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Edmund Burke (January 12, 1729—July 9, 1797) was an Irish philosopher, Whig politician and statesman, remembered principally for his criticism of the French Revolution and his discussion of "the sublime." He was a founder of the Annual Register and is regarded as the father of modern conservatism.
Life
Respected as a magnificent orator throughout his 30-year parlimentary career, Burke was often, perhaps unfairly, accused of inconsistency. He defended the English Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the American Revolution, yet attacked the French Revolution bitterly. He was infuriated at the notion that Britain should learn from the French experience and allow all citizens the vote, and argued that traditonal ruling practices in general and the monarchy in particular were essential elements of a stable, ordered society. Burke pitted the chaotic, uncontrollable changes of the French Revolution against (as he saw it) the British tradition of order and liberty. To Burke, the moral claim of the revolution to be in defence of the natural "rights of man" was nonsense: although the British parliament depended on the approval of the British people for its authority to rule, this did not mean that citizens had the right to influence their rulers.
Burke was a ruthless critic, however, of the excesses of established government: he campaigned against the persecution of Catholics in Ireland, denounced the East India Company and had Warren Hastings, the governor-general of Bengal, impeached. For Burke, there was no inconsistency in these views: it was the duty of citizens to submit to traditional authority, but it was equally the duty of rulers to act wisely and fairly. His strong criticism of the excesses of British rule in Ireland, India and America was not motivated by any wish to support the notion of natural rights; on the contrary, he argued, it was simple pragmatism: by ruling in a way that was manifestly unfair and exploitative, traditional authorities risked fomenting the worst of all possible outcomes, popular revolution.
Speeches
Burke made several famous speeches while serving in the British House of Commons.
- On Conciliation with the Colonies (http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04/burke10.txt) : "The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord fomented, from principle, in all parts of the Empire, not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a complex government. It is simple peace; sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific . . ."
Writings by Burke
- Reflections on the Revolution in France 1790 Oxford University Press, 1999) ISBN 0192839780
- A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful 1757, begun when he was 19 and published when he was 27. (Oxford University Press, 1998) ISBN 0192835807
- 1756 (Liberty Fund, 1982) ISBN 0865970092. This article, outlining radical political theory, was first published anonymously and, when Burke was revealed as its author, he explained that it was a satire. The consensus of historians is that this is correct. An alternate theory, proposed by Murray Rothbard, argues that Burke wrote the Vindication in earnest but later wished to disavow it for political reasons.
Notable Quotes
It was Burke who first referred to the "great unwashed masses of humanity".
Oddly, the quotation most often attributed to Burke ("The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing", along with its many variants) is not from his writings. See [1] (http://www.tartarus.org/~martin/essays/burkequote.html) and [2] (http://www.tartarus.org/~martin/essays/burkequote2.html).
See Also
External links
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Edmund Burke
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References
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