The Burke Habit Remembered

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 2005 | Jeffrey Hart

[Happy Rain]

In "The Conservative Mind"(1953),a founding document of the American conservative movement,Russel Kirk assembled an array of major thinkers beginning with Edmund Burke and made a major statement. He proved that conservative thought in America existed,and even that such thought was highly intelligent--a demonstration very much needed at the time.

[Happy Rain]

Some old articles need to be exhumed to redress current doubts and divisions in a righteous movement constantly assailed by an insane yet violent,vocal and politically powerful pack of media and public service savages claiming conservatives are dangerous doofuses. If the WSJ doesn't allow access without cashess use "google" and then click "cache."

[Pontiac]

Your link doesn’t work.

Only takes you to the Opinion Journal home page.

[Happy Rain]

Sorry,it's an old one—just google “The Burke Habit” then click “cache” on “American Conservatism—WSJ.com.

A lot of trouble I know but the article is classic.

[Pontiac]

You must have PO’ed the Google Gods.

I went through the first 13 Google pages and did not find the WSJ article.

Only your post showed up twice and a bunch of articles discussing the Hart article.

[Happy Rain]

Google IS a Soros satrap—so I’m not surprised—but dang they work fast!

Well,the article is The Burke Habit by Jeffrey Hart and if anyone can post a Left proof link it would be appreciated.

[foundedonpurpose]

google in the lest month or so is indeed making things hard to access. once someone brings something important to light, it goes further back on the page lists. I wonder how many full time positions this new anti propaganda work entails.

[wizkid]

bing.com listed the link as the first result:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113564361018331773.html

[wizkid]

Oops, it only gives you the first paragraph w/o a subscription.

[Pontiac]

Google IS a Soros satrap—so I’m not surprised

google in the lest month or so is indeed making things hard to access.

Google’s political leanings are why I very rarely ever use the site. I don’t think I have used Google in more than a year before today.

I only went to Google after trying several other sites first.

[wizkid]

TSC Daily contains a highly critical essay on the original piece:

http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2006/01/kicking-the-burke-habit.html

“Let me play the small child to Hart’s naked Emperor, and blurt out the blindingly obvious: “The Burke Habit” fails at every level. It is a textbook study in how not to write an essay about conservatism, or anything else. The conservatism set forth in Hart’s essay is a conservatism I do not recognize, and from which I would run screaming if it constituted a real political philosophy, rather than a grab bag of pet peeves and prejudices.”

It links to a blog that does a good job of summarizing conservative comments on the piece:

http://cliopolitical.blogspot.com/2005/12/synthesizing-running-debate-harts-new.html

Below is a summary of the various critiques on the article:

“Disagreements have arisen over five components of his synthesis:

1) his characterization of pro-life conservatives as being utopians;

2) his belief that an excessive reliance on a free-market ideology is harmful;

3) his characterization President Bush’s foreign policy as “Wilsonian”;

4) the growing influence of the “anti-intellectual” South within the Republican party;

5) his suggestion of the particular building block on which a new conservative metaphysics should be built.”

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks neverdem.

• The Timeless Principles of American Prosperity
• Milton Friedman Would Have Been 98 Today...