The Wrongs of Thomas More

128 点作者 robinhouston3 个月前

13 条评论

Interesting, but I believe Stephenson is completely wrong about the motivation. Thomas More, as his writings in Utopia make clear, was most worried about the all-against-all that comes from anarchy. Moreover, in some sense, he and his fellow anti-Reformation thinkers were correct; the Reformation did lead to enormous trouble.The Wars of Religion, from Luther's 95 Theses to the Treaty of Westphalia, lasted for 100 years (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion</a>). The anti-Reformation thinkers could see perfectly well that they would be the near-inevitable result of letting just anybody set forth their own interpretation of Scripture. From our own vantage point, the Reformation was undoubtedly a good thing, even if you are Catholic, because it established freedom of thought (relatively speaking), but it was several generations of conflict that was often vicious even by the standards of war.If More had had perfect knowledge of the future, looking at the Wars of Religion that the Reformation would lead to, he would not have been at all surprised. If he thought that burning half a dozen heretics was preferable to several generations of civil war, well, he might have been incorrect, but it doesn't make him a monster. It makes him a man afraid of the storm that's coming, and desperate to avoid it by any means possible.

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Joker_vD3 个月前

> He could have simply agreed with them.Ha. That's the most brilliant joke in this whole write-up. Of course he could not agree with them. Just as Luther simply could not stop himself from raising his 95 questions.> No reasonable human, then or now, believes that there's any institution, made up of fallible humans, that's never wrong.One of the basic tenets of (both Orthodox and Catholic) Christian theology is that the Church, as the whole, can't be wrong because it is explicitly guided by the Christ himself through the Holy Ghost. That's why ecumenical councils were (and are, in the Orthodox branch) considered so important: if the brightest and most pious would come together and, while praying for the divine guidance, try to resolve a theological matter, then they will come to the correct answer. The Catholic church, as I understand it, has largely decided that this approach is overly cautious and expensive since a decision of a single person (by the virtue of being the pope of Rome) is already guaranteed to be correct.

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sudobash13 个月前

> I was not able to find an electronic copy on the Internet, which is surprising given the author's prominence.I'm not sure if Stephenson is specifically looking for a PDF scan, but I found an online copy reasonably easily:<a href="https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A07698.0001.001" rel="nofollow">https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A07698.0001.001</a>

mr_toad3 个月前

> More has to stake out a position, and he has to do so “publicly” where the “public” in this case is a few thousand literate Englishmen who actually care about such things.I guess he’s saying that only a few thousand people cared about More’s position.But as an outsider what has always puzzled me is how strongly common people care about what seem to me to be hair-splitting religious arguments. Henry’s split with the catholic church touched off numerous rebellions. And ironically when some later Kings tried to become catholic again, there was even more violence.To be it’s unfathomable that people who struggle to put food on the table will take up arms in the name of quite abstruse arguments.

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tptacek3 个月前

Despite the obscurity of the book, GPT 4o easily "translates" the archaic blackletter and attributes it to More; presumably, it's been trained on this text.

gwd3 个月前

Interesting deep-dive; but I'm afraid the diagnosis for authoritarianism at the end doesn't really ring true to me. He sees More defending things he must know deep down can't be true; but he doesn't actually see why, he's only making conjectures. So I don't think his model will be very useful in helping inoculate people against authoritarianism, or cure them once they've been infected.

westurner3 个月前

Hey, Thomas More!"The Saint" (1997) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saint_(1997_film)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saint_(1997_film)</a> :> Using the alias "Thomas More", Simon poses as

nocoiner3 个月前

When Neal Stephenson himself characterizes something as a lengthy digression, I wonder how it compares to the three-page description of the milk-sodden texture of Captain Crunch.

bashmelek3 个月前

I wish in matters of religion that HN could have discussion with less polemics or axe grinding.

csours3 个月前

Heresy isn't a sin against a man like a pope or a president.Heresy is a sin against the moral convictions of the in-group.> They're making a public gesture of submissiveness.Submissiveness, as seen from the outside. Loyalty, as seen from the inside. The head of the group is the standard bearer of the group, not just the person in charge.The concept of loyalty signaling makes a lot of nonsense more understandable to me.---On the whole, I think labor unions are net positive benefit - so it's hard to point out any problems with them. It feels disloyal.But one problem is that union representatives have to fight on behalf of the worst dues-paying members. If you don't fight for them, you get voted out next election. You can't have a disloyal rep!You signal loyalty by pushing boundaries, especially when it's time to fight.I'm loyal to you, I'm fighting for you - so you should be loyal to me.---I'm living through my 3rd personal heresy. The first was against the church I was raised in, but more importantly against the church my family still attends.It's the 2nd heresy that's notable to this discussion - Heresy against the rational skeptics. Debunking was never enough. Being right was never enough. There is no such thing as irrational thought - all thoughts are reasonable inside a person's head.There might be such a thing as rational communication - the ability to build a common picture in a group of people.<pre><code> You're wrong - we are both communicating in the same (or proximate) framework or context, but you have incorrect observations or conclusions. I don't understand what you mean - you need to do more work if you want me to understand. You're being irrational - we have a severe context mismatch and you need to take my context. </code></pre> But what we have right now is loyalty signaling in public speech<pre><code> It is disloyal to even try to understand the context mismatch. People not in our context are dangerous enemies. </code></pre> The problem with rationality is that we use leaky meat to think with, but we pretend like we don't.

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codeulike3 个月前

Thats fascinating. Wolf Hall has a lot about Thomas Moore in it ... I should note Wolf Hall is essentially fiction but largely based on things that did happen - I guess you can view it as "lets imagine how the story of Henry VIII would work if much maligned Thomas Cromwell was actually the good guy"... anyway in Wolf Hall, the character of Thomas Moore as written is largely consistent with what the OP is finding in that old manuscript - someone quite keen on their own cleverness and relatively comfortable with interrogations and burning people at the stake. In Wolf Hall his death is stubborn and needless, and in defiance of the wishes of his wife and daughter. At first I took those parts of Wolf Hall as an exercise in "lets see if its possible to invert the plot of A Man For All Seasons". But then this document "A dialoge concerning heresyes" seems to actually back up the Wolf Hall picture of Moore.

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sorokod3 个月前

When otherwise well-informed and intelligent persons come out in favor of a Hitler, a Mussolini, a Trump, or any other authoritarian figure, they're not really claiming that they believe everything the boss says. No one could believe that. They're making a public gesture of submissiveness. And the more outrageous the leader's lies, the greater the humiliation, the more profound the submission. If you are psychologically predisposed to be submissive, then there is pleasure in the submitting; and once it's done, it gives you license to burn your enemies with a clear conscience.Nicely put.

MiiMe193 个月前

I doubt that this person has a comprehensive understanding of Catholic theology. When one of the primary beliefs of Catholicism is in an infallible Church, of course the Catholic theologian believes the Church is infallible. Then Neal just goes into the usual Catholic bad, Trump == Hitler talk. I was hoping for a more interesting read.