The Swerve Chp. 10 By Greenblatt

2 interesting things

1. On page 220, Greenblatt describes the feelings of people of the time and how they felt about the idea of the world being made of atoms. Despite the widespread knowledge thanks to the writing press, most citizens were scared to come out and publicly announce they believed in these things over the Christian Church’s ideas. “No one who wished to live in peace stood up in public and said, ‘The preachers are who tell us to live in fear and trembling are lying. God has no interest in our actions, and though nature is beautiful and intricate, there is no evidence of an underlying intelligent design. What should matter to us is the pursuit of pleasure, for pleasure is the highest goal of existence.'” This idea of being repressed out of fear of ostracization is something that has been used throughout history to control people. Here, we see it being used by the Christian Church. People are afraid of speaking out because they would lose their place in the world, and would be considered outcasts and hunted down by the authorities. It is basically a silence of new ideas, something that was happening earlier in the book before Poggio’s time.
2. On pages 229-232, Greenblatt describes a “Christian Humanist”, Thomas More, who tells the tale of a Utopia of people who believe in the Epicurean ways of the pursuit of pleasure, but somehow are able to still be pious religious men who fear god. “…they do not prescribe a single official religious doctrine and then apply thumbtacks to those who do not adhere to it. Their citizens are permitted to worship any god they please and even to share these beliefs with others, provided that they do so in a calm and rational matter.” (pg. 231) This open concept for religious adherence was unheard of in the old World, with people simply burned at the stake or large campaigns taken to simply wipe out entire religions, such as with the Crusades against Jerusalem and the Jewish people. And yet, despite this radical idea, More is still strictly religious, believing that fear of an afterlife is the only factor that will allow people to live in harmonious societies, as they will not turn to crime, as they have not only their pleasures to pursue but an afterlife as well. “For no one, in their view, can be counted ‘among their citizens whose laws and customs he would treat as worthless if it were not for fear.” (pg. 232)

1 connection

On page 219, it describes the burning of old books, in what was know as the “Bonfire of the Vanities.” Throughout history, this technique has been used by several dictatorships to control their population and restrict the amount of information they are able to consume of the outside world and rather bring them into some sort of societal, religious, or cultural fold. A few cases, such as the burning of books and burial of scholars during the Chinese Qin Dynasty, the destruction of the House of Wisdom by the Mongols, and the Burning of the Jaffa Public Library in Indonesia, none are talked about quite as much as the Nazi Book burnings. The way in which Greenblatt describes this angry mod of religious fanatics and the way in which they went about burning these books is in the same vein as the Nazi regime. It was used to snuff out ideas un-similar or completely contradictory to the way the government (or religion)’s ideals and was used as a way to control its population. However, unlike the Nazi regime, Girolamo Savonarola’s reign did not last as long, and ended with him being shackled and hanged a few years after the book burnings.

questions

Why did Poggio not actually learn to understand “On the Nature of Things“? Was he not a humanist who enjoyed revealing in the ideas of old?