Burke argued that the triumph of Paine\u2019s enlightenment ideology in the French Revolution would unmoor men and women from tradition, habit and moral restraint. A revolt in the name of liberty alone quickly turned against liberty itself, producing both the Terror and Bonaparte.<\/p>\n
Burke\u2019s prediction was swiftly and completely vindicated.<\/p>\n
But the complex story Levin tells offers plenty of correctives for conservatives as well \u2014 including on the nature of conservatism itself. Burke would not have been comfortable among the Lady Violets of his day \u2014 the Tory conservatives of crown and altar. Instead, Burke was a Whig and a reformer who criticized the British war against America, pushed for Catholic rights, opposed the exercise of unjust colonial power in India and was an early critic of slavery. He was also a social outsider, set off by his red hair, his Irish accent and his Catholic mother, sister and wife.<\/p>\n
Modern politics emerged as an argument between two sorts of Whigs, meaning two sorts of liberals \u2014 what Levin terms \u201cprogressive liberalism\u201d and \u201cconservative liberalism.\u201d Both were distinctly modern movements. Both accepted liberalism\u2019s commitments to liberty and reform. But they differed dramatically on how reform should be achieved. One was the party of radical liberation through revolution, which supported the French Revolution even after its violence emerged.<\/p>\n
The other was the party of gradual progress.<\/p>\n
In a typical illuminating flash of insight, Levin compares these divisions of ideology to branches of science. Paine\u2019s approach is more similar to Newtonian physics \u2014 the application of rational, abstract laws and scientific methods to remake society. The past, in this view, is a dead hand. The individual must be liberated from superstitions and unchosen obligations. Burke\u2019s politics are more like evolutionary theory \u2014 moving by gradual mutations and reflecting the inherited wisdom of the species. Human beings, in this view, live in a complex web of social relationships that preexist us and outlast us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I suppose that conservative conservatism would something really retro, like monarchy.\u00a0 And progressive progressivism would be a version that rejects \u201cliberty,\u201d such as communism.<\/p>\n
What do you think of this analysis?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n