or continuing the old, then the Republic should be conservative as it is the succession of the Ottoman Empire but on the contrary positivist establishment becomes conservative for the sake of continuing the new order which has been set after the process of bypassing the Ottoman Empire and reconstructing the society with new values. Turkish conservatism, which has developed within a critical attitude as a reaction to the Kemalist modernization that constituted the sense of modernization in the republic period, remained cautious for the exchange model. This opposition should not be interpreted that conservatives do not side with a change in the society. The politics of bypassing Ottoman Empire which has been chosen by Kemalist modernization as avoidance from the burden of the past within the sense of a new society have been carried into effect under the leadership of C.H.F (Republican People’s Party) with the projects sponsored by positivism. By rejecting positivism as the epistemological basis of those projects, conservatives wanted to falsify the sense of Kemalist modernization. The new conservative paradigm in our country which has gone through a new period with the Democratic Party in 1950 tried to shape the society with traditional-liberal perception different than the Republic conservatism. In this respect, the aim of this study is to enlighten an important historical process through conservative paradigm reading of writings of thoughts published in the Journal Hisar from 1950 to 1955