Hudson Goes Way, Way Back

[dcarrigg]

Re: Hudson Goes Way, Way Back

I am not sure what the argument is you are trying to make? I think we are confusing political frameworks created for the distribution of powers within a state with whether that makes them a merry band of jolly good fellows. That Liberalism was primarily born in the Anglosphere is not seriously in dispute. The United States introduced the modern democratic republic, and I keep saying , backed up with historical documentation , that Britain formed a constitutional monarchy well before France or Spain, for example, which distributed powers. As to the effective vassals barred from the political process , your examples are as relevant as Carthage in arguing about the existence of a Roman Republic. To Carthage the form of cooperation between their enemies hardly matters with the exception of enduring its strengths and exploiting the weaknesses of an enemy. . It is not usual at all for citizens to enjoy their own liberty while not granting any to subjected territories. That perfectly describes the US today. If two people decided to mug you, can it be denied they have distributed their powers over you? It also cannot be denied that to each mugger the distribution of power between them is better than to be despotically ruled by the other. So again, what are we actually discussing. I thought I was talking about political structures, not the good will of men. Certainly a distribution of powers where it exist may remove the occasion for such evils to those who have access. What they do with it has a rather mixed history at best.

I'm talking about political structures. I'm talking about the liberty of citizens. You say it is not usual at all for citizens to enjoy their own liberty while not granting any to subjected territories. Even that takes a semblance of revisionism to buy. It's not as if the American colonists were not British citizens, nor is it as if the Irish were not British citizens -- they even sent members to Parliament. So it's not citizens enjoying liberty and subjugating others - it's some citizens enjoying liberty and subjugating other citizens. Of course, the US was guilty of a similar history itself.

That said, liberals were not always anti-slavery, as Locke's second treatise makes abundantly clear. In fact, the French and German liberals were far better on that subject than the Anglo liberals on balance. And it's not as if there were no Republics around for the US to emulate. One only has to read Madison's Federalist #20 to see references to the Dutch Republic. And that's not even considering the examples they found in the Iroquois Confederacy. The old Swiss Confederacy thrived for centuries before James II was deposed by the Orangemen. Lots of Italian republics thrived as well. And ultimately, it was the Florentine Republic that gave rise to the philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli and the birth of liberal philosophy - the politics of individuals - and providing space for individuals outside the reach of the state, which is really the big innovation of the moderns vs. the ancients...

Where does that leave us? I don't know. I certainly don't deny that Anglos were hugely influential in the expansion of liberalism. But when you say that liberalism was primarily born of Anglos, I take pause. I don't think this is a hugely important point, but I think that there has been a conscious and moneyed effort to attempt to redefine the term "classical liberalism" to purge particularly Rousseau and Kant from the Cannon and to play up Locke and Smith instead. Which is to say, there's some element of revisionism at work to give greater credit to both Anglo authors and low-liberal (not high-liberal) ideals.

One need only look at the Wikipedia article for Classical Liberalism. The easiest evidence is this: I defy you to find the phrase "free market" written down by any one of the authors or in any original work we've mentioned thus far in this conversation. Yet the phrase "free market" appears 5 times in the body of the Wiki article. Kant and Humboldt are not even mentioned in the body of the Wiki article. The Germans are purged. Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Constant are only name-dropped once, and then only with reference to how Hayek thought about them centuries later. So much for the French. And any English high liberal, like Paine, who Hayek dismissed as "belonging with the French." Why is it we are only getting Hayek's one-word opinions on these hugely influential liberal authors? This is revisionism in action.

I think the Anglos play a unique and vital role. But I think you overstate it. In the end, we're probably not so far off from each others' positions here. It's just pet peeves, particularly around the revisionism surrounding the liberal cannon, that get me to go off on this stuff.

[lektrode]

Re: Hudson Goes Way, Way Back

Obligatory reminder that some of us have ancestors who had authoritarianism thrust upon them by the Anglos.

thank you.

.... It's just pet peeves, ... that get me to go off on this stuff.

and some of us are GLAD YOU DO, big guy.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Hudson Goes Way, Way Back

I'm talking about political structures. I'm talking about the liberty of citizens. You say it is not usual at all for citizens to enjoy their own liberty while not granting any to subjected territories. Even that takes a semblance of revisionism to buy.

I am just talking about existing political structures, not coffee house ideals.

I am stating well accepted history. Britain divided its powers while France was famous, very famous for consolidated royal power. I am dumb founded by this remark that its revisionist to say the Anglo created the institutions beyond the political idealists.It would be revisionist to say otherwise.

It's not as if the American colonists were not British citizens, nor is it as if the Irish were not British citizens -- they even sent members to Parliament. So it's not citizens enjoying liberty and subjugating others - it's some citizens enjoying liberty and subjugating other citizens. Of course, the US was guilty of a similar history itself.

The comparison is Europeans subjugating Africans and native Americans as implied by your example photo or so I would think.

That said, liberals were not always anti-slavery, as Locke's second treatise makes abundantly clear. In fact, the French and German liberals were far better on that subject than the Anglo liberals on balance.

Which are not political structures. Why do we continue this change in contexts? German and French political systems peer to the Anglo-sphere is the only context I will claim responsibility to defend. They did not have democratic institutions in their governments to the extend we see with the Anglos. You name dropped Montesquieu?

Thus, in the Roman world, as at Sparta, the freemen enjoyed the highest

degree of liberty, while those who were slaves laboured under the

extremity of servitude.

That can be said of the Anglo.[quote]

And it's not as if there were no Republics around for the US to emulate. One only has to read Madison's Federalist #20 to see references to the Dutch Republic. And that's not even considering the examples they found in the Iroquois Confederacy. The old Swiss Confederacy thrived for centuries before James II was deposed by the Orangemen. Lots of Italian republics thrived as well. And ultimately, it was the Florentine Republic that gave rise to the philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli and the birth of liberal philosophy - the politics of individuals - and providing space for individuals outside the reach of the state, which is really the big innovation of the moderns vs. the ancients...

Your best examples, didn't last and and were exceptional. The United States is what made most of this stick in the modern world more free than British citizens , but it ironically had slaves.

Where does that leave us? I don't know. I certainly don't deny that Anglos were hugely influential in the expansion of liberalism. But when you say that liberalism was primarily born of Anglos, I take pause. I don't think this is a hugely important point, but I think that there has been a conscious and moneyed effort to attempt to redefine the term "classical liberalism" to purge particularly Rousseau and Kant from the Cannon and to play up Locke and Smith instead. Which is to say, there's some element of revisionism at work to give greater credit to both Anglo authors and low-liberal (not high-liberal) ideals.

Again we switch contexts. I never even said it in that context. This whole "debate" started with my off comment about the Britons and the perfected rhetoric of republican societies. You seem to be discussing the origins of political philosophy which I have already said we have no dispute since the Pysiocrates were French, for example. The Anglo-Sphere created the institutions that lasted, albeit often only good for themselves. And so with the longest and widest spread of these institutions , I consider them the most skilled in the arts of rhetoric, propaganda and marketing because the actual instances of them is what matters in that context, not the ideas of a few thinkers. Again Greece is the principle example of love of rhetoric and democracy. In despotic states one could hardly speak. In Rome, death for libels against the emperor would tend not to encourage the growth of the skill hence did we have a Cicero during Imperial Rome?

One need only look at the Wikipedia article for Classical Liberalism. The easiest evidence is this: I defy you to find the phrase "free market" written down by any one of the authors or in any original work we've mentioned thus far in this conversation. Yet the phrase "free market" appears 5 times in the body of the Wiki article. Kant and Humboldt are not even mentioned in the body of the Wiki article. The Germans are purged. Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Constant are only name-dropped once, and then only with reference to how Hayek thought about them centuries later. So much for the French. And any English high liberal, like Paine, who Hayek dismissed as "belonging with the French." Why is it we are only getting Hayek's one-word opinions on these hugely influential liberal authors? This is revisionism in action.

You will have to take that up with someone who would argue that only Anglos created this philosophy. However I find it strange again you mention Hayek, given he considered British society be the leading example:

Throughout the greater part of the nineteenth century the European country which seemed nearest to a realization of the liberal principles was Great Britain. There most of them appeared to be accepted not only by a powerful Liberal Party but by the majority of the popula*tion, and even the Conservatives often became the instrument of the achievement of liberal reforms

I think the Anglos play a unique and vital role. But I think you overstate it. In the end, we're probably not so far off from each others' positions here. It's just pet peeves, particularly around the revisionism surrounding the liberal cannon, that get me to go off on this stuff.

I am still not sure what the fuss was all about, and not only do many of the names you have dropped agree with me, its where my thoughts were actually derived since I have read many of them cover to cover. But again Hayek being Austrian is no credit to an Austrian society anymore than Hobbs is anything but an intellectual not representing British society.


To hopefully end a long winded diversion, its what explains German and Russian propaganda, to me anyway, as being so lousy while the Anglo is quite the master.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Hudson Goes Way, Way Back

To my mind, neither of you seem to place any recognition upon the defeat of the English by the French; who then imposed extreme social pressure upon the common people; a people that were thus forced into a form of social evolution that I will described as "bloody minded". Give any species a hard time for long enough and they will evolve to survive; the strongest minds surviving the best under the particular circumstances. The end result; we British people, the common people of the nation; became bloody minded; we learned how to survive while keeping our inner self; our principles; intact.

That is the defining principle. The reason for those words; Britons never will be slaves; that seems to have sparked off this delicious debate between the two of you, and for which, I for one thank you most heartedly.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Hudson Goes Way, Way Back

To my mind, neither of you seem to place any recognition upon the defeat of the English by the French; who then imposed extreme social pressure upon the common people; a people that were thus forced into a form of social evolution that I will described as "bloody minded". Give any species a hard time for long enough and they will evolve to survive; the strongest minds surviving the best under the particular circumstances. The end result; we British people, the common people of the nation; became bloody minded; we learned how to survive while keeping our inner self; our principles; intact.

That is the defining principle. The reason for those words; Britons never will be slaves; that seems to have sparked off this delicious debate between the two of you, and for which, I for one thank you most heartedly.

I am grateful that you took enjoyment from it, and I am also grateful to meet credible resistance that now has me looking into much more detail about the Dutch republic.

However I think the real kick from this is dcarrigg was concerned with the Anglos getting too much credit when in fact I was actually dis-credting the Anglo world as the most practised and refined group of smooth talkers and con artisits. Not unanticipated since in the ancient world we have Plato more or less documenting the sway of the Sophists.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Hudson Goes Way, Way Back

I am grateful that you took enjoyment from it, and I am also grateful to meet credible resistance that now has me looking into much more detail about the Dutch republic.

However I think the real kick from this is dcarrigg was concerned with the Anglos getting too much credit when in fact I was actually dis-credting the Anglo world as the most practised and refined group of smooth talkers and con artisits. Not unanticipated since in the ancient world we have Plato more or less documenting the sway of the Sophists.

Wow! Plato; Sophists even; but what has the Dutch Republic got to do with the French invasion of Britain?

Again, as I recently bought the five volume set of The Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero to several of his friends with remarks by William Melmoth, Esq. Published by James Ballantyne, 1808, I can see that I shall have to widen my reading somewhat to keep up here.......

[dcarrigg]

Re: Hudson Goes Way, Way Back

I am just talking about existing political structures, not coffee house ideals.

It's the coffee house ideals upon which political structures are built. No doubt that was true at Runnymede as well as now.

I am stating well accepted history. Britain divided its powers while France was famous, very famous for consolidated royal power. I am dumb founded by this remark that its revisionist to say the Anglo created the institutions beyond the political idealists.It would be revisionist to say otherwise.

I guess this started with a question of what the institutions are, in fact. There were some basic liberties protections woven in since Runnymede - and perhaps that's what you're on about. But there's no bill of rights until the period following the orange invasion, and of course, William III brought these sorts of ideals over from his other office - Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. And, of course, non-Protestants were banned from the throne at the same time. And the Bill of Rights didn't apply to the Scots. And all sorts of other matters...

The comparison is Europeans subjugating Africans and native Americans as implied by your example photo or so I would think.

If you look closely, the Indians, the Americans, and the Irish are in there as well. That's one of the things about across the pond - we may be anglophones, but we're not all anglos. Charles Carroll signed that declaration of independence too. And thanks to Roger Williams' writing, there were no hard religious restrictions on owning high office, and freedom of religion is institutionalized. Something William and Mary were never about to open up...

Which are not political structures. Why do we continue this change in contexts? German and French political systems peer to the Anglo-sphere is the only context I will claim responsibility to defend. They did not have democratic institutions in their governments to the extend we see with the Anglos. You name dropped Montesquieu?

Thus, in the Roman world, as at Sparta, the freemen enjoyed the highest

degree of liberty, while those who were slaves laboured under the

extremity of servitude.

That can be said of the Anglo.

Your best examples, didn't last and and were exceptional. The United States is what made most of this stick in the modern world more free than British citizens , but it ironically had slaves.

Aye. That was a key issue of contention even at the founding of the nation. The Massachusetts delegation - full of abolitionists - the Virginia delegation - carried in by slaves. America didn't last 100 years either. In many ways she died in 1865. A new country with the same name arose. One that not only banned slavery, but also gave a constitutional right to equal protection under the law to its citizens. A big part of Locke dies. A big part of Rousseau arises. Right in the institutions. It's the version with equal state protection that is replicated and exported in the modern world, not the one with slavery and people as chattels. But you're right that the parliamentary form is far more popular than the presidential form. Montesquieu remains with separation of powers in the USA. Not so for most of the world.

Again we switch contexts. I never even said it in that context. This whole "debate" started with my off comment about the Britons and the perfected rhetoric of republican societies. You seem to be discussing the origins of political philosophy which I have already said we have no dispute since the Pysiocrates were French, for example. The Anglo-Sphere created the institutions that lasted, albeit often only good for themselves. And so with the longest and widest spread of these institutions , I consider them the most skilled in the arts of rhetoric, propaganda and marketing because the actual instances of them is what matters in that context, not the ideas of a few thinkers. Again Greece is the principle example of love of rhetoric and democracy. In despotic states one could hardly speak. In Rome, death for libels against the emperor would tend not to encourage the growth of the skill hence did we have a Cicero during Imperial Rome?

Aye. We switch contexts a lot. But that's true of all good conversations. Maybe my last couple sentences clear up how I'm connecting the political philosophers to the institutions?

You will have to take that up with someone who would argue that only Anglos created this philosophy. However I find it strange again you mention Hayek, given he considered British society be the leading example:

Throughout the greater part of the nineteenth century the European country which seemed nearest to a realization of the liberal principles was Great Britain. There most of them appeared to be accepted not only by a powerful Liberal Party but by the majority of the popula*tion, and even the Conservatives often became the instrument of the achievement of liberal reforms

I am still not sure what the fuss was all about, and not only do many of the names you have dropped agree with me, its where my thoughts were actually derived since I have read many of them cover to cover. But again Hayek being Austrian is no credit to an Austrian society anymore than Hobbs is anything but an intellectual not representing British society.

I think Hayek absolutely would agree with you. But that's precisely the problem in my mind. Which is to say, I was not concerned about Anglos getting credit or anything like that here, which you seem to think I am. I'm concerned about what we think of as liberalism.

To be more precise, I was only concerned with the propensity to redefine what liberalism is and what liberalism means. Pulling the German and French authors out of the concept bag for liberalism is like ripping the heart and soul out of the body of the thing. Leave liberalism to the Anglo authors, and it's just a walking calculator with a gut and purse. And I have little doubt that Hayek would be very comfortable with that. And so too, it appears, are the authors of the Wikipedia article on the matter But the rest of us?

To hopefully end a long winded diversion, its what explains German and Russian propaganda, to me anyway, as being so lousy while the Anglo is quite the master.

You may be onto something there. There's something to the languages themselves too. Speaking in German forces one to get remarkably literal. A steak and kidney pie practically becomes a flesh pastry with kidneys (Fleischpastete mit Nieren). Hard to be world champion of propaganda with a language like that. It's like going to a fencing match with a hammer. Russia's just on its own program. Probably a reasonable runner-up in the propaganda department. More successful sometimes than others. Certainly not Anglo good. But it has got to make you wonder what everyone else is up to if part of the criteria for success is imperceptibility!

[Chris Coles]

Re: Hudson Goes Way, Way Back

You may be onto something there. There's something to the languages themselves too. Speaking in German forces one to get remarkably literal. A steak and kidney pie practically becomes a flesh pastry with kidneys (Fleischpastete mit Nieren). Hard to be world champion of propaganda with a language like that. It's like going to a fencing match with a hammer. Russia's just on its own program. Probably a reasonable runner-up in the propaganda department. More successful sometimes than others. Certainly not Anglo good. But it has got to make you wonder what everyone else is up to if part of the criteria for success is imperceptibility!

Casting my own memory back to when my own basic concepts were created; my late childhood; there is another case, again, not being debated herein; the principles engendered within an army that percolate down from elders to their children and brothers sisters. We become a part of what at the time is an invisible (I am seeking the right word to describe it) river of thought that without any forethought, delivers the nature of the mindset of the military leadership. For example, during the Second World War, (I was born 1944), we were under the leadership of some very remarkable people that entrained the ideas and concepts of what we were fighting for; that was NOT political.

Again, following that start, it was the likes of Hollywood that continued that thought delivery process.

Today, the primary military leadership stems from the CIA and we are as a result; all the losers; as the CIA has anything but the same mind as to freedom and the like that our grandfathers had.

As I see it, where we are today directly stems not from a political mind; but from a military mind; indeed, one not so well inclined towards freedom.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Hudson Goes Way, Way Back

You may be onto something there. There's something to the languages themselves too. Speaking in German forces one to get remarkably literal. A steak and kidney pie practically becomes a flesh pastry with kidneys (Fleischpastete mit Nieren). Hard to be world champion of propaganda with a language like that. It's like going to a fencing match with a hammer. Russia's just on its own program. Probably a reasonable runner-up in the propaganda department. More successful sometimes than others. Certainly not Anglo good. But it has got to make you wonder what everyone else is up to if part of the criteria for success is imperceptibility!

I think the idea of good Russian/Soviet propaganda is once again just a well run champaign of good American propaganda as if it is they that are brilliant masters of spin. The Soviets raised a good crop of spy craft and are excellent at asynchronous warfare, but their need to use authoritarianism on their populous suggests they are not particularly skilled in smooth talking their masses. All the Soviets could do was prop up a wall and lie. Russia has recently begun to fight the information war, but they more or less are playing catchup to copy us I believe. They still have too much of a 1950 toothpaste commercial feel to it.


And now that I think about it, I think the Italian republics get too much press. Such "republics" were bastions of the slave trade. To consider Venice as a beacon of enlightenment is appealing only to a cynical nature , though you were right to recall it as it was sufficient to the argument that they divided powers.

However in the broader scope you were speaking about, as to the actual spirit of Liberalism , I cannot leave this Republic out.

http://www.dubrovnik-online.com/dubr...y-of-dubrovnik


The abolition of slavery in Britain : 1833

The abolition of slavery in the republic of Dubrovnik: 1416

I am no wiz at arithmetic but indeed the Anglos have a big number of years to reckon with on that point, 417.


And even then, as observed by Marx ,Britain merely changed its form to wage slaves which were cheaper to maintain.

[flintlock]

Re: Hudson Goes Way, Way Back

Again, I'm not sure I agree. In the liberal pantheon for every Hobbes, there's a Kant. For every Locke, there's a Rousseau. For every Mill, there's a Montesquieu. For every Smith, there's a Humboldt. And that's not even to begin discussing the radical liberals. If you think Rousseau's out there, read Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice.

And if you want to ask, "Where did liberalism come from," I'd say Machiavelli's probably the most obvious answer.

One quite literally cannot speak of liberalism without including Catholics, Deists, and Agnostics. The idea that somehow liberalism is the provence of Protestantism - particularly the English variety - is another propaganda move itself.

Louis XIV might have ruled with an iron fist. But Louis XVI lost his head. Last I checked, there's still a Monarch in Great Britain...

The monarchy in Britain is about tourism and tradition. Its like saying because the US still preserves Civil War sites that the Confederacy still exists in some form.

[flintlock]

Re: Hudson Goes Way, Way Back

Obligatory reminder that some of us have ancestors who had authoritarianism thrust upon them by the Anglos. None too few, either. Probably about 2 or 3 billion people worldwide can say that now. Ask some of us, and the idea that the "Anglo world" resists authoritarianism might just be propaganda itself...

Then again, it's an Anglo world. The rest of us just live in it.

The Anglos also thrust things like a legal system, medicine, and technology on its "victims". We have to look at history in the contex of the times. For most of history, the world was ( and still is) one big violent struggle for domination of one group by another. The world was never just a bunch of peaceful hippies sitting around holding Love-ins. The winners of these struggles get called "agressors", the losers "victims". But the fact remains almost none of these victims fail to have their own history of agression toward others. Perhaps the Anglos were just better at it?

Its no different with the Greeks. How do you think they spread all their knowledge and culture throughout the ancient world? Behind the tip of a Phalanx spear that's how. Same with Romans, Ottomans, Mongols, etc. the Anglos were not the first to thrust authoritarianism on the world and they won't be the last. Which is why I choose to focus on the present and not drag up old racial grudges to explain a behavior which is essentially just a human one.