Edmund Burke talks about the French Revolution as little more than a chaotic bloodbath that took place for no good reason. He holds a nostalgic and romantic notion of European tradition and culture. Burke’s view of an ideal society is one which has stood the test of time. To him, that is the ultimate way of testing a government’s legitimacy. This seems logical at first, since a form of government which has succeeded for hundreds of years would have no more room to improve. In reality, however, the world and people’s views of the world are constantly evolving. With the arrival of the Enlightenment, age-old monarchies could no longer use the divine right of kings as reason enough to have sick and starving people in their country. Unless you take measures to seal your people from the outside world, they will eventually come to realize how much better their quality of life could be. Burke’s argument is understandable from the perspective of pure nostalgia. Upon reading his description of glorious medieval Europe, a French peasant could almost be talked out of rebelling. “...that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that …show more content…
To Burke, the age of chivalry saw no discontent among the people. Monarchs ruled, and they were fine because they trusted the peasants to know their place. Peasants did their work because the King wasn’t all that oppressive. Burke is in favor of an exploitative class system. His model of society only works as long as the third estate passively accepts their position on the social ladder without question. Burke is correct in his critique that the French Revolution was not the right approach to achieving its goal of an ideal society. However, he is wrong in the belief that France was a beacon of prosperity for all its citizens prior, and that the Revolution was completely