Sermon on the Mount
A. Ignoring Revolutionary Slogans
The counter-revolutionary effort must not be bookish. In other words, it cannot content itself with dialectics against the Revolution at a purely scientific, academic level. While recognizing the great, even very great, importance of this level, the Counter-Revolution must habitually keep its sights trained on the Revolution as thought, felt, and lived by public opinion as a whole. In this sense, counter-revolutionaries ought to give very special importance to the refutation of revolutionary catch phrases.
B. Eliminating the Polemical Aspects of Counter-Revolutionary Action
Sadly, the idea of presenting the Counter-Revolution in a more “sympathetic” and “positive” light by preventing it from attacking the Revolution is the most efficient way to impoverish its content and dynamism.¹
Anyone who employs this lamentable tactic displays the same lack of sense as a chief of state who, in face of enemy troops crossing his border, were to halt all armed resistance in the hope of neutralizing the invader by gaining his sympathy. In reality, he would destroy the impetus of the reaction without stopping the enemy. In other words, he would surrender his homeland.
Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple by Cecco del Caravaggio.
This does not mean that the language of the counter-revolutionary should not show nuances befitting the circumstances.
The Divine Master, when preaching in Judea, which was under the proximate influence of the perfidious Pharisees, used strong language. On the contrary, in Galilee, where the simple-hearted people predominated and the influence of the Pharisees was smaller, His language was more tutorial and less polemical.
1. See Part II, Chapter 8, 3, B.
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), Ch. VII, Pg. 94-95.
