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How England became the mother of modern politics
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RH
May 18, 2013, 3:33:56 PM5/18/13
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How England became the mother of modern politics
Posted on May 17, 2013 by Robert Henderson
Robert Henderson
I was tempted to entitle this essay “England – the mother of modern
democracy”, for the political structures of any state which calls
itself democratic today owe their general shape to the English
example. In addition, many modern dictatorships have considered it
expedient to maintain the form of representative democracy without the
content.
But democracy is a slippery word and what we call by that name is very
far removed from what the Greeks knew as democracy. The Greeks would
probably have described our system as oligarchy – rule by the few.
Many modern academics would agree, for they tend to describe
representative government as elective oligarchy, a system by which the
electorate is permitted to select between competing parts of the
political elite every few years, but which has little other direct say
in how they are governed.
If democracy today is a debatable concept, the very widespread modern
institution of elected representative government is an objective fact.
It is the foundations and evolution of this institution that I shall
examine here to the point at which modern “democratic” politics
emerged during the English Civil Wars of the 1640s.
Elected representative government is an institution of the first
importance, for it is a truism that the more power is shared the less
abusive the holders of the power will be. Imperfect as it may often be
as a reflector of the will and interests of the masses, representative
government is still by far the most efficient means of controlling the
naturally abusive tendencies of elites and of advancing the interests
of the ordinary man or woman, by imposing limits on what those with
power may do, either through legal restraints in the form of
constitutional law which is superior to that of the legislature, or
through fear of losing office in an election. Indeed, no other system
of government other than elected representative government manages
that even in principle, for no other political arrangements place
meaningful restraints on an elite. Whether democratic or not in the
Greek sense, representative government is undoubtedly the only
reliable and non-violent means by which the democratic will may gain
at least some purchase on the behaviour of an elite.
Yet however much utility it has an organising political idea, the fact
that we have representative government today is something of a fluke,
certainly a very long shot, for had it not developed in England we
should probably not have it all. In the non-European world nothing of
its nature ever developed before the Western model was imported.
Elsewhere in Europe the many nascent parliaments of the later Middle
Ages either never went beyond its embryonic form or were crushed by
autocratic rulers. In England we have had continuous parliamentary
development for the better part of eight centuries.
Why did the English alone developed such a political system? It was a
mixture of such traits and circumstances as the democratic spirit,
egalitarianism, individualism and royal weakness. But before examining
the detail of those traits, consider first the utterly abnormal
political success of the English.
The political success of the English
The first genius of the Anglo-Saxon may be reasonably said to be
political. Above all peoples they have learned best to live without
communal violence and tyranny. Set against any other country the
political success of the English throughout history is simply
astonishing. Compare England’s political history with that of any
other country of any size and it is a miracle of restraint. No English
government has been altered by unconstitutional means since 1688. No
Englishman has killed an English politician for domestic English
political reasons since the assassination of Spencer Percival in 1811,
and that was an assassination born of a personal grudge, probably
aggravated by mental illness, rather than political principle. (The
assassin, John Bellingham, believed he had been unreasonably deserted
by the British Government when imprisoned in Russia and ruined by the
economic circumstances of the war with Napoleon. He killed Percival
after unsuccessfully attempting for a long time to get financial
redress from the British Government).
Compare that with the experience of the other major states of the
world. In the twentieth century Germany fell prey to Nazism, Italy to
Fascism, Russia to Communism. France, is on its fifth republic in a
couple of centuries. The United States fought a dreadful civil war in
the 1860s and assassinated a president as recently as 1963. China
remains the cruel tyranny as it has always been and India, which
advertises itself as the “largest democracy in the world”, is home to
regular outbreaks of serious ethnic violence, not least during
elections which are palpably fraudulent in many parts of the country,
especially the rural areas.
Why was England so different?
Why is England so different? Perhaps the immediate answer lies in the
fact that she has been wonderfully adept in dealing with the central
problem of human life – how to live together peaceably. A Canadian
academic, Elliott Leyton, has made a study of English murder through
the centuries in his book Men of Blood. Leyton finds that the rate of
English (as opposed to British murder) is phenomenally low for a
country of her size and industrial development, both now and for
centuries past. This strikes Elliott as so singular that he said in a
recent interview “The English have an antipathy to murder which
borders on eccentricity; it is one of the great cultural oddities of
the modern age.” (Sunday Telegraph 4 12 1994).
This restraint extends to warfare and social disorder. That is not to
say England has been without violence, but rather that at any point in
her history the level of violence was substantially lower than in any
other comparable society. For example, the English Civil War in the
17th Century was, apart from the odd inhumane blemish, startlingly
free of the gross violence common on the continent of the time during
the 30 Years War, where the sacking and pillage of towns and cities
was the norm. A particularly notable thing, for civil wars are
notorious for their brutality.
The way that England responded to the Reformation is instructive. She
did not suffer the savage wars of religion which traumatised the
continent and brought human calamities such as the St Bartholomew
Day’s Massacre in France in 1572, when thousands of French protestants
were massacred at the instigation of the French king.
It was not that the English did not care deeply about their religion,
rather that they have been, when left to their own devices, generally
loth to fight their fellow countrymen over anything. English civil
wars have always been essentially political affairs in which the
ordinary person has little say, for the struggles were either dynastic
or a clash between Parliamentary ambition and the monarch. Even the
persecution of the Lollards in the late fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries and the persecution of Protestants under Mary I had a highly
political aspect. The former was a vastly disturbing challenge to the
established social order with men being told, in so many words, that
they could find their own way to salvation and the latter an attempt
to re-establish not merely the Catholic order in England, which had
been overturned since the time of Henry VIII’s breach with Rome, but
also what amounted to a new royal dynasty with Mary’s marriage to
Philip of Spain.
Even the prohibitions on Catholics and non-Conformists after the
Reformation had a fundamental political basis to them, namely, they
were predicated on the question of whether such people be trusted to
give their first loyalty to the crown....
Read more at http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/how-england-became-the-mother-of-modern-politics/
Posted on May 17, 2013 by Robert Henderson
Robert Henderson
I was tempted to entitle this essay “England – the mother of modern
democracy”, for the political structures of any state which calls
itself democratic today owe their general shape to the English
example. In addition, many modern dictatorships have considered it
expedient to maintain the form of representative democracy without the
content.
But democracy is a slippery word and what we call by that name is very
far removed from what the Greeks knew as democracy. The Greeks would
probably have described our system as oligarchy – rule by the few.
Many modern academics would agree, for they tend to describe
representative government as elective oligarchy, a system by which the
electorate is permitted to select between competing parts of the
political elite every few years, but which has little other direct say
in how they are governed.
If democracy today is a debatable concept, the very widespread modern
institution of elected representative government is an objective fact.
It is the foundations and evolution of this institution that I shall
examine here to the point at which modern “democratic” politics
emerged during the English Civil Wars of the 1640s.
Elected representative government is an institution of the first
importance, for it is a truism that the more power is shared the less
abusive the holders of the power will be. Imperfect as it may often be
as a reflector of the will and interests of the masses, representative
government is still by far the most efficient means of controlling the
naturally abusive tendencies of elites and of advancing the interests
of the ordinary man or woman, by imposing limits on what those with
power may do, either through legal restraints in the form of
constitutional law which is superior to that of the legislature, or
through fear of losing office in an election. Indeed, no other system
of government other than elected representative government manages
that even in principle, for no other political arrangements place
meaningful restraints on an elite. Whether democratic or not in the
Greek sense, representative government is undoubtedly the only
reliable and non-violent means by which the democratic will may gain
at least some purchase on the behaviour of an elite.
Yet however much utility it has an organising political idea, the fact
that we have representative government today is something of a fluke,
certainly a very long shot, for had it not developed in England we
should probably not have it all. In the non-European world nothing of
its nature ever developed before the Western model was imported.
Elsewhere in Europe the many nascent parliaments of the later Middle
Ages either never went beyond its embryonic form or were crushed by
autocratic rulers. In England we have had continuous parliamentary
development for the better part of eight centuries.
Why did the English alone developed such a political system? It was a
mixture of such traits and circumstances as the democratic spirit,
egalitarianism, individualism and royal weakness. But before examining
the detail of those traits, consider first the utterly abnormal
political success of the English.
The political success of the English
The first genius of the Anglo-Saxon may be reasonably said to be
political. Above all peoples they have learned best to live without
communal violence and tyranny. Set against any other country the
political success of the English throughout history is simply
astonishing. Compare England’s political history with that of any
other country of any size and it is a miracle of restraint. No English
government has been altered by unconstitutional means since 1688. No
Englishman has killed an English politician for domestic English
political reasons since the assassination of Spencer Percival in 1811,
and that was an assassination born of a personal grudge, probably
aggravated by mental illness, rather than political principle. (The
assassin, John Bellingham, believed he had been unreasonably deserted
by the British Government when imprisoned in Russia and ruined by the
economic circumstances of the war with Napoleon. He killed Percival
after unsuccessfully attempting for a long time to get financial
redress from the British Government).
Compare that with the experience of the other major states of the
world. In the twentieth century Germany fell prey to Nazism, Italy to
Fascism, Russia to Communism. France, is on its fifth republic in a
couple of centuries. The United States fought a dreadful civil war in
the 1860s and assassinated a president as recently as 1963. China
remains the cruel tyranny as it has always been and India, which
advertises itself as the “largest democracy in the world”, is home to
regular outbreaks of serious ethnic violence, not least during
elections which are palpably fraudulent in many parts of the country,
especially the rural areas.
Why was England so different?
Why is England so different? Perhaps the immediate answer lies in the
fact that she has been wonderfully adept in dealing with the central
problem of human life – how to live together peaceably. A Canadian
academic, Elliott Leyton, has made a study of English murder through
the centuries in his book Men of Blood. Leyton finds that the rate of
English (as opposed to British murder) is phenomenally low for a
country of her size and industrial development, both now and for
centuries past. This strikes Elliott as so singular that he said in a
recent interview “The English have an antipathy to murder which
borders on eccentricity; it is one of the great cultural oddities of
the modern age.” (Sunday Telegraph 4 12 1994).
This restraint extends to warfare and social disorder. That is not to
say England has been without violence, but rather that at any point in
her history the level of violence was substantially lower than in any
other comparable society. For example, the English Civil War in the
17th Century was, apart from the odd inhumane blemish, startlingly
free of the gross violence common on the continent of the time during
the 30 Years War, where the sacking and pillage of towns and cities
was the norm. A particularly notable thing, for civil wars are
notorious for their brutality.
The way that England responded to the Reformation is instructive. She
did not suffer the savage wars of religion which traumatised the
continent and brought human calamities such as the St Bartholomew
Day’s Massacre in France in 1572, when thousands of French protestants
were massacred at the instigation of the French king.
It was not that the English did not care deeply about their religion,
rather that they have been, when left to their own devices, generally
loth to fight their fellow countrymen over anything. English civil
wars have always been essentially political affairs in which the
ordinary person has little say, for the struggles were either dynastic
or a clash between Parliamentary ambition and the monarch. Even the
persecution of the Lollards in the late fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries and the persecution of Protestants under Mary I had a highly
political aspect. The former was a vastly disturbing challenge to the
established social order with men being told, in so many words, that
they could find their own way to salvation and the latter an attempt
to re-establish not merely the Catholic order in England, which had
been overturned since the time of Henry VIII’s breach with Rome, but
also what amounted to a new royal dynasty with Mary’s marriage to
Philip of Spain.
Even the prohibitions on Catholics and non-Conformists after the
Reformation had a fundamental political basis to them, namely, they
were predicated on the question of whether such people be trusted to
give their first loyalty to the crown....
Read more at http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/how-england-became-the-mother-of-modern-politics/
Mr.Sandman
May 20, 2013, 4:21:45 PM5/20/13
to
On 5/18/2013 3:33 PM, RH wrote:
> How England became the mother of modern politics
> Posted on May 17, 2013 by Robert Henderson
> Robert Henderson
>
> I was tempted to entitle this essay �England � the mother of modern
> How England became the mother of modern politics
> Posted on May 17, 2013 by Robert Henderson
> Robert Henderson
>
> democracy�, for the political structures of any state which calls
> itself democratic today owe their general shape to the English
> example. In addition, many modern dictatorships have considered it
> expedient to maintain the form of representative democracy without the
> content.
>
> But democracy is a slippery word and what we call by that name is very
> far removed from what the Greeks knew as democracy. The Greeks would
> probably have described our system as oligarchy � rule by the few.
> example. In addition, many modern dictatorships have considered it
> expedient to maintain the form of representative democracy without the
> content.
>
> But democracy is a slippery word and what we call by that name is very
> far removed from what the Greeks knew as democracy. The Greeks would
> Many modern academics would agree, for they tend to describe
> representative government as elective oligarchy, a system by which the
> electorate is permitted to select between competing parts of the
> political elite every few years, but which has little other direct say
> in how they are governed.
>
> If democracy today is a debatable concept, the very widespread modern
> institution of elected representative government is an objective fact.
> It is the foundations and evolution of this institution that I shall
> examine here to the point at which modern �democratic� politics
> representative government as elective oligarchy, a system by which the
> electorate is permitted to select between competing parts of the
> political elite every few years, but which has little other direct say
> in how they are governed.
>
> If democracy today is a debatable concept, the very widespread modern
> institution of elected representative government is an objective fact.
> It is the foundations and evolution of this institution that I shall
> other country of any size and it is a miracle of restraint. No English
> government has been altered by unconstitutional means since 1688. No
> Englishman has killed an English politician for domestic English
> political reasons since the assassination of Spencer Percival in 1811,
> and that was an assassination born of a personal grudge, probably
> aggravated by mental illness, rather than political principle. (The
> assassin, John Bellingham, believed he had been unreasonably deserted
> by the British Government when imprisoned in Russia and ruined by the
> economic circumstances of the war with Napoleon. He killed Percival
> after unsuccessfully attempting for a long time to get financial
> redress from the British Government).
>
> Compare that with the experience of the other major states of the
> world. In the twentieth century Germany fell prey to Nazism, Italy to
> Fascism, Russia to Communism. France, is on its fifth republic in a
> couple of centuries. The United States fought a dreadful civil war in
> the 1860s and assassinated a president as recently as 1963. China
> remains the cruel tyranny as it has always been and India, which
> advertises itself as the �largest democracy in the world�, is home to
> government has been altered by unconstitutional means since 1688. No
> Englishman has killed an English politician for domestic English
> political reasons since the assassination of Spencer Percival in 1811,
> and that was an assassination born of a personal grudge, probably
> aggravated by mental illness, rather than political principle. (The
> assassin, John Bellingham, believed he had been unreasonably deserted
> by the British Government when imprisoned in Russia and ruined by the
> economic circumstances of the war with Napoleon. He killed Percival
> after unsuccessfully attempting for a long time to get financial
> redress from the British Government).
>
> Compare that with the experience of the other major states of the
> world. In the twentieth century Germany fell prey to Nazism, Italy to
> Fascism, Russia to Communism. France, is on its fifth republic in a
> couple of centuries. The United States fought a dreadful civil war in
> the 1860s and assassinated a president as recently as 1963. China
> remains the cruel tyranny as it has always been and India, which
> regular outbreaks of serious ethnic violence, not least during
> elections which are palpably fraudulent in many parts of the country,
> especially the rural areas.
>
> Why was England so different?
>
> Why is England so different? Perhaps the immediate answer lies in the
> fact that she has been wonderfully adept in dealing with the central
> problem of human life � how to live together peaceably. A Canadian
> elections which are palpably fraudulent in many parts of the country,
> especially the rural areas.
>
> Why was England so different?
>
> Why is England so different? Perhaps the immediate answer lies in the
> fact that she has been wonderfully adept in dealing with the central
> academic, Elliott Leyton, has made a study of English murder through
> the centuries in his book Men of Blood. Leyton finds that the rate of
> English (as opposed to British murder) is phenomenally low for a
> country of her size and industrial development, both now and for
> centuries past. This strikes Elliott as so singular that he said in a
> recent interview �The English have an antipathy to murder which
> the centuries in his book Men of Blood. Leyton finds that the rate of
> English (as opposed to British murder) is phenomenally low for a
> country of her size and industrial development, both now and for
> centuries past. This strikes Elliott as so singular that he said in a
> borders on eccentricity; it is one of the great cultural oddities of
> the modern age.� (Sunday Telegraph 4 12 1994).
>
> This restraint extends to warfare and social disorder. That is not to
> say England has been without violence, but rather that at any point in
> her history the level of violence was substantially lower than in any
> other comparable society. For example, the English Civil War in the
> 17th Century was, apart from the odd inhumane blemish, startlingly
> free of the gross violence common on the continent of the time during
> the 30 Years War, where the sacking and pillage of towns and cities
> was the norm. A particularly notable thing, for civil wars are
> notorious for their brutality.
>
> The way that England responded to the Reformation is instructive. She
> did not suffer the savage wars of religion which traumatised the
> continent and brought human calamities such as the St Bartholomew
> Day�s Massacre in France in 1572, when thousands of French protestants
> This restraint extends to warfare and social disorder. That is not to
> say England has been without violence, but rather that at any point in
> her history the level of violence was substantially lower than in any
> other comparable society. For example, the English Civil War in the
> 17th Century was, apart from the odd inhumane blemish, startlingly
> free of the gross violence common on the continent of the time during
> the 30 Years War, where the sacking and pillage of towns and cities
> was the norm. A particularly notable thing, for civil wars are
> notorious for their brutality.
>
> The way that England responded to the Reformation is instructive. She
> did not suffer the savage wars of religion which traumatised the
> continent and brought human calamities such as the St Bartholomew
> were massacred at the instigation of the French king.
>
> It was not that the English did not care deeply about their religion,
> rather that they have been, when left to their own devices, generally
> loth to fight their fellow countrymen over anything. English civil
> wars have always been essentially political affairs in which the
> ordinary person has little say, for the struggles were either dynastic
> or a clash between Parliamentary ambition and the monarch. Even the
> persecution of the Lollards in the late fourteenth and fifteenth
> centuries and the persecution of Protestants under Mary I had a highly
> political aspect. The former was a vastly disturbing challenge to the
> established social order with men being told, in so many words, that
> they could find their own way to salvation and the latter an attempt
> to re-establish not merely the Catholic order in England, which had
> been overturned since the time of Henry VIII�s breach with Rome, but
>
> It was not that the English did not care deeply about their religion,
> rather that they have been, when left to their own devices, generally
> loth to fight their fellow countrymen over anything. English civil
> wars have always been essentially political affairs in which the
> ordinary person has little say, for the struggles were either dynastic
> or a clash between Parliamentary ambition and the monarch. Even the
> persecution of the Lollards in the late fourteenth and fifteenth
> centuries and the persecution of Protestants under Mary I had a highly
> political aspect. The former was a vastly disturbing challenge to the
> established social order with men being told, in so many words, that
> they could find their own way to salvation and the latter an attempt
> to re-establish not merely the Catholic order in England, which had
> also what amounted to a new royal dynasty with Mary�s marriage to
> Philip of Spain.
>
> Even the prohibitions on Catholics and non-Conformists after the
> Reformation had a fundamental political basis to them, namely, they
> were predicated on the question of whether such people be trusted to
> give their first loyalty to the crown....
>
> Read more at http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/how-england-became-the-mother-of-modern-politics/
>
Yes, England is indeed the mother of modern democratic politics.
>
> Even the prohibitions on Catholics and non-Conformists after the
> Reformation had a fundamental political basis to them, namely, they
> were predicated on the question of whether such people be trusted to
> give their first loyalty to the crown....
>
> Read more at http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/how-england-became-the-mother-of-modern-politics/
>
plainolamerican
May 20, 2013, 5:39:22 PM5/20/13
to
A democracy can only exist until the voters discover that they can
vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.” - Alexander Fraser
Tytler (1747–1813)
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