Consent and res publica

As most of you know already, John Locke stands as something like John the Baptist to the political geniuses of the American founding, a prophet of the coming of a never-before-seen constitutional republic. His political teaching became the summary statement of early modern liberalism, in much the same way as Francis Bacon’s earlier teaching on the scientific method helped form the base from which modern science and technology was launched. But though both Locke’s and Bacon’s positions have been controverted in the last four hundred years, Locke found his nemesis in the very next generation in David Hume, a near contemporary of the American founding, who was particularly exercised to see to it that the “Whiggishness” Locke spoke for did not become entrenched in the mind of the British public.

Hume was a severe critic of the state of nature/social contract theory for the grounding of political authority and rights. Central to the contract story is the moral equality of all human individuals, and hence the necessity for consent in government—no one is born with a presumptive right to rule over his fellows. The principle is admirably stated by the Lockean acolyte Thomas Jefferson, who acutely observed that “the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.” Jefferson aimed this shot at the likes of Hume (if not Hume specifically), whom he in his typically bombastic fashion considered an enemy of mankind for the content of his wildly popular essays and magisterial six volume History of England (still very worth reading). Hume’s analysis of the matter led him to this conclusion:

My intention here is not to exclude the consent of the people from being one just foundation of government where it has place. It is surely the best and most sacred of any. I only pretend, that it has very seldom had place in any degree, and never almost to its full extent.

Hume died in 1776, just as things were getting interesting on this side of the Atlantic, and so did not witness the birth of a nation making explicit its embrace of Lockean consent as the center piece of legitimate government. And yet, contra Jefferson, Hume wrote that he considered himself “American in my principles”, while being skeptical of abstract thought, especially political, ideological abstractions. Looking to history for guidance, which is what any self respecting empiricist historian would do, Hume saw no evidence that any group of people had ever gathered, recognized their meager and dangerous prospects as individuals, and consented to cede their individual prerogative to take matters into their own hands and to place their trust in a government to protect their rights. And yet this is almost precisely what the American colonies did vis-à-vis the overbearing George III and Parliament. Declaring that the King was menacing their rights instead of protecting them, they sought to form a government that would protect their rights and be responsive to the principle of consent.

Hamilton, a noted fan of Hume (and like Hume Jefferson’s enemy), counted consent the “pure original fountain of legitimate authority” (Federalist 22), channeling the spirit of Locke as accurately as Jefferson ever did. And though the Wilsonian Progressives and their ideological descendants are wont to claim Hamilton’s patrimony of large ideas for energetic government, and a large scope for it too; they yet have little use for the consent of the governed, preferring the rule of experts to guide the hapless and sadly incapable mass of the people who need to be “nudged”, in Cass Sunstein’s phrase, in order to get to the right conclusions. None of these philosophers and statesmen—Locke, Hume, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson—though distrustful of human frailty and moral shortcomings, were so literally dismissive of the consent of the governed as our present day elites. That the elites of our time, both inside and outside the government of our constitutional republic, eschew the role of the public in the res publica, “the affair of the people” as the ancient Latin has it, is both dangerous and remarkable. This mindset undermines not only the constitution, but the thinking that underpins it; and thus the Lockean natural rights /state of nature /social contract understanding that suffused the thinking of the Founders and yielded the unambiguously best constitution in history, gives way to a Humean theoretical skepticism regarding our own actual beginnings—a most unhistorical and un-empirical view.

But what is that to the dilettantes running the joint, immersed in rationalist abstractions like “History” and utterly oblivious and dismissive of Nature, and Nature’s God?

Francis Bacon, Technology, and Modernity

If you are interested in further reflections on Francis Bacon, the problem of technology, and the crisis of modernity, go to my theological blog, Piety and Humanity. For example, there is this reflection on Perez Zagorin's account of his life in chapter two of his 1998 book, Francis Bacon, the chapter entitled, "Bacon's Two Lives."


Lytton Strachey's question, "Who has ever explained Francis Bacon?," still hangs over Bacon scholarship (Elizabeth and Essex, A Tragic History. Butler Press, 2007; p.9). Perez Zagorin identified the puzzle at the very outset of his book, a study of Bacon's life and thought entitled simply Francis Bacon (Princeton, 1998) :

Francis Bacon lived two separate but interconnected lives. One was the meditative, reserved life of a philosopher, scientific inquirer, and writer of genius, a thinker of soaring ambition and vast range whose project for the reconstruction of philosophy contained a new vision of science and its place in society. The other was the troubled insecure life of a courtier, professional lawyer, politician, royal servant, adviser, and minister to two sovereigns, Elizabeth I and James I, who from early youth to old age never ceased his quest for high position and the favor of the great (p.3).

He could have practiced law, a profession for which he trained at Gray's Inn. Indeed, many suggested that he solve his financial difficulties by pursuing that option, but he simply refused. He could have sought an academic position, but that would not have satisfied him. He desired political office. Though he combined both scientist and politician in his soul, he was fundamentally a man of politics. ...

Read on at "Francis Bacon's Very Political Life." Perhaps you have heard that Bacon was a godly example of devotion to both Christ and science? Perhaps you've heard that he was a selfless servant of enlightenment and human well-being with an inexplicable interest in practical politics? As they say in Brooklyn, "fahgettaboudit."

In addition, there will soon be a post on New York City, dung, and our dance with technology. How can you resist that? Really, it's like seeing Hans Zinsser's Rats, Lice, and History in a used book shop for 75¢ and not buying it. (You wouldn't do that, now would you?)

Progress and Its Discontents

This semester, beginning next week, I am leading six exceptional students at The King's College in a seminar on Francis Bacon's Invention of Modern Politics. We will be exploring Lord Verulam's plan to conquer nature for the relief of our estate, the benefits that have come of it, as well as the problems inherent in it. We will look closely and critically at Bacon's writings--The Great Instuaration, New Organon, New Atlantis, Essays--and then students will research the benefits and moral complications of subsequent technological developments.

Robert Faulkner, in his penetrating work on Bacon's artful and revolutionary project to reshape and redirect Western civilization, Francis Bacon and the Project of Progress, expresses this sober assessment nicely: "Now it seems that a thoughtful citizen of a modern country must be prepared to defend the benefits of progress, or at least to reconsider them while being aware of the defects as well as the advantages" (p.3).

For example, consider email. Most of us depend on it because we find it useful, and so we use it all the time. But we also sense a downside. What is that disturbing impulse we feel to be constantly checking our inboxes. That's not good. John Freeman explores the complexity of the technology in his book, The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox. "E-mail might be cheaper, faster and more convenient, but its virtues also make us lazier, lonelier and less articulate."

Also have a look at "Louis c.k." claiming that Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy. Warning, this is very funny, and you may see yourself in one of the "spoiled idiots" he describes.



He's entertained by the fact that conservatives and Christians find his routine resonates with what they believe. What they like is clearly the call to moderation and contentment. Louis just despises them, but that's a sign that he doesn't understand either what he's saying or the conservatives and Christians. He himself is incoherent. He meant to condemn capitalism in this routine. He explains this to Opie and Anthony. (The second clip is better than the first, but blasphemous at points.) Yet capitalism is the economic system on which he depends for his lucrative career and high flying lifestyle. He also explains that he is not against technology. He just thinks we should chasten our expectations for it and have a little more peace while using it. This thought has clearly hit a nerve with people given the video's "viral" popularity. People are uncomfortably aware that while technology is good, it affects the way we see the world in ways that are morally unhealthy. And that is a subject worthy of study.