The Tudors is a bad show. I’m a sucker for historical drama, but after slogging through the first three episodes, of this much I can be sure. I don’t need the show’s writers to drop six references to humanism and Utopia in the first six minutes to remind me that, yes, one of the main characters is Sir Thomas Freaking Moore. I don’t need to watch King Henry make out with every maidservant in sight to grasp the extent of the man’s libido. Modern artifice can occasionally enhance historical drama (see Deadwood), but for the most part, The Tudors feels like a transplanted soap opera. Which is unfortunate, because the show’s subject matter is genuinely interesting stuff.
One particular scene comes to mind: As the Duke of Buckingham rides home, he is accosted by the King’s men, who demand he return to London and face trial for treason. He quickly agrees, convinced that no peer of the realm would ever vote to convict a man of his stature.
Buckingham, of course, was a traitor. But he was also confident enough in his status to face the King’s threats with equanimity. Which brings to mind this old post from Virginia Postrel:
. . . limited government is a liberal idea. It only seems conservative in the Anglo-American context because we’ve had several hundred years of liberal tradition. But there are older, pre-liberal conservative traditions, including a rather prominent one to which Rich Santorum outspokenly adheres–a tradition that honors hierarchy, solidarity, and “natural law” and sees liberal individualism as a source of decay.
Liberalism has always been identified with a robust defense of limited government, but limits are not unknown to older political traditions. Hierarchy, status and tradition were all barriers to untrammeled autocracy, albeit unsystematic and often ineffective ones.
The Tudors‘ relationship to historical fact is decidedly tenuous, but Buckingham’s trial manages to capture the reality of traditional power relations. The duke’s guilt or innocence is almost beside the point – his status, his reputation and his position within England’s complex social hierarchy were all guarantors of his safety.
Flawed guarantors, perhaps, as King Henry rigs the game and has Buckingham executed. But the episode reminds us that liberal conceptions of limited government are not without traditionalist precursors, and that all our talk of checks and balances would be quite hollow without certain conservative assumptions about the nature of self-interest and the importance of institutions’ cultural legitimacy. I don’t think it’s an accident that our legal system is rooted in a decidedly illiberal tradition, or (to take a more recent example) unapologetic reactionaries have been some of the most prominent opponents of modern totalitarianism. Something for liberals of all stripes to keep in mind when we speak of limits, particularly when faced with the fact that so many of the Bush Administration’s most outspoken critics – on torture, surveillance and the war – have all hailed from the traditionalist end of the spectrum.
…so many of the Bush Administration’s most out-spoken critics – on torture, surveillance and the war – have all hailed from the traditionalist end of the spectrum.
OK, yeah, I like the anti-war cons a whole lot too, but when I think of the most visibly outspoken critics of the Bush administration, I think of The Nation and Glenn Greenwald first, and I don’t associate either one with traditionalism. Am I wrong in thinking that these guys have more readers than AmCon?Report
Brafford –
I’m not sure if “outspoken” and “widely read” should be conflated. Greenwald and the Nation probably did more than, say, the American Conservative to push these issues into the mainstream, but that doesn’t mean critics on the Right weren’t equally outspoken (albeit more marginalized).
My broader point, however, is that a lot of our assumption about constitutionally-limited government derive from older, pre-modern political traditions. Even if Greenwald wouldn’t describe himself as a conservative, the system he’s defending is rooted in some fairly conservative assumptions.Report
I think you have to be careful here about using the labels “liberal” and “conservative.” They have different meanings in Europe than they do in America. European conservatives tend towards the traditional, hierarchical assumptions about life and how society should be organized. In America, I think that would be labeled traditionalist. The European liberal vein split in the 19th century, well after the Tudors, between what in America today would be seen as the libertarians (note that is with a small l) and the socialists. In my opinion, the socialists have doubled back on themselves, becoming, in many ways, simply supporters of a new tradition, with themselves, as “the people’s representatives,” at the top of the hierarchy. The drive to be in control of other people’s lives has not disappeared. The intellectual underpinnings have simply changed. Philosophically, they are not far from those I would call the fanatics, enforcing their way or death, whether the they are the followers of Cromwell or the Taliban. “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power absolutely corrupts.” The traditionalists failed intellectually because they could no longer point to a reason why they were in charge, “that’s the way we’ve always done it” being too slender a reed indeed. Interestingly, “God put us in charge” stopped carrying weight amongst the European upper class, but it remains a basis for power in the minds of the fanatics referred to above. The upper class’s mantra of “Duty, honor, country” deteriorated into collective self indulgence and foppery.Report
Will – I kinda like the Tudors. It has lots of things I don’t like, but overall I remain fairly well entertained…Report
E.D. –
Clearly, then, you hate America.
Patrick Duffy –
The terminology does get a bit confusing, doesn’t it? Here, I use “conservative” as a stand-in for a more traditionalist, illiberal understanding of politics.Report
Oh come on, only I can say that to E.D.Report
Dave you can say it, too. I can take it!Report