The dangers of maximalism

I am fond of John Russell, former UK Prime Minister, and, next to Gladstone, perhaps most important in establishing Liberalism and liberalism as a popular philosophy in the 19th century. I am not fond of his argument here, against universal suffrage.

Historians are frequently being warned, and warning each other, to judge people by their times and places: so the racism of our ancestors is not really a fair subject of critique, as the past was more racist than the present. This is Whiggism at its worst: the presumption that the past was always worse. Of course, in many ways it wasn't. The USA was anxious, worried, uncertain about racial supremacy at its founding; it was triumphantly racist by 1850; and from 1860 to about 1880, racial egalitarianism flourished, conquered, was defended, and then ultimately fell. This is not progress.

But another problem is that this Whiggism is lazy: the vilest bigotry can be defended by saying "this was a different time, a different place." In reality, and while not denying the differences between the past and the present, the fact remains that in almost all times and places there was a rejoinder, an opposition, very frequently large and 'respectable.' I read many who invoke the 'past cannot be judged by the present' as saying : "this was a time when this opinion was more popular than now, when it could be expressed without sanction, and while sure there was a vocal and sizable opposition, and thus a space for non-racism, non-elitism, non-sexism, why would one give up small privileges for moral righteousness." And I find this position more defensible and certainly more accurate a description than the implied "they could not imagine another way." Of course they could; others, no more imaginative, did, and these others were loud, insistent, adamant, annoying, fanatical, and righteous (both as a moral assessment and an aggravating posture).

But digress. Back to Russell, which is--detached from its anti-universal suffrage context--a useful articulation of the argument that institutions cannot operate when their implications are maximally exploited for small gain.

The whole of the constitution of this country depends upon the moderation and forbearance with which its various powers are exercised. If the Sovereign were to exercise the extreme power of the prerogative-if the House of Lords were upon every occasion to indulge its own views and its own opinions, and exercise its power of rejecting all the Bills sent up from this House-if the House of Commons used its extreme power of constantly refusing all supplies, unless its will were complied with-I say, if the Sovereign, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, were all, or indeed any one of them, to use the powers which the constitution has vested in them, which by law they possess, and which cannot be denied to them-if they were to use all these powers, and push them to extremes, the constitution could not last a month. There would be an end of its powers, and at the same time there would be an end of the temperate liberties of this country. .... what I do say is, that the liberties we have inherited from our ancestors, and that temperate liberty of which we are now in the enjoyment, are enjoyed only by not pushing the rights of any parties to the extreme.

I am sympathetic to maximalism; this is in part a consequence of the constitutive experiences and texts that have shaped my experience. In reading history I see myself less with the defenders of the status quo, whatever this might be, than among the excluded. Hence, perhaps, my sympathy now for working class conservatives, for the Ulster rioters, and my great hesitation with liberal progressive triumphalism expressed in their pretensions to being 'reality based.' The feeling that one's interests are excluded, that one's lifestyle is looked down on, is a powerful one, even if it is felt by those with whom I disagree. 

And so that which is reasonable is often dressing for that which is exclusionary; and maximalism has the advantage of pushing whatever advantage one has. I believe that O'Connell's strategy for achieving emancipation was the aggressive use of whatever rights were enabled. The Catholic Association, the Catholic Rent, the use of the franchise by the 40 shilling freeholders to vote for their preferred candidate, rather than their landlord's candidate, the election of O'Connell itself, were all instances of maximalism. And they led Robert Peel to worry. Peel saw an evil that was “not force—not violence—not any act of which law could take cognizance” but rather “the peaceable and legitimate exercise of a franchise according to the will and conscience of the holder.” Long existing rights, which had maintained ultimate control in the landed élite, were being repurposed. It was the  

“novel exercise of constitutional franchises—in the application of powers recognised and protected by law—the power of meeting in public assemblies—the systematic and not unlawful application of all those powers to one definite purpose, namely, the organisation of a force which professed to be a moral force, but had for its objects to encroach step by step on the functions of regular government, to paralyse its authority, and to acquire a strength which might ultimately render irresistible the demand for civil equality” (O’Ferrall 1985, 202).

But still, I am fond of Russell. And so I read his opposition to maximalism with more sympathy than if it had been Peel, Wellington, or Inglis.