There was a definite catch in my throat when I read of Dante picking up the broken branches and placing them around the tree trunk of the suicide. A compassionate human gesture amongst all the pain and sorrow of these circles of the damned.
"The wise man will not experience pity, but he will offer help and he will be of assistance, because he is born to benefit the community and the common good... He will offer his goodness in appropriate measure even to victims of disaster and to those who merit disapproval and to those who merit correction; much more readily he will come to the rescue of people who are truly afflicted and struggling through chance. " Seneca's De Clementia
I think pre-Christians were fully capable of recognizing human dignity, and many Christian thinkers handicapped in that regard. Here is a demonstration of this line of thought. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3653973
I also find ascribing our modern ethics to Christianity to be a bit silly when Christianity was itself influenced by earlier philosophies. What did Nietzsche say? Christianity is Platonism for the masses?
This essay is particularly rich with references and associations: marvelous observations from Toynbee and Holland, the Thomas Cole painting, and the quotations from Shelley and Ovid offer additional, resonant layers to the Canto under review. You also remind me of another I’ll add here. In Ritchie Robertson’s magisterial book on the Enlightenment, he observed that “[t]he religious Enlightenment transformed religion by reaching various compromises between traditional religious claims and those of reason. It moved the emphasis from supernatural belief to ethical teaching. The Bible ceased to be the inerrant Word of God and became a source of moral instruction . . . . But how stable were these compromises?” (Robertson, p. 199)
Robertson went a long way toward answering his own question when he went on to observe “[t]he idea that religion is simply a set of false propositions ignores its strength as an emotional resource. One can be sceptical about the history recorded in the Bible, reject it altogether as a source of scientific knowledge, assent to the Creed only in the vaguest way, and still find satisfaction and meaning in the performance of Christian ritual. . . . Religion can provide a sense of security even in disasters. Belief in God is often a matter less of cognition than of trust.” (Robertson, p. 211)
The challenge, of course, is that after the Enlightenment, more and more people in the West came to understand that the Bible is not the inerrant word of God. More, that God is envisioned by the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible doesn’t likely exist at all. So while I understand the importance of religious belief to civilization of flourishing, we cannot expect people to relapse into the same sort of ignorance that medieval European peasants lived in.
It reminds me of Douglas Murray, who despite being an open homosexual and an atheist, claims that he is a “cultural Christian”. What does that even mean? It means that people like him are trying to bridge the gap, but I’m not sure that that bridging will provoke the same emotional response that traditional religious belief does. And again, it’s hard for a lot of us to entertain traditional religious belief when we have more knowledge than even those Enlightenment academics and wits.
There are two theories that really interest me these days: this is one of them, namely, whether or not civilization can continue to exist without religious belief, so to speak, and the other is have we moved past Polybius’ anacyclosis theory? He wrote about the cyclical nature of governments, and many governments since his time have indeed followed the cycle he proposed (or something reasonably similar). This isn’t Jermaine to our inferno discussion, but these two theories are what most interest me these days.
Why would the cracks be caused by loss of faith and not be normal, as Ovid thought? About the clay foot which supports the whole, I would see it either as the proof that all civilisation is a giant with clay feet, or that it is -- I agree with your interpretation of clay representing humankind -- our shared humanity which is the origin and the stabilising element of all civilisation.
Just finished Ovid's Metamorphosis. That would be one hell of a read-along, in every sense of the word. For what it's worth, I would assist you, though I don't know how helpful I could be.
There was a definite catch in my throat when I read of Dante picking up the broken branches and placing them around the tree trunk of the suicide. A compassionate human gesture amongst all the pain and sorrow of these circles of the damned.
Vashik & Lisa, I was eagerly anticipating a Thomas Cole and you did not disappoint. Thank you - what a phenomenal essay.
Thank you :)
"The wise man will not experience pity, but he will offer help and he will be of assistance, because he is born to benefit the community and the common good... He will offer his goodness in appropriate measure even to victims of disaster and to those who merit disapproval and to those who merit correction; much more readily he will come to the rescue of people who are truly afflicted and struggling through chance. " Seneca's De Clementia
I think pre-Christians were fully capable of recognizing human dignity, and many Christian thinkers handicapped in that regard. Here is a demonstration of this line of thought. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3653973
I also find ascribing our modern ethics to Christianity to be a bit silly when Christianity was itself influenced by earlier philosophies. What did Nietzsche say? Christianity is Platonism for the masses?
This essay is particularly rich with references and associations: marvelous observations from Toynbee and Holland, the Thomas Cole painting, and the quotations from Shelley and Ovid offer additional, resonant layers to the Canto under review. You also remind me of another I’ll add here. In Ritchie Robertson’s magisterial book on the Enlightenment, he observed that “[t]he religious Enlightenment transformed religion by reaching various compromises between traditional religious claims and those of reason. It moved the emphasis from supernatural belief to ethical teaching. The Bible ceased to be the inerrant Word of God and became a source of moral instruction . . . . But how stable were these compromises?” (Robertson, p. 199)
Robertson went a long way toward answering his own question when he went on to observe “[t]he idea that religion is simply a set of false propositions ignores its strength as an emotional resource. One can be sceptical about the history recorded in the Bible, reject it altogether as a source of scientific knowledge, assent to the Creed only in the vaguest way, and still find satisfaction and meaning in the performance of Christian ritual. . . . Religion can provide a sense of security even in disasters. Belief in God is often a matter less of cognition than of trust.” (Robertson, p. 211)
The challenge, of course, is that after the Enlightenment, more and more people in the West came to understand that the Bible is not the inerrant word of God. More, that God is envisioned by the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible doesn’t likely exist at all. So while I understand the importance of religious belief to civilization of flourishing, we cannot expect people to relapse into the same sort of ignorance that medieval European peasants lived in.
It reminds me of Douglas Murray, who despite being an open homosexual and an atheist, claims that he is a “cultural Christian”. What does that even mean? It means that people like him are trying to bridge the gap, but I’m not sure that that bridging will provoke the same emotional response that traditional religious belief does. And again, it’s hard for a lot of us to entertain traditional religious belief when we have more knowledge than even those Enlightenment academics and wits.
There are two theories that really interest me these days: this is one of them, namely, whether or not civilization can continue to exist without religious belief, so to speak, and the other is have we moved past Polybius’ anacyclosis theory? He wrote about the cyclical nature of governments, and many governments since his time have indeed followed the cycle he proposed (or something reasonably similar). This isn’t Jermaine to our inferno discussion, but these two theories are what most interest me these days.
Why would the cracks be caused by loss of faith and not be normal, as Ovid thought? About the clay foot which supports the whole, I would see it either as the proof that all civilisation is a giant with clay feet, or that it is -- I agree with your interpretation of clay representing humankind -- our shared humanity which is the origin and the stabilising element of all civilisation.
Absolutely phenomenal essay. I’m sharing it with my friends who are not part of the read along. Thank you!!
Just finished Ovid's Metamorphosis. That would be one hell of a read-along, in every sense of the word. For what it's worth, I would assist you, though I don't know how helpful I could be.