*Liberal Worlds: James Bryce und der demokratische Intellekt*
Wichtige Erkenntnisse
- •Bryce kritisierte den Indian Civil Service als fleißig, aber ohne Vorstellungskraft und Einfühlungsvermögen für Indiens Verhältnisse.
- •Er sagte, die Haltung gegenüber Einheimischen habe sich nach dem Ilbert Bill verschlechtert, besonders in Bengalen, und Europäer hätten sich oft arrogant verhalten.
- •Der Beitrag sagt, dass H.S. Jones’ Buch auch Bryces Einsatz für Armenien behandelt.
- •Bryce verteidigte die liberale Bildung und war an Debatten über die Geisteswissenschaften beteiligt.
- •Bryce diente als Botschafter in den Vereinigten Staaten und erhielt dadurch einen unmittelbaren Einblick in das amerikanische politische Leben.
Ein sehr gutes Buch, und hier ist ein Auszug, der direkt zu einem Gespräch passt, das ich gerade hatte:
He [Bryce] regretted the low quality of the Indian Civil Service: they were hard-working and motivated by a desire to promote the welfare of the Indian people, but ‘rather wanting in imagination and sympathy, less inspired by the extraordinary and unprecedented phenomena of the country than might have been expected.’ He went on: “Since the unhappy so-called Ilbert Bill there has been a marked change in the attitude of Europeans to natives, especially in Bengal; and the natives complain bitterly that the civilians as well as the military \u0026 the planters, treat them with arrogance \u0026 make them feel their social inferiority as well as political subordination.” He continued by saying that all he had seen made him certain that he had made the right decision in not pursuing a career in the Indian Civil Service.
The author is H.S. Jones, and I also learned a good deal about Bryce’s work on behalf of Armenia, a topic I had known nothing about. I am a big fan of Bryce’s The American Commonwealth as an analysis of democracy, though of course I do not agree with all of the particulars. Bryce also was an early NIMBY proponent, even then, and played a large role in debates over the humanities, basically defending liberal education. He served as ambassador to the U.S. as well, which gave him a direct view of American political life that complements his better-known writing on democracy. His long, perhaps overlong, Modern Democracies is in my Kindle queue to read.
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