One of Those Dead Who Give Us Energy: Edmund Burke’s Wisdom for Archivists

Jan 06, 2026

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          “In history a great volume is unrolled for our instruction” – Edmund Burke

Like many archivists, I entered the profession because I love history. The people and cultures predating my era fascinate me. Studying history is like travelling to different sociocultural environments that provide valuable learning opportunities.

A well-rounded education and well-formed character require learning from those who came before us. The dead give the living energy by bequeathing time-tested tradition and practically proven wisdom. Indeed, “the communication of the dead exceeds the language of the living.”[1]

Interest in history motivates most archivists but how many adequately respect the people and perspectives that shaped Western society? As when travelling, we owe respect to past cultures even when they offend our sensibilities. In our day, an overly critical (or Critical)[2] perspective undermines proper appreciation of Western civilization’s cultural gifts. Many archivists, unfortunately, embrace this frankly arrogant view of the past.

Left-leaning, or sometimes exclusively Leftist, institutions train most archivists. This is true for the university programs that provide credentials (MLIS, MA, etc.) as well as influential organizations that offer certification or continuing education. Oppression narratives permeate the institutional gateways through which students must pass to enter the profession. Within the career field, DEI ideology, or whatever is the latest permutation of this moral-political fad, exercises significant influence.

To many archivists, the West does not offer a heritage to appreciate, protect, and reform with great care. Rather, Western ideals, systems, and institutions must be torn down and revolutionarily rebuilt to uplift the “marginalized,” remedy perceived injustices, and advance supposed equity.

Archivists should seek perspectives that take a different approach to analyzing our cultural tradition. Exposure to thinkers not regularly encountered in archival education provides important opportunities for humble self-reflection. Archivists would do well, for example, to consider Edmund Burke’s writings about the heritage of the West and his critiques of the revolutionary mindset.

In his introduction to Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (Reflections), Conor Cruise O’Brien writes, “The intellectual left … though with some notable exceptions—has a strong tendency to neglect its adversaries and to dismiss even their most influential writings, unread, with a sneer. This is associated, I believe, with another pronounced tendency on the left: that which runs to misunderstanding and underestimating the forces opposed to it.”[3]

Even if Burke does not change the minds of all who read him, his immense influence on the history of political thought must not be ignored. For archivists, his perspective on the past is an essential corrective to the “intellectual left” bias encountered in archival education and professional contexts.

Burke’s Contribution

Born in Dublin in 1729, Edmund Burke became an influential member of the British parliament during the latter part of the 18^th-century. Roger Scruton described this Irishman as “Politician, propagandist, philosopher, man of letters—Burke was one of the outstanding figures of the eighteenth century … His writings changed the course of politics, and laid the foundation for a political philosophy [conservatism] which has lasted to our day.”[4]

Burke’s most well-known works critiqued the French Revolution (1789-1799). In 1790, he penned the Reflections, which Russell Kirk effusively praised as “the most brilliant work of English political philosophy, and which for eloquence combined with wisdom has no equal in any language’s literature of politics.”[5] Burke fought the excesses of the French Revolution, not with the sword, but with the pen. In doing so, he presented posterity with a timeless warning against the revolutionary mindset.

Burke looked across the English Channel and saw an approach to politics and society that uprooted and destroyed valuable, while imperfect, institutions. Revolutionaries pursued untested assumptions about human nature and untried political arrangements. Great danger lies in fanatical adherence to unproven, radical ideologies.

Burke’s Counsel

Burke compared the French Revolution to the spread of a contagious disease. He employed the term “epidemical fanaticism” to describe the frenzied passion with which revolutionaries pursued their transformative policies.[6] He described the Revolution as “a Revolution of doctrine and theoretick [sic] dogma. It has much greater resemblance to those changes which have been made upon religious grounds, in which a spirit of proselytism makes an essential part.”[7] A “spirit of innovation” motivated the destructive work of the Revolution.[8]

The virtue of prudence opposed this evil spirit. Burke believed prudence was the “first of all virtues.”[9] One of the most odious traits of the French revolutionaries was their willingness to discard all inherited tradition, religion, and institutions in order to “innovate.” Burke cautioned against a puritanically enthusiastic pursuit of one’s sociopolitical ideas.

Burke counselled that wise caution is necessary for reform that also protects beneficial institutions, mores, and traditions. He wrote that, “Rage and phrenzy will pull down more in half an hour, than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.”[10] Prudence is constructive; activist revolutionary innovation is destructive.

Radical social transformation, even to achieve supposedly good ends, tears the fabric of inherited society. It rips apart long-stitched-together bonds between individuals and institutions. Kirk agreed with Burke. He wrote of the revolutionary mind:

Through destruction of ancient institutions and beliefs, the way must be cleared to Utopia. Since Burke’s day, the label ‘ideology’ has been affixed to what he called ‘the armed doctrine’—political fanaticism, promising general redemption and idyllic general happiness to be achieved through radical social alteration. But Utopia never will be found here below, Burke knew; politics is the art of the possible, not of perfectibility. We never will be as gods. Improvement is the work of slow exploration and persuasion, never unfixing old interests at once. Mere sweeping innovation is not reform.[11]

Burke recognized the spirit of fanatical innovation in the French Revolution. Kirk saw it in the ideology and actions of Communism. In 2026, elements of this spirit infect the Critical theoretical approach embraced by many in academia, including archivists.

This is not to say that the level of inflammatory rhetoric or revolutionary action is the same across all three ideological movements. But there is commonality—a heightened sense of moral panic not supported by empirical evidence, a perfectionist pursuit of a collectivist conception of justice, and a rejection of individual rights (e.g. property rights, freedom of speech, etc.).

Archivists, who should most appreciate the inheritance from our forebears, must guard against letting “epidemical fanaticism” develop in us a self-righteous, overly critical perspective which infects our work and rejects prudence when advocating for social change.

Burke’s Corrective

Burke offers his readers insight into the nature of the “ideology of innovation” or, what we might term in 2026, the Critical movement or DEI mindset. While differences must be noted between the “armed doctrine” combated by Burke and the intellectual left of our era, one notices parallels between the two when reading his books, pamphlets, and letters.

For archivists, the most important takeaway from Burke is his call to humbly respect our forebears. Burke hardly rejected the need for reformation. He defined a statesman as one who possessed a “disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve.”[12] But his warnings against a radical critique of a country’s inheritance are apropos.

Two recent examples help us grasp Burke’s continued relevance and the value of his writings for self-reflection. Both the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and the rise of land acknowledgements reveal a “spirit of innovation” that seeks either radical transformation of society or, in the case of land acknowledgements, fixates on one aspect of our past. Both examples continue to influence the archival profession.

In 2020, the BLM movement drew the attention of the nation. While specific instances of police abuse of power occurred, the expansive goals of the movement mirror aspects of the French Revolution. Both couch society in terms of systems of oppression to tear down. Righteous indignation fomented peaceful protests but also many instances of property damage and violence.

Included in the destructive acts were tearing down statues deemed symbols of the oppressive system. An irrational, myopic hatred of past leaders caused some vandals to tear down a statue of George Washington after spray painting it with the phrases: “Genocidal Colonist,” “You’re on native lands,” and “BLM.”

Many archivists embraced the movement and its use of radical, revolutionary rhetoric. Burke warns both the people who pulled down statues like Washington’s, and archivists who embrace a Critical approach to history, to beware of focusing exclusively on the errors of past leaders or institutions. He acknowledges how this is tempting: “I know how easy a topic it is to dwell on the faults of departed greatness … But steady and independent minds … will sort out the good from the evil, which is mixed in mortal institutions as it is in moral men.”[13]

Archivists must, if any must, possess such “steady and independent minds.” Though the winds of righteous indignation blow, archivists should seek balance and prudence when presenting the sources of history. To fail in this duty is to abdicate our role as reliable intermediaries between primary sources and the public. It foments a destructive “spirit of innovation” that seeks revolutionary social change based on, at best, an incomplete perspective of the past.

A simplistic analysis of the past is evident in land acknowledgements founded upon collective guilt. Such acknowledgments are pseudo-religious acts that reflect the type of “theoretick [sic] dogma … in which a spirit of proselytism makes an essential part.”[14] The original sin of European colonization supposedly must be atoned for through this ritual, at least in part. But unlike the clear path of salvation offered by Burke’s Christianity, where or when will forgiveness arise under this alternate dogma? It is hardly clear that it ever will.

Burke offers a powerful corrective to the ideology behind land acknowledgements or, for example, the related policy of affirmative action. He wrote, “It is not very just to chastise men for the offences of their natural ancestors; but to take the fiction of ancestry in a corporate succession, as a ground for punishing men who have no relation to guilty acts, except in names and general descriptions, is a sort of refinement in injustice.”[15] Our age reflects such “refinements in injustice” through divisive DEI policies including obsessive fixation on “privilege” and excluding opportunities from some people due to inherited and immutable traits.

Archivists must carefully reconsider their use of Critical approaches and its “justice language.” If we normalize unbalanced rhetoric, the ritual airing of historical grievances, and ascribing guilt to the descendants of those deemed “oppressors,” we perilously politicize both the profession and the concept of archives.

Conclusion

Burke employed winsome and memorable prose throughout his works. His powerful imagery helped sway the British public from Jacobin ideology. That same prose can help current archivists back away from radical perspectives shaping our work.

Modern revolutionary movements often use the language of “burning down the system” or some similar invective. Burke also drew upon the imagery of fire: “He that sets his house on fire because his fingers are frostbitten, can never be a fit instructor in the method of providing our habitations with a cheerful and salutary warmth.”[16] Extreme rhetoric about righting wrongs or pursuing social justice led to horrific intolerance and violence in the past. To save our era from such pain, we must carefully protect the salutary systems and institutions that our forebears bequeathed to us.

Archivists would also do well to seek ideological balance in our education, professional community, and work processes. Burke concluded his Reflections by outlining why he wrote. He compared his nation to an unbalanced ship on the high seas. Too many Britons were embracing the Jacobin ideals and Burke desired to right the ship. He believed that “when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails, may be endangered by overloading it upon one side, [the prudent man] is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preserve its equipoise.”[17]

I urge other archivists to speak up about the dangerously tilting vessel of our profession and our broader academic culture. Burke is a most helpful aid in this work. He is indeed “one of those dead who give us energy.”[18]

Heterodoxy in the Stacks

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