Description
Butterfield held three lectures: 1) Religion and the Rise of Individualism, 2) Liberty and Tradition in England & 3) Liberty and Revolution in the World Today. Butterfield began his discussion by emphasizing the fact that the views of Christianity have long since influenced academia and everyday thought, especially as ideologies like individualism have been bound up with religion. With the movement to secularism, people believed they had thrown religion overboard, but actually maintained many Chrisitan ideas about the human personality. [When asked by students why the title was Religion not Christianity and the Rise of Individualism, he said that the Asiatic movement and 600 years before Christ were important in developing Western style of living]. However, this is slowly changing in the 20th century, as many turn their back on Christianity, pushing forth a revolution of thought and liberty which falls just short of drastic provocation. Butterfield discussed this connection between liberty and tradition as it appeared in the British political system. He claimed that the old ideas of liberty are placed alongside tradition in a way that avoids revolution in hopes of preserving the Englishman's position in modern times. The more materialistic the givernment, he claimed, the more likely to surpress/resist liberty.
In his second lecture, Butterfield discussed the connection between liberty and tradition in the British political system. He illustrated a difference in the French tradition to think in terms of the natural rights of man and the British method of thinking in terms of the historic rights of Englishmen. In his third lecture, he focused on the steps to revolution. He showed that the Bolshevik revolution was the best organized revolution since 1789: ""a scoundrel who wishes to become a tyrant could do no better than to follow their whole technique.
