Patriarch of conservatism is still relevant

“That’s why the European Union will never become a European nation. Because it is the combination of many different nations, with a variety of different cultures and political traditions. ‘More Europe’ is not the solution to everything,” says Party Chairman Bart De Wever in an opinion piece.

Yesterday, at the Tate in London, I received the Edmund Burke Award, a prize for commendable defenders of conservative values. Usually I would forego such honours, but I could not let a prize named after the politician who has possibly influenced me more than any other pass me by. But 15 years after my essay on the “patriarch of conservatism” - and also my first steps on the political stage - the question is an unavoidable one: is Burke still relevant?

We seem to be living in a post-ideological time. Liberalism is experiencing major internal struggles and socialism is mutating into something unrecognisable. One is obsessed with open borders and cosmopolitanism, the other with group privileges and self-loathing. European culture seems to have been exhausted. The hardware is still there - you will find grand buildings, works of art and institutions such as universities in every big European city - but the software is faltering. Our culture is permeated by a metaphysical unrest. The operating system is crashing and Burke can help us to reboot.

Burke’s essential insight was that wisdom cannot exist in a single head, class or system, nor in the theories of a whole generation. Only in society as a whole is there wisdom: “The individual is foolish, the multitude is foolish; but the species is wise.” And that wisdom is contained in institutions, traditions and spontaneous pre-political social relationships. Abstract reasoning cannot displace that wisdom, but what it can do is contribute to its downfall.

That is the core of Burke’s criticism of the French revolution. He was not an opponent of the Enlightenment in and of itself. Burke wanted self-government for the American colonies, criticised the British abuse of power in India and strove to achieve more power for Parliament at the cost of the Crown. As a young man, he even received praise from Immanuel Kant and David Hume for his “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful”. That is not the track record of a Reactionary A reactionary attitude is also described as being extremely conservative. In contrast to moderate conservatism, reactionaries do not strive to keep the status quo in place, but rather, they advocate for a return to yesteryear. They want to turn back social changes that are seen as positive by non-reactionaries. The term has gained a negative connotation today. reactionary .

French revolution

He did, however, oppose the megalomania of the French revolution. The ease with which the revolutionaries thought they could reform the whole of society would in Burke’s view lead to anarchy and finally to violence and a military coup. Words that turned out to have a prophetic quality when the revolution descended into the Terror of Robespierre and the dictatorship of Napoleon.

It should be said though that not all of Burke’s predictions came about. Many traditions and institutions turned out to be robust and adapted themselves to modern and urbanised society. And as a child of his time, Burke could not comprehend democracy. Only later would a society-shaping vision be developed in this regard, by Alexis de Tocqueville.

Burke’s famous “precious fabric” found its support to a great extent in nobility and the church, in “the spirit of a gentleman” and “the spirit of religion”. To us, that seems old-fashioned. Christianity is part of our cultural heritage, but its god doesn’t have any political power any more. There are not many European Christians for whom religion determines their daily activities or for whom their god is above the law. If there are, they are the last ones of the past, not the first ones of the future.

The “spirit of a gentleman” and the “spirit of religion” have been replaced by the “spirit of Enlightenment”. As conservatives, we must ask ourselves how to handle this. How can we shape society on this basis? How do we create a shared sense of responsibility? Who belongs to our res publica and where do we draw the line? And how do you translate all of this into guiding principles?

Conservatism The general meaning of conservatism is that it is a belief in the utilisation of established and traditional practices or, if necessary, is only willing to change slowly or gradually. The more specific, political meaning is that it represents a critical position in contrast to the idea that humans and society are perfectly achievable, such as these are in ideologies like liberalism and socialism. The N-VA also equates conservatism with a sense of community: we don’t see the individual or the state, but rather the community, to be the most important piece. Conservatism thanks its success to the absorption of the principles of the Enlightenment. We confronted the progressive, superficial dreams of cosmopolitanism with the wisdom of Roger Scruton: “The national idea is not the enemy of Enlightenment but its necessary precondition.”

The recognisable other

The European nation states are rooted in history, culture and laws that have bound a certain territory together with a people. And that implies borders. We do not have solidarity with every “other”, but with the “recognisable other”. People do not self-identify with vague concepts such as “humanity” or a social contract. Only through a shared public culture with solid basic principles do people feel bound to a community, with the idea of a shared past and - more importantly - a shared future.

That’s why the European Union will never become a European nation. Because it is the combination of many different nations, with a variety of different cultures and political traditions. “More Europe” is not the solution to everything; a one-size-fits-all policy can never work for the many different peoples.

The idea of European taxes is therefore a non-starter. Citizens pay taxes to their governments so that those governments can build roads and bridges and those governments can then justify their actions to their fellow citizens, who share historical Bonds A loan to a company or a government, which is paid back with interest. In contrast to shares, most bonds have a fixed duration and a fixed interest, which is usually paid out on an annual basis. Therefore, as a general rule, bonds have less risk than shares. bonds of loyalty and solidarity. People do not want to pay taxes to an anonymous bureaucracy which then uses those taxes to help pay off the debts of a Southern European country.

Brexit

In Burke’s view, nations consisted of individuals who made their own choices about their own lives. Citizens who organised themselves into families, communities, small businesses and spontaneous associations. Or as Burke called it: the “little platoons we belong to in society”. We share that insight with the British conservatives in the European Parliament. For me, Brexit therefore represents the loss of an ally against the looming European superstate.

But while I’m not cheering it on, I do respect the sovereign choice of a proud and brave people. However, anyone gladly seeing Brexit as the departure of an obstacle to a federal EU is in for a disappointment. On the European continent too, the critical voices in favour of the rights of nations and against Jacobean European centralism are not going away. We will take over the torch and hold it high.

Burke despised the French revolution because of its obsession with abstractions, its disdain for practical experience and its universalistic claims that reduced the individual to an administrative subject. If Burke had been alive today, he would have been horrified by the new elite of bureaucrats who are trying to take control of our lives.

And that’s why Burke is still relevant: as a guide and as a warning. The EU is just a treaty. Europe was not invented after the Second World War; it has a long and extensive history. Europe is hundreds of years of accumulated wisdom, of triumphs and defeats, of brilliant deeds and immense cruelties. It is something of which to be proud but also about which to be humble.

If we give in to the illusion that the complexity of Europe is of no importance, we are making the same mistake as the French revolutionaries. Then we are allowing a legitimate political project to be corrupted by our vain megalomania. And one day, when ordinary people have had enough of it and the tension with the abstract Brussels regulations becomes too big, it will collapse.