[Peace-discuss] Moon eclipse

[C. G. Estabrook]

I meant "liberal" in the sense of the account of Western history that we 
all learnt tacitly, in refutation of Marxism (tacit refutation being so 
much more effective that open discussion).  The etymological root of 
"liberal" is of course "free," and it's been asserted since at least the 
19th century that European history is the history of freedom, of the 
progressive emancipation of humanity -- intellectual, at least, if not 
so often political or social. (Note how the myth is being used in 
justification of killing Muslims these days.)

We all learnt it in Western Civ classes: first there were the benighted 
religious ages, followed by the dawn of the Renaissance, and the full 
flowering of the Enlightenment, which led on to modern speculative and 
practical omniscience in Clinton-Bush America...  (Classical antiquity 
is a problem here, as it was in a different way for Marx, but we deal 
with it by ignoring it and not learning Latin and Greek anymore.)

In fact, to some extent the opposite is true.  In contrast to the 
optimism and intellectual openness that characterized the High Middle 
Ages (12th-14th centuries) -- whose typical invention was the university 
--  Magellan's age, the Renaissance (15th-17th centuries) was one of 
terror, magic and, as a symptom, the fear and persecution of witches 
(which the Middle Ages didn't believe in).

I'd suggest the source of the colossal loss of nerve in the European 
Renaissance is to be found in the demographic and social catastrophes 
that accompanied the break-up of the medieval mode of production in 14th 
century, and the concomitant attempt to reestablish European society by 
force of will (absolutism).

The liberal myth was well under way by the time Jacob Burckhardt 
essentially invented the Renaissance in 19th century Basel with his 
great and influential book THE CIVILIZATION OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY:

"In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness-that which turned 
within as that which was turned without-lay dreaming or held awake 
beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and 
childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen 
clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a 
race, people, party, family, or corporation-only through some general 
category. In Italy this veil first melted into air: an objective 
treatment and consideration of the state and of all the things of this 
world became possible. The subjective side at the same time asserted 
itself with corresponding emphasis: man became a spiritual individual, 
and recognized himself as such" -- and much more in the same vein, along 
with some good accounts of the age.

A more just account of Magellan's age (which you suggest) comes from 
someone often taken to be a prophet of the liberal view -- but Adam 
Smith is not the man the WSJ takes him to be. In the year of American 
independence he wrote that "The discovery of America [and the work of 
other earthbound explorers --CGE] ... certainly made a most essential 
[change in the state of Europe].  By opening up a new and inexhaustible 
market ... A new set of exchanges ... began to take place which had 
never been thought of before, and which should naturally have proved as 
advantageous to the new, as it certainly did to the old continent. The 
savage injustice of the Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have 
been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to several of those 
unfortunate countries."

On the manifold uses of "liberal," it would take more bandwidth to 
connect this liberal myth to Mr. Obama -- but I don't think it would be 
hard.  --CGE

Ricky Baldwin wrote:
> 
> ...why we would assume it's "liberal" myth-making is far from clear.
> The original source of the quote is unknown.  Nowadays it has
> traction across several political positions that I know of due to the
> Church's history of similar dogma in the face of reality, most
> notably geocentrism (Earth at the center), which is what got Galileo
> in hot water (or nearly did), and more recently other religious
> authorities concerning the teaching of evolution in public schools.
> Poking fun at such authorities, even inaccurately, is not necessarily
> "liberal".
> 
> Frankly, I still like the quote, whether the source is literary or
> historical, for more general reasons: it expresses a basic skepticism
> in the face of stubborn authoritarian dogma and/or ignorance, a
> sentiment that resonates with many people because dogma and ignorance
> of one kind or another is still very real.  (This includes
> Flat-Earthers, literal and figurative.)
> ...
> 
> Ricky --- "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Liberal myth-making, I'm afraid (which is not unknown in our own
>> time).
>> 
>> I doubt Magellan ever said any such thing, because educated
>> Europeans (including church officials) of Magellan's time (and long
>> before) did not think the earth was flat.
>> 
>> The standard model (as in Dante) was of a round earth at the center
>> of a series of concentric spheres, each one (except the ninth)
>> holding the the moon, sun, or one of the planets.
>> 
>> A quite brilliant book on the model of the world from ancient times
>>  through Shakespeare and Milton is C. S. Lewis, THE DISCARDED
>> IMAGE.  I used to insist my grad students in Renaissance studies
>> read it. --CGE
>> 
>> Ricky Baldwin wrote:
>>> Hope you saw it, it was a nice one - and early enuf that even 
>>> Catharine stayed up for it.
>>> 
>>> We were reminded of a quote attributed to a famous, and famously
>>>  deeply flawed, earthbound explorer who despite his many
>>> barbarous acts and allegiances was able to look up from the muck
>>> and blood of brutal history and come up with this one:
>>> 
>>> "The Church says the Earth is flat, but I have seen its shadow on
>>> the Moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church."
>>> - F. Magellan (not the first man to circumnavigate the globe)
>>> 
>>> Ricky