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Burkean

Burkean

1 9.8
Following Edmund Burke's ideas that value tradition and slow change
  • adjective
  • /ˈbɜr.kɪn/
  • Formal
: burkeano
  • The professor explained that a Burkean approach emphasizes the importance of tradition in societal development.
  • Burkean virtue
  • Burkean conservative

Examples

  • Ross Douthat, however, suggests a more sensible interpretation of the film as articulating something like an old-fashioned Burkean conservatism that has little in common with today's American Right, "a belief that a compromised order can still be worth defending."

    Blog text (27)
  • Moreover, the sole guiding principle of Burkean statesmanship is prudence.

    Academic text (1994)
  • The sheer possibility of such a threat seems to call for the United States to take Burkean "precautionary" measures against the precautionary principle.

    Academic text (2013)
  • Habitual attachments form the basis and criteria for Burkean virtue.

    Academic text (1994)
  • If you are a committed Burkean conservative who dislikes discontinuous legal change, then perhaps you would want to stamp out judicial activism.

    Academic text (1997)
  • All may attain Burkean virtue, so long as they are allowed to form natural attachments and to fulfill the dictates of their given station in life.

    Academic text (1994)
  • We recommend a Burkean, conservative revolution, whereby the country recommits itself by constitutional amendment to the tenure practices that held for Supreme Court Justices for most of our history.

    Academic text (2006)
  • In this eminently commonsensical way, Kolnai was a Burkean conservative who believed that all genuinely political thought and action, including reformist ones, must be, in some fundamental way, conservative.

    Academic text (1997)
  • Put succinctly, whereas Aristotle's highest virtue is intellectual, and that of republicanism is political, the highest virtue of Burkean conservatism is social in that it is primarily concerned with traditions and mores.

    Academic text (1994)
  • Moving to a system of eighteen-year staggered terms for Supreme Court Justices is fundamentally a conservative, Burkean idea that would restore the norms in this country that prevailed on the Court between 1789 and 1970.

    Academic text (2006)

How Conservative

reactionary
13 8.6
conservative
∞ 4.6
Burkean
  • Formal
1 9.8
moderate
114 4.6
progressive
278 4.8

Surface Forms

Burkean positive

Morphology

Burkean = Burke (semi-transparent) = Burke + an

The form is a regular adjective formed with the productive suffix '-an' on the name 'Burke', but the precise political/philosophical content requires knowledge of Edmund Burke and is specialized.

Etymology

Burkean comes from the name of the 18th-century thinker Burke, who loved 'tradition' and favoured slow, careful change. So a Burkean approach means respecting long-standing institutions and preferring gradual reform.