atheism
Is it religion, or culture?
04/19/2010 22:09
So I found myself on page 150, beginning a new section that starts “The ‘argument from authority’ is the weakest of all arguments.” I assume he means rhetorically, because as Giordano Bruno found, it can be fairly powerful in real life. Hitchens goes on to say, “Behind the veil of Oz, there is nothing but bluff. Can this really be true?” he asks. “As one who has always been impressed by the weight of history and culture, I do keep asking myself this question,” Hitchens admits. It got me thinking: it must be a whole lot harder being an atheist, if you’re a conservative.
The passage continues in this ambivalent and revealing direction. “It does not matter to me,” Hitchens says, “whether Homer was one person or many, or whether Shakespeare was a secret Catholic or a closet agnostic. I should not feel my own world destroyed if the greatest writer about love and tragedy and comedy and morals was finally revealed to have been the Earl of Oxford all along,” he continues, showing just how easy it is to slip from the discussion of religion to a larger one about the rest of the foundation of western culture. And the "Edward DeVere was Shakespeare" argument: another apparently world-shaking controversy that shows how tenuous the “facts” that support our culture really are.
“The loss of faith,” Hitchens says, “can be compensated by the newer and finer [scientific] wonders that we have before us, as well as by immersion in the near-miraculous work of Homer and Shakespeare” and others (personally, I think his use of the word miraculous at this point is a misstep). Hitchens continues with a story about how his own secular faith “has been shaken and discarded, not without pain.” The faith he refers to is Marxism, which he insists “was not absolute and...did not have any supernatural element.” This may have been true for his own Leon Trotsky/Rosa Luxemburg flavor of Marxism, but I think it’s more accurate to say that “messianic...historical and dialectical materialism” is absolute and supernatural at its core. Hitchens finally admits, at the chapter’s end, that “Those of us who had sought a rational alternative to religion had reached a terminus that was comparably dogmatic.” It will be interesting to read further, and see how he gets around the objection that if secularism leads to authoritarian dictator ship just as religion does, why switch? Not to mention the problem of insisting on the authority of tradition and culture, but just not religion.
Seriously, though, that’s what makes this book a success. Regardless what you think of Hitchens and his politics, it’s fun trying to figure out what he’s going to say next.
Bradlaugh and Anthropology
03/18/2009 14:46
I’m thinking about a story that includes CB and some of the scientists of his day. Darwin is the obvious one who comes to mind, but I’m actually more interested in the people around Darwin (both before and after), who either elaborated ideas similar to Darwin’s, or alternatives.
Victorian Sensation needs another, closer look (as does the Vestiges). And there are some interesting leads in a series of lectures on Anthropology given by CB in 1881 at the Hall of Science. These are interesting for several reasons. First, they show CB in the role of scientific lecturer. Significant, because he isn’t just debating churchmen or attacking the Bible (this is the picture his rivals wanted to paint of him; and even the sympathetic reader might fall into this belief, given the huge volume of writing and speaking CB did on anti-religious topics).
The lectures show CB disseminating the latest ideas of British and French scientists to the general public. The Hall of Science attracted crowds of working people, so the nature of these talks is altogether different from lectures by the scientists themselves to academic audiences. As a result, it’s interesting to look at the type of information that was making its way into the general public’s understanding of contemporary science (both from the pulpit of the Hall of Science, and in the form of 2-penny reprints of CB’s talks).
CB begins the first of his three talks with a quote from Huxley’s Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature: “The question of questions for mankind—the problem which underlies all others and is more deeply interesting than any other—is the ascertainment of the place man occupies in nature and of his relation to the universe of things.” Thomas H. Huxley had himself been lecturing to working men at Jermyn Street since 1855. The lines CB quotes are the beginning of Huxley’s section “On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals,” which he had given as a series of lectures at Jermyn Street in 1860. Huxley wrote to his friend Dyster, “I am sick of the dilettante middle-class, and mean to try what I can do with these hard-headed fellows who live among facts.”
CB goes on to quote Dr. Paul Broca, Dr. James Hunt, and W.H. Fowler on the scope of anthropology. The science seems to have contained an element of archaeology and physiology, as well as an unfortunate focus on race based on contemporary ideas from craniology and language theory. He cites as his main sources Dr. Paul Topinard’s text, Huxley’s book, Geiger’s “History of the Development of the Human Race,” and Letourneau’s Biology.
CB is clearly interested in establishing in his listeners’ minds that the anthropological point of view is at odds with Christianity. Discussing the controversy over single or multiple origins, he notes that “polygenists” like Louis Agassiz, Gliddon and Nott, “having in view the very few thousand years then claimed by the Churches for man’s existence on earth, contended that the ordinarily accepted time was insufficient for the development of known diversities of type…But two features have now to be considered which were then excluded: one, the admittedly huge period of time man has inhabited the earth; the other, the light resulting from the untiring labors of Darwin in the path opened out by Lamarck and somewhat hesitatingly trodden by Wallace.”
In addition to being the field that “more than any other science finds itself in conflict with religious and political institutions,” anthropology in CB’s mind is the best place to look for moral answers. “To know what man should do,” he says, “it is first necessary to know what man is, and what it is he can do.” This is a key to CB’s interest in lecturing to his working-class audiences on the subject. The other key is anthropology’s potential as a source of insight for the biological improvement of humanity. He quotes Topinard saying “it is undeniable that man by a certain method of high breeding and well-managed crossing is capable of being changed in successive generations in his physical as well as in his moral character. According to the modes adopted he will go on either degenerating or improving.” While these words in Topinard’s “Introduction” form the closing point in an argument regarding the utility of anthropology, CB would have seen their congruence with his belief in individual self-determination. Perfectibility in CB’s mind was all about individuals making the right choices. As such, it was quite distinct from the top-down, large-group focus a eugenicist might use to interpret Topinard’s words. Biological improvement and moral choice was also a refutation of the type of historical inevitability proposed by Marx and his followers. And it was a positive application of the principles that led CB to support population control doctrines. Anthropology provided a way out of both the accusation that “atheism is only a rejection,” and the claim that Neo-Malthusian ideas were “against life.”
Victorian Sensation needs another, closer look (as does the Vestiges). And there are some interesting leads in a series of lectures on Anthropology given by CB in 1881 at the Hall of Science. These are interesting for several reasons. First, they show CB in the role of scientific lecturer. Significant, because he isn’t just debating churchmen or attacking the Bible (this is the picture his rivals wanted to paint of him; and even the sympathetic reader might fall into this belief, given the huge volume of writing and speaking CB did on anti-religious topics).
The lectures show CB disseminating the latest ideas of British and French scientists to the general public. The Hall of Science attracted crowds of working people, so the nature of these talks is altogether different from lectures by the scientists themselves to academic audiences. As a result, it’s interesting to look at the type of information that was making its way into the general public’s understanding of contemporary science (both from the pulpit of the Hall of Science, and in the form of 2-penny reprints of CB’s talks).
CB begins the first of his three talks with a quote from Huxley’s Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature: “The question of questions for mankind—the problem which underlies all others and is more deeply interesting than any other—is the ascertainment of the place man occupies in nature and of his relation to the universe of things.” Thomas H. Huxley had himself been lecturing to working men at Jermyn Street since 1855. The lines CB quotes are the beginning of Huxley’s section “On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals,” which he had given as a series of lectures at Jermyn Street in 1860. Huxley wrote to his friend Dyster, “I am sick of the dilettante middle-class, and mean to try what I can do with these hard-headed fellows who live among facts.”
CB goes on to quote Dr. Paul Broca, Dr. James Hunt, and W.H. Fowler on the scope of anthropology. The science seems to have contained an element of archaeology and physiology, as well as an unfortunate focus on race based on contemporary ideas from craniology and language theory. He cites as his main sources Dr. Paul Topinard’s text, Huxley’s book, Geiger’s “History of the Development of the Human Race,” and Letourneau’s Biology.
CB is clearly interested in establishing in his listeners’ minds that the anthropological point of view is at odds with Christianity. Discussing the controversy over single or multiple origins, he notes that “polygenists” like Louis Agassiz, Gliddon and Nott, “having in view the very few thousand years then claimed by the Churches for man’s existence on earth, contended that the ordinarily accepted time was insufficient for the development of known diversities of type…But two features have now to be considered which were then excluded: one, the admittedly huge period of time man has inhabited the earth; the other, the light resulting from the untiring labors of Darwin in the path opened out by Lamarck and somewhat hesitatingly trodden by Wallace.”
In addition to being the field that “more than any other science finds itself in conflict with religious and political institutions,” anthropology in CB’s mind is the best place to look for moral answers. “To know what man should do,” he says, “it is first necessary to know what man is, and what it is he can do.” This is a key to CB’s interest in lecturing to his working-class audiences on the subject. The other key is anthropology’s potential as a source of insight for the biological improvement of humanity. He quotes Topinard saying “it is undeniable that man by a certain method of high breeding and well-managed crossing is capable of being changed in successive generations in his physical as well as in his moral character. According to the modes adopted he will go on either degenerating or improving.” While these words in Topinard’s “Introduction” form the closing point in an argument regarding the utility of anthropology, CB would have seen their congruence with his belief in individual self-determination. Perfectibility in CB’s mind was all about individuals making the right choices. As such, it was quite distinct from the top-down, large-group focus a eugenicist might use to interpret Topinard’s words. Biological improvement and moral choice was also a refutation of the type of historical inevitability proposed by Marx and his followers. And it was a positive application of the principles that led CB to support population control doctrines. Anthropology provided a way out of both the accusation that “atheism is only a rejection,” and the claim that Neo-Malthusian ideas were “against life.”
Knowlton in Ashfield, 1833
01/26/2009 10:44
One of the things that interests me about the people I’m studying in the early 19th century, is their generally high level of literacy and understanding of what’s going on in the world, in spite of the remoteness of places like Ashfield.
When the religious bigots in his Berkshire hill-town of 1800 people tried to ruin his business, Dr. Charles Knowlton called the town to a meeting and made a long speech about belief, morality and politics. The year was 1833: Knowlton had published his Fruits of Philosophy the year before, and was using it with his patients in Franklin county.
“He that will not reason is a bigot, he that cannot reason is a fool, and he that dares not reason is a slave!” Knowlton announced to his neighbors.
“I proceed—
“There are no changes, no events, in a word, no effects without causes, and one effect as necessarily follows its cause as another, whether it occur within a man’s head or without. Every feeling of man, every thought of his brain, as necessarily has its cause as the movement of a water-wheel; and we all as necessarily think as we do think, as rocks unsupported fall to the ground. To admit that a man may think as he has a mind to, is not to admit one whit against what I have now advanced. To have a mind to think so and so, is but to have thoughts and ideas that you will think so and so,—every one of which thoughts or ideas must and does have its cause; which cause, whatever it may be, is but the effect of a prior cause, and this, again, the effect of a still prior cause, and so on throughout the eternal chain of events.”
“All those changes within a man’s head, called intellectual operations, such as remembering, judging, belief, &c. consist entirely of sensorial actions, called thoughts or ideas, which follow one after another, and every one of which has its cause.” (text of the speech as reported by Knowlton here)
The philosophy behind Knowlton’s ideas is remarkably like the 20th-century psychology of behaviorism. Knowlton had published a nearly 450-page book about his theories, called Modern Materialism, in 1829.
The crux of Knowlton’s argument to his neighbors is that freedom of opinion is the basis of American society. Knowlton’s grandfather and father had fought in the Revolution; it was still a recent event. Knowlton asked the townspeople to judge him by his behavior, not his beliefs. He subtly but unmistakably suggests that those who want to judge people by their beliefs rather than their actions (the minister and his friends) choose this because they know their actions will not stand close scrutiny. His charge against the church was dramatically proven when the congregation excommunicated a long-time member who stood up to the minister and supported his friend and doctor, Knowlton. The church was divided over the issue, and the minister was ultimately forced to resign.
The things that really strike me about Knowlton’s speech are the modernity of the argument, and the generally high level of its language and ideas. Knowlton was clearly an odd man, but he had some experience in public speaking. He was probably pitching his argument appropriately for his audience, which suggests they were an intelligent and well-read crowd. This is especially interesting, as most of them were back-country farmers and sheep-herders. An intellectual history of regular people might help me get a better idea of what these people were reading, thinking, talking about in the taverns. I wonder if there is one, or if I should try to do one?
When the religious bigots in his Berkshire hill-town of 1800 people tried to ruin his business, Dr. Charles Knowlton called the town to a meeting and made a long speech about belief, morality and politics. The year was 1833: Knowlton had published his Fruits of Philosophy the year before, and was using it with his patients in Franklin county.
“He that will not reason is a bigot, he that cannot reason is a fool, and he that dares not reason is a slave!” Knowlton announced to his neighbors.
“I proceed—
“There are no changes, no events, in a word, no effects without causes, and one effect as necessarily follows its cause as another, whether it occur within a man’s head or without. Every feeling of man, every thought of his brain, as necessarily has its cause as the movement of a water-wheel; and we all as necessarily think as we do think, as rocks unsupported fall to the ground. To admit that a man may think as he has a mind to, is not to admit one whit against what I have now advanced. To have a mind to think so and so, is but to have thoughts and ideas that you will think so and so,—every one of which thoughts or ideas must and does have its cause; which cause, whatever it may be, is but the effect of a prior cause, and this, again, the effect of a still prior cause, and so on throughout the eternal chain of events.”
“All those changes within a man’s head, called intellectual operations, such as remembering, judging, belief, &c. consist entirely of sensorial actions, called thoughts or ideas, which follow one after another, and every one of which has its cause.” (text of the speech as reported by Knowlton here)
The philosophy behind Knowlton’s ideas is remarkably like the 20th-century psychology of behaviorism. Knowlton had published a nearly 450-page book about his theories, called Modern Materialism, in 1829.
The crux of Knowlton’s argument to his neighbors is that freedom of opinion is the basis of American society. Knowlton’s grandfather and father had fought in the Revolution; it was still a recent event. Knowlton asked the townspeople to judge him by his behavior, not his beliefs. He subtly but unmistakably suggests that those who want to judge people by their beliefs rather than their actions (the minister and his friends) choose this because they know their actions will not stand close scrutiny. His charge against the church was dramatically proven when the congregation excommunicated a long-time member who stood up to the minister and supported his friend and doctor, Knowlton. The church was divided over the issue, and the minister was ultimately forced to resign.
The things that really strike me about Knowlton’s speech are the modernity of the argument, and the generally high level of its language and ideas. Knowlton was clearly an odd man, but he had some experience in public speaking. He was probably pitching his argument appropriately for his audience, which suggests they were an intelligent and well-read crowd. This is especially interesting, as most of them were back-country farmers and sheep-herders. An intellectual history of regular people might help me get a better idea of what these people were reading, thinking, talking about in the taverns. I wonder if there is one, or if I should try to do one?
