Burkean conservatism

Burkean conservatism takes its name from Edmund Burke, the eighteenth-century Anglo-Irish statesman and writer. His Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) argued that society is a complex inheritance and that radical attempts to rebuild it according to abstract principles, as in the French Revolution, would produce disorder and tyranny.

Its characteristic ideas include a respect for tradition and "prescription," the idea that long-established practices embody accumulated experience; a preference for gradual, prudent reform ("a state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation"); the importance of local attachments and little platoons; and a view of society as a partnership across generations. Burke also supported the American colonists' grievances and criticized British policy, showing that his approach was not blind support of the status quo.

Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind (1953) made Burke a central figure for American conservatives. Libertarian critics point out that Burkean emphasis on tradition could justify state-supported customs, while progressives argue that it can excuse injustice by appealing to custom. The outlook underlies chesterton's fence and many arguments about ordered liberty. It differs from conservatism more broadly, which includes other strands.