Reactionary
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- fanatically opposed to progress or liberalism; very conservative
Reactionary (or reactionist) is a political epithet, generally used as a pejorative, originally applied in the context of the French Revolution to counter-revolutionaries who wished to restore the real or imagined conditions of the monarchical Ancien Régime. Through the 19th century, it was used to refer to those who wished to preserve feudalism or aristocratic privilege against industrialism, republicanism, liberalism, and in some cases socialism.
Later on in the early 20th century, the term also came to describe those favouring a stronger role of the Catholic Church in society, as well as - pejoratively - the diverse groups and individuals criticizing certain aspects of ideologies like liberalism, democratic socialism, secularism, and other leftist ideologies.