The period between the Wars of the Roses and the England Civil War has been referred to by scholars as the ‘monarchy of counsel’: an era where advice and advisers were at the centre of political discourse. As concepts of ‘counsel’ (political advice-giving) and ‘command’ (sovereign authority) developed and came into conflict, writers also touched on issues of free speech, political prudence and reason of state. This [how many]-part blog series explores these topics and the essential changes to ideas of politics that came about, drawing on material from Counsel and Command in Early Modern English Thoughtby Dr Joanne Paul.
“THE OCTOBER COUNTRY …that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain…” (Ray Bradbury, The October Country, xiii)
When we think of the classics, we usually think of long, sober epic works of literature that address very serious themes—war, individual and societal turmoil, vengeance, treachery, and tragedy.
One of the most famous dinner parties in literature occurs in Book Five of Milton's Paradise Lost. Eve is busily preparing the evening meal when Adam comes running to tell her that the Angel Raphael is arriving to join them. Adam then tells Eve to check the pantry and see what she has stored up for their unexpected guest.
The period between the Wars of the Roses and the England Civil War has been referred to by scholars as the ‘monarchy of counsel’: an era where advice and advisers were at the centre of political discourse. As concepts of ‘counsel’ (political advice-giving) and ‘command’ (sovereign authority) developed and came into conflict, writers also touched on issues of free speech, political prudence and reason of state. This blog series explores these topics and the essential changes to ideas of politics that came about, drawing on material from Counsel and Command in Early Modern English Thoughtby Dr Joanne Paul.
In this instalment, we explore some of the best-known and influential writers of the reign of Henry VIII, painting a picture of the ‘humanist’ counsellor, with its emphasis on opportunity, rhetoric and morality.
J. R. R. Tolkien’sLord of the Rings presents several societies with different approaches to government. The most prominent include the idyllic Shire, the grand realm of Gondor, the hardy kingdom of Rohan, and the absolute dictatorship of Mordor. Looking at them gives strong indications of his views of government. In addition, we have his own words on the kind of governance he favored.
James Madison’s most radical proposal in The Federalist No. 51 was grounded in personal experience, even though he didn’t say so. Madison used a magisterial writing style, like all the authors who wrote the various Federalist Papers under the pen name Publius. He did not cite specific occurrences; only generalities such as “experience has taught mankind”. But his views were shaped by years in the rough and tumble of Colonial politics.
“All my stories,” wrote H.P. Lovecraft, “unconnected as they may be, are based on the fundamental lore or legend that this world was inhabited at one time by another race who, in practising black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on outside ever ready to take possession of this earth again.” (August Derleth, “The Cthulhu Mythos” in Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, vii)
“On the one hand, it was a long-standing requirement that monarchs receive counsel in order to legitimise their rule. On the other, this condition had the potential to undermine their authority if the monarch was required to act on the counsel given. In other words, if counsel is obligatory, it impinges upon sovereignty. If it is not, it then becomes irrelevant and futile.”
In Chapter 4 of my book, I explore a subtle but important distinction between a person having decisive reason to accept or endorse some view (“acceptability”) versus lacking decisive reason to reject it (“rejectability”). I have in mind conflicting views, none of which are clearly right or wrong, that may be used by states or private entities as justification for legal or social coercion.
In recent months, financial services company Northwestern Mutual has used the chorus from a song by the Americana band “The Avett Brothers” in a commercial about managed wealth. The song, “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise” soars: “I had a dream/ and one day I could see it.” For Northwestern Mutual it is a material dream, but for the band it has to do with moral objectivity.
One of the surprise cultural hits of this past summer was the three-part Netflix docu-series Arnold, which has scored a 96% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes and which has been lauded by critics and audiences alike.
In recent years, there has been a growing literature among historians regarding the relationship between slavery and capitalism, known as the “New History of Capitalism,” which postulates that slavery was the institutional basis for the rise of capitalism and economic development in the U.S.
It is so common for major, innovative thinkers to suffer at the hands of their states that it is almost a trope in the history of politics and theology. Socrates was tried and executed for impiety, Aristotle was accused of impiety (but fled rather than face trial and death), Machiavelli was tortured and exiled, and the list goes on.
One of the most important and controversial principles originating from classical economics is the principle known as “Say’s Law,” or the fundamental law of markets. Although this economic principle can trace its roots back to Adam Smith, as its namesake suggests, it is generally credited to the political economist Jean Baptiste Say, who first stated this principle in his classic book, entitled A Treatise on Political Economy; or the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth ([1803] 1971).
In 1848, John Stuart Mill published his Principles of Political Economy. The book was an elaboration on the concepts and ideas developed by Adam Smith and David Ricardo and included applications to social philosophy and political problems of the day. Principles of Political Economy became a classic, eventually going through seven editions, the last published in 1871. The Principles remained the main textbook for what we now call economics throughout the United Kingdom and America into the 1900s, when it would eventually be replaced by Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics.
David Hume conceives the mind in metaphors. The mind is a theater, a republic, a stringed instrument. These metaphors suggest that an individual has multiple selves, whose relations resemble social interactions.
There is a third theme which weaves its way through the first few of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, building up to its use in one of the most famous Tales, the Wife of Bath’s Tale. This is the theme of a good woman.
It may seem strange to those this side of the Enlightenment that “the advancement of learning” should need any defense. If anything, we today are plagued with fears of misunderstanding rapidly advancing science, or of standing on the “wrong side of history” whose alleged progressive march seems constant. Perhaps one of the worst things of which one can be accused today, if one hopes to be taken seriously, is of being outdated, irrelevant, archaic, or positively Medieval.
Paradise Lost, published more than 350 years ago (1667), is still almost routinely characterized as the greatest poem in English. More guardedly, it is called “the greatest epic poem.” (Yes, there are others, such as Beowulf, TheFaerieQueene, Don Juan, John Brown’s Body, and Song of Myself. . . .)
Life was nasty, brutish and short. Many of us recall these famous words from Thomas Hobbes’ political treatise, Leviathan (1651). Fewer of us remember the context in which he described this state of humanity.