TCW summer reads: What it means to be a true conservative
by Dr Chris Sugden, The Conservative Woman
Following the Conservative leadership election, Boris Johnson said: ‘If you look at the history of the last 200 years you will see that it is we conservatives who have had the best insights, I think, into human nature.
‘And the best insights into how to manage the jostling sets of instincts in the human heart. And time and again it is to us that the people of this country have turned to get that balance right: between the instincts to own your own house, your own home, to earn and spend your own money, to look after your own family. Good instincts, proper instincts, noble instincts.
‘And the equally noble instinct to share. And to give everyone a fair chance in life. And to look after the poorest and the neediest and to build a great society.
‘And on the whole in the last 200 years it is we conservatives who have understood best how to encourage those instincts, to work together in harmony to promote the good of the whole country.’
To appreciate the political philosophy, and indeed theology that underlies those themes, Dr Burgess provides a timely and accessible primer explaining the moral principles and examining the historical evidence on which these pillars of conservatism are based.
Relevant to ‘Brexit in 100 days’, Burgess argues that Edmund Burke’s insight that the ‘small platoons’ of families and neighbourhoods, the hundreds of small tribes bound together by cultural commonalities, are the basis for the nation state and its role as the cradle of democracy. Transnational modes of government, such as the EU and the Soviet Union, fail because national identity and common identification grow naturally by common and local association – supranational identity cannot be superimposed on culturally disparate nations (p 25).
Burgess’s work will interest all who seek an analysis of the decline of Christian faith in British society and its consequences.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
