Excerpts from Burke’s Reflections
Main Idea
Burke regards the revolutionaries as fanatics who uprooted all established authority, tradition, and institutions, thereby plunging France into anarchy.
Take on the Revolutionaries
He believed that the revolutionaries acted as if they had never been a product of civil society. In his opinion they acted as if in the human state of nature of which he had very low regard unlike the Philosophes.
He conveys that if the revolutionaries had looked at their ancestors rather than the skin deep status quo they would have realized in them a standard of virtue and wisdom, beyond the vulgar practice of the hour
He says that no man can possibly grasp all the workings of government no matter how smart he is and how long he studies it. No single man can understand all the things that make a strong and sturdy government such a government.
He says that it should be with infinite caution that any man out to venture to pull down a government that has withstood the test of time and supported such civilization and society as France and expect to build it up again without trusted models or plans.
Compares them to the English
He says that thanks to this revolution there is no innovation and a deep sluggishness in the national character of France. He mentions that the French Revolutionaries are not the converts of Rousseau, the disciples of Voltaire, or students of Helvetius. These are each philosophes that led to great progress in the thinking of Englishmen that the French now lack,
He mentions that the French are afraid to allow the government to rely on the reasoning of individual because individuals only have a small amount of reason and that individuals would do better to avail themselves to the general bank general bank of reason and the nations capital of reason accumulated over the ages.
Conclusions
Burke is anti revolutionary
He is pro absolutionism
He has a low esteem for the human state of nature
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