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Bill Bryson’s a short history of the world is very good on this. Yes Parsons had a class-based sinecure and several of them made huge contributions to science

Bill Bryson’s a short history of the world is very good on this. Yes Parsons had a class-based sinecure and several of them made huge contributions to science and society. But the vast majority did or achieved nothing and were a drain on resources. The first wave of globalisation- caused largely by the US ice trade - where taking ice from lakes meant refrigerated train carriages and ice warehouses in Chicago and new York, and refrigerated ships crossing the Atlantic. Suddenly small farms in England, France and Vermont were competing with Iowa corn fields. There was a 1870s collapse in food prices and the subsequent collapse in social structures - we simply could not afford to keep indolent parsons, and now their “parsonages” are prized second homes

AlbertCory 3y ago
> Parsons had a class-based sinecure and several of them made huge contributions to science and society. But the vast majority did or achieved nothing and were a drain on resources a drain on whose resources?
- seanhunter 3y ago
  The people who would have been paying a tithe[1] to their local church presumably. In the UK there was this thing where the second son of some rich family would typically go into the church (because the first son was going to inherit and there were only so many occupations that were respectable for a rich person to do - any kind of actual work not really being among them). [1] Percentage of earnings, canonically a tenth, but not sure whether/how much that was always the case.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    Yes, I know what a tithe is. Look, they had a social organization. Somehow or other, they managed to be the most powerful nation on Earth. It seems sort of idle to nitpick on it.
    - lifeisstillgood 3y ago
      That somehow or other is hiding huge and important details - an area of active historical research / speculation. Personally I put the birth of the Industrial Revolution up There in the top five moments of human history something like Fire Domestication of wheat Wheel Cortez meeting Montezuma Industrial Revolution in Northern England of all Places Whatever it was it happened once. And we have copied it not replicated it (look at Meiji restoration with emperors wearing bowler hats “just in case it helps”.) We cannot get off this train, so we really need to know how the train works
timthorn 3y ago
You make it sound as though the pastoral and spiritual care of their congregations was worthless. In a world where belief in God was widespread and living conditions tough, the value of a parson was not just in their scientific or artistic contributions.
- cpill 3y ago
  [flagged]
- lifeisstillgood 3y ago
  But most barely did that. Of course there were good spiritual leaders, but imagine you went to every US Ivy League college, took all the trust fund students for the next decade and replaced all the priests in all American churches with those trust funded students. Would they have a sense of mission - or would they feel entitled and frustrated at the same time? Some would do well of course. But without training, without a calling, it’s not great. That’s the situation - the social elite of a nation simply sat as mid level church managers.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    As far as you've shown us so far, you have absolutely no facts to back any of this up, and you just hate the church and English society back then. OK then.
    - Brian_K_White 3y ago
      Seems more reasonable and likely to me than not. Easy enough to look up. Shall we bet before we do?
    - lifeisstillgood 3y ago
      Oddly the front page of HN shows “diary of a country parson” which Bryson referred to liberally. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38992004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38992004). We assume Woodforde (the parson in mid 18 early 19 century England is fairly representative. Yes weddings christenings and burials but mostly … nothing much beyond weather and food. Did he support a new school, improve the unionisation of the farm workers, yadadada Society grows or stagnates. Having the elite supported by the majority of workers and then just sitting back and stagnating seems … worthless. How many of us are pushing in the right direction - that history will look back in two centuries and say “good”

AlbertCory 3y ago

> Parsons had a class-based sinecure and several of them made huge contributions to science and society. But the vast majority did or achieved nothing and were a drain on resources a drain on whose resources?

seanhunter 3y ago
The people who would have been paying a tithe[1] to their local church presumably. In the UK there was this thing where the second son of some rich family would typically go into the church (because the first son was going to inherit and there were only so many occupations that were respectable for a rich person to do - any kind of actual work not really being among them). [1] Percentage of earnings, canonically a tenth, but not sure whether/how much that was always the case.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  Yes, I know what a tithe is. Look, they had a social organization. Somehow or other, they managed to be the most powerful nation on Earth. It seems sort of idle to nitpick on it.
  - lifeisstillgood 3y ago
    That somehow or other is hiding huge and important details - an area of active historical research / speculation. Personally I put the birth of the Industrial Revolution up There in the top five moments of human history something like Fire Domestication of wheat Wheel Cortez meeting Montezuma Industrial Revolution in Northern England of all Places Whatever it was it happened once. And we have copied it not replicated it (look at Meiji restoration with emperors wearing bowler hats “just in case it helps”.) We cannot get off this train, so we really need to know how the train works

timthorn 3y ago

You make it sound as though the pastoral and spiritual care of their congregations was worthless. In a world where belief in God was widespread and living conditions tough, the value of a parson was not just in their scientific or artistic contributions.

cpill 3y ago
[flagged]
lifeisstillgood 3y ago
But most barely did that. Of course there were good spiritual leaders, but imagine you went to every US Ivy League college, took all the trust fund students for the next decade and replaced all the priests in all American churches with those trust funded students. Would they have a sense of mission - or would they feel entitled and frustrated at the same time? Some would do well of course. But without training, without a calling, it’s not great. That’s the situation - the social elite of a nation simply sat as mid level church managers.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  As far as you've shown us so far, you have absolutely no facts to back any of this up, and you just hate the church and English society back then. OK then.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    Seems more reasonable and likely to me than not. Easy enough to look up. Shall we bet before we do?
  - lifeisstillgood 3y ago
    Oddly the front page of HN shows “diary of a country parson” which Bryson referred to liberally. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38992004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38992004). We assume Woodforde (the parson in mid 18 early 19 century England is fairly representative. Yes weddings christenings and burials but mostly … nothing much beyond weather and food. Did he support a new school, improve the unionisation of the farm workers, yadadada Society grows or stagnates. Having the elite supported by the majority of workers and then just sitting back and stagnating seems … worthless. How many of us are pushing in the right direction - that history will look back in two centuries and say “good”