A Historical Dinner Party

First, let me introduce myself and this blog. I want to set up a blog to simultaneously follow and develop my interest in the way in which the world works. That all sounds pretty vague, I know, but this project is to some extent undefined. That being said, I would be lying to claim that this means I have no specific interests in fields of study. I, for example, have a particularly deep interest in History and Politics. This of course means I may focus more on that than anything else, but it doesn’t mean you will be hearing about other key interests of mine like Economics or Philosophy on this blog.

“How best to introduce oneself to a blog?” is a question that I have been thinking a lot about recently (with me starting a blog and all) and I think I have an answer – albeit one that has been, like many good ideas, stolen (from my history teacher). I want to introduce myself intellectually to you all, but keep it light, fun and readable. So I have set myself a challenge:

“If you could have 7 figures from history around for a dinner party, who would they be, why would you invite them, and what would you ask them?”

Here is my answer –

This is a tricky question, and initially I created a table that I was unsatisfied with. I remade it, and think it is now good. A lot of this is thoughts related to the individual or points of interest and arguments that outline who I am and what I stand for – rather than specific reasoning of why I invited the individual.

Firstly, I want to invite a personal hero of mine, and I would invite him because he is my hero, not because of the questions I could ask him. I want to invite Edmund Burke. Strong words and strong implications of my political views are implicit here – but let me say a bit more before you pass judgement, positive or negative. Burke is the quintessential traditional conservative and in his essence questions the ability for the rational to be applied in the generality to society and social constructed institutions. Burke is opposed to unnecessary change, but willing to accommodate it if necessary and justified. He stands against the idea that humans have the capability to know what is desirable in general within society or create a rationally derived system of societal management. He trusts the experts, because they more than anyone know what will work in a particular situation – having spent their entire life devoted to the art of understanding one thing. He puts his faith in tradition, because imbued with ‘prejudice’ (as he unhelpfully calls the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom in institutions) it puts restraint on the individual to remake history in a flawed way that will likely harm others. His vision of society raises the fact that humans are flawed above the fact that humans can be evil.

There is a lot of truth in this I feel – it is interesting that Marxist and Anarchist inevitability have both more or less become irrelevant to modern Marxist discourse, and it seems that the question of why can only be explained by conservatism. The certainty that traditional Marxists or Anarchists took for granted about the nature of society and history has more or less crumbled with an unexpected U-turn in the economic conditions of the proletariat (if you can call the those on lower incomes necessarily proletariats anymore). The conclusions that we draw from this – things do change, and it is silly to overemphasise the extent to which we can predict the way in which human life and society works are fundamentally conservative in character.

Similarly, conservatism is crucial for historical development in a different way. It is important that we recognise that we are flawed if we are to have a debate about what we value. This, for me implies a personal commitment for both tolerance and understanding different points of view, for we cannot and should not oppress those who may be equally as right as anyone else. If there is a right answer it is important to consider and discuss the detail to make sure the answer approximates that truth. This means slow, gradual change that reacts to new assumptions of what is right and wrong, which occurs as a result of public discourse. Despite this, a good government is cautious not to bend too far towards public opinion too quickly – for fear of confusing changes in the basic assumptions of what is right and wrong with fickle, quickly shifting public opinion that only indirectly shows us a distorted view of the truth. Assuming that our morals and understanding tends to get better with discourse, this seems to self-evidently be the best way of conducting government.

Conclusion: I am a conservative who would like to meet his hero. I would be interested to see how much I agree with him – I wouldn’t mind if we disagree, I hope that I have shown that I am a conservative not because I like the badge, but because of long personal deliberation.

Second, I want to invite someone who would genuinely be someone you would want to invite to a dinner party. Sure to be the centre of attention and provide countless opportunities for interesting conversation, I would invite Leon Trotsky.

Why Trotsky? The basic premise is I think he is a genuinely rare political and historical force. Trotsky was a very interesting character – like Lenin, he is one of those few figures who both made attempts to form and practise an ideology. He united the conceptual task of the formation of an ideology with the practical one of attempting to implement it. As a result, he is something of an exception to the maxim that ideas rarely shape history directly. He was a great speaker, and someone who knew the ins and outs of political ideology so well that he was able to delay the signing of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk by a considerable length of time by discussing with the German representative the merits of Marx’s interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy for days on end. The unity of the practical and philosophical skills are shown here – a political victory of delaying the signing of the peace through philosophical argument. Obviously, as would be the case with many who tried to balance these two challenges, he was limited in his capacity to pursue both – where were his political skills in the later years of his life when he was outmanoeuvred by the politically brilliant Stalin, and to claim that he was as influential in formation of the realm of political philosophy as Lenin or Marx is certainly an exaggeration.

I would ask Trotsky about this careful balance that he had to perform, i.e. with the twin forces of what you think is moral in the abstract sense, and what you are actually going to do about it when state power is at your fingertips. This brings up an obvious question – why Trotsky, not Lenin? Isn’t he exactly the same sort of unique historical force but just with more influence? You would be right to ask me that, and to be honest it was a tough call. But honestly, I will chose the man that reads French literature in Politburo meetings, sorry Lenin, but Trotsky is just a more interesting character.

Who is next? Adolf Hitler? Did I just invite Hitler to my dinner party? Yes. Why the hell would you invite Hitler to a dinner party with a Jewish Communist? Are you a barbaric fascist? These are all potentially good questions, let me answer them.

Well yes, to clarify I would invite him. The idea would be to hold him to account and ask the tricky questions that we can’t bare to face up to. I think it is important to do this. If the Holocaust can happen, it is important to understand what the forces are that shaped our descent into such dire straits, and how, in the future we avoid this. A fair criticism to this point may be that this is such a cliched argument that it hardly bares talking about. But I think we should take a closer look at this interpretation of history. I think within this argument is one of the key reasons why history has so much value as a subject.

To understand this, let me make clear up a few things. There are within history what I like to call ‘boundaries of the conceivable’, these are the circumstances under which we live and provide us with the ability to do certain things as individuals living within a historical period. These may be found in certain restrictive ways of thought, economic conditions or political structures. Some of these barriers are quite clearly outlined (albeit in French!) in Michel Fouquet’s works as well as the general thrust of postmodernism. It must be noted that not all of these barriers are about the development of thought, some are political, social or economic for example – one argument would be that it was politically inconceivable for the basic structure of Franco’s regime to continue for much longer, because of changes in the composition of society, so Adolfo Suerez and the Monarchy were operating within a relatively strict historical straightjacket. Similarly, reforming the Tsarist regime was also a necessity for Stolypin because the changes in the composition of the structure and pressures within both agrarian and urban regions presented endemic problems for the Tsarist monarchy that threatened its destruction if structural reforms were not implemented. It is the combination of this ‘boundary of the conceivable’ and individual actors that determine how history will happen. Individual actors have a significant degree of steering power within these ‘boundaries of the conceivable’, but they can only steer the ship between the room that is created between competing historical constraints of conceivability.

It is really important, therefore, to understand what these boundaries are, and how best they can be best understood in order to form successful future policy or action – because ultimately one has to understand them if they are to negotiate them. I believe history provides us with the opportunity to best understand this interplay – it gives us so many case studies of successful and unsuccessful political actions, giving us an understanding of how humans act. History also allows us to move out of the narrow context of a specific period of time, to understand historical forces in the generality rather than as specific influences shaping current events. This understanding cannot be reduced to words on a page, but rather comes from deep experience of how humans react to historical forces and change. If people took history more seriously, we would better be able to forge future events due to a better understanding of them, and therefore have far greater control of how society works. So bringing this small detour back to Hitler – with a better understanding of the forces that created Nazism, individual actors will be better able to understand the threats of something similar.

So what would I ask Hitler – well I would want to know whether he felt personally responsible for the Holocaust. I would like to ask him what his account of how it happened is. For the man who did the most morally reprehensible thing in history, I think these are the two most important things to ask. I would like to go further into this, and will do so in a future post.

So who is fourth? My fourth individual is sure to cause unnecessary conflict, with a unique personality and similarly unique ideas – reflecting a personal love for Romantic 18th Century philosophers, I would invite Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Rousseau took almost pride in his ability to spurn good friends and alienate those who had been kind to him. Among those he showed immense ingratitude towards were David Hume and Frederick the Great, both of whom gave extraordinary and unnecessary generosity to Rousseau in times of need. He was a very tricky individual – and I am sure Rousseau would provide an additional element of dynamism and interest to an atmosphere which already has a lot of it. All this being said, I think what is most impressive about Rousseau is the scope and breadth of his works and influence.

Rousseau genuinely changed the direction of late 18th Century political thought, developing a novel theory that would be extraordinarily influential in its own right. His most important, but no means only contribution towards political philosophy was his legitimisation of the state via the ‘General Will’. In essence, Rousseau believes we share a ‘general will’ because we share in common with others an intrinsic sense of what is good and bad. As a result, we should consent as individuals for the state to take away our nominal freedom if it is acting with this general will. This is because, as the will is common to us all, it is shared by us. If someone resists the general will, they can be forced to follow it – i.e. with the state’s coercive apparatus. This therefore legitimises the state. But it also legitimises no limits on the coercive apparatus of the state – because by doing so, you are hindering the general will, and by doing this, you are acting against your own will as well as preventing the state from undertaking what makes it legitimate in the first place.

What amazes me about Rousseau is how he influenced so much. As well as being comprehensible and convincing in their own right, his ideas were taken on by the French revolutionaries in order to justify their secular state with concentrated power. His philosophy also bridged the gap between enlightenment and romanticism –his two most influential novels, Novelle Heloise and Emile, are case and point. Novelle Heloise was the bestselling book of the century – extraordinarily influential, it created an almost cult-like devotion within the literate Upper Bourgeois public. This was the 18th Century version of some piece of edgy teenage fiction, and the beginnings of Romanticism – with a social phenomenon growing around Rousseau’s works of pouring out one’s emotions while reading it, and telling those around you that ‘you won’t get it’.

Rousseau shows something interesting about history – the second reason I find history of so much worth. History encompasses so much. It is defined, but defined as interesting social, cultural, political and economic trends of the past – and what can be reasonably asked about these. As a result, we can study every aspect of Rousseau’s life and influence after death and call it history. We can ask who he was as an individual – the influential, but hard to work with man of letters. We can ask what was his political philosophy and how did it influence later thought. We can ask what political influence he and his work had – from his influence on the nature of education to the massively politically significant event of the French Revolution. We can ask about the social and cultural impact of his work – how did it influence the enlightenment; how did it influence the general public. We can ask what does his work show about the public sphere at the time. I won’t go on, I’m sure you get it – we can ask a lot of questions and these questions are both diverse and take the best bits from other subjects.

History is, therefore a subject through which we can pick and chose the most fascinating parts of the totality of human existence. It integrates, almost necessarily, other fields. If you are not convinced entirely, let me give you an example. How could the French Revolution happen without a fundamental change in basic principles and philosophy? It couldn’t, and even if you wanted to make the case that it could, you would have to understand the ideas that have supposedly been so influential - so any historian must almost necessarily have an interdisciplinary streak that celebrates learning and understanding for its own sake.

So who would number 5 at this eclectic dinner party be? It’s an Italian, and again a Romantic (I would be lying to say that Romantics don’t make good dinner party guests). I hereby welcome Giuseppe Mazzini to rise from his grave and have dinner with me.

I love Italy, I have only been briefly twice (what an elite thing to say!), but there is something intrinsic about it that naturally appeals to me. You will be hearing a lot in relation to me and Italy as I struggle to go to Italy (you know with the coronavirus and all) over the next 18 months. It would thereby be an honour to invite one of the heroes (I’m sure we can get onto whether he is a hero in a later blog post) of the Risorgiomento.

That word struggle is more than anything something that seems to define Italy, especially in relation to Mazzini. Within this word is implied both immense and intense amount of effort and focus, and achievement of something rather unsatisfactory. It is a struggle more than anything for Italy to actually become Italy. It is a struggle to be a nation that has some sense of commonality and community, rather than either just some alignement of sectional interests or only one of local loyalty under some formal state apparatus. The post-Risorgiomento reformers talked about ‘making Italians’, and unlike many nations at the time focused on the non-material achievement of a general belief in Italy rather than material domestic and foreign gain. Mazzini was, although not the sole originator of this idea, someone who developed it quite considerably. He had an undying devotion to the notion of an Italy that was God-ordained to be united – with it being the duty of Italians to regardless of the risks or chances of success to try to unite it. He spurned all ‘materialists’ and moderates who saw the only way to achieve unification as through either appeal to the peasants’ demands about their economic conditions or through appeal to the princely states of the Italian peninsula. Mazzini saw worth in struggle in itself – for Mazzini, failed bloody struggle in the form of revolution was something which Italians could unite around. Without struggle, for Mazzini, success in unification would mean nothing at all. Italy had to be bathed in blood to be Italy. Italy was necessarily, therefore, a greater cause than the individual.

This is all very interesting. Mazzini quite clearly practically set himself up for personal failure, but paradoxically he was extraordinarily successful in the nominal formation of the Italian state. Mazzini created unity and purpose like no other individual in the revolutionary Risorgiomento. He was charismatic and organised – so much so that he was able to make his organisation ‘Young Italy’ dominate the Italian revolutionary movement within barely a year of its founding – even though he had such unorthodox ideas about God’s role in Italy. What’s more, within two years of 1831, there was an estimated 50,000 members of Young Italy – not bad for a movement that has been decried as one that could only appeal to a very narrow subsect of the Italian population. From this position, he was able to utterly dominate the image of what the future Italy should represent. The myth of Mazzini’s Roman Republic of 1849 made it necessary for Italians to take Rome off the Pope and Garibaldi was completely taken in by Mazzini’s brand of Romantic nationalism, further generating myths through his ‘thousand’ who were seen as ‘liberating’ Southern Italy. It was this myth that gave Italy the character it was to have post-1861. Instead of being something comfortable in its own skin, and happy with its own limitations, those in power always felt dissatisfied with the way in which it failed to live up to the heady Mazzini-inspired expectations. The consequences of this are contentious and far reaching, but needless to say it didn’t end well… (I will explain in later posts why I think this)

Sixth at this dinner party is Mary Wollstonecraft. I feel as if something about this choice will be controversial. No, it’s not the fact that it is yet another 18th Century Romantic Philosopher. It is something a friend pointed out to me when I showed them my list – I only have one woman at my dinner party.

Is this bad? Is this good? Should I worry? Should I care? These are all important questions, but it is more important to introduce Mary Wollstonecraft first. Mary Wollstonecraft was, like a lot of my previous guests, someone who had a really interesting life. She was one of the key opponents to Edmund Burke’s view on the French Revolution, and generally an influential player in the ‘Republic of Letters’ of the late 18th Century. She has largely been rescued by the feminist movement from political obscurity, and at the time was not conceived of in anything close to the way in which we currently think of her. Her involvement in highlighting many of the feminist tropes about what would become known as patriarchy and gender was significantly overlooked in favour of her supposedly wild personal life – with her having two children out of wedlock, scandalous at the time.

I could use this as an opportunity to talk about how we should judge past events and moral relativism, but I think that I have already given myself enough of a task through that earlier question about only inviting one woman. I think that I have a good defence for this, although I want to reassure you that obviously this is a problem – and a messy one at that. The first part of my defence is that I think it would be a greater disservice to the goal of gender equality to invite a woman because they are a woman rather than because of their merits. Let me flesh that very simplistic and oft-quoted pronouncement out. I think that although there may be some worth of doing this in a situation where there is no marginal difference between two candidates, I think that to demean any individual as to just a singular part of their natural identity fundamentally prizes an idea of the importance of a sectional and arbitrary identity above the important point of commonality in humanity and the fact of individuality. I think this is wrong. It is perfectly fine for an individual to self-identify with the wealth of cultural baggage that comes from being a women or being a man, for I think that this is important if one is able to achieve self-fulfilment, and important that one has a choice in defining what they are – but this should be something decided by the individual that has the potential of being materially benefitted rather than the individual making the decision to materially benefit another. As a result, individuals being chosen should have some say about how to define themselves, and should not be defined by something arbitrary that they have no control over necessarily. It therefore follows that I should make a decision based off what the individual wants me to make the decision on. In this case, where Mary Wollstonecraft is unable submit a CV to me, I take it to be the totality of her existence appealing to me – i.e. the criteria that I set – and therefore her actions.

The second part of my explanation is about the historical status of women. Women, at least in the majority of history that I have read, and therefore that which I am picking individuals from, tend to be politically less significant than men and generally in a weaker social position than men. This seems to be an unfortunate truism - women have been less prominent. It is also, potentially more significantly, often not convenient to credit women with their historical role due to expectations about the relative societal roles that men and women should play. Often this is especially significant because of the way in which politically significant women are most likely to gain informal political power – i.e. through an intimate nexus of connections with men, and not in a formal political setting. As a result, although I do not doubt that many more women both were more influential than are credited as being – it is very hard to pin specific decisions to specific women and therefore make a decision on who is deserving and not deserving of a place at my table. As a result, both women are historically not in a position to make change, and even if they are they are hidden from view. As a result, I do not have the ability to choose from as many women as men in my decision-making process, and therefore only have one woman present at my dinner table.

The very ironic thing here, is that I have fallen into my own trap. I have defended the fact that I should treat women as individuals, not women just as women – yet my dinner party introduction for Mary Wollstonecraft has turned into just that, a defence and justification of choosing only one woman. I did warn you. I did say this is was going to be very messy!

Enough of philosophers! It is time to have a man of power, a man who has control of things. For the last guest, I must introduce the ultimate pragmatist – both cerebrally and politically effective, Otto von Bismarck deserves a place at my table.

Otto von Bismarck had a grip on things. I think Dominic Cummings is right in this assessment of him. A Prussian Junker – in effect a traditional landlord – he was fiercely conservative and royalist. In fact in 1848, Bismarck seemed one of the least likely people to unite Germany. He, again, a common theme for my guests, was generally a tricky social outsider and eccentric. He quickly rose to prominence as a diplomat with a skill for geopolitical 3D chess. After an intensifying Prussian political crisis in the late 1850s and early 1860s, Bismarck was appointed by an increasingly desperate Wilhelm I to try and break the constitutional impasse. Bismarck broke this impasse, and he did it much like you would imagine Dominic Cummings would do it – with a successful semi-legal bulldozing mechanism that was just politically acceptable enough to prevent serious ramifications. Bismarck kept the liberal Prussian constitution, but in effect gave the powers to interpret the constitution to the monarchy, and produced a doctrine known as ‘Luckentheorie’ to massively increase the monarchy’s prerogative. Bismarck continued to outmanoeuvre everyone. He slowly consolidated de facto control over Northern Germany, defeated Austria in a war by creating favourable diplomatic circumstances, tricked France into becoming an aggressor against Prussia in a war, and eventually and effectively personally united Germany. What’s more, he – against the best interests of other European States - was able to maintain peace with other states for the next twenty years despite the significant threat of a coalition against massive German power. In fact, it is hard to see much failure at all in Bismarck’s 30 years of political prominence in terms of his tactical political skill.

I think this is down to his flexibility in politics. Bismarck didn’t always have a set plan for his political successes, but this doesn’t mean he was unprepared. Bismarck acknowledged the weaknesses of the human condition and the ability to rationally determine future events. Instead, he acknowledged the likely trends and put himself into a position which enabled the greatest flexibility if his initial assumptions didn’t turn out to be correct. In essence – we may not be able to tell the future, but we can know probable and possible futures and prepare for them. From reading a few of his quotes, and looking at a few of his tactical backtracks it can become easier to see this tendency through what seems like genius. If you are not convinced, take is from Bismarck himself - Bismarck once said this: “Politics are not a science based on logic; they are the capacity of always choosing at each instant, in constantly changing situations, the least harmful, the most useful.”

I would want to meet this man because of his extraordinary success. I want to see what he can tell me not only about his political strategy, but also about how he determined long term trends and their probable significance. For Bismarck’s (and Cumming’s) strategy of political flexibility given certain probable outcomes, this seems a necessary precondition – and therefore Cummings’ focus of ‘Superforcasting’ seems sensible and well grounded.

So there you are, my seven people. There is significant common ground between many – I would say three groupings of people. Those that have significantly influenced historical events, or influenced historical events in a unique way, through their own skill. This includes Bismarck, Hitler, Trotsky and Mazzini. The second is the anti-rationalists. This is a mix of romantics and conservatives sceptical about our ability to create a rationally devised system for society. This includes Rousseau, Bismarck, Burke and Mazzini. Finally, there have been those that pose interesting questions about the nature of history and our moral relationship to it. This includes Hitler and Wollstonecraft.

I hope that my answer was satisfactory, and hope to be writing more soon,

Yours,

WFF