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A review by karnakjr
The Evils of Revolution by Edmund Burke
slow-paced
2.0
Interesting if you want to know that the conservative playbook was fully formed at least 230+ years ago.
All the greats are here, including: the absoluteness of property rights; the absolute assuredness that any wealth earned or inherited is rightfully the wealth of the holder, no matter how it was earned; that having a clearly defined upper class makes lower class people happier for having something to aspire to; that if a change ever should be necessary that it should be undertaken slowly, possibly so slowly that no change will happen for generations, or ever; that bloody revolutions will be celebrated by “the Old Jewry”; that if you want to make fun of a European nation you have only to compare them to the obviously inferior Middle Eastern nations; that if there is a problem with the church that we should let the church sort It out; that the church is perfect, so long as it is as Christian as possible (Protestant, by Burke’s estimation); that atheism is true evil; and many others.
He does accurately predict that when problems can no longer be blamed on former rulers that despots will begin to blame critics as counterrevolutionaries. Very accurate to both France and later to many of the 20th century “communist” revolutions.
At one point he poses an interesting psychological idea, that it is better to be oppressed by a monarch than by a democracy. If you are under a cruel monarch, society is with you in bitching about them. If you are under a cruel democracy you feel as if you are alone, because it is everyone around you who has decided you should be oppressed. As we have seen, there are plenty of people to bitch with you if you are in a democratic minority, so politically this doesn’t really check out. I still found it an interesting theoretical point.
All the greats are here, including: the absoluteness of property rights; the absolute assuredness that any wealth earned or inherited is rightfully the wealth of the holder, no matter how it was earned; that having a clearly defined upper class makes lower class people happier for having something to aspire to; that if a change ever should be necessary that it should be undertaken slowly, possibly so slowly that no change will happen for generations, or ever; that bloody revolutions will be celebrated by “the Old Jewry”; that if you want to make fun of a European nation you have only to compare them to the obviously inferior Middle Eastern nations; that if there is a problem with the church that we should let the church sort It out; that the church is perfect, so long as it is as Christian as possible (Protestant, by Burke’s estimation); that atheism is true evil; and many others.
He does accurately predict that when problems can no longer be blamed on former rulers that despots will begin to blame critics as counterrevolutionaries. Very accurate to both France and later to many of the 20th century “communist” revolutions.
At one point he poses an interesting psychological idea, that it is better to be oppressed by a monarch than by a democracy. If you are under a cruel monarch, society is with you in bitching about them. If you are under a cruel democracy you feel as if you are alone, because it is everyone around you who has decided you should be oppressed. As we have seen, there are plenty of people to bitch with you if you are in a democratic minority, so politically this doesn’t really check out. I still found it an interesting theoretical point.