Reflections on the Revolution in France (Oxford World's Classics) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)wrote REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE in 1789 which was four years before the rise of the fanatical Jacobins and the execution (murder)of Louis XVI. This book was not only well written but very prophetic on the tragic events that were part of the French Revolution. Burke showed historical insight and warned both the British and the French what was going to happen.

Burke cited conditions in France prior to the French Revolution. He certainly did not give a false representation of the economic and social conditions in France, but he was clear that, while not perfect, the French had advanced culture and tolerable living standards. He also warned the French that abrupt changes without recourse to tradition and legal norms were dangerous and would end in tyranny. Readers should be aware that Burke's assessment of the French political system was that the French had reasonble politcal freedom and prosperity. To destroy this political system would end in political disruption, social and political violence, lack of law-and-order, and the rise of tyrannical military leaders.

One should note Burke's assessment of the members of the French National Assembly which was vacilating and subject to the whims of any "political interest group" was serious. He suggested that military officers would be among those "pleaders" would be military officers who would be difficult to control. He also warned that when someone who understood the art of command got control of the military officers, the days of the French Republic and the National Assembly were over. The military commander would be in total control, and this is exactly what happened when Napolean I (1769-1821)started to exhibit military genius, he quickly got power by a coup d' etat in 1799 and became the French Emperor by 1804.

Burke's warnings of disaster and tragedy were fullfilled. From at least 1792 until 1815, the French were almost constantly at war with most Europeans. While the French Empire expanded beyond anything prior French monarchs ever dreamed of, the collapse of the French Empire came quickly, and the French empire was ended by 1815 at terrible cost in both blood treasure. Burke warned of these dangers, and his predictions were accurate.

Burke lived just long enough to see the rise and fall of the maniacal Jacobins which included the Reigh of Terror (1792-1794)and the execution of King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie antionette. Had Burke lived a few more years, he could have resorted to remarking, "I told you so."

Edmund Burke has been defined as a conservative which is true. However, Burke was not a reactionary. Burke realized that progress, whatever that may mean, is often slow and within the confines of historical tradition, legal norms, and established law. Burke warned his readers, to use modern parlance, against "wipe the slate clean." Burke clearly understood that to "wipe the slate clean, meant mass dislocation of men and ultimately mass executions (mass murder). Subsequent modern political revolutions vindicate this view.

Readers may wonder why Burke expressed support for the American Revolution but strongly opposed the French Revolution. A careful examination of these revolutions provides the answer. The American "revolutionaries" were arguing for their "Rights of Englishmen" which had a long tradition in Great Britain. Henry II (1154-1189) started the use grand juries. The English had the right of trial by jury by the time of Edward I (1272-1307). The fact is the American colonists wanted to rules of common law and long established legal traditions to apply to them. The British wanted to rule the American colonists with administrative law using clever bureaucrats, as Burke would probably have called them, rather than use British Constitutional Law and the Common Law which many American colonists demanded. The French, on the other hand, wanted to replace a weak monarch with "clever bureaucrats" which Burke knew very well could not work in France.

Readers should note that Thomas Paine (1737-1809)wrote a response to Burke's REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION titled THE RIGHTS OF MAN. While Paine's views were different than those of Burke's Paine's book was just as brilliant as Burke's. Readers should read both works if they want exposure to profound political thought and excellent writing. This is much preferred to the current political nonsense that is pushed by media talking heads and journalists who cannot think or write. Burke and Paine were well read men and offered readers history lessons as well as politcal lessons.

Edmund Burke's REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE is highly recommended regardless of one's political persuasion. This book is not a light read and takes time. However, one will be better informed and wiser for doing so. Again, this reviewer suggests the reader should read Thomas Paine's THE RIGHTS OF MAN to draw comparisons and contrasts.

To begin with: this book is a pamphlet, not a treatise. It is a call to action about a specific event, not a political programme. Burke enthusiasts may maintain it is; but let's not forget he remained a Foxite still, when he wrote this. Yes this was addressed to English, not French audiences, and was a warning to revolutionary sympathisers, but Burke had yet to cross the floor and would not do so for several years. Nor does this read stylistically, anyhow, like a treatise, even like Locke's highly contextual Two Treatises. Readers expecting a statement of the conservative creed may be disappointed. Hence the 4, not 5 stars.

As a historical document, however, the Reflections are invaluable. Burke published his point-by-point assault on the French Revolution in 1790, when the revolution was still widely popular in Britain. He was an English MP and his public, even if the Reflections are formulated as two letters to a French aristocrat, was British political opinion.

First, his book contrasts admirably the gradual, and ultimately more successful, British path to democracy to the French. Indeed the core of his argument is that the revolution laid waste to tradition, depriving its end system of the essential legitimacy that stems from it. Second, Burke was the first to warn - years before the `terror' - that radical change, once initiated, would be exceedingly difficult to stop. Third, he makes penetrating (and scathing) observations on the role of class renegades; his dissection of their motivations is striking and finds application in all situations of political upheaval. Burke's warning on radical change was vindicated not just in France, but repeatedly in Europe through the 19th and early 20th centuries. With respect to the French Revolution, he understood that any stabilisation depended on solving the question of church property, which the revolutionaries were already bungling (one smiles at a British MP springing in defence of the catholic church in the still popular days of `no popery!', but the analysis has to be cold-bloodedly correct).

The only rebuttal to Burke's argument is that the status quo was not an option either. His picture of pre-revolutionary France is on the rosy side; unlike the British, the French monarchy was in deep crisis. Nevertheless, I strongly believe this should be taught in France alongside the more hagiographical stuff. I am French, by the way, and an admirer of the events of 1789.

"Reflections" is ostensibly a tract attacking the French Revolution of 1789 but in reality its importance is its case for conservatism. The polemical nature of the book means that it is not a systematic analysis so one has to search for Burke's conservative principles.

One of his most important principles is "prescription", by which the possession of property and authority are given (at least some) legitimacy by the passage of time. Burke did not oppose all change but believed that if things are going well then they are best left alone. He wrote "A state without the means of change is without the means of its conservation", but believed that change should be for "proved abuses". Burke saw society as organic, as a "partnership" bridging all generations. In typical Burkean language he wrote that citizens "should approach the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude." As in any natural organism change must be slow and gradual. He observed that "I do not like to see anything destroyed, any void produced in society." He was, of course, opposed to abstract theories that he thought at best irrelevant and at worst dangerous. Society, thought Burke, needed not abstract reasoning but practical and pragmatic statesmen. He was even more opposed to revolution for it leads to excesses and unintended results.

Not surprisingly Burke stresses the importance of codes of conduct, custom and what he called "prejudice". He writes of the "pleasing illusions" that constitute "the decent drapery of life". These "antient opinions and rules of life" include politeness, deference, the chivalrous treatment of women, the "spirit of a gentleman" and the "spirit of religion". Much of this "decent drapery of life" plus respect for social superiors and authority depends on "prejudice", which is a settled inclination of mind that prompts an individual to act (virtuously) without thinking why. (Today we would call it social conditioning!) Burke argues that prejudice is not irrational for it allows people to draw on the nation's collective wisdom (which Burke calls its "bank and capital") to supplement their own inadequate powers of reason.

In using prescription to justify existing institutions, Burke defended the unequal division of property, wealth and power, plus the social hierarchy that characterised the age in which he lived. He declared (with the French Revolution in mind) that a state ruled by men such as hairdressers and tallow-chandlers would "suffer oppression", and though ability must be represented it was vital that property should "be out of all proportion predominant in the representation". He believed that in all states there are necessarily differences in status and power, and that power is best placed in the hands of men brought up from childhood with an appropriate education, status, and a sense of mission. In other words a "natural aristocracy" that had the duty of using authority for the good of all.

This support for inequality looks out-dated to 21st century readers but many of Burke's other ideas were to continue to flourish as canons of conservatism. "Reflections" is well worth reading not only for its exposition of conservative principles that so strongly influenced political thought in the following century but also as a powerfully written and prophetic polemic about the French Revolution.