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...]