Reactionaries

[Mumbles]

What exactly is a reactionary?

[Nolan]

People from France.

[CartCollector]

Someone who thinks that society today is falling apart and becoming degenerate, and that the only way to fix things is to go back to what they percieve as a glorious, utopian era in the past. Usually it's in the past of the country they're from- reaction and nationalism often go hand-in-hand.

Examples:
-American southerners who want to go back to the pre-Civil War days
-Tea Partiers and American right-libertarians who want to take government back to when the Founding Fathers were still alive (American anti-revisionism basically)
-Italians who want to rebuild the Roman Empire
-Germans who want to build a Third German Empire, one even 'greater' than the two in their past

[ContrarianLemming]

cart collecto has it right, a reactionary is basically someone who wants to bring tthings back to the past, like someone who wants old testament laws, in communism, a reactionary could be a regular average liberal of today.

[Ismail]

A major point of Marx's views of capitalism were that it was "outdated," meaning that it became a fetter on the development of humanity, of the productive forces, etc. Just as feudalism had become "outdated" in the 17th and 18th centuries. So for example, during the French Revolution those who fought for capitalism were progressive, they wanted to move onwards into a new stage of productive relations. Those who defended the feudal order were reactionary; they were trying to delay what was basically inevitable.

[AK]

What exactly is a reactionary?

People from France.
Captain Cuba - the newfound ultranationalist.

[Catillina]

A Reactionnary is an extremly conservative person, who is against new things, an before all, against revolution.

[MarxSchmarx]

Although all these definitions suggested are good starts, I'd say the real definition is historico-materialist. A reactionary is someone who upholds as desirable any legacy of the feudal, pre-capitalist order - e.g., in slavery, religion, in aristocracy, etc...

[mikelepore]

A reactionary is even more conservative than a conservative. A conservative wants to avoid any additional progressive changes. A reactionary not only wants to avoid changes, but also wants to undo changes that were already achieved, to restore "the good old days."

[AK]

No really, here's a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HrSN7176XI) of french nazis with signs "proud to be reactionary." The one interviewed calls himself "Richard Tourner."
Like I'm gonna click that like your other videos.
On a slightly more serious matter, you did generalise it to all the French.

[Chambered Word]

Like I'm gonna click that like your other videos.
On a slightly more serious matter, you did generalise it to all the French.

I think he was being tongue-in-cheek, bro. :p

[MarxSchmarx]

Like I'm gonna click that like your other videos.
On a slightly more serious matter, you did generalise it to all the French.

Indeed. The post in question has been trashed. Try to keep these discussions useful people.

[Black Sheep]

A reactionary is even more conservative than a conservative. A conservative wants to avoid any additional progressive changes. A reactionary not only wants to avoid changes, but also wants to undo changes that were already achieved, to restore "the good old days."
I wouldn't say that..
In times of revolutionary turmoil, and when there is a practical potential for revolutionary change. a reactionary is someone who rejects the notion of a revolution and defends the current establishment.

[NecroCommie]

The exact meaning of reactionary is subjective, meaning that in certain context every definition given here is more or less correct. As a word reactionary refers to someone actively seeking to stop or reverse progress.