A recent New York Times article (conical hat tip to Sheldon Richman) repeated the usual guff about Herbert Spencer. I just sent in the following response:
[I just saw that the NYT won't publish letters previously published, so check back here later.]
[Addendum: Okay it’s later.]
Great letter! In fairness, I must pass the hat tip to my friend Jude Blanchette in Shanghai. He brought the Spencer defamation to my attention.
> [I just saw that the NYT won’t publish letters previously published,
> so check back here later.]
Ironically, my last message fell victim to its own escaping bug. Try this:
> [I just saw that the NYT won’t publish letters previously published, so check
> back here later.] <!–To the Editor:
Uh, which was supposed to be followed by a comment that I
can still see the whole letter. Why no preview?!
I can still see the whole letter
How about now?
WTF???? Have they never even read Spencer? Justify colonialism and imperialism??? Is it possible to even misread Spencer and accidentally get this view?
I don’t know enough about Spencer to chime in on his thoughts about purposely neglecting invalids, the poor, etc. (I’ll have to read Long on this), but he most definitely did not support imperialism.
In fact, there’s been alot of literature lately on the fact that it was people like Edmund Burke – and not modern liberal (left and right) heroes like John Stuart Mill – that were against imperialism most vigorously.
Not any more!
Its clear to me that whomever wrote the times article knew nothing, or next to nothing, about Spencer. I think there are lively debates that we can have abour Spencer’s treatment of the “poor laws.” But there is no debate about Spencer’s anti-colonial and anti-war stance.
Roderick,
This sounds like another job for the “Herbert Spencer Anti-Defamation League”. To the Herb-mobile!!!
The main action of the HSADL seems to be defending HS from absurd, poorly researched complaints, almost all from leftists and liberals, that he advocated state enforced eugenics. The critics are basically echoing a meme rather than making any original comments based on primary sources. It’s cut and paste criticism.
Following your recent comments on Sheldon Richmond’s blog about Herbert Spencer’s unorthodox views on the factory system, obviously the HSADL needs to branch out into labour relations as well.
As it happens I have come across a potential high profile posthumous recruit for the HSADL. Wiliam Durant.
In Durant’s chapter on Herbert Spence in his “The Story of Philosophy” he has a chapter on Herb with a surprisiingly sympathetic conclusion. Durant noted that interest in Spencer had more or less dried up by the time he went to press (1926). Yet Durant predicts that interest in HS deserved to and would ultimately be revived. Here is Durant’s closing sentence:
“Some day, when the sting of opposition is forgotten, we shall do him better justice.”
11:52 PM
Delete
Administrator,
I’ve tried emailing you twice at your Auburn account and once through Center for Stateless Society. I have a paper nearly finished for IR.
Do you have a different contact?
Hope all is well,
Dain.
Tim,
As it happens I have come across a potential high profile posthumous recruit for the HSADL. Wiliam Durant.
Interestingly, Durant started out teaching at the anarchist Modern School in New York; he met his wife-to-be Ariel when she was a rollerskarting teenager there. (Anecdote: when they were married she was of legal age to be married but below the age of consent for sex, so the judge told them they were now married but instructed them not to consummate the marriage for two years. I suspect they may not have obeyed.)
Dain,
I’ve tried emailing you twice at your Auburn account and once through Center for Stateless Society.
I don’t see any email from you on my Auburn account, and I don’t have an email account through Center for a Stateless Society. Maybe try my Mises account? rlong at mises dot org