The following is a critique of Edmund Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France” written for a class on Political Theory I took at Duke University in 2020.
Revolution & Fraud: Self Interest & Contradiction in Reflections on the Revolution in France
Edmund Burke is undoubtedly one of the great thinkers of his time, and his logical and political prowess is embodied best in his treatise on the French Revolution, Reflections on the Revolution in France. While clearly a powerful and coherent work, Burke makes a number of claims and assertions that can be found to contradict one another. In this work, I will focus on Burke’s assertion that the French Revolution is fraudulent and the effects of this upon his own broader argument. One of the core pillars of his argument is that his own government in Britain has and continues to benefit from “pleasant illusions” that restrain the populace, illusions that are not grounded in self interest but in something higher. In asserting that the French Revolution is perpetrating a fraud, Burke is claiming that it lacks these so-called ‘pleasant illusions’. As Burke sees it, the self-interested nature of the Revolution precludes any incorporation of illusions that are not based in self interest; rather, these “sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason” (Reflections, 171). However, Burke’s characterization of these ‘pleasant illusions’ as not based in self interest is pure sophistry; their true nature is rather one of naked self interest, thinly disguised as something much more refined. As I will prove, the self-interested nature of these illusions undoes Burke’s argument in such a way as to evoke an unavoidable contradiction of sorts: Burke’s assertion that the French Revolution is fraudulent is true; but if it is true, then so too must Burke’s own government be fraudulent.
Reflections on the Revolution in France contains within it such an enormity of conventions and complaints that one key clarification is required before delving into the body of my argument: the definition of the word ‘fraud’. Burke has a number of reasons for claiming that the French Revolution was a fraud, but for the sake of my argument, I will focus on only one and extrapolate it out; Burke states the following: “I admit that their necessities do compel them to this base and contemptible fraud”, a clear reference to the Revolution itself (Reflections, 227). Having established Burke’s assertion that the Revolution is fraudulent, it is possible to then define the term. I take Burke’s claim that the Revolution is fraudulent not on any one point of fraudulence, but rather as a whole; a fraud is predicated on deception and mistruths, and these are what I shall attempt to define within the Revolution to determine its fradulence.
With this groundwork laid, we are free to examine the foundation of Burke’s argument. Rather than accept Burke’s definition of ‘pleasant illusions’ and use the appearance or lack thereof of these illusions to judge the Revolution, I shall examine the very nature of these illusions in order to better utilize them as criteria for judgment.
Shortly before claiming that the French Revolution has eradicated all ‘pleasant illusions’, Burke establishes the origin and lineage of these illusions: “This mixed system of opinion and sentiment had its origin in the ancient chivalry; and the principle, though varied in its appearance by the varying state of human affairs, subsisted and influenced through a long succession of generations, even to the time we live in” (Reflections, 170). In as many words, Burke has claimed that what he refers to as ‘pleasant illusions’ came to being in medieval forms of chivalry and have been sustained in essentially that same spirit up until his time. Burke here makes the common mistake of viewing the past through rose-colored lenses; chivalry was anything but a phenomena that “produced a noble equality, and handed it down through all the graduations of social life” (Reflections, 170). Firstly, the system of chivalry was created not in an attempt to “mitigat[e] kings into companions” but to mitigate the violent tendencies of a martial elite (Reflections, 170). A review of the book Chivalry in Medieval England by Sarah Douglas succinctly sums up this point:
Chivalry as a concept emerged around the 10th century AD in France when the
Christian church began attempting to regulate the violence endemic to Frankish
society...It was this violence that the church attempted to regulate, giving rise to a
code meant for those horse-bound "knights" which later became known as
chivalry.
Chivalry was yet another self-interested attempt to control the basest impulses of human beings, not the higher order Burke makes it out to be. If the ‘pleasant illusion’ is a direct descendant of chivalry, unchanged in principle (as Burke claims), then it too must be a similar phenomena with its basis in self-interest. Its purpose then would be the same as the “barbarous philosophy” Burke decires, a philosophy under which “laws are to be supported only by their own terrors, and by the concern, which each individual may find in them, from his own private speculations, or can spare to them from his own private interests” (Reflections, 171). Pleasant illusions, fear, and personal gain are all base human impulses that are core “defects of our naked shivering nature” and as such this ‘pleasant illusion’ is anything but; rather, it is quite an unpleasant illusion (Reflections, 171).
Having dispensed with Burke’s sophistric presentation of the heretofore referred to as ‘unpleasant illusions’, we are free to apply them to the case of the French Revolution. Burke decries the Revolution as a “base and contemptible fraud”; if it is such a fraud, then, as stated above, it must be predicated on deception. Part of the reason Burke finds fault with the Revolution is that he believes it is inherently based on self-interest. If this is so, then this self-interest must come in the form of an ‘unpleasant illusion’; all of the “frauds, impostures, violences, rapines, burnings, murders, confiscations, compulsory paper currencies, and every description of tyranny and cruelty employed to bring about and uphold this revolution” are attempts to support the sophistric new system of tyranny imposed by a government of the majority. In essence, it is again self-interest (though clearly carried out in the most despicable of means) utilized to control the base impulses of the French populace. As established above, this is the unpleasant illusion. Thus, Burke is correct in his assertion that the French Revolution is fraudulent; a movement based on unpleasant illusions is deceptive, and thus a fraud. However, this is not where Burke contradicts himself; it is in his broader comparison throughout his entire work that clearly separates and distinguishes his own system of government from that of the French Revolution.
Over and over in Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke makes clear attempts to demonstrate the differences between the French and British governments, and his disgust for the former and admiration of the latter. However, here he has reasoned too well; having proved the fraudulent nature of the new French government, we must then examine the nature of the British government. I have established that the ‘pleasant illusions’ Burke refers to are in fact unpleasant illusions predicated on self interest; this was the logic behind judging France’s government as fraudulent. However, if the British government too is based on these unpleasant illusions, as Burke claims, then it too must be fraudulent. Now, the question is not of a means of erecting or sustaining these illusions (clearly much more morally repugnant in the case of the French), but of degree of separation between the two. If, as we have found, both are fraudulent, then one of the largest reasons for condemning France and upholding Britain has been stripped away. If both are fraudulent, then must Britain be condemned as Burke has condemned France? Or, if this fradulence is supposedly for the betterment of society as it is in Britain, ought the French Revolution to be due more praise and admiration for its emulation of this system of governance?
Works Cited
Burke, Edmund, and L. G. Mitchell. Reflections on the Revolution in France. Oxford University Press, 1999.
“Knighthood As It Was, Not As We Wish It Were: Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective.” Origins, origins.osu.edu/review/knighthood-it-was-not-we-wish-it-were.