Rational Christianity?

1
Rational Christianity?

• John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity
  (1695)
• Problem of revelation, miracle, Christianitys
  similarities with other religions
• Hume, Essay on Miracles (1748)
• Voltaire, Questions sur les Miracles (1765)
• Lisbon earthquake, 1755, 10,000 casualties

2
History of Emotions

• Emotions are privately felt, socially expressed
  and interpreted
• French pitié vs. English pity
• Change in valuation of pity between 17th and 18th
  century

3
17th vs. 18th century on pity

• Pity (ethics) is a natural sentiment of the
  soul, which we experience at the sight of those
  who suffer or are in distress. It is not true
  that pity originates from self-consciousness
  Nothing so honors humanity than this generous
  sentiment it is, of all the movements of the
  soul, the softest and the most delectable in its
  effects. -- Diderot

• Those who feel themselves very feeble and
  subject to the adversities of fortune appear to
  be more disposed to this passion than others,
  because they represent the evil of others as
  possibly occurring to themselves and then they
  are moved to pity more by the love that they bear
  themselves than by that which they bear to
  others.
• -- Descartes

4
Jean-Jacques Rousseaus cynosure

• What is Rousseaus argument about pity in Origins
  of Inequality?
• Impact on Revolution idea that love,
  benevolence, pity ought to serve as basis for
  political reform
• Terror and pity?

5
Group Discussion Question

• At the beginning of Popkins chapter on the
  prerevolution, Popkin presents Marxist
  historiographys contention that the
  prerevolution was an aristocratic revolution,
  and that the nobility most strongly opposed the
  monarchys reformist initiatives. Popkins
  argument against this theory is implicit in his
  exposition of the prerevolution. In your reading
  of this chapter and in your group discussion in
  class, develop your own theory of the
  prerevolution what forces precipitated the
  revolution? What is the role of individual or
  group agency versus contingency?

6
Bastille as symbol of despotism

• Bastilles municipal peel towers of late Middle
  Ages
• Paris Bastille fortress to prison, especially
  under Louis XIV
• Central location,beyond rules of proper justice
  and employed in spectacular fashion

7
Anti-Bastille Journalism

• Constantin de Renneville, 1715, The French
  Inquisition and the History of the Bastille
• Man in the iron mask, word of mouth, Voltaire The
  Age of Louis XIV, 1751
• Anonymous objective pamphlet on Bastille, 1774
  accompanied movement to reform justice

8
De Renneville, The French Inquisition

• Under an opening in the wall, I saw human bones
  it was like a cemetery, and since I found the
  cellar in parts without paving, I dug, and found
  a corpse wrapped in rags. I stood still with
  disgust and horror, and it hardly reassured me
  that the warder said that they had kept the sorry
  remains of a captive there for a while who had
  hanged himself in his cell two other men and one
  woman suffered the same fate.

9
Prison practice vs. social consciousness

• Use of lettres de cachet
• Bastille moderate prison regime
• Torture abolished in 17th c
• King paid 10 livres per day, privileged prisoners
  enjoyed luxury
• Pathbreaking psychiatric institution
• Marquis de Sades yell, July 1, 1789

10
Marquis De Sade as the Bastille

• The exercise of power always requires symbolic
  practices. There is no government without rituals
  and symbolsWhen a revolutionary movement
  challenges the legitimacy of traditional
  govern-ment, it must necessarily challenge the
  traditional trappings of rule, as well. Then it
  must go about inventing political symbols that
  will express accurately the ideals and principles
  of the new order -- Lynn Hunt