Postby Technomancer » Fri Sep 09, 2005 6:26 am
At the time, there were some prominent Englishmen who supported or at least sympathisized with the revolt because they recognized that some of the colonist's grievances would have been intolerable in England as well. These include both John Locke (a liberal) and Edmund Burke (a conservative). Of course, it was a lot less popular in other circles.
I can't speak for the current British opinion, but I can offer a Canadian one. We also have to study the American revolution in our history classes, because of it's importance to the founding of our own country (or at least the English speaking part of it). Our own view is considerably less romantic then your own both in how we view the causes and the effects of the revolution. Some of the motives for the revolt are treated with a certain degree of sympathy (e.g. taxation), while others are a little less pretty (the colonies' anti-Catholicism, particularly directed at the newly acquired province of Quebec).
Likewise, the revolution was also not quite the romantic struggle against British colonial authority; it was also a vicious civil war. Many colonists remained loyal to the crown, and fought in militia forces in the various colonies. Many lost homes and loved ones as a result*. The punishments meted out to suspected 'Tories' were hardly pleasent either. As one Loyalist lament of the time goes "We've exchanged one tyrant 3,000 miles away for 3,000 tyrants one mile away". In the end, the United Empire Loyalists sought refuge further north, founding the colonies of New Brunswick and Upper Canada (now southern Ontario).
Lastly, to Canadians there is also the historical fact that the new country periodically invaded or supported invasions of Canada itself. Throughout the 19th century there were those in the United States who considered the existence of Canada to be an unfinished part of the revolution (e.g the invasions of 1812-1814, 1838 as well as the willingness of Andrew Johnson to play footsie with the Fenian raiders in 1866).
*A few years ago, an MP jokingly suggested that Canadian's whose families property was confiscated as a result of the revolution should sue the U.S government for compensation or for the return of property. This was prompted by the Helms-Burton act which threatened any company operating in Cuba using property confiscated during their revolution.
The scientific method," Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote, "is nothing but the normal working of the human mind." That is to say, when the mind is working; that is to say further, when it is engaged in corrrecting its mistakes. Taking this point of view, we may conclude that science is not physics, biology, or chemistry—is not even a "subject"—but a moral imperative drawn from a larger narrative whose purpose is to give perspective, balance, and humility to learning.
Neil Postman
(The End of Education)
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge
Isaac Aasimov
