tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post1082442388455306929..comments2024-03-13T19:49:05.520-07:00Comments on The Adventures of Shylock Holmes: The Long Shadow of DecolonialisationShylock Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446165270035271752noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-50897063790738687962016-10-13T18:49:34.075-07:002016-10-13T18:49:34.075-07:00You do realise that this response again says absol...You do realise that this response again says absolutely nothing of substance. It's how people talk who have an idea of how things work, but cannot articulate it. <br /><br />Again, to avoid us 'going in circles' (going nowhere is more like it), why don't you stop being obtuse and be specific: what and who were the deep state during this decolonisation period; how did they exert influence; what were the consequences... etc?<br /><br />(Please dont come back with a general comment about how the 'Cathedral' did it)<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-75350390417103039802016-10-04T19:22:39.216-07:002016-10-04T19:22:39.216-07:00He actually makes the point himself. Media, academ...He actually makes the point himself. Media, academia, civil service, private philanthropy- all the institutions involved in governance in a system that can be designated imperium in imperio.<br /><br />Until you guys get to grips with the mechanism of imperium in imperio, we are going to go in circles. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-62456698748082397022016-10-04T15:46:00.256-07:002016-10-04T15:46:00.256-07:00Why don't you actually tell us WHICH structure...<i> Why don't you actually tell us WHICH structures and institutions led to this decolonisation of the Indes and WHAT behaviour and conflict arose accordingly? </i><br /><br />Indeed. Personally, I think that this is a non-trivially difficult task, even if you've read Moldbug from start to finish. One can get the big picture brush strokes of puritan holiness spirals, and the tribal conflict between different castes within Britain and America. But getting from there to specifics of the decolonialisation process is not nearly so simple, at least to me. Maybe it is to other people.Shylock Holmeshttp://shylockholmes.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-67360878188129016562016-10-03T21:24:38.174-07:002016-10-03T21:24:38.174-07:00"This is where Hestia linked guys drive me cr..."This is where Hestia linked guys drive me crazy. You have taken this, and then just applied a hazy, hand wavey interpretation. I don't recall Moldbug claiming everything that happened was due to an "attitude" problem. The point he made was that structures and institutions, and the resultant behaviour they encourage, and the conflicts they encode, explain what is going on.<br /><br />This has nothing to do with "will" to govern."<br /><br />What drives me crazy are people who appear to have a real contribution to make to a discussion, attack what is written, and then completely fail to elucidate their position. Your response (despite my agreeing with you), is even more 'hand wavey' than the article.<br /><br />Why don't you actually tell us WHICH structures and institutions led to this decolonisation of the Indes and WHAT behaviour and conflict arose accordingly? And you definitely need to explain how this had nothing to do with the will to govern or lack thereof, as Shylock's last paragraph in his reply seems quite sound. <br /> <br /><br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-17003064450513659922016-10-03T12:34:17.943-07:002016-10-03T12:34:17.943-07:00You know, your critique is actually pretty fair.
...You know, your critique is actually pretty fair.<br /><br />I think parts of the second last paragraph were a bit sloppy and vague, in that they somewhat implied that changes in a will to govern and rule other people were some external, cultural phenomenon driving everything, shifting for mysterious reasons. The other part that should have been explained better was that the will to govern was specifically relating to the will to govern the West Indies, not that the London elites were interested in abandoning power overall. What I had in mind was more a shorthand for characterizing the overall attitude of the London elite – a sort of average opinion, split across the various parts of the spectrum of attitudes and power players. Of course, this change is really about shifting power structures within different groups with different incentives, which happen for the reasons you suggest.<br /><br />Now, you might reasonably say that describing the change in average opinion, rather than characterizing the incentives and beliefs of the smaller groups that make up the average, obscures more than it illuminates, and you’d have a fair point.<br /><br />But on the other hand, that's what Froude is doing. At least up to halfway, where I’m at, doesn’t go into the detail of the inner struggles within British attitudes that drive the changes in the West Indies. And I think there’s a point here. First, this isn’t meant to be a book about political changes in Britain, but about the West Indies. Some of the changes Froude discusses, usually in brief, but he at times he seems to find the shifts themselves somewhat arbitrary and odd (such as in the quote about Gladstone that I just gave you). But more to the point, to a resident of the West Indies, which is somewhat the perspective the book takes, these changes were experienced as an overall attitude coming from Britain, and one which was both external and somewhat arbitrary. They apply for a trade treaty with the US and get turned down, they suddenly get given a constitution in Jamaica and have it taken away again, etc. To an Englishman living in one of the smaller islands, the belief that England is more interested in devolving power to simply be done with it all, rather than fixing the manifest problems on the ground, is one that Froude discusses in a number of places. It’s in this context that a ‘lack of will to govern’ was the shorthand I used for the overall attitude shift.<br /><br />In other words, if you take away the implication that this change is a cause, rather than a description of an attitude that itself had a variety of underlying causes, I still think it’s a reasonable characterisation. Shylock Holmeshttp://shylockholmes.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-15482782929109238072016-10-03T06:15:36.627-07:002016-10-03T06:15:36.627-07:00I have read the book. This is where Hestia linked ...I have read the book. This is where Hestia linked guys drive me crazy. You have taken this, and then just applied a hazy, hand wavey interpretation. I don't recall Moldbug claiming everything that happened was due to an "attitude" problem. The point he made was that structures and institutions, and the resultant behaviour they encourage, and the conflicts they encode, explain what is going on.<br /><br />This has nothing to do with "will" to govern.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-41392502243565294602016-10-03T02:55:17.475-07:002016-10-03T02:55:17.475-07:00You should read the book to find out, as if I quot...You should read the book to find out, as if I quoted the whole thing it would get very long. Froude makes a fairly compelling case that even with the decline of sugar prices, the islands could have been run profitably if governed by competent Englishmen. But the London elite preferred to devolve power, partly out of a belief in the unlimited power of democratic self government to fix problems everywhere, and partly out of a weariness with the whole colonial project. <br /><br />For instance, here's Froude later on Jamaica. Also, these changes occurred after the first attempt at democratic devolution resulted in the Gordon riots:<br /><br /><i>In 1884 Mr. Gladstone's Government, for reasons which I have not been able to ascertain, revived suddenly the representative system ; constructed a council composed equally of nominated and of elected members, and placed the franchise so low as to include practically every negro peasant who possessed a hut and a garden. So long as the Crown retains and exercises its power of nomination, no worse results can ensue than the inevitable discontent when the votes of the elected members are disregarded or overborne. But to have ventured so important an alteration with the intention of leaving it without further extension would have been an act of gratuitous folly, of which it would be impossible to imagine an English cabinet to have been capable. It is therefore assumed and understood to have been no more than an initial step towards passing on the management of Jamaica to the black constituencies. It has been so construed in the other islands, and was the occasion of the agitation in Trinidad which I observed when I was there.<br />...<br />My own opinion as to the wisdom of such an experiment matters little : but I have a right to say that neither blacks nor whites have asked for it ; that no one who knows anything of the West Indies and wishes them to remain English sincerely asked for it ; that no one agitated for it save a few newspaper writers and mulattoes whom it would raise into consequence. If tried at all, it will be tried either with a deliberate intention of cutting Jamaica free from us altogether, or else in deference to English political superstitions, which attribute supernatural virtues to the exercise of the franchise, and assume that a form of self-government which suits us tolerably at home will be equally beneficial in all countries and under all conditions.<br /></i><br /><br />A decline in the will to govern seems like a reasonable description to me.Shylock Holmeshttp://shylockholmes.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-91357145995099057362016-10-02T20:36:12.558-07:002016-10-02T20:36:12.558-07:00Why are you talking about "will" and bei...Why are you talking about "will" and being "bothered" to govern? It makes no sense.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com