Conservatives Treasure the Tried and True
In reflecting on conservatism, also referred to as classical liberalism, some historians have commented that the American Revolution is one of history’s only revolutions to actually succeed, while revolutions in France and later in Russia were catastrophic, resulting in murder and tyranny. Edmund Burke, who had championed revolutionary America’s cause in the British Parliament, understood the difference and in his most famous work, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), strongly opposed that revolution even before its murderous Reign of Terror began. The difference between the two revolutions for Burke goes to the heart of what it means to be a conservative.
Burke revered history as well as those institutions that have been tested through the crucible of time. For Burke, the American Revolution was fought not to impose a new order of untried ideas, but to secure rights that had evolved over centuries, from those individual rights provided by the Magna Carta in 1215 to the breaking of the absolute power of the monarchy accomplished through Great Britain’s “Glorious Revolution of 1688.”
Burke was not opposed to change, but he venerated natural change that evolved through time and human experience. The French Revolution, on the other hand, sought through bloodshed and legal decrees to suddenly impose new rights and a new social order that had never before been known in France. The results of radical change in France, like those imposed later by the Bolsheviks in Russia, were disastrous.
In our own country, the nineteenth century was filled with the classical liberalism that was championed and handed on by America’s founders. But in the twentieth century powerful movements in America and throughout the world rejected classical liberalism and began to assert the rights of the collective over those of the individual.
Communists set the collective at war with the rights of the individual; Nazis set the needs of race and nation against individual rights; and fascists and the architects of the welfare state set the material needs of society in conflict with the rights of individuals. Reversing the idea of our founders, they asserted the idea that individuals should serve the state, rather than the state existing at the pleasure of individuals to protect their rights.
It is no accident that those who would overturn the social order and radically change our nation today downplay the teaching of history, ignore giant historical figures, and even distort its lessons. We see references to the efforts of “dead, white men” in attempts to eliminate our religious roots, and to distort the story of America’s discovery and the role of our founding fathers.
By imposing on people ideas that were radical, untried, and alien to human experience, humanity experienced during the twentieth century a century of despotism, depression and war, with approximately 265 million people killed by their own governments. Many believe that the carnage exceeds all previous centuries combined. This barbarous history, so recently experienced, makes clear that Burke was a wise champion for older truths. Indeed, many of these older truths were from the Bible, the world’s greatest chronicle of individual salvation history. It is quite natural then that so many champions of today's conservative movement obtain their world view in transcendent Scriptural truths that have withstood repeated tests from generation to generation.
Burke revered history as well as those institutions that have been tested through the crucible of time. For Burke, the American Revolution was fought not to impose a new order of untried ideas, but to secure rights that had evolved over centuries, from those individual rights provided by the Magna Carta in 1215 to the breaking of the absolute power of the monarchy accomplished through Great Britain’s “Glorious Revolution of 1688.”
Burke was not opposed to change, but he venerated natural change that evolved through time and human experience. The French Revolution, on the other hand, sought through bloodshed and legal decrees to suddenly impose new rights and a new social order that had never before been known in France. The results of radical change in France, like those imposed later by the Bolsheviks in Russia, were disastrous.
In our own country, the nineteenth century was filled with the classical liberalism that was championed and handed on by America’s founders. But in the twentieth century powerful movements in America and throughout the world rejected classical liberalism and began to assert the rights of the collective over those of the individual.
Communists set the collective at war with the rights of the individual; Nazis set the needs of race and nation against individual rights; and fascists and the architects of the welfare state set the material needs of society in conflict with the rights of individuals. Reversing the idea of our founders, they asserted the idea that individuals should serve the state, rather than the state existing at the pleasure of individuals to protect their rights.
It is no accident that those who would overturn the social order and radically change our nation today downplay the teaching of history, ignore giant historical figures, and even distort its lessons. We see references to the efforts of “dead, white men” in attempts to eliminate our religious roots, and to distort the story of America’s discovery and the role of our founding fathers.
By imposing on people ideas that were radical, untried, and alien to human experience, humanity experienced during the twentieth century a century of despotism, depression and war, with approximately 265 million people killed by their own governments. Many believe that the carnage exceeds all previous centuries combined. This barbarous history, so recently experienced, makes clear that Burke was a wise champion for older truths. Indeed, many of these older truths were from the Bible, the world’s greatest chronicle of individual salvation history. It is quite natural then that so many champions of today's conservative movement obtain their world view in transcendent Scriptural truths that have withstood repeated tests from generation to generation.
Perhaps no figure more embodied the spirit of Burke and conservative respect for the tried and true than South Carolina’s own “cast iron man,” John C. Calhoun. He spoke to his time and ours when he warned that “It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.”
1 comment:
intriguing
Post a Comment