Edmund Burke’s Conservative Liberalism

To understand renovations being made to a building, it is good to understand the kind of order that the renovator hopes to establish. Edmund Burke writes to a French correspondent in 1789: “Permit me then . . . to tell you what the freedom is that I love.” The freedom is liberal policy; and his love of it is why he is so opposed to the goings-on in France: They will not support “practical liberty.” By understanding Burke’s sensibilities in policy reform, we have a better sense of what he aims for, long term, when considering renovations to the polity.