The Conservative Tradition

1. The Conservative Tradition Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France” DeMaistre’s “Study on Sovereignty”

2. Burke’s Reflections • Biographical/Historical Background • Ethics of the Community • Conservatism • Natural Hierarchy

3. I. Biographical Background • Edmund Burke (1729-1797) • Born in Dublin, educated at Trinity College • Briefly attended law school, gave it up for literary career • Published his first book when he was 27

4. I. Biographical Background • Gets involved in Whig party politics • Serves in British House of Commons from 1766 through 1780, then from 1780-1794 • Supported American independence, easing laws against Catholics

5. I. Biographical Background • 1773 travels to France and is appalled by tide of “rationalism” sweeping the country • Opposes the French Revolution • Founder of modern conservatism • One of, if not the, chief opponents of the Enlightenment

6. I. Biographical Background • Publication was widely anticipated and received huge reaction • King George loved it, as did most of the aristocracy • Why read it today?

7. I. Biographical Background • 2 main reasons: • Relevance as a work of political science • “Science” not in the sense that it’s empirically driven -- although there is some of that -- but rather “science” in predictive sense • Founder of modern conservatism

8. I. Biographical Background • Burke was remarkably prescient about the likely development of the French Revolution and remarkably accurate about most revolutions • To appreciate, here’s the French Revolution in a nutshell:

9. II. French Revolution • 1788, King Louis XVI, facing financial crisis • Calls for the assembly of the Estates Generale (French parliament which hadn’t met since 1614!) • Estates Generale divided along class lines: Aristocracy Clergy “Commoners”

10. II. French Revolution • Elections for the common people -- or Third Estate -- were held in 1788, the legislature then convenes in 1789 • Voting was to be by class block (that is, one vote each class) • Third estate wants vote by individual representative -- it’s rejected

11. II. French Revolution • Third Estate pulls out of assembly, declares itself the true government -- a “National Assembly” and storms the Bastille Prison • 1789 “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen” published

12. II. French Revolution • King retreats to Versaille... palace is stormed by a group of “market women” and family forced to return to quarters in Paris under the control of the National Assembly

13. II. French Revolution • Reflections on the Revolution in 1790 • 1792 King Louis XIV beheaded • 1793 “Committee on Public Safety” formed under leadership of Maximilien Robespierre • Reign of Terror begins • 1793 Queen (Marie Antoinette) beheaded

14. II. French Revolution • 1794 - Robespierre executed • 1795-1799 “Thermidor Reaction” to excesses of the Reign of Terror • 1799 Napoleon seizes power

15. II. French Revolution • Burke’s Predictions: Reign of Terror: “On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings, and which is as void of solid wisdom as it is destitute of all taste and elegance, laws are to be supported only by their own terrors and by the concern which each individual may find in them from his own private speculations or can spare to them from his own private interests...” Why?

16. II. French Revolution • No good political situation can endure without the rule of law • By “law” here also include the habitual rules we have for social interaction • Note, the force of a law, compulsive power of law, only comes through habit

17. II. French Revolution • Force of Law: Habit • Instilling new customs? • How to do it? • Can’t speak or reason (for example, why not wear a hat inside? Why say “bless you” at a sneeze?) • Ultimately, the only way to change is through force

18. II. French Revolution “In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows.”

19. II. French Revolution • Burke’s Predictions: Reign of Terror: “But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators, the instruments, not the guides, of the people...

20. II. French Revolution “Moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards, and compromise as the prudence of traitors, until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may enable him to temper and moderate, on some occasions, the popular leader is obliged to become active in propagating doctrines and establishing powers that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he ultimately might have aimed.”

21. II. French Revolution “If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty, soberly limited and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors who will produce something more splendidly popular. Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause...

22. II. French Revolution • Burke’s Predictions: • “It is, besides, to be considered whether an assembly like yours, even supposing that it was in possession of another sort of organ through which its orders were to pass, is fit for promoting the obedience and discipline of an army...

23. II. French Revolution “It is known that armies have hitherto yielded a very precarious and uncertain obedience to any senate or popular authority; and they will least of all yield it to an assembly which is only to have a continuance of two years. ...

24. II. French Revolution “In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things...

25. II. French Revolution “But the moment in which that event shall happen, the person who really commands the army is your master — the master (that is little) of your king, the master of your Assembly, the master of your whole republic.” • Respect for the book soared after Napoleon came to power

26. II. Ethics of the Community • Recall Locke’s discussion on best way to evaluate society • How do we evaluate society?

27. II. Ethics of Community • For Burke and the conservative tradition, going back to first principles does not involve imagining a hypothetical prepolitical situation • Instead we need to take account of the actual shared history of the culture in which we are a part: “The government of a nation is no more its own creation than is its language.” -- Joseph de Maistre

28. II. Ethics of Community “One of the great errors of our time is to believe that the political constitution of nations is a purely human creation -- that a constituion can be created much as a watchmaker manufactures a watch. Nothing could be more false, except perhaps the claim that a constitution can be created by an assembly of men.” -- Joseph de Maistre “Study on Sovereignty”

29. II. Ethics of Community • The mechanics of governing are so complex, the fabric of society woven so tightly, that it is impossible for an assembly to come together and fashion a system of law that will work • Moreover, tinkering with that fabric is folly at best; suicide at worst.

30. II. Ethics of Community • “The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science; because the effects of moral causes are not always immediate; but that which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation...

31. II. Ethics of Community “and its excellence may arise even ... from the ill effects it procues in the beginning. The reverse also happens; and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions.”

32. II. Ethics of Community “In states, there are often some obscure and almost latent causes, things which appear at first view of little moment, on which a very great part of its prosperity or adversity may most essentially depend.”

33. II. Ethics of Community “[I]t is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on building it up again, without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes.” -- Burke, Reflections

34. II. Ethics of Community • Can’t create a community because we can’t create conventions. They are passed down from traditions of common life and shared history • Conventions, laws, and habit are what make a community • Moreover, it is precisely this community which is the prerequisite for a the good political life (in the Aristotleian sense)

35. II. Ethics of Community • Association vs. Community • Association based on interests, voluntary, impersonal • Community based on relationships, involuntary, personal

36. II. Ethics of Community • Association is based on respect for persons (rights) whereas community is based on love • When love is involved, you have feelings for the specific person, not the properties of that person • When respect is involved, you think about the actions taken, not the properties of the person taking the actions

37. II. Ethics of Community • Hobbes/Locke and the liberals err in seeing society as an association • But Burke and the conservative tradition see society as a community • When you are in a community, you bear special obligation/relation to other members of the community

38. II. Ethics of Community • Moral dilemmas emerge due to conflicts between and impersonal moral constraints • e.g., dinner party, restaurant service • The move towards an association means you may get more justice, but you lose those intimate relations • “The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes; and in proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false.” [Burke, Reflections]

39. II. Ethics of Community • Liberals presuppose that the social relations of persons are uttely accidental occurences that in no way constitute your “nature.” • That is, they assume you can join a society like you’d join a bowling league. • Burke and the conservatives argue that our attachments are much deeper though:

40. II. Ethics of Community “Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure -- but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, callico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties...”

41. “It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”

42. II. Ethics of Community • So if society is a community, what would it look like? • Let’s look at feudal society • Hierarchical structure where position is based on personal relation (father) • Occupations are passed down through generations

43. II. Ethics of Community • The hierarchy itself had dignity since it was based on divine will. • Position not based on own merit • consolation for the poor • check on the wealthy • No need for massive state structure because the order was governed by privilege (private law) • Each order had reciprocal obligations to those above and below it in hierarchy

44. II. Ethics of Community • But all that vanishes in liberalism: “The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom.” -- Burke, Reflections

45. II. Ethics of Community “On this scheme of things, a king is but a man, a queen is but a woman; a woman is but an animal, and an animal not of the highest order. All homage paid to the sex in general as such, and without distinct views, is to be regarded as romance and rolly. Regicide, and parricide, and sacrilege are but fictions of superstition, corrupting jurisprudence by destroying its simplicity...”

46. II. Ethics of Community “The murder of a king, or a queen, or a bishop, or a father are only common homicide; and if the people are by any chance or in any way gainers by it, a sort of homicide much the most pardonable, and into which we ought not to make too severe a scrutiny” (Burke, Reflections)

47. II. Ethics of Community • The liberal demand for liberty inevitably leads to demands for equality • Demands for equality, though, are false, since they destroy the natural order and natural hierarchy • Now, we’re going to need a strong and powerful state to emerge to keep the peace • Despotism is inevitably because some group will always claim they have rights being violated and they will work to seize the state to secure these rights and slaughter those who disagree

48. III. Conservatism • Although Burke laments the loss of feudalism, he recognizes that society is developing towards democracy and the defeat of democacy is unlikely • He is, though, asking us to remember what the breakdown of feudal society involves

49. III. Conservatism • For Burke, power in feudal societies is hierarchical, but dispersed (there’s matching church and political systems for instance) • But in a democracy, where individuals are all that matters, each individual is threatened by the “tyranny of the mob.” • Moreover, in a class divided society, you’ll get centralized random terror as competing classes struggle for control of the power of the state

50. III. Conservatism • Democracy bludgeons individuality or liberty since individuals need to be mindful of what the majority wants and how their personal opinions/beliefs may differ from the majority • Individuals will conform to majority • Democracy will end with mass of isolated individuals unable to stand up to majority