The strength of the Whig and conservative interpretations of British history continues to lie in the general truth, that no revolutionary alternative to the democratization of parliament has ever been taken seriously, and it has remained plausible that the Whig regime even at its most oligarchic, possessed a liberal flexibility that the ancien regime lacked.
It can further be maintained that because the oligarchic regime disposed of powerful and articulate ideologies in which both its ancient and its modern character could be asserted and defended – rhetorics that ranged from the ancient constitution to The Wealth of Nations -- the ideological debate in counterrevolutionary Britain was of a depth and texture unknown in revolutionary America.
J G A Pocock
I would just add:
It has been the unique western liberalism of the white Anglophone and Francophone world that itself has been the downfall of Western Civilization, starting from the 16 century, and rolling forward relentlessly, until now other illiberal civilizations and upthrusting, vengeful and envious, unemployable or assilimable, now largely populate the white West, or xenophobically and nationalistically vie among themselves for resources, patronage, and for mastery.
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