As for the article on the Biblical and Christian origins of democracy, there’s a lot of stuff there so that it might actually end up a series of articles, rather than just one.

Am looking forward to your blog tracing the development of western democracy!

For me the single most seminal influence on the emergence of universal suffurage was this beautiful line from Paul the Apostles letter to the Galatians

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus

The Jewish scholar, Ben Zion Bokser, in a paper ‘Democratic Aspirations in Talmudic Judaism’ presented at a symposium on science, philosophy and religion and their relation to democracy from September 8-11, 1941, considered that Talmudic Judaism was strongly democratic in its conceptions of humanity and institutions. He cited the Talmudic tract in the Tosefta Sanhedrin, which states ‘Why did the creatior form all life from a single ancestor? That the families of mankind shall not lord one over the other with the claim of being sprung from superior stock … that all men, saints and sinners alike, amy recognise their common kinship in the collective human family’. 1 While the ultimate source of the law and its authority was the Almighty, the Talmud in the tracts Abodah Zarah 36a, Shabbat 88a traced the authority of the Bible ‘not so much to its divine source as to the consent of the poeople who fully agreed to live by it’. 2 Erubin 13b declared that majorities and minorities were equally the words of God, and so the Talmudists also preserved dissident opinions. 3 The elections of the Jewish town councillors were open to all those residing in a community for a year or more, and some decisions were reached in which the will of the people could be ascertained more directly, according to Megillah 27a. 4 Furthermore, even though some officials were directly appointed by the head of the Jewish community, the Patriarch in Palestine and tthe exilarch in Babylonia, nevertheless it was considered essential that those selected should have the approval of the people, based on the Talmud’s account of the election of Bezalel, the son of Uri, by Moses at God’s command, during which the Almighty told Moses that He should not just take God’s word on Bezalel’s suitability for office, but go and consult the people as well, according to Barakot 55a. 5 I’m not sure how far such influences can be traced in Spinoza, however, but it is interesting that a democratic ideal had informed Talmudic Judaism. I hope to blog on this possible influence in the development of Western democracy, whether through Spinoza or, as is more probable, through the basis of both Judaism and Christianity in the Bible.

Notes
1. B.Z. Bokser, ‘Democratic Aspirations in Talmudic Judaism’ in L. Bryson and L. Finkelstein, eds., Science, Philosophy and Religion: New York, The conference on Science, Philosophy and Religon in their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life 1942), p. 382.

2. Bokser, ‘Democratic Aspirations’ in Bryson and Finkelstein, eds., Science, Philosophy and Religion , p. 388.

3. Bokser, ‘Democratic Aspirations’ in Bryson and Finkelstein, eds., Science, Philosophy and Religion , p. 388.

4. Bokser, ‘Democratic Aspirations’ in Bryson and Finkelstein, eds., Science, Philosophy and Religion , p. 388.

5. Bokser, ‘Democratic Aspirations’ in Bryson and Finkelstein, eds., Science, Philosophy and Religion , pp. 388-9.

Now I’m sure you’re right about the influence of Spinoza, but historians hav stressed that the Enlightenment was not unanimously in favour of democracy, and that the philosophes themselves said different things at different times. E.N. Williams, in his book The Ancien Regime in Europe; Government and Society in the Major States 1648-1789 (London, Penguin 1970) states ‘The Enlightenment was many-sided. It did not advocate any one doctrine – and certainly not the doctrines of democracy and rebellion. ‘The progress of enlightenment is limited’, went the Encyclopedie , ‘it hardly reaches the suburbs; the people ther are too stupid. The amount of rif-raff is always the same … The multitude is ignorant and doltish.’ Now I’ve no doubt that you’re right in that not all of the philosophes were so contemptuous of the ordinary people. Nevertheless, they formed one element amongst other religious, mystical and fringe or pseudo-scientific groups promoting democracy.

Firstly, Israel is writing to counter the negative view of the Enlightenment that has been current in some parts of academia since the War. The philosophers Adorno and Horkheimer were very critical of the Enlightenment as they felt that its concern with measurement and classification laid the basis for the scientific racism, and the measurement and classification of humanity that resulted in the scientific, industrial murder of the Holocaust. Now Adorno and Horkheimer in their turn have been strongly critiqued, and their conclusions rejected by historians of the Enlightenment. I’ve heard one history prof describe their books as ‘rubbish’. Nevertheless, amongst some of the writings of philosophes like Rousseau, Turgot and even Kant one can find comments on the nature of society and political philosophy that formed the basis for parts of the totalitarian regimes of Soviet Russia and the Fascist dictatorships of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Obviously, Rousseau, Turgot and Kant weren’t Fascists, and cannot be blamed for murderous regimes which I’ve no doubt they would have strongly denounced. Nevertheless, the murderous totalitarianisms of the 20th century were informed to a greater or lesser extent by Enlightenment political ideals, even if, in the case of the Fascist dictatorships, such as Nazi Germany, they also vehemently attacked the Enlightenment.

It’s also the case that the idea of a radical Enlightenment as the triumph of rationality has also been criticised by historians on the grounds that much of the mindset that informed Enlightenment philosophy wasn’t terribly different from traditional, Christian ideas of the nature of society and politics. The philosopher Jurgen Habermas in Germany, for example, has pointed out just how strongly Enlightenment discourse – the debates and philosophical and intellectual attitudes at the heart of the Enlightenment – were based in Christianity. Now I have an idea that Habermas himself is an atheist, but he respects Christianity for the profound way Christianity produced and formed Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment society. Regarding the Enlightenment project of creating a perfect, rational society, informed by science and benefiting from scientific and technological progress, you can see very strong parallels with the ideal commonwealths suggested by radical Renaissance philosophers such as Patrick Harrington. Harrington’s view of the new, technological, scientific utopia can strike you as being very prophetic. At one point he declares that it will have street lighting and many other technological advances very, very similar to those today. Yet Harrington was strongly influenced by renaissance mysticism, and so definitely not a materialist.

Regarding the popularity of the monarchy, somebody once remarked that Queen Victorian was able to make the monarchy as an institution far more popular during her reign than it had been under George IV partly because she and Prince Albert actually interfered very little in the process of government. They performed their state functions dutifully, and Albert in particular was very important in promoting industrial development. They also embodied the moral values of the emerging middle class, which made them immensely popular as suitable moral exemplars. But they did this without actually interfering with parliament and legislation, and so could transcend politics in performing their state duties and expressing what was considered as best and most admirable in British culture.

Here’s a brief summary of some of Israel’s key ideas, from a recent review of “Enlightenment Contested”:

“[The Spinozists] starting point was a fundamental break with the old intellectual orthodoxies. They criticised strongly both the tradition of Renaissance ‘humanism’ that provided distorted readings of ancient Greek philosophy to justify the teachings of the Churches and the conciliatory approach of the Newton-Locke tradition. Their materialism led them to assert the fundamental unity of humanity, seeing the lower classes as having the same potential for intellectual development as their rulers, even if ‘education’ was needed to bring this out, and rejecting the notion that some peoples were intrinsically inferior to others. And they drew republican, democratic conclusions, even if they often felt these could not be put fully into effect until the mass of people had been educated away from the superstitious and obscurantist influences. So while Voltaire and Hume accepted some racist notion, Diderot rejected racism and not only opposed slavery and colonialism, but supported the rights of the slaves of the colonial oppressed to fight for their own liberation.

“Not surprisingly, the proponents of the radical Enlightenment received a very different response from established society to the moderates. They faced recurrent bouts of repression, and were forced to either to disguise some of their ideas in print or to publish abroad under pseudonyms if they were not to face imprisonment or exile.

“Events, however, forced the two currents together in the 1750s (just as the first volumes of the Encyclopédie were being published). By this time, both currents were centred in France. But French Catholicism was divided down the middle. As well as the relatively sophisticated Jesuit wing, prepared to accept some modern scientific notions in order to win people to the faith, there was the mystical Jansenist wing which relied on ecstatic ‘miracles’ for its mass following and therefore opposed both wings of the Enlightenment. It was able in 1750 to create what we would today call a ‘moral panic’ about the impact of supposedly Spinozist texts, forcing the Jesuits and the Royal Court to turn against not just the radical Enlightenment but the Voltairians as well. The Encyclopédie was briefly banned and Diderot got a short spell in prison, and even Voltaire no longer felt safe. It was in this period that he turned his magnificent polemical skills against the counter-Enlightenment, with his slogan ‘Ecrasez l’infame’ (wipe out the infamy, ie organised superstitious religion) and, in 1758, the publication of his brilliant and subversive satirical novel Candide. In the process the fundamental differences between the two wings of the Enlightenment could easily disappear from view, opening the way for them to be overlooked ever since and for the Radical current to be virtually written out of intellectual history.”

Full: http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=278&issue=113.