Peter Drucker, the founder of
modern management, credits Edmund Burke, among others, for permanently changing
his life with thinking about continuity and change in society and organizations. Yet, the
modern ear hardly hears of the name Edmund Burke except perhaps for his oft-attributed
statements, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good
men to do nothing,” and “Those who don't
know history are doomed to repeat it.”. Other than those two quotes one knows
almost nothing of the man, his times, or his political philosophy. The purpose
of this essay is to shine a light on Burke.
Burke was born
on January 1, 1730 in Dublin, Ireland to a Catholic mother and a Protestant father.
His family was descended from old English stock who came to Ireland following the
English invasion in 1171. Ireland during the entirety of Burke’s life was a
British dominion and Burke, while never denying his Irishness, would ultimately
call himself an Englishman. He also adhered to his father’s faith and became a
practicing Anglican unlike his sister who adhered to her mother’s faith.
Burke received a
classical education at Trinity College Dublin during which time he was a noted
debater. His father was an attorney and desired the same vocation for his son,
so he sent Edmund to London in 1750 to study law. But following a tour of continental
Europe Burke gave up his legal studies and devoted himself to writing. His
various published pamphlets, tracts, and books on political, social. literary,
and aesthetic issues attracted a following.
In 1765 Burke
was elected to Parliament. So, in addition to being a commentator on political
philosophy, he became a practicing politician. Henceforth, theory was to be
grounded in the reality of elective politics. Burke left Parliament in 1794 and
died on July 9, 1797. From his thoughts expressed in writing and in
parliamentary debates he can inform us about the nature of change, about
liberty and rights, about good governance, and about civility.
The life of a
Member of Parliament (MP) usually centered at the time on domestic policy
issues like crime and property rights and on imperial concerns like colonial
relations and international trade. But a balance of power issue arose in Europe
that forced MP Burke to take notice- the French Revolution beginning in 1789. After
the fall of the Bastille but before the Reign of Terror Burke wrote a letter to
a friend in Paris sharing his concerns about the French revolutionary fervor.
His letter got longer and longer and ultimately was published in November 1790 as
a book entitled Reflections on the Revolution in France. This was Burke’s
greatest and best-known contribution to political philosophy.
While many
European liberals and Burke’s American friend Thomas Paine saw the revolution as
progressive of democratic ideals Burke understood it as retrogression. Through Reflections
he attacked the Enlightenment head-on and, in the process, ended his
friendship with Paine.
A superficial
reading of Reflections would infer that Burke was supportive of the
French despotic monarchy because he did not like revolutions per se. But was
not the case. While Burke did not like revolutions his disdain for them was
because of their unintended consequences. While the French Revolution promised
more freedom to the populace the people would end up with less liberty than
before the revolution. This is because the revolutionary situation in France
rested on a shaky foundation of rationalist Enlightenment principles for which
the nation was not prepared. The initial revolutionary goal of a parliamentary
monarchy rather than the present absolute monarchy was not sustainable because
the French lacked a middle class (Napoleon would later sneer at Britain as a
“nation of shopkeepers”- i.e., a middle class.), lacked property rights, and
lacked legitimate authority.
Burke did not
defend authority no matter what but rather upheld authority when it rightly had
popular consent and was based on tradition. And tradition is the key to obtaining
rights as rights do not magically appear by the stoke of a pen through
executive orders of a revolutionary council but rather through the historic
traditions of the people, and rights differ from nation to nation because
traditions differ.
Burke also
rejected the social contract theory espoused by Enlightenment thinkers as they
felt human rights transcend time and societal constraints. In contrast, he
understood social contract as an artificial construct and human rights pour forth
over time from a legitimate government based on longevity and tradition. Burke
believed that the closest ideal humans had with a contract was the relationship
among the living, dead, and future generations in which we take the best of the
past of the past and pass it on to the future.
Thus, Burke
advocated for reform, not revolution. Small incremental gradual change was in
his view keeping with the human nature of change. But how did Burke’s negative
take on the French Revolution square with his relative positive view of the
American Revolution? The revolutionary situation in the American colonies was
based on principles already present in British society going back as far as the
Magna Carta of 1215. So, for example,
the American cry of “No taxation without representation!” was preserving an old
principle of governance and its violation by the British Crown and Parliament was
harming the common good. The American revolutionaries, therefore, possessed history,
tradition, and longevity which the later French revolutionaries did not. The
American Revolution cumulated in a constitutional republic while the French
Revolution ended with a military dictatorship. (Note- While Burke sympathized
with the Americans he did not support their armed revolt.)
At home,
Burke’s great cause was Catholic emancipation. While he sympathized with the
plight of slaves within the British Empire, he did not see fit to join with his
parliamentary colleague William Wilberforce to actively fight the slave trade
and then outright abolition. To be fair to Burke, Wilberforce’s efforts to
attack the slave trade were coming towards the end of Burke’s political career
and his approaching death. And Catholic emancipation was very personal for him
because of his Irish roots and the faith of his mother and sister.
Prejudice
against Catholics was not just in Ireland. Catholics throughout the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland faced onerous restrictions- could not hold
public office; could not buy land except for leases under 31 years; and
forbidden to vote, teach, intermarry with Protestants, and own firearms or
expensive horses. Irish Catholics also suffered from punitive trade laws. Burke
had limited success with Catholic emancipation, and it was not until 1829, more
than three decades after Burke’s death, that Parliament passed the Roman
Catholic Relief Act which eased many restrictions. This action was not entirely
an enlightened one; there was also fear by British leaders of Irish civil
strife, if not open revolt, if no action was taken,
Perhaps surprisingly,
in his own mind, Burke did not consider himself pro-Catholic for his stance. He
wanted the same rights and legal protections for Presbyterians and even Jews
and Muslims. He just hated injustice and the abuse of power directed at any
religious faith. But Burke held his line for atheists as he considered these
people in denying the existence of God had placed themselves out of society’s
protection.
Burke’s great
cause in imperial policy was the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings in which
Burke was the lead prosecutor. Hastings had risen through the ranks of the quasi-governmental
East India Company to become Governor-General of Bengal in 1773. When Burke
became in 1781 the chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on East
Indian Affairs, he began an inquiry into the operations of the East India
Company and concluded that Hastings was guilty of mismanagement and corruption while
serving in Calcutta. Burke filed articles of impeachment against Hastings and
the trial began in 1788 which lasted until 1795. While not a continuous trial
it is considered by many to be the most famous and longest political trial in
Great Britain.
The
foundational issue in the trial was competing visions of empire with Hastings’s
alleged misconduct only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. One side of the
general argument emphasized the conquest and suppression of native peoples for
the colonizer’s benefit while the other side, of which Burke was a part, stressed
that the sovereignty of the colonizer rested on the recognized rights of those
colonized. The trial was highly publicized and, in the end,, Hastings was
overwhelmingly acquitted. Yet the outcome did not stain Burke’s reputation.
The question
must be asked here why Burke empathized with the American colonists and the native
peoples of India when he had never traveled to North America or South Asia. We
know why he pressed for Catholic emancipation but why did give his time, skills,
and energy to colonial affairs in those regions? The British historian Thomas Babington
Macaulay provides an answer. Writing in 1841 Macaulay notes that Burke had a
great capacity for empathetic imagination in that “Oppression in Bengal was to
him the same thing as oppression in the streets of London.”
Now we come to
what I consider to be Burke’s most philosophical point- humans as social
beings- which is foundational to his arguments against the French Revolution
and for American liberties; for Catholic emancipation; and for the rights of
colonized native peoples and also directly attacks the Enlightenment ideal of
the solitary individual.
In Reflections
Burke makes an obscure reference to the “…little platoon…(which) is the
first principle…of public affections.” The context of this reference appears to be,
according to some commentators, social class. Other commentators have lifted the
“little platoon of affections” out of this original context to include local
communities of families, friends, churches, etc. and even volunteer
associations an individual may join (see Alexis de Tocqueville). That is my own
interpretation. Regardless, Burke is making the point that humans are not solitary
individuals but social beings.
To belong to
any social group (or platoon) is to ascribe to a set of expectations and
obligations for being a member. While a person may change their group(s) that
person will encounter a new set of expectations and obligations. What helps
make our group memberships as smooth as possible are our manners. According to
Burke, manners are more important than laws to guide our group behaviors. This
is because laws depend upon manners, manners are a constant in our lives
whereas laws touch us only occasionally, and manners define who we are as
humans.
Manners are
foundational to civility and civil discourse which in turn leads in the
development of trust, or social capital, in society. Trust is a key ingredient
in the building of strong reliable institutions which safeguard our freedoms (see
Peter Drucker) and which enable the present to transmit the best of the past to
future generations and to make the necessary reforms along the way.
So, inevitability,
we come to the question of what Burke means for us today. In this essay I have
highlighted his value for history and tradition, his view of change, his hatred
for corruption and abuse of power, and his emphasis on manners and civility. Bret
Stephens (“Why Edmund Burke Still Manners”) mentions all of the above although
in a different perspective. Modern biographer Jesse Norman (Edmund Burke: The
First Conservative) lists six key lessons from Burke for today:
1. The purpose of
politics is to preserve an evolving social order not to satisfy the interests
of individuals living now
2.
Burkean perspectives may have corrected may have corrected
recent policy failures- Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.- because policy makers
ignored local circumstances and the “temper of the people”
3.
Burkean leaders are rooted in a sense of history rather than a
sense of science sacrificing the future by current popular actions
4.
As Burke hated excessive power and its abuse, the important
ideal of market capitalism must be contained
5.
Burke reminds us that representative government and the rule of
law are bulwarks against the abuse of power
6. Burke provides a
context within which we can understand social value through public service, history,
memory, human connection and identity as well as manners, sentiment and
prudence (my addition)
A final thought
on Burke’s meaning for today would be Burke would be aghast at the current
dysfunctional state of civil discourse in the United States from all parties and
at those seeking to erase history from the American collective memory.
In closing, it
must be noted that Burke, like all extraordinary persons, had his weaknesses. He
was often contradictory, short-sighted, and a snob. History is messy, complex,
and nuisance, and so are historical figures. Yet we can appreciate Burke for
his enduring contribution to our contemporary political, social, and moral systems.
No comments:
Post a Comment