Letters by a modern St. Ferdinand III about cults

This is a great book and an education.  It spans history, philosophy, political ideology and links the current, to the early modern past of Burke and far beyond into antiquity.  There is too much in the work to justify a summation, however, the application of Burke to today’s current era by Norman is for the public at large, sadly recondite, but the lessons from Burke are not only erudite but indispensable to help resolve the maladies of a world, gone incredibly mad with non-existing Climate crises, the Corona fascism, Gender mental illness-dystopia, anti-White racism, a disavowal of the nation state, a blind hatred of Christianity and other occult movements dedicated to eviscerating Western civilisation.  How stupid we look in comparison to Burke’s insights about governance and reality.

Norman’s magnificent book includes the following observations.

Burke’s rather unprepossessing career

Political career was largely one of failure.   He and his Whig party failed to avert war between Britain and America, he failed to secure a conviction on the fraud and corruption rife within the East India company in India, against its Director Warren Hastings, his economic reforms and efforts to alleviate Irish and Catholic grievances and segregation did not succeed, his pleas for a counter-revolution against the Atheist French Revolution was ignored until after his death and with more than 30 years in the House, Burke was in office for less than two.

Politics versus vision

Norman writes that Burke was not really a politician but an impolitic observer of events and trends, usually far ahead of contemporaries.  Burke’s campaigns on America, India, Ireland, slavery (abolition), free trade, capital punishment (restrict or abolish) and France all flew in the face of popular political sentiment, especially for a representative from Bristol (for a time). 

Ordered liberty

All the causes in Burke’s life revolved around ‘ordered liberty’.  As Norman summarises, ‘Far from opposing change, Burke regards change as inevitable, and careful political reform as its natural and proper counterpart….a successful social order as the means by which individual talent and energy could find their just rewards….This demands modesty, virtue and wisdom from political leaders.’

Abuse of power

For Burke the opposite of ‘ordered liberty’ is the abuse of power.  Burke is not really a natural law believer (St. Thomas Aquinas) as much as he is an empiricist rooting his beliefs in history and circumstances.  Regarding natural law Burke does believe that a man cannot judge his ‘own cause’.  Meaning that political power cannot possibly regulate or evaluate itself, and that there must be checks and balances within a constitutional-monarchical system to reduce abuse and even terror.  Oppressive British actions in America, Ireland, India and within the slave trade are examples of the terrible abuses of government, unchecked and unable to control itself.

Orthodox Liberalism

Norman emphasises that Burke’s 18^th century orthodox Liberalism (akin to today’s small government, free trade supporting Conservative), views freedom as the absence of impediment to the will; or as ordered liberty, based on laws and culture.  Burke did not believe in Liberalism’s cult of reason but in tradition, emotions, institutions and principles of culture and habit.  Liberalism in Burke’s day stressed reason and universal abstractions.  Burke always stressed facts and circumstances.  Liberalism rejected the past; Burke built his entire body of belief and career on the past.  Liberalism extols violent revolution and change.  Burked loathed both. 

Absolutism

Burke rejected absolutism in any form, be it governmental, political or religious.  Liberalism in many ways leads to a Benthamite view of life, in which the greatest happiness for the majority is the objective of political governance.  This puerile view of the world was deeply offensive to Burke.  Absolutism can take many forms and arrogance, selfishness and egoism of the ‘Enlightenment’ would lead to a crass, material individualism, self-service political parties, corrupt governments, and the eradication of moderation in many spheres in life (as witnessed recently with the Corona fascism). 

Purpose of Politics

Norman relates that the purpose of politics for Burke is the preservation and extension of national interests and strength.  In an age of WHO, the UN, endless transnational organisations and planned ‘pandemics’, this is anathema.  In today’s world, the national is equated with the fascistic and racist.  This ignorant view would be skewered by Burke.  Nations and people are rooted in history and tradition not faux-science, Burke would have said.  Without their history and traditions, they are rootless and society as a whole cannot prosper or progress. 

Norman gives a compelling summary of Burke, ‘As a politician he was devoted to an ideal of public service, and deplored the tendency to individual or generational arrogance, and the ‘ethics of vanity’.  His thought is imbued with the importance of history and memory, and an Orwellian detestation of those who would erase them.  His insists on the importance of human connection and identity, and on manners, sentiment…inherited not invented, and embedded in social institutions and networks.  

Burke’s ideology is the opposite of what the tyrants, the uncontrollable governments, the often-unelected power brokers want to build in our modern world.  These totalitarians, like the Atheist French Revolutionaries, want to tear down our history, culture, heritage and civilisation and create a ‘Brave New World’, in which the individual is but a slave to an unaccountable world or transnational governance, which has erased that person’s nation, their culture, their past and their memories.  Only the truly apathetic or demented would support such a program, no matter what disguise it wears, or what fake casus belli it proclaims.