vative. It is a term he reserves for abusingnenvironmentalists and other obstacles tongrowth. Ecology, for example, was originallyna very good thing until it was transmutedninto a “very conservative socialndoctrine.” To find out about the enemy.nTucker had recourse to Rossiter’s Conservatismnin America—as if it were somenrare exotic social movement in NewnGuinea. To illustrate his basic point, thatnenvironmentalist = aristocrat, he picksnon /’// Take My Stand, the 1928 manifestonof the Southern Agrarians. It nevernoccurs to Tucker that despite theirnfailure. Ransom, Davidson, Lytle, andnthe others might have been right: thatnlife, cut adrift from family and the land,nis mere existence, not life as it has beennknown by our species throughout itsnexperience.nTucker’s running jest, that radicalnenvironmentalists are real conservativesn—that Barry Commoner is more reactionarynthan Barry Goldwater—is truernand deeper than he realizes. The conservativeninstinct cannot be chloroformed,ntransfixed, and labeled Tory, Federalist,nor Republican. It is the basic sense that anman should pass on to his children anpatrimony no less rich than he receivednfrom his father. It is more than resistancento change. It is the desire to hand downnunimpaired the legacy of previous generations—thenlaws, privileges, institutions,nthe land itself. It is no accident ofnetymology that conservation and conservativenstart with the same letters. Theynboth reflect the same instinct.nThis biblical notion of responsiblendominion over our inheritance is whatnRene Dubos has called stewardship.nThere is a place in Tucker’s scheme ofnthings for a loyal opposition of conservativen”stewards,” but in the end he tars allnenvironmentalists with the same brush:nhostility to progress. Since, in Tucker’sneyes, technological progress only meansncures for cancer, increased food production,nand a better life for all, there can benno excuse for standing in the way ofnmankind’s destined happiness. Evennresistance to genetic engineering comesnonly from the “anti-technological fringenof the movement,” which—Tuckernclaims—is on the verge of conspiringnwith “right-wing fundamentalism.” Wenare supposed to imagine clandestinenmeetings between Barry Commoner andnJerry Falwell, a merger between thenSierra Club and the Moral Majority.nTucker cannot be as naive as he pretends.nHe is surely aware of the bizarrenfantasies that trouble the sleep of socialnplanners: aworld free of vice, deformity,nand average intelligence; special races tonbe bred for conditions on Antarctica ornother planets. B.F. Skinner, the archetypenof the mad scientist, has writtennconfidently of nature’s mistakes whichn”need to be put right by explicit design”nand has added selective breedingnand tinkering with the genetic code tonhis inventory of behavioral-controlnmechanisms.n1nIt was not long after World War IInthat C.S. Lewis wrote down his thoughtsnon The Abolition of Man, that “many anmild-eyed scientist in pince-nez . . .nmeans in the long run just the same asnthe Nazi rulers of Germany. Traditionalnvalues are to be ‘debunked’ and mankindncut into some fresh shape at the willn… ofsome few lucky people in one luckyngeneration which has learned how to donit.” Snail darters, wilderness areas, andnvirus-infected bacteria seem like suchnsmall things to stand in the way ofnunlimited growth and progress. Perhapsnthat is why so many American conservativesnseem oblivious to their implications.nIt is for that reason that conservation—thenmost conservative of causes—nhas fallen into the hands of the peoplenwhom Tucker has so accurately described.nOCCASIONAL PAPERSnThe Rockford Institute presentsnthe latest two additions to ItsnOccasional Papers series.n”The Family and the Free Economy”n”Capitalism needs the family. For the family transformsnthe base motivations and values of capitalismninto socially constructive and metaphysicallynmeaningful ends.”nThe editor of Persuasion At Work, Dr. Allan C. Carlson, arguesnthat the nation’s economic difficulties and social difficulties maynbe the same problem.n”America’s Secret Life-Giving Weapon:nObservations on the Nuclear Freeze”n”it is the restrained and considerate behavior definednby the ideals of freedom that makes for peacefulnrelationships in a family, a neighborhood, a city,nor a world.”nDr. John A. Howard, president of The Rockford Institute, identifiesna surer road to peace than the popularized nuclear freeze.nAvailable for 35