For the lazy, the quote is this: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. — and Burke didn't say it. (Did Burke say anything in 15 words?) Apparently we have JFK to blame for everyone thinking he did: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/04/good-men-do/.
I love these sequences. The basic quote is known to have been said by Reverend Charles F. Aked (yup) in a sermon against alcohol (yes) in 1916. Then in 1920, Sir R. Murray Hyslop (that's right) attributed it to Burke. That clearly clicked, because we're all still repeating it.
Burke did say this in 1770:
No man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united Cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
WTF? But then John Stuart Mill said this in 1867:
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
Come on, that's obviously the quote. But how did it get from Mill to Reverend Aked? Surely not directly, because this is the passage from his sermon:
“The people in the liquor traffic,” said the speaker, “simply want us to do nothing. That’s all the devil wants of the son of God—to be let alone. That is all that the criminal wants of the law—to be let alone. The sin of doing nothing is the deadliest of all the seven sins. It has been said that for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing.”
... and in my experience that sort of preacher doesn't read Mill.
But why did Sir Murray say it was Burke? It turns out he was a temperance crusader too—but also an Englishman. I bet he stuck it to Burke because he couldn't bear to cite the American Reverend.
I'll throw in the source of Burke When bad men combine - it was both a speech to Parliment and a pamphlet distributed to the public; Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents
(I"m going to autocollapse this to avoid offtopicness)
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"When bad men combine" - always worth noting he was referring to guilds, trade unions, and any association intended to bring about political change. This was the same era where taking an illegal oath would get you transported to Australia for hard labour, and where magistrates worked directly for the home office as spies able to pass summary judgement in-situ.
Disclaimer: personally I think Burke is one of the more overrated thinkers and the meanderings of his prose, ultimately not making much of a strong argument (I mean his main book here), just made it easier for people to read things into it. An example of books serving as totem authority more than being actually interacted with. I misread the title for Edward Gibbon initially...
But on the topic of "complication", it is worth for people to be aware of two connections of Burke. First is to Thomas Paine, whose Rights of Man prompted Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Paine argued, ultimately in line with Jefferson, that the French Revolution is justified because it vindicates the natural rights of people which are discoverable by reason. Burke's response is more of less that you cannot reason about politics from first principles, and there are mobs and brutality in France. Which could lead us to a historical discussion about standards of mobs, brutality and state violence in the 18th century in general.
[edit: I checked and it is actually the other way around, it was Paine responding to Burke, but the books can be read as a debate on similar points anyway]
Second, there is a traditional comparison in political science between Burke and de Maistre, which makes me queasy about calling Burke a "reactionary" (even discounting his positive stance on American Revolution). De Maistre argued for eternal authority of Catholic Church barring any change to society, while Burke is seen as an "evolutionary" conservative allowing some change if it is slow and invisible to people, essentially. (One interpretation of course.) It's not that we "haven't realized" it, as TFA suggests, maybe just politicians lack education and basic underpinnings of what they claim to believe.
Hah. I'm not surprised that NewStatesman would be trying to rehabilitate the founder of philosophical conservatism. There was a time that would have been seen as crazy talk, but that time is long past.
I'm confused - I read this as critical of Burke and critical of conservative movements that ignore that criticism of Burke. I feel like you're saying it was the opposite. Am I missing something?
> “I have little doubt that Edmund Burke would have smiled on the endeavours of this convention,” he said.
Grand poofery at its finest.
Burke was no doubt clever, but I wouldn't deem him extraordinary. His ideas on the sublime got me in a row with a Romantic Literature professors at the University of Texas who told me I should "have more respect". I simply pointed out that Burke's thoughts on the sublime were simple, apparently limited in their understanding.
Today I would anticipate extending such judgement to all of his work (and by extension his followers), but must stop short of such damnation as I haven't given it proper treatment.
An historian of that time might defend Hudson by noting that, while abrasive, he never once demanded that anyone cover him, nor did he declare that he was "getting too old for this shit."
