The word PRINCIPLE is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary [2011 Concise edition] as:
A fundamental truth or proposition serving as the foundation for belief or action
Is there then a fundamental truth serving as the foundation for Right wing belief ?
Certainly the world views of Right and Left are coming from very different perspectives with quite different terms of reference for their thinking.
The Right’s approach has clearly to do with present and past while the Left is looking for something to come but which is lacking in the present. The Left looks to Ideals while the Right is founded in what we know, what is certain, what is experienced.
This writer would therefore characterise the Principle for Right wing and for Left wing in this way.
Reality is the reference point for Right wing politics, and Experience provides its terms of reference.
while
Idealism is the reference point for Left wing politics and radical Ideology provides its terms of reference
The dominant ideology on the Left is Socialism, usually the authoritarian Marxist variety, not the libertarian form called Anarchism.
Such ideologies give structure, form and terms of reference for their Ideal.
It is essential to understand that the terms Left and Right in politics derive from a parliamentary context, ie a context of debate and consensual decision making. They do not derive from an extra parliamentary context: their use by today’s media in reference to extra parliamentary activity is a practice which is neither technically correct nor helpful to understanding politics properly.
The key principle of the Right has had its exponents but the first political thinker and practitioner to elaborate the value and meaning of Right wing thinking was the 18th century British politician, Edmund Burke [1729-1796]
In writing his famous book Reflections on the Revolution in France, [1790] Burke explains and defines the thinking behind Modern Conservatism.
Burke’s Reflections demonstrates that the state of society and the liberty of the individual are fundamental concerns for the Right. His intention in the book is to show how the English constitution and culture have proven value for good order and the securing of people’s Rights; and that the situation in France at that time endangered the very Rights the Revolutionaries and their supporters were seeking.
Burke’s comments on the French Revolution were thoroughly pertinent, just as they had been about the American colonies prior to the War of Independence, about the questionable situation of British East India Company rule, and about his native Ireland.
Burke’s analysis is of inestimable value, and he is rightly seen as the father of modern Conservatism.
Reflections on the Revolution in France should therefore be read in its entirety to gain a full appreciation of the Right’s rationale.
His concluding remarks in Reflections convey the sense: Burke describes a conservatism which values the experience of the ages, eschewing radical departures, and taking its worldview from Christianity, not from the Materialism and Rationalism of Enlightenment thinking.
Burke writes:
“I wish my countryman rather to recommend to our neighbours [ie the French] the example of the British Constitution, than to take models from them for the improvement of our own. In the former they have got an invaluable treasure. They are not, I think, without some causes of apprehension and complaint; but these they do not owe to their constitution, but to their own conduct.
I think our happy situation owing to our constitution; but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly; owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have altered or superadded.
Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve. I should be led to my remedy by a great grievance. In what I did, I should follow the example of our ancestors. I would make the reparation as nearly as possible in the style of the building.
A politic caution, a guarded circumspection, a moral rather than a complexional timidity were among the ruling principles of our forefathers in their most decided conduct.
Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind. He [ie God] that made them thus fallible, rewarded them for having in their conduct attended to their nature.
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune, or to retain their bequests. Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the ground of the British constitution, let us be satisfied to admire rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights the aëronauts of France.
Cited from Paragraph 398 in this writer’s edition of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France entitled “CORE CONSERVATISM: Edmund Burke’s Landmark Definition”
published by Westbow Press and available from Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Core+Conservatism&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Core+Conservatism&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss
