Edmund Burke’s case for political conservatism rests on arguments that also reveal what it takes to preserve a lasting family legacy.
In his 1790 Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke criticizes the French Revolution for being reckless. Political reform should take place gradually, not abruptly. Old institutions like the French monarchy are refined over generations. To tear them down in an instant is to reject and waste the collective wisdom of the ages.
Rage and phrenzy will pull down more in half an hour, than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in an hundred years.—p. 1831
Furthermore, revolutionaries acting on abstract concepts such as the “rights of men” are likely to become despots themselves—the very thing they claim to protest—because they lack a tradition that restrains their struggle for power. In setting up a new order, they are, at best, improvising, which can quickly lead to justifying cruel injustices (e.g. beheading the royal families and stealing the property of clergymen).
The wisdom rejected and the harm inflicted by French revolutionaries lead Burke to champion the ancient tradition of inheritance. Unlike his revolutionary counterparts, Burke argues that our rights and freedoms are best considered “an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity.”
Viewing rights as an inheritance has practical benefits. According to Burke, “the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation, and a sure principle of transmission; without at all excluding a principle of improvement. It leaves acquisition free; but it secures what it acquires.”
In other words, those who acquire and pass on an inherited government benefit from its refinement over time while still being able to improve it where needed. They correct its flaws without destroying its strengths.
There is something else than the mere alternative of absolute destruction, or unreformed existence. —p. 172
But part of Burke’s argument for treating government as an inheritance is that it allows citizens to become part of something that outlasts them.
Interestingly, Burke doesn’t hide the fact that his idea of inheritance comes from the realm of family relations: “Working after the pattern of nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government and our privileges, in the same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives.”
“… In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties.”
For Burke, inheriting a government system is like taking on a family name. Those who preserve the name become part of something more permanent than themselves. Their life will eventually end, but the family name lives on, affording a certain permanence.
It’s this permanency that makes the inheritance metaphor so powerful. Rejecting the past for a temporary government that lacks staying power pales in comparison.
The whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but in a condition of unchangeable constancy. —p. 46
Ultimately, Burke asks to which you’d rather belong: something bound to last or something bound to fail. Becoming part of a lasting government or family requires respect for the past. That doesn’t mean you must adopt all of it. But it does mean you must learn from it and think twice before straying from time-honored wisdom. To do otherwise is to part with the permanent and consign your progeny to the same fate.
In one of the most famous lines of the book, Burke writes, “People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.”
To sustain a family identity, you must first acknowledge what of it has been preserved already. Those parts are the most likely to continue withstanding the test of time. They could include family names, traditions, values, etc.
At a certain level, this makes intuitive sense. If you are the thirteenth son in your family line to be named John, chances are greater that future generations will use that name, too. If you inherited a family business that has been passed down for generations, the thrust of that responsibility is likely to continue. If you come from a particular ethnic culture with deep roots, your descendants will probably share its attitudes and values for a long time to come.
The longer something has existed, the more likely it is to last. So if you want your family to last forever, start by looking back.
I have the 1973 Doubleday Anchor Book version.
Insightful connection, which likely applies to any and all units of society.