Concepts of Freedom and Property in Mediaeval Europe

David Wengrow and the late David Graeber, 'spiritual father' of the Occupy Wall Street movement, co-wrote a wonderful critique of European-dominated narrative of world history, 'The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity'.  Their attempt is to stand on its head the self-important 'history written by victors', parts of which are anyway being debunked all around as formerly subjugated countries pull off the yoke of European economic colonialism, decades after political colonialism went out of fashion.

One of the themes tackled by the authors is that of European 'Renaissance' of the 17-18th century, heavily 'publicised' as a home grown effort.  With copious references to books of French Jesuit priests who arrived in North America with the invaders, putting forth detailed accounts of their interactions with indigenous American thinkers (including the legendary Wendat leader Kandiaronk, whose thoughts were popularised in books written by an itinerant French writer, in the style of dialogues with a 'noble savage', a construct which was catching on at that time), the authors comprehensively prove that much of the ideas underlying the Renaissance were actually absorbed from such interactions, and did not in fact sprout spontaneously in European minds.

On the subject of individual freedom and liberty in the specific context of property rights, the authors extensively quote the 18th century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  He is shown to be heavily influenced by the then prevailing 'dialogues' floating about in European societies in various forms, including in the form of dramas, based on the same indigenous American thoughts.

In this context, a particular thought of Rousseau which is quoted throws light on how the concept of individual freedoms evolved in European cultures, as opposed to the completely different, much more egalitarian and compassionate path and bedrock of indigenous American philosophy.  Some excerpts may help:

On a slightly different note, not connected to the authors' arguments, the above perhaps puts in a bit of context a slightly puzzling feeling many people of cultures other than European have carried for years and years: namely, as to why people (or at least politicians) of European-descended cultures talk so much about liberty, equality, freedom and compassion (thoughts which may come naturally to people of some other cultures) while doing their level best to deny and snatch away those very things from others, earlier openly in the colonial era, and of late camouflaged behind veneers of free trade (read: economic dominance) and enforcement of 'rule based order' (read: war and other forms of aggression, driven by arms industry lobbies).

The reason for this dichotomy and holy talk may lie in the fact that in European societies in middle ages, from which most current Western politico-economic and social structures have developed over centuries, such lofty concepts were simply not the 'order of things' (unlike, say, in the Wendat society, or in the Lichchhavi and Shakya Janapadas of north India in the first millennium BCE).  Social and political status in European societies of that time was based purely on property and economic affluence, and individual freedoms and even liberty flowed out of that only, with no place for compassion of any sort on that count.  (As an aside, this may also be the reason for the violent opposition in such societies to even a whiff of the concept of Communism, a la McCarthy years in US, and its characterization as pure evil.) 

So could all that talk of compassion actually be arising out of a subconscious guilt at the human depredations inflicted upon other peoples by adherents of this core philosophy of European-seeded thought?

{We've to be very careful to distinguish here between indigenous American thoughts of that time and later/current American philosophies: the two have absolutely no parallels and are in fact diametrically opposite in many ways, not the least because most indigenous American tribes like the Wendat were wiped out by the marauding Europeans, something which continued at least till the 19th century if not later, and the current American philosophies are probably rooted on the bedrock of the same European thoughts, especially about property, dominance and freedoms, Renaissance-influenced or not.}