That’s a really insightful historical analysis. However, I don’t think that quite addresses the point the author is trying to make. Perhaps I’m overstepping the mark slightly, but I think the author would claim that it doesn’t matter if it takes another 100 years or a 1000 years more for democratic societies to form. What does matter (for the author) is that they would form, and that when they did, that story would be the history we have today.
However, I do think the points you make about the history are interesting, and perhaps an engrossing thought exercise is to contemplate how the world might look in the 21st century without the American Revolution taking place when it did. Apologies if I’ve misinterpreted your or the author’s points.
I appreciate your reply. The point I was trying to make is, the contingency of ⌞there being an instance of democratic revolution going smoothly⌝ potentially makes the difference between that straight line happening or not happening. (And if the occurrence took 1000 years—but even that isn’t a given—I would consider that an example of “a god of straight lines” successfully being overpowered.)
I think that if there was sufficient backlash against democratic revolution (unclear if the American Revolution not happening would be enough cause), the then-existing status quo in the West (monarchy / feudalism) would not have gone on- that particular “god of straight lines” dooming feudalism would have been very hard to stop, but the resulting system need not have looked like democracy, and >50% would have been substantially worse by ⌞metrics most westerners care about⌝, though with small probability even better than the form of institutions which we ended up receiving, but largely different from modern notions of democracy.
That’s a really insightful historical analysis. However, I don’t think that quite addresses the point the author is trying to make. Perhaps I’m overstepping the mark slightly, but I think the author would claim that it doesn’t matter if it takes another 100 years or a 1000 years more for democratic societies to form. What does matter (for the author) is that they would form, and that when they did, that story would be the history we have today.
However, I do think the points you make about the history are interesting, and perhaps an engrossing thought exercise is to contemplate how the world might look in the 21st century without the American Revolution taking place when it did. Apologies if I’ve misinterpreted your or the author’s points.
I appreciate your reply. The point I was trying to make is, the contingency of ⌞there being an instance of democratic revolution going smoothly⌝ potentially makes the difference between that straight line happening or not happening. (And if the occurrence took 1000 years—but even that isn’t a given—I would consider that an example of “a god of straight lines” successfully being overpowered.)
I think that if there was sufficient backlash against democratic revolution (unclear if the American Revolution not happening would be enough cause), the then-existing status quo in the West (monarchy / feudalism) would not have gone on- that particular “god of straight lines” dooming feudalism would have been very hard to stop, but the resulting system need not have looked like democracy, and >50% would have been substantially worse by ⌞metrics most westerners care about⌝, though with small probability even better than the form of institutions which we ended up receiving, but largely different from modern notions of democracy.