Sir Robert Filmer
The Man versus the Whig Myth
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3426567 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter Laslett (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1948 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 523 |
| Publication date | 1948-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The William and Mary Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0043-5597 • E-ISSN: 1933-7698 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1920638 |
| OpenAlex | W2315614316 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
IT IS OF the nature of political thinking that there should be almost no theorists of conservatism. Defenders of the status quo there always ,are, opposers of change, appealers to every sentiment of timidity, of prudence and of caution. But very rarely do we find systematizers of reaction, seldom makers of what is now and has been, familiar, loved and respected, into a series of intellectual propositions. It can only be for this reason that there has been only one even reasonably effective theoretical conservative in the political history of the English speaking peoples, and why the doctrines of Sir Robert Filmer did duty on the right not only in the English Revolution of i688, but also in the American Revolution of the 1770's and 8o's. The arch-conservative of the American Revolution was an English Tory parson, Jonathan Boucher. It was thus that he dedicated his A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution, To George Washington, Esq., of Mount Vernon in Fairfax County, Virginia. I was once your neighbour and your friend.' The book's political doctrine was pure Filmerism, the ablest exposition of the patriarchal system that had ever been made. Filmer's political concepts belonged to the late Elizabethan atmosphere, in which Sir Robert was born in 1588. His opinions had been first expressed in that era of complex conflict which led up to the English Civil War and Commonwealth, under which he died in i653. His Patriarcha had become notorious during the controversy of the i68o's, which ended in the Glorious Whig Revolution and the triumph of the teachings of Locke and Sidney. Filmer and patriarchalism lost all their battles and, except for a brief period under Charles II, were always associated with an unpopular and even persecuted minority. So the man himself has been forgotten: his thinking has been misunderstood and mis
Art · Literature · Mythology · American Constitutional Law and Politics
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,1 |
| Citation span | 1966 - 2021 (56) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |