Posted on 04/24/2003 7:15:23 AM PDT by KC Burke
Appendix A, Edmund Burke, A Genius Reconsidered
by Russell Kirk
Burke's Conservatism
Edmund Burke never employed the term "conservative", because in his time it was not a noun of politics. He is, nevertheless, the principle source of modern conservative belief. It is in France, after the defeat of Napoleon, that the words conservateur and conservatif were coined to describe a concept of politics founded on the ideas of Burke: by definition, then, conservatism means Burke's politics of prudence and prescription, guarding and preserving a country's institutions.These terms passed into English politics during the 1820s, and into American political discussion during the 1840s.
On the model of Burke, a conservative statesman is one who combines a disposition to preserve with an ability to reform. The key passage from Burke describing this concept is found in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, in connection with his denunciation of the National Assembly. It is included here to suggest the essence of Burke's conservative politics.
Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years. The errors and defects of old establishments are visible and palpable. It calls for little ability to point them out; and where absolute power is given, it requires but a word wholly to abolish the vice and the establishment together.The same lazy but restless disposition which loves sloth and hates quiet directs the politicians when they come to work for supplying the place of what they have destroyed. To make everything the reverse of what they have seen is quite as easy as to destroy. No difficulties occur in what has never been tried. Criticism is almost baffled in discovering the defects of what has not existed; and eager enthusiasm and cheating hope have all the wide field of imagination in which they may expatiate with little or no opposition.
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At once to preserve and to reform is quite another thing.
When the useful parts of an old establishment are kept, and what is superadded is to be fitted to what is retained, a vigorous mind, steady, persevering attention, various powers of comparison and combination, and the resources of an understanding fruitful in expedients are to be exercised; they are to be exercised in a continued conflict with the combined force of opposite vices, with the obstinacy that rejects all improvement and the levity that is fatigued and disgusted with everything of which it is in possession. But you may object- "A process of this kind is slow. It is not fit for an assembly which glories in performing in a few months the work of ages. Such a mode of reforming, possibly, might take up many years". Without question it might; and it ought. It is one of the excellences of a method in which time is amongst the assistants, that its operation is slow and in some cases almost imperceptible. If circumspection and caution are a part of wisdom when we work only upon inanimate matter, surely they become a part of duty, too, when the subject of our demolition and construction is not brick and timber but sentient beings, by the sudden alteration of whose state, condition, and habits multitudes may be rendered miserable.
But it seems as if it were the prevalent opinion in Paris that an unfeeling heart and an undoubting confidence are the sole qualifications for a perfect legislator.
Far different are my ideas of that high office. The true lawgiver ought to have a heart full of sensibility. He ought to love and respect his kind, and to fear himself. It may be allowed to his temperament to catch his ultimate object with an intuitive glance, but his movements toward it ought to be deliberate.
Political arrangement, as it is a work for social ends, is to be only wrought by social means. There mind must conspire with mind. Time is required to produce that union of minds which alone can produce all the good we aim at. Our patience will achieve more than our force.
If I might venture to appeal to what is so much out of fashion in Paris, I mean to experience, I should tell you that in my course I have known and, according to my measure, have co-operated with great men; and I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observation of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.
By a slow but well-sustained progress the effect of each step is watched; the good or ill success of the first gives light to us in the second; and so, from light to light, we are conducted with safety through the whole series. We see that the parts of the system do not clash. The evils latent in the most promising contrivances are provided for as they arise. One advantage is as little as possible sacrificed to another. We compensate, we reconcile, we balance. We are enabled to unite into a consistent whole the various anomalies and contending principles that are found in the minds and affairs of men. From hence arises, not an excellence in simplicity, but one far superior, an excellence in composition.
Where the great interests of mankind are concerned through a long succession of generations, that succession ought to be admitted into some share in the councils which are so deeply to affect them. If justice requires this, the work itself requires the aid of more minds than one age can furnish. It is from this view of things that the best legislators have been often satisfied with the establishment of some sure, solid, and ruling principle in government- a power like that which some of the philosophers have called a plastic nature; and having fixed the principle, they have left it afterwards to its own operation.
Have you read any Havel?
Pragmatism certainly falls, for the most part, outside of the conservative mainstream (Pierce being the lone exception in some minds). Consider it if you have the time.
I envy you such an opportunity. Write down who you meet and when in an address book. It will come in handy later.
Ah, youth....it is sometimes wasted on the young.
BTW, LOL, fusionist should be reserved for Meyer's version of Libertarian/Conservative fusion. He paid a dear price defending such an alliance. If I don't use Old Whig, I just say conservative and leave it at that.
Good point. It is worth noting that, as a Whig, Burke was disposed towards a conservatism that allowed for much change. Disraeli, proceeding from Tory principles might have argued that it was precisely a nation or race or culture or governmental system that he was trying to conserve. One can't wholly exclude Disraeli's approach from one's understanding of the word "conservatism."
Burke, like Churchill, represents the conservatism of crisis. Both defended old values and achievements when they are threatened. The young Churchill, when such a threat wasn't present, was capable of being liberal and even radical. Burke was a Janus-faced figure -- the Whiggish conservative reformer and the impassioned defender of civilization, liberty, and, it sometimes seemed, the old order, when they were under threat. Other people sometimes had trouble seeing how the two sides fit together.
Burke and Disraeli weren't completely different in the end. Both were conservative reformers. Burke began as a Whig and a reformer and became conservative because of the French Revolution. Once this happened, though, he embraced a particularly conservative, that is to say traditionalist, vision of the Britain. Disraeli couldn't resist free trade and wouldn't resist empire or the extension of the franchise, so he ended up presiding over more change or progress than an old Tory would have liked.
One can see some of the roots of our present conflicts in this dichotomy. Neo-conservatives appeal to that activist conservatism of crisis. They believe that the country is under a threat that they must remove, even if it means bringing great changes to the world. Their critics are more in the Tory tradition of caution, stability and continuity. They aren't entirely hidebound and opposed to all change, but they shrink at the thought of remaking the world. Those who define themselves as paleoconservatives do sometimes tend towards more pronounced forms of restoration or return to some real or imagined order. Those who follow that line look as utopian as those on the left, but in general both the neocons and their critics want to conserve, and both accept the inevitability of change, but they disagree about what should be conserved and how and what should change and how.
The realm of political thought centered around reality, both of the present and the past, and the lessons provided through the progress of history, is conservatism. Those who deal in reality, and the wisdom of the ages, are predisposed to conservatism. Those who deal in what should be, in the realm of utopianism and fancy, and who put a particular ideology on such a high pedestal that real life cannot touch it, are not conservatives, even if at times they may find themselves in alliance.
Wise and true. But you will find people who embrace realities but believe that the real situation we find ourselves in demands change. Wars and crises bring out the idea that to survive we must change ourselves and the world. Many people today are not in the least utopian -- indeed, they are quite anti-utopian -- but are willing to support massive changes because they believe our survival, security or well-being demand it. Conservatives will always oppose utopianism, whether "hard" or "soft." What we see today is perhaps a "hard," realistic, anti-utopian doctrine of world transformation that isn't particularly conservative, but wins points with conservatives because of its opposition to the delusions of previous utopias and of "soft" politics in general.
But what were Machiavelli's principles? I gather he did want a strong, independent Italy, but in popular folklore Machiavelli survives as the man without principles.
Machiavelli is the great villain for the followers of Leo Strauss, who view him as marking the turning point from the ancient political philosophy of truth and virtue to the modern political philosophy of power and freedom. I'm not sure I buy their theory. Surely, there was much cynicism and support for tyranny among the ancients. And surely freedom isn't a bad thing or incompatible with virtue. And we can't go back. But Machiavelli has so often been associated with immorality that it's not likely that he'll be adopted as a conservative hero soon.
Conservatives want to be lions, rather than foxes, and Machiavelli does rightly teach that the statesman must be both. But for Americans to become too Machiavellian might mean losing some of our best characteristics.
"First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it; human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent."
So many Liberaltarians think they’re Conservatives but in reality social conservatism goes hand in hand with fiscal conservatism 100% of the time.
I'm going to wait on Nic to do justice to his namesake. It should be an interesting read.
With the proviso that I have certainly been in the ranks of those who castigate dogmatic, ideological libertarianism, I also count some principled libertarians as fellows in common cause.
Kirk changed his wording of that first principle over the years. He did it in a manner that now includes many principled libertarians, and yes, even some who are non-believers.
Where originally Kirk used the word "Transcendant" in that principle, by the end of his life he had begun to use "Enduring". I know that with this wording many libertarians, certainly a group with alliegance to the "moral", can allow themselves as holding with this current wording of that principle.
I can hardly be less open to them than Kirk (the terrible foe of "ideology") was as his life advanced.
I have heard it said that you can find non-libertarian conservatives who see the progression of our true society as Order=>>Morality=>>Freedom, while libertarian conservatives see it as Freedom=>>Morality=>>Order. All of the ingrediants are there in both formulas.
Big bump!
g
You do well to give nicollo notice of Strauss. But what exactly is their theory?
From Strauss' Thoughts on Machiavelli
Machiavelli's philosophizing . . . remains on the whole within the limits set by the city qua closed to philosophy. Aceepting the ends of the demos as beyond appeal, he seeks for the beast means conducive to the ends. [sounds almost like Aristotle, but not] He achieves the decisive turn toward the notion of philosophy according to which its purpose is to relieve man's estate or to increase man's power to guide man toward the rational society, the bond and the end of which is enlightened self-interest or the comfortable self-preservation of its members. The cave becomes "the substance." By supplying all men with the goods which they desire, by being the obvious benefactress of all men, philosophy (or science) ceases to be suspect or alien.In entirely other words, imagine the press and elected officials as identical (probably doesn't require imagination).
The key hidden step in the Machiavellian view, a bold intellectual move that is made logically rigorous and then politically palatable by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, is to define man as outside nature. Strauss sees this as the key to modernity. Man exists in opposition to nature, conquering it to serve his comfort. Nature does not define what is good for man; man does. This view is the basis for the modern penchant to make freedom and comfort (read "prosperity") the central concerns of political philosophy, whereas the ancients made virtue the center. Once man is outside nature, he has no natural teleology or purpose, and therefore no natural virtues. Since he has no natural purpose, anything that might give him one, like God, is suspect, and thus modernity tends towards atheism. Similarly, man’s duties, as opposed to his rights, drop away, as does his natural sociability. The philosophical price of freedom is purposelessness, which ultimately gives rise to the alienation, anomie, and nihilism of modern life.Machiavelli would be a very fine American: he could easily thumb his nose at long-standing and enduring grand ideals as he counsels every perspicacious sage: "come down to my level." And with the American: "there are no outside dangers, French or German."
Bloom intersperses the Closing of the American Mind with some dead-on descriptions:
Machiavelli follows Callicles in Plato's Gorgias, who ridicules Socrates for being unable to defend himself, to avert insults and slaps in the face. The vulnerability of the philosopher would seem to be the starting place for the new reflection and the renewal of philosophy. This may seem trivial to many today, but the entire philosophic tradition, ancient and modern, took the relation of mind to society as the most fruitful beginning point for understanding the human sitation. Certainly the first philosophy of which we have a full acount begins with the trial and execution of the philosopher. And Machiavelli, the inspire of the great philosophical systems of modernity, starts from this vulnerability of reason within the political order and makes it his business to correct it.I make it a habit not to use boldface or underline in citations, but here I think it is warranted. He makes it his business to correct it. That might be laudable, insofar as things are correctable. The prudent person (if the word conservative must now be embarrassing and debunked) recognizes that the way things are is the stage for the courageous to endure and suffer--at least. Not to correct.
This view is reflected in the wisdom of our contemporary Czech President Vaclav Havel:
A heaven on earth in which people will love each other and everyone is hard-working, well-mannered, and virtuous, in which the land flourishes and everything is sweetness and light, working harmoniously to the satisfaction of God: this will never be. On the contrary, the world has had the worst experiences with utopian thinkers who promised all that. Evil will remain with us, no one will ever eliminate human suffering, the political arena will always attract irresponsible and ambitious adventurers and charlatans. And man will not stop destroying the world. In this regard, I have no illusions. <p. Neither I nor anyone else will ever win this war once and for all. At the very most, we can win a battle or two- and not even that is certain. . . It is an eternal, never-ending struggle waged not just by good people (among whom I count myself, more or less) against evil people, by . . . people who think about the world and eternity against people who think only of themselves and the moment. It takes place inside everyone. It is what makes a person a person, and life, a life.
[I realized all too late that The Prince was the favorite book of one of my ex-wives. Had she read Machiavelli more carefully and more thoroughly, I might still be stuck with her... I thank God for her superficial reading.]
Machiavelli was for a time and ever wanted to be the Carl Rove to the Medicis. He lost out, and spent his exile trying to get back in. On top of it, The Prince was concerned less with domestic affairs than as with the external.. The Prince was wholly in favor of republican government.
You wrote,
The prudent person (if the word conservative must now be embarrassing and debunked) recognizes that the way things are is the stage for the courageous to endure and suffer--at least. Not to correct.I'm not sure I read you correctly here, but it seems to me that the conservative is concerned with what works. We do not believe in natural law because it is right. We believe in it because it works. From that it becomes right. Machiavelli believed in first principles not because he felt that first principles were inherently correct but because he felt that first principles that led to success were correct, and to deviate from what brings success leads to failure.
In Discourses, Niccolo explained that constitutions must have "some goodness in themselves through which they might recapture their first repute and their first increase." More specifically, he entitled a chapter,
If One Wishes That a Sect of a Republick Live a Long Time, It Is Necessary to Draw It Back Often toward Its PrincipleIt had to be a success in the first place before being concerned with failure.
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