It seems unlikely that we can properly understand Lockean liberalism, much less pass an informed judgment upon it, without first meditating
By and large, establishment conservatives defend the legacy of John Locke as if he were one of the apostles and Two Treatises On Government were the truth that sets us free. Meanwhile some dissidents – especially certain Catholics – find liberalism so alienating that they repudiate the Anglo-American heritage altogether and seem even to welcome its prospective annihilation by successive migrant tsunamis. Whatever we make of Locke, however, it is worth recognizing that he is not the only iconic English thinker, nor is liberalism the only authentic thread of English socio-political thought. Furthermore it seems unlikely that we can properly understand Lockean liberalism, much less pass an informed judgment upon it, without first meditating deeply upon the nemesis against whom Locke reacted – the divine-right monarchist, Sir Robert Filmer.
As the preeminent English monarchical theorist, Filmer was targeted by parliamentary forces during the English Civil War and its aftermath, even though he never played an active part in the military side of the struggle. His house was repeatedly looted, his estate subjected to punitive taxation, and he himself eventually imprisoned in Leeds Castle. Following his release he began publishing writings such as Observations on Hobbes’ Leviathan, Observations on Milton, Observations on Aristotle’s Politics, and above all Patriarcha.
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Along similar lines, in his retort to John Milton, Filmer concedes that “kings have been and may be vicious men, and the government of one not so good as the government of another,” but goes on to insist that “it doth not follow that the form of government is or can be in its own nature ill, because the governor is so. It is anarchy, or want of government, that can totally destroy a nation.”
So even if we do not find Filmer’s case entirely persuasive – this reviewer does not – intellectual honesty requires us to tone down accusations of Filmer’s supposedly totalitarian tendencies. According to Filmer there is little or no natural liberty, for meaningful liberty only emerges from a robust, heathy, and integrated social order. Such an order is only possible when there is a focal point, an apex for civil authority. Perhaps he is totally wrong in his analysis, but even if so there is no need to assume that he “hates us for our freedom,” as George W. Bush might have it.
Others have dismissed Filmer because of his supposedly excessive reliance upon Scripture. Yet the connotations of the expression “divine right monarchy” notwithstanding, Filmer’s theory in its essence revolves around his reading of natural law. After all, Patriarcha‘s alternative title is The Natural Power of Kings:
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For the doctrine at stake is one of patriarchy, and so it is especially thought-provoking in a period which has seen families decline even as fatherly authority has been subverted, mocked, and abolished. Even if Filmer does not give us a map for improving American politics, he does force us to think more profoundly about the ubiquitousness of paternal relationships. When Filmer notes that in his own time “the politicians and civil lawyers do not well agree about the definition of a family,” and proceeds to seek a sound definition himself, no traditionalist conservative worth his salt can fail to sit up and take note.
None of this is meant to set up Filmer as some sort of political oracle. One need not be a flaming parliamentarian to find that he overstates his case by treating monarchy as the one ideal system for all peoples everywhere. He might also have strengthened his position by reflecting upon the fact that even an absolute monarch is obliged to act through intermediaries, who may temper the judgments of a rash or ill-tempered ruler. Unintentionally or no, he truncates the Fifth Commandment: “We find in the decalogue that the Law which enjoins obedience to kings is delivered in the terms of ‘honour thy father,’ as if all power were originally in the father.” As anyone who ever went to Sunday School can attest, the Commandment in question does not unequivocally endorse solitary sovereignty, even if the father does come before the mother. All told, any reading of Filmer would no doubt benefit from being balanced against that other great alternative English political tradition – Burkean conservatism.
His undeniable limitations notwithstanding, Filmer is to be credited with relentlessly zeroing in upon the fundamental issue – authority – and forcing us to face old questions in disturbing new ways. So it is to be hoped that the recent release of Patriarcha: The Complete Political Works will help Filmer recover his rightful place in English political thought. This edition is professionally done, helpfully footnoted, and includes not only Patriarcha but Filmer’s lesser-known writings as well.
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The introductory study of Locke’s deficiencies alone warrants sustained attention to this volume. “Advocacy of the individual is invariably a symptom of the expansion of a centralising center of power,” we are warned, “and the advocates are always found in the company of these same centers of power.” However good may have been the intentions of Enlightenment luminaries, in any large community there will always be some person or group wielding disproportionate power, and at times it seems as if the only purpose of parliamentary rhetoric is to obscure who is really in charge. The result? “Centralising power can now expand exponentially and undermine all relationships within society that come between it and the individual, and it does this by hiding itself and focusing all attention to the concepts of liberty and freedom.”
Male-domination is not at issue, but this may take place through brothers, neighbours, employers, the structures of law or of religion, as much as through the household-head implicit in Filmer's patriarchal theory. Moreover, "patriarchy" gives us a poor vocabulary to express large modifications in the forms of male-domination and control, gender alienation or (on occasion) gender partnership. Both sexes might find themselves committed to the house of correction for no more explicit offence than being "loose and disorderly persons". But in backward or "traditional" areas, women might be presumed to be "loose and disorderly" if they were working people and they had no male structure of control and protection. These assumptions find clear expression in an affidavit (1704) by Thomas Sexton, a Suffolk husbandman, who was defending himself against a charge of assault brought by Joanna Box, spinster:
The said Joanna & Mary Box are two lusty young wenches & fare well & plentifully, & will not go to service, but live with their said mother, in a little house & occupy no land, nor having any visible estate or stock to live upon in an honest way, except Spining wch is a miserable trade now since the wars; no man or woman living with them, except when some men of no very good fame haunt & frequent their company.
Joanna and Mary's mother was married to a chimney sweep but they had split up. This Suffolk husbandman presumed that he could insinuate that any such masterless women were whores.
It is curious that the rejection of the hereditary principle in politics has had almost no effect in the economic sphere in democratic countries. (In totalitarian states, economic power has been absorbed by political power.) We still think it natural that a man should leave his property to his children; that is to say, we accept the hereditary principle as regards economic power while rejecting it as regards political power. Political dynasties have disappeared, but economic dynasties survive. I am not at the moment arguing either for or against this different treatment of the two forms of power; I am merely pointing out that it exists, and that most men are unconscious of it. When you consider how natural it seems to us that the power over the lives of others resulting from great wealth should be hereditary, you will understand better how men like Sir Robert Filmer could take the same view as regards the power of kings, and how important was the innovation represented by men who thought as Locke did.
To understand how Filmer’s theory could be believed, and how Locke’s contrary theory could seem revolutionary, we have only to reflect that a kingdom was regarded then as a landed estate is regarded now. The owner of land has various important legal rights, the chief of which is the power of choosing who shall be on the land. Ownership can be transmitted by inheritance and we feel that the man who has inherited an estate has a just claim to all the privileges that the law allows him in consequence. Yet at bottom his position is the same as that of the monarchs whose claims Sir Robert Filmer defends. There are at the present day in California a number of huge estates the title to which is derived from actual or alleged grants by the king of Spain. He was only in a position to make such grants (a) because Spain accepted views similar to Filmer’s, and (b) because the Spaniards were able to defeat the Indians in battle. Nevertheless we hold the heirs of those to whom he made grants to have a just title. Perhaps in the future this will seem as fantastic as Filmer seems now.
[T]he things which eminent and holy men had said against the power of kings remained on record. Though intended in the interest of the Pope, they could be used to support the rights of the people to self-government. “The subtle schoolmen,” says Filmer, “to be sure to thrust down the king below the Pope, thought it the safest course to advance the people above the king, so that the papal power might take the place of the regal.” He quotes the theologian Bellarmine as saying that secular power is bestowed by men (i.e. not by God), and “is in the people unless they bestow it upon a prince”; thus Bellarmine, according to Filmer, “makes God the immediate author of a democratical estate”–which sounds to him as shocking as it would to a modern plutocrat to say that God is the immediate author of Bolshevism.
A. ". . . every city is some sort of partnership . . ."Some sort of partnership - what sort has not been specified, but it is important to the argument that there are different sorts.
B. ". . . (for everyone does everything for the sake of what is held to be good). . ." Not for the sake of the good, but for what is held to be good.
C. "the partnership that is most authoritative of all and embraces all the others . . ." So this is one of the sorts of partnership: the city is the partnership that "embraces" all the others. What it means to "embrace" has yet to be specified. Does the city facilitate the good sought by every other partnership? Is it prior to those partnerships in time, or does it emerge from them? And what does it mean that it is "authoritative"? Does it identify or define all the other goods? Or does it simply legitimate their pursuit, and remove obstacles?
D. "those who suppose that the same person is expert . . ."Lord's footnote says this may refer to Plato, Statesman 2583-59d:
"Stranger: 'And the householder and the master are the same?'
Socrates: 'Of course.'
Stranger: 'Again, a large household may be compared to a small state: will they differ at all, as far as government is concerned?'
Socrates: 'They will not.'"
This is an important disagreement in political theory. Thus Locke dispatched Robert Filmer in the First Treatise, and summed up his argument in the first part of the Second Treatise: ". . . the power of a magistrate over a subject may be distinguished from that of a father over his children, a master over his servant, a husband over his wife, and a lord over his slave."
E. "For they consider that each of these differs in the multitude or fewness [of those ruled], and not in kind . . . " Is this an instance of the question of when/whether quantity is transformed into quality?
F. "For just as it is necessary to divide a compound into its uncompounded elements . . ." The "elements" of the city are not the numerical individuals who comprise it, but the quality of the individuals and groups. So the modern notion of equality is dispatched from the very beginning of the work.
G. ". . . they [e.g., Plato] consider an expert in kingly [rule] one who has charge himself, and in political [rule] one who, on the basis of the precepts of this sort of science, rules and is ruled in turn. But these things are not true. (3 - p. 35) This will be clear to those investigating in accordance with our normal sort of inquiry." The contrast is between Plato's science, which thinks of politics as a theoretical science which applies the same knowledge to different contexts, and Aristotle's science, which thinks of politics as a practical science in which the appropriate knowledge depends on the context.
Tex Terry
Wheaton Chambers
Zon Murray
Robert Filmer
Sunset Carson
Hank Patterson
Marie Harmon
Edmund Cobb
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