A History of Freedom of Thought – J.B. Bury
(1914)
Sometimes
a book magically appears to feed your mind.
This is one such book. After
absorbing the latest entry off of Sun Ra’s Reading List (The Loom of Language – Frederick Bodmer) I found this comprehensive
yet succinct treatise on the history of humanity’s desire for freedom of
thought, where it arose, and the many ways that our societies and governments
have tolerated or crushed those seeking the right to believe and discuss what
they want. J.B. Bury’s book should be
required reading in any High School history classroom.
As with
many of the ideas we consider modern, the acceptance of freedom of thought and
speech began in the ancient city-states that eventually coalesced into what we today
call Greece. There are several reasons
why this area of the world was conducive to the exploration of ideas and the questioning
of established thought. One of the most
important is that the people of Greece did not answer to an unimpeachable
higher authority. Greece did not have a “bible”
that purported to be the very word of their gods. Instead, they understood, as a culture and
society, that religious thoughts and ideas are both personal and
ever-changing. The rise of Philosophy
and Science (Natural Philosophy) in Greece resulted from this openness to
ideas. As the Greeks did not have to force
their views and experiences to match what some holy book said, they were free
to explore both the internal nature of humanity and the external natural world
around them. This freedom came at a
price, for while the powerful in Greece did not punish blasphemy or heresy,
they did punish anyone who they felt was “corrupting” the minds of others,
especially young people. Instead of
punishing someone for blasphemy, they instead punished him or her for impiety (meaning
they were rude to the religious thoughts that the State considered correct). In
this manner they railroaded Socrates.
Socrates crime was that he asked too many questions, not only about
religion, but also about how religion is used by the state to enforce its own
agendas. They executed this great man for
a purely bullshit crime, that of “failing to acknowledge the gods that the city
acknowledges" and "introducing new deities.” Pathetic.
Even
through suppression, the ideals of Greece and freedom of thought continued in
Rome, which sought to base its better qualities on the previous Greek
civilization they so admired. Rome was a
different monster though. The powerful
in Rome were mostly irreligious but they would display outward signs of piety
in order to rise in their respective fields.
They saw religion as mainly a means of controlling the subordinate
population, who they believed too dumb to be good, moral people without the
guidance of religion and priests.
Because of this, they allowed free speech and free thought, as long as
it did not impede with the powerful Roman’s control of their compatriots. The moment anyone sought to teach the
so-called ignorant masses about this, they were suppressed. A great example of this is the rise of the Christian
church.
People
forget that, for the first hundred or so years, the Jewish sect called
Christianity was strictly an apocalyptic cult. They saw the world as ending imminently
and that Jesus would be back to whup that sinner ass. While there were many such end-times cults
around the Roman Empire, the reason the Christian cult was perceived as a
threat was that they were the first to proselytize widely. While the Hebrew religion also taught that
there was one god, and that other gods were false, they did not seek to spread
their religion. Hebrews were born to
other Hebrews. They did not seek to
convert anyone. This reduced the level
of threat felt by the Romans, as they knew they could out-breed anyone. However, the Christian sect that spawned off
Judaism actively sought converts of all types, both Jewish and gentile. (This is one of the reasons that Jesus was
killed by the tag-team of Roman government and rabbinical leadership. Romans did not like that Jesus preached
ending subservience to the state, and the rabbis did not appreciate that Jesus
taught non-Jews what was seen as purely Jewish wisdom. Neither liked that Jesus preached that
loyalty to state and family and established religion was a sin if it came
between one’s loyalties to god.- RXTT)
So,
Jesus was executed. For the next few
hundred years there was very little persecution of Christians, until a Roman
emperor sought to make an example of them as he tried to force the old Roman
religion down everyone’s throats as the officially sanctioned state religion. Just a century later, a Roman emperor
proclaimed himself a Christian, ending the persecutions, but beginning the rise
of state-sanctioned Christianity, and the Holy Roman Catholic Church. In what seems ironic, but is merely stupid,
the very same Christianity became the state’s tool by which to control the
populace, and bring to an almost complete halt the advancement of freethought, science,
and philosophy. For hundreds and
hundreds of years, much of Europe became a stagnant, ignorant cesspool of
political/religious tyranny. Any idea or
thought that seemed to contradict the supposedly correct and inviolable contents
of the Bible was suppressed in the most violent manner. Christian states and the Roman Catholic
Church murdered and tortured hundreds of thousands of people in the name of
their religion. The Holy Inquisition,
which took place throughout Europe, even though we are taught it was a Spanish
thing, brought the most gruesome and sadistic terror that the world had yet to
see. Not only were non-believers
targeted but anyone who espoused Christian beliefs different from what Rome
proclaimed as true was at risk. Whole
populations of people were exterminated because the local leaders had different
views on the “truths” forced upon them by the Roman Catholic Church. It was genocide on a continental level.
Luckily
the Greek ideals of freethought and philosophy were kept alive in the Ottoman
empire. The modern world owes so much to
the Muslims that preserved the Greek writers and continued to advance the
sciences of Astronomy, Mathematics, and Philosophy. It was their translations that made their way
into Europe in the mid 1400’s and sparked up the rebirth of rationalism and enlightenment
we now call the Renaissance. The
inevitable breakup of monolithic Catholicism during the Reformation helped a
bit, but mainly just ushered a new era where Protestant Christians murdered and
brutalized Catholic Christians, just as they had been brutalized initially. Shit don’t change. It stays shit. People were now executed for being Papists. When a Catholic took over a country, like
what happened in England under Bloody Mary, the persecutions and murder of
Protestants began again.
J.B.
Bury wrote this small book in the first decade of the 20th century,
ahead of the rise of fascist totalitarian states in Europe. These states, such as Germany, had initially
provided so many of the eminent thinkers that espoused freethought, and the Liberty
which is to be gained by all of us for allowing all people the right to think
and voice their opinions without threat of blasphemy or sedition. J.B. Bury warned that, although Enlightenment
ideals and rational thought had become the norm in Europe in the late 1800’s,
it was a tentative victory, for tyrants and idiots everywhere will always seek
to shut down voices and ideas they feel are detrimental to their own personal
and political agendas. I wonder how Mr.
Bury, who passed away in 1927, would have reacted to the rise of totalitarian
states in Germany, Spain, Italy, Romania, etc.
I believe his heart would have broken to see humanity take such a step
backwards, and to see the horrors wrought by these fascist assholes upon the
world.
Nothing
enrages me as much as willful ignorance.
The worst type of willful ignorance is when freedom of speech is denied
in order to protect a state-sanctioned religion, for this affects everyone. For your “beliefs” to be so fragile that you
must suppress opposing views shows how truly baseless your “beliefs” are. It also shows exactly why those “beliefs”
exist, namely, for use in controlling or subjugating any and every person who
chooses to believe otherwise. This is
the way of the world. It is plain to see
for anyone who chooses to study history and the rise and fall of states,
religious beliefs, and state-sanctioned religions. Anyone seeking to assert the human right of
Freethought is an enemy to tyrannical states. (A minor example- this very book
review blog was blocked in China about 3 months into its existence. China does not like giving their citizens
freedom to read what they want - RXTT)
I feel this book is even more valuable today as state-sanctioned totalitarianism and tyranny are on the rise in supposedly progressive and freedom-loving nations such as the UK and the USA. Instead of a secular government set up to protect and nourish its citizenry, allowing them to choose whatever religion they feel is right for them, or no religion if they so choose, we are sliding into quasi-religious government inflicting their personal beliefs on the entire population, regardless of personal choice. The only way to fight this is with education, which is why the ignorant tyrants seek to control state school boards all over the United States. When beliefs instead of facts direct the path of government, we end up eroding Liberty at its core. This is the main reason freedom of thought, and everything that comes with it, is the most important human right.
(This book can be read/downloaded for free: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10684 )
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