So Edmund Burke, then

Burke is a protypical conservative because he preferred the inarticulate knowledge of the masses and of tradition over the articulated reasoning of elite intellectuals and he because he had a very pessimistic attitude towards man's nature and the ability to change it.

What a punk.

he had a very pessimistic attitude towards man's nature and the ability to change it

I find this interesting in lieu of a typical (?) American optimism.

Eventually, everyone ends up as a 'plaster saint' since the future tends to discount the efforts we make today and condemn us for not being concerned with what grabs their attention.

Interesting note re: his family background. Hmm, something to turn over...

Posterity can go screw itself. Nothing will compel me to evince any interest in NASCAR.

In Burke's view, a human society could not be created on the basis of abstract principles, however rational and just. Every society was a living, organic whole, a bond of past, present, and future generations, fuctioning by habit and tradition, a single fabric, in which each class had its assigned place and whose very strength lies in its complexity. It might be improved and renewwed, but never at the sacrifice of its continuity, for once it is broken, all restraint on human passions is removed and man turns into a beast....Society is a manifestation of the divine order; consequently all reforms other than the correction of abuses must be viewed with suspicion

I agree with M White upthread: accepting for 18th century definitions of 'liberal' and 'conservative,' 21st century Bush-style conservatism would seem at best a mutation and at worst a perversion to Burke. He would post on NRO deploring liberal godlessness yet wring his hands, George Will style, over modern conservativsm sacrifice of principle for the sake of expediency.

Systems are for totalitarians or their fellow travelers in the view of such conservatives.

That's it, really. A strand of American conservatism (Goldwater, I'm thinking, and his idealogical heir George Will) certainly promulgated this. It's Toryism with a rather starched sense of humor.

At the heart of it all is the right-wing's residual Judeo-Christian belief in the Garden of Eden and mankind's fall from grace and sinful nature. This ideology has mankind eternally damned and in need of a Divine savior who can break the curse. Burke felt that human nature and morality were set in stone and that there was nothing left to learn as far as new discoveries in human nature go. From this point he works within the inherent constraints humanity has. Barbarism is always a step away and unless someone is civilized he will revert back to it. The Enlightenment and its followers rejected the old-fashioned notion of God and human nature (if they believed in the existince of either one) and thought that salvation comes in the form of Man or some part of him (his mind and the cult of Human Reason being an example of one). Concepts of human evolution would continue to cement the idea of human nature as being malleable or at least something in the middle of evolving and eroded many of the assumptions behind Judeo-Christian views like Burke's.

Burke's traditional way of looking at mankind (with a sinful nature and all) makes him the prototypical conservative who doesn't exalt rationalization (keeping him far away from "right-winger" Ayn Rand) and is quick to look at things like tradition, the Bible and other non-abstract things as a guiding light.

Systems are for totalitarians or their fellow travelers in the view of such conservatives.

Ironically, the French Revolution actually did set up the first modern day totalitarian system in the Committee of Public Safety (Eerily modern name, isn't it?). Not only were men executed at their will but men also had to publically announce their friends and saw their marriages annulled if it did not have children soon enough. The names of people, streets and even playing cards were changed to fit the prevailing ideology of the day.

Good point, but it's such a shame that every move left seems to be associated with totalitarianism. What do you think about the recent South American democratic socialist bla bla developments?

In essence, Burke was innately skeptical of any ideology which drove the mob to walk the streets carrying pikes with heads impaled on them.

OTM

He would be horrified by e.g. the Iraq war, I'm fairly sure.

but even then however effective he was as an orator, how is arguing against foreign entagnlements meaningfully comparable with what fanon was about? bear in mind that the idea of 'nationhood' was a) in its infancy and b) totally irrelevant to india.

it's a question of degree. Marx was heavily involved in the International Working Men's Association.

As political philosophers Marx is incomparably more important and more interesting than Burke.

burke is good again:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D56bh3cW0AAfgZU.jpg

So what you're saying is that Burke is an unheralded pioneer of conservative humor.

burke as proto-gyles brandreth

radio 4 aesthetic is older than i thought

Burke was very good at extracting the very essence of the political thought of his class and age and putting it into the rhetoric of moderate reason.

A country squire might say the poor are a bunch of ignorant rapscallions and when they try to push themselves forward to get more than their natural lot in life they should be kept in their place with a good horsewhipping whenever they get above themselves. But Burke would say something more along the lines of 'while the poor may have the honest virtues of their class, when lifted out of their element and cut off from the restraints of proper society, they easily become warped by passions they do not rightly know how to fulfill or to appease, and may swiftly become a mob without the guidance of either reason or morality, wrecking in haste what they know not how to fix at their leisure.'

It's the same paternalistic aristocratic claptrap, but phrased with elegance, reserve, and an Olympian perspective.

Description not criticism, right?

hes ham-burke