Wise societies recognize that there are people naturally born to lead. Elevating those natural leaders, rather than suppressing them, will enable a society to thrive and flourish. Those leaders must work to elevate the State rather than themselves in turn.
Man has sought to define their Rights - Burke provides a roadmap for what is and is not a Right and the purpose of civil society and governments.
Edmund Burke's main accomplishment is teaching men how to soften the blow of change and avoid outright rebellion. Prejudice, Prescription, and Presumption help guide the conservative in their quest to improve mankind.
Burke believed that the State was a reflection of the moral state of the people and that God gave us the ability to His mind and will through man's years of learning and thinking.
Throughout his years, Edmund Burke generated a prolific library of writings that are foundational to Conservative thinking and kept England on course away from Revolution.
Burke's words established British conservatism in the face of sweeping revolutions in France and United States and was a model for statesman in those countries.
Conservatives seek to conserve the traditions and ideas man has learned to be good through the centuries. Radicals seek change for change's sake.
The ideas of Babbitt, More, and Santayana had small circles of following but didn’t capture the general public’s attention. The nation greatly changed in character and temperance from WW1 to WW2 and conservatism was adrift.
George Santayana had a rich depth of conservative ideas that identified and fought against the materialism of the modern world.
Paul Elmer More is thought of "as a critic of ideas, perhaps there has not been his peer in England or American since Coleridge". He fought the pragmatism of James, the naturalism of Dewey, the sentimentality of the socialists, and the presumption of those that forgot dualism.
