Robin Hood: Genesis of a Whig Myth

       I am going to lay out a personal theory, and encourage anyone who knows anything about the history of the Robin Hood myth to share knowledge in the comments. 
       In my early days as a conservative, I had the knee-jerk idea that there was something wrong with the Robin Hood myth.  Steal from the rich, give to the poor;  how Marxist!  As an experienced observer of eighteenth century British politics, I now conclude that Robin Hood is a Whig myth.  Who are the villains in Robin Hood?  Landed aristocracy, the church, and a corrupt Sheriff.  In other words, three groups that anyone in the elegant eighteenth would have associated with the Tories.  And another thing, the heroes are thieves!  Thieves, as in Bluff Bob in The Beggar's Opera?  The emerging commercial class are often spoken of by the Tories as being thieves.  Hence Estase's term Hip Hop Whiggery, also referring to the Daniel Defoe novels Roxana and Moll Flanders.  So in defending thievery as the natural consequence of restricted economic opportunities, the Tories are again attacked!  Feel free to conclude I've watched The Public Enemy too many times.

Kindness of Providence

"So little do we see before us in the world and so much reason have we to depend cheerfully upon the great Maker of the world, that He does not leave His creatures so absolutely destitute but that in the worst circumstances they have always something to be thankful for, and sometimes are nearer their deliverance than they imagine;  nay, are even brought to their deliverance by the means by which they seem to be brought to their destruction."Robinson Crusoe,Daniel Defoe, Bantam ed., p.227.

Premonitions

"Let no man despise the secret hints and notices of danger, which sometimes are given him, when he may think there is no possibility of its being real.  That such hints and notices are given us, I believe few that have made any observations of things can deny;  that they are certain discoveries of an invisible world, and a converse of spirits,we cannot doubt;  and if the tendency of them seems to be to warn us of danger, why should we not suppose they are from some friendly agent, whether supreme, or inferior and subordinate, is not the question;  and that they are given for our good?" Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, Bantam ed., p.225.

Meditation on Human Potential

"This frequently gave me occasion to observe, and that with wonder, that however it had pleased God, in His providence, and in the government of the works of His hands, to take from so great a part of the world of His creatures the best uses to which their faculties and the powers of their souls are adapted, yet that He has bestowed upon them the same powers, the same reason, the same affections, the same sentiments of kindness and obligation, the same passions and resentments of wrongs, the same sense of gratitude, sincerity, fidelity, and all the capacities of doing good and receiving good that He has given to us;  and that when He pleases to offer to them occasions of exerting these, they are as ready, nay, more ready to apply them to the right uses for which they were bestowed than we are.  And this made me very melancholy sometimes, in reflecting, as the several occasions presented, how mean a use we make of all these, even though we have these powers enlightened by the great lamp of instruction, the Spirit of God, and by the knowledge of His Word, added to our understanding;  and why it has pleased God to hide the like saving knowledge from so many millions of souls, who, if I might judge by this poor savage, would make a much better use of it than we did."  Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, Bantam ed., p187-88.

Limits of Natural Reason

"'Well, well," says he, mighty affectionately, "that well;  so you, I, Devil, all wicked, all preserve, repent, God pardon all.'  Here  I was run down again by him {Friday} to the last degree, and it was a testimony to me how the mere notions of nature, though they will guide reasonable creatures to the knowledge of a God, and of a worship or homage due to the supreme being of a God, as the consequence of our nature, yet nothing but Divine revelation can form the knowledge of Jesus Christ and of a redemption purchased for us, of a Mediator of the new covenant, and of an Intercessor at the footstool of God's throne."Robinson Crusoe ,Daniel Defoe, Bantam ed., p. 96.

Defoe, Gay, and Snoop Dogg

Having read a internet news story about how Snoop Dogg has endorsed Obama, Estase will, as usual, relate it back to the eighteenth century.  John Gay's The Beggar's Opera is the origin of what may be called hip hop Whiggery, along with that remarkable Daniel Defoe novel Moll Flanders.  These two works are a celebration of criminality, where the thieving Moll Flanders (we never learn her actual name) describes her life of thievery.  The Beggar's Opera celebrates a whole society on the take, from the simply corrupt lawyer to the king of the thieves, Bob Bluff (Walpole).  Are these works designed to turn morality inside out?  Or is the point simply that people who cannot profit in legitimate ways will find other ways to profit?  Estase tends to believe the second explanation, particularly in the case of his fave Daniel Defoe, champion of the tradesman.  Unlike Jonathan Swift, who held shopkeepers and tradesmen in low esteem, Defoe exalted this new commercial middle class.  So when Defoe explored the criminal underbelly of Britain, it was perhaps with an eye towards what might happen when the legitimate commerce of a nation becomes impossible.

On a totally unrelated note, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has sent out a threatening note discouraging churches from participation in the 2012 election, which would have absolutely nothing to do with the current president's obsession with gay marriage and abortion.  The letter promises that any church that involves itself with politics will lose non-profit status with the IRS.

Whig Journalism

"I saw a parcel of people caballing together to ruin property, corrupt the laws, invade the government, debauch the people and in short, enslave and embroil the nation;  and I cried, 'Fire'!"  Daniel Defoe

I love Defoe, as any regular reader of Q.E.D. has probably surmised by this point.  Defoe is in the literary world what Burke was in the political.  Defoe was the Whig writer of the greatest eminence for the eighteenth century, and is ignored by many conservatives who prefer the Tory Johnson.  (N.B. Johnson had a low opinion of Burke.)  Of course liberals idolize out of all proportion Jonathan Swift, who was a friend of a friend (Pope) of the scandalous Jacobite Tory Henry St. John.

Of course, even Tories of the eighteenth century look like members of the Rotary Club compared to the Jacobins who now constitute the Democratic Party.