Dr John R GIBBINS

WESTERN CIVILISATION: From the Ancient Greeks to the Present. An intellectual and cultural history of the West Part IV (24)

The Seventeenth Century: Restoration and The Glorious Revolution

Resume Last week we traced: The emergence of the private, possessive individual The new focus on the interior life – domestic interiors The challenge to the individual from class, status,

occupation and gender social structures The rapid growth of private property and wealth at

the expense of the Commons and Commonwealth The humanist reaction in epic narrative landscape art exemplified by Claude and Poussin Note a new Vermeer’s Women Exhibition at the

Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge Oct-Dec 2011

Today’s themes The Restoration of the Old Order – Charles II Counter Revolution and retribution – Newbrough

Priory Merry England and who paid? – Newby Hall Catastrophes – fires, plagues and death Christopher Wren and re-building England James II and the National Calamity Glorious Revolution and the reign of William & Mary The Royal Society and Educational Revolution From Castles to Country Houses – the birth of Homes

and Gardens

Why did the Interregnum fail? 1649-1660, Oligarchy, Grand Council, New Parliament, then

Lord Protector created Irreconcilable pressures within the Commonwealth, plots from

Monarchists, Catholics abroad (Ireland, Scotland), cost of wars, tensions within the Army, taxation

Irreconcilable pressures from outside the , Commonwealth – he raised England’s prestige, but a fear, loathing and hatred of Republican Government, costs of wars, Dutch

Personal failings of Cromwell, his sons and H. Ireton, they allowed too much freedom of thought and word

Never achieved a new Constitutional Order, knocked off track by events

Two loyalists Monk and Lambert aided Charles orderly return to ensure England’s enhanced status not threatened by Civil War

The Restoration or Counter Revolution/Reformation? A King restored monarchy but not all lost

prerogatives Constitutional Monarchy – King in Parliaments Church of England restored with some prerogatives,

but Acts against Dissenters 1661 – now Liberals have to look to the non Conformist churches

Rule by the Privy Council angered Parliament, as did voting reforms, and republicanism prevailed

Charles debts dwarfed the National Income, he borrowed more, sold his estates, betrayed promises to his old friends, indebted to France

Commerce is King England was forced to support France in a

commercial war with the Dutch England gained and lost in equal measures until the

Dutch Admiral Ruyter sailed up the Firth of Forth and then ransacked Chatham harbour and stole the Royal Flagship

Terrible weather, rat born bubonic plagues (68k died), then the Fire of London led to the sacrifice of the Chancellor Stafford and Clarendon was little more popular. The masses, the city, and commerce were turning against monarchy and its taxes by 1667

1666 image of The Great Fire from the river, St.Pauls in the centre, Tower on the right, Bridge on the left

Fire of London Mixed fortunes for the residents and their successors Allowed extensive rebuilding – e.g.St Pauls Allowed new designs of roads, drains, housing,

transport to be implemented Toll: 13,200 houses, 70,000 residents displaced with

no insurance, 87 Churches, All Government and most commercial buildings e.g. Threadneedle St

Helped rid London of seats of the Plague Fanned both religious fanatics who blamed each

other and xenophobia against the Dutch

Trouble to come Charles brother James, Duke of York, has converted to

Catholicism and Charles was obliged by the later discredited Treaty of Dover to follow course asap in 1669

Indebted, the king stopped paying interest on loans to the City, his colleagues, and all – bankrupting many

Disasters led to the recall of Parliament, who agreed loans only at the cost of a Test Act, proof that ministers were not secret Catholics 1673?

In 1664 Republicanism was back in charge, and after plots in 1679 and revolts James, his wife and many other Catholics were exiled, and the protestant ascendancy, backed by a commercial Whig City Elite, took control of the government. Under the Exclusion Parliaments, money and commerce ruled England, not the royal family. ‘No Popery, no Slavery’ 1681 slogan

Tories and Whigs The modern party system born here as royalists

rallied to challenge the Whig leader Lord Shaftsbury who was impeached

A new Radical anti-monarchical protestant alliance was born by Whigs on the run, including Algenon Sidney, Lords Shaftsbury and Russell. Oxford University allied with the Tories, Catholics and the King, Cambridge with the Whigs, non conformists and Parliament

In 1685 Charles converted and died with his brothers Catholic succession safe, his treason undetected

Censorship or Media Frenzy From the first days of printing monarchs had sought

to control the presses via licence and censorship The media had formidable power to stifle or open

debate, to silence or amplify Caxton presses had to apply for Licence from the City

of London and political and religious factors dominate Censorship was regularly used to stop the circulation

of inflammable tracts, pamphlets and books The usual response by the censors was to print

abroad and import to England Riots, panics and revolution were its children

Coffee Shops But alongside the theatre and presses were the new spaces for

liberty and freedom – the coffee shops Imported from Arabia this ‘dark intoxicating’ drink arrived in

Oxford in 1650 and London 1652 The drink had been the subject of Experiments by Bacon the

find the source of its energizing source of stamina and alertness, but it was its cultural context that survived and dominated

Coffee houses were called ‘Penny Universities’ because they supplied news, books, ‘wits and virtuosi’ like Harrington, Dryden and Pepys – Will’s of Covent Garden, Russell St.

Lloyds was originally a coffee shop used by financiers Women banned, Harrington’s Rota Club banned by Charles II Women angered by there allure, effects and dangers

Merry England? Did Coffee, the presses, new Music make a Merry England? On the back of the City of London profits and lending, England

experienced a great cultural and commercial revival The City of London was triumphant, the aristocracy in debt This success is charted in art, architecture and music as well as

in the sciences, learning and education The English Baroque – more moderate, stylish and practical Culture of ribald Bawdy theatre, novels and songs offset by More prudish plays by John Dryden and the elegant royal music

of Henry Purcell (unknown Image) No greater evidence than in Pepy’s writings and the architecture

of Christopher Wren (image by Godfrey Kellner, 1711)

Henry Purcell 1659-1695 Westminster born and bred, School 1676, Abbey

Copyist 1685, wrote Psalm and Anthems Wrote the music and songs to 7 plays including those

of Dryden and Shakespeare’s Midsummer Nights Dream – a classicist and humanist

Operettas for Dido and Aeneas, Orpheus etc 12 Sonatas, and The Fairy Queen Died in his prime feted by Charles and James I Merry England was founded on a spirit of relief from

civil war, greater tolerance, and growing incomes

From Sacred to Secular Sacred and devotional music lost its audience and status in this

century – as religion damaged itself Demand grew for music for leisure (the soiree), for dancing, for

celebrations, for mass entertainment (Dryden and Purcell Operetta's), for army and navy uses, for popular entertainments and the theatres

Church music seemed divisive, Protestants despises the use of the ‘devils music’, and worship became more private and personal not public

Knowledge of Mozart, Baroque genius, invaded England with a desire for new forms, fashions and festivals

Historical drama’s and romances such as Love in a Wood, Love for Love, The Man of Mode, The Country Wife, The Plain Dealer

Christopher Wren 1632-1723 Wiltshire Rectors son, who moved to be dean of Windsor. Private education, moved to Wadham College, Oxford 1650, MA,

and connected widely and intellectually, All Souls latter Studied Latin, Aristotle, Maths, Astronomy, Science 1661 made Savilian Prof of Astronomy, Oxford, then appointed

Surveyor of Works by Charles II Travelled in Europe and studied Bernini deeply Knighted, MP Windsor, married twice, 4 children Opportunity from crisis of Great Fire of London 1666, started in

bakers shop and spread destroying 60% of the City Produced a Plan for Rebuilding London in weeks

Royal Society and Patronage Co-founded Royal Society Worked with the greatest scientists and mathematicians of the

day inc., Newton, Boyle, Harvey, Hooke, Barrow First commissions for Pembroke College, Cam., then Sheldonian

Theatre, Oxford; Wren Library, Trinity, Cambridge, 1695 (Image provided with statue of Byron, carvings by Grindling Gibbons and window of Newton and Bacon meeting GeorgeIII)

After the Fire 51 churches across London inc., St Paul’s Cathedral (image) , Ludgate Hill with its unique Cupula dome that took his lifetime to complete

Royal Observatory, Greenwich; Chelsea Hospital, State Room Windsor

Attacked by Lord Shaftsbury, Whig leader, and resigned Left a Legacy celebrated by Sir Edwin Lutyens latter Image St Agnes Church, Gresham, London

Inigo Jones 1573-1652 Wren’s reputation waned in comparison to his

predecessor whose style is more evident on the London streets and avenues, rather than churches

Palladian, or neo-Italian, less fussy, more cubic and rectangular he created interest by adding balconies, columns, arches, staircases and small features as illustrated in the Queens House at Greenwich here and the Palace of Whitehall, completed in 1715

Jones portrait by William Hogarth, 1758 from an original painting by Van Dyke, 1636

Much favoured by latter architects

A Faupax Ironically, Rubens had been

commissioned to paint a fresco on the roof of the Banqueting House opened just before the Revolution

William and Mary appointed there The first Bill of Rights for England was

signed there at that point under the fresco

From Castle to County Home The Civil War revealed the weakness of fixed

defensive formations like castles – the Cannon, the use of undermining and exploding walls

London houses built on Jones lines were accompanied by the rural evolution of the Grand Country House.

Old wooden Halls replaced with stone and brick Palladian Mansions, such as Blenheim Palace, Chatsworth House, Newby Hall and Castle Howard

Chatsworth House from 1668 oil painting with the hunting previous lodge on the sky line

The Stone Cottage Technology for working stone grew, as did finding local stone

via geology – e.g. limestone belts in the Cotswolds, and Dales areas and sandstone in Yorkshire

These began to replace long houses, wooden frames, wattle and daub mud buildings as seen in Cruck Houses, like Spout House built in the 1560’s

The new models (see over Cotswold) were bulbous, with stone replacing straw roofing, with larger glass windows, and numerous chimneys, loved by the Chipping Norton Set

These are seen around here in most Yorkshire Dales and Mooreland villages and towns, and exemplified best in Coxwold, Ampleforth and areas in York

1904 Easingwold Duplex image of Coxworld Shandy Hall, Home of author and satirist Lawrence Sterne was

modified in C17th from a Medieval small hall

The Royal Society and Science You may have noticed that BBC Radio 4 are trying to popularise

science as culture – likewise in C17th Science was feted by all classes except the peasantry who saw

it as taking away the last vestiges of magic, nature, nature gods, fairies, elves etc, and the rights of traditional medicines and cures

It was an elite concern which was downloaded to an excited middle class and expectant entrepreneurs

Being the dominant form of life, science had to accommodate religion, but religion was no longer able to censor science and scientists – fear receded and status grew for intellectuals

Freedom of thought and experiment created new knowledge

This was the Protestant Intellectual Revolution, the Protestant Bonus or Reward – tolerance bred success

The Academaticians Robert Boyle of Boyles Law fame Isaac Barrow who founded modern geology John Goddard, instrument maker – telescopes Edmund Halley, Astronomer – Halley’s Comet William Harvey, Physiologist – the heart pump man Robert Hooke, President, all rounder, genius Isaac Newton, President and genius The together created modern science and the New World

Picture or paradigm replacing the Elizabethan Picture of E. Tillyard

Ships, armaments, medicine, manufacture were all revolutionized

Religious preoccupations left most Universities behind

Schools, Colleges, Hospitals These grew mainly form the charitable (but

utilitarian) initiatives of the new rich as philanthropists rather than the aristocracy or monarch – the demand for knowledge and skills

Charity and Grammar Schools provided these at the local level and no town wished to be left behind

Hospitals to lure new doctors to the provinces, created havens for cure and local experimentation

Laboratories, observatories and Libraries grew in Universities and beyond

From Coffee Shop to Academy These were European in scope, coming late to England Wren, Pepys and others met after Wren’s London Lectures, in

pubs or coffee shops – usually founded by immigrants John Aubrey (Brief Lives). John Evelyn (botanist), John Locke

(Philosopher), William Petty (statistician), John Wallis (mathematician), John Dryden, John Wilkins (Bishop), several Dukes and Earls, Kenelm Digby ( experimentalist)

The next cohort made England the Capital of Science in the world – and Knowledge became Power

Ideas found their way fast into naval, military and commercial application

The Monarchy Strikes Back During the latter years of Charles rule the Tory alliance

managed to both restore the credibility of the monarch, the rights of Catholics and to undermine the Whig alliance that supported tolerance, the new commercial classes, liberties and the infant republic

The Trial and execution of key republicans, such as Algenon Sidney, for the imaginary Rye House Plot in 1683 marked the start of a vendetta and a counter revolution against Parliament and the Republic

Charles refused pleas from the republican Swedish and Dutch to create an anti-French alliance and put England in the hands of French forces and money, with the promise of conversion to Catholicism via the succession of James Duke of York

James II and Ferment 1685-9 Austere, impatient, bigoted and vain, but well past his prime,

the new King took no time in making his mark at home and abroad

On Accession he agreed to support the Church of England, the Constitution and Parliament, but immediately began to back track by taking the Mass openly in Whitehall

Despite a supportive Parliament of the landed, and a victory of aristocrats against the common supported Protestant General the Duke of Monmouth, James managed to anger Parliament by promoting Catholics, and gerrymandering constituencies, so it was disbanded and not recalled; Universities had Catholics installed in many offices

The King ordered acquisition from every County, and got none even from Tory supported like Lord Halifax

The Crisis James tried to have an Oath of Indulgences read in

every pulpit but found Bishops and clergy unwilling He then arrested and tried their leaders who were

found innocent at a trial The birth of an heir raised the sceptre of another

Catholic succession at a time when his daughters Mary and Ann married Swedish and Dutch protestant kings respectively, Mary with William of Orange

Their husbands liaised with protestants and parliamentarians abroad and in England and found them ready to accept Dutch protestant William as King

Debacle James tried backtracking but too late, and began to loose his

nerve and his supporters Invited by Parliament William sailed to Torbay and camped at

Exeter where republicans massed, with a fleet at the ready Eventually, like Richard Nixon latter, James accepted flight as

close confidents advised – the Faversham debacle Mary was offered the crown but deferred to William Parliament agreed that James had ‘subverted the contract

between king and people’ and flight meant ‘abdication’. A Catholic king was not compatible with the English Constitution

Clergy who refused to accept these were called ‘non jurors’ and suspected of Catholic loyalties

James II in alliance with the French invaded Ireland and so began the Irish Troubles we know today

The Glorious Revolution 1688/9 It is this Glorious Revolution more than the first that

was the model for latter westernisation of the world It was Glorious because successful, permanent,

unifying, and guaranteeing the rights and liberties of Western citizens, now guaranteed (except by Teresa May) in the European and UN Charters of Human Rights

Despite more Plots, Stuart and Scottish Invasions, the new Settlement stuck and had become the Establishment in England and in Britain in the Acts of Settlement of 1701 and 5

Hardly celebrated in 1988. Why? Too radical?

Halifax and The Trimmer Two contrasting books mirror these events, the Trimmer and

John Locke’s, Two Treatise on Government Lord Halifax was a Tory land owning Grandee who had advised

James before abandoning him as hopeless George Halifax, 1633-1695, Thornhill, Yorkshire, Shrewsbury

School Married well, wealthy and popular MP, Privy Councillor but steadfastly opposed both French and

Catholic rule over England His Trimmer (image over) was written in 1682-4 to justify, on

Tory grounds, his refusal to support James II Portrait Image by Mary Beale 1674-5

The Mean and the Middle Following Machiavelli, Halifax argues that politics is

about the possible not the ideal, compromise rather then passion – Filmer’s Patriacha is fiction nonsense

In a storm passengers and wealth move to the centre of the boat to give stability, the captain does whatever is needed of keep the ship afloat even if that means going off course

Trimming, pragmatism, slow not radical policy change, is the best strategy in politics, as Burke and Michael Oakeshott latter argue

Politics is the art of the possible, not ideology

John Locke, 1632-1704 Born at Wrigington in the South West, father was

middle class, an Attorney who built rich landed estates in the area, before moving to Oxford- as a Country Gentleman

John went to Westminster School, then joined Christ’s College, Oxford under its independent tolerant dissident head John Owen, medicine, philosophy, law

In 1666 he was tutoring at the home of Lord Ashley later Shaftsbury when his patron fell ill with liver disease. John tried placing a pipe to his stomach and draining off fluid. It worked and John was made.

Life As with Hobbe’s patronage gave him income,

contacts, libraries and travel which he used amply Hard to be a intellectual without money As Whig Shaftsbury's career fluctuated so did John’s.

He thrived in the 1670’s but was exiled with him from Oxford when James II arrived in 1684

He became the Secretary to the new Colony of Carolina and the Board of Trade giving himself expertise on how colonies we made and managed

He effected Trimmer like views before the 1680’s, a strong state built upon the rule of law and commerce

Opponents and Friends Filmer, First Treatise, he argues to be fallacious,

confused and wrong on the Divine Rights of Kings Hobbes he liked but rejected his absolutism, his

refusal to accept limits to States and rights of men He was impressed by Algenon Sidney’s Discourse but

saw it a a polemic not a philosophical argument He was thrust into philosophy and rebellion by the

Glorious Revolution and became its author In 1681 he had fled Oxford leaving his writings in the

library bound up as ‘Tractus De Morbo Gallico’, or Treatise on Syphilis that Royal censors missed

On Human Understanding 1671 drafted his theory of knowledge Objects are external, physical and independent of mind Every mind is born as a blank tablet (Tabla Rasa) onto which is

impressed signs arising from experiences of the external Knowledge is sense data that has been reflected upon – it is

after (a posteriori) not before (a priori) experience This refutes Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz Rationalism and

revises Hobbes Empiricism Primary Impression are the first ones recorded by the senses

and Secondary ones are memories and reflections on them Reason is reflection on experience, not a unique faculty as with

Descartes

Education and Tolerance What follows is a new theory of how to educate that

stresses experiences, experiments, observation, science, and regular amendments to truths

Schools and Universities should challenge old dogma’s and beliefs in response to the new teaching and learning practices, as Bacon had advised

The State should learn that religious beliefs are divisive, do and will change and advance, and so we should not impose uniformity but tolerance

Tolerance will reap massive benefits to any state or body by stopping repression and unchaining the mind to discover new truths – Bacon’s Theory exemplified

Second Treatise on Government Ed., P. Laslett, Cambridge UP., 1967, or Pelican Written in 1690 to refute Filmer, Hobbes and defend

the achievements of the Glorious Revolution All men created free and equal by and under God’s

not Kings laws God provided a law of nature, discoverable by

experience (of the Colonies) and reason The law of reason/nature gave us rights to life,

liberty and the pursuit of private property as the best means for sustaining rights to life and liberty

The law of nature (Justinian and Giaus Codes) prescribed moral laws and punishments for invasions

Developments from State of Nature

Following his observation of Colonists and native Indians, Hobbes is deemed wrong that all men are in a state of war in a State of Nature

Men work together, cooperate, build and respect each others lives and liberties in a State of Nature

Sadly, and abnormally, some ‘steal and injure others’, and ‘enjoyment of it (security) is very uncertain …’

All being Kings unto themselves, the only way to secure mutually their individual rights is to Contract and consent to set up a management body or Government

Contract and Form of Govt: from subject of a Realm to citizen of State.

Government is then the result of the consent of free individual, in the form of a contract, to set up a body, answerable to them, whose job is exclusively to protect the individual rights to ‘life, liberty and estates’ of its contracting parties (Ascending Authority)

This is a brilliant reversal of James II and Filmer and Hobbes, Government is not by the sovereign for himself or the State, they having all the rights and subjects all the duties, now government and the sovereign State are exclusively ‘by and for the citizens’, government having limited rights and unlimited duties to protect citizens natural rights

Original and Tacit Consent In the past peoples gave Express consent as in

Carolina, but all succeeding generations give Tacit consent by staying and enjoying the benefits of the state

If you don’t like it, you can vote for change or get out and set up where you do

Once a political body is made it is permanent so long as it upholds citizens rights

Dissent and Revolution are justified if the rulers betray the terms of the contract, suspend citizens rights and rule in their own interests – hurrah, hurrah

Decision making Law making and policy must reflect the biggest

number of citizens – the Majority will Given directly or via their Representatives, who then

exercise the individuals rights and interests for them Once contracted, citizens must follow agreed rules

and policy, or can be legitimately expelled or punished

My thesis is that Locke is following the model of the Colonies and the example of the new form of business organisation – the Business Partnership

It dominates business and politics today

Why and how Estates? Macpherson notes how Locke cleverly moves from

Communism under God to Private Property under Democratic States. Why cannot most men and all women not exercise individual rights? How?

Sec., 27-37 God gave man rights to his own labour Ch.5, he also gave man all the land in the world in

common to work on If a man mixes his own labour with common land or

materials it gives him a title of ownership But only what he can ‘use’, and ‘as much and as

good ’must be left for others One owned it cannot be taken except by consent e.g.

sale or transfer by inheritance

Property for the ‘rational and industrious’

How then do we get to giant estates and the many without them?

The devil lies in money and wage labour Money (a tacit agreement to attach value to an article) allows

men to store surplus product. No longer do you leave the fruits of nature to others to use, you take it, sell it and store as wealth

Men who are not industrious, can sell their labour to to others, work on their estates for a wage. Wage earners forfeit their right to the product of their labour and the owner can profit from their labour and accumulate unlimited wealth, Sec., 46-50, 85

Andrew Reeve, Property, Macmillan, 1986; Neal Wood, John Locke and Agrarian Capitalism, U California Press, 1984

The Loss of Equal Rights While sounding republican, egalitarian and liberal Locke now

justifies oligarchy, inequality and control When a man or woman gives up their labour to another, they

forfeit their right to their person as well, and hence becomes dependent and without claim to equal rights with their employer Sec 85

Men who sell labour and don’t own estates have no right to vote, engage in politics, rebel, withdraw consent nor rebel. We now have the justification of limited democracy, citizenship only for big landowners, exclusion, deference and denial of rights to all the rest including all women and indigenous populations of colonies (sec., 49, all the property less, all those who sell their labour and receive wages, all immigrants and those who break the law – Possessive Individualism

Wage Earners as Subjects This loss of liberties and rights is justified in several ways: Labourers and servants do not exercise reason. They do as told They are not fully rational but more like wives and children Employees temporarily exercise reason for women and

employees and protect their lives so exercise their rights for them – the dependent must and do defer

Women and men who want rights and liberty can leave employment and move, get property, mix it with their labour, make profits, build wealth and so become rational an equal citizens with full rights – the Colonial Promise

The Analogy is with the Business Partners having the right to vote, manage and share profits while employees get only wages

You choose unequal status by working for others, full rights, including citizenship rights, belong only to employers

Philosopher or Apologist? Locke is brilliant and was a brave and innovative critic and

philosopher in his day But in fact his arguments serve to justify only the rights of his

employers in his day – the great Estate owners, justifies the unequal status of women and most of men at the time, legitimates uncritically unequal rights, the new commercial business practices of the day, colonialism, and abridges the experiences, habits, and beliefs of the new Whig ruling classes

This could be a Bourgeoisie Ideology more than a Philosophy? Is it charter for Western Colonialism and Imperialism Surely, a choice to work for others does not entail rationally

suspension of rights given at birth by God?

Seminar Was there a State of Nature? Do you believe we were all born with equal Natural

Rights? (Britain’s most famous export) Is his account of the Original Contract accurate,

likely, or a fiction? Do you give tacit consent by staying and enjoying? Do you agree that working for others relinquishes

your natural rights, and implies your deference? Does the invention of money justify unlimited

expropriation for an elite, inequality and exploitation of native peoples, working men and all women?

Is Locke a ‘bourgeoisie ideologist’, and to the world ‘a European colonialist’?

The Crux Issue Were the new Rights those of Englishmen established

by men in revolution, or gifts from Nature or God? Definition - A right is a a socially recognised

entitlement to something Are they the result of struggle or theology? Are rights historically or religiously grounded? Have we exported an ideology to the world Rights are the hard won expectations on what is the

bottom line on political acceptability?

Abstract Concrete Divine gifts Divine, Natural, Human

Rights Granted by God at our

Birth Universal to all Ethical Jus Naturae Trump Positive Law Locke, Thomas Paine,

The Founding Fathers

Human inventions Artificial, Evolved,

Historical Granted by your State

at Birth/Adult Particular to areas Actual Positive Law No superior Law Burke, Hegel, Bentham,

Maine, Ritchie

Rights are Historical We have mistaken particular English practical legal

products of two Revolutions for, abstract, universal, moral entitlements gifted by God or Nature

The ideological justification (God) is mistaken for the real source in historical argument, conflict and treaty, just as the Roman jurists did when they mistook the Jus Gentium for a Jus Naturae (Henry Maine)

Jeremy Bentham C19th hence called Natural Rights worse then ‘nonsense’, they are ‘nonsense upon stilts’, a narrative ‘political fiction’

You don’t have a right unless another body has a duty to deliver

The message is, ‘Never believe your own ideology’!

A Defence of Rights Human Rights are an ideal standard made by men to stop the

exploitation of fellow human beings – historical inventions But all rights start as claims that have to be agreed By all means use rhetoric, but accept that you are creating

rights in time not discovering universal codes from God or some Acadian state of nature

No right is valid until made actual, the natural must be made positive as with the Founding Fathers, French Revolution, the United Nations after the Defeat of Hitler and Japan

‘Rights without the sword are but words’, the right is real only if recognized and effectively claimable

I’d prefer a few concrete actual rights enforceable under law to a bag full of abstract natural ones claimable by appeal to God or nature. Would you?

Conclusion The particular Rights of Englishmen

established in its Bill of Rights of 1689 have been fictionalised as the universal entitlements of all humans around the Globe in the UN Charter of Human Rights

The actual Rights are to be valued and defended, but the abstract arguments that found them are less than convincing