We are entering a new age of the diggers and levellers and that ended with the beheading of the king and no real change.
First of all, great reference, the English civil war is a fascinating period of history.
But second of all, it wasn’t the diggers who chopped off Charles’ head, they basically never had any real influence on anyone. It was the nobility in parliament that did that (and honestly, Charles did it to himself by being such a stubborn pain in the ass for the nobility), and they were the same ones who didn’t have a plan/couldn’t really imagine a world without a king, which is why they basically forced Cromwell to be king in all but name and then crowned Charles’ son when Cromwell died.
They want to scorch the earth instead of fix it.
I can imagine a lot of scenarios where a bit of scorching is a necessary first step in fixing (but I can also imagine a lot of scenarios where scorching goes off the rails and/or starts cycles of vengeance, so, yeah, we’re seriously worried for the world and for good reason).
I wasn’t implying the diggers chopped off Charles’ head. I was more hinting at he political turmoil at the time was very similar to what we see now and it scares me. Those who don’t pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it and we are collectively horrible at teaching people history!
Fair enough, the emergence of groups like them is definitely a symptom of a stressed social system, it’s just I don’t think they’re often the actual cause of the stress, and sometimes listening to those radical groups is the only way to resolve the actual stress (e.g. abolitionists in the United States were right and we just needed to completely abolish slavery for moral and practical reasons but most everyone thought they were crazy until like 1863). I don’t think that really applies to the diggers (the English civil war was a bunch of rich people fighting for power by throwing mountains of poor people at each other who were never organized enough to have their own faction in that fight), but it might apply to our present-day situation (e.g. people like Pia Klemp make a lot of sense to me).
On a related note, if you’re into the history of political upheavals, I highly recommend this podcast called Revolutions1 that actually did a season on the English Civil war and is just absolutely fantastic throughout it’s whole ridiculously long run.
1 best links for finding it depends on if you’re on a desktop, iOS, or Android device,
Please do!
Same :(
First of all, great reference, the English civil war is a fascinating period of history.
But second of all, it wasn’t the diggers who chopped off Charles’ head, they basically never had any real influence on anyone. It was the nobility in parliament that did that (and honestly, Charles did it to himself by being such a stubborn pain in the ass for the nobility), and they were the same ones who didn’t have a plan/couldn’t really imagine a world without a king, which is why they basically forced Cromwell to be king in all but name and then crowned Charles’ son when Cromwell died.
I can imagine a lot of scenarios where a bit of scorching is a necessary first step in fixing (but I can also imagine a lot of scenarios where scorching goes off the rails and/or starts cycles of vengeance, so, yeah, we’re seriously worried for the world and for good reason).
Another amateur history buff?!
I wasn’t implying the diggers chopped off Charles’ head. I was more hinting at he political turmoil at the time was very similar to what we see now and it scares me. Those who don’t pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it and we are collectively horrible at teaching people history!
Fair enough, the emergence of groups like them is definitely a symptom of a stressed social system, it’s just I don’t think they’re often the actual cause of the stress, and sometimes listening to those radical groups is the only way to resolve the actual stress (e.g. abolitionists in the United States were right and we just needed to completely abolish slavery for moral and practical reasons but most everyone thought they were crazy until like 1863). I don’t think that really applies to the diggers (the English civil war was a bunch of rich people fighting for power by throwing mountains of poor people at each other who were never organized enough to have their own faction in that fight), but it might apply to our present-day situation (e.g. people like Pia Klemp make a lot of sense to me).
On a related note, if you’re into the history of political upheavals, I highly recommend this podcast called Revolutions1 that actually did a season on the English Civil war and is just absolutely fantastic throughout it’s whole ridiculously long run.
1 best links for finding it depends on if you’re on a desktop, iOS, or Android device,
Sheeeesh, reading y’all’s conversation was more enticing than any history class I ever attended.