“Man is not only ruled by evil passions; but his rational capacity is severely limited as well. Without the…

“Man is not only ruled by evil passions; but his rational capacity is severely limited as well. Without the warm cloak of custom, tradition, experience, history, religion, and social hierarchy—all of which radical man would rip off—man is shivering and naked.” Edmund Burke 1/6

Human life is like a human body. The vast majority of it acts autonomically. Nearly everything a society does when it succeeds is an inherited custom or tradition. A habit. An institution. Emergent from the blood and death of history, as what allowed us to survive. 2/6

This is something populist (electoral) politics simply can’t understand. Nor the populist electors, who think human rationality solves society’s problems. Institutions (customs, traditions, habits) are what holds societies together. Again they’re society’s nervous system. 3/6

The dreaded ‘red tape’ of ‘bureaucracy’, but also our inherited customs and traditions, the origins of which we mostly don’t know. It’s like how nobody understands how animals became domesticated. Look it up, nobody really has a clue how it was done. 4/6

Always though it will have been a catastrophe of some kind that created the habit, the custom and tradition and institution. The domestication. Only the threat to existence interrupts present-focused status games. Creating institutional stability. 5/6

The original meaning of conservative, in Burke’s time, was somebody who understood this and therefore fought to protect institutions. Today’s conservatives are thugs. Reactionary revolutionaries, smashing things with abandon. Capitalising on the damage, for self-gain. /end