What post-Renaissance historical movement do you feel personally closest to?

[BuckyRea]

I used to be all "ooo-aaahhh, the Enlightenment is totally da bomb" & such like. But lately I'm really feeling far more kindred spirit to the more optimistic and more pure-curiosity-based feelings that go along with the Scientific Revolution. I mean, seriously, would you rather have Baruch Spinoza or William Harvey over to your house for dinner? It's not even close (plus with Harvey you wouldn't have to count the silverware after the guests left).

What post-Renaissance historical movement do you feel personally closest to?

[Dachs]

The reformulated "new" military history since 1990 or so that has placed more of an emphasis on contingency would be my pick.

if you mean something like an intellectual movement, since we at CFC are intellectuals, I'd probably go with Dada, because they were art trolls that somehow also managed to be funny sometimes

[BuckyRea]

Originally Posted by Dachs

if you mean something like an intellectual movement, since we at CFC are intellectuals, I'd probably go with Dada, because they were art trolls that somehow also managed to be funny sometimes

This surprises me, quite frankly. I know you're intentionally provocative in some posts, but I never thought of you as trolling per se.

[Bast]

Romanticism.

[Traitorfish]

The Levellers, a 17th English radical democratic (and, some would argue, proto-socialist) movement. Emerged during the upheaval of the Civil War, and advocated a then-radically egalitarian form of democratic republicanism, with their base in the veterans of the Parliamentarians forces. They had some influence, but were eventually purged when Cromwell sold his soul to reactionary authoritarianism, their organisations dispersed, and their leaders executed or exiled. Centuries ahead of their time, the poor bastards.

Edit: And, yes, you may notice that my sig references a band who seem to share my feelings. The movement is something approaching sainted on the British far-left.

[LightSpectra]

Serious answer: religious pacifism.

Joke answer: ultra-royalism, because nothing relieves social tension like exclusive nobility rights.

[BuckyRea]

Originally Posted by Traitorfish

The Levellers, a 17th English radical democratic (and, some would argue, proto-socialist) movement...

I always get the Levellers confused with the Wycliffians or whatever those proto-Protestants were called in the 14th century. Rabblous raucous English peasants rioting over some anachronistic principle.

[LightSpectra]

Perhaps this thread should've been named "BuckyRea judges your historical interests."

[Plotinus]

Originally Posted by BuckyRea

I mean, seriously, would you rather have Baruch Spinoza or William Harvey over to your house for dinner? It's not even close (plus with Harvey you wouldn't have to count the silverware after the guests left).

There is an account of a disastrously painful dinner party at which Spinoza was a guest, so I suppose Harvey would be preferable, but I don't think you'd want to serve a meat course.

But I don't understand why you would consider one to be "Enlightenment" and the other to be "scientific revolution". The latter was part of the former. The "new philosophy" of Cartesianism and its spin-offs such as Spinozism were inspired, to a large extent, by the desire to accommodate the new scientific approach to the world and its mechanistic explanations of phenomena, which the old Aristotelian philosophy could not handle. Indeed, Descartes himself seems to have discovered the circulation of the blood independently of Harvey.

Originally Posted by BuckyRea

I always get the Levellers confused with the Wycliffians or whatever those proto-Protestants were called in the 14th century. Rabblous raucous English peasants rioting over some anachronistic principle.

You mean the Lollards, but given that they weren't generally peasants, they didn't generally riot, and they didn't hold anachronistic principles, I'm not sure where your confusion stems from.

[Traitorfish]

Originally Posted by Plotinus

You mean the Lollards, but given that they weren't generally peasants, they didn't generally riot, and they didn't hold anachronistic principles, I'm not sure where your confusion stems from.

They were involved in the Peasant's Revolt of 1381, though, or at least John Ball was, and he espoused some fairly radical ideas. Presumably that's the connection he's making?

[Plotinus]

Yes, a Lollard was one of the leaders of the Peasants' Revolt. Saying that that means that Lollards in general were radical agitators is like saying that Methodists are all right-wing Tories, since Margaret Thatcher was one.

[Traitorfish]

Well, given that the only Lollards who really stand out in a general history are Ball and Oldcastle, it's not the greatest leap of imagination to assume a certain radicalism of the movement. Inaccurate, but hardly inexcusable.

[LightSpectra]

How precisely does an actual historical entity hold "anachronistic" principles? The word anachronism refers to a chronological paradox, like how clocks appear in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar when they didn't exist in the time period that the play takes place in.

[BuckyRea]

Originally Posted by LightSpectra

How precisely does an actual historical entity hold "anachronistic" principles? The word anachronism refers to a chronological paradox, like how clocks appear in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar when they didn't exist in the time period that the play takes place in.

I meant it as shorthand for "ahead of their time". Advocating income redistribution 200 years ahead of Marx, or scriptural over papal authority in doctrinal matters 130 before Luther, would examples. Obviously if one is going to be literal minded, no one is ever actually ahead of his time.

[Traitorfish]

Well, except for the Doctor.

[Ajidica]

What was the difference between the Levellers and Diggers? I remember by Euro book talking about both groups but I can't remember any of their differences.

On topic: Probably Romanticism or the reform movements.

[Traitorfish]

Originally Posted by Ajidica

What was the difference between the Levellers and Diggers? I remember by Euro book talking about both groups but I can't remember any of their differences.

The Diggers were an outgrowth of the Levellers- they were officially called the "True Levellers"- who advocated the abolition of real property (that is to say, the private ownership of land) and the establishment of a collectivist agrarian society which stressed the relationship between humans and the land. They were, in many ways, the spiritual ancestors of later anarchist and ecosocialist movements. They established several communes across England, but all were swiftly suppressed by landowners and the state.

[BuckyRea]

Originally Posted by Traitorfish

The Diggers were an outgrowth of the Levellers...

And then they moved Australia & joined the army to beat the Bosch

[Communisto]

Nambla

[Leoreth]

The North American Marlon Brando LookAlikes?