Wez
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TM – Jeez, don’t you ever lighten up? Seriously when was the last time you made a joke? Your efforts at rehabilitating the medieval remind me of the historian Michael Wood who attempted to do the same for the ‘Dark Ages’ in Britain. Do you know the series, I loved it as a young man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlK9gyL6RFk&list=PL2vJ5Cg-wlPx8YFlffdCfHSGS9yOt9egz
TM – Where do you get all of your certainties from? You sound so dogmatic all of the time. History isn’t a science and nobody has a definitive description of human development, and probably never will, as new discoveries are being made all of the time. There are certain books that are relevant to certain debates and have to be discussed even if you disagree with them. You said yourself that Calvinism valued hard work and economic diligence and this is something Weber tried to explain in terms of the development of the Christian religion in Europe.
TM – I’m surprised you’ve not come across this famous book by Max Weber: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism
That still doesn’t explain why France had to wait until 1789 for their bourgeois revolution. England had completed its revolution 100 years earlier in 1688. You entirely reject Max Weber’s theories on this subject?
TM – ‘What sense is there in martyrdom?’
Rather ironic coming from someone who calls themselves Thomas More. Incidentally although I agree with you that it’s all political I do think your namesake and many others actually showed great courage and died for what they believed in. Luther, likewise, showed great courage during his own trial and didn’t know that he was to be rescued. Some historians do see the English Revolution as part of the 30 years war but, of course, it became something much more momentous. So why do you think England was so far ahead in political terms than most of Europe (with the possible exception of the Dutch)? You mention Luther can be blamed for this to some degree, especially in terms of German development. Was it the failure of the Reformation in France that caused it to lag behind England, only having its revolution almost 100 years after the English?I notice you haven’t mentioned the fear of Catholicism. Didn’t both William Cecil (during Elizabeth’s reign) and Oliver Cromwell fear invasion from Catholic forces more than they endorsed a particular form of Protestantism? In other words their motivation was political rather than theological? Who has said that Puritanism inspired proto-communism? Did Christopher Hill say that? I know Gerrard Winstanley is regarded by some on the left as a proto-communist but his inspiration seems to have come from his interpretation of the bible and was in the tradition of Watt Tyler. He seems to have rejoined the establishment after it was all over so not a very convincing revolutionary.
So in the English context the Puritans borrowed the Calvinist theology (ideology) for the reasons you mention? From what Protestant sect did the levelers and Diggers (true levelers) acquire their ideology – Anabaptists perhaps? I know the Lutherans persecuted the Anabaptists ruthlessly (Siege of Munster etc.) but were the Puritans more inclusive?
Why do you think Calvinism was more to the taste of the English elite? It was supposed to be more systematic but what specific ideological differences (if any) appealed to the Puritans?
TM – ‘The proto-communists you associate with the Puritans, like the Diggers and Ranters,..’
Yet another straw man, when did I say anything like that in this debate?
‘I never said all or most of the German proletariat were antisemitic, but a majority were, and responded as expected to the scapegoating of the Jews.’
I don’t think that’s correct. I know Goebbels launched a massive questionnaire asking people about this subject and had to repress the results because they did not confirm his hope of mass support for the state’s antisemitic policies.CDM – As fascinating as your history of materialism is, and I mean that sincerely, I’m at a loss to know what it’s got to do with this thread? Also the Reformation only came up because I had to refute one of TM’s many straw-men to the effect that I thought Luther was ‘bourgeois’. As far as I can see nobody has said that the reformation was the work of one man – quite the reverse in fact. As I said there were several Like Hus and Wycliffe who started the criticism of catholicism a lot earlier but because they were relatively unprotected they were suppressed violently. Protestantism was born when rulers found the ideology convenient for political purposes. Getting back to Fascism do you see no historical parallels with the beginnings of the ideology in the 1930s?
TM – The English protestants used a hybrid of many of the sects available. I think it was Cranmer who tried to get them to unite only to find that it was like trying to herd cats. However getting back to the main point it was the Puritans (another loose coalition) that provided the ideology for the English merchants and emerging capitalists to launch the first bourgeois revolution and that would not have been available to them without Luther and his protector. I can’t remember what this has got to do with Fascism? It was only one of your many straw men that I had to burn when you said I thought Luther was bourgeois. Of course other capitalist revolutions used other ideologies, the Enlightenment in France and, ironically, something called ‘Marxism’ in Russia. So I don’t think the ideology chosen is that important. As for the rise of the nation state you make a good case but you must know this subject is highly debated among historians. After all this do you still believe that most Germans in the 1930’s were anti-Semitic?
TM – The German feudal princes adopted Luther and put a spanner in the development of state centralisation,…’
Well it had the opposite effect in England as the Tudors centralized the state using Protestantism as an ideology to confront the Pope and Catholic hegemony. Wasn’t it the same in Germany in the long run? Didn’t the princes independence have a role to play in the formation of nation states once Bismark reluctantly helped to unite them as Germany?TM – You contend that Calvin was a revolutionary and that Luther was a reactionary but without Luther kick-starting the Reformation Calvin would not have existed. His work was based originally on Luther’s and, of course, once the Reformation kicked in he wasn’t burned as a heretic immediately as there were places to hide.
