Ask Nathan Anything: Quarantine Edition

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

That's two out of the three oldest countries, but what about Germany? Oh wait...

I get the joke here, but I'm going to answer it seriously and say that German culture, for whatever reason, has just never really wowed me. Go figure.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Opinion of this article.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Opinion of this article.

I didn't even have to read it beyond the title and the fact that it was published in 1870 to know exactly what it was about and what its arguments were going to be. Hilarious Article.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

In the Kulturkampf, who was the morally superior actor? The authoritarian Chancellor who had an opinion of Catholicism so low that HenryWallaceVP pales in comparison, or the Pope you have called with such nice epithets as "evil son of a bitch"?

Please don't answer "German bishops" or "the Centre Party" or something along those lines, 'cause that's lame.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

In the Kulturkampf, who was the morally superior actor? The authoritarian Chancellor who had an opinion of Catholicism so low that HenryWallaceVP pales in comparison, or the Pope you have called with such nice epithets as "evil son of a bitch"?

Please don't answer "German bishops" or "the Centre Party" or something along those lines, 'cause that's lame.

Gun to my head, Bismarck was the lesser evil, but you really would have to hold a gun to my head.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Is Phil Scott really a Nice Guy FF moderate New England Republican?

Because if so, it's a damn shame that there aren't more (any?) Republicans like him at the national level.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Elaboration on this?

Yep. "Simultaneously gay and homophobic" is the peak Catholic mood, just as it is, in many ways, the peak mood for Western cultural and artistic traditions as a whole.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

What's your take on churches that invoke - nay, make Harry Potter the center of one of their sermons?

I just concluded an online service and I cannot illustrate how far my eyes rolled into my head. Though I believe you've stated you are a HP fan at one point, I can't imagine you condoning this stuff.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What's your take on churches that invoke - nay, make Harry Potter the center of one of their sermons?

I just concluded an online service and I cannot illustrate how far my eyes rolled into my head. Though I believe you've stated you are a HP fan at one point, I can't imagine you condoning this stuff.

"Harry Potter fan" is an overstatement. I grew up with the books and haven't canceled them.

The idea of a Harry Potter-focused sermon makes me want to hurl (sane, hopefully normal).

Elaboration on this?

Yep. "Simultaneously gay and homophobic" is the peak Catholic mood, just as it is, in many ways, the peak mood for Western cultural and artistic traditions as a whole.

Catholicism is self-evidently an institutionally homophobic religion, although the intensity of the homophobia varies from parish to parish (if parishes in Massachusetts were as homophobic as those in, say, Eastern Poland, or even some of the dioceses in the American South and West, I wouldn't have converted). As far as gay goes, it's an exceptionally camp religion, with lots of bling, singing, chanting, hierarchs wearing progressively fancier outfits, etc. There's also a currently-unfashionable (among most orthodox Catholics) history of saints who ended up as gay icons, of whom cross-dressers like Joan of Arc and "friendship"-obsessed medieval abbots like Aelred of Rievaulx are only the most obvious examples.

Is Phil Scott really a Nice Guy FF moderate New England Republican?

Because if so, it's a damn shame that there aren't more (any?) Republicans like him at the national level.

Unlike Charlie Baker, yes, he is. I would have voted for him over the anti-vaxxer if I still lived in Vermont.

[Torie]

Has the salience of religion in your life waned, waxed or stayed about the same during your adult life?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Has the salience of religion in your life waned, waxed or stayed about the same during your adult life?

Stayed about the same. I've been strongly religious, or at least strongly interested in religion, since my early teens. My religious practice is currently on the downswing, but that's mostly because of the pandemic.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Given your takes on various First Republic Italian political parties, I'd love to see you do similar commentary on Japan's contemporary political parties.

LDP: Obviously cancer, but I appreciate that it still has a somewhat more developmentalist/dirigiste streak than other East Asian rightist parties.
Komeito: Used to be semi-respectable as its own thing but is increasingly a plain and simple LDP handmaiden that exists to hoover up the votes of Japan's largest formal religious group.
CDP-SDP: Probably the best of a bad lot, but that's not saying a ton. Reiwa Shinsengumi might supplant it in that role if it proves to be an intellectually serious medium-term force.
Ishin: As an all-time forum great would say, bad bad bad bad lol bad bad. Might actually be worse than the LDP On The Issues, although it's a lesser evil in terms of Japan's political culture.
DPP: lol
JCP: Less bad than other communist parties, and much less bad than the Japanese right, but still weird and cultish.
Reiwa Shinsengumi: See my comment on the CDP above.
Okinawa Whirlwind: Hilarious name.
Other minor parties: Uniformly bad, lol, or both.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

To what extent can we compare the "old school" social revolutions of, say, France and Russia with the Cold War-era social revolutions of the Third World and more contemporary "urban civic revolutions"?

[KaiserDave]

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=431203.msg7970206#msg7970206

Thoughts on the WWI discussion in this thread, and perhaps on my response to GMac

We don't have enough WWI discussion on Atlas

Also thoughts on King Louis-Philipe?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

To what extent can we compare the "old school" social revolutions of, say, France and Russia with the Cold War-era social revolutions of the Third World and more contemporary "urban civic revolutions"?

The "old-school" revolutions have more in common with the former than the latter due to the more similar material conditions of not-yet-as-heavily-urbanized 1780s France and 1910s Russia--including the tendency to devolve into tyrannies almost as bad as the ones they deposed, a tendency that the urban civic revolutions haven't exhibited in the same way with the unfortunate exception of Egypt. Even so, the obvious racial aspect of the Cold War-era revolutions is a significant dissimilarity, unless you're willing to bite the bullet and say that the Russian Revolution included (at first) a significant specifically-Jewish ideological element.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=431203.msg7970206#msg7970206

Thoughts on the WWI discussion in this thread, and perhaps on my response to GMac

We don't have enough WWI discussion on Atlas

I agree with you. I don't subscribe to the idea that WWI had anywhere near as clear-cut a "good side" and "bad side" as WWII (although the Central Powers, overall, were clearly worse), but the bizarre Russian equivalent of the Dolchstoßlegende that GMA is advancing is absurd.

Also thoughts on King Louis-Philipe?

I can't say I know a ton about him. Antonio has tried for years to get me interested in nineteenth-century France, with some success, but the July Monarchy is still probably the post-1789 regime I know the least about.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Was the Glorious Revolution the first modern revolution?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Was the Glorious Revolution the first modern revolution?

ayy lmao

No, the French Revolution was, for better or for worse (normal, arguably-sane, boring answer). The Glorious Revolution, like the Restoration before it, was an elite-driven project more similar to a modern coup than to a revolution as we now understand the word.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Was the Glorious Revolution the first modern revolution?

ayy lmao

No, the French Revolution was, for better or for worse (normal, arguably-sane, boring answer). The Glorious Revolution, like the Restoration before it, was an elite-driven project more similar to a modern coup than to a revolution as we now understand the word.

Boy do I have a book for you then:



I used to think like you did, but this book changed my mind. It completely overturns the (normal, insane, boring) Whig history interpretation of the Revolution, just by examining evidence and sources (like newspapers, pamphlets, letters, etc.) that other historians have long ignored. As Pincus shows, the Glorious Revolution was a bloody, popular uprising marked by extensive mob violence and an extremely politically active public. In other words, the first modern revolution.

[KaiserDave]

Was the Glorious Revolution the first modern revolution?

ayy lmao

No, the French Revolution was, for better or for worse (normal, arguably-sane, boring answer). The Glorious Revolution, like the Restoration before it, was an elite-driven project more similar to a modern coup than to a revolution as we now understand the word.

Boy do I have a book for you then:



I used to think like you did, but this book changed my mind. It completely overturns the (normal, insane, boring) Whig history interpretation of the Revolution, just by examining evidence and sources (like newspapers, pamphlets, letters, etc.) that other historians have long ignored. As Pincus shows, the Glorious Revolution was a bloody, popular uprising marked by extensive mob violence and an extremely politically active public. In other words, the first modern revolution.

Mob violence and a politically active public does not a modern revolution make, or else Julius Caesar is the first modern revolutionary!

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

...a bloody, popular uprising marked by extensive mob violence and an extremely politically active public...

Most distressing. Hopefully we have a base on that God-forsaken island and can dispatch the marines to restore the rule of law and good governance!

[KaiserDave]

Opinion of Napoleon Bonaparte?

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Was the Glorious Revolution the first modern revolution?

ayy lmao

No, the French Revolution was, for better or for worse (normal, arguably-sane, boring answer). The Glorious Revolution, like the Restoration before it, was an elite-driven project more similar to a modern coup than to a revolution as we now understand the word.

Boy do I have a book for you then:



I used to think like you did, but this book changed my mind. It completely overturns the (normal, insane, boring) Whig history interpretation of the Revolution, just by examining evidence and sources (like newspapers, pamphlets, letters, etc.) that other historians have long ignored. As Pincus shows, the Glorious Revolution was a bloody, popular uprising marked by extensive mob violence and an extremely politically active public. In other words, the first modern revolution.

Mob violence and a politically active public does not a modern revolution make, or else Julius Caesar is the first modern revolutionary!

Well I should clarify; that's not what makes it the first modern revolution, but it is what makes it a revolution rather than a coup (or Dutch invasion), as Nathan said. A good chunk of Pincus' argument is just proving that it was a revolution at all, since most scholars have made it out to be so unrevolutionary and aristocratic. What made it the first modern revolution was that it 1) occurred in a definitively modern, rather than premodern society, and 2) was a conflict between competing groups of modernizers.

For claim one, Pincus spends a good chapter of 50 or so pages explaining how England in the late 17th century was a truly modern society, in many ways much more so than we realize today. Thomas Babington Macaulay serves as a sort of foil in this chapter, as Pincus sets out to disprove the 19th century Whig historian's description of late 1600s England as an old-fashioned backwater full of "thatched roof cottages". He does this by listing off endless statistics about how agriculture, population, economic industries, trade, and other demographics grew tremendously in the 17th century, especially in the last 50 years. For instance, London went from a city smaller than Naples at the beginning of the century to the largest city in Western Europe by the end; from a medieval walled city to a thriving modern metropolis and the shopping capital of Europe. One statistic that particularly struck me was that apparently it was not until the late 19th century that America had the same level of urbanization that England had had 200 years earlier. He also notes more practical changes that occurred in the 17th century, like the creation of an efficient and nationwide postal system, the adoption of streetlamps in London, and the paving of roads all over the kingdom. I obviously can't replicate the effect of reading the chapter in this one paragraph, but by the end you definitely get the sense that England in 1688 was a truly modern nation.

For claim two, Pincus presents a theory of modern revolutions. His thesis is that all such modern revolutions begin as conflicts between competing competing groups of modernizers, those who are in the government and those who are not. He points to Louis XVI's financial reforms before 1789, Tsar Alexander's concessions to the Duma, and considerable other examples in modern revolutions. The decision of a government to modernize opens up all sorts of new opportunities for dissent, as it makes evident that things don't have to just stay the same and change is not only possible, but a reality. Soon, people outside the government can start claiming they have better ideas, that they can do modernization in their own better way, and that's when it all spirals into revolution. Having established this as a hallmark of modern revolution, he then turns to the Glorious Revolution, which he also argues was a conflict between rival modernizers. On the one side was King James II and his circle, a group of Catholic modernizers who were deeply committed to creating a modern state based on the government of Louis XIV of France. Their vision of modernity, identified as Catholic modernity, consisted of centralized power, absolute monarchy, a large standing army, and a sort of proto-police state that monitored and suppressed seditious speech throughout the nation's coffeehouses and printing presses. On the other side were the opposition, mostly Whigs, who sought to model England after the modern state of the Dutch Republic. This vision of modernity, Protestant modernity, entailed a strong Parliament, limited monarchy, no standing army, and protection for civil and religious liberties. Again, it's hard to fully explain Pincus' "conflicting modernizers are essential to modern revolution" theory in a single paragraph, but read the book and I think you'll find his argument very convincing. For this reason, I'd highly recommend this book not only to readers interested in early modern and English history, but also those interested more generally in theoretical and comparative studies in revolution.

Anyway, this is not my AMA, and I think I've gone on well long enough.

...a bloody, popular uprising marked by extensive mob violence and an extremely politically active public...

Most distressing. Hopefully we have a base on that God-forsaken island and can dispatch the marines to restore the rule of law and good governance!

I'm not sure if this is a joke aimed at American imperialism or Britain's anti-revolutionary self-perception since the 1790s, but either way it is an accurate description of 17th century Britain, which was frequently described by contemporaries as the most tumultuous, convulsive, and riotous part of Europe, in sharp contrast to the stable and orderly monarchical regime of Louis XIV's France. One book in particular that Pincus references captures the mood quite well, and has a rollicking title: History of all the Mobs, Tumults and Insurrections in Great Britain, by the constantly plotting Whig radical turned Jacobite Robert Ferguson.

[KaiserDave]

Opinion of

1. Rerum Novarum
2. Quadragesimo anno
3. Fratelli Tutti
?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Do you believe that 2026 will see a hinoe uma-related plunge in birth rates like 1966 or have Japanese society and demographics changed enough from then for that to happen?

[Alcibiades]

What are your favourite Greek tragedies? Do you have a preference between any of the three Athenian tragic poets?