Edmund Burke was an advocate of reason, order, and peace. Although Burke supported the American Revolution, he was against the revolution in France. He felt that traditional ways of doing things should be preserved and anything to the contrary was going against nature. Just as families pass down their possessions to their children, the crown and its privileges should also be passed down.
Those fighting for freedom were creating chaos where order once stood. He emphasized that the long-established methods were natural and best when he said “we procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which nature teaches us to revere individual men; on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended. All your sophisters cannot produce anything better adapted to preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course that we have pursued….” (pg. 50).
Burke stated that men have a right to the possessions of their parents and to benefit from what has been passed down to them. He did not believe in equal distribution of wealth, power, and authority because those things belonged solely to the men who had inherited them. Burke saw the arrest of the king and queen as shocking and disgraceful. He was appalled by what was happening calling it ridiculous and absurd, and sarcastically referred to “this new conquering empire of light and reason” (pg. 53).
Burke likened the revolution to a Machiavellian policy and contrasted it to ancient Rome by saying “no theatric audience in Athens would bear what has been borne” (pg 55). He felt the revolution was destroying society and stated that laws were made by those who were infinitely superior. The people had an obligation to abide by the laws, not to dissolve them through “unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos” (pg 56). The laws were not open to discussion, and by voicing discord, the people were disobeying nature.
I think we would all agree that Burke’s desire for order and peace is preferable to living in chaos and confusion. However, when order and peace come at the cost of liberty and equality, it is only “natural” that the oppressed people would revolt against it.
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4 comments:
Brenda,
Good discussion of Burke's reaction to the events in France. I like your effective use of specific quotations from his writings, and your efforts to enter into his point of view as well as that of the revolutionaries.
Keep up the good work!
I thought that reading these sections was very difficult. I like the way you talked gave us a reason why it was okay for Burke to oppose the French Revolution and be for the American one. I never really thought of the fact that it is natural to fight for liberty but I still think that the French were fighting for their liberty too. The king kept taxing the poor more and more and it really was not fair.
Not sure if I would like Burke. His thoughts about men deserved everything and no equality to woment or the poor.
You have to understand that Burke is writing at a time when women were not even considered as ever having the vote. Even Thomas Paine, who argued against Burke on subjects such as equality, never mentioned women as possibly having the vote. They both were not that ahead of their time to forsee such an occurence in the following hundred years as women's suffrage.
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