Question. DP’s two-types-of-democracy thesis names the French Revolution as Cain-side and the Glorious Revolution + American founding as Abel-side. But the American Revolution’s leading thinkers included substantial Enlightenment-deist influence (Jefferson, Franklin, Paine), and the Glorious Revolution was driven by anti-Catholic political maneuvering as much as by religious-freedom striving. How does DP handle the mixed character of these revolutions — does the Abel-side identification track the dominant motive, the founding-stratum theology, the eventual outcome, or some other criterion?
Why it matters. thread-dp-two-types-democracy-vs-arendt-social-question showed that Arendt’s On Revolution offers a competing causal account (social question / material necessity) for the same divergence DP explains theologically. The DP defense (path b) requires that the theological lineage be the load-bearing causal factor — Puritan religiosity → American prosperity → manageable social question → successful constitution. If the Anglo-American revolutions are causally mixed (Puritan + Enlightenment-deist), the load-bearing-causal-factor claim weakens to a retrospective providential reading, which is weaker than the prediction-generating framework DP’s text presents.
Current best guesses. Three viable defenses, each with costs:
-
Dominant-motive criterion. Cain-type and Abel-type identify the dominant motive of the revolution as a whole. American Revolution was dominantly religious-freedom-driven despite Enlightenment-deist leadership. Cost: requires showing dominance against the deist counter-evidence; Jefferson/Franklin/Paine are heavyweight.
-
Founding-stratum criterion. Cain-type and Abel-type identify the originating cause of the revolution, with deist contributors as later overlay. American settlement-era (1607-1776) was overwhelmingly religious; revolutionary leadership era inherited that substrate. Cost: requires defending strong path-dependence; risks just-so-story criticism.
-
Outcome criterion. Cain-type and Abel-type identify revolutions by their endpoint trajectory — French → Marxism / Anglo-American → free democracy. Cost: tautological if read this way (Cain because communism, Abel because not communism), undermining the prediction-generating role.
Source. Raised in _meta/parking/questions.md (dp-2-6a cluster). Engaged by thread-dp-two-types-democracy-vs-arendt-social-question in cluster democracy-political-theology-and-economy.