Or to be precise, I'm a 'Burkean'. I think I always have been without realising it because I have never had much detailed knowledge concerning Edmund Burke, he was simply a name that floated in the background of some of my history books. Now, however, I have read Jesse Norman's superb biography and all is revealed.
Burke, despite being Anglo-Irish, was a quintessential Englishman. Decent in his private life and equally so in his political philosophy. He could see when the balance of the State was dangerously out of kilter either in the form of over-weaning Royalty or their lickspittles in the aristocratic Tory party. Thus, he spent most of his life in the Whig party which was not without its faults but within which he tried, tried and tried again to move in the right direction.
You shall know a man by his enemies, so they say, and Burke's enemies were the continental (mainly French) philosophes, like Rousseau, who were captured by the new scientific revolution and saw Mankind as merely a huge collection of indistinguishable molecules which could not be ordered but which must be left to do as their will took them. Individual liberty (or licence?) was their driving force and its malignancy lives with us to this day in the Anglo-American sphere.
Burke saw that individualism was not the sum total of Man's parts. Man was and is always a communal animal. Whether it be via family, or locality, or religion or politics, always Man seeks to form communities or groups through which particular desires can be satisfied or at least proclaimed. This proclivity of Man reaches its heights in the formation of political parties who can be free to push and pull within the confines of a free parliament. Thus, Burke is the man who can claim to have formed the beginnings of the Party system in Britain through which the views of the many can be expressed, roughly but never perfectly, by the few.
Today, he is seen as a (small 'c') conservative although he spent most of his life fighting against the great bastions of Tory misrule. Despite his own Protestantism he constantly urged the emancipation of the Catholic Church both in England and in Ireland. He waged constant political and legal 'warfare' against the East India Company which he saw was an oppressive, greedy monopolist literally grinding the faces of the poor in India. He urged the King and his dim Tory sycophants to deal fairly with the American colonialists. All to no avail as we now know.
It is difficult to summarise his philosophy into a logical body of thought, in the manner of a Rousseau, or later, a Marx. Burke tended to take events and judge them separately based on their inherent pros and cons as tested against his natural instincts and intelligence. Thus, when it came to revolution he was all in favour of the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688 because despite his support for Catholic emancipation he realised that England was now a Protestant nation and King James's plots amounted in effect to a religious coup de main. However, he was entirely sympathetic to, albeit, sorry for, the American revolution. The French revolution, however, was an absolute anathema to him and everything he believed in. He foresaw immediately that it would be a total disaster not just for France and its people but for all of Europe. By the time the Napoleonic wars ended in that little field in Waterloo, millions had perished from Russia to Spain.
I am truly grateful to Mr.Jesse Norman for his excellent biography of a fascinating man and a truly great Englishman. The book educated me in the easiest possible way being written with a light, elegant but careful touch. I recommend you buy a copy for your Summer hols reading:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Edmund-Burke-Visionary-Invented-Politics/dp/0007489641
Burke may have wanted to have emancipated the Catholic Church but he must have been clever enough to know its genocidal past. And of course he would never know that in the future the same Church would be involved again in genocide. Who would have thought John Paul 11 would give Sainthood to the man that orchestrated the Jasanovic Death Camp
that slaughtered Jews, Gypsies and Orthodox Christians including forced conversion to Catholisism.
Worth a mention I think. Maybe we should emancipate ISIS!
Posted by: jimmy glesga | Monday, 13 July 2015 at 19:07
Where-as, of course, the 'Proddies' are all creatures of 'peace 'n' love, man'. Get real, Jimmy!
Posted by: David Duff | Monday, 13 July 2015 at 19:31
Individualism is not the enemy of Burkism... True libertarianism which is the only decent politcial creed exalts the individual, of course as the basic political atom but can only work wth a healthy admixture of enlightened self interest which is what enables marketa to work. And the fact that they do work, given half a chance shows that enlightened self interest is a very real human characteristic. Where it doesnt work is inthese shitty european oligarchies like france and italy where catholicism has rendered people fucking useless.
Posted by: Cuffleyburgers | Monday, 13 July 2015 at 20:06
Goodness me David what indiscretions the proddies may have done cannot be associated with Vatican genocide and ethnic cleansing. The proddies have only been around since Good King Enery.
Posted by: jimmy glesga | Monday, 13 July 2015 at 21:11
Cuffleyburgers. It has made people usefull to catholisism.
Posted by: jimmy glesga | Monday, 13 July 2015 at 21:36
[Burke] "urged the King and his dim Tory sycophants to deal fairly with the American colonialists. All to no avail as we now know."
Might I be so bold David as suggesting you take up as your next two biographies William[s] Pitt the Elder & the Younger?
The former; "When trade is at stake, it is your last entrenchment; you must defend it, or perish...Sir, Spain knows the consequence of a war in America; whoever gains, it must prove fatal to her...is this any longer a nation? Is this any longer an English Parliament, if with more ships in your harbours than in all the navies of Europe; with above two millions of people in your American colonies, you will bear to hear of the expediency of receiving from Spain an insecure, unsatisfactory, dishonourable Convention? ... It is my opinion, that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At the same time I assert the authority of this kingdom over the colonies to be sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of Government and legislation whatsoever. The colonists are the subjects of this kingdom, equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen...The Americans are the sons, not the bastards, of England. Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power...When, therefore, in this House we give and grant, we give and grant what is our own. But in an American tax, what do we do? We, your Majesty's Commons for Great Britain, give and grant to your Majesty,—what? Our own property?—No! We give and grant to your Majesty, the property of your Majesty's Commons of America...The distinction between legislation and taxation is essentially necessary to liberty...There is an idea in some, that the colonies are virtually represented in this House...Is he represented by any knight of the shire, in any county in this kingdom?...Or will you tell him that he is represented by any representative of a borough?—a borough which perhaps its own representatives never saw.—This is what is called the rotten part of the constitution. It cannot continue a century. If it does not drop, it must be amputated... I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to let themselves be made slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest...The gentleman asks, When were the colonies emancipated? I desire to know when were they made slaves? [the Elder]"
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(The result was a crisis from 1776–1783. The peace in 1783 left France financially prostrate, while the British economy boomed due to the return of American business. That crisis ended in 1784 as a result of the King's shrewdness in outwitting Fox and renewed confidence in the system engendered by the leadership of Pitt. Historians conclude that loss of the American colonies enabled Britain to deal with the French Revolution with more unity and organisation than would otherwise have been the case. [the Younger)
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And David, you type - from your post - "... Thus, Burke is the man who can claim to have formed the beginnings of the Party system in Britain. ..."
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Yet include in the same post ... "Royalty or ... the aristocratic Tory party ... the Whig party ... [the Protestants and the Catholics] ... the East India Company.
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[F]ormed the beginnings of the Party system in Britain?
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America maybe - Britain's Party System seemed thriving.
Posted by: JK | Monday, 13 July 2015 at 23:36
"Britain's Party System seemed thriving"
Not so, JK. Parliament was a hodge-podge of constantly shifting cabals, not political parties as we know them, roughly - very roughly - divided between the Tory aristocracy intent on supporting the king; and the Whigs, equally aristocratic, of course, attempting to thwart them. They were small groupings with little or no internal discipline, indeed by the end of the century the Whig party split completely and thus was born the Liberal party.
Here are two very different summaries of Burke's life:
Karl Marx"The sycophant—who in the pay of the English oligarchy played the romantic laudator temporis acti against the French Revolution just as, in the pay of the North American colonies at the beginning of the American troubles, he had played the liberal against the English oligarchy—was an out-and-out vulgar bourgeois. "The laws of commerce are the laws of Nature, and therefore the laws of God." (E. Burke, l.c., pp. 31, 32) No wonder that, true to the laws of God and Nature, he always sold himself in the best market."
Winston Churchill: "On the one hand [Burke] is revealed as a foremost apostle of Liberty, on the other as the redoubtable champion of Authority. But a charge of political inconsistency applied to this life appears a mean and petty thing. History easily discerns the reasons and forces which actuated him, and the immense changes in the problems he was facing which evoked from the same profound mind and sincere spirit these entirely contrary manifestations. His soul revolted against tyranny, whether it appeared in the aspect of a domineering Monarch and a corrupt Court and Parliamentary system, or whether, mouthing the watch-words of a non-existent liberty, it towered up against him in the dictation of a brutal mob and wicked sect. No one can read the Burke of Liberty and the Burke of Authority without feeling that here was the same man pursuing the same ends, seeking the same ideals of society and Government, and defending them from assaults, now from one extreme, now from the other."
I know which one I would choose!
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 14 July 2015 at 08:44
"It has made people usefull to Catholicism". Jimmy, you should get a peek at South American Catholicism where the new "Pink collar Pope hails from.
Posted by: Whitewall | Tuesday, 14 July 2015 at 13:08
Whitewall. In so called Protestant Scotland 1950s/60s the Nuns used to roam the shops in Glasgow where I lived collecting from the owners. If a shopkeeper did not donate then it was subtlety made known at Mass that someone refused to donate but a boycott was not mentioned. Same aim.
Posted by: jimmy glesga | Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 21:51
http://www.glescapals.com/schools/bss1963fitba.htm
Whitewall I came across this treasure of a photo some time ago! I am the bloke in the middle back row with the Beatle haircut. The date is wrong as I left primary school 1963 however the guy who posted it got the names right. And that school teacher was a solid bloke.
Posted by: jimmy glesga | Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 22:07
Jimmy you were a solid looking young man and clearly the "cream of the crop". No doubt you still are!
Posted by: Whitewall | Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 22:43
Whitewall my hair is now well cropped and I plod on regardless.
Posted by: jimmy glesga | Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 23:58