Skip to main content

Burke's works


This new book on Edmund Burke by British MP Jesse Norman looks very interesting. The author, who is currently the number two man in the British conservative party, attempts to not only place Burke within the context of his times, but in the second half of the book illustrate how Burke's views have been co-opted for better and for worse, notably by American Republicans, who have drifted far from the intent, much less the meaning of Burke's works.

Burke was probably best known during his time for his repudiation of the French Revolution, which he compiled in his Reflections in 1790, before things turned sour.  Others, like Thomas Paine, extolled the Revolution, hoping that it would lead to a more egalitarian society.

For Burke, it didn't matter so much who ran government, but how it was run.  He was a conservative in the old sense believing in a free and open society, but one in which property rights were paramount.  He found the kind of "egalitarianism" being bandied about in France as nothing more than government usurpation, which is pretty much how things turned out.  Burke was against slavery and autocracies, believing that the best society was a stable society, grounded in British common law.

Norman considers himself the standard bearer of Burkian conservatism, and has at times schooled David Cameron on these basic principles, much to Cameron's chagrin. The interesting thing to me is that British conservatism hasn't markedly changed over the last two centuries, whereas American conservatism has morphed into a kind of theocratic thinking, which Burke would have very much abhorred.

Yet, you still see Burke's name bandied about in American conservative circles, particularly among neo-conservatives, which according to Norman, miss the mark as well.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!