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Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of natural selection and inheritance to political society
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114 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1872
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About the author
Walter Bagehot
320 books51 followersBritish journalist Walter Bagehot edited
The Economist
and wrote
The English Constitution
(1867), an analysis of the comparative powers of the branches of government.
Walter Bagehot, a businessman and essayist, extensively covered literature and affairs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_...
Walter Bagehot, a businessman and essayist, extensively covered literature and affairs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_...
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 31, 2023
Baghot proposes a stage theory for humankind. It's an advance toward civilization, governed by scientific laws based on Darwinian theory: The strong prevail and are the best and human history is competition between nation and nation, tribe and tribe. He writes that “The energy of civilization grows by coalescence of strengths and by the competition of strengths.”
At the earliest stages of human society, “savages” were ruled by impulse and passion, and bound by custom that pinned them to the present (versus progress). In this era, referencing Carlyle, “‘the ultimate question between every two human beings was, ‘can I kill thee, or canst thou kill me?’” In the second stage, men began to tame themselves (control of passions). They branched out by valuing variability - different ways of doing things, including strengthening the military arts, and moving toward the abstract world, with ideas feeding off of each other. In the third stage, reason has ascended to its primary role seen today. Reason, defined as the transcendence of the here and now (custom, passions), with broader and longer-term interests governed by intelligent end-means coordinations, including how to promote self-interest by war and succeed.
These advances - different ways of doing things in the break from the “yoke” of custom, - were passed along by Lamarckian principles. New ideas leading to progress and strength were passed along genetically, in the sense that the strong survived because of the replacement of animal instinct with reason. But it’s clear that Baghot was not writing about these developments as species-wide traits. The “arrested” civilizations of India, Japan and China never did escape the hidebound world of custom and, thus, never enjoyed the benefits that accrued, in a Lamarckian sense, in Europe. These countries from the East have been and are stuck in time. It is the same with those isolated populations - the island populations such as Australia and the “negro populations of interior Africa” who were removed from the products of reason that comes from the give and take in “the politics of discussion” (which promotes mental development, literally, in a Lamarckian way), as seen most prominently not in Europe per se, but in England especially.
From here, Baghot’s “venerable” and “unchangeable” truths, and his division of humankind into superior and inferior takes on an ominous meaning. In one sense, the developed mind of the Englishman becomes the holder of Truth and “Civilization” that justifies the colonial mentality seen throughout the English empire. From there, it’s a slippery slope as the “struggle” for survival justifies the success of the superior at the expense of the, putative, inferior.
This is not just Baghot speaking for himself. He spoke for the era of Western colonialism, and for those who saw the Western white man as superior in all respects, as justified by evolutionary science. In this vein, William James in his full-blown New England Yankeedom, proclaims Physics and Politics as “a golden little book,” and Woodrow Wilson, in his pre-presidency professor role, wrote a book review that applauded this progression of the superior competitor, as shaped by heredity and natural selection, to the age of discussion and civilization.
Unfortunately, this Baghot perspective pervades modern-day Western thought. In addition to being wrong from the perspective of evolutionary theory (Lamarckian principles), it is parochial thinking in the extreme. There is this presumption that the way of the West is inherently superior to the rest of the world, for it is based on “venerable” and “unchanging” Truth, as well as scientific knowledge. But it is void of interest in and respect for the “way” of different cultures. Worse, drawing from evolutionary theory as it does, the Baghot perspective justifies a moral mission to remake the world in its own image.
Baghot reflects modern Western thought in another sense. His definition of superiority rests on knowledge, and specifically scientific know-how that leads to a greater power over nature (“physics”?) and, as applied, to human betterment. His is a theory of human nature that is being made better and better with each generation. What is missing in that all-pervasive formulation, is that knowledge, as Hume pointed out, is at the service of the passions, and this doesn't change, through time or across cultures. The passions reflect the twin poles of human nature - both self-regarding behavior and other-regarding behavior work for evolution and that’s why both poles and everything in between have survived through time. These poles are built upon and are expanded by culture - the nurture side of the nature-versus-nurture debate. Baghot’s theory has been characterized as one of national character, and the superiority of the Western character and the English character in particular. But the flip side of that characterization is that its self-serving behavior, as reinforced by cultural thought and practice, becomes highly egocentric, and disdaining and exploitative of other cultures.
At the earliest stages of human society, “savages” were ruled by impulse and passion, and bound by custom that pinned them to the present (versus progress). In this era, referencing Carlyle, “‘the ultimate question between every two human beings was, ‘can I kill thee, or canst thou kill me?’” In the second stage, men began to tame themselves (control of passions). They branched out by valuing variability - different ways of doing things, including strengthening the military arts, and moving toward the abstract world, with ideas feeding off of each other. In the third stage, reason has ascended to its primary role seen today. Reason, defined as the transcendence of the here and now (custom, passions), with broader and longer-term interests governed by intelligent end-means coordinations, including how to promote self-interest by war and succeed.
These advances - different ways of doing things in the break from the “yoke” of custom, - were passed along by Lamarckian principles. New ideas leading to progress and strength were passed along genetically, in the sense that the strong survived because of the replacement of animal instinct with reason. But it’s clear that Baghot was not writing about these developments as species-wide traits. The “arrested” civilizations of India, Japan and China never did escape the hidebound world of custom and, thus, never enjoyed the benefits that accrued, in a Lamarckian sense, in Europe. These countries from the East have been and are stuck in time. It is the same with those isolated populations - the island populations such as Australia and the “negro populations of interior Africa” who were removed from the products of reason that comes from the give and take in “the politics of discussion” (which promotes mental development, literally, in a Lamarckian way), as seen most prominently not in Europe per se, but in England especially.
From here, Baghot’s “venerable” and “unchangeable” truths, and his division of humankind into superior and inferior takes on an ominous meaning. In one sense, the developed mind of the Englishman becomes the holder of Truth and “Civilization” that justifies the colonial mentality seen throughout the English empire. From there, it’s a slippery slope as the “struggle” for survival justifies the success of the superior at the expense of the, putative, inferior.
This is not just Baghot speaking for himself. He spoke for the era of Western colonialism, and for those who saw the Western white man as superior in all respects, as justified by evolutionary science. In this vein, William James in his full-blown New England Yankeedom, proclaims Physics and Politics as “a golden little book,” and Woodrow Wilson, in his pre-presidency professor role, wrote a book review that applauded this progression of the superior competitor, as shaped by heredity and natural selection, to the age of discussion and civilization.
Unfortunately, this Baghot perspective pervades modern-day Western thought. In addition to being wrong from the perspective of evolutionary theory (Lamarckian principles), it is parochial thinking in the extreme. There is this presumption that the way of the West is inherently superior to the rest of the world, for it is based on “venerable” and “unchanging” Truth, as well as scientific knowledge. But it is void of interest in and respect for the “way” of different cultures. Worse, drawing from evolutionary theory as it does, the Baghot perspective justifies a moral mission to remake the world in its own image.
Baghot reflects modern Western thought in another sense. His definition of superiority rests on knowledge, and specifically scientific know-how that leads to a greater power over nature (“physics”?) and, as applied, to human betterment. His is a theory of human nature that is being made better and better with each generation. What is missing in that all-pervasive formulation, is that knowledge, as Hume pointed out, is at the service of the passions, and this doesn't change, through time or across cultures. The passions reflect the twin poles of human nature - both self-regarding behavior and other-regarding behavior work for evolution and that’s why both poles and everything in between have survived through time. These poles are built upon and are expanded by culture - the nurture side of the nature-versus-nurture debate. Baghot’s theory has been characterized as one of national character, and the superiority of the Western character and the English character in particular. But the flip side of that characterization is that its self-serving behavior, as reinforced by cultural thought and practice, becomes highly egocentric, and disdaining and exploitative of other cultures.
August 9, 2024
A CLASSIC APPLICATION OF "SOCIAL DARWINIST" PRINCIPLES
Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) was a British businessman, essayist, Social Darwinist and journalist; this 1872 book is subtitled "Thoughts on the application of the principles of 'natural selection' and 'inheritance' to political society."
He states, "To sum up---LAW---rigid, definite, concise law---is the primary want of early mankind; that which they need above anything else, that which is requisite before they can gain anything else. But it is their greatest difficulty, as well as their first requisite..." (Pg. 11)
He says, "I want to bring home to others what every new observation of society brings more and more freshly to myself---that this unconscious imitation and encouragement of appreciated character, and this equally unconscious shrinking from and persecution of disliked character, is the main force which molds and fashions men in society as we now see it." (Pg. 48)
He observes, "In a former essay, I attempted to show that slighter causes than is commonly thought may change a nation from the stationary to the progressive state of civilization, and from the stationary to the degrading. Commonly the effect of the agent... is considered as operating on every individual in the nation... [But] there is a second effect... a new model in character is created for the nation; those characters which resemble it are encouraged and multiplied; those contrasted with it are persecuted and made fewer. In a generation or two, the look of the nation, becomes quite different." (Pg. 101)
Bagehot's is a "classic" description of the tension between social institutions and innovations, and the historical evolution of social groups into nations.
Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) was a British businessman, essayist, Social Darwinist and journalist; this 1872 book is subtitled "Thoughts on the application of the principles of 'natural selection' and 'inheritance' to political society."
He states, "To sum up---LAW---rigid, definite, concise law---is the primary want of early mankind; that which they need above anything else, that which is requisite before they can gain anything else. But it is their greatest difficulty, as well as their first requisite..." (Pg. 11)
He says, "I want to bring home to others what every new observation of society brings more and more freshly to myself---that this unconscious imitation and encouragement of appreciated character, and this equally unconscious shrinking from and persecution of disliked character, is the main force which molds and fashions men in society as we now see it." (Pg. 48)
He observes, "In a former essay, I attempted to show that slighter causes than is commonly thought may change a nation from the stationary to the progressive state of civilization, and from the stationary to the degrading. Commonly the effect of the agent... is considered as operating on every individual in the nation... [But] there is a second effect... a new model in character is created for the nation; those characters which resemble it are encouraged and multiplied; those contrasted with it are persecuted and made fewer. In a generation or two, the look of the nation, becomes quite different." (Pg. 101)
Bagehot's is a "classic" description of the tension between social institutions and innovations, and the historical evolution of social groups into nations.
February 17, 2023
7/10.
September 23, 2010
Physics and Politics by Walter Bagehot (2008)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews