Edmund Burke, Imperialist Ideologue?
Carroll, RE
Date: 1 July 2018
Journal
Political Science Reviewer
Publisher
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Abstract
In his Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke attacked two alarming trends in French politics. One was the growing taste for what he called "innovation." The French, he warned, had been bamboozled by novel doctrines to their extreme detriment, a fate his English readers would avoid provided they remained true to their ...
In his Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke attacked two alarming trends in French politics. One was the growing taste for what he called "innovation." The French, he warned, had been bamboozled by novel doctrines to their extreme detriment, a fate his English readers would avoid provided they remained true to their native reluctance to innovate. The second trend was the prevalence of what we might today call "ideological thinking" among French political and cultural elites. Those who are blinkered by an ideology (in this case the rights of man), Burke suggested, will lack the capacity for finessed political judgment necessary to steer the state through choppy waters.
Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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