Edmund Burke 1729-97 Flashcards
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“reflections on the revolutions in France 1790”, here he defined various tenets of conservative thought including human imperfection, empiricism, organicism, tradition, aristocracy and localism.
views on human imperfection and human nature:
Burke stressed mankind’s fallibility and its tendency to fail more than succeed. He denounce the idealistic SoC that the French Revolution represented claimed it was based on an unrealistic utopian idea of human nature.
while change was necessary to conserve, change should proceed based of what?
act and experience rather than theory and idealism. He criticised the French Revolution for discarding what was known in favour of an entirely new SoC based on “ philosophical abstractions”
what were society and government more akin too?
a plant than a machine. He thus argued that both had mysterious dynamism that was beyond reason and planning. Change, therefore, must be cautious and planned
why was he critical of the french revolutions stress of equality?
asserted that within all “organic SoC ‘s” a ruling class was inevitable and desirable
what did the ruling class have an obligation to do?
obligation to govern in the interests of all. He said it was the French aristocracy ‘s failure to do this that led to the revolution
why did he condemn the new French Republic for its highly centralised structures ?
instead he praised a SoC of “little platoons”: a multitude of small, diverse and largely autonomous communities which would “acknowledge nurture and prune the crooked timber of humanity”
