It is difficult enough for those (and I am surely one) without training in classical thought to read the words of those so schooled in the 18^th century. The words, which were so thoroughly vivid to even the man of modest letters in those times, seem to the modern reader stilted in their tones and distant in the meaning. Fortunately for those of us who have become accustomed to the dry, unadorned language of modern "writers@ (and I apply that label loosely) there are - or, regrettably, were in this particular instance - those who can still decipher the words of the ancients for our simpler minds.

It is left to Russell Kirk, that most prolific of contemporary philosophers, to guide today’s reader through the world of Edmund Burke. Dr. Kirk (1918-1994) wrote one of the definitive biographies of Burke and began his monumental "The Conservative Mind" with the Irish statesman (it is subtitled "From Burke to Eliot"). No one in our (or perhaps any) generation better knew the mind and the philosophy of Edmund Burke than Dr. Kirk. I will rely on him to give us a pinhole - the best we can hope for - into the thinking of this great statesman.

To begin, we should start with a definition of important terms that appear recurrently in the prose of Burke and, as we must, we will allow Dr. Kirk to light our path. As one example, in this passage from AReflections on the Revolution in France" (1790), Burke defends the English government and way of life against the Jacobinism of France thus:

"We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his private stock of reason; because we suspect that the stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity [understanding] to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them. If they find what they seek, (and they seldom fail,) they think it more wise to continue the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast away the coat of prejudice, and to leave nothing but the naked reason; because prejudice, with its reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and an affection which will give it permanence."

The key word that we seek to define is "prejudice." In modern usage, the word has taken on an entirely negative meaning whereas, in Burkes passage, it is meant to refer to something entirely different. Today, prejudice has become almost synonymous with discrimination or bigotry. It is taken, literally, to be defined by its roots: to judge before the matter is fully know - to pre-judge. John Farley has written about the modern application of the term and has defined three types of prejudice: cognitive, affective and co-native prejudice. Burke’s usage of the word is critical to our understanding of this passage, in particular, and his entire philosophy, in general.

In Farley’s categorization, Burke is using the word prejudice in its "cognitive" sense, that is, in the sense of what we believe to be true. But, with Burke, it is a positive attribute not, as in the modern sense, in which it has become wholly negative. Burke believes that man is endowed - perhaps genetically, perhaps culturally, perhaps (even) Divinely – with an inborn sense of what is right and proper. He contrasts this with the leaders of the "Age of Reason" and the French Revolution who believe that man is best served by his own intellect than any sense of propriety or custom. It is this philosophy – preeminently represented by Rousseau and the recently transplanted Thomas Paine (late of the American Revolution) – which Burke has set his words against.

In France, at the close of the 18^th century, all customary and traditional institutions were beset with the terror of the revolutionaries. Murder, assassination and the tearing down – brick by brick – of the traditions of a great European country were underway. The very real threat that the chaos of the continent would spread to Burke’s beloved England and commence to gnaw at the very walls of Parliament and Westminster Abbey were foremost in his mind as he wrote. Thus, in his "Reflections," he sought to argue that reform guided solely by the reason of man is seldom optimal, often unwise and frequently disasterous.

The "prejudices" Burke refers to are the belief system that has been nurtured, generation-by-generation over millennia, in mankind. It is the common thread of memory that binds "those dead, those living and those yet born" to order and society. This cultural memory is what Burke describes as the "unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise." It is this common belief system that has allowed man to gradually yet inexorably elevate his existence above the world described by Hobbes where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Without this system of shared "prejudices," man will revert back to chaos or, equally undesirable, to despotism.

With the philosphes, the French philosopher-revolutionaries who sought human perfection through reason and the demolition of Christianity in the name of progress, the world was being turned upside down. All things precious and archaic based upon generations of human culture would revert – in Burke’s mind – to nakedness and savagery. He wrote: "all the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off."

In the excerpt above, Burke attempted to contrast the calmer, stoic British culture with that of Continental Europe. Burke, unlike the French Romanticists, believed that "somewhere there must be a control upon [man’s] will and appetite; and the less of it there is within, the more of it there must be without." If these internal checks are negated by individual reason and the external are removed by revolution, man is completely unrestrained. To Burke, unrestrained man is a recipe for anarchy. As phrased by Dr. Kirk:

"The mass of mankind, Burke implies, reason hardly at all, in the higher sense, nor ever can: deprived of folk-wisdom and folk-law, which are prejudice and prescription, they can do no more than cheer the demagogue, enrich the charlatan, and submit to the despot." ("The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot," p. 42).

As I noted in the first installment of this discussion, Burke’s war against the "Age of Reason" clearly speaks to our times. Our modern society is, upon reflection, much like the close of the 18^th century. Those who would rely on "reason" to refine and level society beset our cultural traditions on all sides. Marriage, that most venerable of all institutions, is to be redefined by proponents of the new Enlightenment. No longer should marriage by the holy union of a man and a woman; it should also include same-sex couples. It is reasoned that since "love" can exist between homosexual couples then, ipso facto, marriage – in both the legal and the moral sense – should be allowed for any who are so committed to each other.

I believe Burke would disagree. If we reason that the bedrock of marriage rests simply on the emotional commitment we call "love," we are striping away the layers of tradition and sanctity of centuries of shared prejudice. Just as the 18^th century philosphes reasoned that "a king is but a man, a queen is but a woman, a woman is but an animal – and an animal not of the highest order," their modern-day equivalents argue that marriage is but an allegiance between two people who love each other. But, is not marriage more that this? Is not holy wedlock an ancient bedrock upon which family and society is built? Has not the union of man and woman, over millennia of common prejudice, come to mean more than simply who qualifies for insurance, is allowed certain tax deductions and receives survivor benefits? Would not allowing this part of "the decent drapery of life to be rudely torn off" lead to the severing of a vital thread of our culture? I join Burke in his dissent.

There are other examples of this assault of the Modern Enlightenment on the fabric of our revered culture. Some, like the attack on marriage, are clear threats to tradition and the old ways that have buttressed mankind against its own degeneration since the dawn of society. Other are more subtle. In future installments of this series, I will attempt to link the sage wisdom of Burke to our times. He has much to say to us, if we would only listen. And, listen, we shall – for all our benefit.

[To be continued...]

I plan, some day soon, to take a trip to Ireland. I have been to England and, to this day, I kick at my backsides for not taking a ferry over to the Emerald Isle. For, on that tiny bit of terra firma in the North Atlantic, have come some of the greatest minds of Western thought: James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and Samuel Beckett to name but a few. And one can never fully appreciate the impact that the Irish Diaspora of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries had on American culture. We are truly, at our very roots, an Anglo-Saxon-Irish culture.

But what truly draws me to Ireland is not the scenery or the poets or the part of the island that is a part of all Americans. For me, the magnetic force is the chance to walk near the birthplace and inspirations of the greatest thinker of conservative philosophy that ever lived: Edmund Burke. And it is altogether fitting and proper that I write about him now as just this past month (July, 2007) saw the passing of the 210^th anniversary of this great man of letters= passing. Though tardily, I am beginning a series of commentaries to mark this august anniversary with this piece. I write this and the future parts in anticipation of visiting his birthplace and rereading his noble and timeless words.

Edmund Burke was born in Dublin at Number 12 Arran Quay, on the southside of the River Liffey and just a few minutes walk from Trinity College. He was born to what was a "mixed marriage" in the 18^th century – a protestant father (who left the Catholic Church for the Church of Ireland, an Anglican order) and a Catholic mother. His childhood, despite this slight disadvantage was not a difficult one and he received a proper education for an Irish lad at the time. He graduated from Trinity College in 1748 and took up permanent residence in London in 1750, with the intention to practice law. It is no small blessing to western civilization that those intentions fell the way of even the best laid plans of learned men.

He eventually aligned himself with the political faction known as the "Rockingham Whigs" ("Whig" being a term generally denoting those who favored power in the Parliament as opposed to the Crown) at the time, though Burke was not one to be strictly a "party" man. He had his own thoughts about government as a creation of mankind to achieve the possible. He would rock the political boat of the Whigs (and the Tories, that political faction that favored a powerful moarchy) for as long as he served as a member of Parliament, again to the overall benefit of, first, British and, later, American and European government. He was, regardless of party or faction, his own man - unshakeable, uncompromising and always in service to his countrymen instead of himself.

In his long career as MP, he waged many battles. Some were resounding defeats (his defense of the rights of the American colonies, the Regency Crisis against King George III’s sanity, the Hastings indictment) despite the skill and justification, historically, of engaging in them. But it was the fighting that was memorable, not the results. His words always rang true - almost prescient - and, though often derided at the time, they have come to be truer today that they were in 18^th century England.

To begin, let us examine his comments on "Rights of Man," we will turn to Burke’s wonderful Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). This single document has been studied now for over two centuries and remains the most profound statement of conservative thought to this day. The purpose of the pamphlet was to inform the citizens of Great Britain of the true nature of the French Revolution and the dangers it held for all of Europe. It was, for all intents and purposes, a "pep talk" to shore up support for the existing English system of government against a rising tide of radicals bent on transferring the "Age of Reason" fully to the British Isles.

To attempt a comprehensive analysis of the complete Reflections is beyond this writer’s ability; too much wisdom lies within its domain. But, if we take small bites, the meal becomes more digestible. With that approach in mind, I will start with a mere crumb: the passage that includes the famous and oft-quoted "All men have equal rights; but not to equal things." Here is the complete paragraph and some thoughts on its implications:

"If civil society be made for the advantage of man, all the advantages for which it is made become his right...Men have a right to live by the rule of law; they have a right to justice, as between their fellows, whether their fellows are in politic function or ordinary occupation. They have a right to the fruits of their industry, and to the means of making their industry fruitful. They have the a right to the acquisition of their parents, to the nourishment and improvement of their offspring, to instruction in life and to consolation in death. Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has the right to do for himself; and he has the right to a fair portion of all which society, with its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things. He that has but five shillings in the partnership has as good a right to it as he that has five hundred pounds has to his larger proportion; but he has not a right to an equal dividend in the product of the joint stock...Government is not made in virtue of natural rights...by having a right to everything, they want everything. Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom." [Emphasis mine]

In reading Burke, the fairly and justly anointed "Father of Conservatism," one begins to sense a strange affiliation of the distant past with the present as if his antiquarian wisdom was actually written for our troubled and complex times. Society, in the eyes of Burke, is an ancient and almost subconscious creation of mankind. He would assert that the idea of civil contract among humans is a gift from God. It is a system of mores and beliefs ("prejudices" as he would refer to them) that, passed on from generation to generation, allows man to prosper and live together as peacefully as his nature allows. It is passed on, through imitation, yes, but also as a part of our very existence from generations long dead to generations yet unborn.

We owe, in the mind of Burke, reverence and gratitude for this gift of civility and sociability to our forefathers. To claim to devise new systems to improve the nature of man - to "perfect man" as the philosophes of revolutionary France proclaimed in 1790 - is a heresy that flies in the face of hard-won ancient wisdom. Just as he was wary of the French innovators of Rousseau and Paine’s ilk, I think Burke would be appalled at the "social engineering" that has been implemented in modern times - both in his homeland and in America - in a similar futile pursuit of adjusting man’s basic nature to that of a better existence. He would think of contemporary experimentations with societal order just as he thought in 1790: it was hubris and folly.

One of the components of man’s basic nature - his fundamental essence, if you will - is striving to achieve, to accomplish and to possess. Man is, by his very essence, driven to use his mind and his brawn to accomplish great things. If, on the other hand, society - or its regulatory institution, government - sets itself to remove the necessity for man’s reaching out "to touch the hand of God" by easing his burden and removing natural barriers, it does man no favors. By removing the burdens of its citizens through subsidy of his quest for food, shelter and safety, government stifles a basic part of his humanity.

There should always be challenges to man and, with every easement provided by government, the need to push oneself and make demands of oneself is reduced, measure by measure. When one need only lie about, unemployed, in a house and depend on one’s basic needs with an check, unearned by one’s own labors, all from the government, we are delivered from want and duties. In this state, absent the necessity of exertions, man’s existence is reduced to a form of life-in-death. When one is no longer rewarded for reaching across to the unknown - but possibly wonderful - to achieve, the life of man has lost its meaning.

Government, through reducing and leveling its citizenry thus, gains in power with such paternalism. The state become the benevolent provider of the needs of its citizens and, as such, becomes artificially revered and can demand allegiance. Its goals are not of the parent who seeks to bring forth useful adults from the undisciplined clay of childhood; such a government endeavors to keep the citizens perpetually child-like, distracted, without goals and dependent. When the society of men is sufficiently dependent, ultimate power is in the hands of the Leviathan and no longer in those of the people.

And what, ultimately, becomes of the people? They become inner-directed and self-centered. Increasingly isolated, they know not their neighbors nor their friends. Their leisure is filled with pursuit of pleasure and gratification of superficial joys. They look not to the glories of heavens but to their own bestial, unsatisfying delights. They weaken in their resolve to reach their full potential and achieve the greatness of which man is capable. Thus, they become malleable and merely fodder for the machinations of the governmental mills. They are easily lead and molded into unthinking and unfeeling "flies in summer."

In another passing salvo at those who would experiment with the various pieces of a functioning society - the "levelers" of people and their traditions - Burke notes the following:

"...but if commerce and the arts should be lost in the experiment to try , how well a state may stand without these old fundamental principles, what sort of thing must a nation of gross, stupid, ferocious, and at the same time poor and sordid barbarians, destitute of religion, honor, or manly pride, possessing nothing at present, and hoping for nothing hereafter?"

Does this sound any alarms when you survey the current American landscape? It does for me.

[To be continued...]