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Conservative, Pluralist, Sociologist: Robert Nisbet's Burke

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Conservative, Pluralist, Sociologist: Robert Nisbet's Burke STUDIES IN BURKE AND HIS TIME AND HIS STUDIES IN BURKE I N THE N EXT I SS UE ... S TEVEN P. M ILLIE S STUDIES IN The Inner Light of Edmund Burke A N D REA R A D A S ANU Edmund Burke’s Anti-Rational Conservatism R O B ERT H . B ELL The Sentimental Romances of Lawrence Sterne AND HIS TIME J.D. C . C LARK A Rejoinder to Reviews of Clark’s Edition of Burke’s Reflections R EVIEW S O F MJohnICHAEL Faulkner B ROWN Burke’sThe Meal Speech at the on Saracen’s the Test Head:and Corporation Edmund Burke Acts F . P. L OCK Edmund Burke Volume II: 1784 – 1797 , and the Scottish Literati S EAN P ATRICK D ONLAN , Edmund Burke’s Irish Identities Luke Sheahan M ICHAEL F UNK D ECKAR D Conservative, Pluralist, Sociologist: Robert Nisbet’s Burke N EIL M C A RTHUR , David Hume’s Political Theory Wonder and Beauty in Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry E LIZA B ETH L A MB ERT , Edmund Burke of Beaconsfield R O B ERT H . B ELL Fool“Burke, for Love: Kirk, The and Sentimental Revolution Romances in the of ModernLaurence SterneMind” the Fourth International Conference of the Edmund SBurkeTEVEN Society, P. M ILLIE NovemberS 17, 2018 The Inner Light of Edmund Burke: A Biographical Approach to Burke’s Religious Faith and Epistemology STUDIES IN Vigen Guroian Burke and Kirk on Radical Ideology in Modern Times VOLUME 22 2011 Wilfred McClay A “GenerousREVIEW S Loyalty”: O F The Vindication of a Forgotten Virtue AND HIS TIME F.P.LOCK, Edmund Burke: Vol. II, 1784–1797; AndréDANIEL Gushurst-Moore I. O’NEILL, The Burke-Wollstonecraft Ivone Debate: Moreira Savagery, Civilization, and Democracy; EDWARD FESER, Locke; A SLetterEAN P ATRICKfrom Thomas DONLAN , EMoreD., EdmundRousseau’s Burke’s Irish General Identities Will P. O . B OX 4 4 31 , W IL M INGTON , D E 19807-0431 to Thomas Cromwell, 1534 and the Risk of Tyranny VOLUME 22 Troy Feay 2011 Blessed Frédéric Ozanam on Revolution VOLUME 28 2019 EDITORS Elizabeth R. Lambert Michael Brown Gettysburg College University of Aberdeen EXECUTIVE EDITOR Ian Crowe Belmont Abbey College PUBLISHER Annette Y. Kirk Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal ASSOCIATE EDITORS Bruce P. Frohnen Frederick G. Whelan Ohio Northern University University of Pittsburgh FOUNDING EDITOR EDITOR EMERITUS Peter J. Stanlis † Joseph Pappin III University of South Carolina EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Steven Blakemore Florida Atlantic University Mark C. Henrie Arthur N. Rupe Foundation David Bromwich Yale University F. P. Lock Queen’s University, Ontario H. Lee Cheek, Jr. East Georgia State College Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. Harvard University J. C. D. Clark University of Kansas Steven P. Millies Catholic Theological Union, Chicago L. M. Cullen Trinity College, Dublin Jeffrey O. Nelson Intercollegiate Studies Institute Sean Patrick Donlan Thompson Rivers University Jennifer Pitts University of Chicago John Faulkner Ohio University–Lancaster David Willetts King’s College, University of London © 2019 Educational Reviewer, Inc. / The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal. Studies in Burke and His Time is the journal of the Edmund Burke Society of America, published by the Educational Reviewer, Inc., in cooperation with the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal. VOLUME 28 2019 Contents 2 Editor’s Introduction 6 Notes on Contributors 8 Burke’s Speech on the Test and Corporation Acts: A Reconsideration John Faulkner 28 Conservative, Pluralist, Sociologist: Robert Nisbet’s Burke Luke C. Sheahan “Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, and Revolution in the Modern Mind” The Fourth International Conference of the Edmund Burke Society, Belmont Abbey College, November 17, 2018 65 Burke and Kirk on Radical Ideology in Modern Times Vigen Guroian 80 A ‘Generous Loyalty’: The Vindication of a Forgotten Virtue Wilfred M. McClay 94 A Letter from Thomas More to Thomas Cromwell, 1534 André Gushurst-Moore 99 Rousseau’s General Will and the Risk of Tyranny Ivone Moreira 116 Blessed Frédéric Ozanam on Revolution Troy Feay Editor’s Introduction j It might be expected that, in 1941, churchmen in Great Britain had more pressing concerns than a defense of their Church Establishment; but, in that year’s edition of A Christian Yearbook, the Rev. J. V. Lang- mead Casserley wrote an article containing just such an impassioned argument, the kernel of which was reprinted as an appendix, “The meaning of ‘Establishment’,” in a volume of essays of the same year entitled The Vocation of England. After explaining what the term did not mean, Langmead Casserley describes the church “Establishment” as “an act of mutual recognition involving mutual obligations. So long as the ‘establishment’ persists,” he continues, as if pitching conventionally for divine favor in the fight against fascism, “it can be said with truth that the English state and nation as such confess the Christian Faith and are pledged to its main- tenance and defence.” But then the author’s point takes a sharp turn, and, as the definition continues to come into focus, we see its import in terms that speak to a deeper concern: that the Western democracies should not wage war against atheistic totalitarian regimes by means that would come, even in victory, to endanger the very liberties and culture they had been summoned to protect: “Establishment” rests upon a lofty conception of the nature and responsibilities of both Church and State alike … The unique standing and responsibility of the English Church in relation to the English people is based upon their long com- mon history, rather than upon the complexities of their legal and political relationship. 2 Editor’S Introduction Similar thoughts and admonitions may be argued to have informed Edmund Burke’s understanding of the relationship of Church and State as he addressed that “lofty conception” and what it meant for toleration and liberty of conscience amid shifting contexts, from relief bills in the 1770s to the petitions for relief by dissenting Trinitarians and Unitarians that spanned the early years of the French Revolution. In this current issue of Studies in Burke and His Time, John Faulk- ner’s meticulous analysis of Burke’s complex and long-misunderstood response to Charles Fox’s motion to repeal the Test and Corpora- tion Acts in 1790 throws important light upon this complicated facet of Burke’s thought by considering recently published evidence of the approach to toleration that Burke adopted on that occasion. How, how far, and why did Burke’s response to this issue change when confronted with the unfolding events in France? In addressing this pivotal theme, the author’s achievement is, not least, to show what fresh insights into supposedly familiar territory can be achieved when scholarly editing— in this case, Peter Marshall’s recent Volume IV of the Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke—is placed in the accomplished hands of one of Burke’s closest and most insightful textual critics. Luke Sheahan’s discussion of Robert Nisbet’s interpretation of Edmund Burke as “the first conservative and the original pluralist” also helps us to apprehend more closely the concept of toleration in Burke’s thought, though this time as it applies to a society infused with the sec- ularizing legacy of the American and French revolutions, and the con- sequential emergence of the “ideological” mindset in political discourse. In many ways, these related issues of toleration and ideology, besides being redolent of Langmead Casserley’s admonitory treatment of Church-State relations, infused the theme of our fourth Edmund Burke Society conference, “Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, and Revo- lution in the Modern Mind.” Assembling on the campus of Belmont Abbey College, near Charlotte, North Carolina, participants were invited to discuss the intellectual legacies of the American and French revolutions as reflected in the writings of Burke and Kirk. It was soon evident that the connection between evolving conceptions of tolera- tion and secularization (or “disestablishment”) arising from those rev- olutions appeared closely linked to the emergence of ideology, or the 3 STUDIES IN BURKE AND HIS TIME “ideological mindset.” While Luke Sheahan’s illuminating examination of Robert Nisbet’s historic repositioning of Burke’s place in the pan- theon of modern conservatism shows that the definition of that term is not agreed upon, even today, even within conservative circles, the conference’s two keynote speakers, Dr. Wilfred McClay and Dr. Vigen Guroian, elucidated this link in distinct but compellingly coherent ways. In his treatment of the term “radical ideology” as a means of bridg- ing the years between the writings of Burke and Kirk, Vigen Guroian set minds thinking about the price that has to be paid for the loss of a sense of transcendence in culture and society, and the impact of such secularization on the signification of toleration as a means to reconcile liberty with order. Wilfred McClay’s absorbing treatment of the history of “loyalty” argued how that vital social virtue is corroded and enervated as it is reduced to an adherence to abstract principles, rather than arising from a “love for one’s own, and preference for what is one’s own, what is generative and originative, for one’s forebears and ancestors, enjoys a certain necessary priority in the human affections, a solid and immov- able base upon which the superstructure of other ideas can be erected.” We are delighted to be able to carry the text of each address in this issue of the journal. The program’s afternoon session comprised a panel of four invited guests under the chairmanship of Dr. Steven Millies, who each spoke on an author whose thought could serve to broaden the parameters of the conference theme explored by the keynote speakers. The concept of loyalty was richly revisited by André Gushurst-Moore in his comments on Thomas More’s famous letter from prison to Thomas Cromwell, in which More crucially contrasted the divisiveness of “man’s affection- ate reason” (a kind of proto-ideology) with those “ties of affection that are conceived in the heart” and nourish the virtue of loyalty.
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