#edmond burke

[sarahelizabethstudies]

hmmm... but do you know the dark academia if you haven’t read Burke’s the Sublime and Beautiful?

i mean, yeah probably, but this is such a great addition

[thomaspaine1737]

Burke Call Out Post (& my opinion)

I get that everyone likes to goad each other right now but @burkedmond has gone too far. Literally not a single French person cared about the English parliament, yet Burke attacked France unprovoked anyway. The fact that he did so publicly and online is the first reason why I can’t forgive him for his lack of manners and misunderstanding of policy.

The first receipt is how Burke describes the French. He wrote with literally nothing but rancor, prejudice, and ignorance. He may have well gone on for 1000 pages for the way he wrote in incomprehensible passion. Thankfully ranters can only write with that level of emotion for so long. But Burke is wrong in his opinions about France, but I guess that shows the creativeness of his hope (or the nastiness of his despair) that he will just make things up as he goes on.

There was a time when it was impossible to make Burke believe there would be any revolution in France. His opinion was that the French didn’t have the “spirit” to start or the strength to continue. Now that they’ve proven they can do both, he is trying to backtrack by condemning the revolution itself.

And because he interjected, so will I.

Every age and generation are free to act as they wish—in all cases, exactly like the generations before them. The vanity and audacity of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and disrespectful tyranny. No one should own each other—no generation owns the next. Every generation must make the decisions which affect them in that moment. It is the living, not the dead, that should be thought of. When you die, that’s it! You don’t get to direct the world, who should/shouldn’t be governor, how the laws are enforced, or government as a whole.

I’m not specifically writing about any government or party in general. When a whole nation decides to do something, they can do it. Of course, Burke says no to that. But where, then, does that right exist? All I’m arguing for is the rights of the living and that no one should be spoken for by the so-called dead. Meanwhile, Burke wants the dead to have power over the rights and freedoms of the living!

My second receipt is Burke’s statement: “we see the French rebel against a mild and lawful monarch. They’ve done so with more insult than any rebellion before them.”

This is one among a thousand instances where Burke shows that he is ignorant of what is happening in France.

It’s not Louis XVI that they’re rebelling against, but the tyranny which he represents. The oppression didn’t start with him, but from the original government however many centuries ago. They are too deeply routed to be removed by anything short of a complete and universal revolution. When it becomes necessary to do a thing, the whole heart and soul should go into it, or why even try? Hence, when the crisis arrived, there was no choice but to act, or to not act at all.

Sure, the King was known to be a friend of the nation. Even though he was raised to be an absolute power, he may be the only monarch who didn’t wield it. Even so, the principles of the government are still the same. The monarch and monarchy are separated. It’s not because of the King, but the system, that this revolution started.

But…Burke doesn’t see any difference between principles and people, apparently. If Burke can’t grasp this separation, he is not qualified to judge. It takes in a field too large for his views and is too reasonable for him to understand.

So let me spell it out for him: the abuse of power in the system is everywhere. Every office and department have its despotism ingrained through custom and habit. The original oppression may have started with a King, but it has divided and subdivided into a thousand shapes and forms until they all act as a single group. There is no single source and no single solution. It’s strengthened through the myth of “duty” and tyrannizes under the idea of “obeying.” Between the monarchy, parliament, and church there is practically a rivalry of despotism.

Yet, Burke still sees the King as the only reason to revolt. He acts like France is a village, like every decision will pass by the King and there could be no oppression outside his choices. But Burke could be a Frenchman in his or his father’s time, living on the steps of the palace itself and they would have never known he existed.

What Burke thinks is an insult to the French revolution is actually a compliment. While other revolts start with hatred, the French revolution began with rational contemplation of the rights of men and can actually tell the difference between principles and people.

But Burke seems to have no idea about principles when he talks about government. He wrote, “ten years ago I could have congratulated France on having a government without asking what the government was or how it was applied.”

Is this the language of a rational person? Is this the language of a heart feeling as it should for the rights and happiness of humanity? By Burke’s logic, he should compliment every government in the world while the victims who suffer under them, sold into slavery or tortured out of existence, are entirely forgotten. It’s power not principles that Burke worships. And as such, he is not qualified to judge the French.

As for the tragic picture that Burke pulls from his imagination to sway his readers: they are well constructed theatrical representations created to make people feel bad for the monarchs. But perhaps I should remind Burke that he is writing history and not Plays. His readers deserve truth.

We see a man dramatically lamenting in a space designed for serious discussion. He says that “The age of chivalry is gone!” that “the glory of Europe is extinguished forever” that “the unbought grace of life” (if anyone knows what that means) “the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone!” And all this because the mindless era of chivalry is gone. What opinion can we really form of his judgement? When we see this, what can we think of his facts?

In his imagination, he has discovered a world of orcs, and his only sadness is that there are no little hobbits to attack them. If aristocracy and chivalry fall, and they had some connection originally, then Burke may continue his parody to the end, claiming that life is over.

Burke’s fairy tales aside, when the French revolution is compared to other revolutions, it will surprise everyone at how few sacrifices were made. And perhaps the surprise will end when we think principles and not people were what caused all this destruction. The mind of France was pushed to rebellion not by any person, and they went for a goal so great that it could not be achieved by the downfall of a single enemy.

[d1kiz]

La providence a sagement établi qu’un état de repos et d’inaction, quelque flatteur qu’il peut être pour notre indolence, serait accompagné d’une foule d’inconvénients, qu’il engendrerait de tels désordres, que nous serions forcés de recourir au travail comme au seul moyen de rendre notre vie supportable et d’y goûter quelque satisfaction : car la nature du repos est de laisser tomber toutes les parties de notre corps dans un relâchement qui non-seulement prive les membres de la faculté de remplir leurs fonctions, mais ôte aux fibres le ton vigoureux sans lequel les sécrétions naturelles et nécessaires ne peuvent se faire. En même tems, les nerfs sont plus sujets, dans cet état de langueur et d’inaction, aux plus horribles convulsions, que lorsqu’ils sont forts et convenablement tendus. La mélancolie, l’abattement, le désespoir, et souvent le suicide, telles sont les suites du noir aspect sous lequel les choses se présentent à notre esprit dans cet état de relâchement où se trouve le corps. Le remède le plus efficace pour tous ces maux est l’exercice ou le travail.

[volunteerismandanarchy]

Post Script: Before you reply with Edmund Burke's axiomatic statement, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," consider this: the United States sat on our laurels letting evil men get their way for a little while, at least. The truth is we knew what was happening in China. We knew what was happening to the Jewish people of Europe. We knew. It took Japan bringing the war to our doorstep before we, as a nation, were collectively ready to respond. Let's remember our heroes with a little less pomp and circumstance and consider their very humanness. They are virtuous because they ended up on the right side of history - as much by circumstance as by choice. Had Japan never bombed Pearl Harbor how much longer would we have let evil have its way before getting involved? It's a somewhat moot given that history happened as it did, nonetheless, it's a sober question that shouldn't be entirely dismissed.

The Southern Volunteerist

[c4ss]

$2.00 for the first copy. $1.00 for every additional copy.

The “Vindication of Natural Society,” published anonymously in 1756, is the first known defense of Anarchism written in the English language – arguing for a peaceful social order based upon individual conscience and mutual agreement, without legal constraint or political authority. It was later discovered to have been written by Edmund Burke, then a radical Anglo-Irish journalist. The first edition of the Vindication appeared as in this booklet, with only the argument and no further explanations; in later editions, Burke, who had retreated from his earlier radical views and begun a new career as a member of Parliament, added a new Preface, disowning his anarchistic conclusion and stating that the argument was originally intended as satire. Many Anarchist readers, however, point out that the vigorous, coherent argument of the “Vindication” does not read like satire, and take Burke’s later disavowal as careerist damage control. In any case, whatever the authorial intent, the “Vindication” went on to become a major influence on early English-speaking Anarchists such as William Godwin and the mutualist followers of Josiah Warren.

To prove, that these Sort of policed Societies are a Violation offered to Nature, and a Constraint upon the human Mind, it needs only to look upon the sanguinary Measures, and Instruments of Violence which are every where used to support them. Let us take a Review of the Dungeons, Whips, Chains, Racks, Gibbets, with which every Society is abundantly stored, by which hundreds of Victims are annually offered up to support a dozen or two in Pride and Madness, and Millions in an abject Servitude, and Dependence…. I acknowledge indeed, the Necessity of such a Proceeding in such Institutions; but I must have a very mean Opinion of Institutions where such Proceedings are necessary….

I now plead for Natural Society against Politicians, and for Natural Reason against all…. My Antagonists have already done as much as I could desire…. The Monarchic, Aristocratical, and Popular Parti­zans have been jointly laying their Axes to the Root of all Government, and have in their Turns proved each other absurd and inconvenient. In vain you tell me that Artificial Government is good, but that I fall out only with the Abuse. The Thing! the Thing itself is the Abuse!

Support C4SS with Edmond Burke’s “A Vindication of Natural Society”

[catruth]

Evil thrives when good men do nothing - Edmond Burke

[kindastetchy]

The wild gas, the fixed air is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our judgments until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation of the troubled and frothy surface.

Edmond Burke, Observations on Air

[fumblingtumblr]

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

Edmund Burke