To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ, as it were) of public affections.
Edmund Burke: “To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ…”
Editor's note · Context
In his critique of the French Revolution, Burke explains how local attachments and community loyalty form the foundation of broader public affections and patriotism.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they…
Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?
They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.
We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.





