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Yuval Levin on Edmund Burke’s Example for Modern Conservatives
In the clip I posted yesterday from the Uncommon Knowledge interview with Yuval Levin about his book, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of the Right and Left, Yuval clarified where Burke fit in the context of his own time. Today, a different focus: how Burke fits in ours.
Below, Yuval explains how the lessons of Burke can offer a corrective for modern conservative excesses:
Published in General
“Hyper” individualism. I prefer the liberal formulation of “ruthless” individualism.
I consider myself a Burkean conservative. Gradualism is good under normal circumstances. But it is no longer feasible under the present circumstances.
As I have said many times, it is easier to get into debt than to get out of it, easier to create laws and agencies than to eliminate them, easier to break international relations than to forge them, easier to honor democracy than to go around it, and so on. Liberals can accomplish twice as much in half the time, due to both their goals and their methods (which increasingly ignore both legal and moral restraints).
Gradualism helps to prevent crises. It does not help to end them. Modern conservatives do not have the luxuries of time, due process or common cultural assumptions. What Burke sought to defend, we seek to take back.
I’m going to buy his book after viewing this short clip. It really bothers me that conservatives are accused from the libertarian side of not caring enough about freedom and from the left of wanting to do away with government altogether. Neither understands the real point of conservatism, which is allowing space (and sometimes this requires legal protection) for those social groups that are smaller than government and more important in our lives–church, family, etc. These institutions tend to be inherently conservative and hostile to rapid change that impinges on their influence. And rightly so. Government cannot do the job parents do. When it tries, you get creepy Julia. Government cannot do the job churches do in teaching ethics and showing people a pathway to life and salvation. When they try, you get aggressive “equality.” In the name of that slippery ideal, the left tries to force rapid change to family, church, the economy and everything else. They do not care that equality is a contentless word that means nothing more than treating like things alike. They think nothing through. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. What we need is not equality, it is wisdom.
Personally I think I have the correct amount of individualism in my world view.
I think I’ll describe Yuval’s position as hyper-collectivism.
I like Hayek’s understanding of ‘true individualism’ as outlined in his Road to Serfdom. Mises.org has a good survey of it here: http://mises.org/daily/3940
On individualism Hayek writes:
It’s a good book, and I expect you will enjoy it. It’s a little condescending at times, but I think it’s better to occasionally feel condescended to than to miss the point. That said, it might be best read with Liberal Fascism (for Paine) and Russel Kirk’s Burke bio for a richer understanding of the issues. Maybe throw in Reflections and Hayek’s Fatal Conceit and you’ll have a pretty good foundation in the origins of conservative thought. Essentially, I thought that Levin made some strong points, but I’m not sure I got a strong sense of Burke from him. Sort of like a “Guide to the Gospels” that was really into baptism, the apocalypse, ethical questions, and Passion, but skimmed over the miracles, fasting, Satan, and all of the “supernatural” stuff. Something that makes an excellent contribution to understanding, but isn’t necessarily the best standalone book.
That said, better Burke scholars than I have disagreed with me.
Thanks for the tips, James. I have read and thoroughly enjoyed Liberal Fascism, but not the Kirk bio. I’ll get that one too.
I really do think it’s relevant here, but I will admit to recommending LF for essentially all purposes. “You want to learn the theoretical side of swimming? I’d recommend reading ‘How to Swim’ by A. N. Author, and Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg”. “You have a school report on Macbeth? You should probably read “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare, and….” etc.