(DIR) Return Create A Forum - Home --------------------------------------------------------- True Left (HTM) https://trueleft.createaforum.com --------------------------------------------------------- ***************************************************** (DIR) Return to: Ancient World ***************************************************** #Post#: 25723-------------------------------------------------- Western Feudalism and Non-Western Patrimonialism By: antihellenistic Date: April 1, 2024, 2:28 am --------------------------------------------------------- Inferiority of Western Governmental System which led into Fragmentation and Perpetuate Decentralization [quote]Some have argued that feudalism emerged out of the chaos that ensued with the collapse of the Carolingian unity and with the onset of the Viking invasions. This argument has been expressed in a vigorous way by N. Bisson in a much debated paper, “The Feudal Revolution” (1994). He saw feudalism as a product of a particular historical conjunction characterized by the loss of Carolingian public power and an unprecedented “privatization” of political power by a “new” class of aggressive local aristocrats. He argued that this new class was responsible for a “feudal revolution” in the 9th to 10th centuries, leading to the establishment of local hegemonies that were largely independent of any central authority, and which enjoyed extensive juridical controls over a class of longstanding free peasantries. It is my view that “feudalism” was essentially derived from the early medieval society of tribal bands. What allows a war-band to take on the character of a “feudal institution” is the granting of a unit of land known as a fief by the band leader (the lord) to his followers (the vassals) in return for their loyalty and service. I accept F.L. Ganshof ’s argument in Feudalism (1961) that the union and spread of vassalage dates from the period of the early Carolingians in the 700s AD. It was the Carolingians who “deliberately pursued” a policy of granting fiefs to their vassals in the hope of ensuring their loyalty and thereby increasing their authority (51). However, in my view, the background sources of feudalism go further back to the aristocratic character of Indo-Europeans. What was different about feudalism was that it formalized the bond of loyalty between military chiefs and followers. It did so through the performance of an act of homage which took the form of an oath in which a kneeling vassal placed his clasped hands between the hands of the lord and gave his word to be loyal to him. This personal relationship between vassal and lord was as egalitarian as that between tribal chiefs and their followers. The lord reciprocated the vassal’s fealty by swearing to protect him and, as Ganshof points out, the Carolingian lords increasingly granted fiefs to their vassals as a way to solidify their loyalty and provide them with the economic means to acquire armor, weapons and horses. Now, to some degree, Ganshof ’s view is not inconsistent with Bisson’s insofar as he refers to the period between the 10th and 13th centuries as “the classical age of feudalism” – it was then that feudalism took on the long lasting decentralized form of rule with which it has come to be identified (65–105). There was an inbuilt tendency within feudalism towards decentralization. The provision of a grant of land entailed the enjoyment on the part of the vassals of certain immunities or political prerogatives in the governance of their fiefs including, for example, the right to collect rents from the peasants who worked the land, the right to adjudicate disputes over property inheritance, punished crimes, and the right to have a private army (Bloch 1961a: 163–175, 211–224). Moreover, since this was a relation between free nobles, there was a tendency, particularly in times of precarious central authority, for the lord-vassal relation to be reproduced and extended both upwards and downwards within the hierarchy of the aristocratic class. The wealthy vassals, who had feudal bonds with more powerful lords, were themselves capable of fashioning from their own extensive lands smaller fiefs for their own retinue of followers who, in turn, were capable of becoming lords over lesser vassals down to the level of fighting men who were of noble birth but had no land and were eager for military adventures and fortune. In practice, therefore, feudalism encouraged a decentralized form of political authority that descended from the king down to the lowest members of the aristocracy. But this system of stratification was not a hierarchy of submission. While lords were naturally disposed toward the augmentation of their territorial sovereignty, and always on the look-out to retake fiefs from vassals who had failed to perform their duties, it was equally natural for vassals to seek control over their lands on a permanent and categorical basis. The stronger tendency within feudalism was thus for power and ownership of territories to pass downwards toward the lower stratum. In the long run, fiefs, which were supposed to revert back to the original lord at the death of the vassal, came to be seen as inalienable and inheritable property by future generations of vassals who were indeed wont to increase their own powers by seeking additional fiefs from different lords (Poggi 1978: 16–35). The claim that feudalism, with its autonomous and precocious aristocracy, was a “product” of the breakdown of the Carolingian Empire sometimes hinges on the presumption that this Empire was a “patrimonial” regime similar to those Eastern empires in which the ruling class consisted of officials who were appointed by a supreme autocratic ruler. It has been argued (Mann 1986), in this context, that patrimonial domination per se has a tendency to slide into a type of feudal rule due to the obvious difficulties in communications which traditional societies faced. Not only did they have difficulties controlling local officials in remote areas, but the officials themselves were inclined to treat their office-domains as hereditary property. In traditional societies kinship relations were also very difficult to dilute and replace with “bureaucratic” norms. Historians have thus discovered Sumerian feudalism, Chinese feudalism, Japanese feudalism, Islamic feudalism, and many other decentralized forms of authority wherever they have found weak central authorities, dynastic breakdowns, or strong warlords lording within their own localities.40 As I see it, the feudal bond between lord and vassal was a contractually based relation entered into between two men who had an intrinsic sense of their noble status. Whereas vassalage was a relationship that originated in an army of free warriors with a heroic sense of honor, patrimonialism was a relationship that originated in the ruler’s need to acquire personal servants and personal representatives of the state. Whereas the lord could not impose duties on the vassal arbitrarily, the patrimonial ruler was, in principle, in a position to withdraw the “rights” he had granted to office-holders. Whereas the relation between lord and vassal was binding to both parties in that it followed a code of honor involving personal loyalty and pride of noble status, the patrimonial relation followed a pattern whereby officials were dependent on the ruler for their well being. This is why it resulted in a widespread practice amongst patrimonial rulers in the eastern world to recruit and train people of low social origin (slaves, serfs, coloni, and eunuchs who did not possess any family and local connections of their own but were, instead, entirely dependent on the ruler) to become officials of the state (Bendix: 334–81). Therefore, the propensity of patrimonial rule to decentralize should not be characterized as a tendency toward feudalism.41 Officials who held prestigious positions in the administration of an empire, including members who acted arbitrarily against subordinates within their localities in a similar fashion to how their ruler acted towards them, should not be viewed as “noble” even when they managed to achieve almost complete independence from the ruler or when they came to enjoy “privileges” not available to the rest of the population. What gives European feudalism its unique identity is that it is a type of political order based on a contractual agreement between free men who are ennobled in the calling of arms. Medieval Japan is the one non-Western society that appears to have been closest to European feudalism in that it was characterized by a formalized fragmentation of power in which a class of war-lords granted vassals tenements similar to the fiefs of the West. But, as Bloch noted, “Japanese vassalage was much more an act of submission than was European vassalage and much less a contract” (1961b: 447). It was also stricter in that vassals were not free to pay homage to a plurality of lords. Perry Anderson made a similar argument. Having first indicated that Japan experienced a type of feudal rule between the 14th and 15th centuries, which combined the traits of vassalage, benefice and immunity, he noted that the Japanese relation between lord and vassal was “less contractual,” as the emphasis was more on the inequality of the relation than the reciprocity. The authority of the lord was “more patriarchal. There were no vassal courts, and legalism was generally very limited” (1987: 414). European vassals enjoyed “rights of immunity” in their own lands (407–10). The lords, as Bloch emphasized, were equally required to fulfill their contractually agreed obligations under penalty of losing their rights over vassals. It was a “universally recognized right of the vassal to abandon the bad lord” (Bloch: 451). There was a “right of resistance” by vassals, even against the king, under the expectation that a “good” king should be held responsible for the performance of his duties to his free aristocratic subjects. This expectation refers back to the Germanic tradition of kingship where kings were expected to succeed in warfare and to show generosity to their followers, lest they lose the loyalty of his tribe.[/quote] Source : The Uniqueness of Western Civilization by Ricardo Duchesne page 466-470 Therefore, Hitler who implemented autocracy and vassalage based on loyalty to the Guided-Socialism ideals, not egalitarian contractual, was not part of Western Civilization, the Civilization of Terror and Fragmentation #Post#: 25724-------------------------------------------------- Re: Western Feudalism and Non-Western Patrimonialism By: 90sRetroFan Date: April 1, 2024, 4:09 am --------------------------------------------------------- "Hitler who implemented autocracy and vassalage" Hitler did not implement vassalage at all. To the extent that National Socialist Germany was insufficiently centralized, Hitler was dissatisfied with this. [quote]This is why it resulted in a widespread practice amongst patrimonial rulers in the eastern world to recruit and train people of low social origin (slaves, serfs, coloni, and eunuchs who did not possess any family and local connections of their own but were, instead, entirely dependent on the ruler) to become officials of the state [/quote] The above is precisely what Hitler wanted to develop the Hitler Youth into. "Ancient China used to be a model for that, as long as the teachings of Confucius still throve there. The poorest young village lad would aspire to become a mandarin." - Adolf Hitler (Note that Hitler was factually in error. The Imperial Exam was not a Confucianist idea: (HTM) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination [quote]Under Emperor Wen (r. 581–604), all officials down to the district level had to be appointed by the Department of State Affairs in the capital and were subjected to annual merit rating evaluations. Regional Inspectors and District Magistrates had to be transferred every three years and their subordinates every four years. They were not allowed to bring their parents or adult children with them upon reassignment of territorial administration. The Sui did not establish any hereditary kingdoms or marquisates (hóu) of the Han sort. ... The original purpose of the imperial examinations as they were implemented during the Sui dynasty was to strike a blow against the hereditary aristocracy and to centralize power around the emperor.[/quote] (HTM) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Wen_of_Sui [quote]As a Buddhist, he encouraged the spread of Buddhism through the state. ... The Book of Sui records Emperor Wen as having withdrawn his favour from the Confucians, giving it to "the group advocating Legalism and authoritarian government."[10][/quote] Wen wanted to combine Buddhism with Legalism and sideline Confucianism entirely.) See also: (HTM) http://aryanism.net/blog/aryan-sanctuary/a-review-of-refugee-resettlement-by-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-173542 [quote]the syllabus of the essay exam was the Confucian Canon: (HTM) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Books_and_Five_Classics which anyone regardless of background could study and then apply to sit the exam. Hitler was not praising the ideas in the Confucian Canon itself. As a matter of fact, while some exam candidates submitted defenses of the Confucian Canon, others preferred to submit crtiques, so it was certainly not the case that all exam candidates had to agree with what they had studied; they just had to prove they were extremely familiar with the content and able to cogently develop on it in some direction.[/quote] #Post#: 25727-------------------------------------------------- Re: Western Feudalism and Non-Western Patrimonialism By: antihellenistic Date: April 1, 2024, 4:24 pm --------------------------------------------------------- Charlemagne, Man who Revive Western Civilization and its Feudalism [quote]...Charlemagne’s army was made up of royal vassals who, like the warriors of the old Germanic war-bands, were members of the free-born aristocratic class, some of whom were already holders of large estates or had been rewarded with benefices for their services, from which they could feed vassals of their own (Ganshof 1961: 20–61). When the Carolingian unity ceased in the 10th century, it was almost a natural step for these aristocrats to reassert, in full, their authority and their privileges in their local world. Charlemagne is not outside the Western tradition; he was a commanding aristocratic warrior who managed to exercise some degree of patrimonial authority over the Frankish aristocracy without, however, undermining their pride of noble status. He was a typical but extremely talented chieftain who attained the Indo-European ideal of immortal fame. But there was something new to this Germanic ruler missing in the earlier chiefs. First, he accorded great importance to the Christian dimension of his power, as is evident in his orders and laws disallowing the harming of churches, widows, and the “economically weak,” and also in his orders to the clergy to celebrate masses, to address supplications to God, to rigorously observe fasts, and to join in charitable activities (Fichtenau 1963: 34–36). While his resurrection of the Roman Empire was more a hopeful look into the future than an actual reality, his efforts to achieve administrative, legal, and monastic unification played a crucial role in countering the centrifugal chaos of the times. Moreover, by resurrecting the organization of the Church, which had nearly disappeared by the 7th century, into a strict hierarchy of offices, as well as revitalizing and endowing new monasteries, Charlemagne revived and expanded the literate tradition of the West. This revival (away from the state of nature) had some precedents. The barbarian invasions of the 5th century had brought about a considerable decline in learning, but by no means entirely and only for some time. The assimilation of classical culture by the founders of Christianity was continued right through the perilous centuries of the Germanic invasions, starting with Martianus Capella (5th century) who worked to preserve and defend all seven of the liberal arts, drawing on Cicero, Aristotle, Euclid, and Ptolemy; followed by Boethius (480–526), Cassiodorus (480–573), Isodore of Seville (560–636), the venerable Bede (672–735), John Scotus Erigena (810–877), and others (Colish 1998). Even poor isolated Ireland, a tribal desolated place devoid of schools and of any Latin or Greek speaking inhabitant was able, by 600 AD, to send numerous monastery-educated missionaries across Western Europe to read Latin and teach the basics of Christian education. These monasteries, which were spreading throughout Europe, were inhabited by monks who not only taught and copied Christian texts but meticulously preserved non-Christian texts as well, and thus kept classical learning alive, including the poetry of Virgil and Juvenal, the scientific writings of Pliny the Elder, the philosophical ideas of Boethius and Cicero, and also numerous works by lesser known grammarians, mathematicians, and physicians. During the same period, through the initiative of St Gregory the Great, Anglo-Saxon England saw the establishment of a centre of higher learning in Northumbria. The greatest representative of this Northumbrian ‘Renaissance’ was Bede, author of thirty-five works of grammar, theology, history, biblical commentary and science(Dawson 1950).43 With the establishment of some degree of political cohesion by Charlemagne, and the revival of trade, he set out to organize and centralize the cultural activities which otherwise would have remained stranded in different local schools. He was the first “barbarian” aristocratic ruler to revive and promote ancient culture; the first to inaugurate one of a series of Western “rebirths” in the study of the classics. He was, in other words, no longer your typical berserker, wayward and lacking in deferential projects for his people.44 He established the famous Palace School at Aachen, where he brought some of the most learned men from Ireland, Northumbria, Spain, Italy, and from his own lands. This Palace became a major teaching source for the sons of the aristocracy, civilizing them to become train scribes, administrators, and monks (Fichtenau: 79–102). Charlemagne’s coronation in 800 at the hands of Pope Leo III (r. 795–816) bespoke of a “Germanic” ruler who consciously sought to link himself to the Western Roman tradition because he understood that a geographical region of the world called “Europa” had become the center of a new epoch in the making of the West.[/quote] Source : The Uniqueness of Western Civilization by Ricardo Duchesne page 471 - 473 #Post#: 25728-------------------------------------------------- Re: Leftist vs rightist moral circles By: antihellenistic Date: April 1, 2024, 7:38 pm --------------------------------------------------------- Actually, Liberalist Thinking was the Basis of Moral Rightism, not Moral Leftism [quote]The West of AD 1000 was still an extremely disorderly world. The rise of feudalism brought on numerous conflicts over boundaries and jurisdictional rights, disputes which could not easily be resolved by appeal to the authority of public institutions. The contractual character of the lord-vassal relationship encouraged persistent “private wars” at every level and in every locality. Nevertheless, by about this time, all pagans had been Christianized, and thus the violent Christianization of pagans had ceased. It was in this context that the Church sought to promote the ideal of peace in a sincere effort to quell the violence between Christians. The Peace of God and the Truce of God, enacted between 990 and 1048, were ecclesiastical laws designed to counter the atrocities and depredations of quarrelling lords and vassals. From then on, in principle, and with some degree of success, anyone who robbed churches, attacked unarmed members of the clergy, stole from peasants and from merchants, and destroyed vineyards or mills, was to be excommunicated (Le Goff 2005: 46; Bloch 1961b: 412–420). Warmaking and plundering were likewise forbidden on religious holidays and from Thursday to Sunday. Together with this “civilizing process” there occurred the Christianization of the traditional feudal ceremony wherein a young warrior was publicly and ceremoniously presented with arms on the occasion of his initiation into the war-band of his lord. I agree with Bloch that a “modification of vital importance was introduced into the old ideal of war for war’s sake,” as this once strictly military ceremony was now anointed, as it were, by the Church at the end of the 12th century (316–19). By presiding over the rituals of knighthood, the Church supplemented the earlier Germanic and feudal heroic ethos with a more altruistic ethos serving the common weal of Christian society as a whole. It was common, following the 12th century, for oaths of a young warrior to include a commitment to defend the Church, to support and defend women, widows, and orphans, and others who were unable to defend themselves. “In this way,” writes Dawson, “the knight was detached from his barbarian and pagan background and integrated into the social structure of Christian culture” (1950: 147). Dawson is keenly aware that the knightly class remained a militaristic order and that the Church was not under any illusions that love and sensitivity would be the new aims of “those who fought.” The Christian Church, having long assimilated the realities of empire, state, and war, had no intentions to rid society of the physical energy and courageous dispositions of knights.46 The Church was hoping to redirect the energetic but destructive impulses of the aristocracy toward ecclesiastical ends. The proclamation of the Crusade for the recapturing of Jerusalem at the Council of Claremont in 1093 can be seen in this light, as a way of rechanneling “the warlike energies of feudal society by turning them against the external enemies of Christendom” (Dawson: 149). Retaking Jerusalem from Muslim occupation “satisfied the aggressive instincts of Western man, while at the same time sublimating them in terms of religious idealism” – that is, it offered a way to reconcile the “the aggressive ethos of the warrior with the moral ideals of universal religion” (151). ... As stated by Keens, chivalry was not a religious but a secular ideal grounded in a “martially oriented aristocracy.” It was a new code of honor of the warrior groups which “owed its strong Christian tone to the fact that those groups which operated within the setting of a Christian society” (252). Knights were possessed by a “strong streak of individualism”; what they sought was “worldly honour” rather than salvation.48 Virtues such as generosity, piety, and devotion to Christian ideals and courtesy to women were, nonetheless, repeatedly stressed in medieval fictional accounts of knights. Of course, in reality, knights oppressed helpless peasants, dishonored ladies, and conquered lands. I would be careful, however, not to disparage these ideals as mere imaginary tales with no bearing on the actual conduct of knights. These ideals were “real” values against which the conduct of knights was measured. ... The expansionist aggression of the West is an inescapable expression of its roots in aristocratic men who are free and therefore headstrong and ambitious, sure of themselves, easily offended, and unwilling to accept quiet subservience. The “civilizing process” of this era brought under restraint the original ferocity of the barbarians. But the goal of the Church was to spiritualize the baser instincts of this class, not to extirpate and emasculate them.51 The highly-strung and obstinate aristocrat has been a fundamental source of destruction in Western history as well as the source of all that is good and inspiring. The same expansionist period 950–1350 that Bartlett condemned saw the Truce of God, courtly love, the invention of the university, a scholastic commitment to dialogue based on logic and evidence, the rise of autonomous cities, Romanesque and Gothic architecture, a new polyphonic music, and more. ... Even during the 12th and 13th centuries, when there was a reassertion of monarchical power in France and England, combined with the revival of Roman law, which provided kings with more exalted and definite concepts of royal authority in administration and law-making, the king was still envisioned as a feudal monarch bound to each of his vassals by a contract specifying reciprocal rights and obligations. The “patrimonial” authority of kings did increase with the rise of a bureaucracy of royal agents, sheriffs, and financiers. Yet, despite these developments, medieval kings remained aristocratic rulers with a contractual obligation to seek the vassal’s advice and approval on questions of war, justice, administration, and taxation. It was with a strong traditional sense of their primordial liberty that nobilities throughout Europe imposed upon kings such famous documents of “right of resistance” or “constitutional” charters as the Magna Carta of 1215, the Hungarian Golden Bull of 1222, the Assizes of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Privilege of the Brandenburg nobles, the Aragonese Act of Union of 1287, and the Pact of Koszyce of Poland in 1374 (Myers 1975: 19; Bloch: 452). Notwithstanding the differences between these charters and acts, reflecting varying times and places, their underlying theme was the principle of mixed sovereignty. This principle recognized the “rights” of both the king and his vassals: as the first lord of the realm, the king, had the right to take initiatives, to choose men for appointive offices, to enforce the law, and to protect the territory, but at the same time it was the king’s duty to seek the counsel and consent of his barons.[/b][/color] The best known expression of this principle is the Magna Carta imposed upon King John (1167–1216) by his vassals.[/b][/color] This charter stated, in exact terms, the obligations of the vassals to the king and the occasions when feudal aids were to be paid, while also directing other clauses against abuses in the royal courts, and asserting that the king could receive additional financial assistance only by the assent of his feudal tenants in-chief (Swindler 1965; Holt 1992). I need hardly say that this “great charter” did not settle the desire on the part of both parties to tilt the balance of power in their favor. Just as subsequent kings were inclined to evade the charter and repeat abuses, so too were future vassals inclined to govern their own territories without royal authority. Yet, for all the troubles, including the breaching of contracts and the rebellions and the civil wars, the aristocratic principle of sovereignty by consent was the hallmark of feudal governments. The king was not above the aristocracy; he was first among equals. It was this very principle which laid the groundwork for the development of feudal monarchies into representative or parliamentary governments. “It was assuredly no accident,” says Bloch, “that the representative system in the very aristocratic form of the English Parliament, the French ‘Estates’, the Stande of Germany, and the Spanish Cortes, originated in states which were only just emerging from the feudal stage and still bore its imprint. Nor was it an accident that in Japan, where the vassal’s submission was much more unilateral, nothing of the kind emerged…” (1961b: 452). Indeed, parliaments appeared in most of Latin Christendom in the 13th and 14th centuries, with nearly all of them surviving until the 17th century. The name “parliament” (from the French word parler) was originally used to refer to instances in which the king met with his feudal advisors to discuss matters of state, but the importance of the evolution of parliament was in how it came to address not just the privileges of barons and knights but of townsmen and prosperous farmers who lacked titles of nobility but who managed to impose their own will and interests upon feudal society (Bisson 1973; Myers 1975). It is not my intention to write about the rise of merchants and the way this class came to acquire corporate privileges for their towns, and how the three “estates” of nobles, clergy, and townsmen came to participate in parliaments where questions of war, justice, and taxation might be raised. Rather, my point is that the privileges of the aristocracy were not antithetical to the idea of bourgeois “rights” and “liberties” but were instead their original inspiration and precedent. It would be a great simplification, however, to conceive aristocratic liberalism as an “essential” force, which on its own, brought about the uniquely European society of parliaments and estates. To continue with the Gregorian reform, which illustrates the living legacy of the classical world and the worldly ambitions of Christianity, one cannot ignore the “tremendous” legal transformation of the period 1050–1200 associated with the Investiture Controversy. The aftermath of this controversy was the recognition by the crown of the church’s corporate autonomy, and the fact that the church, in acquiring independent law-making powers, went on to cultivate a whole new legal system deeply indebted to Roman concepts but which constituted, in the words of Berman, “the first modern Western legal system”: the first comprehensive and rational systematization of law (Berman: 85–119). This was a “modern” system built on the legacy of the Justinian reformation of Roman law (6th century) but which went beyond it by analyzing and synthesizing all authoritative statements concerning the nature of law, the various sources of law, and the definitions and relationships between the different and separate kinds of law (divine law, natural law, human law, the law of the church, the law of princes, enacted law, customary law) – which came to constitute the intellectual and legal basis for the reconstitution of medieval Europe into a plurality of estates in which the form of central government was a monarchy ruling over a society composed of kingdoms, baronies, bishoprics, urban communes, guilds, universities, each with important duties and privileges. This society of estates, backed by new systems of law, was unique to Europe. It was ultimately the presence of an aristocratic spirit within the West that precluded the formation of despotic governments demanding obedience and nameless servility from the population. Enough perhaps has been said to show how much the creativity of the West was rooted in a culture of free aristocrats. The contrast between a despotic East and a European world committed to liberty finds it origins in the ancient Greeks. Hippocrates (460 BC –370 BC), the celebrated founder of the science of medicine, saw the war between Greeks and Persians in light of a fundamental clash between West and East. Europeans, he observed, were independent, willing to take risks, aggressive and warlike, while Asians were peaceful to the point of lacking initiative, “not their own masters…but ruled by despots” (in Goldhill 2002: 7). Europeans loved liberty for which they were willing to fight and die, whereas Asians were content to live in servitude in exchange for comfort and security. This libertarian attitude continues in the Christianized hero-warrior. ... It is in the early modern era that Europe experiences what some have called “the taming or domestication of the feudal nobility” (Taylor (2004: 33), the transformation of the aristocratic class from independent warrior chieftains to a courtly nobility dedicated to advising and serving royal power. This new noble class was no longer associated with a heroic code of honor but a humanist education. The ideal was no longer training in chivalrous war but in the cultivation of the capacities of rhetoric and persuasion, courtesy and “civility”. These newer ideals were seen to be the talents required by the newly emerging nation-states. The “war-making” states of Europe desired some measure of domestic peace within their territorial borders. The rowdiness and disorderly temperament of the old nobility came to be gradually identified with the state of nature or the “natural” condition of humanity in its early juvenile state. Fighting “was no longer seen as the normal way of life of the nobility,” except when it was in the service of the Crown (37). This transformation in matters of civility went along with the increasing commercialization of society, the consolidation of power in the hands of merchants, bankers, and improving landlords, together with a new kind of self-consciousness which gave central place to the economic, useful role of human beings. New, softer virtues were emphasized; sociability, fellowship, courtesy, as well as industriousness, domesticity, and polite entertainment in coffeehouses, theaters, schools and gardens. The more a society turned to commerce, the more it was seen to promote peaceful and orderly existence – against the destructiveness of the search for glory. This was a long drawn out process, writes Taylor; until by 1800 commerce largely came to replace war as the paramount activity with which the state should be concerned (37–48, 69–82).52 This newly emerging view of what the purpose of a political union ought to be was reflected, as Fukuyama points out, in the contract theories of Hobbes and Locke. These modern thinkers sought to reduce in importance from political life the excessive pride of the aristocratic class, which was blamed for the violence and misery in the world, as witnessed with such intensity during the English Civil War and the horrifying Thirty Years War which killed nearly a quarter of all Germans and laid waste to towns and countryside alike. Hobbes, seen by Leo Straus as the founder of political science and “creator of political hedonism” (1969), hoped to convince the more urbane, but still violent society of his time, that the best state would be one in which its function was not that of producing or promoting a virtuous life (in the Platonic Aristotelian sense) but of safeguarding the natural right to life and security of its inhabitants. This state, in contrast to the aristocratic state interested in honor, would ensure the prosperity and happiness of its citizens. It would do so, according to Fukuyama, by rechanneling the thymotic and passionate drives of humans into productive outlets, wherein men would satisfy their vanity by seeking approbation for their riches or by seeking recognition for their services to the state and the public order.[/quote] Source : The Uniqueness of Western Civilization by Ricardo Duchesne page 475, 476, 477, 479, 481, 484, 485, 486 #Post#: 25777-------------------------------------------------- Differences between Western Government and Non-Western Governmen t By: antihellenistic Date: April 6, 2024, 7:12 am --------------------------------------------------------- [quote]However, while humans in general are capable of courage and great deed, the opportunity to achieve individual renown and prestige are increasingly difficult and rare as the Near Eastern cultures move towards centralized state government.45 It is only among the individualizing cultures of the West that one finds complex and paramount chiefdoms, as well as in civilized states, true tales of personal heroism. The foundational values and ideals of the West were first recounted in Greek, Danish, Irish, Icelandic, and Germanic heroic poems, sagas, and myths such as the Iliad, Beowulf, Lebornah Uidre, Njals Saga, Gisla Saga Sursonnar, and The Nibelungenlied (Nilsson 1968; Littleton 1973; Nagy 1999; Gurevich 1995). These were the earliest literary voices from the dawn of Western civilization. Before the Greeks, none of the cultures of the East knew the written form of heroic tragedy. Heroism and tragedy require a culture in which some individuals are free to set themselves apart from others. Tragedy is a form of literature that expresses acutely the inescapable sacrifices and limitations entailed in the human effort to achieve greatness. This sense of limitation grows not out of a feeling of enslavement to mysterious forces but out of a realization that individuals who covet immortal fame are fated to engage in hubristic acts which inevitably bring about suffering, disappointment, and early death. To start, let us make some broad observations about Near Eastern polities. The monumental architecture of the Sumerians, the Ziggurat, was not seen as an example of the power of man to master nature, and neither was it seen as a symbol of human arrogance in the way that Jehovah interpreted the myth of the Tower of Babel; it was seen, rather, as a symbol of the subservience of man to the gods. The gods, not humans, were credited for the achievements of Sumerian civilization (Muller 1961: 34–77). Nature in Mesopotamia was rather unpredictable in its responses to human effort; natural disasters could strike at any moment, and in this environment the gods turned out to be violent in their punishment, heedless and arbitrary in their will.46 The object of religion was not spiritual holiness; rather, divination and rituals were performed for the sake of good crops, health, and success in war. The Egyptians seemed to have a more optimistic view of man’s capacities, living as they were in a more stable, united, and relatively secured land, further away from intruders and enemies, around a Nile river that never brought drastic floods. But the Kings of Mesopotamia and the Pharaohs of Egypt were the only “free” individuals in these cultures, treating their societies as their royal extensions, empowering their favorite court officials and governors, selecting them and assigning them specific tasks. Not daring, willfulness, and courage, but obedience and loyal subordination were the principal virtues of these states. There was a large class of “free” men in both ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, that is, of individuals who were not other men’s property or prisoners-of-war. Scholars tend to agree that, despite the increasing number of slaves, most public works in both Mesopotamia and Egypt in the 3rd millennium, including the labor employed in the building of the pyramids, was undertaken by “free” men (Saggs 1989: 43). Yet these “free” men had an obligation for labor services for the state in exchange for rations of food. They were not independent farmers and less so citizens who participated in public assemblies to discuss the affairs of the state. Most of the land was institutionally owned or set aside to provide revenue for the state, religious cults, office-holders, and socially privileged individuals, though wealthy office holders did invest income in the acquisition of large private estates.47 In Mesopotamia, during the Agade period (2340–2159 BC), after the various Sumerian cities fell under the control of one central dynasty, we encounter a situation in which the kings were “exalted beyond the human sphere” and, like the gods themselves, were seen as the providers of wealth, status and safety to everyone. They were the redistributors of magnificent presents to temples, their favorites, and members of the royal family – all intended to symbolize their unsurpassed position. The soldiers were not independent men, less so aristocrats, but servants of the king supplied with rations of food, wool, and weapons and, in some instances, plots of land for subsistence (Kurt 2002a: 54–55). While the Mesopotamian kings were not necessarily tyrants who ruled for their own material benefit, but were responsible for the performance of public works, they alone tended to be seen as individuals with agency, responsible for all the accomplishments of their society, even if it came indirectly through their appointed officials, scribes, and provincial governors. They were providers and protectors, divinely born and appointed only by god. The ceremonial poems portrayed them as the only characters capable of greatness and thus of individuality. According to Kuhrt, the poems and hymns performed in the courts all contain the same essential elements: The king is the perfect soldier and military commander, exceptionally strong and brave and an expert in handling all kinds of weapons. He always leads his troops into battle; the fame of his military triumphs is known throughout the world and inspires terror in his enemies (2002a: 68). His wisdom and learning are unsurpassed; everyone seeks his advice in the assembly; he speaks all the languages spoken by the subjects of his kingdom without recourse to interpreters. He is the most expert diviner; he also excels in music and knows all the hymns and melodies; “his music making is so delightful that he makes his subjects and the gods exceedingly happy (69). This political culture prevailed through the entire history of the Near East – or so is the view that comes across in Kuhrt’s two volume work, The Ancient Near East 3000–323 BC. This work, I should add, is not putting forth a peculiar argument; it is actually a straightforward, nonpolemical but “magisterial” expression of a generally accepted view. Except for multicultural historians and academic socialists who sympathize with collectivist states, the consensus is that Near Eastern polities were autocratic in character. I have focused on this work as one of the best consensual expressions of the current state of scholarship. The editorial comments cited in its back cover (penned by highly regarded scholars) speak of the “remarkable” quality of this work; “without equivalent in any language;” “scholarship of the highest order…with massive accompanying bibliography and footnotes…unmatched by anything available.” While there were varying details in the political structures of Near Eastern states through the long period examined by Kuhrt, particularly in regards to relations between “secular” and religious orders, the basic principle of governance was autocracy or, as I like to call it, despotism. It would also be misleading to view Near Eastern rulers as tyrannical characters lacking in collective regard for their kingdoms. The records show clearly that an important role played by the king was as a source of equity. The celebrated code of Hammurabi (1790 BC) envisions the king not only as the upholder of order, but as the source of justice itself (Saggs: 156–60). The commoners saw their kings as those appointed by their gods to protect them against the abuses of the rich and powerful. Protests against corrupt officials and even strikes against state-work were not uncommon (Saggs: 42–3). Still, it was the king who was the font of justice and rightfulness, and he expected servile-like obedience from his subjects. In the epilogue to the Hammurabi code, the king is spoken of as if he were the only “I”: I, the king who stands head and shoulders above kings – my words are choice, my diligence is unequalled. At the command of the sun god, the great judge of heaven and earth, may justice become visible in the land (Kuhrt 2002a: 112). guaranteed the cosmic order, embodied law and order on earth; “truth,” “right behavior,” or “correct balance.” As maintainer of this balance, he was simultaneously expected to rule in accordance with it. “In relation to his subjects,” writes Kuhrt, “the king was omnipotent” (2002a: 147). The whole vast bureaucratic and economic organization of the empire was directed to the glorification of the Pharaoh (Montet 1964: 32–62). All public offices were, in origin, an expansion of the functions of the royal house. While family connections were widely drawn upon to gain access to, and promotion up, the hierarchy of officialdom, there was no entitlement to position based on noble privilege. The members of the nobility were judged according to their performance of public duties to the king and his kingdom. Revealingly enough, Kuhrt writes that “long lineages indicating pride in one’s family and noble origins are absent in the tomb inscriptions – instead individual service and the way it has been rewarded by the king are the themes” (153).[/quote] Source : The Uniqueness of Western Civilization by Ricardo Duchesne page 403-408 #Post#: 25780-------------------------------------------------- Re: Western Feudalism and Non-Western Patrimonialism By: 90sRetroFan Date: April 6, 2024, 2:19 pm --------------------------------------------------------- I think this part is also worth highlighting: [quote]The commoners saw their kings as those appointed by their gods to protect them against the abuses of the rich and powerful.[/quote] The leftist case for autocracy is nothing more than a return to this elementary awareness. #Post#: 26164-------------------------------------------------- Re: Western Feudalism and Non-Western Patrimonialism By: antihellenistic Date: April 28, 2024, 2:36 am --------------------------------------------------------- Difference between Western Civilization and its Opponents [quote]Before the Industrial Revolution, during the Enlightenment, European thinkers – Leibniz, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Hume, and Smith – observed, and variously tried to explain, the differences between East and West. In their view, one of the most salient contrasts was Europe’s “genius for liberty” and Asia’s “despotic” character. Furthermore, in the Near East and also in China, imperial unification was attained early on in their histories, with brief interludes of breakdown and decentralization. While India alternated with longer periods of fragmentation, most of the subcontinent saw imperial dynasties. Only Europe, as Montesquieu argued, was ruled by “many medium-size states” and a type of political structure called “state of estates,” which amounted to a partition of powers between kings, lords, towns, and the church, each with a specific set of rights, duties, and legal roles in the affairs of the state (Anderson 1987: 462–72). Enlightenment thinkers discerned certain geographical and ecological factors underlying Asia’s unity and Europe’s fragmentation. While wide open plains and intensive-irrigation farming predominated in Asia, the European landscape was fractured by the Pyrenees, Alps, and Carpathians Mountains and depended on rainfall for its agricultural output. Moreover, while irrigation in Asia necessitated communal organization and public construction works, which encouraged cultivators to be more servile, in Europe rainfall farming encouraged smaller, independent farming units and less intrusive forms of centralized organization (Wittfogel 1957).1 In recent times, these observations have been overshadowed by studies based on the supposition that the most crucial dividing line between Europe and Asia came after the Enlightenment. The central question is no longer why Europe enjoyed greater liberties but why Europe/England was the first region in the world to experience self-sustaining industrial growth. Ken Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy (2000), winner of the 2000 John K. Fairbank Prize of the American Historical Association, co-winner of the 2001 World History Book Prize, and one of Choice’s Outstanding Academic Books of 2000, now stands as one of the most influential contributions to this narrower question.[/quote] Source : The Uniqueness of Western Civilization by Ricardo Duchesne page 117 - 118 *****************************************************