I am very pleased to have been able to incorporate in my Bibliography an article that was published only three weeks ago: Thomas Lansdall-Welfare and others, ‘Content Analysis of 150 Years of British Periodicals’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114 (2017), no. 4, E457-465. My attention was drawn to it by an excellent feature by Oliver Moody, Science Correspondent, in The Times of 10 January 2017, p. 3, entitled ‘Age of Celebrity Born as Victoria Died’.
A team at Bristol University led by Nello Cristiani, professor of artificial intelligence, and including the historian of ideas James Thompson, developed a computer tool that could crunch 35.9 million articles (28.6 billion words) from 120 regional newspapers published in the U.K. between 1800 and 1950, and plot selected words and semantic clusters in this dataset over time. Because newspapers obviously come out more in ‘real time’ than books do, this Bristol project has produced a much sharper picture than a similar one of 2011 involving millions of digitized books published over 200 years.
Thomas Lansdall-Welfare and his co-authors exercise very proper caution in interpreting their results. For example, one hardly needs to be shown high spikes for the word ‘coronation’ in 1902, 1911 and 1937, as one already knows that Edward VII, George V and George VI were crowned in those years! But the magnitude of a keyword’s frequency might well cast light on such matters as the role of the regional press over time or the ‘popularity’ of the event/person/activity etc. concerned. Thus a graph for frequency of mention over time for ‘suffragists’ and ‘suffragettes’ produces exactly the sudden spikes for the ‘suffragettes’ that one would expect, around 1910 and 1918, but it is the height of those spikes that is astonishing. What is going on here? We know that for most of the nineteenth century suffragism was perceived as a boring, almost academic movement, and it flatlines on the graph. But the term ‘suffragette’ was probably introduced by journalists in the first place (from America), the suffragettes wanted as much publicity as possible, and their activities were a godsend to popular journalism. The PNAS authors suggest, indeed, that the ‘sharp rise in coverage of the suffragettes (and suffragists) following the dramatic death [1913] of Emily Wilding Davidson, who was trampled to death by the King’s horse at Ascot’, is ‘perhaps an early 20th century example of the importance of a “media event” to a political campaign and its ability to capture the journalistic imagination’.
Over the last eight years or so, I have read an awful lot of British national newspapers from the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, and some regional ones. I was gratified, therefore, to see that my mere brain had picked up a few cultural shifts in the period 1895-1915 that are ‘scientifically’ confirmed by the Bristol project. For instance, the project indicates that trains overtook horses in popularity around 1902 and association football outstripped cricket around 1909, which was already my vague feeling. A particularly interesting finding of the project, not mentioned in the PNAS publication but described by Oliver Moody, is that the word ‘democracy’ flourished after 1900.
I can say that I had picked this up from about 1908, when George Calderon became involved in the anti-suffragism movement, but it exemplifies how careful one should be in interpreting word-frequency data of this kind.
From the fact that ‘democracy’ features increasingly in the press from 1900 onwards, it would be natural, perhaps, to conclude that this is because democracy was becoming more popular. But my own impression is that the word was used pejoratively in about fifty percent of the cases I have seen for the period 1908-1915. In other words, only half of the increase in the word’s frequency might be attributable to the ‘popularity’ of democracy; the aggregate increase might actually indicate a significant conflict over democracy’s desirability in Edwardian Britain.
For a start, it seems to me that the Edwardian upper classes did not view democracy as a concept, let alone as an ethical value. They regarded it as a possible form of government like any other, e.g. monarchy, parliamentary democracy, or oligarchy. Their classical education taught them that in Athens rule by the hoi polloi (‘rabble’) had been a bad thing. Democracy tout court might therefore be the lowest form of government. The key factor here for the Edwardian establishment was ‘education’, for which read ‘qualification to have the franchise’. From what I have seen, it is possible that the landowning classes, Tory politicians and imperial consuls like Lords Cromer and Curzon thought enfranchising more people was desirable in theory, but only if these people were ‘educated’ enough to make electoral choices ‘responsibly’; otherwise, it would be disastrous. This, of course, was their objection to extending the franchise to women and the working classes: these groups of people weren’t educated enough to make the right decisions…
This may seem a completely preposterous, class-bound view, but you would be wrong to think it is dead. A friend recently said to me, ‘It rather looks as though the Brexit vote split along lines of education.’ He didn’t expatiate, but the remark was made in the context of the cities of Oxford and Cambridge delivering the biggest Remain votes in the country. He was, in fact, implying that those who voted Leave weren’t educated enough to know what they were doing. Others believe they have a right to reverse the outcome of the 2016 referendum. This is quite clearly an oligarchic argument like the Edwardian establishment’s, and laughably wrong in principle and fact. They want us to be governed by Philosopher Kings.
In our case, the problem is the exercise of referendums as an instrument of democracy. The Edwardians, I think one could be pretty sure, would never have understood the need for referendums, as their ‘democracy’ elected M.P.’s to parliament and parliament was sovereign. In fact, there have only been three U.K.-wide referendums in the country’s history, and they have all been in the last forty-three years. Presumably they were thought to be necessary because the referendums’ issues were so important to the nation’s existence that they couldn’t be left to M.P.’s whose view was out of kilter with their own electorate. Well, that may have applied to Brexit, but no referendum was held on capital punishment (which the electorate overwhelmingly wanted, but M.P.’s didn’t). Conversely, in Edwardian Britain around 1909 a narrow majority of M.P.’s approved of votes for women, but the government could appeal to polls that showed there was no national majority desire for it.
George Calderon had all the experience of parliamentary-style debate that came with a Rugby and Oxford education (his friend Archie Ripley, Kittie’s first husband, actually became President of the Oxford Union). His experience of autocratic government in Russia informed his interest in the nature and future of western democracy. Thus we find him studying Edward Carpenter’s Towards Democracy when he returns from Russia and is living at Eastcote. He thought that Tsarist autocracy was bad for Russia, but he recognised that most Russians wanted it. On the other hand, in 1903 he was impressed by the Russian view that ‘the Emperor sits for minority as well as majority, and for the Country as well, a constituent not represented in our Parliament’. This pushed George towards espousing proportional representation.
As the male owner of Kittie’s property, George had the vote. He certainly exercised it, and at the turn of the century seems to have been close to his friend Newbolt’s Liberal Imperialism. However, the splits in the Liberal Party and Conservative-Unionist government over Home Rule, the Boer War, Free Trade and so on, seem seriously to have disillusioned him with parliamentary democracy. He felt it led to weak government, and this is the source of the bitterness that underlies his 1904 satire Dwala. It is disappointing, of course, that he could not see that contemporary political instability and rudderlessness were the products of politicians’ incompetence, not the fault of democracy as such. The final paragraph of Dwala reads:
There is no remedy for the errors of Democracy; there is no elasticity of energy to fulfill purposes conceived on a larger scale than its every-day thought. Other systems may be purged by the rising waves of national life; but Democracy is exhaustive.
I leave it to readers to decide what he meant, but he certainly did not think that Democracy’s performance could be improved by expanding the franchise from 30% of the mature population to include women or the ‘lower classes’ — or by holding referendums.
Patrick: in your Post today, you scrupulously use home-grown Brexit as an example (or an example offered to you) of a democratic decision split on educational lines. But surely, as we reel from Trump’s scything of the American political scene, we observe once again the implicit antagonism of differently educated sections of the community? So many American writers and politicians have admitted, since 8 November last year, that they simply didn’t know what was going on in the country. There’s a curious contradiction between horizontal connectivity (the linking of like-minded people and groups) and the mutual sealing off on the vertical scale. A net–‘reticulated at its intersections’, as Dr Johnson famously defined it–may be more one-dimensional than we think. And at this moment of social media, this certainly does not help democracy to deliver.
I can’t really tell how antagonistic to each other the ‘differently educated sections of the community’ are (you do qualify it as ‘implicit’ antagonism), but I certainly agree with your finely expressed remarks, Damian. How ‘educated’ can writers and politicians be said to be if they don’t engage in knowing what the rest of the country thinks/feels and why? There is also an amazing amnesia about democracy actually involving ‘others’. ‘The people’s voice is odd…’
For information: the latest view among historians is that celebrity dates from the 18th century and that Rousseau was its first ‘casualty’: an ordinary man thrust into the limelight: see the recent book by Antoine Lilti. My own view is that the first celebs in this country were Emma Hamilton and Queen Caroline: Caroline could cope, Emma couldn’t.
On education and democracy, it is worth remembering how small a percentage of the Edwardian middle-class actually attended a public school and Oxbridge. As a result the extent to which even the prosperous in Britain before the First World War had profoundly imbibed the notion of public service and imperial sacrifice can be exaggerated. Most members of the middle-class (or middle classes, if you prefer) had local, family and civic identities and were not particularly philanthropic. Their focus was local rather than national politics, despite the railways.
Thank you very much indeed for this information, which I appreciate all the more for it being based on a deep historical knowledge.
The title of Oliver Moody’s piece may have misled you slightly. He was in fact explaining that according to the Bristol data ‘the end of the 19th century even brought the first stirrings of a new kind of celebrity culture that would culminate in Kim Kardashian’s bottom […] From the mid-1880s writers and politicians starred in the [regional] newspapers ever less frequently, while journalists paid increasing attention to the actors, singers and dancers who sold out theatres and music halls’. I must say I failed to notice this myself, perhaps because I had to read so many theatrical reviews etc anyway. I agree with you about Emma Hamilton being the first celeb: judging by all the portraits of her in south coast pubs and old houses, she still is a celeb there!
It is worth remembering how small a percentage of the Edwardian middle class attended public school or Oxbridge. It was the latter, surely, that made a ‘gent’, which it’s easy to forget Calderon and Ripley were, and I totally agree with you that the extent to which the others had imbibed ‘the notion of public service and imperial sacrifice’ has probably been inflated. My own family history as I received it orally also completely bears out your remarks about the focus of the middle classes being local rather than national politics. And in local politics, of course, many women already had the vote.
Laurence Brockliss, February 1, 2017 at 8:26 am:
When I saw this last week I instinctively thought it couldn’t possibly be true.
After all, only that morning I had been reading a “Today I Learned” reddit post concerning Gaius Appuleius Diocles, a Roman charioteer who lived 104-146 AD and whom we understand to be the most highly-paid athlete of all time. My thinking was that of course anyone so successful must have been a “celebrity”…what was this nonsense-talk of celebrity only dating from the 18th century?!
But, naturally, my thinking regarding Diocles relied on assumptions about media exposure that simply didn’t apply in his time, and which I, as a person in 2017, take completely for granted.
He didn’t have an instagram account, he didn’t tweet, he certainly didn’t own an iPhone, and with what were the paparazzi of the time supposed to capture his image? (And, for that matter, how were they supposed to chase him? He was, after all, a professional charioteer…)
I realised that in Diocles here was a person who – despite his wealth, achievements, and even fame – could step into any tavern in the land and not be bothered by men and women alike trying to snap a selfie with him for their profile pic that month.
The notion that celebrity dates from the 18th century does, indeed, make complete and total sense.
I’m afraid, Patrick, that your friend was backing a winner when he said, ‘‘It rather looks as though the Brexit vote split along lines of education.’ Published just yesterday (6th Feb) is the BBC’s more detailed breakdown of Brexit voting per ward – don’t bother to read all this, but take a look at the very highly-clustered graph entitled: “Wards with more graduates had lower Leave vote”.
Of course, what this convincing graphic tells us is only that people with degrees tended to vote Remain. It certainly does not tell us what Patrick’s friend (and/or others from the cosy elite classes) may have been thinking, in Patrick’s words, that ‘those who voted Leave weren’t educated enough to know what they were doing’. Far from it, it could even give us a pro-Brexit message that those without degrees are having a rough time in our globalised society and were smart enough to see they could do better if Britain left the EU.
Phew, I’ve managed to sound politically neutral on Brexit (despite being an unashamed Europhile and an ‘if-only’ Remainer). But moving on swiftly….
I read Patrick’s post last week, the same day that I happened to read an article published on Motherboard website (a spin-off from Canadian news/culture magazine, Vice). The article, by Hannes Grassegger and Mikael Krogerus, and originally published in German in Das Magazin, is here:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win
Both Patrick’s and Das Magazin’s articles expose the power of number crunching in understanding social trends. And both of them major on the role of ‘education’ – or shall we say “information” – on democracy.
The Das Magazin article suggests that Trump’s team successfully used ‘big data’ (aka number crunching) to help Trump win the presidential election, probably using the services of a UK firm called Cambridge Analytica. Would Trump say that this article contained ‘fake news’, in his words? Maybe, and I did feel there was a lack of hard fact in Das Magazin’s article, perhaps too much quotation from the Cambridge Analytica’s CEO (bearing in mind that this firm might have something to gain from a story on its vote-manipulation prowess).
But the main arguments of the article are demonstrably true. Big PR firms use Facebook and other social platforms to deliver advertising messages via enjoyable or shocking ‘virals’, which rack up millions of views. Many of these have a definite anti-establishment feel to them (to make them fun to share) and it is really easy to include a message to target groups of recipients, who will spread the message and/or be influenced by it. The example given is the inclusion of ‘videos aimed at African-Americans in which Hillary Clinton refers to black men as predators’ – easy to see how this would erode Clinton’s vote.
Over to the ‘Guardian readers’ (I use this term lightly and in jest) to bemoan the use of Facebook as a news source. Probably the Edwardians felt the same about the information sources that the then non-franchised classes could access.
Just back on Brexit to finish off (sorry). Das Magazin made passing mention of Brexit, but didn’t seem to have any real story here. With the British political parties claiming, variously, and unbelievably in both senses of that word, that Brexit would mean the NHS would have more money, that Brexit would cause financial ruin, and (via the infamous poster) that refugee migrants equate with EU nationals free to work in Britain, there was a vacuum of hard fact and no need for any sinister manipulation of opinion. I’m with Patrick in linking ‘contemporary political instability and rudderlessness’ with ‘the products of politicians’ incompetence’, albeit in a different century. And in 100% supporting democracy over ‘Philosopher Kings’!
Dear Jenny, this is fantastically interesting (and as far as I can see, politically neutral!)… Thank you so much. I don’t want to jump in too fast, I hope others will want to contribute pronto, but I will say more eventually and I have followed your link. A tout à l’heure, then. Come on, Calderonians: are we suffering from the ‘errors of Democracy’ or the excesses of ‘post-truth’?
Jenny, what you say about Facebook is absolutely right.
I recently un-muted 526 friends so that – in this politically “interesting” period – I could better hear everything everyone in my network wanted to share, in real-time.
It was astonishing how political the chatter has become, and in exactly the way you describe: shared videos combining entertainment with political affirmation and (more rarely) subversion.
What still remains a mystery is the extent to which Facebook and other social media platforms tweak their content-serving algorithms.
There are explicit advertisements threaded into my newsfeed, but I believe it is a mistake to think Facebook’s influence over what I see is strictly confined to the odd advert every 5 or so posts.
Certainly, if I were a shrewd Facebook manager, I would wish to monetise that control over what different topics have priority when shared between friends. And, world climate of political armageddon or not, I’d bet the preponderance of politics in my news feed owes a great deal to shrewd behind-the-scenes management at Facebook and hefty sums exchanged…
Jenny, this is a tour de force. You have touched absolutely key issues…and with up-to-the minute data…and seamlessly…so that I find it very difficult to know which square of the blanket to pick up without drawing all the rest with it! Will you excuse me, then, if I just focus on some ‘Calderonian’ points — which I hope will still be relevant?
First, referring to your penultimate paragraph, I think Edwardians of the class that George and Kittie belonged to did regard the ‘New Journalism’/aka Northcliffe Press much as we may regard Facebook as a news source. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s a lexicon in the Edwardian ‘Daily Mail’ and ‘Standard’, for instance, that is definitely a shift towards the ‘reptiles’, news media, Tweetery, fakery etc. as we know them today.
I feel certain, though, that George would not regard the non-franchised classes’ reading of these papers as disqualifying them from voting. One of the things I admire about him is his Orwellian belief in studying the political and economic facts and listening hard to what others are saying. Where Newbolt relished dinner with Lord Rosebery, George preferred listening to down-and-outs, the unemployed, road-menders etc, who, he found, had political views of their own that weren’t stupid at all. (The idea of many ‘educated’ people that education = intelligence, is hilarious!)
Someone (Woodrow Wilson?) said that all democracies end by destroying themselves. But that’s a throwback to the Edwardian oligarchs’ view of Ancient Greek democracy. All democracies can survive by defending themselves. In my view, the losers in the referendum and U.S. actively lost: they did not have enough conviction and passion, they did not work hard enough, their arguments weren’t good enough or expressed well enough, and above all they weren’t ‘listening’. George Calderon spoke half-ironically of the ‘errors of Democracy’, but he believed in it all right. I think he would see Twitter, Facebook, the tabloids, even Cambridge Analytica, as opportunities for winning the argument in a democracy.
But I am certain he would feel they had to serve the truth, the truth, and not the ‘post-truth’. Stalin smirked famously ‘How many divisions has the Pope got?’, but it was the plain truth of facts that brought Soviet Communism down: even his successor as Gen. Sec., Gorbachev, ended up listening to the BBC!
Jenny’s comment and this article from Das Magazin are equally compelling. Could it be that we are also ‘suffering from’ history repeating itself? I found myself reminded of How Domesday Book Got Its Name – from the widespread and unsettling feeling that “they” know everything about “us”. Some – I hope many! – Calderonians may live long enough to commemorate the millennium of the Norman Conquest. It is sobering to reflect that nearly a thousand years have passed and once again the population of this little island is preoccupied with the thought of invaders from across the English Channel.
We are offered endless speculation about the post-Brexit future of Europe. Have we come full circle from World War One? I suspect the truth is, only time will tell.
Thank you, Clare, for a fresh and unexpected angle. There is certainly a lot of Doom about. Personally, I have always found the idea of ‘circular’ history depressing and unlikely. However, what has really dismayed me since the referendum is the lack of comment from British professional historians. As you say, we are offered ‘endless speculation about the post-Brexit future of Europe’, but our historians who have spent their lives studying British and European history won’t venture an historical interpretation of the referendum result itself. It is almost as though they are afraid of appearing to ‘condone’ it if they offer an explanation in the longue durée that is supposed to be their speciality. I don’t accept that the referendum was necessary, and I deplore the margin of its outcome. But two years of living and breathing WW1 with George Calderon and others have convinced me that they were fighting not just for Europe but for their home (see Lewis-Stempel’s book, of course), and they desperately yearned to come home and get on with British life, just as they did in 1815 and 1945. I think it is legitimate to feel, therefore, that in the longue durée our period in the EU was never likely to be more than an interlude, and in that sense the terrific act of commitment to Europe initiated by the Great War has come full circle; it’s ‘complete’. But who am I to say? I am not an historian… I think it is a fact, though, that Britain has not experienced political union with continental Europe since we owned swathes of France in the Middle Ages, and perhaps political union is the agenda that voters have rejected first and foremost.