Churchill, Political Judgment, and the ‘Courage to See’

[Kamaji]

Churchill, Political Judgment, and the ‘Courage to See’

There can be no authentic political science or genuine understanding of human beings and society, without a willingness to give the proper conjugation of greatness, courage, and moderation its due.

By Daniel J. Mahoney
May 27, 2022

The greatness of Winston Churchill continues to shine through despite the ravages that accompany what Roger Scruton so strikingly called “the culture of repudiation.” To be sure, there are growing efforts to “cancel” one of the greatest human beings of this or any other time. One of his best biographers, the English historian Andrew Roberts, has rightly noted that his conservatism, a conservatism at the service of English liberty and the broader inheritance of Western Civilization, could be summed up under “the generalized soubriquet, Imperium et Libertas, Empire and Freedom.”

But “civilizing empire” has a bad name today and is wrongly and presumptively identified with plunder and exploitation and a racist contempt for other peoples and nations. All were alien to Churchill.

As Roberts points out in his impressive 2018 book, Churchill: Walking with Destiny, Churchill was deeply grateful to the millions of Indian subjects of the Crown who volunteered to fight for the cause of civilization during the two world wars of the 20th century. His opposition to a precipitous granting of independence to what became India and Pakistan was rooted as much in his desire to avoid sectarian strife and unnecessary bloodshed than in imperial blindness to the self-determination of peoples or the dignity of colonial subjects. Churchill was humane and magnanimous if he was anything at all. His fiercest critics are driven by ignorance and ideological parti pris, not to mention a lack of gratitude to the statesman, who more than anyone saved Western liberty and made possible Britain’s “Finest Hour.”

Churchill’s Political Judgment
To acknowledge Churchill’s greatness does not necessitate hagiography or what Churchill himself called “gush.” There is always an essential need and role for “discriminate criticism.” Roberts enumerates a long list of issues and decisions in the nine decades of Churchill’s life (1874–1965) where his judgment legitimately might be questioned. These include his early opposition to women’s suffrage, his decision to continue the Gallipoli operation after March 1915, his employing of the Black and Tan paramilitary forces in Ireland, his support for Edward VIII in the Abdication Crisis of 1936, his mishandling of the Norwegian campaign in the spring of 1940, the misplaced “Gestapo” speech during the 1945 general election campaign that badly backfired (he suggested that Labour style socialism might eventually require a full-fledged totalitarian apparatus and secret police), and his questionable decision to remain prime minister after a serious stroke in 1953. All these decisions and judgments are debatable, and some were no doubt mistakes, perhaps even serious mistakes.

But much of this is beside the point. Political greatness is not coextensive with infallibility or perfect judgment. On the issues that really mattered, Churchill was right, and not just in 1940 or as a critic of the disastrous appeasement of Hitler’s lupine imperialism in the half-decade or more before the outbreak of World War II. Today, many mediocre historians and critics, professional enemies of the very idea of human greatness, begrudgingly acknowledge that Churchill was right once, in 1940, and never or rarely before or after.

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Source:  https://amgreatness.com/2022/05/27/churchill-political-judgment-and-the-courage-to-see/