Readers of this blog may be interested in a piece I wrote about Burkeanism and the future of conservatism for The American Conservative. It’s in the March/April issue of the magazine, which has just been released. You can view the cover and contents of the issue here. Except for subscribers, my article is now only available in the print version of the magazine (not on its website), so you’ll have to find it on the newsstands. For those unfamiliar with it, The American Conservative follows the genuinely Burkean way – and is therefore critical of modern conservative orthodoxy. Among other things, its writers are suspicious of big business, the increasing concentration of wealth and power in American society, and military adventurism abroad, and are communitarians. In 2006, the magazine urged readers to vote for Democratic candidates in the midterm Congressional elections to protest and push back against the disastrous polices of George W. Bush’s administration – particularly the invasion of Iraq – and some of its key people revealed that they voted for Barack Obama in 2008. In a recent column about "vibrant and increasingly influential" conservative voices advocating fresh ideas, David Brooks mentioned The American Conservative first, and said: “The American Conservative has become one of the more dynamic spots on the political Web.” Though Brooks calls the magazine paleoconservative, I prefer the terms traditional conservative or Burkean. But however you label it, The American Conservative – both magazine and website – is well worth checking out, even for liberals.
EDMUND BURKE
Edmund Burke -- the great eighteenth century British statesman -- was both a liberal and a conservative. For a relatively concise but complete profile of Burke, and an explanation of why by today's standards Burke may be considered either a liberal or a traditional conservative -- but emphatically not a libertarian, neoconservative, or social conservative -- read Professor Bogus' article Rescuing Burke, 72 Missouri Law Review 387 (2007).
Here are some quotes from Edmund Burke:
"We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation."
"Society become a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are dead, and those who are to be born."
"The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species it always acts right."
"Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he a right to all which society, with all its combinations and skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things."
EDMUND is a blog by Professor Carl T. Bogus.