Levellers

10-25-11

So I am slogging away at my Pirates, Captives, and Slavery paper, the one that Diller's so excited about since no one has ever studied this sort of thing, to my knowledge. (I'm studying the parallels between the New Model Army of the English Civil War and pirate societies.)

One of the factions inside Parliament and inside the New Model Army was the Levellers. Their official statement of their beliefs can be read here. I think they have a lot of parallels with pirates. (I'm also excited because I tracked down a primary document on my own; won't Diller be so proud?)

Anyway, there seems to be a lot in that document that I agree with. Maybe the ideas were too radical for the people in 1649, but some of the ideas seem pretty tame for 2011. Some of what is done today takes Leveller ideas even further than the Levellers themselves took it. (Seeing that their idea of universal suffrage was suffrage only for males who weren't servants, beggars, or Royalists, aka no mention of suffrage for women or other minorities. But they were taking baby steps.)

So, maybe I've unknowingly been a modified Leveller?