5 ms·

Magna Carta Messed Up the World, Here’s How to Fix It (2015)

27 points by amar-laksh 5y ago

scythe 5y ago
The funny thing about Chomsky is that he's always criticized by the usual voices as a far-left sort. But it was my communist friend who finally convinced me he shouldn't be trusted, and his debate with Foucault was one of his greatest public foibles. He relies on gaps in your knowledge. So when he makes a grand historical claim, I look it up: >As explained by Peter Linebaugh in his richly documented and stimulating history of Magna Carta, the Charter of the Forest called for protection of the commons from external power. The commons were the source of sustenance for the general population: food, fuel, construction materials, a form of welfare, whatever was essential for life. >In thirteenth-century England, the forest was no primitive wilderness. It had been carefully nurtured by its users over generations, its riches available to all. The great British social historian R. H. Tawney wrote that the commons were used by country people who lacked arable land. >By the eighteenth century, the charter had fallen victim to the rise of the commodity economy and capitalist practice and moral culture. As Linebaugh puts it, “The Forest Charter was forgotten or consigned to the gothic past.” Contrast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Merton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Merton (1235) >It is considered to be the first English statute, and is printed as the first statute in The Statutes of the Realm. Containing 11 chapters, the terms of the statute were agreed at Merton between Henry[1] and the barons of England in 1235. [...] Amongst its provisions, the statute allowed a Lord of the Manor to enclose common land provided that sufficient pasture remained for his tenants, and set out when and how manorial lords could assert rights over waste land, woods, and pastures against their tenants. England engaged in a long and openly political struggle between common and private property from the thirteenth to eighteenth century. The idea that anything was "forgotten" is simply impossible. There were riots, there were Acts of Parliament for and against enclosure, there were rebellions in 1381, 1450, 1549 and 1604, not to mention the Civil War. But it's convenient for Chomsky's narrative to say "oh, England forgot". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_Forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_Forest >For many years it was regarded as a development of great significance in England's constitutional history, with the great seventeenth-century jurist Sir Edward Coke referring to it along with Magna Carta as the Charters of England's Liberties,[5] and Sir William Blackstone remarking in the eighteenth century that: >"There is no transaction in the antient part of our English history more interesting and important, than … the charters of liberties, emphatically stiled THE GREAT CHARTER and CHARTER OF THE FOREST …"[12] It was so 'forgotten' in the eighteenth century that it featured highly in the discussions of several prominent English jurists. He goes on to link this to the practice of fuel extraction for its impact on climate change -- presumably this is occurring because Russia, the Arab states, Mexico, Venezuela and Angola dwell in mistaken admiration for the English legal principles of the thirteenth century. It is, in a word, nonsense. I no longer see Chomsky as a hardcore partisan, but more like a slightly higher-brow Malcolm Gladwell with a twinge of anti-imperialist flair. He manages to blame the British for an incredible number of things, I have to give him that. But was the Magna Carta really the first time anyone conceived of "the presumption of innocence", as Chomsky would have us believe? http://defensewiki.ibj.org/index.php/Rights_of_the_Accused_under_Shari%27ah_Law#2._Presumption_of_Innocence http://defensewiki.ibj.org/index.php/Rights_of_the_Accused_u... >In fact, in an early hadith (recorded sayings of the Prophet by his companions), the Prophet stated: “Had men been believed only according to their allegations, some persons would have claimed the blood and properties belonging to others, but the accuser is bound to present positive proof.” So! I see that Muhammad caused climate change with his fiendish presumption of innocence... if you buy Chomsky's argument, that is.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ch4s3 5y ago
  I heard my favorite criticism of Chomsky from a reporter for Vice a few years ago, and I'm paraphrasing, "Chomsky is the kind of person who challenges you to look it if if you don't believe him, fully expecting that you never will."
  - smitty1e 5y ago
    And I do not believe Chomsky. Ever. Credit where due: he is a mellifluous hoodwinker.
Bostonian 5y ago
The Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution did exclude many people, but the disenfranchised groups appealed to those documents to demand their own rights. It's not as if the rights of those groups were respected before the Magna Carta or the Constitution, so it's strange to say the Magna Carta "messed up the world". In general Chomsky is an example of someone who makes big contributions to specific field but has terrible judgement. Quoting the article: 'To be sure, the reach of the charter was limited. Nevertheless, as Eric Kasper observes in a scholarly review, “What began as a relatively small check on the arbitrary power of King John eventually led to succeeding generations finding ever more rights in Magna Carta and Article 39. In this sense, Magna Carta is a key point in a long development of the protection of rights against arbitrary executive power.” Crossing the Atlantic, the Great Charter was enshrined in the US Constitution as the promise that “no person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” The wording seems expansive, but that is misleading. Excluded were “unpeople” (to borrow Orwell’s useful concept), among them Native Americans, slaves and women, who under the British common law adopted by the founders were the property of their fathers, handed over to husbands. Indeed, it wasn’t until 1975 that women gained the right to serve on juries in all fifty states.'
- mc32 5y ago
  If the magna carta messed up "the world" it would have messed up the one under English influence --that is, not France and not Russia and not Japan and not the Middle East. Yet, there don't seem to have been greater progress in those areas where the Magna Carta had no influence. so I agree Chomsky here is full of baloney. Indeed, I think the Magna Carta afforded people the language and tools to climb out from under the power of kings/crown and state. Obviously it took centuries of incremental improvement.
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    If you read the article Chomsky does not say that the Magna Carta is the cause of all the issues, but it didn't prevent it. Also I would argue that there are significant portions of the world that actually have better progress in some areas that he is alluding to.
etothepii 5y ago
Claiming that because Magna Carta missed out a huge number of people it started the declines we see today makes the spectacularly false assumption that the world today is on a downward trajectory. I suspect the only group on a truly downward trajectory at the moment are monied elites who used to be able to guarantee their male progeny success via licensure and the female heirs success through marriage. I suspect it was documents such as Magna Carta that set us off on the path of progress. We aren't there yet, but the world is getting better on almost every metric.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  What evidence do you have that the world today is on a downward trajectory is spectacularly false? Apart from the fact that most climate scientists agree that we are etching closer and closer to a tipping point which will render significant portions of the planet uninhabitable and likely cause considerable conflict for resources, there is also the fact that there are large numbers of people are living in conditions akin to slavery and under despotic and tyranic governments. Those numbers have been increasing over the last decades. So why are we really getting better?
- noselasd 5y ago
  Climate change aside, more and more of the natural world, and the species that inhabited it are dissapering every day - I certainly call that a downward spiral
adolph 5y ago
Shorter Chomsky: "Oil companies wouldn't destroy the world if killing the king's deer still meant spending a year in the pokey." No man from henceforth shall lose either life or member for the killing of our deer; but if any man be taken and convited for the taking of our venison, he shall make a grievous fie, if he has anything whereof; and if he has nothing to lose, he shall be imprisoned a year and a day; and after the year and day expired, if he can find sufficient sureties, he shall be delivered; and if not, he shall abjure the realm of England. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/magna-carta/charter-forest-1225-westminster/ https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/magn...
throwawaycities 5y ago
The US Constitution removed the monarch from the Magna Carta and replaced it with an elected noble class that makes/enforces the law. It’s this very noble class (that’s actually the sum total of the left and right) that is responsible for all the injustices noted in the article. The people never wanted a ruling class in the image of the Roman Republic, they wanted a direct democracy. It is a solution staring everyone right in the face. If it’s good enough for the people to receive a jury of peers when their liberty is at stake against Government charges, just like the original democracy the law makes/enforcers should also be from a jury of the citizens at random with limited office…but the truth is overwhelmingly people want rulers, and so we can’t even get limited terms on lawmakers.
- akamoonknight 5y ago
  My main difficulty with a direct democracy is that it's a _job_ to be properly informed about topics. How can every person be informed enough on every vote-able decision that might affect them, while also trying to work a normal job required to provide for their families to pay rent and live life? California propositions feel like something close to direct democracy, and as an example there was one about Kidney Dialysis Centers [0]. I'm not too affected by it, other than potential future worries, but I wasn't sure what the 'right' choice was after a few days of investigating. I know which way I _feel_ is the right choice, but the impacts are hard to judge, especially when there's campaign finance involved and there's obviously one side that has more monetary impact than the other. Should I have taken _no_ stance and not voted on that particular issue? Should I have spent time searching out and talking to people who are actually affected on both sides of the issue ? Overall, it feels reasonable to me to say 'I trust this person's general judgement and I'll delegate my vote on wider issues to them and as a society we can make it so that their job is to be properly informed* on the issues required'. Admittedly the same issues pop up in terms of monetary influence and proper representation being a tricky thing. I guess political science just seems like a difficult problem to solve, if there even is such a thing as a solution. [0] https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_23,_Dialysis_Clinic_Requirements_Initiative_(2020) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_23,_Dialysis_...) *properly informed being admittedly an entirely subjective quality
- 5y ago
smitty1e 5y ago
> The wording seems expansive, but that is misleading. Excluded were “unpeople” (to borrow Orwell’s useful concept), among them Native Americans, slaves and women, who under the British common law adopted by the founders were the property of their fathers, handed over to husbands. Indeed, it wasn’t until 1975 that women gained the right to serve on juries in all fifty states. "Misleading" is how I would characterize Chomsky. Every passage of his that I encounter seems to include at least one sucker punch. In a way, I admire him, as sort of a rhetorical chess master. Makes one think. Would there were less poison included.
FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
A good thing about this narrative, for all its flaws, is that, by focusing on the Forest Charter, it creates a traditional, folk, English basis for protecting the environment. If we could make the Right go eco-trad and aspire to regrow the Shire, and if we could make the Left embrace its chill Tibetan-prayer-flag-hippy aspect, with everybody living in cobb houses connected by footpaths and such, then we'd have a sustainable utopia that everyone could live with. Ok, I know, there is no utopia. But surely we can do better than what we have now, where the Right willfully destroys the planet, and the Left turns into a self-devouring ball of tantrums.

27 points by amar-laksh 5y ago

The funny thing about Chomsky is that he's always criticized by the usual voices as a far-left sort. But it was my communist friend who finally convinced me he shouldn't be trusted, and his debate with Foucault was one of his greatest public foibles. He relies on gaps in your knowledge. So when he makes a grand historical claim, I look it up: >As explained by Peter Linebaugh in his richly documented and stimulating history of Magna Carta, the Charter of the Forest called for protection of the commons from external power. The commons were the source of sustenance for the general population: food, fuel, construction materials, a form of welfare, whatever was essential for life. >In thirteenth-century England, the forest was no primitive wilderness. It had been carefully nurtured by its users over generations, its riches available to all. The great British social historian R. H. Tawney wrote that the commons were used by country people who lacked arable land. >By the eighteenth century, the charter had fallen victim to the rise of the commodity economy and capitalist practice and moral culture. As Linebaugh puts it, “The Forest Charter was forgotten or consigned to the gothic past.” Contrast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Merton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Merton (1235) >It is considered to be the first English statute, and is printed as the first statute in The Statutes of the Realm. Containing 11 chapters, the terms of the statute were agreed at Merton between Henry[1] and the barons of England in 1235. [...] Amongst its provisions, the statute allowed a Lord of the Manor to enclose common land provided that sufficient pasture remained for his tenants, and set out when and how manorial lords could assert rights over waste land, woods, and pastures against their tenants. England engaged in a long and openly political struggle between common and private property from the thirteenth to eighteenth century. The idea that anything was "forgotten" is simply impossible. There were riots, there were Acts of Parliament for and against enclosure, there were rebellions in 1381, 1450, 1549 and 1604, not to mention the Civil War. But it's convenient for Chomsky's narrative to say "oh, England forgot". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_Forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_Forest >For many years it was regarded as a development of great significance in England's constitutional history, with the great seventeenth-century jurist Sir Edward Coke referring to it along with Magna Carta as the Charters of England's Liberties,[5] and Sir William Blackstone remarking in the eighteenth century that: >"There is no transaction in the antient part of our English history more interesting and important, than … the charters of liberties, emphatically stiled THE GREAT CHARTER and CHARTER OF THE FOREST …"[12] It was so 'forgotten' in the eighteenth century that it featured highly in the discussions of several prominent English jurists. He goes on to link this to the practice of fuel extraction for its impact on climate change -- presumably this is occurring because Russia, the Arab states, Mexico, Venezuela and Angola dwell in mistaken admiration for the English legal principles of the thirteenth century. It is, in a word, nonsense. I no longer see Chomsky as a hardcore partisan, but more like a slightly higher-brow Malcolm Gladwell with a twinge of anti-imperialist flair. He manages to blame the British for an incredible number of things, I have to give him that. But was the Magna Carta really the first time anyone conceived of "the presumption of innocence", as Chomsky would have us believe? http://defensewiki.ibj.org/index.php/Rights_of_the_Accused_under_Shari%27ah_Law#2._Presumption_of_Innocence http://defensewiki.ibj.org/index.php/Rights_of_the_Accused_u... >In fact, in an early hadith (recorded sayings of the Prophet by his companions), the Prophet stated: “Had men been believed only according to their allegations, some persons would have claimed the blood and properties belonging to others, but the accuser is bound to present positive proof.” So! I see that Muhammad caused climate change with his fiendish presumption of innocence... if you buy Chomsky's argument, that is.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ch4s3 5y ago
I heard my favorite criticism of Chomsky from a reporter for Vice a few years ago, and I'm paraphrasing, "Chomsky is the kind of person who challenges you to look it if if you don't believe him, fully expecting that you never will."
- smitty1e 5y ago
  And I do not believe Chomsky. Ever. Credit where due: he is a mellifluous hoodwinker.

Bostonian 5y ago

The Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution did exclude many people, but the disenfranchised groups appealed to those documents to demand their own rights. It's not as if the rights of those groups were respected before the Magna Carta or the Constitution, so it's strange to say the Magna Carta "messed up the world". In general Chomsky is an example of someone who makes big contributions to specific field but has terrible judgement. Quoting the article: 'To be sure, the reach of the charter was limited. Nevertheless, as Eric Kasper observes in a scholarly review, “What began as a relatively small check on the arbitrary power of King John eventually led to succeeding generations finding ever more rights in Magna Carta and Article 39. In this sense, Magna Carta is a key point in a long development of the protection of rights against arbitrary executive power.” Crossing the Atlantic, the Great Charter was enshrined in the US Constitution as the promise that “no person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” The wording seems expansive, but that is misleading. Excluded were “unpeople” (to borrow Orwell’s useful concept), among them Native Americans, slaves and women, who under the British common law adopted by the founders were the property of their fathers, handed over to husbands. Indeed, it wasn’t until 1975 that women gained the right to serve on juries in all fifty states.'

mc32 5y ago
If the magna carta messed up "the world" it would have messed up the one under English influence --that is, not France and not Russia and not Japan and not the Middle East. Yet, there don't seem to have been greater progress in those areas where the Magna Carta had no influence. so I agree Chomsky here is full of baloney. Indeed, I think the Magna Carta afforded people the language and tools to climb out from under the power of kings/crown and state. Obviously it took centuries of incremental improvement.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  If you read the article Chomsky does not say that the Magna Carta is the cause of all the issues, but it didn't prevent it. Also I would argue that there are significant portions of the world that actually have better progress in some areas that he is alluding to.

etothepii 5y ago

Claiming that because Magna Carta missed out a huge number of people it started the declines we see today makes the spectacularly false assumption that the world today is on a downward trajectory. I suspect the only group on a truly downward trajectory at the moment are monied elites who used to be able to guarantee their male progeny success via licensure and the female heirs success through marriage. I suspect it was documents such as Magna Carta that set us off on the path of progress. We aren't there yet, but the world is getting better on almost every metric.

cycomanic 5y ago
What evidence do you have that the world today is on a downward trajectory is spectacularly false? Apart from the fact that most climate scientists agree that we are etching closer and closer to a tipping point which will render significant portions of the planet uninhabitable and likely cause considerable conflict for resources, there is also the fact that there are large numbers of people are living in conditions akin to slavery and under despotic and tyranic governments. Those numbers have been increasing over the last decades. So why are we really getting better?
noselasd 5y ago
Climate change aside, more and more of the natural world, and the species that inhabited it are dissapering every day - I certainly call that a downward spiral

adolph 5y ago

Shorter Chomsky: "Oil companies wouldn't destroy the world if killing the king's deer still meant spending a year in the pokey." No man from henceforth shall lose either life or member for the killing of our deer; but if any man be taken and convited for the taking of our venison, he shall make a grievous fie, if he has anything whereof; and if he has nothing to lose, he shall be imprisoned a year and a day; and after the year and day expired, if he can find sufficient sureties, he shall be delivered; and if not, he shall abjure the realm of England. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/magna-carta/charter-forest-1225-westminster/ https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/magn...

throwawaycities 5y ago

The US Constitution removed the monarch from the Magna Carta and replaced it with an elected noble class that makes/enforces the law. It’s this very noble class (that’s actually the sum total of the left and right) that is responsible for all the injustices noted in the article. The people never wanted a ruling class in the image of the Roman Republic, they wanted a direct democracy. It is a solution staring everyone right in the face. If it’s good enough for the people to receive a jury of peers when their liberty is at stake against Government charges, just like the original democracy the law makes/enforcers should also be from a jury of the citizens at random with limited office…but the truth is overwhelmingly people want rulers, and so we can’t even get limited terms on lawmakers.

akamoonknight 5y ago
My main difficulty with a direct democracy is that it's a _job_ to be properly informed about topics. How can every person be informed enough on every vote-able decision that might affect them, while also trying to work a normal job required to provide for their families to pay rent and live life? California propositions feel like something close to direct democracy, and as an example there was one about Kidney Dialysis Centers [0]. I'm not too affected by it, other than potential future worries, but I wasn't sure what the 'right' choice was after a few days of investigating. I know which way I _feel_ is the right choice, but the impacts are hard to judge, especially when there's campaign finance involved and there's obviously one side that has more monetary impact than the other. Should I have taken _no_ stance and not voted on that particular issue? Should I have spent time searching out and talking to people who are actually affected on both sides of the issue ? Overall, it feels reasonable to me to say 'I trust this person's general judgement and I'll delegate my vote on wider issues to them and as a society we can make it so that their job is to be properly informed* on the issues required'. Admittedly the same issues pop up in terms of monetary influence and proper representation being a tricky thing. I guess political science just seems like a difficult problem to solve, if there even is such a thing as a solution. [0] https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_23,_Dialysis_Clinic_Requirements_Initiative_(2020) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_23,_Dialysis_...) *properly informed being admittedly an entirely subjective quality
5y ago

smitty1e 5y ago

> The wording seems expansive, but that is misleading. Excluded were “unpeople” (to borrow Orwell’s useful concept), among them Native Americans, slaves and women, who under the British common law adopted by the founders were the property of their fathers, handed over to husbands. Indeed, it wasn’t until 1975 that women gained the right to serve on juries in all fifty states. "Misleading" is how I would characterize Chomsky. Every passage of his that I encounter seems to include at least one sucker punch. In a way, I admire him, as sort of a rhetorical chess master. Makes one think. Would there were less poison included.

FooBarBizBazz 5y ago

A good thing about this narrative, for all its flaws, is that, by focusing on the Forest Charter, it creates a traditional, folk, English basis for protecting the environment. If we could make the Right go eco-trad and aspire to regrow the Shire, and if we could make the Left embrace its chill Tibetan-prayer-flag-hippy aspect, with everybody living in cobb houses connected by footpaths and such, then we'd have a sustainable utopia that everyone could live with. Ok, I know, there is no utopia. But surely we can do better than what we have now, where the Right willfully destroys the planet, and the Left turns into a self-devouring ball of tantrums.