John Farthing
Encyclopedia
Epistle
An epistle is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum. The letters in the New Testament from Apostles to Christians...
of Red Toryism.
Early years
Farthing was born at Woodstock, OntarioWoodstock, Ontario
Woodstock is a city and the county seat of Oxford County in Southern Ontario, Canada. Woodstock is located 128 km southwest of Toronto, north of Highway 401 along the historic Thames River...
March 18, 1897. His father - the Right Reverend John Farthing - was for many years Anglican Bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
of Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
. The youngest of two sons, Farthing attended Lower Canada College
Lower Canada College
Lower Canada College of Montreal is an elementary and secondary level private school.The college was founded by the Church of St John the Evangelist in 1861 as St. John's School and changed its name to Lower Canada College in 1909, replacing an older school by that name that was founded in...
, and McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
. After his second year at McGill in 1915, he enlisted with, and went overseas as a Gunner in the McGill Battery, Canadian Field Artillery. He served the balance of the war in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
with his battery.
Post-War
After the ArmisticeArmistice
An armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...
, Farthing resumed his studies at McGill, graduated with Honours and then matriculated to Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
where he entered the New College
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...
to begin Graduate studies. In 1924 he finished with a degree in Modern Greats. For five years after his return from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, he was a lecturer in Political Science & Economics at McGill - one of the brilliant young thinkers recruited and nurtured by Stephen Leacock
Stephen Leacock
Stephen Butler Leacock, FRSC was an English-born Canadian teacher, political scientist, writer, and humorist...
. Farthing was an early sceptic regarding Keynesianism, and as a result of the reaction to this then-apostasy, became disillusioned with academe - and so felt compelled to resign his position in 1929.
He spent the tumultuous decade of the 1930s buried in deep thought - with a view to developing new economic theories. In 1940 he returned to education, this time at Bishop's College School
Bishop's College School
This article is about the school in Canada. Alternatively, visit Diocesan College in Cape Town, South Africa.Bishop's College School is a private school in Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada....
as a Master, a position he maintained until 1949. From then on, he was engaged in critical observation and deep thinking about Natural Law
Natural law
Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...
and the State of Nature
State of nature
State of nature is a term in political philosophy used in social contract theories to describe the hypothetical condition that preceded governments...
, Freedom
Freedom (political)
Political freedom is a central philosophy in Western history and political thought, and one of the most important features of democratic societies...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and the philosophical implications of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
.
Philosophy
In Freedom Wears a Crown (published posthumously) Farthing argues that the world is torn between an American-style republicanismRepublicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
and Marxian socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, and that Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and the Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
have the means to direct men to a better way - a way that has been proven over many centuries to be the "best" way to order human affairs. The essence of his view is that Civil Society is an organism
Organism
In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
. Much like Richard Hooker, he seeks a third way between the political polarities of the day.
The central problem with republicanism is that it assumes that the majority is always right, and that majorities will always rule justly. The opposing socialist paradigm, is also problematic because it assumes the same for itself. Both systems are seen as tending to, or desirous of, perfection. As perfection is unattainable, creating a political and economic system with that as the ultimate goal, can only lead to anarchy and alienation.
Farthing notes:
The essence of the critique is that first principles
First principles
In philosophy, a first principle is a basic, foundational proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. In mathematics, first principles are referred to as axioms or postulates...
arguments about Man's natural state à la Hobbes, Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
, Rousseau, Marx (as related to his concept of "species being") are bound to lead to erroneous conclusions—for who can actually "know" what man's natural state truly was? It is lost in the mists of time. It was unrecorded and undocumented, and is so unknowable. To base a civil society on first principles that are unknowable is highly problematic, and potentially dangerous.
To Farthing, the British Crown and Westminster model
Westminster System
The Westminster system is a democratic parliamentary system of government modelled after the politics of the United Kingdom. This term comes from the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the Parliament of the United Kingdom....
of Parliamentary government are the best guarantors of man's freedom, security, and happiness - because they do not claim to know the unknowable, and do not seek perfection. Monarchy and Parliament are not based on mere ideas of perfection, or pure logic, but rather on the accumulated experience of a particular culture over 1000 years. They have also been - in the form of kingship - a part of man's recorded history many times; since at least the days of classical antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
. They are not creations of a man or men, but of generations of men and women. They are the accumulated wisdom of a civilised people.
and further ...
This is a critical distinction to Farthing, for the law is mutable and changes with the generations to fit the needs of particular times. To saddle an entire culture with base laws that are said to speak for all times, is the height of folly. Who can know what will be deemed "just" 400 years from now? For Farthing, only free men assembled in a parliament can know such things. Parliament alone is Supreme. And that Supremacy is shared with - in fact, derived from - the Crown.
That the unwritten British Constitution is capable of such change, reform, and at times retraction, seems to Farthing to make it the most sensible form of government. It highlights, in a very Burkean way, the fact that the British system of government is truly a "contract between the living, the dead and those who are yet to be born." To Farthing, that is its essential genius, and something that Canada should not pass up too lightly in trying to emulate the United States - and other such ideological and inorganic systems of government.
To be sure, Farthing's work is derivative of Hooker, Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
, and Tory thinkers of English patrimony; what set Farthing's work apart from theirs is that he was addressing his defence of the British system from the perspective of outsider, in the sense that what he was defending was no longer de rigueur politically.
Farthing died in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
on March 9, 1954.