Achieving Universal Emancipation, The Hybrid Way
In William Benbow’s Grand National Holiday and Robert Owen’s Fourth Essay, universal emancipation from oppression is the main focus; however, both authors give variations on what this end state would entail, and issues also lie with achieving such an end state. In order to fully ameliorate the issue, it would be useful to contextualize the situation and expand on some important ideas. Furthermore, details will be provided on how this issue arose to begin with. Once having fully understood the premise of the issue, it would be useful to then propose how it can be fixed followed by reasonings as to why this proposal can be advantageous. In order to prove the importance of the proposed plan, it would be useful to explore and refute any other possibilities of fixing the issue. Therefore, the overall essay will be focused around efficiently responding to the question of how the divergences in both Benbow and Owen’s work can be explained and fixed.
The theme that ties these two readings together is emancipation from oppression; however, both authors seem to have different takes on this. Due to the fact that universal emancipation is the overall topic that both these authors discuss, it is important to understand which aspects of it they are addressing. The authors are looking at universal emancipation as something that will lead to the inclusion of all in society (Roberts, January 13th). Benbow sees emancipation as those who are abused and maltreated actively resisting the institutions that make up the majority of society (Benbow, p.4). To him, universal emancipation can only be achieved once there are equal rights, justice, and laws for all throughout society (p.14). For Owen, universal emancipation would resemble a state that “…admits no exclusion: every colour of body and diversity of mind are freely and alike admitted. It is open to the human race… (Owen, p.17). In this context, universal emancipation would address issues of exclusion within rights, policies, poor treatment in labour and lack of universal freedom (Roberts, January 13th). Now that universal emancipation has been narrowed down more, it would be useful to define some more key terms. To be able to fully assess the issue at hand and provide evidence that this problem exists would require the starting point of defining what political thought is. Political thought can be characterized through a twofold analysis (January 13th). This analysis on the one hand includes the critique of a structural, systematic, or impersonal social domination (January 13th). This implies that the system is wrong and transforming it will lead to universal emancipation (January 13th). The second portion to this analysis is derived from the standpoint of the oppressed, dominated or excluded (January 13th). The system is the problem because it produces both winners and losers (January 13th). In simpler terms, emancipation or inclusion of minorities would lead to universal emancipation from the system all together (January 13th). To a theorist such as Benbow, this analysis would lead to a specific political conclusion (January 13th). The political conclusion in question would include a more representative government or a bureaucracy that ensures equality of opportunities to all. Self-emancipation of an oppressed individual would then be the vehicle that leads to universal emancipation (January 13th). Now that the key concepts have been defined, the issue at hand can be further inspected. Owen is a benevolent philanthropist appealing to parliament, lords of industry, and the hereditary lords of the English society (January 13th). By contrast, Benbow is a Chartist who believes that the reforms such as the movement for the people’s charter will win the vote and regularize democratic franchises (January 13th). It only seems inevitable that two authors that appeal to different things have diverging opinions but, this issue must be regulated.
In both Benbow and Owen’s work, they seem to go about discussing universal emancipation differently. The problem arises because Owen does not take the perspective of universal emancipation that was previously defined whereas Benbow does. According to Owen’s perspective, the governments have actually made a huge error in the sense that they have held people responsible for their characters (January 13th). Owen states that “…the foundation on which these evils have been erected is ignorance, proceeding from the errors which have been impressed on the minds of the present generation by its predecessors; and chiefly by that greatest of all errors, the notion that individuals form their own characters” (Owen, p.3). In this way, perspectives are shaped by the circumstances of upbringing and education (Owen, p.3). Owen believes that this is the big problem that has plagued society from the beginning and the sole solution would be to overthrow personal responsibility thus, making everyone happy and productive by ensuring a good environment with a good education (Roberts, January 13th; Owen, p.7). Owen’s implementation would be to change society by reforming education so that citizens can acquire better characters (Owen, p.4). In contrast, Benbow views the end state of universal emancipation as involving regularized elections and granting the working-class power through democracy (Roberts, January 13th). His focus is not so much on bettering the individual through education rather, it is about letting the minority groups gain political power and representatives. The differences do not stop at the opinion level, issues also arise in their proposals on how to achieve their perceived end states. Owen wants to transform society from the roots and change all that we do , but he does not provide any sense of how to bring this transformation about (January 13th). Owen envisions a specific idealized society in which the oppressed would have freedom of opportunity but fails to provide a means to achieve it. Benbow believes that universal emancipation could be achieved through the “unity of thought and action — Think together, act together, and you will remove mountains, mountains of injustice, oppression, misery and want” (Benbow, p.6). Benbow thought that these reforms would transform society due to the fact that it would give working people political power to protect themselves from the wealthy aristocracy (Roberts, January 13th). It is theorized then that the most efficient way to achieve universal emancipation would be by forming collective movements and striving for improvements in politics rather than through better education. Owen does not provide a means of achieving universal emancipation and both author’s end states look radically different. Is there a way to unify these author’s end states and bring together a more concrete plan for universal emancipation?
In terms of going about solving the issue of diverging opinions and plan or lack thereof, a hybrid version of their standpoints can be made. Benbow’s suggested proposal of collective strikes and movements can be used to put both his and Owen’s ideas in motion. Benbow’s plan for universal emancipation would then become the means in achieving the end state that both him and Owen foresee. This hybrid plan would also involve disregarding the authors specific appeals to cooperativism and chartist movements. Rather, this plan would be radical and inclusive to all those who are oppressed in order to achieve universal emancipation. By disregarding what the authors appeal to, universal emancipation would not be specific to solely workers or overgeneralized to all of society but rather specific to the oppressed. To put it into simpler terms, the end state would involve ideas derived from both authors such as good education, good work environments, and regularized democracies that grant minority groups equal political power. This ideal state would train the youth’s minds through education; therefore, the state would guide citizens to obtain competent minds (Owen, p.10). It is important that through the administration of education, equal access to accomplishment and opportunity is ensured (Owen, p.10). This would lead to citizens adopting improved characters while keeping them accountable for their actions. It is important then to note that Owen’s notions of not holding people accountable for their actions should then be disregarded in this hybrid plan. The reason being is that this hybrid plan would grant all minorities access to political power thus, holding people accountable for the policies and representatives they support. Due to the fact that the end state would involve a democracy, it is important for citizens to understand that their vote changes the ways of society. This would also encourage citizens to make highly thought-out decisions when voting for their representatives and this consciousness would improve their characters as Owen would want. The same can be said for those in power. If citizens were voting for a representative in a democracy and that representative did not hold true to their advocacies, then they would also need to be held accountable for their unauthentic words. This is important because then with proper education, the hybrid plan would hold people accountable on the basis that they are also making informed and educated decisions. The hybrid plan would be carried out collectively through strikes and movements and would therefore eliminate all problematic propositions while including all those favourable to the oppressed.
In order to really demonstrate how advantageous the hybrid plan can be, it is important to analyze it a little further. The advantages to using the hybrid plan would be that it would solve and eliminate the author’s divergences regarding universal emancipation. Essentially, this hybrid plan would combine both Owen’s and Benbow’s ideas. It would combine Benbow’s idea that “a small portion of mankind, by adopting plan [adopts a plan] and method, by putting their heads together, have been [and being] able to do as they pleased [please] with the greater portion” (Benbow, p.6). The way in which universal emancipation would be achieved is through revolts against the system built on oppression. This plan would also include Owen’s ideas that “…the best governed state will be that which shall possess the best national system of education” (Owen, p.10). This solution is also very advantageous due to the fact that there is a lot of supporting evidence that has been mentioned previously that demonstrates how compatible their ideas can be. As seen in the proposal of the hybrid plan, with a few minor fixes, their ideas came together seamlessly. As shown, this hybrid plan is also extremely detailed and specific. This hybrid plan assessed minor inconveniences and was able to reformat their ideas. The hybrid plan is a clear fix for solving the author’s divergences. Not only do both author’s ideas come together beautifully, the hybrid plan would also ideally lead to a utopic state. This utopic state would be one in which includes everyone, grants minorities a voice and embraces diversity through the promotion of becoming and forming your own character. It is important to note that the hybrid plan does not disregard the author’s individuality rather, it enhances their ideas and brings them to motion. This is the only foreseeable way that both author’s divergences can come together while still prioritizing the oppressed.
It can however be argued that there are other ways to go about fixing the issue of diverging opinions and lack of stability within the plan to universal emancipation. Therefore, it would be favourable to now explore and refute other options. It can be argued that the problem of diverging opinions on universal emancipation can be ameliorated by taking into account the authors’ different backgrounds. Owen was a factory owner and he implemented ideas on how to reform work in order to give people a better environment (Roberts, January 13th). Due to his niche in factory ownership, he was inspired to implement ideas regarding reforming work, society, and education in order to mold people’s characters into something good (January 13th). As previously mentioned, Owen thought of himself as a philanthropist who aims to reshape the system (January 13th). This would provide an explanation as to why Owen wants to abandon personal responsibility and reshape society through good education. Owen specifically targets institutions and the state; therefore, his focus seems to be around disrupting the system. Benbow on the other hand was a chartist that advocated for what was known as the people’s charter and because of this, his ideas surrounding universal emancipation look very different than those of Owen (January 13th). This can explain why Benbow was able to provide a solid plan in transforming society and why he believes regularizing democracy is important (January 13th). Once having noted the author’s backgrounds thoroughly, audiences can comprehend where issues stem from. This solution would be taking the path of a grass-root analysis. Discussing the author’s background allows for a more detail-oriented understanding as to why Owen did not arrive at the same conclusions that Benbow did. However, this option will not stand against the hybrid plan and will be refuted.
There are various drawbacks to using the authors backgrounds as a factor in fixing their diverging opinions. The first and most important drawback would be that it does not necessarily fix the issue at hand rather, it just modifies the outlook of their perspectives on the basis of their interests. It is important to note that this solution would simply ameliorate audiences’ comprehension as to why the issue occurs but, it would fail to directly assess the issue. Furthermore, Benbow’s and Owen’s works do not go much in depth about their backgrounds and the ways in which they grew up, most of this information would be derived from speculation. Therefore, this solution would lack the precision that the hybrid plan has and due to this, the opposing solution would fail to stand. The sole concern that this causes would be that there are not enough detailed autobiographies to render this a plausible solution. With this lack of information, it would also be difficult to try to fix the problem given that making an argument on someone else’s behalf would require more knowledge on the authors. To efficiently pursue this solution, it would require knowing the author more than what their words can describe, one would need to understand their motives, ideologies, thoughts, childhood and interests. More importantly, this does not fix the issue that the hybrid plan sets out to fix. Given these reasonings, it would be extremely difficult to neutralize and render their opinions around one solution.
Benbow and Owen both sought out to analyze what universal emancipation would look like but, they had very different insights. When regarding both their suggestions, audiences can understand that there are differences in their ideologies of universal emancipation and how society would be able to reach that state. By defining political thought and the universal emancipation that the authors are addressing, the context for understanding the issue at hand was made clear. Once this was clarified, it was simple to understand that the issues arose due to their differences in who they appeal to, what their end state would look like, and how to achieve such end state. Therefore, the only plausible way to solve their differences was through the proposed hybrid plan. This plan highlights their compatibilities and composes a concrete plan of collective movements to achieve a democratic state that provides equal opportunities to all, while rendering workspaces safe and clean. The hybrid plan was demonstrated to be the best plan due to the attention paid to details, that it eliminates the issue, and is a plan that is inclusive to all those in need. Other propositions have been explored and refuted on the basis that they would not be able to eradicate the issue as did the hybrid plan. The issue at hand now ceases to exist and universal emancipation can be put in motion, the hybrid way.
Word Count: 2586
References:
Robert Owen, A New View of Society, Fourth Essay (1813–16); Marx, “Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction” (1844) (SW pp. 27–39)
William Benbow, Grand National Holiday. (1832). Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/history/england/chartists/benbow-congress.htm
William Roberts, January 13th, 2021. [Lecture Recording]. Retrieved from MyCourses.
Photo one: https://thepreachersword.com/2017/04/17/word-of-the-week-emancipation/
Photo two: https://www.geni.com/people/William-Carter/6000000002577032483
Photo three: https://www.bl.uk/people/robert-owen
Photo four: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/people-charter
