A World History of Political Thought by J. Babb

Author:J. Babb
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781786435538
Published: 2018-05-18T00:00:00+00:00

REACTION TO REVOLUTION: CONSERVATISM AND ROMANTICISM

Revolution led almost inevitably to reaction and the rise of conservative thinkers. At the same time, it would be a mistake to think of these thinkers as merely conservative reactionaries clinging to tradition. For example, Edmund Burke (1729–1797), often considered a key founder of conservatism, was generally sympathetic to the demands of the American colonists prior to the America War of Independence and relatively enlightened in his views on Ireland. His focus was always on maintaining ancient English liberties, which he defined as freedom from the arbitrary demands of tyranny, rooted in the English constitutional and legal precedent. Such liberty was bound up with the traditional practices that worked well for the English people, and though they may need to be reviewed and reformed, this must be done slowly and carefully. Only gradual and moderate reform has any chance of success. For this reason, Burke was appalled at the unfolding developments in the early years of the French Revolution and argued vehemently against those in Britain who sought a similar revolution. With the progress of the Revolution in France to the period of the terror and the guillotine, his worst fears seemed to be borne out. The French sought to gain their liberty but Burke believed that liberty can only be rooted in tradition because without tradition, liberty will result in disorder and the use of force.

Other European conservatives went even further. Joseph-Marie de Maistre (1753–1821), claimed that monarchy is divinely sanctioned so can be the only legitimate form of government and to reject Christianity is to invite anarchy and bloodshed, such as in the French Revolution.9 His innovation was to tie monarchy and Catholicism to nationalism. In his Considérations sur la France (Considerations on France) of 1797, he insists that France has a divine mission from the time of Charlemagne as the principal instrument of good fighting evil on Earth. The failures of the revolution underscored the failure of France to fulfill this mission. In 1809, he published his “Essai sur le Principe Générateur des Constitutions Politiques et des Autres Institutions Humaines” (Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions and other Human Institutions) in which he argued that constitutions are not the product of human reason but come from God through the actions of his agents on earth. Rational logic cannot produce arrangements that result in effective government. As in Burke, there is an organic unity to traditional systems of rule and these are based on a necessary element of irrational belief in sacred authority that enables government to be stable and endure. The basis of such a system must not be widely questioned or it will collapse.

Revolution and reform also gave way to religious-based conservative reaction in Spain and Latin America. However one must not assume that it was because these societies were less able to foster change. Indeed, it was because the movement for reform was strong in places that the counterreaction was so strong. For example, Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–1853)

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.