RADICALISM. — Usually the term serves to indicate the attitude of those ideological and political movements which, linking back to the agnostic, individualistic, and democratic conception that nourished the French Revolution, have proposed the total reform of the existing regime, applying to their ultimate conclusions the principles sustained and disseminated by that Revolution. So long as one remains solely on the historical plane, it is difficult to extract from the programs of the parties that have called themselves radical the proper meaning of their denomination, so varied is their practical attitude, adapted to the social conditions of the countries in which they have carried out their activity. Different is English radicalism, different is French radicalism, and different is Italian radicalism.
Nevertheless, by returning to etymological derivation, one can determine some common elements, which, integrated with certain historical data, can provide a rather approximate concept. Radicalism, “from root,” in its most general sense signifies a spiritual and practical attitude, of which there are, on the one hand, an irreconcilable opposition to a given existing order and, on the other, the intention to overthrow it in order to reform it, applying to their ultimate conclusions an ideal and abstract scheme. In this sense of opposition to the past, to which is often joined an excessive language in criticism, and of extremist tendency toward renewal, radicalism can be applied to any human activity, and thus one has been able to speak of religious radicalism, economic radicalism, social radicalism, and so on.
Nonetheless, the proper and specific object to which radicalism is referred is the social order, toward which it turns with a spirit of implacable criticism, to demolish without residue the institutions upon which it has relied or relies, and to transform it from its foundations. The meaning derived from etymology thus remains fundamental to philosophical and political radicalism. It approaches extremism and is often confused with it, though it remains distinct by its tendency to obtain the reforms invoked through legal action, and for the same reason it is even more sharply distinguished from revolutionary currents. Radicalism might be defined more succinctly as an excessive and intransigent reformism.
Its historical origin helps to highlight the principles to which its action has been inspired: philosophical radicalism, which then provided the model for similar movements, though not identical, on the continent, arose in England, under the influence exerted in that country by the French Revolution and the ideological currents connected with II. It is believed that the name is due to Bentham, who advocated a radical reform of institutions, to break the hegemony of the ruling classes and to bring the people into participation in public affairs. The theory he outlined, which has as its foundation utilitarianism, so suited to the mercantilist mentality of the Victorian age, is individualistic, recognizing as principles of social life nothing but individual interest, the measure and criterion of the action of public power, whose only purpose consists in providing for the interest of the greatest number. Moreover, it is liberal and democratic, inasmuch as it demands a more active participation of the people in public life and advocates the introduction of universal suffrage.
The distinctive features of philosophical radicalism, so called because it had a theoretical formulation to which, in addition to the name of Bentham, those of James Mill, Macaulay, Grote, Molesworth, and others are linked—most of them independent re-elaborators of the principles of the master—are found also in political radicalism. Already in England, descending from the ideological plane to the social, it created a political movement that, besides conquering many of the
ruling classes and obtaining strong affirmations in parliamentary speeches, spread into the squares, to stir public opinion through mass meetings. To its credit are to be recorded several important reforms: the repeal of the prohibitions against workers’ coalitions in 1824 and 1825; the emancipation of Catholics in 1829; the great electoral reform of 1832.
Continental radicalism is modeled on the English, from which it draws its motifs. It can be considered as the extreme of liberalism (q.v.), from which it draws ideological directives and practical tendencies, though pushing them to extremes in the drafting of its programs and in their execution. A common point, which deserves special mention, is that of the separation of Church and State, according to the new law introduced by the French Revolution. To achieve this end, both in France and in Italy and in other countries, radicalism took an intransigent anticlerical stance, which made it an oppressor and persecutor of the Church and its institutions. The political parties that took the name of radicals became a refuge and a docile instrument of Freemasonry, with which they merged. Radicalism, absolute democratism, Freemasonry, and socialist reformism have not infrequently been in practice synonymous.
Although some more recent political movements and social regimes have certain characteristics proper to radicalism (e.g., contempt for the past and reforming will carried to the ultimate limits), they cannot, however, be called radical except in the most general sense of the term. Nazism, Fascism, Communism are not radicalism in a historical sense, since they lack the individualistic, liberal, democratic, and humanitarian presuppositions upon which the ideology and action of classical radicalism were founded.
Radicalism today scarcely survives (though exceptions must be made, e.g., in France), except as an excessive and intransigent personal attitude, which accompanies passionate temperaments, the opposite of which is the reactionary mentality tenaciously attached to the past. More radical movements have supplanted it, making their own some of the popular demands for which it once fought, and the anticlericalism that always distinguished II. Its critique lies in its attitude and in its inspiring principles.
In social life one cannot disregard the experiences of the past, making a tabula rasa of them, since its progress consists in the further development of the human achievements already made. Just as nature, so society—which is its effect—does not proceed by leaps, but by successive acquisitions that perfect its structure. The extremist pretensions of radicalism then clash with the free progress of social institutions, to which the authoritarianism of the law, which is a kind of legal absolutism, is repugnant; finally, abstract schemes must constantly be tested against the possibilities offered by real life, to which every prudent political action must always pay heed.
The principles of radicalism are derived from the rationalistic agnosticism of the Enlightenment, which flowed into the liberal current, and thus, as an extremist attitude of this ideological and political direction, they are subject to all the reservations and criticisms directed against it by Catholic social doctrine (q.V. LIBERALISM).