[This is Chapter Four of Murphey’s book Modern Social and Political Philosophies: Burkean Conservatism and Classical Liberalism.]
Chapter 4
BURKEAN THOUGHT: ITS WORLDVIEW
Up to this point, I have wanted to give an impression of each thinker as an individual. But in this and the next chapter I will consider the philosophy itself in light of its separate points, starting with its overall worldview.
1. A deeply religious worldview is basic to all Burkean thought. It is this that establishes the central perspective from which all other things are judged. Burke was making this point when he said that "we know, and what is better we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort.”1 Richard Weaver explained that he had "tried to express his views in purely secular form, but that the issues necessarily revolved back to religion: "The issue ultimately involved is whether there is a source of truth higher than, and independent of, man.”2 The centrality of religion was emphasized by Coleridge, who said that without its influence "all the pursuits and desires of man must either exceed or fall short of their just measure.”3 And Voegelin's writing is steadfastly theological. His critique of modern life is that it involves the gnostic heresy that carries us away from a perception of God and the Church, which are, after all, the true Reality.
2. The religious center leads to a
profound belief in an underlying moral order. Man must make his actions conform
to that moral order; if he does not, he is estranged from reality. Burke spoke
of "the great primeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with
the higher natures, connecting the visible with the invisible world." The same point was reiterated later by Carlyle's
vigorous prose: "The question is asked of them, not, How
do you agree with
3. Because of their deep conviction that they have perceived the Truth, a Truth about which there is no ultimate relativity, the Burkeans often argue that their worldview is not an ideology but that all other social philosophies are "ideologies" and therefore erroneous. From the point of view of an outsider, their system is a mental construct just as any other; but from their own point of view it is not. They speak of their position as set off against "abstract speculative ideology." They agree with Stanley Parry when he says that the "conservative appeal to reason is quite moderate, non-ideological, rooted in metaphysical realism."6
4. Parry mentions a moderate use of reason, but Burkeans generally express an opposition to rationalism (in the sense that “rationalism” means a willingness to question ideas and institutions to change what seems inappropriate). The most characteristic tone is found in Russell Kirk's comment in which he criticized "an overweening confidence in Reason with a capital R, to the exclusion of faith, custom, consensus, humility, and sacred mystery." Voegelin even argues that men cannot know the most fundamental reality: "The mystery of this stream of being is impenetrable.”7 Carlyle downgraded the "adroit Man of Theory" and spoke bitingly of "the Dryasdust Philosophisms and enlightened Scepticisms of the Eighteenth Century." Burke said that "we are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small . . . Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit." Parry speaks of a "compact experience," which he contrasts with “the concepts of moral reason.” He says the compact experience “is communicable precisely because it is not rooted in persuasive rational argument. Its sanction is not derived from the reasonableness of its explanation but from its origin in a revealing divinity.” He assigns reason a “negative” role: “It must purge itself of the arrogance that is an integral part of the crisis of tradition. In common with a great many Burkeans, Parry attacks the hubris in evolved in modern reason, and refers the reader to “the extensive analysis of gnostic hubris already available in the works of De Lubac, Danielou, Strauss, Voegelin, and others."
5. It is not surprising, then, when Richard Weaver points to science as "the most powerful force of corruption in our age."8 In his opinion, "the attitude of science has become impious to the fullest degree." In a comment similar to that of some contemporary members of the New Left on the ecology issue, he adds that science "has encouraged a warfare between man and nature, a fanatical warfare, in which without clearly defined war aims, we seek the total overthrow of an opponent." (The similarity of this to the writings of such a New Left author as Theodore Roszak is not coincidental. Both Burkean conservatism and the New Left have strong ties to early nineteenth century Romanticism, which embraced mysticism and revolted against reason, science and technology .)
6. The distrust of science carries with it a distrust of technology. Weaver argues that "the painful truth is now beginning to emerge that a flourishing technology may make civilization more rather than less difficult of attainment. It leads to mobilization of external forces; it creates enormous concentration of irresponsible power; through an inexorable standardization it destroys refinement and individuality." In a later passage, he sees these effects as arising also from specialization.
7. Each philosophy's "view of
man" -- of basic "human nature" or psychology -- is central to
its analysis of social and political issues. The Burkean
view of man is rooted in the Augustinian religious perception. Russell Kirk
spoke of "the Christian knowledge that men never will be as gods: that we
all are imperfectible creatures." He quotes the
Chinese philosopher Hsun Tsu
as having said that "man's nature is evil." And Kirk adds that
"some people who ought.to know
better think that the doctrine of human depravity is purely Christian in
origin. But really that doctrine is part of the religion which has existed
since the beginning of the world, even if
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives Coleridge’s thinking on this subject. Man is a "fallen creature, diseased in his will." The entry says that "the 'Germano-Coleridgeans' take man's tragic alienation from God to be the fundamental datum not only of religion but also of philosophy."9
Alfred Cobban wrote of Burke that "if conservatism be, as it has been called, distrust in human nature, then is Burke the arch-conservative. In his thought, ever religious at bottom, man is a creature bearing the taint of Original Sin.”10
Voegelin argues that an existential nothingness exists within man. "A man cannot fall back on himself in an absolute sense, because if he tried, he would find very soon that he has fallen into the abyss of his despair and nothingness."
Frank S. Meyer speaks of "the reality of original sin" and John Chamberlain refers even more emphatically to "the innate viciousness, or the original sin, of average mankind." M. Stanton Evans writes of "the Christian conception of the individual as flawed in mind and will.”
It follows that Burkean conservatism will want controls over man's will and appetite, since both are looked upon as aberrant in tendency. Kirk expresses this most forcefully: "The appetites for destruction and violence and ruthless power are no less congenital than the appetite for sexual gratification; so society must obscure and repress and divert the extreme form of such appetites, that men may live at peace with one another." Burke saw that "society requires not only that the passions of individuals should be subjected, but that even in the mass and body as well as in the individuals, the inclinations of men should frequently be thwarted, their will controlled, and their passions brought into subjection." Weaver speaks of the need for conventions that will "shape and elevate passion." He adds that the materialism of modern life leads to a goal of "happiness through comfort," but he sets off against this the reality that "life means discipline and sacrifice."
9. As an implication from all of
this religiously centered thinking, the Burkeans
consider the modern period decadent. This is especially apparent in Weaver's
writing. He stressed that the world has been losing touch with reality since
the nominalists defeated the realists in the
Scholastic debates of the fourteenth century. "To establish the fact of
decadence is the most pressing duty of our time because, until we have
demonstrated that cultural decline is a historical fact -- which can be
established -- and that modern man has about squandered his estate, we cannot
combat those who have fallen prey to hysterical optimism." Parry agrees with Weaver when he says that
"for centuries Western man has developed a
secular or natural civilization more and more at variance with the compact
experience on which Christianity is based.”
Stephen Tonsor adds that "the attack upon
As is so often true, Carlyle said it with the greatest energy: "When fodercorns, avragiums, and all human dues and reciprocities have been fully changed into one great due of cash payment; and man's duty to man reduces itself to handing him certain metal coins, or covenanted money-wages, then shoving him out of doors; and man's duty to God becomes a cant, a doubt, a dim insanity, a 'pleasure of virtue' or suchlike; and the thing a man does infinitely fear (the real Hell of a man) is, 'that he do not make money and advance himself.' -- I say, it is incalculable what a change has introduced itself everywhere into human affairs."
Coleridge, too, spoke dolefully of the modern age. "I include the general neglect of all the austerer studies; the long and ominous eclipse of Philosophy; the usurpation of that venerable name by physical and psychological Empiricism; and the non-existence of a learned and philosophic Public . . . Every work, which can be made use of either to immediate profit or immediate pleasure, every work which falls in with the desire of acquiring wealth suddenly, or which can gratify the senses, or pamper the still more degrading appetite for scandal and personal defamation, is sure of an appropriate circulation. But neither Philosophy or Theology in the strictest sense of the words, can be said to have even a public existence among us."
Burke was not alone, then, when he
cried that "the age of chivalry is gone. --That of sophisters,
oeconomists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the
glory of
10. Another aspect of these things has been the favorable reevaluation of the Middle Ages by Romanticism, the Left and Burkean philosophy. In the chapter on the Middle Ages in Understanding the Modern Predicament, I mentioned that the Renaissance historians looked upon the medieval period as having been a time of gross superstition and backwardness. The tendency since the early nineteenth century has been to raise this assessment. This has largely come about because of the more favorably-disposed worldviews of all anti-bourgeois philosophies.
Weaver, for example, refers to "the Middle Ages, when there obtained a comparatively clear perception of reality." He speaks favorably of "the chivalry and spirituality of the Middle Ages." In Past and Present, Carlyle devotes a series of chapters to an idyllic description of medieval life, which he compares very favorably to the modern period. Writing as though he were speaking from an earlier time, he says that "our Religion is not yet a horrible restless Doubt, still less a far horribler composed Cant; but a great heaven-high Unquestionability, encompassing, interpenetrating the whole of life. Imperfect as we may be, we are here, with our litanies, shaven crowns, vows of poverty, to testify incessantly and indisputably to every heart, That this Earthly Life and its riches and possessions, and good and evil hap, are not intrinsically a reality at all, but are a shadow of realities eternal, infinite."
On the continent of
NOTES
1. Ray B. Browne, The Burke-Paine Controversy (New.York:
Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963), pp. 32, 36, 31, 22, 18.
2. Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences (Chicago: Phoenix Books,
1948), pp. 3, 22, 10, 53, 187.
3. R. J. White (ed.), The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Lay
Sermons (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 175, 170, 171.
4. Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1962) , pp. 25, 153, 231, 65, 64-65.
5. Russell Kirk, Enemies of the Permanent Things (New Rochelle:
Arlington House, 1969), pp. 17, 157, 55, 147, 146, 301.
6. Frank S. Meyer (ed.), What is
Conservatism? (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1964), pp. l08, 118, 109, 124, 16, 181, 68, 126, 135-136.
7. Eric Voegelin, The
New Science of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), pp.
167, 123.
8. Richard M. Weaver, The Southern Tradition at Bay (New Rochelle: Arlington House, 1968), pp. 30, 32, 31.
9. Paul Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Macmillan Company and the Free Press, 1967), entry on Coleridge.
10. Alfred Cobban, Edmund Burke and the Revolt Against the Eighteenth Century (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1960), pp. 83-4.
11. Reinhold Aris, History
of Political Thought in