t’s no secret that the modern American conservative movement is divided today. Issues like the role of government, the place of the nation-state, and the extent to which free markets should prevail in economic life have become major points of fracture across the right that seem unlikely to be resolved soon.
In times of such division, one way in which political movements seek to achieve clarity about what they are and why they exist is by returning to their primary sources of inspiration. Sometimes that involves rereading important texts. On other occasions, the focus turns to how particular individuals in the past thought about their world and the issues they confronted. …
This wariness of excessive abstraction on Burke’s part didn’t mean that he regarded liberty as a relative thing. Burke’s use of the language of natural rights (which he denotes as “sacred things”) and his invocation of natural law shows that this is not the case. Burke does not regard our capacity to know the importance of liberty (or truth, for that matter) as utterly impossible outside certain traditions. Rather, Burke had in mind the notion that freedom itself and the gradual extension of liberty is very dependent upon ensuring that the necessary supports of that freedom—which, for Burke, meant things like orthodox religion, a strong civil society (his “little platoons”), the prevalence of good manners, and a reverence for the post–Glorious Revolution British Constitution—were not undermined, let alone trampled upon.
That, I would suggest, is a message that the modern American conservative movement needs to hear again today. For Burke, liberty is a major value, and a commitment to growing the sphere in which freedom can be exercised is one of the things that should resonate with American conservatives.
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