Heroes of Hypocrisy
31st July 2022
It was Bertrand Russell, in a 1928 essay, who captured a central truth about the enduring power of the Puritan ethic in American life.
“The career of Puritanism has been curious,” he wrote. “It held brief power in England in the seventeenth century, but so disgusted the mass of ordinary citizens that they have never again allowed it to control the Government. The Puritans, persecuted in England, colonized New England, and subsequently the Middle West. The American Civil War was a continuation of the English Civil War, the Southern States having been mainly colonized by opponents of the Puritans. But unlike the English Civil War, it led to a permanent victory of the Puritan Party. The result is that the greatest Power in the world is controlled by men who inherit the outlook of Cromwell’s Ironsides.”