The best of times, the worst of times…
Alan Jacobs, always worth reading, writes of a new book on the 18th Century that seems to paint it so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insist on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only:
Religion, he says, had become more purely moralistic than it had been in the Reformation era, and otherwise was primarily devoted to meeting the needs of the self. Deism was becoming more commonplace. Belief in the essential goodness of humanity became more and more prevalent. English men and women of the time were sure they had a stronger social conscience than their ancestors — more care for children and for the poor — and felt that progress was certain. Of course, the age’s confidence in its own virtue may not have been fully warranted: “Tears for the exploited, the unfortunate and the afflicted flowed freely, but sympathy cost little, and was only occasionally translated into action.”
Certainly there were major changes in child-rearing from the practices of previous ages: “Many ladies abandoned the wet nurse and experimented with breast-feeding; swaddling disappeared, partly in response to mothers’ new-found desire to fondle, dandle and dress their infants. … Though groups such as the Wesleyans kept faith with flogging, enlightened parents laid off the rod, trying reason, coaxing and kindness instead. Infants were hugged and petted more.” The spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child model of parental discipline was increasingly seen as benighted and cruel. But, Porter comments, “In polite society, greater attention towards the young perhaps led to over-protective parental anxiety” — the 18th-century version of “helicopter parents”.
There were few atheists, but also not so many orthodox Christians. “Many Georgians rarely went through a church porch between their christening and burial. Yet practically everyone, in his own fashion, had faith. Much of it was a fig leaf of Christianity covering a body of inherited magic and superstition, little more than Nature worship (the polite, doctrinally correct form of this was known as ‘natural religion’). But everyone had his own vision of a Creator, of a ‘place’ in Heaven, and convictions of Good and Evil, reward and punishment.” One might say that the typical 18th-century Englishman was “spiritual but not religious”.
Is any of this sounding familiar yet?
I thrill to such parallels, and am fortunate enough not to have the historical chops to knock holes in them.
This is sort off the top of my head but on the whole this analysis sounds quite plausible. However, it is important to keep in mind that the practice of religion varied widely. For example, in British North America the First Great Awakening was sweeping through the colonies in the 1730′s and 40′s. As the colonists had pushed farther west and the heightened fervor of some of the first colonists (Puritans etc) had begun to wane, some preachers worked hard to revivify faith among the unchurched.
There is a great book by Ralph Gibson (“A Social History of French Catholicism: 1789-1914″) which in the initial chapter shows how the practice of religion varied widely across pre-Revolutionary France. In fact, amazingly some of these patterns of practice continued well down into the 20th century
Jean Delumeau, the French Catholic historian, was the first to propose that the de-Chirstianization of France after the Revolution was due not so much to the Revolution itself, but rather to the fact that pre-revountionary France had not been sufficiently Christianizred. He sifted through parish registries to document his case in Le Catholicisme entre Luther et Voltaire. It appeared in 1971 and was translated in 1977:
http://www.amazon.com/Catholicism-Between-Luther-Voltaire-Counter-Reformation/dp/0664213413/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1290876092&sr=8-6
English Society in the 18th Century sounds wonderful. I’ll read it. The reviewer’s comparison of 18th-century parents to today’s helicopter parents is apt, imho.
Another great book on that topic is Growing Up in England: THe Experience of Childhood, 1600-1914, by Anthony Fletcher.
http://www.amazon.com/Growing-England-Experience-Childhood-1600-1914/dp/0300163967/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290876750&sr=8-1
The chapters on “Fathers and Educating Boys”, “Mothers and Educating Boys”, and “The Public Schools” are particularly interesting and give many details about the 18th century, “the great age of schoolboy fights”. (And of flogging by headmasters.)
At Eton, e.g., “When an eleven-year old killed a fifteen-year-old, fighting out a quarrel in 1784, the whole school attended the unfortunate loser’s funeral.”
Also at Eton, “In the famous revolt against Dr Davies, headmaster until 1792, the rioters broke windows, smashed his furniture and hacked the flogging block to pieces.”
“Do not extinguish The Spirit.” -1Thess 5
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/1thessalonians/1thessalonians5.htm
Who can deny that the ideology that led to the rise of communism, nazism and fascism, resulting in mass genocide was not a vision of hell on Earth?
The best of times will become the worst of times when we deny The Holy Spirit, The Spirit of Love.
Queen of Peace, Pray for us.
Charles Taylor’s “Sources of the Self The Making of the Modern Identity” traces how the Western views of the self changed, especially under the inspiration of the Enlightenment and subsequent intellectual and social movements. For instance, in Connecticut, young men were expected to leave home and “make it on their own”, and leaving home became a tradition in the U.S. which still obtains today. (Not so in my own French tradition.)
He shows especially how individuality and autonomy and the exercise of one’s own ability to reason became predominant social values, and how people have slid from the old sort of belief in God to no belief or to a belief in a God whose rewards (and punishments) are not an issue. Transcendence has lost value, and now nature itself takes the place of God in many ways, e.g., setting standards of moral behavior (seek physical pleasure above all).
A good book to dip into now and then.
(That’s just part of the story.)
Most contemporary historians of the Catholic Reformation acknowledge that large portions of France had been baptized but not evangelized in 1000 years of Catholicism. Hence, pioneering efforts like that of St. Vincent de Paul and the Congregation of the Mission whose entire purpose was the evangelization and basic catechizing of the French rural population in the 17th century.
The evangelical and pastoral creativity of the Catholic Reformation – was heavily motivated by the recognition of the need to shape a new kind of Christian – one who was not simply sacramentalized but who knew the basics of the faith, had internalized them, and could pass them onto their children and defend them to their not always Catholic neighbors. The whole elementary and high school Catholic education system and all the new religious communities – male and female – dedicated to Catholic education, were part of this response.
“Most contemporary historians of the Catholic Reformation acknowledge that large portions of France had been baptized but not evangelized in 1000 years of Catholicism. ”
I suspect that to be true in most of Europe, Latin & Central America and the Catholic world in general.
Catholicism as a belief system (not a culture) has had a fragile hold on wide swaths of the world throughout most of its history.
Fascinating, but of course I haven’t read the book. From Jacob’s piece on it, it sounds a bit as if Porter might be concentrating a bit too much on the upper reaches of society (the kinds of people who left journals and letters, after all) at the expense of those below. Though Wesleyans, rather than Anglicans, may have flogged their children, they were also signs of a Christian regeneration in Britain, which came to affect the Anglicans as well, through the Evangelical movement (the British equivalent of the Great Awakening, perhaps). And this movement, which embraced Anglicans as well as Dissenters. was to contribute, by the earlier 19th century, not only the “strictness and muscular morality” we associate with the period, but also a number of great reform movements as well — e.g., the abolition first of the slave trade, and then of slavery, and the beginnings of measures to deal with the excesses of the industrial revolution (child labor, terrible working hours and conditions, etc.)
The much maligned Victorian hypocrisy was also in its own way a progressive force. The last public hanging took place in Britain in the 1850s. No more after that; the authorities had decided that seeing a fellow human done to death was not an appropriate entertainment for the public, and that in this great age of advance, the public would not longer wish to see such things. Perhaps not true. Perhaps even hypocritical to say it wasn’t true, but progressive none the less.
But that’s well beyond the 18th cent. And we should not overlook the fact that after the 18th century Brits lost the 13 colonies, they went ahead a few decades later to construct an even greater and more far reaching empire, which often led to savagery and cruelty (and hypocrisy) beyond that even of the industrial revolution.
Curious that no one here referred to this age as the Enlightenment. People indulge their passions in all ages. It is just not admitted in a hierarchical, authoritative society. It is like our age in that more facts are acknowledged. But to say each age is less virtuous than other times in history is to make a drastic mistake in judgment. Bernard of Clairvoux driving the Crusades is just as bad as the present day coverups. It is just a question of how much we will admit. Granted it is easier to stress the need for the literal translation of Latin than to admit that priests group masturbated while taking advantage of young children. Nevertheless, the world is a better place when honesty prevails. At least we can warn the children of the dangers.
The book is not new. It was published in 1982. And, because it has a Look Inside feature, it’s possible to read the pages about favorite topics. (I like reading about the coffee houses of 18th-c. London, and Porter’s book contains 18 references to those important meeting places for men of all classes, all political persuasions, etc. Search term: “coffee”.)
http://www.amazon.com/English-Society-Eighteenth-Century-Penguin/dp/0140138196/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277501320&sr=1-1#_
Sherry Weddell,
Most contemporary historians of the Catholic Reformation acknowledge that large portions of France had been baptized but not evangelized in 1000 years of Catholicism.
That was the value of Delumeau’s ground breaking work. He showed these historians to be wrong. By scouring parish registries he showed that the baptismal records were not there. I suppose they could have been baptized and unrecorded, but then how would these historians know that “large portions had been baptized.” His work showed why social history was so important.
If the ordinary European knew almost nothing about the Faith, how could so many be persuaded to go and fight the Crusades? Granted there was a lot of superstition, but there must have been some substantial beliefs as well to make people risk their lives. And what about the pilgrimages that ordinary people made — what about Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales? Those people didn’t sound thoroughly ignorant of the Church’s teaching to me.
I love that a discussion on 18th century European intellectual and religious history can eventually lead us to masturbation! What a gas! And no ghost of Constantine and I think I am the 13th post. But we still have time.
Happy Advent!
The search term “masturbation” leads to p. 286 in the book. That page and the few before and after it offer information about the treatment of the sick, the insane, the imprisoned, foundlings, etc. in 18th-c. England.
Because it’s a social (as opposed to intellectual or religious) history of England (as opposed to the continent), there are very specific details about the ordinary lives of ordinary people. Searching such terms as “bastard”, “bisexual”, “women”, “cock fighting”, “Quakers”, “egg-pacing”, “pagan”, “funeral”, etc. lead to fascinating examples
Why Crusade participation? How about the possibility, nay probability, of plunder, rape and pillage? And, of course, the promise of remission of all punishment for one’s sins so long as one sins in the name of Christ?
Superstition can have a much stronger hold on the vast majority of people than does “right belief.” Why else do so many people in this day and age still chase after the latest marian “apparition,” no matter how exotic, far-fetched and flat-out ridiciulous it may be?
A slavish attachment to literal translation of the Latin mass prayers and every jot and tittle of rubrics borders on superstitious mumbo-jumbo and (as was a fond expression of earlier Protestants) hocus pocus.