The American Revolution against British colonial rule was a 'populist mass movement' that the vast majority of American citizens would agree was a good thing.
This article reads a bit it was written by a British servant of the Crown giving advice to imperial administers on how to keep their colonists under control and head off any movement towards independence.
More generally, mass movements often arise in situations where a small group with elite privileges (e.g. the French aristocratic class before 1790) rules over a much larger relatively impoverished group lacking any such privileges. A similar situation arose in the American South at the height of the plantation slavery system in the first half of the 19th century (of 10 million people in the US Confederacy, around 3.5 million were enslaved, and the majority of the wealth was held by a small group of plantation owner elites).
Clearly, the author believes that mass movements are undesirable (since the author only references Mao and Hitler as examples of outcomes), but the French and American Revolution ushered in democracy on a large scale, which are generally good things. I suppose people who've been indoctrinated into belief in the superiority of the Ivy League elite schools system might think that democracy itself is unwise, and that rule by a small educated elite is preferable. Sometimes they'll even admit this in private, though rarely in public.
>The American Revolution against British colonial rule was a 'populist mass movement' that the vast majority of American citizens would agree was a good thing.
A lot of citations needed. The American revolution was a revolt of the upper class of the colonies against the upper class of England. The average colonist didn't particularly care one way or the other as can be seen by post war migration over the boarder into Canada and vice versa.
Early in the American Revolution, society was quite split between rebels and loyalists. The rebels ultimately won the day by e.g. burning down loyalists’ homes, or tarring and feathering them. This sent many loyalists fleeing to safety in Canada and the West Indies, while the rest were forced to simply keep quiet. Even among the American colonial elites, this split families, the relationship between Benjamin Franklin and his son William being one prominent example.
The French Revolution ushered in the Terror and, within just a few years, an emperor. Over the 19th century the French downplayed and retreated from many aims and outcomes of the revolution, they even restored the monarchy multiple times. The belief that the French Revolution ushered in a lasting democracy is historical. Arguably things like the events of 1848 did more for lasting democracy in Europe.
> While PRACTICAL organizations (e.g., an employer) cater to self-interest and offer opportunities for self-advancement, a mass movement appeals to those who wish to escape or camouflage an unsatisfactory self.
> They seek fulfillment in something that extends beyond PRACTICAL acts in the present, leading them to mass movements.
I think the essay explicitly excludes movements driven by a clear practical obtainable goal, and organized around practical steps to achieve it.
Most settler colonial states under British rule gained independence without death and murder, unlike the USA. It’s unlikely the USA would have been different if it’s population had been less bloodthirsty.
US Slavery as an institution was gradually on the way out before the civil war. Again a bloodthirsty mass movement was not willing to let time take its course. Slavery is wrong but murder is worse.
US slavery was not on the way out. It was other way round, actually. It was super profitable and powerful. It was also gaining legal protections. There was no active threat to it and the actual dispute and conflict was about new territories.
Also majority of abolitionists were pacifists to a fault. Literally to a fault.
Yet also, slavery was holding only due to violence. Both violence against white abolitionists and against blacks - slaves and free. Violence here includes murder and torture.
The confederacy could easily have prevented the war by not attacking union forts. And as you say the war did not end slavery. So all we’re left with is a thirst for blood.
> US Slavery as an institution was gradually on the way out before the civil war. Again a bloodthirsty mass movement was not willing to let time take its course. Slavery is wrong but murder is worse.
Can you link to some places I can read more about this?
A place to start would be the 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves. Of course this didn’t prevent slaves from being born in the USA nor did it prevent internal slave trade. But there was a non violent movement to end slavery through gradual means, which had already worked in northern states. A good book on Gradualism is “The Scorpions Sting”[1]. To be clear I’m not arguing for an innocent south as that’s not supported by historical documents. I am going to maintain my position that the US population has been bloodthirsty from its founding to the modern day (albeit thankfully less so now than in the past).
This article reads a bit it was written by a British servant of the Crown giving advice to imperial administers on how to keep their colonists under control and head off any movement towards independence.
More generally, mass movements often arise in situations where a small group with elite privileges (e.g. the French aristocratic class before 1790) rules over a much larger relatively impoverished group lacking any such privileges. A similar situation arose in the American South at the height of the plantation slavery system in the first half of the 19th century (of 10 million people in the US Confederacy, around 3.5 million were enslaved, and the majority of the wealth was held by a small group of plantation owner elites).
Clearly, the author believes that mass movements are undesirable (since the author only references Mao and Hitler as examples of outcomes), but the French and American Revolution ushered in democracy on a large scale, which are generally good things. I suppose people who've been indoctrinated into belief in the superiority of the Ivy League elite schools system might think that democracy itself is unwise, and that rule by a small educated elite is preferable. Sometimes they'll even admit this in private, though rarely in public.