> The Napoleonic wars that followed the French Revolution gave birth,
> among other things, to British conservatism, and ''Master and
> Commander,'' making no concessions to modern, egalitarian
> sensibilities, is among the most thoroughly and proudly conservative
> movies ever made. It imagines the Surprise as a coherent society in
> which stability is underwritten by custom and every man knows his duty
> and his place. I would not have been surprised to see Edmund Burke's
> name in the credits. . . .
Actually, my theory about conservatism is that it fundamentally sees all societies as military organizations; they are in a Hobbsean state of continuous warfare (hot or cold) against each other, and therefore need to be organized in military fashion.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is the London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt