Wonderful. Well we will make a start. Jack will be presenting Edmund Burke to begin with, and then we'll be moving on to Emantic Poets. Jack will give an introduction about Burke, and I will give an introduction about the poets. And yeah, thank you all for attending this session of our Heritage Reading Club. Do we have anything else that we want to announce?
SPEAKER_08Only that the next session is two weeks time on uh Oxhot primarily. But we can talk about that at the end.
SPEAKER_05I'm a final year PhD candidate now. Yeah, yeah. New term has started up with my tutorial, so yeah.
SPEAKER_06Hopefully final year.
SPEAKER_05Yes, hopefully. Uh with many edits, I'm sure, but uh but as it stands on track for it. So yeah, uh wonderful. And yeah, with that celebration over, let's well you've got to bring your paper at some point, isn't it?
SPEAKER_06Oh yes, well exactly discuss it and tear it apart.
SPEAKER_05I mean it would work quite well. Yeah, no, it would, it really would. Um particularly around revolution, but we can discuss that further in terms of Morris Revolution. But um maybe um yeah.
SPEAKER_08Wonderful, let's crack on. Yeah, so I I um uh we had this idea of pooling together Edmund Burke and Romanticism, which I don't know if that seems a bit counterintuitive to people. I don't know what your immediate thoughts about that are. I'm quite interested to know. I I don't know, I don't know much about romanticism, so okay. What comes to mind when we think of romanticism for you all? Um dating. Oh, right, really? Okay, right, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_03So we go apart from going it it sounds like uh strange mix.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, okay, so I think um it basically goes back to this uh philosopher Rousseau, uh French philosopher. Um we studied him um in our first series on liberty, but the very first uh think we did he had this idea about the social contract, the state of nature, um, the state of nature of man being something where the morals are pure because the desires are very simple. And he had a critique of politics that sort of built on that. Society seems to complicate our desires, introduce unnecessary desires, and thereby corrupt man. So that's Russo. That's sort of the founding doctrine of romanticism. So but the the the the based on the idea that man is fundamentally good then?
SPEAKER_06Yes, man is fundamentally bad. Yes, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_08Um so so that's um a core tenant also. The the the sort of the it later develops into an emphasis on the individual and individuals coming together. Hi Joe, how are you doing? Um we just started giving the introduction on romanticism. Great. Um so yeah, there's there's a lot of emphasis there on the individual, on um how a society's just individuals coming together in a voluntary way. So that so so um we also had this famous line about man being born free, but everywhere he's in chains, and this is a view of social institutions and culture, basically. Um but then later on you get people like William Wordsworth, a poet, a romantic poet. Um why is he romantic? Not because he's writing about love, but because he's writing about nature and because he's writing about very ordinary and simple people. Um but then you also have other romantic poets like Byron who we'll look at. And Byron is a great sort of nationalist figure, and so it's it's it's it's not quite the same sentiment as Wordsworth's, yeah, I would say. And so the question that comes to my mind is are there multiple ideas of romanticism at play? And this is why I wanted to have a little look at Edmund Berg, because he's not someone I would automatically associate, except his language sort of falls into this tradition a little bit, despite the fact he really does oppose himself to the social contract series of Rousseau and others. So um I'll give a quick introduction. Um do I have to get the uh yes, sorry, Jack.
SPEAKER_05Someone's just asking for the reading, so I'm just trying to send them the link. Um again, aren't you? Oh no, I can be I can don't you worry, I can be your uh your assistant.
SPEAKER_08Um so he's um Edmund Burke, he's basically regarded as the call it the founding father of modern European conservatism. And with this book, The Reflections on the Revolution of France, um, which is in that statement. What is it called that? It's written as a letter to a friend in France after the revolution, and but he makes it put a public letter because he wants to address um the uh English politicians on this subject as well. We'll talk a bit about that in a moment. Um, he's raised by a Catholic mother and a Protestant father in Dublin, um, but he follows in his father's uh he takes that very seriously all his life. Um he's very instructive on the theme of you know whether Burke has a foot in the romantic elite. He's called a vindication of natural society. This phrase natural society is quite curious, and he argues um that he basically argues in favour of hereditary government there, which is like monarchy, for example, would be one form of hereditary government in contrast with the social contract theory. There were writers who were criticizing religion as being irrational because it wasn't constructed on a rational system, so that was a very enlightened idea. And Burke observed, well, if that's the case, then also you have to get rid of the hereditary governments, which is what his name is National Society refers to. These organic societies that were formed according to tradition and long period of time, and sort of unspoken changes and um and offices being created and so forth, almost lost to the annals of history. We don't quite know where they emerged from in all cases. Umrational society by the Enlightenment standard is something that Burke wants to defend. Um shortly after this, and only at the age of 24, he writes um uh also very well-known treatise on aesthetics uh called um I don't remember the full title. Um Do I even have it? Oh, yeah, a philosophical inquiry into the origins of our ideas of the sublime and the beautiful. Um he writes it to criticize the old Platonist concept of beauty being about proportion. And he talks a lot there about this other kind of beauty and the sublime, which is when we're in awe of things, and we feel great awe or terror at the immensity of something. Like you know, you imagine like a great like German symphony or something, and you sort of you know wash it over you, that kind of beauty. It's not beauty in the conventional sense, it's not nice, it's not smooth, it's something else. So he talks a lot about that. Um on the basis of that, he got invited to London, he got to edit a um a journal called the Annual Register on International Affairs. He became a pamphleteer to the Whig Party, which were those days, I think, the Conservative Party sort of equivalent. Um he wrote on various controversies of the day, including the American Revolution, uh limiting powers of British monarchs, and um also there was a lot of uh controversy over the East India Trading Company and whoever was running that at the time. Um he led, if I remember correctly, he led a litigation against this guy, but then that guy was vindicated and it sort of bit backfired a little bit, but he was a bit of a controversial and corrupt figure. Um he was also um MP for Moulton, um, New York, where I studied, so he's a personal interest, and then in Bristol, near to us. Uh if you could uh move to the end of the slide, that'd be wonderful. Um okay, so this this book The Reflection on the Revolution um in France very well. He had a library interest in the France, and um I guess he was in his forties when that revolution actually broke out in uh 1789, and one of his friends wrote to him about this and gave him sort of and he wrote an origin an initial letter in response, then he wrote this second one. And the motive for writing this second and much more lengthy letter, maybe 150 pages or something, is because the Whig party had got it in their head that what had happened in in the revolution in France was exactly what they wanted to happen here in England. They saw what happened in France with the overthrow of the monarch and the institution of the republic to be the logical conclusion of the events of the glorious revolution of 1688, and that's the time when we deposed King James II and invited the Protestant king um over to rule us in his stead. And so the the Whigs were saying this is you know evidence that we can sort of do without the monarchy, but um but Burke, and this has become famous characteristic of his um doctrinal conservatism, says, no, what actually happened there was the the uh working and functional parts of our state worked in a lawful way, in a constitutional way, to rectify the degenerate parts of the state named of the monarch himself.
SPEAKER_01And it's just the network reconnecting.
SPEAKER_07Um we talked about in another thing, Burke and Thomas Paine.
SPEAKER_08So Thomas Paine was a young um enlightenment rationalist who uh went over to America and uh had a lot of correspondence with George Washington and a lot of people who were founding the republics there, and also in France. Um and he was very critical of Burke. He said, you know, does Mr. Burke really mean to say that um uh man has no rights? That was uh Thomas Paine's interpretation of Burke, particularly the line uh where Burke writes that the nation, meaning us, did at the revolution of the glory of solemnly abdicate their right for themselves and for all their posterity forever to uh elect their sovereign. That was the critical issue. Can we elect our kings? That was the dispute. But um, Payne sought that that meant we sacrificed all of our rights. And is Mr. Burke not a man also? It's a very it's an incredible letter. It's it's it's like ten pages, it's worth reading. It's it's Payne's letter to George Washington.
SPEAKER_05Um it's and I think if you watch a version of Beyond the Text, our podcast, you saw a beautiful rendition of it.
SPEAKER_08Um we had a we had a lovely debate. I sort of took the position of Burke as sort of where my natural sensibilities lie. Passionate Burke is in a reluctant painist. A reluctant painist, that was it, that was it. Um okay, so um now just uh I think it's worth pointing out that Burke would not deny that there are rights, which it would be intrinsically unjust for a state to fail to uphold. Um moreover, Burke's support for the American Revolution shows that he's actually not opposed to a man abandoning one state and expansing another, but um the the issue is precisely whether citizens have the right to radically revise the foundation, uh the foundation of their society, um, since it's operated within with time memorial. Um, but is essentially advocating society as an intergenerational project. That's the question. And do you have the right to break the chain? Does anyone have the right to break the chain? How would you understand that? That's the um um that particular issue is what I wanted to begin by reflecting on um with a few excerpts, if you could. Um and uh I want to explore in particular whether we do detect some undertones of the kind of romanticism I described at the beginning, or if this is something quite new. I think there are parallel but also radical differences. I'll read it out and then we can discuss it together. Um we, the English, are not the converts of Rousseau, we are not the disciples of Voltaire. The Vatius has made no progress among us. Atheists are not our preachers, madmen not our lawgivers. We know that we have made no discoveries, and that, and we think that no discoveries are to be made in morality, nor many in the great principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty, which were well understood long before we were born, altogether as well as they will be after the grave has heaped its mould upon our presumption, and the silent tomb shall have imposed its law on our per loquacity. We fear God, we look up to always kings, with affection to parliament, with duty to magistrates, with reverence to priests, and with respect to nobility. But why? Because when such ideas are brought before our mind, it is natural to be so affected. That's an interesting word, it's natural to be so affected, because all other feelings are false and spurious and tend to corrupt our minds, to vitiate our primary morals, another interesting phrase, to render us unfit for rational liberty, and by teaching other servile, licentious, and abandoned insolence to be our low sport for a few holidays to make us perfectly fit for and justly deserving of slavery for the whole course of our lives.
SPEAKER_07Very strong statement.
SPEAKER_08Um does anyone recognize traces of romanticism in that? Or is it something radical? Radically opposed to Rousseau. He begins indeed. Let me explain why I read this question. Yes, he begins, we are not the converts of Rousseau. But he talks about he he justifies a lot of the attitude toward monarchic, um, and um toward monarchy and towards a lot of the traditional aspects of society as um as part of natural affection and primary morals.
SPEAKER_05And I would say when we're looking at sort of the the context of Burke, again, this comes back to sort of some of the things we were saying last week, but this is at a time of scientization. I mean, the Russo point sort of slightly confuses things in a sense, because although Rousseau wouldn't have been seen as a romantic by Burke, as Jack was saying earlier, Rousseau is seen as a proto-romantic, at least in the canon. But in terms of these kind of new secular political interpretations that are coming from France, Burke is saying, well, this is actually not something natural. The natural evolution of the state is something that has been built up layer by layer, brick by brick, to the point in history at which Burke is writing. And he's saying that these this natural evolution of the state, this natural evolution of the way of things, is being swept away by one single generation of thinkers, of writers, of political figures who are suddenly saying, actually, no, this isn't correct. Um, now, for some of us who live in an enlightenment in the trend of the Enlightenment, we think, well, surely analyzing things with reason, with uh, with the methods of science that we can transpose into polit into the political science, we kind of think, oh, well, that's surely natural because we're analyzing things with our rational faculties and trying to implement a system of government that is rational. And that would be the Enlightenment argument. Um, what Burke is saying is doing that, is actually doing away with the natural because it's radically knocking down a wall that has been built up slowly, carefully, layer upon layer, up until this point. And that is the natural progression of a polity, not to wipe that all away with one with one swing.
SPEAKER_06But also isn't saying that what you know, what you wipe it away with, you should you shouldn't just make it up and then do it. I mean, because uh I say scientistation is taking place, so new theories, new ideologies are coming up. And if people are caught up in those new ideas, then without actually um you know, or we'll say testing them, actually testing those grounds, uh, if you just sweep things away and replace them, and then you find actually it doesn't work. It doesn't work. Yeah. So so rather than going through that catastrophic approach, you need to do it. Maybe twist the direction of it, you have to do it steadily and carefully and empirically.
SPEAKER_05Exactly. And you make a fantastic point, Bruce, because the other historiographical debate amongst intellectual historians, political theorists is that surely counter-enlightenment scholars who are often seen as the uh precursors to the romantics, including Burke, technically including Rousseau in an awkward way, but uh, counter-enlightenment and enlightenment are artificial concepts that we've created to encompass these figures. Burke is using exactly the same mindset, exactly the same tools of his day to analyse the political system that Enlightenment scholars who are then being summoned by French revolutionaries to destroy the French state and rebuild it in their image, they're also calling and using the same tools that Burke is using to analyse the state. They're just both coming to different ends. And why is that, Jack? Because we're brickleers, because all of these philosophers are bricolers using the tools of their day, and that isn't a context, a paradigm of scientization, of logic, of reason, and Burke is using that as well, even if he is counter-enlightenment, um, but he's coming to a different conclusion. Steadily, you know, you don't have to throw out the baby with the bath water, but steadily look up individual issues that are wrong, amend them, make changes, but it doesn't have to be one great crashing, tumbling down of this kind of wall analogy of kind of the state being built up.
SPEAKER_06How does he defend against vested interests simply not making changes that are right for society?
SPEAKER_05What is in terms of them dominating the kind of political decision?
SPEAKER_06But this idea of you know don't be new ideas and reinvent you know society overnight is is sounds soft and later communism demonstrates why. But um but it also is an argument for um entrenched interest maintained there.
SPEAKER_05And the royal the royal charter that gave the East India companies so much authority, as Jack said, is an example of where Burke feels that democracy can try and remedy invested interest issues. As Jack said, he does try and take the EIC to court and tries to sue them. Um ultimately to no avail. So it proves it wrong. But he is a believer that the democratic process, if enshrined and entrenched, you know, he would be a believer when it comes to colonial reform in something like the um Durham Report in Canada and the kind of uh reform of the Canadian system in that way. That would be something that really comes out that Burke's not alive to see that, but comes out of a Burke in sense of we can reform it by legislating, trying to look at what the issues in in part of the colonies are and then move forward from there rather than just abandon those colonies, so to speak. Um so, yeah, very much an evolutionary process of change.
SPEAKER_08Indeed, um I think also to uh address your question, Bruce, I think um it has a lot to do with like for Berg it's a moral problem more than it's a technical problem or a political problem for political science. Um you see here he says we fear God, we look up to all with kings, with affection to parliament, with duty to magistrate, with reverence to priests, and respect to nobility, because it's natural to be so affected because all other feelings of force and furious intend to corrupt our minds, to vitiate our primary morals, to render us unfit for rational liberty. So he's connecting freedom to to to reverence for the constitution of the state, but that's not just us, the lower participants of the state, as we'll go on to see. Um perhaps if we move on to the next slide.
SPEAKER_05Um it must also be remembered, sorry, well I get this back up. It must also be remembered that, and this is my area of expertise when it comes to this period, but it must also be remembered that Burke is writing in an era of what we call, I've mentioned it before, Bruce, in various work sessions that we've done before, that this is an era of declinism, the idea that that Europe, but in particular for Burke, England stands on a precipice of falling like Rome had. All of these Enlightenment scholars are reading about the ancient world and they're thinking if there is a sudden change, if there is a sudden loss of morals, loss of uh kind of the virtues that have been built up through centuries of civilization, that if it goes to licentiousness, to uh this level of corruption, this is a milieu, a kind of intellectual milieu in the 1720s, 30s, 40s, people that I write about, John Brown, uh with the estimate on manners and morals, um, are all saying we could go the same way as Rome. They're looking to France and seeing what's happening there. You've got the, I can't remember the bishop, but um in France there's a conspiracy that the Enlightenment philosophers of Rousseau, Voltaire had all conspired in an in a sort of Formalized sense to destroy France. And this conspiracy was put about during the sort of French revolutionary period to suggest that there was this philosopher's coup that had been sort of masterminded and planned by intellectuals that would bring down France as a nation. So declinism is very much what Burke is in the context of and is trying to sort of ward against the possibility of that decline.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, okay. And part of that, I think, um, if this first paragraph here, just on the slide if I've got this, um all persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust, that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great master, author, and founder of society. So this is the the trust element, the reverence element is supposed to be entirely diffusive. Um something I should have mentioned in my my introduction, actually, to maybe help frame this discussion a bit better, is um Rousseau finds his intellectual opposite in a later German thing, I would argue, correct me if anyone disagrees, his later intellectual opposite in um in a figure called Hegel. Um and I say this because Rousseau has a lot of contempt for the gross of society into complexity and much more emphasis on the individual. Um this guy Hegel, who I will try and keep a very simple figure for the sake of this discussion, um, very much has a kind of reverence for monarchy and sort of believe that the the individual is very much subservient to the state insofar as monarchy is the ideal. And the whole tradition of German romanticism comes from that idea, um I would I would argue. So you've got sort of a poll there, and I see a lot of elements of this in Burke, this this reverence for this sacrilising of the state, sacrilising of tradition. Um and that's supposed to be the the regulative principle against corruption, if we can all form ourselves to understand that and to be attentive to that. Obviously, he's not so naive that that's an easy saying, because he's battling this all around him. Um then he goes on to say something which I find quite peculiar, and I might read a little bit more from the book and try and understand it. Let's see. Um let me read a bit from the book um to contextualize the middle power. This consecration of the state by a state, um religious establishment is necessary also to operate with a wholesome or upon free citizens because in order to secure their freedom they must enjoy some determinate portion of power. To them, therefore, a religion connected with the state and with their duty towards it becomes even more necessary than in such societies where the people, by terms of their subjection, are confined to private sentiments and a management of their own family concerns. All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great master, author, and founder of society. That's sort of where that top one ends. Um he goes on to say the principle ought even even to be more strongly impressed upon the mind of those who compose the collective sovereignty than oppose those of single princes. Without instruments, these princes cannot can do nothing. Whoever uses instruments in finding helps finds also impediments. Their power is therefore by no means complaid, nor are they safe in extreme abuse. Such persons, however, elevated by flattery, arrogance, and self-opinion, must be sensible that, whether covered or not by positive law, in some way or other they are accountable here, even here, for the abuse of their trust. If they are not cut off by rebellion of their people, they may be strangled by the very janissaries kept for their security against all of the rebellion. Thus have we seen the King of France sold by his soldiers for an increase of pay. But where popular authority is absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely greater, because a far better, founded confidence in their own power. They are themselves in great measure their own instruments, they are nearer to their objects. Besides, they are less under responsibility to one of the greatest controlling powers on earth, the sense of fame and estimation. And it goes on. What I find curious, and even I struggle to understand in this stage of his argument, and this is summarised in the central paragraph on the board there. Where popular authority is absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely greater because a far better founded confidence in their own power. And I wonder how we are to understand it.
SPEAKER_00I was trying to gather that because surely you've got a group of people acting in a particular direction, usually they've got some leader anyway, who's there for like the prince below.
SPEAKER_08Yes.
SPEAKER_00Otherwise, they would they'd be so chaotic they wouldn't carry out much action but concerted effort. I don't know, I'm struggling to understand how each individual goes, we're all just going to attack that wall all at the same time because we all want to usually be one person in charge going, let's attack that way. In which case they do have a need to after all, it's not just it's not so much just like one common mind.
SPEAKER_06So it feels like the Hobskin thing, having the state we think of chaos, and the chaos might feel as an asking production short. So we're better off having someone who holds it all together, so state power.
SPEAKER_04I think it also helps think about the paradox of representation. So the distinguishing feature of representative democracy is that representatives do things which the people who vote for them don't want them to do, right? Because otherwise it wouldn't be representative democracy, it would just be a sort of direct democracy, because the will of the person who's the representative is exactly the same as the people who've voted for them in some way, and that's kind of the situation he's talking about. You know, it's not a representative democracy where the sort of mob gets together and chooses someone, and that person says, Okay, I'm gonna act according to what I think is prudent, and as I'm a representative, I have this sovereignty which derives from a people. Rather, um, it's a situation, as you can imagine, during a terror in the French Revolution, where someone says, Okay, I want to kill that person, I'm doing it, it's the will of the people, and then you get a mob to scream about it, and that's that's your legitimacy. And all those people want that person to die, so there is a sense. But of course, if that mob then decides that the person who's ordered the execution should die, that person will end up on the guillotine. Because there isn't a sense of wait a minute, we have a constitution, and therefore the person who has authority is the person who's in charge of us, who we've elected, rather than us ourselves.
SPEAKER_06Okay, and he actually actually suggests that the person who we elect shouldn't always do what we want them to do, and indeed they don't. You know, so because sometimes we the Bay mob, you know, we want them to uh I don't know, um, kick out Keir Starmer, you know, sack whoever, and uh for the sake of the constitution, for the sake of uh continuity and um retaining popular authority, they should not do that. You know, so there's a balance between what they're elected, what the will of the individuals are, which is never a singular thing anyway, it's always uh an amalgam of conflicting wills, and the will that they should express in their in their in their rural.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean I think the book writes about it a bit a bit strangely because he sort of rarefies the people as if the people actually are choosing one of the things, but actually, as you say, you know, it's chaotic, right? It's a particular group of people in a particular place who exert their popular authority as a morb, as a crowd of people, um as you know, as I mean, and it it it's it's uh I mean I can't remember what the statistic is, but if you'll say you have 1.5% or two percent of the population of a state go out and protest, that government will fall. You know, if they actually are physically present, you know, you have in the you know in Taurin Square in Egypt, you have a million people, that's enough in a country of a hundred million people for the government not to be able to um survive. But it in that situation, of course, it seems like the popular authority is a real thing, and I he's not really talking about how this is a mirage, but he does talk later on about how you know um he's talking about he's talking about it, you know, but you you have to where is it? There's this bit where he talks about magistrates and how you know it's not enough to be, you know, for the the magistrates respect the people, the people also need to respect the magistrates. And I think that kind of I think that kind of clarifies the this point about the about popular authority.
SPEAKER_06I think I've got to say that I think it's a fascinating topic with regard to America and where we're just today, and and you know, the respect for the various institutions, uh um the um division of power, what we call the separation of separation of separation of power and power checks and balances, but also how the people are maybe vote um believing one thing to elect somebody who will go and do something very different and will rationalise it back to them later on. I'm sure this would this would have gone on in Burke's day when they had the conflict between uh did they represent their constituents or did they simply were they simply have having been elected, they were now free to decide what they wanted to vote for.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and whether they were representatives or sort of uh yeah uh delegate versus representative model of democracy. I would also say that it the idea that there's a framework also means that you can single out, going back to my wall analogy with Burke, you can single out the rotten brick. So you can say, as you were saying, with with about the judiciary, for example, you can say, well, is there an issue there with the judiciary? Is there an issue economically? If you remove all the bricks, you start from a point of going, well, something could be wrong, but everything could be wrong. If you have a framework for Burke, you can say, Well, you know, infrastructure in the country is wrong and we need to focus on that, or uh the economy is going X, Y or Z way, and you can focus on that and try and remedy that. You can focus on the rotten element of what is causing an issue within your polity. Whereas if you knock it all down, you don't know which one was fundamentally the cause of your woe um for for Burke. Um yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_08Um just to read the last paragraph on this, perhaps just um give something of a cogent summary of the paradox um Thoreau mentioned. Uh, but one of the first and most leading principles on which the Commonwealth and the Lord are consecrated is left the temporary possessors and life enters in it, unmindful of what they have received from their ancestors or of what is due to their posterity, should act as if they were entire masters of it. And first of all, the science of jurisprudence, the pride of the human intellect, which with all its defects, redundancies, and errors, is a collected region of ages, combines the principles of original justice with the infinite variety of human concerns, the heap of all exploded errors should no longer be studied. Personal self-sufficiency and arrogance would usurp the tribunal. Um it goes on to say Thank you, Sam, uh to avoid, therefore, the evils of inconstancy and versatility ten thousand times worse than those of obstinacy and the blightest prejudice, we have consecrated the state that no man should approach to look into its defects or corruption, but with due caution, that it should never dream of beginning its reformation with its subversion, that it should approach the defaults of the state and to the wounds of its father, with pious awe and reverence. And finally, underlining this is his thesis with regards to the social contract. He says, Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure, but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership, agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence, because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. The ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations. It becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. The municipal uh corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure. I think I maybe mistyped there. Um, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement wholly to separate entire sunder the bounds of their subordinate community and to dissolve it into an unsocial and civil, unconnected, chaotic elementary particles. Um so, in some sense, as you were saying, Jerome, the the authority transcends the the aggregate of voices, as it were. And this is indeed the um the the yeah, the paradox of a representation, uh representational democracy and um something Burke seeks to uh remind us of in quite a powerful way.
SPEAKER_05I'd say that the the this might just be me, um I'm not a Berg scholar, but um I'd say that the the choice of phrase when he's talking about ultimately society is nothing more than essentially economic partnerships is an odd thing for someone who's trying to argue against talking about considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in trade or pepper or coffee. It's basically saying that the social contract is a layer upon layer of kind of mutual agreements that are formalized. I would say that that's quite an odd thing for someone who's trying to make, as we've been saying, a romantic argument about the state and about um and again this comes back to your point, Bruce, and to your sort of general uh area in terms of the idea that Burke is very much an Enlightenment figure whilst being a kind of romantic, so to speak, in the sense that he's essentially making an argument that Mandeville has already made, that Adam Smith will go on to make in the next couple of decades, that ultimately the state is just a form of kind of interrelationship through trade and uh sort of making these agreements with one another, um, and thereby he's sort of building up from that and saying that the social contract you get this in lots of social contract theorists that you start with a kind of basic contract and that becomes the polity through a layer of contracts. Um it's an odd thing, I would say. That feels quite odd amongst the rest.
SPEAKER_08But I'm not sure I understand your objection. You find it strange that he's compared the society to pepper and coffee trade.
SPEAKER_05Uh that would be the posing, right? So subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be result of pleasure, but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in trade or pepper or coffee.
SPEAKER_08Yes, ultimately dissolved by the mere fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with a reverence, but not a partnership in things subservient. But in all science, all art, every virtue and all perfection, so the romantic element comes in. It comes in then.
SPEAKER_05I think it sits oddly with the general argument. And and two points I was going to make as well, in terms of context, is one, obviously, the Whigs never do institute a policy of republicanism. They actually end up kicking out their Republican elements because both the Tories have what are called the high fliers who are kicked out by the Tories, and the Whigs have their kind of good old cause English Civil War kind of uh sort of romantics, in a sense, in their co in their camp, who are looking back to the English Civil War and thinking that ultimately those two are kicked out. So, in one sense, this isn't me criticising Boat Jack, well noted, but he is wrong in that sense. He's also wrong in the sense that France does not actually fall into a perpetual generation of anarchy, it's very swiftly returned to a structured, essentially monarchical system. Under Napoleon, these Caesar figures come and sweep away the anarchy.
SPEAKER_08Um, but that's not to be understood on the principles of the revolution, I don't think. I think that's an interesting. But it comes from it. It doesn't come from it, the response to it.
SPEAKER_05But structure is restored. And the idea that but you know it's but it certainly, but in a new iteration that many, you know, uh Napoleon Napoleon files um would see as actually an improved monarchy on the prior monarchy.
SPEAKER_06Well that's different. So what's interesting is the partnerships are not partnerships between the monarch and the people, it feels the way it's written, there's partnerships between the people, between the person and all the other people. Yes. So actually the monarch sits atop it rather rather than rather than designing or defining it. And I guess when the monarchy in France is restored, are all those individual relationships and those legacies that were abandoned for while were they restored or is it just the monarchy?
SPEAKER_05I'd say that through through the Napoleonic era, um much of the structure of which Burke is advocating is restored in many ways. I'm not so much talking about the Bourbon restoration in the sense of when the monarchy comes back, but just the fact that there is a Caesar figure like Napoleon who does restore order, restores structure and essentially an idea of what France was, but in a slightly iterated way.
SPEAKER_06Restoring order is not restoring the old regime of the remote.
SPEAKER_05But I'm essentially saying that much of that is restored in many ways. But with but to for the French revolutionaries, they would see it as Napoleon has restored it to that, but actually brought stuff from the revolution that has changed society in a certain direction, but hasn't actually lost the essence of what France is. So it because the point I'm trying to make is neither England nor France fall into a perpetual state of anarchy, don't fall into a perpetual state of kind of I guess you could see it, you know, to the contrary, but France had the same political system at least from the 16th century to the revolution, and you could argue all the way back, you know, continuity all the way back through the Middle Ages. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04In a recent period, since the revolution, France has not had a single form of government, a constitution which lasted longer than a long human lifetime. Exactly. You know, the longest lasting French uh the first and the fifth republics, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and England has actually retained the same constitutional structure with a few modifications, and you know, relatively small significance, I would say, since the time of the revolution. So I I think it's hard to say just because, of course, you know, you can't have a, you know, it's a sort of nature of pouring a vacuum, right? You can't have a power vacuum because it's too advantageous for someone to take advantage of it. But what France had before was something different than just having someone in power. It had a traditional form of government which is known to everyone from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_05Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And that's I think what Burke is more concerned about. Because in the English constitution has also had its hiccups, right? It's had Cromwell, it's had, you know, the Tudors, it's had Henry IV. You know, it's not that it's been seamless, but I don't think that that lack of seamlessness bothers him. I think he appreciates that things happen in history.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But I think he sees something new and dangerous in what's happening in France because what they're trying to do is dissolve that generational order.
SPEAKER_05Yes, and linkage between generations.
SPEAKER_04Um which isn't necessarily you know disrupted just by someone taking over the state and doing some something slightly differently ideologically or practically in terms of how the state is managed. It's a more season of what's happening as well as being more radical.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. No, I suppose his view of chaos, though, is what I'm trying to say, just doesn't become a reality in the sense of just perpetual chaos. It doesn't happen in England, and it doesn't happen in the sense of kind of there is no government in France. This is the fear that we're by sweeping away these underlying sort of superstructures of states, you're going to lose any essence of kind of, yeah, some kind of way of governing. And that doesn't that definitely does not happen in England. Um and yeah, even with a kind of progressive kind of liberalization, so to speak, of of of the kind of constitution, as you say, not fundamentally changing, but yeah, it doesn't happen there. And in France, there is a Certain element of kind of these these kind of underlying superstructures being restored relatively swiftly, to be honest. As much as as we say the republics might obviously vary, but it's not like it's not like France breaks into multiple small states, for example, which is something that could have happened. Yeah, that's remarkable. And yeah, a certain sense of authority and power and structure is maintained throughout the period.
SPEAKER_08Um the question is whether that's um consequent or incidental to the intention of the revolutionary.
SPEAKER_07We can continue the discussion later. Yes, I'd like to.
SPEAKER_08I would quite like to. Um but I um we we spent a lot of time on Burke and uh we did say we would talk about some poets. Oh, wonderful. Now I suggest we just skip straight to the slide on Byron, um, we can go from there. Yeah, yeah. Maybe you'd like to tell us a little bit about Byron's.
SPEAKER_05Um uh so Byron, obviously an English poet, um left England particularly unwell. Um he wasn't a particularly uh virtuous character of himself, but he had uh engaged in multiple sordid activities with none other than his own sister. So we're really we're not we're not talking uh you know an upstanding gentleman, but um but he certainly was upstanding when it came to Greece, and he had a uh he had a love for the nation of Greece against Ottoman rule. Um so the Greek War of Independence uh between 1821 and 1830, it was a landmark moment uh in 19th century nationalism and liberal thought, um, as Greeks rose against four centuries of Ottoman rule. Inspired by Enlightenment ideals and romantic nationalism, the revolution began on the 25th of March in 1821 and gained early momentum despite brutal Ottoman reprisals, such as the Chosk massacre in 1822, which killed an estimated 20,000 Greeks. The conflict captured the imagination of Europe, becoming a cause to celebrate among liberal intellectuals and artists who saw Greece as both the cradle of Western civilization and a contemporary symbol of freedom against the Ottomans. Lord Byron, the romantic poet, became the most famous of the European uh Greek lovers in 1823. Um travelled to Greece using over 4,000 pounds of his own money to fund the war effort and attempting to mediate between rival factions. He died in Mr. Longgi on the 19th of April in 1824 of a fever, becoming a martyr for the cause. Now he'd actually left England with said fever, having been advised essentially not to go up and down stairs in his own house, and he thought, great, my doctor suggested I shouldn't go up to the second floor, I will now travel to Greece. Um, so he didn't really contribute anything in terms of any kind of physical element to the conflict because as soon as he got there, he was in bed and he then stayed in bed until he ceased to be. Um but his death rallied further international support, leading to decisive intervention by Britain, France, and Russia, and ultimately the recognition of Greek independence in 1830. Byron's involvement symbolized the fusion of romantic idealism and political activism, making the Greek uh cause a cornerstone of European liberalism.
SPEAKER_08We can read it together and discuss some of the themes of it, perhaps. Would you like me to read it out?
SPEAKER_05Um if you would like to read it now, I can read whatever you prefer. I don't mind. Do you draw me to I'll read this slide and you read the next one? Yeah, sure. Wonderful. The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece, where burning saphoe loved and sung, where grew the arts of war and peace, where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung, eternal summer gilds them yet, but all except their sun is set. The sign and tear muse, the hero's heart, the lover's loot, have found the fame your shores refuse. Their place of birth alone is mute to sounds which echo further west than your sire's islands of the blessed. The mountains look on marathon, and marathon looks on the sea, and musing there an hour alone, I dream that Greece might still be free. For standing on the Persian's grave, I could not deem myself a slave. A king sate on the rocky brow, which looks over born Salamis, and ships by thousands lay below. Many nations all were his, he counted them at break of day, and when the sun set, where were they? And where are they? And where art thou? My country on thy voiceless shore, the heroic layers tuneless now, the heroic bosom beats no more, and must thy lyre so long divine, degenerate into hands like mine, Tis something in the dearth of fame, though linked among a fettered race, to feel at least a patriot shame, even as I sing, suffuse my face, for what is left the poet here, for Greek a blush, for Greece a tear. Must we weep over days more blessed? Must we blush our fathers bled? Earth render back from out thy breast a remnant of our Spartan dead, of the three hundred go unbut three, to make a new Thermopylae. What silent still and silent all? Ah, no, the voices of the dead sound like a distant torrent's fall, and answer, let one living head but one arise, we come, we come, but 'tis the living who are done. In vain and vain strike other chords, fill high the cup with Samian wine, leave battles to the Turkish hordes, and shed the blood of sears vine. Hark, rising, the ignoble call, how answers each bolt back hole. Wonderful, indeed. Wonderful.
SPEAKER_08Do we want to discuss the first half or do you read on to the shall I read on to the second two? Yeah. Next slide, please, Sammy. No, this is the next slide. Oh you're audience, sorry. You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet. Where had the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget the nobler and the manlier one? You had the letters Cadmus gave, think ye he meant them for a slave. So high the bull with Samian wine, will not think of scenes like these. He made Anacrayon's song divine. He served but served Polycrates a tyrant, but our masters then were still at least our countrymen. The tyrant of the Cherthen was Freedom's best and bravest friend. That tyrant was Miltiades. Oh that present hour would lend another despot of the kind, such chains as his were sure to bind. Fill high the bowl with semian wine, on Sully's rock and Pargus's shore, exist the remnants of a line such as the Doric mothers bore, and there, perhaps, some seeds sown Heracles and blood might own. Trust not for freedom to the Franks, there the king who buys himself in native swords and native ranks. The only hope of courage dwells, but Turkish force and Latin fraud would break your shield, however broad. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine. Our virgins dance beneath the shade, I see their glorious black eyes shine, but gazing on each glowing maid, my own eyes burning, teardrop flames, to seek er to think such breast must must supple slaves. Place me on Cernium's marbled steep, where nothing saves waves and I may hear our mutual murmurs sweep. There, swan like let me sing and die. A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine. Dash down your cup of Samian wine. It must be very intoxicating at the end of this poem. Um I put some things in bold, the things I put in bold they're all references to Herodotus' um account of the Persian War, which is relevant because this is the war between Greece and Turkey. 2500 years ago was the war between Greece and Turkey, but it was Persian. Um so you have a lot of references to when the Greeks at critical points in that war went, oh, hope seemed lost, kind of the immensity of the Persian army in contrary with the Greek. They somehow pushed them back, and you know, in in the Battle of Marathon, where death miltiades, then uh Somopy, the what the film the three hundred is about, the three hundred Spartans at Semopoly at the the the mountain pat, and then uh um you know what kind of reminder is it changed what are the values?
SPEAKER_00Heroic.
SPEAKER_07Heroic, indeed, indeed.
SPEAKER_08Revolutionary Um Nationalist Independence. Independence discrimination.
SPEAKER_06But also an appeal to, you know, there were they were good kings once. Yeah, who held us together through these terrible times. Right. A bit of a bit of a romantic look back then.
SPEAKER_08If we were to consider this is a poem about the revolution essentially, if we were to consider to consider the American and the French Revolution, which would it be closer to, do you think?
SPEAKER_06American, I would say. And and for what reason? Um because it feels like a rising up of people throwing off the chains from a foreign power, maybe?
SPEAKER_08One aspect, yes, yes. And what are they restoring? Or what are they instituting? Maybe that's a slight difference, but in America, isn't it? Sorry, wine. Wine, indeed. Um why do they reference all of this stuff about the Greek heritage?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, um, so it feels like they they're trying to recover something from their own heritage. Right. Um I don't know the history well enough to know what they lost and whether whether they were merely throwing off the chains of a foreign power or recovering something else, that's what it uh feels like.
SPEAKER_05I mean it's different to America in that sense, but it this kind of form of civic nationalism is something we see from the 19th century through to um the 20th century, possibly even the 21st, in the sense that you have an anchoring point. If you had a former state, you have an anchoring point to base your future vision of society on. So, unlike Burke discussing France, where that wall is being knocked in its entirety down to its base level, you already have an anchoring in the sense that you had a vision of the state previous that has been taken over, warped, whatever, um, and that you're returning to. So for the Greeks, they're looking back to the time prior to occupation by the Ottomans and thinking, well, we have this anchoring point that we can then build our future on. You see this after the fall of the Soviet Union with the ceiling revolution in the Baltics that have an anchoring point in their past. Um, the idea that you need to be able to be able to build to somewhere, you have to have a vision of what you had and thereby where you're going, um, rather than just, as Burke would say, you know, starting afresh in a kind of completely anarchic sense.
SPEAKER_06Um how long have they been under the Ottoman Empire?
SPEAKER_08Uh since probably the fall of Constantinople. Yeah, I mean I think it's around. So 1456, I want to say.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it's about four centuries. It's kind of anti-Burke in then, but Burke Burke is saying, Don't don't throw, don't throw off the yoke of the king. Uh this is saying throw off the yoke of the of the empire. Indeed. But after a thousand years, and somebody Burke in the told to me, it sounds like they you know that um uh Burke would say, well, actually, don't change it that quickly, maybe just change the balance of paradigm. And then think about America, there is no history in America of you know settlers having a previous um uh nation or national identity or identity, collective identity, except to the extent that they were Europeans.
SPEAKER_05But there are many but there are many conservatives during the 18th century, not so much Burke, um, but there are many conservatives who are writing histories of England that see the the period that they're living through, 1730s, 1740s. Um they're really criticizing this concept of the Norman yoke, so the idea that England had fallen under a corruption of the Roman ideal, um, and that England had been left with this kind of dilapidated architecture of a state, of a polity, um, left by Rome, and that during the Norman invasion this was corrupted by a kind of continental sort of uh just a but but but very much I mean um you see lots of writers talking about how the continent is far warped from Rome, whereas England had managed to maintain a certain element of this Roman tradition, um, but the Norman yoke has stifled that, and this period in the late 17th into the 18th century was a period at which that would be restored. Um so although, yeah, as you say completely rightly, America is not a fine example to parallel with it, England is an example where there's this idea that some kind of uh foreign power has come and occupied the land. Yeah. Um but I would also say, I guess, I guess if you were going to use the American example, there would be elements of kind of like, well, the pilgrims left, they didn't have an idea that England was going to become the overarching state in America, and now it's time to return to those original ideas of the pilgrims that it was going to be this state. So I'm sure there are ways of trying to link it to this, but um, but certainly countries with anchoring points have a tendency to have this form of civic nationalism that is that you have a history that's been stolen away from you. And obviously, we see it in post-colonialism so much in terms of uh in terms of whether it be in India or in uh uh in various other regions through Africa, um, and even up to today in in Australia with the Commonwealth, we see these ideas that actually there are traditions that have been swept away by kind of imperial dominating power, and the civic nationalism arises up to try and restore a former sense of identity, I guess.
SPEAKER_08I think what emerges from this um discussion, maybe just bring it to a summary, and then we can talk a bit longer if people are willing to stay a bit, but um romanticism seems to be concerned with nature, return to nature, but what that nature is, what that actually refers to seems to vary from country to country, from culture to culture. And that's partly because, well, if you're a um if you're a very new country like America, what might that return mean? You know, a return to what? Uh well it would probably be something more like a like an original moral law, perhaps in your in the religion you've carried overseas with you rather than in what actually existed in your nation. Or maybe even the political heritage from the British, but re reconstituted in in light of the moral order.
SPEAKER_04Well, modern American discourse it's always going back to the founding, but now they can do that, indeed, indeed.
SPEAKER_08Um and and so so romanticism really does sit there's purity in the original, but what is the original? The the the original state before the politics, the the first state of the politics, disease um uh the the the the state of the politics before the revolution. Which revolution?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, on that point I was just making, the Whigs in 1688 argue that it is the the House of Orange that is restoring the prior to Norman yoke idea, like that the House of Orange is going to restore this Roman tradition. So another foreign power coming over is somehow going to restore Rome against this idea of a kind of Gallic sort of influence. So um it completely to the point you're making, Jack, it's very difficult to work out when these arguments start getting made about origin points, where that origin point actually lies, and everyone can use it for their own ends.
SPEAKER_08Why, uh maybe it's an open question: why did why did origin connote such reverence?
SPEAKER_05Well, I guess partly, Jack, because of the the reason that we've held this series in such high esteem, which is the heritage is it's so important to the maintenance of a society, and looking back as far as one can go is sort of well go, you know, it goes back, it's the owl of Athena the what is it, the uh uh is it the golden thread, owl of Athena? This idea that, particularly in the West, that there's kind of a long legacy of kind of political and philosophical heritage that we have, and we should look back as far as we can to those kind of foundations.
SPEAKER_06I'm gonna be a bit more cynical to say it's the people in power who use it is clearly an emotional tool, a romantic tool that touches individuals, uh whether they know it or not, and it's uh it's something that people in power use are the tool to retain their power. And I think you can look at I would call the hypocrisy of it when you compare um you know the founding story of modern America with the um uh the uh status of the first Americans. Yes, no idea. Or the slaves, of course. Or slaves indeed, yeah.
SPEAKER_04As Dr. Johnson, right? Uh the um the loudest the loudest squeals of liberty come from the drivers of Negroes. Yeah, which is very, very true. You know, there's something, but I you know, actually, if you read um the Jamaican history, a guy called Lando Patterson, he actually talks about this dynamic, and it is the modern idea of liberty partly comes from this um creation of a form of slavery which is social there and distinguishing oneself from bad. You know, it's why, for example, Spartans observe sex by liberty in ancient Greece. Most of our population is enslaved. When you have non-slave societies or societies where slaves intermarry with free people, you don't have this distinction. And the idea of serving someone isn't something which is shameful.
SPEAKER_03I think that it's not as prominent in everyday life. Well no, when you do have that distinction, it's more prominent that you understand your own liberty.
SPEAKER_04So, this idea of wanting your liberty in this sense of freedom from this force, which is forcing you not to live in a way which is free. I mean, this this becomes really important in European society at the same time when vast numbers of people from Africa are being systematically enslaved. And it's a creation of people who have a social status which didn't really exist much in Europe. I mean, okay, it might have been some Roma people enslaved in like I don't know, the Balkans or something, but there wasn't so much slavery within Europe beyond penal slavery, right? You know, if you're a galley slave or something because you committed a crime, or perhaps because you're a prisoner of war or something, right? But it's this sense of freedom, um, this sense, this very sort of emotional sense of freedom that we cannot have you know anyone above us. There is a sort of psychological link to that.
SPEAKER_05Uh my old professor of slavery, Richard, he's just written recently a book called The End of Enlightenment, and this is the idea of the sacrilisation of liberty as a concept that by the end of the 18th century you have liberty replacing the idea of God, the idea of a kind of moral driving factor for colonialism or you know, uh, to this political concept of we're bringing liberty, we're bringing modern ideas of the world. And this is a direct transfer from religion into a secular world, and liberty rises up onto the pedestal of God in the argument for sort of uh foreign intervention.
SPEAKER_04And I mean, I think the thing is in the liberty in like the classical tradition, like if you look at something like Aquinas, liberty is about the freedom to do what is right, to not be constrained. You know, you're not free if you're chained up and unable to do your duty. But that doesn't mean that you could still essentially be a slave in a way from a modern point of view and still be free, because if no one's stopping you doing the things which you need to do, your liberty isn't compromised.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Or if you choose the things you choose to do. Well, it's not actually about the things you choose to do. Well, you're trying to do things which are good, right? So if you live on some farm and you your your duty in life is to work on this farm and to look after you, three of your family, and so on, and no one stops you getting on with that. The fact that you're not allowed to join the army or not allowed to move to the next farm along the road, that doesn't really infringe on your liberty in this classical understanding because you don't, you don't, there's no, there's you don't have some sort of intrinsic right to that sort of liberty, right? Because there's obviously, you know, no one's got the freedom to become a king. I mean, that there's there has to be a limit somewhere where you set, where you say, okay, someone's got a freedom to to do this, to do that, and do another thing. But but the idea was that the the important constraint is that you you need to have a freedom to do the things which you ought to do. Whereas in this enlightenment thinking of liberty, liberty becomes, as you say, sort of sacrilised. It becomes like this thing which people want as much as possible of.
SPEAKER_06But that that that actually aligns with your no, so the old idea. that you were born to a role or you you know you you you led a life that fitted into a society and that the role your role in that society was defined as of course you couldn't become a king because you were born to a you know you were born to someone who was never going to um uh uh become a king um but society has changed you know again through um you know science and scientific um ideas coming along and uh the idea that we are um free um you know we're bound by nature but otherwise we are free to become whatever we want the society has loosened up and these opportunities have opened up so actually now I'm not sure I mean I wouldn't say it's become sacrilized I would say actually society's changed it's become possible so things that were not possible become possible I think we're with Hagen coming on here with Marshall I don't know I don't I don't think there is a I don't think there is a difference though I mean I think I think a problem a lot a lot of problems of modern conceptions of freedom is it's always about the freedom to be able to do something which you are not able by yourself to do.
SPEAKER_04And that was always in the classical conception of freedom it's always about freedom to do something which you yourself can do. You always should be free to do your duty because that's which pertains to you. But you know that there are freedoms which people talk about in the modern world sort of abstract is well for example you talk about people having a right to health care and that's also associated with freedom you know it's like you know I'm not free if I'm not able to get treated but that's not something which you can it's not that you you're you're claiming that oh someone else you're not claiming that no one can stop me from treating myself which I mean from a classical point of view yes of course no one should be able to stop someone from you know doing something you know medical to themselves if it's you know it doesn't hurt another person, right? But from a modern point of view it's like no someone else has to do this thing to me you know um and you have these sorts of the problem with I think I think this is a you know a big difference between the classical ideas of freedom and modern ideas of freedom is that the the classical idea of freedom is about it's it's a subordinate value. You know it's good to be free but it's not essential. The most important thing is to do what is right. And freedom is about being able to do what is right. Whereas in the modern world freedom is people want for its own sake. People want people to do what is wrong as well as right. They may choose to do the right but they actually want the freedom to do wrong exactly they want the freedom to do things which are wrong at least from a sort of absolute set of values and of course in the modern world a lot of people don't have a sense that they are governed by an absolute set of values so there's a sense of I want to be able to do this because this is what I desire.
SPEAKER_06Which is yeah so society is doubly worse off compared to the classic view first of all because people um uh want to be free to do what is wrong and secondly as you say because society no longer has the controls to put it that way to ensure that you don't do what is wrong and I think I'm thinking about my kids at this point actually funny want to stay out all night and I can't do anything about it.
SPEAKER_05What could be said as well going back to Jack's original question now this is going to be beautiful Jack oh yeah I hope you're impressed what could be said going back to origin points is myths now we've seen a myth of a religious state a myth of a secular state these ideas of yeah liberty in both conceptions in the sense of uh the kind of post-Enlightenment vision of liberty but also kind of older world liberty um and when we look at the romantic poets we also have someone like Coleridge who I think encapsulates um uh what we've been discussing you know the slaughtering of the albatross this was an idea that the moral world was decaying that you know there was kind of a loss of uh kind of of these traditional values that we held dear that and obviously rituals and uh superstitions and these things and and and and a secular world was just going to slaughter the albatross Coleridge was writing about a mariner the rhyme of the ancient mariner on a ship um and that ship could be said to be the ship of state and there's a great scholar who writes about the ship of state and that is Michael Oakshaw and next week we will be looking at Michael Oakshaw and Benjamin Disraeli in two weeks' time and and and I do hope that you'll all be able to attend uh for this session on one nation conservatism what it is uh the impact that it has today because we still have a legacy of it today that it's very uh potent throughout the centuries that uh proceed um and I hope you very much enjoyed this session on Burke and the Romantics.
SPEAKER_06Wonderful thank you very cute anytime I think you're gonna say something deep amazing