Philosophy

Notes on More’s Utopia #4

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By: A.B. Timothy

Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, Of the Best State of a Commonwealth (Cont. again, and again)

We continue reading the introduction on the sixth page of my copy, beginning with the words, “I do not know whether it be worth while to tell what followed, for it was very ridiculous;”

In this paragraph, we meet the Fool, who is playing the part of the jester and is doing a mediocre job at it. When one of the men at dinner, for you will remember this scene, being one of Hythloday at dinner with a Cardinal and his house in Britain, makes note that Hythloday had taken care of the thieves, and the Cardinal had taken care of the vagabonds, and now there was but the poor to deal with.

The Fool pipes up and says that he can take care of the poor. He has dealt with them so much that they know not to waste their time begging him for alms anymore. The Fool suggests that the poor men be sent to Benedictine Monasteries to be made Lay-brothers and the women nuns. This suggestion upsets a Friar, who contests the idea, calling the Fool all kinds of names and insulting him with several insults from Scripture. The Cardinal shuts the whole thing down and calls out the Friar for not being prudent. The Friar quotes Solomon and says that he was just “Answering a fool according to his folly.” The Cardinal dismisses everyone for the evening after this exchange is done.

We’ve ended that discourse now and are back with Hythloday and More in the present. Hythloday explains that the fact that the courtiers of the Cardinal only applauded what the Cardinal liked in jest is the reason he won’t be a king’s counsel. More argues in the next paragraph that the opposite is true, and that this is the exact reason he should become counsel to a prince, however much he despises the courts of princes. More brings to mind Plato’s argument in favor of the Philosopher-king and says that kings need philosophers by their side to achieve this state and be the best ruler they can be for the people. Hythloday pushes back and says that the kings will not heed the wisdom of the philosophers in his court, and the only way to do what Plato was talking about is for the kings themselves to become philosophers. Plato himself found this to be true of Dionysius.

I believe this section is More explaining radical criminal justice reform, but couching it by speaking through a surrogate fictional character. To further distance himself from these radical thoughts, he tells the readers, ‘Hey guys, I’m right there with you, this guy should totally be a counsel or something, but he won’t listen to me, crazy, right?” I don’t know if More actually liked the idea of sending the poor to the Monasteries, but that would be an interesting thing to see.

The next motion in the conversation is Hythloday talking about the advice he might give to a king. The King of France has so many decisions to make about different lands that he wishes to subjugate and add to his empire. One wise advisor would give one form of advice that would involve conquering a piece of land, another would give advice about playing the long game of diplomacy, and another would give advice regarding a wholly different approach that would still increase the King’s power because more power is ultimately what the king wants. Hythloday, on the other hand, would argue that the king would abandon his expansionist ideals and focus on building up the stability and prosperity of lands already under his control. To support this idea Hythloday brings up a totally real country that was next to the also totally real Utopia, whose king conquered another country and was advised to give up the second country because the people of both countries would not prosper under, nor would they want to live under a divided king and have, as he puts it, “a groom that should be in common between him and another.” The king took the advice and gave the other country to his brother and went about making his own country prosperous, and it worked! But Hythloday asks More if he honestly thinks that this idea would be taken well in a king’s court.

This section contradicts the idea that Utopia, as a whole work, is proto-communist. For communism, you see, is globalist, and this section is inherently anti-globalist. This is a very isolationist idea.

Conclusion

I ended my reading this night, on page 37 of the text. I believe I should be able to finish the discourse section in two more note-taking sessions. If this intrigues you and you feel inspired to go read some old literature, consider subscribing to my WordPress so you get emails whenever I post a new part of this series or any other I am currently working on. Or sign up for my Newsletter to get updates every week on Saturday.

Notes on More’s Utopia #3

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By: A.B. Timothy

Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, Of the Best State of a Commonwealth (Cont. again)

We continue reading the introduction on the sixth page of my copy, beginning with the words, “While I was talking this, the Counsellor, who was present, had prepared an answer…”

In this section, the Counsellor is about to speak up to debate Hythloday, but the Cardinal speaks him down, saying that they can debate if they have time to meet up tomorrow, as there is not enough time to have that debate today. Instead, the Cardinal asks, essentially, “What should we do then? If we lessen the punishment of criminals and stop killing thieves, then that will only embolden them to commit more crimes, right? If death already doesn’t stop them, wouldn’t things get worse if we loosen up?”

Hythloday responds by disagreeing. He doesn’t think that taking someone’s life from them for something as petty as money is working. This is because it treats all crimes the same as the Stoics may wish to do. But the reality, Hythloday argues, is that if people realize the punishment for theft is the same as murder, they would rather kill the person they are stealing from than leave them alive after the theft to testify against them. The same principle that Hythloday argues should restrain the death penalty for them, that being money is not worth the same as a human life, would work in reverse here to save the lives of those persons who have been killed during a robbery. If the thief fears not for their lives, they are more likely to leave the person alive and take their money only.

In the next paragraph, Hythloday answers the question, “What more convenient way of punishment can be found?” He goes on to describe a people he encountered during his travels in Persia. They are a content people with set borders that are not rich but are not poor, and don’t have to worry about invasion due to their geography and a tribute they pay to the Persian King every year. They are called the “Polylerits.” This name, should the reader understand the Greek roots, will tell the reader that this is a fictional people used as a prop by More to describe a political idea. Hythloday explains that these people, instead of killing their thieves, enslave them. This slavery is not what we today think of when we think of slvaes, rather this slavery is more of a Civil Service paid by the criminal to atone for their crimes. A thief must pay retribution to the victim of their crime, and if they can’t pay it, they are put to work by the state to earn the money that goes to the person they wronged. Giving one of these slaves anything is fine, so long as you don’t give them money. Giving them money, weapons, or aiding them in their escape is punishable by death. Escape itself is also punishable by death. To encourage the slaves to behave, they entice them to tell on slaves who have escaped or are planning to, by offering anyone who gives them information either money, if they are a free man, or liberty, if they are a slave.

The slaves are also forbidden from speaking with slaves from other counties in the state. This prevents a wide conspiracy towards rebellion. The Punishment for discovery being death, and the reward for betrayal being freedom, helps maintain this system. There are also several that are set at liberty every year because of good behavior on their part. The Counsellor says that this could never happen in England, as it would be too much of a risk and require too much upheaval. Then the Cardinal speaks up and says they could try it on a smaller scale, where a prince could condemn a thief to death and then forgo their punishment while keeping them in this “slave” state to test the idea. If it helped reform the criminal, then all the better; if not, they could just kill him. The cardinal also says this could be a good way to deal with some of the vagabonds on the streets, too, which many voices at the table agree with.

Interstingly Hythloday points out that the table seemed to disagree when the slavery concept was only in regard to criminals, but as soon as the Cardinal threw vagabonds in the mix, they all jumped on board.

Conclusion

I ended my reading on page 29 of the story as a whole. Slowly but surely, I will have the whole of this book notated here on my blog. It will be interesting to see if I get the chance to turn these notes into some kind of essay during my college career, but we will have to wait and see. If this intrigues you and you feel inspired to go read some old literature, consider subscribing to my WordPress so you get emails whenever I post a new part of this series or any other I am currently working on. Or sign up for my Newsletter to get updates every week on Saturday.

Notes on More’s Utopia #2

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By: A.B. Timothy

Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, Of the Best State of a Commonwealth (Cont.)

We continue reading the introduction on the sixth page of my copy, beginning with the words, “As he told us of many things that were amiss in those new- discovered countries…”

This section, given from the mouth of Raphael Hythloday (a man we know to be a fiction and thus his words may be rightly attributed to Thomas More), is a dialogue on questions about Hythloday’s credibility and reasoning. Both Thomas More, himself a character in the story, and his friend, Peter Giles, question the good philosopher on his lack of public service. After Hythloday tells them all there is to be told about the “Utopians” and their state, “from which patterns might be taken for correcting the errors of these nations among whom we live…”, More asks Hythloday why he has not taken this knowledge to a king so he might be hired as an advisor of sorts, or be given riches. Hythloday explains that he has already given away everything he had gathered as a younger man, so he would not have to deal with dividing his fortune among his friends as older men often must do. Hythloday goes on to explain that he has his reasons for not going to a king. He says that they are all too concerned with warring and taking more territory for their nation that they would not be, and are not, interested in bettering the governance they practice over the lands they already own. On top of this, Hythloday is not interested in playing politics with these princes nor the councilors who serve on their courts. Some would be jealous of his new ideas, and others would try to get on his good side. The politics of it all bore him, and he would rather spend his remaining time how he sees fit.

My takeaway is this: Thomas More lived in a time when fiction required a great deal of believability before people were willing to indulge in it and engage with the ideas it presented. Today, we only must worry about believable characters when writing our fiction. Whereas, in those days, they must make the whole fiction as plausible as possible. This dialogue, it seems then, is an answer to those ministers, lords, kings, and parliamentarians who, when reading the story, would ask, “Well, why have I never heard of this ‘Hythloday’ character?” Thomas is anticipating this question by essentially asking it himself, allowing his readers to continue to suspend their disbelief. He will get into greater detail in this next paragraph, where Hythloday goes over his fictional time in England that, conveniently enough, occurred during the First Cornish Rebellion.

This next dialogue, which lasts ten pages, explores Hythloday’s relationship with John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal, and Chancellor of England. Hythloday is at dinner with the Chancellor and some of his friends when they are discussing the execution of thieves, boasting that “there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet!” (A gibbet is a place where they displayed criminals they had hanged.) Hythloday (More’s thoughts) rips into the men. All this death was nothing to boast about. It was not only unjust that they killed them for something as petty as theft, but also that they had gotten to the point where they felt they must steal. Hythloday goes on to describe how rough the people of England have it. Many veterans, having lost limbs in the Cornish Rebellion and in other conflicts fought with France, have been forced into poverty from their lack of ability to work. He then goes on a several-page-long side tangent talking about the morality of keeping a standing army, before returning to the root of the thievery problem.

This aside about standing soldiers kept by lords to enforce their borders and capture criminals comments on what becomes of these soldiers. Many of them are hard men from the aforementioned wars and thus are preferred by the lords of the land to protect their assets. This is good because it keeps them from thievery (and veterans often make very good thieves). But it is not good because only the best of the best get chosen to be these guards, leaving the rest of the veterans to fall into the ways of thieving poverty. These men aren’t even good to keep around as a standing army, as they get dull and soft during their time away from war. When they get soft and effeminate, they fall, often times to crime, just to get a thrill. These standing armies have also been a bad thing in the past, he mentions Rome, Carthage, and Syria, as examples of what having standing armies that grow soft can do to a nation. Then he turns back to poverty.

Hythloday argues that it is landlords who have been buying up villages just to knock them down, force their inhabitants into the cities, and build pastures for their massive flocks of sheep. There is rampant inflation, and these poor villagers, who did not have much money to begin with, found that their money lasted an even shorter time in the city. Ultimately, Hythloday recommends a return to the Rural lifestyle and the forced sale of many of these massive and unnecessary land plots, back to the people so they can live in an independent but ultimately more secure way. This will alleviate much of the thievery problem and help the citizens of their nation. A win-win that will end much of the unjust killing of criminals who, Hythloday claims, these very men created by their policies.

Again, More is relaying his critiques of his own homeland, it seems, through a fictional surrogate in Hythloday. Some of these arguments appear to be progressive and almost socialist in places. This section is the first time we see one of Hythloday’s ideas, which is clearly influenced by his time in Utopia (No-Place). More is laying out an idealized vision for his home of England, how much of this More himself sees as feasible is yet to be seen.

Conclusion

I ended my reading on page 20 of the work as a whole, meaning I read 14 pages today. I am about 33% of the way through this section of discourses from Hythloday, after which, we will be getting into the vision of Utopia itself. If you want to read along, I would highly encourage it. I covered the first 6 pages of the work in my post yesterday. Go check those out and read along with a free PDF of the book from the internet. If this intrigues you and you feel inspired to go read some old literature, consider subscribing to my WordPress so you get emails whenever I post a new part of this series or any other I am currently working on. Or my Newsletter to get updates every week on Saturday.

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Notes on More’s Utopia #1

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By: A.B. Timothy

Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, Of the Best State of a Commonwealth

This first section begins with a great deal of people being introduced to the reader. King Henry VIII sent our author, Thomas More, to Flanders to be ambassador to Prince Charles. More was a companion to Cuthbert Tonstal, a recently named Master of the Rolls. It is clear that More holds Tonstal in very high esteem, as he says anything he would say about him would be like the proverb, “Show the sun with a lantern.” Almost a “you had to meet him” commendation. According to the introduction from the copy I have, Tonstal was a rising churchman, chancellor to the Archbishop of Canterbury (1515), later he was made Archdeacon of Chester before finally being made Master of the Rolls in 1516. Certainly, this is a man of great accomplishment. Next, we meet the Margrave of Bruges, who led the men appointed by Prince Charles to meet with More at Bruges. Even though he was not the leader, George Temse, Provost of Casselsee, “was esteemed wisest, and…spoke for the rest….” (More) He was also a man of law, much like More himself was, having studied law in London after leaving Oxford. After their meeting, the men left, back to Brussels to find out what the Prince wanted. More went to Antwerp and met with several visitors, among whom was Peter Giles, a man whom More cannot speak highly enough of. Such goodly was his company that it “lessened any longings to go back to [his] country and to [his] wife and children….”(See footnote 1) (This Peter fellow must have been quite the conversationalist.)

It was this Giles fellow who would introduce More to the roving Portuguese Philosopher called Raphael Hythloday, the very same spoken of in the title of this section. This man had traveled far and wide with an explorer of renown who is called Americus Vesputius in these pages, but we know better as Amerigo Vespucci, the explorer after whom the American Continents get their names. Having accompanied this great man on three of Vespucci’s four voyages, Hythloday chose, along with 23 other men, to remain ashore at the farthest place Vespucci would explore. However, Hythloday did not wish to die there, in some far off unknown corner of the world, and therefore set out with 5 men. They traveled through many countries before, by God’s grace, finding Portuguese ships to carry the philosopher home that he might return to his native country.

Note: Raphael Hythloday’s name means “knowing in trifles”. He is a fictional character, through whom Thomas More told the tale of his Utopia.

This philosopher is learned in Latin and Greek and has applied himself more to Greek because of his love of philosophy. More claims the Romans left no value in Philosophy, save Seneca and Cicero. I don’t know that I agree, but this belief, coming from More, makes sense given that the Renaissance was focused on a revival of Greek culture and philosophy, not Roman.

For the next few pages, Hythloday regales us with the story of his adventure. They travelled, furnished by some unnamed lord of some unnamed county, south, over the equator and down into another land. More uses a desert landscape as a sort of liminal transition place between civilized hubs. Perhaps the fantastical things seen by Hythloday as he continued south could be chalked up to heat stroke. There in the south, they found “nations, towns, and cities, that had not only mutual commerce among themselves and with their neighbors, but traded, both by sea and land, to very remote countries.” (More) At first, all they found were small, flat, perhaps fishing-style vessels, but then they found ships quite large and familiar to their cohort. Hythloday was welcomed quickly and warmly, for he taught these sailors, who already knew of Astronomy and navigation, the use of the “needle”, of which they were ignorant.

Note: The “needle” here is talking about a magnetic compass.

More and Giles asked Hythloday about the institutions and more noble things of the cities, but did not ask about monsters.

Conclusion

I have read and notated above 6 pages of the story proper. My E-Reader says I am about 8% of the way through the story as a whole, but that is only because I read the introduction yesterday, which I used for reference here today, but did not notate in its entirety. These six pages were a good introduction to the story and the device by which More intends to tell it at length. They are also about ten percent of the entire first-named section, “Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, Of the Best State of a Commonwealth.” I will likely read and notate the rest of this section and the book as a whole. I will see you all tomorrow with the next section.

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The Need for the Appeal to Authority

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By: A.B. Timothy

When arguing with anyone about anything, you need to be able to back up what you are saying. This support usually comes in the form of verbal or written citations, citing sources that are of a higher authority than the debator. In an academic setting, these sources can be peer-sources coming from colleagues or peers in the field, so that you can defend/attack the positions espoused in those papers. When debating online, in person, or at least verbally, the usual best practice is to cite sources that the other person would consider authoritative; that’s where authority comes in.

When I am debating a communist on the merits of their system, I might quote the communist manifesto, where Karl Marx describes the need for slaves in a true communist utopia. Communists usually are anti-slavery, and this revelation, from a source they consider authoritative, will throw them for a loop. This is, unless the communist I am debating is someone who has studied this line of argument and actually had a compelling counter to my attack. Similarly, as a Christian, often Atheists will cite my Scripture, the Bible, as a way to throw me off. I say God is good, they’ll ask, “What about the flood, or the razing of Caanonland?” I say God is just, they might throw the Problem of Evil in my face. I, however, have learned the arguments and can mount a defense against most assaults.

This is where things turn, however. In our modern, liberal society, subjectivity is king. People have decided that whatever they want is best for themselves and everyone around them. God says not to lie with men as you do with women? Liberal society says, ‘Do what feels good.’ God says, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” Liberal society says, ‘Do your parents make you uncomfortable sometimes? Tell us so we can affirm everything fleeting fancy you have.’

Society, for these people, is the highest authority. They don’t need God to preside over society, because they think modern society is a purely humanistic creation that God played no role in. However, humans are always slaves to something, if not God, then our vices and subjective takes. They think Christians are weird when we claim God as our authority, who forbids us from murdering, but the issue is, if they lived in a subjective society that said murder was okay, then, in their worldview, they would have no recourse.

That is enough religious/philosophical ramblings for today. Tomorrow I will be discussing how this applies to writing and literature, promise!

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Working Out & Writing Down

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Socrates is often quoted as saying, “No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” This man, who is best known for his mind, also called out the need for his students and people more broadly to be physically fit. Does this mean you have to be a gym rat or that you have to be a perfect hourglass figure? No. What it means is that you need to not be stationary. The Bible, Socrates, and even modern science warn against the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle, which, as creatives, it is very easy for us to fall into.

The Bible says, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise: Which having no guide, Overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?” This quote is from the book of Proverbs and was written by King Solomon to his son. The lesson here is clear. The ant, a small, insignificant creature, understands that it needs to work, to move, to gather, and not slumber. You and I can take this and apply it to our lives by understanding that, as it talks about later in the same chapter, inappropriate laziness will allow others to arrive and ruin our lives.

Modern medicine tells us the same, so if you aren’t religious, keep reading. There is a study on the effect of physical exercise on the mental state. In the Abstract of that study, it says, “Regular physical activity improves the functioning of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. Depression and anxiety appear to be influenced by physical exercise, but to a smaller extent in the population than in clinical patients.” Given the data and the article linked, physical activity helps!

Let me emphasize: YOU DON’T NEED TO BE ADONIS OR ARTEMIS, you can just be you, but a version of you who sweats a bit more. My inspiration to restart my writing journey began when I went to the gym with my brother and we got to talking about our WIPs (Works in Progress). Then I got some more physical activity by walking around my town’s convention center at the Comic-Con I spoke about in this article. That culminated in me sitting in on a friend’s panel where they talked about staying creative despite all the mental reasons not to, which I talk about in the previously mentioned article.

Personal experience, quotes from great philosophers (Solomon and Socrates), and modern science all point to needing physical activity to be our best selves, which would include being our best writers. So, next time you want to take a break and watch Netflix, take Netflix to go and listen to that show you’ve already watched a dozen or more times, while walking your dog, or cleaning your kitchen, or even just walking to your mailbox and back, sans-dog. You can do this, and things will get better! Or they won’t, but you will be in a better place to face them!

Tell me about a time when physical activity sparked your creative fire in the comments! Thanks for reading.