The great philosopher John Stuart Mill probably did more than anyone to map out the proper boundaries of the individual and the state in the western model of political democracy. Furthermore, he talked not just of the state but of societal behaviour as it impacts on individuals. Through the power of thought his influence on the development of the modern world has been enormous, even if many have never heard of him. He was four generations ahead of his time; but that is in part true because his own writings helped shape the future. This from the New Yorker is a fine example of the received view of Mill among the modern liberal intelligentsia:
Mill believed in complete equality between the sexes, not just women’s colleges and, someday, female suffrage but absolute parity; he believed in equal process for all, the end of slavery, votes for the working classes, and the right to birth control (he was arrested at seventeen for helping poor people obtain contraception), and in the common intelligence of all the races of mankind. He led the fight for due process for detainees accused of terrorism; argued for teaching Arabic, in order not to alienate potential native radicals; and opposed adulterating Anglo-American liberalism with too much systematic French theory—all this along with an intelligent acceptance of the free market as an engine of prosperity and a desire to see its excesses and inequalities curbed. He was right about nearly everything, even when contemplating what was wrong: open-minded and magnanimous to a fault, he saw through Thomas Carlyle’s reactionary politics to his genius, and his essay on Coleridge, a leading conservative of the previous generation, is a model appreciation of a writer whose views are all wrong but whose writing is still wonderful. Mill was an enemy of religious bigotry and superstition, and a friend of toleration and free thought, without overdoing either. (No one has ever been more eloquent about the ethical virtues of Jesus of Nazareth.)
Yet for a living John Stuart Mill was Secretary to the Political Committee of the East India Company, and actively involved in the rapacious colonisation of India and the enforced opening of China to opium sales. How do we cope with this? Mill has possibly influenced my thinking more than any other political writer. I would start any political education with a reading of Mill’s On Liberty and J A Hobson’s Imperialism: A Study. But how do we process Mill’s involvement with the East India Company? Should Mill’s statue be ripped from Victoria Embankment Gardens and dumped in the Thames?
I do not ask that as a rhetorical question. It is a dilemma. Historians of thought have tended to deal with it by ignoring Mill’s day job. I have read three biographies of Mill and I have a fourth, by Timothy Larsen, waiting to be started. Richard Reeves comes closest of Mill’s biographers to addressing Mill’s work for the East India Company but tells us almost nothing on the subject that is not from Mill’s own Autobiography. In his Autobiography, what Mill mostly tells us about his work for the EIC is that it did not take up too much of his time.
If Mill were a dentist, for biographers to ignore his day job and concentrate on his philosophy would make sense. But Mill’s day job was governing a very significant proportion of the world’s population. He did not just work at the East India Company, he was perhaps, as Secretary of the Political Committee, the most important civil servant there. Mill wrote and signed off detailed instructions to Governors General. He issued advice – which was expected to be followed – on trade and military affairs, and on governance. It is fascinating to me that in his Autobiography Mill systematically downplays his role in the East India Office, both in terms of his commitment and his importance within the organisation.
There has been much more written about Mill and the East India Company by Indian researchers than by western researchers, because it is of course an excellent illustration of the hypocrisies of western liberalism, that its figurehead was so enmired in the colonial project. Unfortunately, many of these studies lack nuance and tend to accuse Mill of being things he definitely was not, such as a racist. East India Company policies are ascribed to Mill which Mill was demonstrably and actively against, such as the anglicising project of Trevelyan and Macaulay. Mill did not view British culture as superior, and he was horrified by initiatives like the ending of communal land ownership in Bengal and the British creation of a Bengali landlord class there. I broadly recommend this article by Mark Tunick, though like almost everything published on the subject it suffers from the drawback of discussing what Mill wrote about governing India rather than the much harder task of discussing what he wrote in governing India. The subject needs solid analysis of Mill’s thousands of minutes and despatches in the East India Company records.
Mill worked with Burnes to try to avoid the First Afghan War, but like Burnes he did not resign over it, nor over the appalling war crimes committed by the British in its prosecution. Mill had been the guiding hand behind the long Governor Generalship of Lord Bentinck and its policy of avoiding war and expansion; but Mill was still there administering when that ended, through the annexations of Sindh and Nepal and Baluchistan and the most aggressive period of Imperial expansionism. Mill was there for the opium wars.
So how do we come to terms with our past? If slavery is the touchstone of good and bad, Mill is fine. He was a dedicated an effective lifetime opponent of slavery, including in EIC territories, and was highly influential in assuring the UK did not recognise the Confederacy in the US civil war. But if you look at the atrocious crimes of British imperialism, the financial and economic rape of whole continents, the killing, torture, terror and physical rape, why would slavery be the only criterion to judge people?
I have chosen Mill because he was a demonstrably good man, and yet I perfectly understand why a person of Indian or Chinese heritage might want to dump him in the Thames. There are others Imperialists, like Napier, Gordon or Wolseley, with statues all over the country, whose deeds are not admirable to a modern eye, particularly as our society is now a great deal less homogenous and contains descendants of those whose cities were pillaged and people raped and slaughtered by these military prodigies.
I don’t have all the answers. My life of Alexander Burnes tried to find a way to treat a remarkable man who lived by the mores of times not our own. The answer lies not in glorifying nor in destroying our past.
Monuments do not stand still. They are, ultimately, all of them Ozymandias. Destruction of historical artifacts is a bad thing; they are valuable tools for understanding the past, and of artistic and cultural value in themselves. But it is perfectly natural that in public spaces we wish to have public objects that reflect the mores of our own times. The important thing is to understand that the mores of the times do change; our great grandchildren will undoubtedly think we were quaint and had weird beliefs.
A thought on Edward Colston. His involvement in slavery was as a director of the Royal African Company. The Royal in that title is not meaningless; the company was set up specifically to make the monarch rich. A far more practical way to honour the memory of the slaves would be to abolish the monarchy. That would be a meaningful action.
A further thought. Living here in Edinburgh I find it absolutely infuriating that we have a major street named after the genocidal sadist the Duke of Cumberland. (Yes, Cumberland Street is specifically named after him). Respecting the past does not mean our society cannot move on. Street names and statues are signs of honour. There are plenty that should be removed from the street and placed in museums, where they can be explained and contextualised.
When Horatio Nelson helped to “free” the Kingdom of the Sicilies from Napoleon and restore its appalling autocratic monarchy, Neapolitan writers and intellectuals were shot and hung on Nelson’s flagship, anchored off Naples so the mob could not intervene to save them. Nelson watched some of the executions between bouts of shagging Lady Hamilton. I do not recommend toppling Nelson’s column; but I do advocate some real information about him in an education centre under the square.
UPDATE: I see that Liverpool University have just agreed to rename Gladstone Hall because Gladstone’s father was a slave owner. That is, I think, an appalling act of stupidity from what is supposed to be an institute of learning.
Very many thanks to the 700 people who have applied to follow virtually the criminal proceedings against me which start tomorrow. It is just a procedural court hearing tomorrow and I am worried that nothing much may happen. I do hope you will not get bored and give up on the rest of the case when it comes. In Julian Assange’s case, the behaviour of the judge has been outrageous even in the procedural hearings, but we should not take for granted that the same will happen here.
The court has been informing people they are not allowed to record, or to publish while the court is in session. That is true; but you can take notes, and you are allowed to publish factual accounts of what happened once the court closes.
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It’s more than forty years since I read On Liberty and I may stand corrected but the thing I remember is a passage where he objected to the use of the state for some forms of repression, writing that some matters are more efficiently left to social pressure. Didn’t look all that liberal but then that’s the definition of a liberal. Haven’t bothered with him since.
Actually that’s one of the areas where I agree with him most strongly and where I think recent society has got it most wrong. There is now far too much law, and the state is expected to intervene far too often. Because something is morally wrong does not mean it should be illegal. The Scottish government’s new hate speech law being a good example, criminalising the merely tasteless.
He wasn’t arguing against repression, only the means. If you scratch a liberal, the jackboots come into view.
Your reading comprehension is sorely lacking.
Not really, not being middle class is all I need.
Like when the Devil was asked in ‘The Devil’s Advocate’: “How are you going to take over the world?” “Lawyers” 🙂
“But if you look at the atrocious crimes of British imperialism, the financial and economic rape of whole continents, the killing, torture, terror and physical rape, why would slavery be the only criterion to judge people?”
Isn’t that judging history by today’s standards. British imperialism was neither exceptional in itself, not in its nature. Up until the C20th, the entire history of mankind around the world had been one of the rise and fall of empires, great and small. Not everywhere was imperial, but there was always somewhere that was. It was seen as part of the natural order of things. Nor were the “killing, torture, terror and physical rape” anything out of the ordinary, either, reprehensible though they seem to modern eyes. That is not to try and excuse them, merely to try and explain the lack of contemporary execration. I was surprised to read today that Sir Thomas Picton, who I had only heard of as being one of the officers killed at Waterloo, had been such a cruel governor of Trinidad that he was actually brought to trial and pamphlets were circulated about his cruelties. Yet, despite that, enough was publicly subscribed after his death to build a very large monument just outside Carmarthen. Autre temps, autre moeurs.
Yes of course. I think I say that. But as our mores have changed, it is not wrong not to wish to live amongst monuments to outdated mores in
busy public spaces.
“Our” mores haven’t changed, the constraints on boss class savagery have.
No, that’s sophistry; the criminals against humanity of the past were committing atrocities and knew it, same as everyone else. The Judaeo-chris moral tradition is a little bit older than a C19th carpet bagger, fellow traveller and bystander like Mill or like Colston before him. Public hypocrisy knows no bounds, especially when there’s a trough to get the snout in.
Here’s a test; exculpate Mengele and Himmler because times and ethics were different then….
That’s just not true. The British troops that pillaged the Imperial Palace in Beijing, for example, were doing nothing wrong by their mores, even though they were killing, looting, raping and destroying. It is not the case they were committing atrocities and they knew it. They would have been surprised to be upbraided. Nobody was disciplined for it.
Squeeth is right. A tiny minority of English people today care about events in Syria or Libya. That does not mean that our politicians are not working night and day to deliverately deceive them and compound their ignorance.
i know many Muslims who still see nothing wrong with the destruction of these countries. And when Iraq was invaded in 2003 their only comment was that the Iraqis wore trousers and were therefore bad Muslims. They literally knew nothing about it except for their own cultural prejudice.
To conflate popular opinion with the views of the educated and the clergy is absurd. You know , since you have trod the cortidoors of Thatcherite power, a place I would not have touched with a thousand bargepoles while wearing a Porton Down protective body suit.
Giyane
Most British Muslims are Sunnis who consider Assad a wrong’un. The chief backers of the Jihadists fighting Assad -and Quadaffi before – are Sunni muslim states. And obviously our allies. They are also the funders of many of our mosques.
It’s hardly surprising where they would stand on this issue.
Glasshopper
Assad is our monster, not long ago used by us for torture rendition.
I’m merely commenting on Craig’s suggestion that English soldiers would have seen nothing wrong with sacking Beijing.
Most British Muslims see nothing wrong with the same British PTB using their fellow Muslims and countrymen to sack Syria, Iraq and Libya. Plus cha change, plus ch’est la meme chose.
The has got to be something terribly and insidiously wrong with a historical philosopher and a group think of modern Liberalism, preacing one thing for our country and legitimising and organising the opposite for other countries.
This was a a philosophical ” flaw ” in Jeremy Corbyn’s international socialism, that he did not agree with either Mill or millenium hypocrisy and sadly he had to be put down by the Empire2, herd immunity Eugenics , Troughers who rigged the last election.
“Rape, as an adjunct to warfare, was prohibited by the military codices of Richard II and Henry V (1385 and 1419 respectively). These laws formed the basis for convicting and executing rapists during the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453)”.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartime_sexual_violence
Such atrocities are still going on today backed by Western power. Our mores do not expect anyone to be punished even though there are those who say they should be. Did everyone agree on the mores at the time of the pillage of the Imperial Palace? Should killers and rapists be judged by their own standards? Perhaps they should be tried before a jury of killers and rapists. If you don’t agree with the mores of the 18C you are not obliged to judge anyone by them though you might want to understand their actions as the result of group think. Apart from outright slavery in the West (not counting Saudi domestic servants) what about the way colonoialism is conducted today is any different from Mills’s time?
Rant ends.
I find this an incredibly difficult statement to believe “It is not the case they were committing atrocities and they knew it.” I think that If you are killing and raping – you know exactly what you are doing. You know fine well that you would not wish such acts done to yourself or to people you care about – you would see close up and personal that you are inflicting deep suffering.
I think it’s more a phenomena uncovered by the Milgram experiment: – Because an authority figure tells you its ok to do these things – somehow your own moral compass can be bypassed. How many of these killers and rapers had regrets later in life we will probably never know – but if any of them were to develop a concience it’s hard to see how they would not have regrets and realise they were fooled.
“It is not the case they were committing atrocities and they knew it.” I think that If you are killing and raping – you know exactly what you are doing. ”
They knew they were committing atrocities, as eyewitness accounts attest, but those atrocities were artistic, not moral. No-one was raped and those who were killed were killed unknowingly when their hiding places were burned. The Summer Palace was not sacked like a besieged city taken, it was systematically destroyed.
Happy to agree with you.And pleased to read that slight not of dissent from the underlying assumptions implicit in much that is written here. I also think that the committing of cruel acts is diminishing of the individual, regardless of whether their acts are prosecuted and punished by the ‘authorities’.As an instance, I think that the confidence of British virtue was fatally undermined by the dishonesty of Blair and Iraq.We are not the same people we were pre 2002.
Ok, some personal actions can be rationalised away to some extent but one suspects they mount up and weigh heavily on the mind and eventually damage the psyche of the person.I also agree that one knows (without societal censure or disapproval) that depravity in whatever form it takes is wrong.
OK I realise I am getting perilously close to some key Christian beliefs, which I generally reject but we are highly evolved creatures and we cannot operate outside these evolved pschological and emotional structures indefinitely.
In any of his writings does Mill not recognise the contradiction implicit in his personal writings and his professional activities. Someone as bright as Mill would not be so deluded to not understand that imperialism, by its very nature is rapacious and exploitative.
At the moment I think we need to be examining the inherent contradictions of Neoliberalism(surely an oxymoron and euphemism if ever there was one).
Neoliberalism at this very moment is destroying the very bases of life. For anyone who cares to think about it, neoliberalised capitalism will bring about the end of the mighty ‘kingdom’ we call western liberal democratic ‘civilisation’
Shelley and his wife(Mary) were mostly considering the human condition in relation to the proliferation of technical innovation and its impact on human qualities.It is still the abiding concern of humanity.
My grandfather born in 1863 was orphaned at 12, at 16 he lied about his age and joined the 2nd Hampshire Regiment; he fought in the 3rd Anglo Burma War and both Boer Wars. His uncensored letters home, which I still have make it abundantly clear that he and I suspect by inference his fellow infantrymen knew full well what was going on
He knew that they were there to steal land and resources and in the case of the Boers he thought them: “good people, farmers, just like us” and saw no reason for us to be there fighting them, other than to steal what they’d already claimed off others.
Nonetheless, he did his duty and attempted to rejoin the army at the outbreak of WW1.
In no way could he have been described as an educated man but he had enough savvy to understand that he and his mates were just tools of an avaricious empire.
I’d guess you know the history of the Anglo Burma Wars better than I, when it comes to regime change it seems Britain just can’t move on from the past.
They would have been hung for doing that in England.
“Here’s a test; exculpate Mengele and Himmler because times and ethics were different then….”
Why Himmler and Mengele? Why not Officer Chauvin? It’s in the past, so must be equally relevant.
An excellent post. Scotland also has streets and statues celebrating Thomas Carlyle, And US Presidents owned slaves, leaving aside their views on and treatment of Native Americans. Almost no one before 1900 thought women deserved the vote.
“particularly as our society is now a great deal less homogenous and contains descendants of those whose cities were pillaged and people raped and slaughtered by these military prodigies.”
This is spurious, you don’t have to have Indian ancestors to despise criminals against humanity, only a moral backbone.
What is spurious is your complete misunderstanding of what Craig’s point is. But you’d rather fire off your self righteous vainglorious cannons than consider what he said.
Best of luck Craig!
” it is perfectly natural that in public spaces we wish to have public objects that reflect the mores of our own times.”
Oh FFS Craig, we live in times of legal abortion, torture, mass imprisonment, mass destitution, wars of racial extermination. There has always been tension between those who would use people like instruments and those who resist. There has always been a correlation between imperialism, colonialism and atrocity. Liberalism at home and liberal imperialism (fascism) abroad are two cheeks on the same backside.
Legal abortion is a good thing, not a bad thing. It should be legal everywhere and available for no cost. Amalgamating legal abortion with things like torture, etc. is disingenuous and harmful. If you really believe that abortion belongs in a list of things like torture, mass imprisonment, mass destitution and wars of racial extermination, I question your moral authority to comment on any of them.
I think your bias is all consuming. While you have a right to an opinion of your choice, which I would defend, doesn’t make you right by default.
I consider abortion a disgusting practice while there are numerous contraceptives one can use there is no excuse to use abortion as a contraceptive.
Life in my eyes is sacred.
End of conversation
Legal abortion needs to be available as one of a range of birth control measures whether or not people view abortion as disgusting or immoral. If abortion were made legal, there would not be the need for women to resort to desperate and dangerous methods to abort pregnancies that may be dangerous to the mother’s health or the child’s health if they continued.
Not everyone can afford to use contraceptives or has access to them. Often the people who most need to use contraceptives are the people who have the least access to contraceptives – because they live in cultures and places that deny them that access or they are in situations where they are deliberately kept ignorant of contraception or even control of their own bodies. Examples would include women forced to live in conditions by their families or communities (certain religious communities or other outsider communities even within our own societies) that amount to slavery, some form of trafficking or other kinds of exploitation.
If one considers life sacred, one should also consider that the quality of the life to be lived must also be made sacred. To expect children to be born into conditions that make their lives hellish does not seem to me to be respecting life.
Now that’s sophistry!
In order not to inflict miserable life on this child I’m justified in killing them. What is the age limit for carrying out this act of mercy.
Can’t you just admit that a lot of women are lazy, feckless or just plain evil and care not for murdering their own children. See michelle williams proudly stating that she put her career ahead of the life of her unborn child at the golden globes this very year. Apparently a millionaire actress couldn’t combine work and motherhood so down the toilet went junior.
You’re bias!
You think you have a right to even offer an opinion to other nations customs and practices, the hypocrisy!
Just who the hell do you think you are, the second coming?
Your rights supersedes anything and anyone’s rights, because your a woman and its you’re body, your a mother and sensitive, and Carer, a giver of life, and butcher when necessary!
No one has rights that supersede the rights of others. By stamping ones foot and screaming like a targer and calling one with differing opinions derogatory names, doesn’t make your opinions right!
A fetus is not a person. To equate the two is sophistry.
Slaves were not considered persons. Not legally.
And the character Michelle Williams played in ‘Blue Valentine’ had an abortion. Coincidence or coincidence?
Billy Connolly used to jokingly ask, “Does the Catholic Church hold a Requiem Mass every time some bloke wanks off” 😀
I try to look at these things as:
How did you gain your gains?
There are statues to ‘ Wise ‘ Kings and Queens across Britain.
The beneficiaries of the pillaging and looting over the years.
At school no-one one told us anything about how these hirers of Armies and Pirates went about their business.
We all thought it was an Act of God.
Divine Right and that God must have been an Englishman(sic).
All changed now though – the new Billionaire Gods wear different Crowns but rule the world in a similar way.
Who’s up for a call for statues of Bezos and Gates?
Mrs Thatcher daren’t be stood on a plinth anywhere except inside Parliament.
That’s what you call real self isolation.
Even her worshippers know what will happen if they try to put one up.
Even the banal Ms Patel et al.
the rivers would be full – of Bronze – not plastic.
Your rights supersedes anything and anyone’s rights, because your a woman and its you’re body, your a mother and sensitive, and Carer, a giver of life, and butcher when necessary!”
Says the man who stated “Life in my eyes is sacred. End of conversation”, thus demonstrating that he believes that his opinions supersede anything and anyone’s rights, because he’s right. Just who the hell does he think he is, the second coming?
No one has beliefs that supersede the rights of others, nor do anyone’s beliefs give them the right to interfere with the lives of others.
Instead of worrying about statues of past slave traders one should probably should take a closer look at the involvement of current establishment figures in the trade of underage girls.
And the rapacious African slave trade that still goes on to this day in West Africa?
Not that BLM are concerned with such facts.
Whataboutery – I doubt that “BLM” approves that slave trade, and very few are aware of it. No-one can know everything.
Afua Hirsch certainly cares about the West African slave trade since her family is very very rich from centuries of selling their fellows into slavery. Doesn’t stop her from blaming all white people for the evils of the World. Notice how her articles are never open for comments as even guardianistas can’t stand her bigotry.
Afua is a personal friend. The history of slaving in West Africa is indeed a complex picture, but I am pretty sure Afua is not to blame for any of it!
An analysis of the range of Guardian articles that have had BTL comments enabled/disabled, and, more particularly, the fluctuating way in which specific topics have had BTL comments enabled/disabled, since the semi-literate, pseudo-intellectual parvenu Rusbridger became editor in 1995 would make an interesting “media studies” thesis for someone, for these fluctuations reflect both the way in which the ‘standard’ of its ‘journalism’ over that period has plumbed new depths of risibility as the paper has become a shameless, unapologetic, libelous and hypocritical advocate of a ‘woke’ agenda rather than a straight reporter of the news and the way in which it has ‘protected’ itself against the resulting backlash from what remains of its “progressive” readership.
” I doubt that “BLM” approves that slave trade, and very few are aware of it. ”
Perhaps they should be. It goes way beyond West Africa and there are still slaves in the UK. One unfortunate individual was burnt to death in a fire at a cannabis factory at the weekend.
Oh and England has been a republic since 1688.
Building empires creates a lot of collateral. The Neolithic males were exterminated. The Beaker people replaced the pastoralists in southern Germany. Genghis Khan and his descendants reached the Danube for 3 successive generations and 66% of Europeans are descended from him. The Romans committed near total genocide of the Welsh in order to mine their metals and export them. The Greeks somehow avoided genocidal routs and educated everyone, creating a vast tract of land with no borders that the Romans just walked into. The Brits were educated in Latin and Greek, and took their lessons out into the world and established ways of ensuring that indigenous people did not have property rights over their homes and the land they farmed. Palestine is an obvious example, in that the Brits ensured the people did have land title deeds, which many of them took with them into exile. The tragedy of the First People in America, the tribes and their wisdom in Amazonia, and the Aborigine people shows us that we gain from exploitation of resources in lands far from our homes. Our standard of living would be much lower, for all of us, if we only had what we could make in our country to sell here and abroad. Europe as a federation of nations has a wider trading platform. Britain’s wealth was accrued from the Commonwealth, though civic pride meant that much of that wealth was spent on public works. Plunder these days is by the global, tax avoiding offshore hoarders, and we must remain vigilant.
The Greeks did not avoid genocidal routs unless you don’t count the Peloponnesian War fought by the Delian League (led by Athens, who compelled fellow Delian League members to pay for its glorification) and the Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) in the 400s BCE that ended Athens’ so-called Golden Age, followed by the Corinthian War (Sparta versus Greek city states backed by Persia), and the war between Thebes and Sparta, as such routs, all of which resulted in the Greek city states becoming so weak, impoverished and divided that they were walked over by the Macedonians under Phillip II and his son Alexander (the Great), their Seleucid successors and finally the Romans.
The unification of Greece was a bloody affair, but Alexander joined up countries from the Canary Islands to China, as recorded by Diodorus. The library at Alexandria remains a loss to this day. Philosophy, Christianity, and democracy all arose out of the Greek Empire. The Romans then imposed top down authoritarianism and brought the nations together under Rome. Civilisation, whatever that means, claims its birth from this widespread enslavement of subjugated nations, while our loftiest ideals remain from the Greek philosophers, and Alexander’s syncretisation of diverse religions, which Diodorus recorded, along with systems of government, health and tribal warfare, landscape and geology. Empires and slavery are often linked. And trade.
That is not fair on the Roman Empire. Yes it expanded largely by conquest, but it would not have lasted 500 years or so if everyone was clamouring to leave. I can’t think of anywhere that wanted to leave the Roman Empire after citizenship was granted to all free men in the empire. England (Britannia) was extremely unhappy about the withdrawal of the legions in 406 AD. The ‘barbarians’ in the 5th century were not trying to destroy the empire but to take it over and become Roman (but as the new rulers). Most of Europe spent the next thousand years trying to put Rome back together (e.g. Charlemagne / Karl der Grosse). Hollywood’s depictions of the ‘sack of Rome’ are completely wrong, for example. Yes people took the money and booty for themselves but they certainly did not destroy much as they wanted the palaces, baths, etc for themselves. What destroyed the city of Rome was the people of Rome, mostly in the period after 1400 (and a bit of wear and tear, such as the earthquake in 1400 or so that caused the south side of the Colosseum to collapse). Around 1540 one temple per month in the forum was being demolished for building material for St Peters. Michelangelo protested to the Pope about the destruction.
Mention should be made that the Romans fought a long and costly war on and off for several hundred years against the Parthians and then the Sassanids on the eastern borders of their empire in Anatolia and the Levant, abutting the Persian empire, and Greek-speaking cities in western Anatolia were only too happy to support this war, financially at least if not in supplying soldiers to the Romans’ eastern front. Indeed the Romans inherited this war from the Greeks themselves and the war was one major reason for Roman expansion into western Asia.
We may call this “conquest” but if we dig deeper into the reasons for Roman expansion in this part of the world, the reasons become much more complicated and murkier, especially after Egypt became part of the Roman world and was transformed into the empire’s breadbasket, at which point Roman wars against Persia partly became wars of Roman survival.
There was no such thing as “Greeks” in the modern sense. There were people who spoke Greek living in separate city states not infrequently at war with one another. And while male citizens were educated, they were a minority of those living in those cities.
I wish you well tomorrow & at future hearings.
As regards the background noise currently being orchestrated by a complicit politico-media class , you don’t think this will all die away if Leaving the EU is thwarted & Prs Trump fails to be re-elected ?
Craig
craig Post author
June 9, 2020 at 22:03
“The British troops that pillaged the Imperial Palace in Beijing, for example, were doing nothing wrong by their mores, even though they were killing, looting, raping and destroying. It is not the case they were committing atrocities and they knew it.”
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Of course they knew they were committing atrocities Craig. They also knew they would not be held to account for their blood lust, stealing and rape. They knew they would be regarded as heroes and honoured in some way.
Surely what they did was a function in part of what they were paid: they received very little in the way of salary and their living conditions-mess and quarters- were bad. Looting and raping were among the very few benefits of the job.
An eye-witness writes, “We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for four millions. We got upward of £48 apiece prize money … I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one’s heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army.”
Nobody, it appears, was raped and those deaths that occurred were by accident. The official orders were to destroy everything, so in fact the looting was a form of salvage. Whilst we execrate it from a distance as an atrocity, in fact the damage was only inflicted against a wealthy and cruel elite, not the common people.
People very seldom are raped in soldiers’ memoirs. Funny that, isn’t it?
I get your point, but rape is not always clear cut. In Naples, during WW2 , British soldiers lined up to take their turn with women standing up against a wall with a pile of cans nearby, their proceeds for their ‘favours’.There is actually film of this. An edited version was shown about 18 months ago on TV. I can’t think what went through the minds of the squaddies both before and after their experience.
As a historian, you should know that there are other sources than memoirs. In any case, I quoted Charles Gordon, not to try and prove evidence of absence through absence of evidence, but to show that the troops involved in destroying the Summer Palace were well aware that what they were doing was wrong.
Because morals then were the same as now, only the excuses were different.
Rape is a ‘tool of war’, always has, and always will be.
As you say, Mr Murray, the hearing on the 10th June is only a procedural hearing. It is not s debate hearing and evidence is not presented or heard. I imagine directions will be given for filing of evidence etc. So I imagine some of the followers listening into the hearing will be disappointed if they are expecting the full hearing. Let’s hope that the PF may seek leave to withdraw the petition.
Craig writes: “ A further thought. Living here in Edinburgh I find it absolutely infuriating that we have a major street named after the genocidal sadist the Duke of Cumberland. (Yes, Cumberland Street is specifically named after him).”
——————
“If you had seen this toast before it was made,
You’d lift up your hands and bless marmalade!”
(Adapted – see note below*)
LÀN-BHRACAIST SHASANNACH
Ubhal an dearbh-aithne, bruanach air teanga,
mar spruan cho fuadain ri tartan an tiona,
no aran-coirce ro thana fo sgithinn làn ìme.
Ar fiaclan-brèig’ a’ cur drèin gun chlì oirnn.
Liùg cnuimh gun chagar a-steach air ar cluais.
Chagainn i gu slìogach ar n-eanchainn na ruideal.
Tro mhogall nan toll sgiolc smaogail ar smuain.
Am moll sgaoilt gu mall ann am meall air a’ ghreideil.
Beul bochd air a’ phoca ga bhòcadh le càth.
Cridhe crìon na chriathar a nì liath gach silean.
Gun gin a’ ginideachadh air cloich-ghràin an làir.
Teanga tofai-bò a’ suathadh ar bilean.
An reasabaidh dùthchasach air a chur suarach:
Thalla fàileadh ceò-mòna, ’s blas cànan ar sinnseir!
Làn-Bhracaist Shasannach, stòbh Bhreatainn a Tuath:
Bheir isbean Chumbarlainn buaidh air ar truinnsear!
FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST
The apple of identity crumbles on the tongue
as shortbread from a tartan tin
or oatcake too thin to bear the buttered blade.
(Our dentures fix their nerveless grin).
Some worm by ear insinuated
hath drilled our brain into a riddle.
Each kernel of thought drops through a slot.
A glut of glume bestrews our griddle.
From ransacked mouth the husks still spill.
From cankered core pour hollow pips.
All fail to germinate on half-baked floor.
A tongue of Highland Toffee licks our lips.
Native recipes we scorn to approve:
No peat-smoke reek nor teuchter’s Babel!
Full English Breakfast on North British Stove:
Cumberland sausage will command our Table!
———
* Couplet adapted from:
“Had you seen these roads before they were made.
You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade.”
Sir Walter Scott quotes it somewhere, but the apparent attribution is to Major William Caulfeild (sic), who took over from Field Marshall George Wade (1673-1748) with road, bridge, and fort construction in the North of Scotland, optimising mobility of British troops in viciously subduing Jacobites. In 1725 Wade had been appointed “Commander in Chief of His Majesty’s forces, castles, forts and barracks in North Britain”. Cf obvious connection of placenames Fort William, Fort Augustus, and Fort George with military commander Duke of Cumberland, Prince William Augustus (1721–65), third son of George II. Cumberland was of course nicknamed “The Butcher” for his atrocities in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden (1746).
Regarding the military “mores” of the period, here are extracts from a 2005 ‘BBC History Magazine’ article by Professor Rab Houston, chair of modern history at St Andrews University:
“The Duke of Cumberland (Prince William Augustus, 1721–65) showed his wickedness in many ways, not least in his contempt for opponents and for his own men who failed to live up to his strict standards. He showed a particular disdain for the defeated Jacobites after the battle of Culloden in 1746, who he regarded as cowardly, dishonourable and undeserving of mercy. Thus fleeing soldiers were pursued and slaughtered while the wounded could expect no help except to be shot, bayoneted or clubbed to death. At a time when the etiquette of warfare was considered very important, Cumberland was able to dispense with it by labelling the Highlanders as inhuman savages. He even condemned officers who had shown mercy to the Jacobite soldiers after the battle, when his orders were to give no quarter. […] In effect, he used the full power of the fiscal-military British state to commit genocide on the mainland of Britain. He was the equal of Cromwell in Ireland, terrorising a whole people into submission.[…] The Duke’s successes were recognised by his being voted an income of £40,000 per annum in addition to his revenue as a prince of the royal house. It was, in effect, blood money earned by war crimes. While much of Cumberland’s reputation rests on the immediate events surrounding Culloden, he was also a strong advocate and savage pursuer of the suppression of Highland culture. He left behind him the largest army of occupation ever seen in Britain in order to pacify the Highlands while permanent fortifications were built. He contributed to a policy of cultural imperialism by disarming the Highlands, abolishing the wearing of Highland dress, suppressing certain surnames linked with the rebellion and seeking to extirpate Catholicism from the land. He even suggested transporting whole clans like the Camerons and MacPhersons to the colonies – a sort of ethnic cleansing.”
http://www.historyextra.com/article/feature/10-worst-britons-history
MoA June 9th 2020: “How To Change The Meaning Of Monuments Without Removing Them” https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/06/how-to-change-the-meaning-of-monuments-without-removing-them.html#comments
You are definitely thinking too much!
Intellectualizing during mob-rule is pointless. This is simply reactionary politics to mob and/or tweeter rule.
Perhaps if everyone “would bend the knee”, it would all be forgiven? Wishful thinking.
I think, Mr Murray, you should ultimately judge people not by what they say but what they do.
I know qualified doctors who have openly approved of ‘breaking people’ using psychological torture. For me, there is no question they should be struck off and the whole Medical Establishment, from the BMA to the GMC, all the Royal Colleges and all the major teaching hospitals should be dismembered lock stock and barrel if they support such heinous individuals. By supporting them, I mean paying them to continue working whilst holding the repulsive views they hold and working for the psychopathic UK security services whilst ‘fronting’ as a doctor. Doctors do not put fit and healthy people under surveillance without consent or if they do, they must be struck off. Doctors do not employ people on slave labour, for if they do, they are not doctors, they are slave owners. Doctors do not support psychopathic murderous politicians, because if they do, they condone very great harm to human beings, the most flagrant contravention of the Hippocratic Oath known to (wo)man.
I have known Labour Party supporters who openly campaigned for freedom for Africans whilst treating their own children like employees and slaves. They believe in taking every single decision in that child’s life and they get thuggish, sneering and brutish if such despicable and disgusting attitudes are challenged. Their ‘value’ system is not that of the Labour Party, it is that of right wing fascists. I know where my opinions lie about such individuals. It is not a good judgement. Saying that because you treat several people well justifies slavery of a single person is saying it is OK to rape a woman if you treat other women well. It is OK to murder someone because you are generous to others. We all know what a properly constituted court of law would have to say about such utter rubbish….
So when you consider John Stuart Mill, you should ask not what he said but what he did. His ‘theories’ in his writing do not match his ‘practice’ in the real world of the East India Company. He was clearly a racist, a slave trader and a drug dealer. It is like saying you should read the philosophical treatises of Adolf Hitler, Josef Goebbels etc and disregard the genocidal ‘Final Solution’ programmes for Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, quakers and Slavic people.
You can consider his ideas to be good, but you should not consider the man to be good. The man sold his soul to the devil, turned a blind eye to what his philosophy would term absolute evil and happily earned his living sleeping with the devil.
Trust me, when you are confronted by people like that, they are really, really nasty in reality. They can be charming, full of bonhomie, as long as you are deferential and subservient. But act like a free man and they will crush, destroy, control and be generally malignant.
It is an odious type of humanity that lives out its life that way.
But it is far, far more common than you might think.
It occured to me yesterday that the court might have written to ask you to remove something from your blog or tweets but it was intercepted by someone who had hacked into your account.
In the era of the Illustrated London News, or before, who would have known about atrocities committed abroad? It must have been a huge shock to General Betrayus that his igniting of civil war in Iraq by sectarian false flags would fail because of herd immunity to fake news. Modern technology providing communications that meant the victims knew the perpetrators even before the events.
Our Neo-liberal masters cannot put the technological genie back into the bottle which allows the world to know what happened in a court virtually immediately.
Today is the day the person who rubbed the bottle gets sentenced. Who’d have thought the magic of the internet could be turned against the court faster than the court could get its own propaganda into print?
There’s a shocking turn of events.
All the best for Court Craig
Stay Srong
Slavery was the way of the world, for centuries, for millenia before the British Empire or indeed the EIC or the like came along. There was little difference in ethnicity between slaves and slaveowners, nor was the distinction absolutely inviolable, enslavement was a form of booty, where before the advent of cities (and defenses), personal wealth, there was little of value either coin or food worth pillaging, soldiering was a principal occupation, the victors often enough slaughtering all, if not then the men were typically slaughtered, to a man, and the better-looking and younger women only taken as slaves. All right at some very late point, almost recent history, it became a business and made some rich, but it’s not a touchstone of anything. Nelson atop his column is almost of a parody of early (misguided, mad) pagan and post-Christian asceticism. How far back are you willing to go in this blame game, soon enough none on this earth will be free of guilty associations. All this maudlin angst outpouring is hilarious to behold, any student of say Roman history would be convlulsed with mirth and incomprehension, for it’s a manifestation of insanity, what’s past is past, stop beating yourself up over things you’re not responsible for and that no-one can ever or should apologise or atone for. Human nature hasn’t and isn’t ever likely to change, slavery took on, takes on new forms. Unless you fancy yourself yet another messiah, and even then, such self-flagellation is unappealing to behold. Get off your knees.
There were lots of forms of unfreedom, there were lots of forms of child abuse, doesn’t make modern forms of either moral does it? Casuist.
The more I think about it the less I like the idea of statues depicting specific individuals. Nobody is ‘all good’ or ‘all bad’.
I’m really glad the Colston Statue has been removed. I lived in Bristol but never saw the statue and was quite shocked one even existed. I shouldn’t have been surprised really.
In the coverage of this incident I learned there had been a long process attempting to remove the statue or at minimum add a plaque with more details about the history. All blocked by Tories in the Bristol local government.
People shouldn’t have to resort to acts like this, but I understand why they felt compelled to seize the opportunity in this case.
Indians saw JS Mill and western liberalism clear as a bell. See Pankaj Mishra’s From the Ruins of Empire.
Of nuance there was little …
How Britain Stole $45 Trillion from India
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/britain-stole-45-trillion-india-181206124830851.html
The Bengal Famine of 1770: how the East India Company engineered the worst genocide in human history for profit
https://yourstory.com/2014/08/bengal-famine-genocide
Joel,
You do realise Mill was not born yet in 1770? ANd I can’t remember anything useful on Mill in Mishra, though I will look.
Come on, Craig. John Stuart was a smart cookie. He knew exactly what game he was involved in and the Indians certainly did.
That’s just the looting. As regards the Millsian liberal take on millions starving to death, even next door in Ireland ….best we dont go there.
Yes
Although we must always accept some personal responsibility for what we do, a big problem, I think, is that we grossly overestimate our autonomy in the face of the higher-order, more inclusive, organisation of society. This organisation is largely invisible to us, concealed by myths of ‘individual choice’, ‘democracy’, the intelligence of the ‘market’, etc. The result is that we personify political forces, failing to recognise that we are largely in their thrall. As Marx says in Capital:
“I do not by any means depict the capitalist and landowner in rosy colors. But individuals are dealt with here only insofar as they are personifications of economic categories, the bearers of particular class-relations and interests. My standpoint, from which the development of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he remains, socially
speaking, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them.”
Moon of Alabama expresses a similar view to Craig’s
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/06/how-to-change-the-meaning-of-monuments-without-removing-them/comments/page/2/#comments
I think the point here is that we should not be too hasty to judge the past by our own morals, but to consider the context of the times and the common ideas, beliefs and practices of those times.
“The controversial monuments should be reminders that we must learn and teach history in a way that is not one sided or glorifying. Setting them into context or countering them with new art is a better way to do that than to just throw them aside.”
Our own modern Western context should have been set by the UN’s 1948 “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, approved by Western societies’ governments, yet largely ignored in practice.
https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html
Tommy Sheridan has a view differing from Craig’s, at least in some cases:
https://sputniknews.com/columnists/202006091079567981-tearing-down-symbols-of-slavery-and-racism-should-be-applauded/
“The argument that such statues are necessary links with heritage and history is sterile and ignorant. Sure, context is everything in life and in Colston’s day human slavery was legal and widespread.
So was the practice of children working in coal mines, cotton factories and in the cleaning of chimneys. It happened and should be recorded for the purposes of education and historical accuracy in books and museum exhibitions but it was wrong and to celebrate such individuals with statues of honour is insulting to the many thousands who suffered and perished.”
“we should not be too hasty to judge the past by our own morals”; sophistry, who invented the Judaeo-chris moral tradition, Warren Hastings?
It is indeed worrying that generational sin is being raised as reasons for disliking statues. There is much I disagreed with my father on, but most were due to his upbringing and mores. He also changed and grew and was a good man. But I am not him and I live and die by my own words and actions.
I blame the religious books which are full of people and cities and countries being damned to the seventh generation for some imagined sin.
“I blame the religious books which are full of people and cities and countries being damned to the seventh generation for some imagined sin.”
Also, with texts about motes and beams, perpetuating the fallacy that the messenger is somehow connected with the message. So what if J.S.Mill didn’t live up to his own ideals? How does that invalidate them? J.S.Mill is not a man remembered for his actions, but his opinions. If we knew nothing of his actions, if, apart from his writings, he had lived and died in total obscurity, then it wouldn’t matter what he had done. Knowledge of his deeds doesn’t change his writings, so why should it change or opinion of them?
The differences between his writings and his work indicate he was a schizophrenic or a hypocrite, or both.
If he was ‘ahead of his time’ in knowing what was the right path to take, yet turned a blind eye to the atrocities of the East India Company from which he doubtless earned a pretty packet, his moral burden is far greater than the simple foot-soldier taking HM’s shilling.
The fact that he didn’t write about his ‘work’ indicates he knew full well it was morally indefensible.
Collective guilt is an inherently facist idea.
I hope it goes well for you today Craig; your article above was as usual entertaining and educating.
Best wishes
Craig
Context is everything. And todays atrocities are being committed and people who have committed terrible crimes by causing the deaths of thousands and by literal looting of other countries’ resources are still being rewarded in our society with our mores.
The lesson is that what is acceptable is not what is morally or ethically right, it is what the system determines and who the system appoints to enforce these standards, and without a system based on real equality imperialism will continue in one form or another with different levels of exploitation.
Thankyou Craig for a very thoughtful piece.
I disagree, however, with you and Keir Starmer about the rightful place of Mr Colston. Mr Starmer may be condemning Mr Colston’s bath for reasons of policy, as for you I don’t know whether it’s policy or belief, but although I entirely agree with you and Bayard at 21.11 yesterday about times changing, I feel such rage at the continual and ongoing hypocrisy about race in the Western world that I hail and welcome the demonstrators. Colston may have done some worthy things in the UK – founding schools and hospitals etc., and I understand the difficulties faced by police officers whose mistakes are often down to lack of or inappropriate training for very difficult jobs, but enough is enough already.
Pity it wasn’t Keir Starmer who got to ‘sleep with the fishes’.
Your piece reads like the lines of a paid apologist. Rape, murder, torture and the like have never been viewed as acceptable. So no matter how much they reflected the mores of the times they happened, it’s a miserable case for mitigation.
Monstrous regimes have existed in recent times not so much because of the brutal way they operated, but because too many took the benefits from that regimes silver and looked away.
Only two hundred years ago Wellingtons cavalry from Waterloo was butchering those on the street demanding the franchise in this country. Am I to just ignore my revulsion of a former Prime Minister of this country whose statues and memorials also exist.
Means never have, nor must they ever be allowed to, justify ends…_
You must be living a very sheltered life. The current mores still encourage looting of resources of other countries in the name of progress and patriotism. This looting maintains our privileged existence and society as a whole praises those who achieve such marvellous improvement in wealth, even saying that ‘the price is worth it’. But the individual is powerless against the system and we all reap some of these ill begotten benefits to a lesser or greater extent.
“Rape, murder, torture and the like have never been viewed as acceptable. ”
So you think that the crowds that attended public hangings were herded there at the point of a bayonet?
Craig’s example of the destruction of the Imperial Palace by Anglo-French forces in 1860 was perhaps a poor one. What happened was unacceptable at the time and was widely condemned however go back a couple of hundred years to the English Civil War and beyond and it would have been regarded as quite normal. The rules of war as they were understood at the time allowed for the victors to help themselves to the other’s property, which would’ve included women, and for the summary execution of PoWs (see Cromwell at Drogheda). Torture and mutilation as a form of punishment was common.
We can look back and condemn such behaviour but is it right to try and whitewash it from memory? I wonder what future generations will condemn us for.
“for the summary execution of PoWs (see Cromwell at Drogheda).”
Ironically, given Craig’s choice of example, it was standard practice in China at the time to kill prisoners of war, to discourage soldiers from trying to escape fighting by surrendering.
“but I do advocate some real information about him in an education centre under the square.”
Exactly. There is no point in airbrushing away our collective history. We need to learn from it. The next stage will be to start destroying books and films because we don’t like the content.
I might also dare to suggest that the UK is only attractive to so many of our BAME immigrant population because of our relative weath and prosperity on the back of our colonial and slave trading past. It doesn’t make it right but there’s no point in closing your eyes to it.
Well Little Britain and Gone With the Wind have already been taken down.
I have seen no comment in the current torrent of statue bashing on the people or organisations who erected the monuments. Statues of Thatcher and Churchill in recent times were not raised and paid for by Left Wing extremists. I can’t see why the protesters can’t see a better outcome in exposing the political gains sought be the sponsors of these statements of belief and to expose the proponents while some change is still possible.