Horizon

Unfamiliar with it, I googled and found the online version.

Posted by: Ben Brumfield at March 28, 2006 06:49 AM

Thanks for finding that, it makes conversation a lot easier. My copy was on a high back shelf at Acorn Books, which is the only store in San Francisco where I'd have expected to find it at all. Mentioned in Sherlock Holmes and Orwell. Per the Michael Foot introduction in my copy, at one time treated as a central text of English anticlericalism.

As you'll see, Reade has only about two-thirds of the usual Victorian prejudices but some of them badly enough. For example, unfortunately, the comment that Orwell liked (and apparently took to heart) on the typical career of the ancient Biblical prophet -- "as soon as he received his mission he ceased to wash" -- is in the midst of a fairly anti-Semitic takedown of the Old Testament. And some of the ancient history is so terrible that even I am pretty sure it has to be wrong.

But the man is against the mistreatment of human beings, against the idea that people can deserve mistreatment by heredity, and principally, intensely, against slavery. (Ben, you may take exception to his political history of the American South.)

I got to this bit recently:

...A murmur arose, and grew louder and louder; three hundred thousand persons gave up drinking sugar in their tea; indignation meetings were held; and petitions were sent into Parliament by the ton. Everything seemed to show that the nation had begun to loathe the trade in flesh and blood, and would not be appeased till it was done away. And then came events which made the sweet words Liberty, Humanity, Equality, sound harsh and ungrateful to the ear: which caused those who spoke much of philanthropy, and eternal justice, to be avoided by their friends, and perhaps supervised by the police; which rendered negroes and emancipation a subject to be discussed only with sneers and shakings of the head....

Because he's terrible about not mentioning dates, it takes a moment to realize he means that French business in 1789 that left so many English activists suddenly eager to prove they were not objectively pro-Jacobin. Not that the new French authorities get any kind of free pass from Reade:

After several weeks Clarkson at last received a definite reply. The Revolution, he was told, was of more importance than the abolition of the slave-trade. In Bordeaux, Marseilles, Rouen, Nantes, and Havre, there were many persons in favour of that trade. It would be said that abolition would be making a sacrifice to England. The British parliament had as yet done nothing, and people doubted the sincerity of Pitt. Mr. Clarkson asked whether, if the question were postponed to the next legislature, it would be more difficult to carry it then than now. "The question produced much conversation, but the answer was unanimous -- that people would daily more and more admire their constitution, and that by the constitution certain solid and fixed principles would be established, which would inevitably lead to the abolition of the slave-trade; and if the constitution were once fairly established, they would not regard the murmurs of any town or province."

So it goes.

Posted by: Martha Bridegam at March 28, 2006 10:01 AM

Unfortunately, the comment that Orwell liked (and apparently took to heart) on the typical career of the ancient Biblical prophet -- "as soon as he received his mission he ceased to wash" -- is in the midst of a fairly anti-Semitic takedown of the Old Testament.

Can you explain what you believe to be anti-Semitic about it?

Posted by: Alan Allport at March 28, 2006 12:39 PM

I vote for this for the reading group. Any other takers?

Posted by: Ben Brumfield at March 28, 2006 12:41 PM

Alan: not that sentence in particular -- the larger discussion it's in, meaning that whole chunk of about three chapters. Disagree if you like. Can't quickly find the part that bugged me most but will look for it later if time.

Ben: fine with me.

Posted by: Martha Bridegam at March 28, 2006 01:01 PM

Alan: not that sentence in particular -- the larger discussion it's in, meaning that whole chunk of about three chapters.

I know; it's the larger discussion it's in that I'm finding evidence of anti-Semitism to be scanty in (I'm assuming that the charge of a-S is meant to mean something more substantive than wrong in fact or unflattering in description, because you could say that about almost the whole of the subject matter of the Martyrdom of Man.

Posted by: Alan Allport at March 28, 2006 01:08 PM

Try this chapter, 7th paragraph from the end:
http://www.exclassics.com/martyrdom/martc23.htm

Posted by: Martha Bridegam at March 28, 2006 01:13 PM

You mean this? (Could we not just cut and paste rather than pussyfoot around)?:

This theory became blended in the Jewish minds with certain expectations of their own. In the days of captivity their prophets had predicted that a Messiah or anointed king would be sent, that the kingdom of David would be restored, and that Jerusalem would become the headquarters of God on earth. All the nations would come to Jerusalem to keep the feast of tabernacles and to worship God. Those who did not come should have no rain; and as the Egyptians could do without rain, if they did not come they should have the plague. The Jewish people would become one vast priest-hood, and all nations would pay them tithe. Their seed would inherit the Gentiles. They would suck the milk of the Gentiles. They would eat the riches of the Gentiles. These same unfortunate Gentiles would be their ploughmen and their vine-dressers. Bowing down would come those that afflicted Jerusalem, and would lick the dust off her feet. Strangers would build up her walls, and kings would minister unto her. Many people and strong nations would come to see the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem. Ten men in that day would lay hold of the skirt of a Jew saying, "We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." It was an idea worthy of the Jews that they should keep the Creator to themselves in Jerusalem, and make their fortunes out of the monopoly.

That last sentence is certainly eyebrow-raising, but the rest of it is in much the same ecumenically piss-taking style as the rest of the book; it just so happens to be Jews that he's making fun of in this case. If Reade dealt with other religions, or for that matter other people, with any greater reverence then that would cast his final remark here in a darker shade. As it is he's just getting a cheap pay-off gag by playing off the casual stereotypes of his audience - not something to be particularly proud of, but hardly evidence of more sinister motives.

Posted by: Alan Allport at March 28, 2006 01:28 PM

Perhaps we can agree that in his enthusiasm for debunking religious faith in general, he wallops some people's religions harder than others'.

Fortunately there's a lot more to the book than period prejudices.

In discussing Alexander's morality versus that of the ancient Athenians:

In all municipalities, in all aristocratic bodies, in all corporate assemblies, in all robber communities, in all savage families or clans, the privileged members have a sense of correlative right and obligation. The real question is, how far and to what extent this feeling prevails outside the little circle of selfish reciprocity and mutual admiration. The Athenians did not include their slaves in their ideas of correlative right and obligation, nor their prisoners of war..."

Posted by: Martha Bridegam at March 28, 2006 02:06 PM

Erm, "savage"... yes, he uses that word a lot and seems to feel it has definite meaning. Yes, period prejudices galore. Just awfully interesting anyway.

In a way he's a forerunner of these books like Kurlansky's that tell the history of the world through a commodity such as salt. He's loosely telling a history of the world in opposition to the idea that people can be a commodity.

Posted by: Martha Bridegam at March 28, 2006 02:31 PM

Any opinion on Winwood Reade for the reading group, Alan? Come on, there's probably lots of opportunity for curmudgeonly nit-picking. Plus you won't have to sit through the sort of Mars/Venus ranting that would be an inevitable part of Martha and me discussing urban planning.

Posted by: Ben Brumfield at March 28, 2006 02:31 PM

You're still thinking about Jane Jacobs, then?

Posted by: Martha Bridegam at March 28, 2006 02:46 PM

Any opinion on Winwood Reade for the reading group, Alan?

Well, I certainly have no objection, if that's what you mean, but judging by the comments so far I'm not sure that I'll have much to contribute. Martha's critique reminds me too much of those groundbreaking histories that take a thousand pages to reveal that (for example) 19th Century French aristocrats harbored sexist opinions. It's a kind of history-as-Chamber of Horrors that bores me.

Posted by: Alan Allport at March 28, 2006 03:03 PM

I think Jacobs would certainly be interesting. I'd add a few other books on the subject for consideration, like Creating Defensible Spaces ( online version at HUD), or 6000 Years of Housing.

A bit further afield is David Brooks' excellent On Paradise Drive, which I'd be up for a re-read of. Heck, I'd even buy participants their own (used) copies, given the likely hesitancy of my cobloggers to shell out their own cash for his work.

However, I'm not sure that any of us have the energy to discuss urban planning right now, given that our perceptions are probably totally different. I'm more of a libertarian Utopian about this than any other subject, having been poor in Houston in the recent past, and can be relied upon to mouth free-market platitudes about rent controls that would set Alan Hogue off, as well as voice my own original and prejudiced rants about housing in the UK to annoy Alan Allport.

Posted by: Ben Brumfield at March 28, 2006 03:18 PM

Martha's critique reminds me too much of...

Oh come on -- you live for that!

Posted by: Ben Brumfield at March 28, 2006 03:19 PM

The only reason I would object to buying a David Brooks book is because I'm cheap, not because David Brooks wrote it.

Posted by: Alan Allport at March 28, 2006 03:21 PM

Oh come on -- you live for that!

I probably do (sad), but the prospect of Martha swooning like an outraged dowager every time Reade says something appalling to 21st Century ears is too much even for me.

I'm not sure if I have much of an opinion about UK housing, by the way.

Posted by: Alan Allport at March 28, 2006 03:23 PM

Look, Alan, this keeps happening: I try to note the unfair aspects of an older work in order to be able to discuss its merits without appearing to endorse its period prejudices, and you get hung up on my saying it has ugly aspects at all, and we never get to the more interesting conversation that would develop if we just acknowledged the bad stuff and moved on to discuss the more interesting substance of the work in question. It happens over and over that you accuse me of obsessing over prejudice and of not wanting to get to the deeper merits of a work, while you meanwhile obsessively nitpick what I've said about prejudice so that moving on in fact becomes impossible. If that's what you think you're going to do again, then you're absolutely right we shouldn't bother having this conversation.

If you can bring yourself to stop taunting me for daring to note the bigotries of the work that I've found interesting enough to propose discussing in the first place, then maybe we can have a conversation about, I dunno, Victorian literature or the origin of science fiction in the human need to exoticize or the literary provenance of a certain dryly grotesque sense of humor.

Or I can go back to reading my own choice of literature and thinking what I please about it in the peace and quiet of my own home without your disapproval or interference.

Posted by: Martha Bridegam at March 28, 2006 03:31 PM

I'm not sure if I have much of an opinion about UK housing, by the way.

Yes, but I do, and it's surely wrong.

Posted by: Ben Brumfield at March 28, 2006 03:34 PM

The only reason I would object to buying a David Brooks book is because I'm cheap, not because David Brooks wrote it.

Either you've never read his NYT column, or you were only exposed to it after reading some of his work for The Atlantic

One of the best things about the Times opinion page going subscription-only is that it's partially reformed David Brooks in my eyes.

Posted by: Ben Brumfield at March 28, 2006 03:37 PM

While you meanwhile obsessively nitpick what I've said about prejudice

If it makes you feel any better (though I doubt it) the reason for my nitpicking in this case is that I'm old-fashioned enough to think that an accusation of anti-Semitism is a pretty serious business, and the kind of charge that ought not to be thrown about trivially.

Posted by: Alan Allport at March 28, 2006 03:46 PM

Right you are. Hence I would not embark on discussing a work containing such prejudice without identifying and criticizing same.

Look, you boys either catch up to me in the book or don't. I'm in the middle of Reade's take on the Kansas dispute leading up to the American Civil War. I'll be back in a day or two.

Posted by: Martha Bridegam at March 28, 2006 04:18 PM

As I already said, I'm passing on this one.

Posted by: Alan Allport at March 28, 2006 09:00 PM

...well, if you do get around to reading it, be sure and wade through the increasingly flabby and foolish talk at the end to the nice little pro-Darwin epigram that "we are naked under our clothes, and we are tailed under our skins."

Posted by: Martha Bridegam at April 1, 2006 12:06 PM

I've been browsing the bit on the run-up to the Civil War, and just got to Bleeding Kansas. So far, there's not much particularly objectionable.

Speaking of judging the past by present criteria, I made the mistake of starting with Reade's history of the Ancient Near East. It is perhaps a good reminder of exactly how much history we owe to the archaeologists and orientalists of the late 19th and early 20th — he might as well be writing about phlogiston.

You never commented on my other urban planning suggestions, by the way.

Posted by: Ben Brumfield at April 2, 2006 06:14 PM

Ben, I'm afraid I would lose a gasket, especially on the subject of "defensible spaces," and I really don't want to do that here or now.

Posted by: Martha Bridegam at April 2, 2006 11:47 PM

Fair enough.

Posted by: Ben Brumfield at April 3, 2006 06:10 AM