Review of "Occasional Discourse" by Thomas Carlyle
I'm not really sure that I have much to add on this book, beyond what I wrote for this book.
The main distinction with respect to slavery, for Carlyle, is the is-ought distinction. Abolition was based on an "ought" however the reality, i.e. the "is", is different:
This is the everlasting duty of all men, black or white, who are born into this world. To do competent work, to labour honestly according to the ability given them; for that and for no other purpose was each one of us sent into this world; and woe is to every man who, by friend or by foe, is prevented from fulfilling this the end of his being. That is the “unhappy” lot; lot equally unhappy cannot otherwise be provided for man. Whatsoever prohibits or prevents a man from this his sacred appointment to labour while he lives on earth,—that, I say, is the man's deadliest enemy; and all men are called upon to do what is in their power or opportunity towards delivering him from that. If it be his own indolence that prevents and prohibits him, then his own indolence is the enemy he must be delivered from: and the first “right” he has,—poor indolent blockhead, black or white,—is, That every unprohibited man, whatsoever wiser, more industrious person may be passing that way, shall endeavour to “emancipate” him from his indolence, and by some wise means, as I said, compel him, since inducing will not serve, to do the work he is fit for. . . .
Yes, this is the eternal law of Nature for a man, my beneficent Exeter-Hall friends; this, that he shall be permitted, encouraged, and if need be, compelled to do what work the Maker of him has intended by the making of him for this world!
Here he is again:
My friends, I have come to the sad conclusion that Slavery, whether established by law, or by law abrogated, exists very extensively in this world, in and out of the West Indies; and, in fact, that you cannot abolish slavery by act of parliament, but can only abolish the name of it, which is very little! In the West Indies itself, if you chance to abolish Slavery to Men, and in return establish Slavery to the Devil (as we see in Demerara), what good is it? To save men's bodies, and fill them with pumpkins and rum, is a poor task for human benevolence, if you have to kill their soul, what soul there was, in the business! Slavery is not so easy to be abolished; it will long continue, in spite of acts of parliament. And shall I tell you which is the one intolerable sort of slavery; the slavery over which the very gods weep? That sort is not rifest in the West Indies; but with all its sad fruits, prevails in nobler countries. It is the slavery of the strong to the weak; of the great and noble-minded to the small and mean! The slavery of Wisdom to Folly.
Compare that statement to this one, which I ran across this week, from Newsweek:
Anyone who's lived in D.C. is aware of the city's dirty secret: it essentially operates under an unwritten form of apartheid that the wealthy northwest rarely engages with the swathe of low income people who share their city.
Are these really saying anything different. No doubt our Newsweek author would cringe from reaching Carlyle's conclusions. But if we haven't reached the lofty goal of emancipation after this long (and given this many forms of support), isn't possible that Carlyle is correct?
Carlyle's form of slavery is different than our impressions. He compares slavery to marriage repeatedly. Here are some thoughts:
My friends, it is not good to be without a servant in this world; but to be without master, it appears, is a still fataller predicament for some. Without a master, in certain cases, you become a Distressed Needlewoman, and cannot so much as live. Happy he who has found his master, I will say; if not a good master, then some supportable approximation to a good one; for the worst, it appears, in some cases, is preferable to none! . . .
In all human relations permanency is what I advocate; nomadism, continual change, is what I perceive to be prohibitory of any good whatsoever. . . . O my friends, what a remedy is this we have fallen upon, for everything that goes wrong between one man and another: “Go, then; I give you a month's warning!” What would you think of a sacrament of marriage constructed on such principles? Marriage by the month,—why this too has been tried, and is still extensively practised in spite of Law and Gospel; but it is not found to do! . . .
How to abolish the abuses of slavery, and save the precious thing in it: alas, I do not pretend that this is easy, that it can be done in a day, or a single generation, or a single century; but I do surmise or perceive that it will . . .
And if 'slave' mean essentially ' servant hired for life,'—for life, or by a contract of long continuance and not easily dissoluble,—I ask once more, Whether, in all human things, the 'contract of long continuance' is not precisely the contract to be desired, were the right terms once found for it? Servant hired for life, were the right terms once found, which I do not pretend they are, seems to me much preferable to servant hired for the month, or by contract dissoluble in a day.
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 2:28 am and is filed under Book Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
4 Responses to Review of "Occasional Discourse" by Thomas Carlyle
That'll constitute independent corroboration to my idea that liberty is extremely expensive for some people – far beyond the reward of liberty itself. Problem is figuring out who is which.
[…] The writings of Mencius Moldbug (and the works of Thomas Carlyle (e.g. here, here, here, here)) – Ultimately, many of the questions raised by Rothbard were answered by Moldbug. […]
Certainly the Art of Writing is the most miraculous of all things man has devised. Odin's Runes were the first form of the work of a Hero; Books written words, are still miraculous Runes, the latest form! In Books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. Mighty fleets and armies, harbors and arsenals, vast cities, high-domed, many-engined,—they are precious, great: but what do they become? Agamemnon, the many Agamemnons, Pericleses, and their Greece; all is gone now to some ruined fragments, dumb mournful wrecks and blocks: but the Books of Greece! There Greece, to every thinker, still very literally lives: can be called up again into life. No magic Rune is stranger than a Book. All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books. They are the chosen possession of men.
—Thomas Carlyle
"To have been always in the right and yet always on the losing side; always being ruined, always under persecution from a wild spirit of republican-demagogism,—and yet never to lose anything, not even position or public esteem, is pleasant enough. A huge, living, daily increasing grievance that does one no palpable harm, is the happiest possession that a man can have. There is a large body of such men in England, and, personally, they are the very salt of the nation. He who said that all Conservatives are stupid did not know them. Stupid Conservatives there may be,—and there certainly are very stupid Radicals. The well-educated, widely-read Conservative, who is well assured that all good things are gradually being brought to an end by the voice of the people, is generally the pleasantest man to be met."
- Anthony Trollope (in The Eustace Diamonds)
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
- H. L. Mencken
The more I see of men, the better I like dogs.
- Madame Roland
vox populi, vox humbug
- W. T. Sherman
Once there was The People - Terror gave it birth;
Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth.
Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, O ye slain!
Once There was The People - it shall never be again!
- Rudyard Kipling (quoted from Easy as A.B.C.)
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
- John Adams
[T]he first Whig was the devil
- Samuel Johnson
The people that awakes, first shouts, then gets drunk, pillages, [and] murders, and later goes back to sleep.
- Don Colacho
That'll constitute independent corroboration to my idea that liberty is extremely expensive for some people – far beyond the reward of liberty itself. Problem is figuring out who is which.
[…] The writings of Mencius Moldbug (and the works of Thomas Carlyle (e.g. here, here, here, here)) – Ultimately, many of the questions raised by Rothbard were answered by Moldbug. […]
[…] if three books are all that is required, then I’m already in. You may now refer to me as Deacon […]
[…] As far as the progressive is concerned, the only work Thomas Carlyle has ever written is Occasional Discourse. […]