History and Philosophes of Britain.
From the historiography of the major events that affected England in two centuries, or specifically, since the death of Queen Elizabeth I (1603) up to the French Revolution (1789); the English territories (including Scotland and Ireland) were of the highest degree of modifications. Click here to download the full chronology of events assembled by Kenneth Morgan (1).

In general, I recommend you print the three PDF documents that I have prepared for you during the last 3 weeks. Then put them on your table or desk. And just then, proceed to continue reading this publication. Today´s objective is to offer you new guidance about how to tie the knots between the manner of thinking of the philosophes in Britain, and the different situations that affected Britain during that time.

Please download the third last set of slides that we prepared for you this week.

History affects us fully.
Many crucial moments in history only occur because somewhere in a “once upon a time” series of events, divine providence allowed these incidents to happen. Later, at some point in time, the alignment of different conditions under distinct contexts was going to work out for the best. I truly believe that God exists, because history exists. I truly believe in Jesus as my savior and redeemer, because without him, nothing that we are, including the different legacies of Christianity that used the roman empire to expand, would have ever materialized. Nothing happens because of an accident. Whatever our ancestors did, even if unintentional, spontaneous, or premeditated; God-Jesus and the Holy Spirit always act together for the benefit of humanity’s progression into an integral advancement and improvement. Our current epoch problem as humans is: we have forgotten the importance of studying and treasuring our past. We are so irresponsible and foolish, that we as a civilization don´t practice the relevance of studying well, whatever our ancestors did. We have restrained our generations to study in detail what our past has left us as a legacy for prudence and insight.

In consequence, to understand the British context of history in which the Enlightenment relevant figures were creating books and debating about it; we couldn´t start to show you the historical context of the 17^th and 18^th centuries only. Why? Because there are certain pieces of the puzzle that we are trying to solve, that only can be observed by going back to the times of Christ.
Christ’s power through the cross was so meaningful that his life, and the consequences of it, permeated so profoundly in his followers, in such a way that dramatically and little by little started to change the concept of the kingdoms and the rulers of the planet. The fact that He was born in the middle ground of the Mediterranean with frontiers to the Middle East, wasn´t fortuity either. The truth is that Christ’s location within the boundaries of the Roman Empire wasn´t “good luck” either. The circumstances of the expansion of this Roman empire up to the Isle of England weren´t a coincidence either.
When we lose sight of history, we only see what we can during our lifetime (100 years life-span maximum). So since Aristotle, all the wise men who have had the opportunity to think and leave books were writing them because it was a message for the next generation of thinkers. This is why, we need to go back in time to retake the wisdom from our ancestors, and from there evolve for a better future. Many of the premises of the Enlightenment period in Europe are in need to be reviewed, as the same authors reevaluated themselves during their own production process. With the technologies and the Industrial Revolution, we have lost the rituals of wondering about the deliberation of the wisdom of our ancestors.

The British philosophers of the Enlightenment must be studied by Christians of all denominations.
I have put a distance to the theological atheist or deist ideas about God and religion from some philosophers of this saga. Why? Because if you blame them as atheists, and dismiss them before studying their philosophical and intellectual (scientist), political, economical, or moral profound legacy, that means, we haven´t learned anything from Jesus’s teachings. By studying all these figures, we aren´t becoming atheists. What we are doing is discovering the foundations of our economic systems of today which need repair. Christians are invited to participate in the recovery and rejuvenation of Capitalism. Otherwise, the same atheists and anti-Christians will continue accomplishing the wrong drama that we all are handling the consequences. A profound rehabilitation and restoration are needed in Capitalism, otherwise, we will decline sooner than later into barbarism. Before embracing any new digital technological disruption that is hurting our world, we need a crucial repair in the foundations of this journey that has offered so much wealth during the last 200 years, at expense of the message of the Love of Christ. That is why I am writing this saga. This is why I spend so many days between books, pages, and printed academic papers. Some days I am truly exhausted from reading. But I know there is a purpose beyond my own.

The evolution premises that the moderate British (such as Hume, and Locke) or the Scottish philosophers (such as Kames, Ferguson, and Smith) accomplished, were certainly an effort to make sense of the different situations that Europe survived in the past (including the crusades, the Holy Roman Empire of the German lands, the feudalism and the expansionism for the conquering of new territories within various kingdoms). Once America was discovered, and the Spanish-Portuguese took advantage of the first move privilege, England was being left behind. The House of the Tudors realized how important was commerce and trade, and they invested in vessels to obtain a piece of the trophies. Before the Tudor Queen Elizabeth I died, she blessed the privateering (piracy). So we simply observe that she was aware of the importance of merchant opportunism. It was with Elizabeth I, that the true foundations of our current Porter´s theories for globalization began (low cost and uniqueness). Feudalism as an economic system wasn´t working, even before the Wessex dynasty. In consequence, Elizabeth I, intuitively, knew that she needed pirates to explore what the Spaniards and Portuguese were doing in America.  The riches of trade were not going to be savored by the low-class uneducated merchants’ levels. The British Monarchy with strong connections to the Scottish (Stuart), the Dutch (Orange), and the Germans (Hanover, Hohenzollern) wasn´t going to leave the award of the new world in the hands of others. The prospects were so vast in Asia and the Americas that it was incomprehensible to simply dismiss them.

Each kingdom in Europe started to see itself as a state-owned enterprise. Britain was building its business model too.  The emergence of the East India Company (EIC) pointed to England as a pioneer in building this business model. The shift from the pirate model to the colonies model was led and protected under the monarchy umbrella. The riches of the new world had to be exploited organically. What Elizabeth I started as a vertical growth corporate strategy using pirates, changed to a horizontal growth of greenfield development in the new colonies of India with the EIC, and in America with the EWC (East West Company). When Charles I took power in 1625, the House of Stuart (Scotland) positioned itself in a privileged status, to lead that corporate strategy formulation. Acquisitions of land as a resource of power and expansion, utilization of cheap resources under the slavery phenomena, and the upheaval of the model CSBOT: Conquer-Settle-Build-Operate and Transfer Goods and Taxes to the Crown began. This was the exact moment in time in which Mary Stuart I was marrying William II of Orange. This arranged marriage “made in heaven” was the expected promise to glue and fortify the international expansion of Britain and the Dutch. Together, the dream of a more expansive wave of conquests in the world would have easily emerged as a monopoly from the British-Dutch against the Spanish Germans who were gaining the privilege of an influential enlargement of their power in America. Official history has deemed that William II of Orange died in 1650, meanwhile his wife Mary Stuart I in 1660. Regardless that the Anglo-Dutch wars followed their death, the future king William III (Orange-Stuart) also was compelled to marry his cousin Mary Stuart II, for the sake of living the vindication of the monarchy in the Glorious Revolution in 1688-1689.

Earlier, the Parliament took power through Cromwell in 1653, the British crown was enormously ingenious to use the strategy of “let it fall by its own weight”. In less than a decade, the monarchy was restored. When Charles II recuperated the rule of Britain, it wasn´t easy to be installed again. The Parliament was ruled by the powerful Earls and Barons, and the new intellectuals around them weren´t going to be tamed effortlessly.  The importance of the plague as a stand-by checkmate to reinstate the institution of the monarchy, including the Great Fire of London, weren´t isolated events.  When the dawn of the 18th century began, and in the context of the foundation of British imperialism, which was also fighting overseas with the Dutch and Spaniards; the Union of England and Scotland was more than beneficial to keep the peace inside the Isle.  The new philosophes of Britain, who weren´t radicals like those from the past century in France and the Netherlands, were so busy, not just building their own theories and frameworks about reality, but also creating the intellectual change of mindset that was required to adapt to the new reality of a “commercial society” that was being built overseas of Britain. When the House of Hanover took the baton of Britain between 1714-1837, the alliance between England and Germany began. Meanwhile, the Spanish-Habsburgs were dominating Latin America. The British-Prussians were also expanding wisely in the North of the new world and Asia.

Today´s philosophers that we have visited in our slides are remarkable in importance for what is Britain today. The roots of our imperialist capitalism were solidly entrenched in the 18th century. Newton and Locke triumphed above the rest of the philosophes of Continental Europe. Newton-Locke created not only a physics and mathematics explanation of things but a philosophy of validation, a theory beyond empirical observations, a solid framework that was impossible to be refused by the rest of the erudite who were trying to liberate Europe from the weight of their own past darkness.  And once Newton was accepted, the Newtonianism system was simply the A+ authorization for a series of consequent efforts that were tied to inventions for prosperity and wealth creation.  It was the moderate Enlightenment in Britain that won the career for the future. It was in the hands of the moderate British mainstream of enlightenment profiles that I have shown you today and two weeks ago, the ones, who paved the roadmap for capitalism. And it was in Britain, where the success of the intellectual class prevailed. An intellectual trilogy united with the political, theological, and social stamp of approval of the British monarchy. The economical theory challenges for capitalism came after the scientific-religious revolution. Adam Smith was just the beginning of what was next to come.

Please remember I am just starting our Enlightenment analysis. First, we need to know who was who, in each European country to flavor the big picture. I am building a dashboard of strategic innovation variables for the Enlightenment examination. At the moment we are analyzing three inquiries: Who, when, and where. In the meantime, Leg 3 of the Ocean Race 2022-2023 is underway from Cape Town, South Africa to Itajai, Brazil. Once we finish this leg, we expect to deliver all the answers to these three initial questions. The rest of the queries: what, how, and why of the Enlightenment will be replied to during season II of this saga, as of Leg 4 which will begin on April 23^rd. See the final outline schedule in the presentation slides.

Announcement.
Next week, we will continue exploring the profiles of the Enlightenment figures of Italy. The next topic is “Who moved the ways of the Enlightenment, part D. The Italians”.

Ocean Musical Section
Last Sunday, the teams left South Africa and our journey in the direction of Itajai began. During this week several things have happened. The teams Biotherm and 11th Hour Racing were able to fix the initial troubles and re-joined the race successfully. Nevertheless, Team Malizia had a large rip in the mast, and they have been making strong efforts to fix it, patching in continuum layers, gluing with pitches of special resins, and with a delicate careful process that only shows their enormous resilient spirit. But good news: Malizia has rejoined our race again. Yes! Look at the video below for further explanation, please. In addition, the Guyot Environment team was forced to suspend the trajectory of its Leg 3 competition definitely, because of damage in a panel. We don´t know if Guyot will rejoin in Leg 4, but at the moment they are returning back to Cape Town. We are only 4 teams heading forward.  At this moment the leader is Holcim-PRB.

The music compilation we have chosen for you today is a mix of classical pieces from the 18th Century in England. Interpreted by Kammerorchester Basel. Enjoy!

See you next Friday 10^th of March. Be patient with this saga, please. With this saga, we are learning and teaching you other things, even beyond what is apparently acknowledged, or beyond how to read strategically, the progress of finding solutions today is linked to our past.  Our research must be slow, delicate, and consistent. Like Malizia´s multiple layers of resilience. Thank you and blessings for reading to me.

^{Leg 3 is in a full movement towards Itajai. Photo Source: https://gfycat.com/gifs/search/volvo+ocean+race+extreme}

Sources of reference are utilized today. All are listed on the slides.

Disclaimer: Illustrations in Watercolor are painted by Eleonora Escalante. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY.  All are used as Illustrative and non-commercial images. Utilized only informatively for the public good. Nevertheless, most of this blog’s pictures, images, or videos are not mine. I do not own any lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.

Published by eleonoraescalantestrategy

Corporate Strategy Artist, San Salvador, El Salvador View all posts by eleonoraescalantestrategy