Footnotes by Chapter
027. Civil Society Definition
27. There is an enormous literature on “civil society,” most of which defines civil society in terms of non-governmental organizations. For an penetrating analysis of the various ways in which civil society is used in different cultures (primarily contrasting Eastern Europe and the democratic West), see Adam Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992). The current focus on “civil societies”—the network of “nongovernmental voluntary associations”—does not adequately distinguish between polities dedicated to the principles of civil societies, and ones in which these voluntary organizations operate despite the state’s coercive practices (see the rather loose use of the term in Richard Augustus Norton, ed., Civil Society in the Middle East, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1995–96); this literature, largely the result of anti-Orientalism, critiqued by Martin Kramer, Ivory Towers on Sand. To avoid the problems involved in using the heavily overused term, I prefer “civil polities” to refer to the former. Democracies then, are the major but not unique subset of civil polities. One can imagine other polities that meet these standards without the mechanisms of voting and regular turnover of governing figures characteristic of democracy (e.g., one in which the judicial function plays the central role).
108. Hate they enemy?
108. The Gospel of Matthew quotes Jesus saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’” Nowhere does the Hebrew Bible enjoin hating one’s enemies (at most, hating God’s enemies, Ps 139:21). On the contrary, it calls for helping one’s enemies (see above, n. 105), a command reinforced by rabbinic rulings: Question: Do you have to help your enemy not only remove the excess burden on his donkey, but also to help him reload the donkey? Answer: Yes. (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metsiah chap. 2). The misattribution of “hate your enemy” in the Gospels may well reflect a later, zero-sum attitude of the composers rather than Jesus’ original formulation.
136. French Historians Ignore Talmon
136. The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 4, The Terror, ed. Keith Michael Baker (Oxford: Pergamon, 1994).* Perhaps the most telling sign of its oblivion in historical circles comes from an article on Babeuf by William Sewell who explicitly invokes Babeuf’s origins in Christian millennialism without citing Talmon who, he apparently did not know, dedicated the entire third part of his book to Babeuf. Sewell, “Beyond 1793: Babeuf, Louis Blanc and the Genealogy of ‘Social Revolution,’” in The French Revolution and the Creation of the Modern Political State, vol. 3, The Transformation of Political Culture, 1789–1848, ed. François Furet and Mona Ozouf (New York: Pergamon Press, 1989), 509–27.
128. Bibliography on Millennialism and Englightenment
128. See Lee Tuveson, Millennium and Utopia: A Study in the Background of the Idea of Progress (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1949); Meyer Howard Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature (London: Norton, 1971), 56–64; more recently, David Nash, “The Failed and Postponed Millennium: Secular Millennialism Since the Enlightenment,” Journal of Religious History 24, no. 1 (2000): 70–86. For the prominent role of millennialism in the American Revolution, see Ruth Bloch, Visionary Republic: Millennial Themes in American Thought, 1756–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). For a good example of overlap between millennialism, “Enlightenment” values, and revolutionary ideology, see Jack Fruchtman, The Apocalyptic Politics of Richard Price and Joseph Priestley: A Study in Late Eighteenth-Century English Republican Millennialism, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 73, no. 4 (Philadelphia: Diane Publishing, 1983). James J. Hughes takes the role of secularized millennialism in modern times as a given, “Millennial Tendencies in Responses to Apocalyptic Threats,” in Global Catastrophic Risks, ed. Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Cirkovic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 72–89.
