On Manners and Elegance

Confronted by the left's apotheosis in domestic politics, here are some timely thoughts for consideration from Professor Daniel J. Mahoney, reflecting on the political theory of Bertrand de Jouvenel:

European chivalry had tied manliness to gentleness and had “subdued the fierceness of pride and power.” In Christian Europe, authority had been tamed by elegance and “subdued by manners.” But modern rationalist philosophy, vulgarized by the revolutionaries, had no place for taste, elegance, or even moral self-restraint. Its cold, calculating rationality undermined the “love, veneration, admiration, or attachment” that connect people to their commonwealth. In Burke’s view, public affections, combined with manners, are required as “supplements,” correctives” and “aids” to the law. The French Revolution left “another inheritance: it…hallowed violence.”

Taken from Bertrand de Jouvenel: The Conservative Liberal and the Illusions of Modernity