Comments by "Lynott Parris" (@DenUitvreter) on "Why I Love Great Britain" video.
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@Rowlph8888 Why do you think English history has had the most impact on the world? After a bit back and forth England was back to absolute rule again, and then the Dutch Republic invaded. The Dutch Republic that had codified the freedom of conscience and therefore religious toleranc in 1579 in what was to become it's de facto constitution. In 1581 It had declared the people had inalienable rights and a monarch had to serve the people, denouncing the divine right of kings, and claimed the people's right to no longer recognize it's monarch when he had become a tyrant. This was the place where the parliaments were made up of commoners, there was upward social mobility, servants nor wives could be beaten, the home originated and besides men like Spinoza, Descartes John Locke could freely live and write on his social contract, inspired by his surroundings. After which he accompagnied Mary to England for her coronation and the signing of the bill of rights.
This was also the republic that founded New York and introduced reglious tolerance, multiculturalism and upward social mobilty to the America's, from which the USA later used the Dutch DOi of 1581 as a blueprint. These values were not carried by law, but on one hand by the freedom of the printing press there letting the enlightenment ideas spread of Europe, on the onder hand by the modern capitalism it had invented too, the commercial success and therefore strength. So it changed London and New York directly, and Paris indirectly into places with individual freedom as we know it now, so without having to stay in your class, in the position god, king and nobility had decided for one. The term 'glorious revolution' might give the impression it was a process from within, but that came about because being invaded was already a sensitive subject back then.
It's no coincidence the breakdown of the feudal structures that had been there for ages came from the LowLands, including Flanders at first, because feudalism was based on land and didn't work with so much water around. The modern society had been brewing there for ages only waiting for the printing press and protestantism to explode over the globe.
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@penname5766 "Look, you can’t tell me that the Dutch haven’t also been taught a biased version of history where their achievements have been massively overinflated." That tells it all about the British and the answer is 'No'. The biases and chauvinism changes between catholic and protestant schools, between excusing the colonial past a bit or judging it very hard. But the Dutch never were very imperial and we don't consider us a conquering agressive nation, the Dutch never increased their territory in Europe either, unless by conquering the North Sea. The, relatively little, pride there is in rebellion and self defence.
Hardly anyone knows about the Glorious Revolution or Invasion, and in general, when some well respected British historian like Schama writes a book about the Dutch Republic, he gets invited on a TV-show to answer the question why in the hell a British historian would write about the Netherlands. After he explainded how backward the other countries including Britain were back then compared, his book sold, but the Dutch Golden Age being importan and even interesting to the world rather than to just the Dutch was a bit of a surprise. The knowledge I'm sharing here is far from general. And the ones who do know have a chuckle about British sensitivity about not being invaded rather than take pride in the fact that it was a conquest. William III already knew this sensitivity back then and his soldiers were under strict orders not to use the word invasion or conquest. It was a 'hearts and minds' campaign.
Of course William III wasn't a Dutch king but a noble with just a title from the county of Orange in Southern France who was appointed in the office of stadtholder of the Dutch Republic by the States, the Dutch parliaments. stadtholder is the anglified word for Stadhouder, which was the Dutch word for steward. as it was initially the position of steward to king Philip of Spain, but William of Orange aka William the Silent and the only one who goes without a number, led the rebellion that would become the 80-years war. He was the great grandfather of William III. Assuming it was a Dutch king just as hungry for power and land as British king is therefore based on a lack of knowledge and understanding of the situation and his motives. It's the projection of British medieval politicis on the Dutch Republic which marked the end of the Middle Ages and the start of the modern times. British historians often make a similar anglocentric mistake, not by calling him a king after some basic research, but assuming he came to England in the capacity of Prince of Orange, which was just a title and his army of 40.000 and his invastion fleet bigger than the Armada was commissioned by parliament.
In the (late) Middle Ages the whole of Northern Europe was entrepreneurial. But some area's accellerate in development at certain points in history whlle others are behind. The British were enterpreneurial enough to ship wool to the Low Countries which is was named back then and trading them for bricks, which was high tech they didn't have. But the processing, the higher value added, was in the more advanced regions of that time. Just like when Britain accellerated development with the Industrial Revolution the Netherlands was lagging behind, only recently recovering from the decline that set in after Britain started taking over dominance in world trade after the Glorious Revolution. These things go back and forth, different regions had different times they bloomed and got ahead. But what had been breweing for centuries in the already prospering Low Countries, with the South (now Belgium) the most important, exploded in the North with the Dutch Republic because a few developments came together there. Fully fledged modern capitalism, protestantism and literacy, religious tolerance, immigration, ship building technology (wind powered saw mill) and globalization, proto industrialization, civil rights, freedom of print, connectivity, institutionalized science and innovation, upward social mobility. The Dutch navy wouldn't have stood a chance against the Spanish, Portuguese, French and British when they would have to select their commanders from the much smaller nobility from a much smaller population. It was 1.5 million vs 20, 3, 28 and 10 million or something. The 80-years war, mostly overlapping with the Dutch Golden Age, made it into a pressure cooker. As a multicultural, multireligious global trading hub, 17th century Dutch Republic was unprecedented.
Just like the indusrial revolution happened in Britain, beause there developments that had been brewing all over Europe came toghether at that place at that moment in time. But a pretty essential invention for the precision engineering was for example the lathe, a French invention with a Dutch predecessor, or the cranck, which through the wind powered saw mill gave the Dutch the industrialization of ship building which gave them more merchant ships than the rest of Europe combined in the 17th century. I could also return the question, If capitalism originated in Britain, why they had to copy it from the Dutch? I'm not claiming capitalism originated in the Netherland btw, it was after developments in Italy, all kinds of exchanges in today's Belgium in the 1400's and 1500's, insurance programs for herring fishermen in the North that the Dutch Republic were the first with an entire capitalist system including a central bank, almost a century before William III gave Britain it's crucial Bank of England, with lots of financial products and a stock exchange.
Of course if youré a British historian looking back into Britain's history you go back to the industrial revolution and then the Bank of England and the coffeehouses, then further back you'll find traces of capitalism before too. And then you have a story of how capitalism developped in Britain. And it's not wrong, it's just not the whole story. The history of capitalism in Britain is not the history of capitalism, just like the history of the Glorious Revolution is not an entirely British history. I'm not saying British historians don't speak their languages, but the dominance of English creates and facilitates an Anglocentric perspective that makes it easy to overlook international developments and influences. The Dutch simply have less people, less historians, less books and they have always been in the middle of international developments. Dutch historians have to rely on foreign sources in foreign languages, often propagandistic when pre 20th century, and those perspectives a lot more. And even for studies into daily life inside the Dutch Republick the most important works were in English by Britons or Americans, citing English visitors. Not English soldiers of course, no idea how they would end up there and they would be mostly illiterate. No, British nobles came to visit this economic miracle, this odd little country, the anus of Europe, the Frogs before the French became the big enemy, that outcompeted them.
I believe both punched massively above their weight because both their times of explosive bloom coincided with the globalization/Europeanization they created themselves, the Dutch/LowLands in the 16th and 17th century, the British in the 18th and19th, adding huge weight to their punches. It's not a competition, I'm just saying Britain went from backwards to most advanced too just like other cultures and it's not a linear development throug some unique AngloSaxon spirit or something that didn't had outside influences, an army de facto invading and occupying the country to take the throne and reform the country's politics and economics fundamentally to a foreign example is a huge outside influence. The huge social changes the Dutch Republic speerheaded didn't transfer though, except for religious tolerance but that was mostly political back then. Britain remained classist, unequal and unegalitarian with limited upward social molibiltiy, oppressive morals. If we look back at the origins of what we consider basic individual freedom today, we might as well ignore Britain.
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@penname5766
@Pen Name How did parliament exactly compell William III (William of Orange is another historical bloke) to anything with his 40.000 troops occupying the country, no English soldier allowed near London?
When preparing the invasion William contacted those 7 lord parliamentarians and asked them invite him, I believe that historical fact should have reached England by now. That was one of many ways he organized support, he brought a whole propaganda machine to impress as a liberator rather than conquerer. That would save blood, and money, always important to the Dutch parliament, but mostly it was about creating a stable ally in the fight against the catholic absolutists. When England went behind the Dutch back to team up with Louis XIV (and German bishopries) in 1672 they almost finished the Dutch Republic, he could not have that happen again.
The idea that he had to be compelled to anything, just like he could be compelled to anything, is clearly misunderstanding what he wanted. He was not anything like a British king wanting all the power and have the nobility denying commoners rights. The Netherlands had long moved on from that and it was never much their style anyway. The English parliament or people didn't get any rights the Dutch didn't already have, many of which they had for hundreds of years with Philips II of Spain's rule just being a nasty interruption. The Plakkaat van Verlating was indeed a revolutionary document bases on legal/philosophical insights that were very fresh.
No, I'm not projecting. The Dutch Republic was a multireligious, multicultural society and brought that to Manhattan, along with capitalism and the upward social mobility (the 'American' dream) the Dutch had. There were Scandinavians, Baltics, Germans, Huguenots, Italians, Turks, Persians, Sephardic jews, Azkhenazi jews, the Pilgrim Fathers and subsaharan Africans livning in the Dutch Republic.
You should read some of what your countrymen visiting in those days were astonished by, and it was not just the riches (GDP per capita was about 4 times that of England) and the Turbans in the street and stuff. They were apalled by the lack of class distinction, everybody together in the public transport of that day, the horsedrawn boat, they believed it was ridiculous women travelled unaccompanied, owned businesses, could not be beaten by their husbands, even servants couldn't. Maids and carpenters owned VOC shares, butchers and bakers had several paintings in their house which for sale at a market stand. Husbands and wives showed affection in public, the existence of the clitoris was widely known and a sexual joy within marriage was no taboo at all, orphans were sent to school and literacy was extremely high, child mortality was much lower than elsewhere, there were rehabilitation programs for criminals. What we now know as the home started there. Men without noble birth and sometimes humble beginnings dominated politics. It was the birth of the ordinary man or woman as an individual citizen, worth painting with his personality and daily activity. It was certainly far more modern than Britain, than any kingdom of that time.
So socially the Netherlands was far more important and it was the dominant power of the 17th century, especially economically and that drove the British to the America's and the Indies as they could not compete in the then far bigger European trade. Only after the glorious invasion and through William's rule it was the much bigger Britain to take over and become the British Empire. The Dutch had their colonial crimes too but were never imperial, too expensive and lack of people, with only a 1.5 million population and most doing far too well to take on a job as a sailor or settler. The Dutch didn't make natives anywhere speak Dutch but learned their language to exploit them better. The British did and that's why it's a common language for a large part of the world. Drawback is that they only speak one language and have no idea about how language works. Iit limits the British (historians) to books and sources in English which tend to be self serving and miss things like that feudalism and capitalism are opposites.
The industrial revolution was also a big change, but relied heavily on Dutch and French inventions and the Dutch were already industrialized in the sense of windpower, the foundation of the dominance in shipbuilding, and standardization. They only lacked the precision for the ICE, and gun powder was probably not a good fuel, but the concept was 17th century Dutch, the external combustion engine (steam) was first. Microbiology underpins mondern society too and that was defenitely a Dutch discovery. They were huge in bringing math into science, the were proto-industrialists, but also in the sheer number of important inventions the Dutch punched further above their own weight. But just like many Americans believe America invented the car, the British have a habit of appropriating inventions and developments as their own once they found out about it and named it.
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@penname5766 If you call him a 'Dutch king' you obviously had no grasp of the situation. And no, his name is William III of Orange because the name without the number was already taken. That he was also the third English king William was a coincidence to make it even easier to be correct.
William's invasion was a propagandawar and that made it almost bloodless. He didn't want to be a glorious conquerer, he wanted a stable ally, not rebellions out of a sense of pride later. These seven (!) lord parliamentarians were part of that. The chuckle is about that propaganda making it into the 21st century despite the facts telling clearly showing it was an invasion and occupation, but the British come across as a bit desperate to still make it their own revolution. If it was not a sensitive subject, how do I know about 'Britain not being invaded since 1066'? A quick use of a search engine will show that myth is all around.
Projection of the British Empire onto the Dutch is another issue. There is a difference between colonialism and imperialism. The Dutch were already capitalist traders when the British were still feudal mercantilists with a desire to rule land and people. The Dutch believed empire was too expensive, there were even ethical considerations in the beginning, and they didn't have the man power for it with all those often not too loyal foreigners from all over the world manning their ships. They were colonial in the sense of settlers, trading posts, and letting the local rulers do the oppression, they did fair trade as well as very unfair trade and could be ruthless in conflict, but also deal on equal foot with Africans, Asians and native Americans. Huge landmasses and millions of people under Dutch rule, that only happened in the late 19th, early 20th century because the local rulers were too cruel for the homeland sentiment and the people had to be civilized and prepared for self rule (still hoping to make a profit though). South-Africa came under British rule in 1795 and that made the Boers move away to be free and fight two Boer wars (I know many British only count one Boer war, the one they won). The Dutch were very much 'hands off' for the area's they didn't live themselves. They were also the only colonial power that regularly purchased land from the natives.
The Dutch were extremely rich and had revolutionized warfare in the late 16th century and soldiers were for hire. It's not like they could not have taken parts of still very much divided Germany or Belgium. But they didn't share that feudal fixation on ruling land. They knew peace and trade served them best because they were the dominant traders and the idea of Mare Liberum, the free sea, is Dutch for a reason. It's completely different mindset from a very different society.
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@penname5766 @Pen Name "Whether he was a king or not"? I beg your pardon, I recently explained to you what he was. It's not splitting hairs, because you ignored a fundamental difference by assuming his motives as if he were a British king in your post that now seems to be removed, and now you're doing it again, talking about rude.
This thread starts with someone having a chauvinistic chest swell, which is fine with me, and you continue with naming British achievements and presenting some unique make-up of the country through which it's supposed to be at the origin of about anything good. I'm also pleased the former Dutch colonies doing well particularly on the typical Dutch inheretance. I share my general observation in general terms that the British tend to attirbute foreign inventions and developments to themselves once they have embraced those and project British history on others like they were about the same, only later and of less importance of course. It doesn't take a cultural antropologist to link those to a history of being an empire, but that doesn't make it correct.
That could actually be considered quite rude, as a general trait. I personally would think of different words and really don't care about rudeness that much, but to be considered rude by challenging that view with lots of arguments does not show any self reflection. If that's rude, what have you been doing in your initial reaction to me then? I don't take offense but I lack a bit of appreciation for the fact that both our points of view are equal.
I was not defining Dutch colonialism in terms of better motives. There were aspects to it that were better from good motives, but that's another story. It was different in nature with some bad outcomes and some good outcomes. I point that out, but assuming it was alike could theoretically also be considered rude. You also assume that Dutch history is similarly propagandistic, and written by men of advantaged birth. The latter carries a lot of projection of lacking upward social mobilty that Britain has been known for, the first is the rude assumption that it must be alike the British. Dutch history writing has gone through some propagandistic phases, for specific national use, but those are easy to distinct. I also pointed out why history works differently in a country of that size with such international orientation, and that it's foreign historians who tend to rave about the Dutch Golden Age (1570's-1670's). That's where I got it from, Jonathan Israel, Simon Schama, some Russell Shorto, people like that. Dutch historians tend not to get enthousiastic about Dutch history.
I got little positive to say about the Dutch 18th century (a country of rentiers and beggars, the two least productive people as Voltaire put it), when the pioneers of modern captilism had to face capitalism and see the money move to London. The Dutch probably got richer from the British Empire than from their own colonialism, since in the 17th century it was such an insignificant part of the merchant fleet and economy. Good and interesting things happened in the mostly empoverished, empire in decline, 19th century. But also regression, socially. The Netherlands went from a boisterous, outgoing, resiliant personality into a depressed, bitter, shoegazing and distrusting one. My point is that the 17th century was that of the Dutch, who had a revolution that was their own, were extremely modern turning every other country into a backward one, brought the Spanish Empire to it's knees and led Euope out of the Dark Ages and one important part of that was invading England and giving it's current constitutional monarchy and modernizing the economy. The Dutch created their own supreme power they would lose out to. That's fine with me, that would run out of advantage anyway and were simply too small to keep it up when others copied. But it was a pivotal point in European and world history. And then people claiming like it all came out of Britain and Britain somehow was always in the lead, that annoys me a bit because it's simply incorrect, and could be considered rude often. Also because it's through the British filter that is called the English language that North-Americans see Europe.
No 1066 wasn't the last time Britain was invaded by force. The fact that the English absolutist king got a nosebleed, fled to France and the army ran or defected does not mean it wasn't by force. It was too much force to fight, especially with the popular support thanks to the propaganda tactics. So again, it proves a sensitive subject.
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