LaRouche Fields Question on the Nation of England vs. Empire

March 4, 2009 (LPAC)--

TO: [deleted]

To locate the actual place of today's greatly troubled United Kingdom in the large scheme of history, we must distinguish the entity which is the population of what is known as the United Kingdom, from what is otherwise identified  as, among other things, "The British Empire."

As the U.S. historian H. Graham Lowry has shown in his 1987 HOW THE NATION WAS WON, there is a deeper issue, the transitions from the reign of Queen Anne of England to that of George I, and the still earlier unpleasantness by William of Orange.  In fact, we must look at the same matter more deeply: into the essential foundations of a modern nation-state called England, which was brought into being with the  seating of the Henry VII, thus establishing Europe's second modern nation-state, second only to the France of that Louis XI who had created France as the first modern nation-state,  as distinct from the medieval England

That account, while we may find it typical of a truthfully plausible summary of the history of the matter, that does not satisfy us in and of itself. We must put the proverbial finger on some principle, rather than such trinkets as mere begats, titles and inheritances, which touches the matter of what we can accept as natural law. Otherwise, if we trace my own English ancestry back far enough prior to my namable representation among those transported by the Mayflower, who knows to what monarch, or other types, the tale of begats might lead us.

Therefore, on behalf of the nature of the interest which you have  reported to me, I would strongly suggest that such reflections as I now recommend,  may lead us to something of much more profound, important, and durable value conceptions, than today's merely customary beliefs imply.  Percy Bysshe Shelley would be amused; let us, therefore, adopt him in  our imagination as the judge before whom we appeal to the relevant higher authorities, that case respecting our presently troubled times, which we should wish to be presenting here and now.  I would, of course, refer our attention to that authority he has demonstrated for this occasion in his A Defence of Poetry.

For my part, I would proceed as follows.

To settle the matter of the manner and means by which a society should govern itself, we must, as Percy Shelly did, define the nature of that which is to be governed, human beings, as distinct from cattle.  As Shelley would have it, the relevant distinction is that aspect of human cultures which pertains to the quality of immortality which must distinguish the human being from the beasts, the quality of the human being and his or her society which lies in what Shelley identified as that domain of the imagination in which we meet those creative powers which are specific to the proper form of social relations among the members of our species.  It is the creativity which preserves, for the benefit of the future, of the role of that soul whose attached flesh  had died

Thus, I would suggest that the proper true notion of England, lies in the development of those poetic powers which were developed largely in the best Classical tradition of ancient Greece (and passing through Latin experiences, in every meaning of that term, at stopping places between, to speak with Italians, who were there before, and after,  someone had invented Latin).  It is in the best of  such Classical poetry, prose, and science which have proceeded, in true concert,  that the higher, immortal identity of the English nation might be found now, and be secured for future generations.

Everything which tends to degrade Plato, and does damage to the heritage of the inhabitants of the speakers of a language, such as the English which was tempered  and employed in the manner of Shakespeare and Shelley, and used for the advancement of that heritage, for example, any practice or tradition, which does not employ such means as those in service to the great heritage of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, should be displeasing to any honest, English-speaking person.

Each nation which is properly conceived and nourished, requires a moral foundation in the development of those creative powers of the imagination which depend upon the deeply rooted legacy of the best expression of its historical language, as Shelley expresses his insight into that matter in his A Defence of Poetry.

The assembly of nations is the meeting of the best expression of the development of the Classical roots of their language.  Even when language is used for a violation of its natural form of best expression, there must be a purpose in that deviation, as must be the case when reality can not be identified in other ways, which, in the end is coherent with the ends of Classical culture.

A nation might gain an empire, and yet lose its soul, which is the true the elegance of its Classical language's use, as empire's have done, insofar as the records are clear.

A national recovery, is a national spiritual recovery in precisely that sense Shelley's presents his case in his A Defence of Poetry..

- - Lyndon.