Burkean Prescription Should Inform Us, Not Rule Us
We should have reverence for the tried and true and hesitance to indulge in the new and untested, but we should never forget that it's our wits that make us men.
I view Burkean prescription the way I look at the legal doctrine of stare decisis, a very, very important principle but one that should inform us rather than rule us. If allowed to do the latter, both of these ideals can undermine fundamental premises that must define American conservatism if the project is truly about conserving and renewing the American Republic.
American conservatism should be grounded in the founding vision. Burke can, indeed, aid and inform such a project. But, if taken to the extreme, essential aspects of the founding vision can easily become overwhelmed.
For example, Jefferson, in the Declaration, asserted that "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of [just] ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." This principle is foundational to American political thought and the justification for revolution, but it flies in the face both of unmitigated Burkean prescription and against Burkean distrust for the application of reason in judging the status quo and in forging new paths from the status quo when necessary.
And again, the entire process of drafting and ratifying the US Constitution speaks of the application of reason in establishing something new and untried. Much of Burke's premises on prescription and tradition assert that something like the US Constitution is an impossibility, that good society can only be predicated upon slow, evolutionary processes, and that no generation can establish a new form of government, let alone hope to do so successfully. But we can, and we did.
Prescription is valuable, just as stare decisis is valuable, in slowing down the wheels of change and in establishing reverence for the tried and true with a hesitancy to indulge in the new and untested.
But stare decisis (respect of judicial precedent) must be tempered by stare scriptum (respect for the actual written provisions of the US Constitution), and if it isn’t, the courts can frustrate the supremacy of the US Constitution itself by supplanting its provisions through a form of judicially established common law.
There are many, many poor court decisions (such as Dred Scott, Plessy, Roe, and Chevron) that have and continue to undermine basic provisions and precepts of the Constitution that we would be hopelessly stuck with if stare decisis was the unrestrained and final doctrine of the courts. The moderating doctrine of stare scriptum allows for corrective action in the face of poor precedent by turning to the established supremacy of the Constitution itself.
Similarly, prescription unmitigated and untested by reason becomes a soulless historicism that unmoors American conservative thought from its roots in the American enlightenment, an era of reason and revolution, tempered by experience, history, and prescription but not ruled by them.
History does not automatically evolve in ways conducive to the common good, good governance, or toward the establishment and preservation of a just society. And human beings are actors, not reactors, in the march of history. The tool at our disposal, given to us by Providence, is our capacity for reason and to reckon both with what is and what ought to be. To paraphrase Malcolm Wallace’s character from Braveheart, we should be grateful for and consider carefully the traditions, norms, and mores handed down to us, but it’s our wits that make us men. Without our wits and our ability to reason through our circumstances and dream new dreams, we would not be altogether different than the automaton citizens envisioned by Marx, Engels, and Lenin.
The application of reason moderates the principle of prescription by making us conscious conservatives who can defend the valuable aspects of a given status quo while also helping us avoid becoming blind defenders of broken, problematic aspects of the status quo that, if left unconsidered and unaddressed, provide powerful rhetorical ammunition to those who would destroy tradition and the provisions of prescription altogether.
Justin Stapley received his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Utah Valley University, with emphases in political philosophy, public law, American history, and constitutional studies. He is the Founding and Executive Director of The Freemen Foundation as well as Editor in Chief of the Freemen News-Letter. @JustinWStapley
So, I agree with all of that, although I would point out that the Founders were certainly grounded in history and tradition and drew heavily on English thought, classical thought, European thought etc. So they weren’t simply applying pure reason and reinventing the wheel.