Ernest Belfort Bax

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Ernest Belfort Bax
Bax, c, 1880
Born(1854-07-23)23 July 1854
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, UK
Died26 November 1926(1926-11-26) (aged 72)
NationalityBritish
OccupationBarrister
Known forMen's rights, Socialism
Notable workThe Legal Subjection of Men (1896)

Ernest Belfort Bax (/bæks/; 23 July 1854 – 26 November 1926) was an English barrister, journalist, philosopher, men's rights advocate, socialist, and historian.

Biography

Ernest Belfort Bax was born on 23 July 1854, in

Evangelicanism and Sabbatarianism in which he was brought up which he describes as having left "an enduringly unpleasant reminiscence behind it".[3]

He was privately educated by tutors between the years 1864–1875, and influenced by

Franco-German War, and by its sequel, the Commune
. His political ideas during this period amounted to a commonplace radicalism combined with aspirations to economic equality.

In his youth Bax had an interest in music and could play the piano, and at the age of 21 (1875) he went to Germany to study music. He visited there again in 1880 as Berlin correspondent of The Standard. It was then that he met with

Hegel, and his philosophical interests remained with him for life.[4][5]

Studies in philosophy

In 1880 at the age of 26, Bax began studying philosophy in Germany, beginning with Kant and Hegel. In 1883 he produced an English translation of Kant's

Prolegomena, and Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science
, and in 1884 he wrote his Handbook to the History of Philosophy, which was published in 1885 for Bohn's Philosophical Library.

Later philosophical works by Bax include The Problem of Reality (1892), The Roots of Reality: Being Suggestions for a Philosophical Reconstruction (1907), Problems of Men, Mind and Morals (1912), and The Real, The Rational, and The Alogical (1920).[4][5][6]

Men's rights advocacy

Bax was a passionate advocate for the social and

legal rights of women. His first major article on the subject was Some Bourgeois Idols; Or Ideals, Reals, and Shams (1886), in which he proposed that women were privileged under law at the expense of men.[7] He was to continue writing articles on this topic for most of his life, published notably in Social Democrat, and Justice, and later in The New Age.[8]

In 1896, he wrote The Legal Subjection of Men[9] whose title is a play on John Stuart Mill's 1869 essay "The Subjection of Women." In the volume, Bax draws on his extensive experience as a barrister to demonstrate the numerous ways in which the legal code favoured women to the detriment of men and boys. Chapters in the book include 'Matrimonial Privileges of Women', 'Non-Matrimonial Privileges of Women', 'The Actual Exercise of Women's Sex Privileges', and 'A Sex Noblesse'.[9]

Bax was an active antifeminist since, according to him, feminism was failing to address inequities for both sexes evenly. According to Bax, the "anti-man crusades" of his day were responsible for anti-man laws being both preserved from the old legal canon, and for new laws being passed that were also anti-male and sexist.[9] Bax wrote many articles in The New Age and elsewhere about English laws partial to women against men, and women's privileged position before the law, and expressed his view that women's suffrage would unfairly tip the balance of power to women.[10] In 1913 he published a book, The Fraud of Feminism,[11] detailing feminism's adverse effects.

Bax's concern for

men's equality
fuelled his interest in socialism, to which he turned for a potential solution to what he viewed as the exploitation of males by the capitalist system:

"The highest development of modern capitalism, as exemplified in the English-speaking countries, has placed man to all intents and purposes, legally under the heel of woman. So far as the relations of the sexes are concerned, it would be the task of Socialism to emancipate man from this position, if sex-equality be the goal aimed at. The first step on the road towards such equality would necessarily consist in the abolition of modern female privilege."[9]: 63 

Socialism

Bax was first introduced to socialism while studying

middle-class
.

Bax moved to

Labour Representation Committee
, and eventually persuaded them to leave.

Almost throughout his life, he saw economic conditions as ripe for socialism, but felt this progress was delayed by a lack of education of the

utopianism, and supported Theodore Rothstein's efforts to spread a more orthodox Marxism
in the SDF.

Initially very anti-nationalist, Bax came to support the British in World War I, but by this point he was concentrating on his career as a barrister and did little political work.[12]

Historian

As well as his contributions to philosophy, men's rights, and socialism, Bax published several in depth historical studies of individuals, and cultures. He records in his Reminiscences that he always felt, from childhood on, the need of an intelligible doctrine of history.[4]

Among his historical works are: Jean-Paul Marat: The People's Friend (1879), German Society at the Close of the Middle Ages (1894), The Social Side of the Reformation in Germany (1894), The Peasants' War in Germany (1899), The Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists (1903), The Last Episode of the French Revolution (1911), and German Culture Past and Present (1913).

Works

Inside cover of Legal Subjection of Men, first published 1896

He wrote the following books on various subjects:

References

  1. ^ Bax: A Composer and his time, Lewis Foreman, Scolar Press, 1983, pp. 1, 9
  2. ^ Ernest Belfort Bax (1854-1926), Socialist Writer, John Cresswell, in Friends of West Norwood Cemetery newsletter no. 31, Jan. 1998, pp. 11-13
  3. OCLC 3645684
    .
  4. ^ .
  5. ^ .
  6. .
  7. .
  8. ^ Bax, E. Belfort (2014). Wright, Peter (ed.). Ernest Belfort Bax: collected essays, volume 1. Collected Works. Houston, Texas: Zeta Press.
  9. ^
    OCLC 875136389
    .
  10. ^ Bax, E. Belfort (8 August 1908). "Mr. Belfort Bax Replies to his Feminist Critics". The New Age. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
  11. OCLC 271179371
    .
  12. .

External links