Some people get ever so upset over the notion of inclusiveness. They rant about it being ‘politically correct’, dismiss it as ‘woke’, and cheer anyone pushing back against it. They react as though the natural order of things has been completely turned upside down.
But the advancement of inclusiveness is an integral part of human development, and has been happening for centuries. For anyone who thinks inclusive ideas are recent concoctions that emerged out of nowhere, it’s worth a look back to 17th century England when a number of pressure points shifted society in a markedly inclusivist direction to save it from chaos, confusion, and collapse.
The first pressure point was to be found in the citadel of learning. Francis Bacon and his followers who went on to establish the Royal Society drew attention to the problem of widespread ignorance and interminable disputes. Despite the claims of those in church or university institutions asserting their authority over what counted as knowledge, there were vast number of matters about which no one could reliably say anything useful about at all. On many subjects, intense scholastic debates raged without anyone coming up with anything to settle convincingly that one side or the other was correct. In the meantime, new explorations and observations were casting doubt on numerous assumptions based on ancient writings or customary assumptions.
The Baconians – also termed the new philosophers, or simply scientists – pressed for a different approach. No individual, whatever their status, could tell us what is to be believed as a fact or theory on their say-so. The believability of claims must be linked to an open process of checks, evaluation, experimentation, evidence-gathering, that tests and weighs contesting claims to see which stands up best. Being open means that it should be inclusive for all who can contribute, with no presumption to keep out the input of anyone on irrelevant grounds. Rich, poor, Protestant, Catholic, English, French, no distinction was to be made when what mattered was what someone could add to the information, classification, and assessment of what was to be accepted or rejected as knowledge.
The second pressure point was located in the intersection of religion and morals – in what was meant to be the supreme guiding light for life. Here, the impact of the Reformation was keenly felt. The Catholic Church no longer had the monopoly in declaring and endorsing how people should live their lives. There was no united front on the Protestant side either. Despite King James wearing the crown for England and Scotland, the church leaders of those two nations had serious disagreements. Then numerous dissenting sects sprang up, each with irreconcilable differences from everyone else.
Deists from Herbert of Cherbury to the Third Earl of Shaftesbury responded, not by setting up yet another set of doctrines to be adopted by a minority, but by suggesting that what was important was the common faith in all people in relation to the highest goodness they would discern in their heart. Instead of holding that one religion or sect must have the answers that should be imposed on everyone, their focus moved to considering what everyone – calmly reflecting on their feelings about what would draw their approval or condemnation – would converge on in terms of their moral sensibilities. Doctrinaire divisions would never be healed, and no one had given any reason why their version of ‘god/goodness’ must override all contrary views. The only feasible way forward was to allow every moral being to share, explore, and establish the common ground for the ethics that could apply to them all.
The third and most explosive pressure point was connected to the sovereign power to rule. The determination of Charles I to disregard parliamentary objections led to the English Civil War in the 1640s which ended monarchical rule, and the restoration of the Stuarts was to be disrupted by the 1688 revolution which overthrew James II for trying to rule against parliament’s stance. The questions of who should decide key issues for the country, on what basis were people to obey or reject commands, were thrown open.
The Levellers, Gerard Winstanley, James Harrington, John Locke, Algernon Sidney, and others tackled these fundamental conflicts by pointing out that the only way of resolving who would have the sovereign power to rule was to accept that everyone needed to share in that power. We could not expect anyone to bow down in perpetual subjugation to another. Although they had different ideas as to how the inclusion would be actualised in practice, they all agreed that the people collectively, rather than some individual or group, would be the source of political authority.
A further three hundred years on from the 17th century, the inclusivist ideas that emerged to deal with those three critical pressure points developed and converged towards a socio-political outlook that recognises the central importance of giving everyone the respect, opportunity, and share of power to shape the beliefs and rules that guide society. Inclusion is not some fanciful notion that had just appeared out of the blue. It is in fact one of our oldest, wisest, and most valuable traditions.
