Between Expertise and Experience: Burke, Democratic Wisdom, and the Risks of Populism

Introduction

Is democracy better protected in the hands of the lettered or unlettered men? Thinkers and politicians have debated this question since the emergence of democracy, but ongoing controversies around Donald Trump's presidential election in the United States demand further analysis.

Edmund Burke, a philosopher and politician from Great Britain in the late 18th century, was among the first to systematically discuss the relation between democracy and education. Burke categorized the people, or Dēmos, the very foundation of democracy, into a deceptively simple dichotomy of “lettered” and “unlettered.” The former category refers to people who are formally educated, often at elite institutions or in political circles. The latter category refers to the broader population, those lacking formal expertise or access to institutional power.

In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke famously remarks that “I shall always advise calling in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor of metaphysics” (Burke, 1790/2003, p. 95). This statement is not a dismissal of intelligence, but a valorization of the kind of wisdom grounded in practical engagement with real human affairs.

What Burke argued against was an entrenched tradition in Western political thought that equates democracy with elites. In The Republic, for example, Plato warns against democracy as rule by the uninformed majority, arguing that governance should be entrusted to philosopher-kings who possess reason and wisdom (Plato, trans. 2007). For Plato, the unlettered were too easily swayed by demagogues and emotions. This distrust culminated in his condemnation of Athenian democracy for executing Socrates, a victim of populist sentiment.

Burke offers a counterpoint to Plato. For Burke, Athenian democracy also produced an unprecedented culture of civic debate and responsibility, enabling ordinary citizens to voice perspectives grounded in the life of the polis. The lettered may have had philosophical acumen, but the unlettered had stakes in the shared reality of governance.

Burke’s endorsement of the wisdom of unlettered men prompted him to criticize revolutionaries during the French Revolution. He lamented that revolutionaries rejected the “wisdom of unlettered men,” and by doing so, “they have wrought underground a mine that will blow up at one grand explosion all examples of antiquity, all precedents, charters, and acts of parliament.” Here, Burke was not simply rejecting the immense upheavals brought by the French Revolution. Rather, he was responding to a more profound threat: the replacement of politics grounded in practical knowledge with speculative and abstract ideals of revolution.

For Burke, revolutionaries who brought radical socio-political changes would necessarily become disconnected from reality and the people they govern. He saw in the French Revolution a class of “lettered men” or intellectual elites who, influenced by highly theoretical ideals, ignored the complications of politics and the wisdom of ordinary citizens. Burke insisted that the experiential, intuitive, and historically situated—in other words, unlettered—men must temper revolutionaries driven simply by abstract ideals.

Whereas Plato locates truth in abstract reason, Burke sees political wisdom as inherited and context-sensitive. In his view, the French revolutionaries – especially the Jacobins and philosophes – in their pursuit of liberty, equality, and fraternity, swept away centuries of political and religious institutions without understanding their functional complexity. Burke condemned this as a dangerous faith in “men of theory” (Burke, 1790/2003, p. 98), who neglected the accumulated wisdom of social forms. The ensuing Reign of Terror, in Burke’s view, vindicated his fear that severing governance from tradition leads not to liberation but to chaos and tyranny.

Populism or Democracy?

How do Burke’s views on democracy and the unlettered men shed light on contemporary politics? Burke remains highly relevant because political legitimacy depends not only on correct decision-making (technocratic legitimacy) but also on public participation and recognition (democratic legitimacy). To acquire democratic legitimacy, a regime may resort to populism, which, according to Cas Mudde (2004), is a “thin-centered ideology” that pits a morally pure people against a corrupt elite. In other words, populism is an ideology that incites the unlettered against the lettered men. The rise of populism may lead the public to endorse a government that lacks technical expertise but can attract popular votes by pitting minorities against elites.

Neither the lettered nor the unlettered can be wholly discounted. The former ensures coherence and long-term planning; the latter ensures responsiveness and rootedness. Both, however, can degenerate: the lettered into arrogant abstraction, the unlettered into volatile populism. As such, a healthy polity must balance the two.

While Burke certainly believes the wisdom of the unlettered must control the French Revolution, contemporary examples may suggest the opposite. One salient example is Brexit, where the slogan “Take back control” served as an emotionally potent simplification of a complex economic and political issue. While driven by mass sentiment, the Brexit campaign was orchestrated in part by strategic elites who disguised “lettered” ideas in populist language. The long-term economic fallout of Brexit has been interpreted as the consequence of privileging emotionally resonant messaging over expert consensus (Becker et al., 2017). In this case, the populist backlash against technocratic authority produced policies with adverse macroeconomic consequences.

The Eurozone crisis and the rise of US populism are two examples demonstrating the flawed ideas of both the “lettered” and the “unlettered”. As such, it is wise to conclude that, in a realistic setting, either side can be right or wrong. The tension between intellectual and popular judgment has a long pedigree.

This points to the vulnerability of simply endorsing either side. An oversimplified explanation is that while “lettered” men may have better knowledge in their specific fields, in most cases of politics they fail to see the situation from a more nuanced standpoint and can therefore miss many problems on the ground. On the other hand, even though “unlettered” civilians may be able to point out pitfalls in government policies, they also lack the knowledge to “see the whole picture” on a broader scale and across different levels.

Several other factors should be considered when applying Burke’s ideas to politics today. First, Burke lived in a different time. During Burke’s time, lettered men referred to educated people who usually served the government. Today, that definition is harder to apply because so many subject experts may also be part of the “unlettered” public. Second, Burke’s trust in the unlettered men can easily be turned into populism today. In Burke’s time, his rejection of radical and intellectual revolutions was validated by the eventual collapse of the French Revolution through the Reign of Terror. In this case, Burke’s theory shows how practical wisdom of the unlettered can surpass the theoretical ideals of the lettered.

However, more contemporary examples illustrate democracies' vulnerability in the face of hyper-populism. Presidential elections in the United States are good examples. Donald Trump’s rise prior to his first term can be seen as having been propelled by a populist wave that distrusted the “lettered” political class. While Donald Trump- and, to an extent, a large portion of the Republican Party- are often characterized as “unlettered”, many were responding to real economic and cultural dislocations they observed. The resulting situation was that more people were distrustful of expert, or “lettered” men, narratives on politics, as illustrated by Through the Lens of Populism: The 2016 Election by the USC Leonard D. Schaffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service.

Conclusion

The enduring tension between the “lettered” and the “unlettered” reflects deeper philosophical concerns about the sources of democratic legitimacy and political wisdom. Edmund Burke’s defense of the unlettered serves as a caution against the seductions of theoretical confidence divorced from social reality. Yet, as modern populism demonstrates, unlettered wisdom can be manipulated and mobilized in ways that seriously undermine democratic stability. The real insight lies in recognizing that both forms of knowledge are partial and vulnerable, yet necessary. Epistemic pluralism is a lofty ideal indeed, but one we should strive toward. Politics, as Burke would have it, is not a science but a moral art – one that depends on the creative interplay between tradition and innovation, elite insight and public judgment, the learned and the lived.

References

Anderson, E. (2006). The epistemology of democracy. Episteme, 3(1–2), 8–22. https://doi.org/10.3366/epi.2006.3.1-2.8

Becker, S. O., Fetzer, T., & Novy, D. (2017). Who voted for Brexit? A comprehensive district-level analysis. Economic Policy, 32(92), 601–650. https://doi.org/10.1093/epolic/eix012

Burke, E. (2003). Reflections on the revolution in France (L. G. Mitchell, Ed.). Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1790)

Mudde, C. (2004). The populist zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.2004.00135.x

Oakeshott, M. (1991). Rationalism in politics and other essays. Liberty Fund.

Plato. (2007). The republic (D. Lee, Trans.). Penguin Books.

Stiglitz, J. E. (2016). The euro: How a common currency threatens the future of Europe. W. W. Norton & Company.

USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy. (2016). Through the lens of populism: The 2016 U.S. presidential election. https://priceschool.usc.edu/research/populism-2016

Young, I. M. (2000). Inclusion and democracy. Oxford University Press.