Why Spinoza still matters

[Walt Zingmatilder]

it doesn't. It doesn't 'do' anything. As coveted in the article Spinoza in that sense is essentially an atheist. There's a reason why the thread that Shaker put up that you effectively sabotaged places covered the idea that some views of pantheism are atheist at base.


Appeals to externals are attempts to jump from subjectivity to objectivity but with no intellectual method to do so. That the reaction to Spinoza was excommunication is indicative of the problems of the approach.

Sabotage? I merely commented on his linguistic piracy and his wanting, linguistically speaking, his cake and eat it.......and then I did it all over again.

[Gordon]

Gordon and NS, the relevance is that, back then, more of this kind of thing spread through word of mouth, than through the written word.  Even today, word of mouth is vital.

So what?

Even if it was the case that by the mid 17th century literacy rates were minimal: I don't know if they were, but since you've suggested it I assume you know and can tell us, then it is still censorship.

If it were the case that few were literate, which you've yet to confirm, it must surely have been the case that enough were literate so as to read it to others - else why bother suppressing it in the first place. 

[Hope]

and? It's the attempt to stop people hearing or reading that is the point. That's why I used the word listening earlier. It was ad_o who  started talking about books.so again I ask, relevance?

If you look at the history of ideas, the very attempts to stop them have generally led to their greater dissemination.  If Spinoza hadn't been 'silenced', would his ideas have gained the credibility and underground spread that they did?

I'm not condoning the repression that included him; just pointing out that history often proves that repression backfires on itself.

Let me give you a modern example.  In the 1960s, there were probably no more than 100 or 200 Nepalese Christians living in Nepal and pretty well all lived in Kathmandu, Tansen and Pokhara.  By the end of the 70s, following a period of 12-15 years of imprisonment of Christians in those places, often followed by internal exile into the far reaches of the country, the number of places that 'hosted' Christian communities had grown exponentially and the number of believers had grown to a couple of hundred thousand.  They are now between 1.4% (Government figures) and 3% (church figures) of the population - which is about about 26.5 million (2011 census) - or up to half a million people.

[Nearly Sane]

If you look at the history of ideas, the very attempts to stop them have generally led to their greater dissemination.

That would be almost impossible to show since any successfully  suppressed ideas wouldn't be known. That aside that an attempt to surpress things might not work us irrelevant to the idea that intellectual freedom is good.

[Hope]

That would be almost impossible to show since any successfully  suppressed ideas wouldn't be known. That aside that an attempt to surpress things might not work us irrelevant to the idea that intellectual freedom is good.

Well, the Jewish leadership and the Roman Empire tried to kill off Christianity - did it work?  Protestantism survived huge atrtempts to destroy it.  The ideas that underpinned the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, as well as hundreds of other philosophies have survived intense persecution.

[Nearly Sane]

Well, the Jewish leadership and the Roman Empire tried to kill off Christianity - did it work?  Protestantism survived huge atrtempts to destroy it.  The ideas that underpinned the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, as well as hundreds of other philosophies have survived intense persecution.

And again relevant in what way to intellectual freedom being a good?

[Gordon]

Well, the Jewish leadership and the Roman Empire tried to kill off Christianity - did it work?  Protestantism survived huge atrtempts to destroy it.  The ideas that underpinned the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, as well as hundreds of other philosophies have survived intense persecution.

Again, so what?

In what way does any of this justify the suppression of intellectual freedom? That some movements survived censorship doesn't excuse it.

[torridon]

If you look at the history of ideas, the very attempts to stop them have generally led to their greater dissemination.  If Spinoza hadn't been 'silenced', would his ideas have gained the credibility and underground spread that they did?

I'm not condoning the repression that included him; just pointing out that history often proves that repression backfires on itself.

Let me give you a modern example.  In the 1960s, there were probably no more than 100 or 200 Nepalese Christians living in Nepal and pretty well all lived in Kathmandu, Tansen and Pokhara.  By the end of the 70s, following a period of 12-15 years of imprisonment of Christians in those places, often followed by internal exile into the far reaches of the country, the number of places that 'hosted' Christian communities had grown exponentially and the number of believers had grown to a couple of hundred thousand.  They are now between 1.4% (Government figures) and 3% (church figures) of the population - which is about about 26.5 million (2011 census) - or up to half a million people.

You seem to be practising apologetics on behalf of oppression here.  You might as well try to argue that it is right for a man to beat his wife with the justification that 'whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger'