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The General Crisis of the 17th Century

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Re: The General Crisis of the 17th Century

#51

Post by pnut »

tomjen3 wrote: post #42
ddlatham wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Confederate States of America held a public vote to secede - do you think it would have passed? If it passed, do you think the United States should have let them secede?

Did the states vote on the issue? Either way I cannot reconcile saying no to them not being allowed to secede with Wilsons 14 points (and, on a personal point, I very much enjoyed my childhood in Southern Jutland, which was one of the areas that voted to join another country after WWI) or even the American revolution. I also can't argue against going to war with them to end slavery but that shouldn't necessarily mean…

Looks like quite soon after the civil war ended, the US Supreme Court ruled that secession was not allowable per the Constitution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White

Re: The General Crisis of the 17th Century

#52

Post by dragonwriter »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #37
applecore wrote: post #3

Interesting concept, although the single most significant event of that era would have to be the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648.

And of our era, 9/11, the beginning of the end of the Westphalian state-based order and signaling a new world order of overlapping authorities and loyalties, from multinational corporations to terrorist organizations. "The Modern Mercenary" by Sean McFate is a good book based on this idea.

9/11 isn't even close to the beginning of the end of the Westphalian order. The increasing domination of multinational corporations, labor organizations, political movements, terrorist organizations, etc., was widely observed and pointed to as evidence of the progressive decline of the nation-state order for many decades prior to 9/11.

Re: The General Crisis of the 17th Century

#53

Post by btilly »

dragonwriter wrote: post #46
btilly wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point do you think that a majority vote should overrule the Constitution? And what are the consequences if it happens? It is worth comparing the US and French revolution. Both happened in the late 1700s. The US wound up with the attitude that the Constitution was sacrosanct and the current democratic will of the people is secondary. France wound up with the belief that what the majority wants should happen. S…

Since the revolution, France has been an Empire twice, a monarchy other than an Empire once, plus the five republics; it has not been each form several times. And the changes to non-republic forms were not through democratic wind of the moment overturning the rule of law. Also, the US had been through at least one change since the revolution parallel to the change between the fourth and fifth republic in France, that…

My count differs. France was an empire under Napoleon 1 from 1804 to 1814, again for a few months in 1815 (and that time he took over due to overwhelming popular support), and again under Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870.

Both in 1815 and 1852, the emperor took power with public support. (Napoleon I invited the soldiers sent to stop him to kill him, and they joined him instead. Napoleon III was democratically elected then changed the form of government.)

There were more monarchies as well. When the Revolution happened it first briefly became a constitutional monarchy before the First Republic. It was made a monarchy when Napoleon fell, then the monarchy was restored after Napoleon fell again.

You make a good point about the adoption of the Constitution in the US. Furthermore it is unfair for me to not note that several of France's changes of government were imposed from without.

But still I've noticed a sharp difference of attitude between what people in different countries believe democracy to be.

Re: The General Crisis of the 17th Century

#54

Post by grkvlt »

JonnieCache wrote: post #22
ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet your own hereditary monarch in 2015 has to be an Anglican.

That's been recently changed. Catholics are now allowed, and men no longer take precedence over women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_Agreement The whole thing is still, to quote Doug Stanhope, "some dungeons and dragons bullshit", but at least its not immutable even today.

Nope, those Married to Catholics are now allowed, but Catholics themselves? Definitely not. And Jews? Muslims? Forget it! "the requirement for the sovereign to be in communion with the Church of England remained"

Re: The General Crisis of the 17th Century

#55

Post by notahacker »

pluma wrote: post #11
btilly wrote: post #2

Regardless of what you think about whether these crises were connected, they did give rise to a rather important idea. At its heart, the idea is that, "I won't kill you for your beliefs if you aren't going to kill me for mine." This may seem like common sense today, but historically we only arrived at it after having plenty of opportunity to deal with the aftermath of people being willing to kill each other for havin…

This is actually exactly how I've recently heard the Peace of Westphalia[0] described (which ended the Thirty Years War in Germany): it established the idea that nations are independent "wholes" with their own laws, religion and politics, and that that's okay. The ideas encoded in the agreement are basically the reason we think of events like the Crimean secession[1] as an unconstitutional Russian annexation regardle…

To be honest, the unwillingness to recognise Crimean secession had a lot more to do with geopolitics than Westphalian constitutionalism. The idea of constitutions guaranteeing the indivisibility of nations faced a lot of challenge in liberal political thought, especially over the past century.

It's why the West generally does recognise the secession of Kosovo but doesn't recognise the secession of Abkhazia, and Russia adopts the reverse position. Not to mention the frankly silly policies adopted by different countries on Beijing/Taipei sovereignty...

Re: The General Crisis of the 17th Century

#56

Post by agumonkey »

norea-armozel wrote: post #16
lkrubner wrote: post #12

There are some interesting comparisons between (what the economist Tyler Cowen refers to as) The Great Stagnation Of 1973-now, and The Really Great Stagnation of 1650-1740. Restraining the comparison to the English speaking nations, we can say: 1.) Both episodes begin with a cultural revolution that has no precedent (the arrival of militant Protestantism versus the arrival of the counter-culture of the 1960s) 2.) Bot…

It probably ends with commercial fusion power or a similar technological gain on power generation. Cheap power makes most of the stuff we use or make much cheaper. Which leads to a major change in the living standard and expectations (imagine access to electricity being seen as a right since power generation would outstrip demand if something like fusion became viable).

I believe that with internet and open source idea, most human needed knowledge is free. What you need is cheap energy to realize what you want from it.

Re: The General Crisis of the 17th Century

#57

Post by pjc50 »

btilly wrote: post #44
jotm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, I think if people seceded by a real public vote, they should be allowed to, regardless of what the constitution says. People in a region voted to be independent, hence they are, they're their own nation. Forbidding that is a violation of their basic freedoms. Now, I do think that Russia influenced the Crimean vote and plunged Ukraine into chaos, but if it was an honest, impartial vote, they should be allowed to s…

At what point do you think that a majority vote should overrule the Constitution? And what are the consequences if it happens? It is worth comparing the US and French revolution. Both happened in the late 1700s. The US wound up with the attitude that the Constitution was sacrosanct and the current democratic will of the people is secondary. France wound up with the belief that what the majority wants should happen. S…

You should at least take into account all the countries that seceded from the colonial empires in one form or another. Including Ireland.

Re: The General Crisis of the 17th Century

#58

Post by pjc50 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #52
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And of our era, 9/11, the beginning of the end of the Westphalian state-based order and signaling a new world order of overlapping authorities and loyalties, from multinational corporations to terrorist organizations. "The Modern Mercenary" by Sean McFate is a good book based on this idea.

9/11 isn't even close to the beginning of the end of the Westphalian order. The increasing domination of multinational corporations, labor organizations, political movements, terrorist organizations, etc., was widely observed and pointed to as evidence of the progressive decline of the nation-state order for many decades prior to 9/11.

Yeah, you could date it from any time from the end of WW2 onwards, with the establishment of transnational institutions.

Re: The General Crisis of the 17th Century

#59

Post by anigbrowl »

btilly wrote: post #44
jotm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, I think if people seceded by a real public vote, they should be allowed to, regardless of what the constitution says. People in a region voted to be independent, hence they are, they're their own nation. Forbidding that is a violation of their basic freedoms. Now, I do think that Russia influenced the Crimean vote and plunged Ukraine into chaos, but if it was an honest, impartial vote, they should be allowed to s…

At what point do you think that a majority vote should overrule the Constitution? And what are the consequences if it happens? It is worth comparing the US and French revolution. Both happened in the late 1700s. The US wound up with the attitude that the Constitution was sacrosanct and the current democratic will of the people is secondary. France wound up with the belief that what the majority wants should happen. S…

Eh...things would have been very different if the US had to remain inside roughly the same boundaries it had at the time of its founding, rather than having an entire continent to expand into.

France has been through multiple Republics but hasn't really had a huge civil war since the French revolution, and I don't think you can blame France for all the instability brought about by external aggression (Franco-Prussian War, WW1 & 2) notwithstanding France's own missteps. Again, the US is in the happy geographic position of only have 2 immediate neighbors, both of which are substantially weaker in military and economic terms and both of which it had already beaten in war.

I do think there is something worthwhile to the way the US Constitutional system operates, and that the difficulty of amending the Constitution has been a good thing overall. But to ascribe the countries' very different histories to legal structures alone without considering geopolitical and economic differences is a bit facile. One might as well argue that France had existed in approximately the same territory for nearly 2500 years while the US has only been in existence for about 1/10th of that time - it's approximately true but not really informative.

Re: The General Crisis of the 17th Century

#60

Post by amyjess »

lkrubner wrote: post #12

There are some interesting comparisons between (what the economist Tyler Cowen refers to as) The Great Stagnation Of 1973-now, and The Really Great Stagnation of 1650-1740. Restraining the comparison to the English speaking nations, we can say: 1.) Both episodes begin with a cultural revolution that has no precedent (the arrival of militant Protestantism versus the arrival of the counter-culture of the 1960s) 2.) Bot…

> arguably, this is an area where the analogy breaks down, as nothing of the last 50 years seems to match the importance of Newton or Boyle

I'd argue that the ongoing computer revolution matches that. While, true, our knowledge of proper science hasn't advanced compared to what Newton, Boyle, et al. have done, our advances in engineering have more than made up for it. Personal computers, the Internet, and smartphones have changed the world like nothing else.

> freedom from racial discrimination being the struggle of recent times

For that matter, let's also add the ongoing culture wars, including the de-emphasizing of religion in everyday life and the struggle for LGBT rights.

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