British Liberalism - The Grand Tour

[vinteuil]

... a watchful eye needed to be kept for counterrevolutionary subterfuge undermining the new order..

... ah yes - where is Robespierre when you need him? Or Hébert, or Saint-Just?

[Serial_Apologist]

... ah yes - where is Robespierre when you need him? Or Hébert, or Saint-Just?

Well that is understood, after all, they were bringing in the bourgeois revolution!

[french frank]

Well that is understood, after all, they were bringing in the bourgeois revolution!

Would that be the haute bourgeoisie?

[Serial_Apologist]

Would that be the haute bourgeoisie?

Nah, just the 'king bourgeoisie!

(I think the haute bourgeoisie are the world's very toppermost oligarks in terms of owning or running the largest multinationals, like Chelsea F.C. and Tescles).

[Richard Tarleton]

Thing is, one could argue a lot of things ... Pastafarians argue that the decline of Pirate culture has led to global warming.

I was drawing people's attention to two works of serious scholarship .

Most Studies/Constructs that look back into the good old days (in this case, pre-agriculture) point out the negative sides of developments since then and try to play down things that could be considered improvements, while at the same time playing down the negative sides of the good old days.

Quite possibly I misunderstood the points made, but as I understood it, the assumption is that pre-agricultural hunters/gatherers lived, as a general population, more peaceful, healthy, happy lives with less strive, less conflict, and a lower child mortality rate, and lives not harmed by infectious diseases.

I would love to know a scientific basis for that which extents beyond make-believe.

There is, as far as I remember (my main area of expertise as a Historian is the early modern period), considerable evidence for diseases ravaging stone age populances at several times.

Historic evidence as to the warmaking of stone age societies as well as nomadic societies is in existence.

Healthy opens quite another can of worms, but we certainly tend to stay alive far longer than we would in hunting societies. (World average, not only our few rich countries)

Not so sure about child mortality rates, haven't come across data for that.

Precisely why I was reluctant to try to summarise a complex argument on a message board. Many if not most of the diseases to which we are heir today arose from our relationship with domesticated animals and fowl. Your reference to Stone Age people - precisely, Neolithic people were farmers (Palaeolithic people were hunter-gatherers, the Mesolithic was a sort of crossover period ).

Jared Diamond explores this at length, in the "Germs" part of Guns, Germs and Steel. Of course the life of a hunter-gatherer could be nasty, brutish and short, but he died of different things - broken limbs failing to set, killed by an animal he was hunting, falling from a tree while collecting honey, etc. , and that's before we start on women and childbirth. I only brought any of this up because of S_A's reference to anthropology, National Geographic etc., because I didn't feel the right conclusions were being drawn - it was just a footnote.

[P. G. Tipps]

The Socialism as envisioned by Marx and Engels in its nature sacrifices individual freedoms to the greater good.

Yes, that was the cunning plan.

The first part was undeniably successful. So credit where credit's due ...

Achieving the second part of the cunning plan proved rather more problematic hence the whole thing collapsed like a pack of cards.

One thing for sure, Marx 'n' Engels had little to do with Liberalism in the UK ...

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, that was the cunning plan.

The first part was undeniably successful. So credit where credit's due ...

Achieving the second part of the cunning plan proved rather more problematic hence the whole thing collapsed like a pack of cards.

One thing for sure, Marx 'n' Engels had little to do with Liberalism in the UK ...

I'm looking forward to you producing evidence to back up these statements, otherwise all my hard work has been in vain!

[Richard Tarleton]

I'm looking forward to you producing evidence to back up these statements, otherwise all my hard work has been in vain!

Surely the evidence is the history of the last 150 years, S_A, which only serves to underline the drawbacks to discussing this sort of thing on a messageboard

[Serial_Apologist]

Surely the evidence is the history of the last 150 years, S_A, which only serves to underline the drawbacks to discussing this sort of thing on a messageboard

A messageboard discussion lasting 150 years - blimey: I think I'm out of it!

[P. G. Tipps]

A messageboard discussion lasting 150 years - blimey: I think I'm out of it!

Bit-part forumite ...